Indrajit Samarajiva
Include us? In what? Colored people and women have always been included in the White Empire at the level of slave and brood mare, and now they are the level of Prime Minister and CEO. But this is merely moving up within the White Empire, not moving out. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not revolution, they are in fact selling out. Include us in the colonial capital dumpster fire just as it burns the whole Earth out? No, thank you. This inclusion is imperialism and I want no part.
Before we start, let me clear up the mental space a bit. I want to talk about a few concepts that those raised within White Empire take to be good. They are philosophically neutral but, in practice, bad. Those concepts are democracy and citizenship. Shocker, right?
Like sports, democracy is war with less violence. They are both games, and the first and most important rule is who gets to play. Athenian democracy gave a lot of power to certain Athenian families, but everybody else could be enslaved or tortured at will. Roman democracy was more inclusive, but only after you’d been looted and occupied. American democracy has taken a step back in this regard, occupying and bombing people without even calling it that. If Americans were as mature as the Romans, Iraq would be a U.S. state, with some say on its own exploitation. But no.
The point is that democracy is a) a game within and b) generally just war without. It is not a naturally good thing that you should mindlessly defend or support just because. Like anything else, you still have to ask what it does and what results it produces, because democracy can be used for great evil like anything else. The ‘backwards and superstitious’ ancients knew this, while people within the modern White Empire believe in democracy like a holy catechism. You can sprinkle it over bombs and flowers grow wherever they fall. After decades of bombs, can’t you see? It doesn’t work that way. Liberal Western democracy has proved to be the most exploitative, violent, and certainly the most hypocritical form of government in human history. It has gone beyond a neutral tool to an active weapon of war.
But the citizens within these countries, at least, have freedom of speech and rights that other people envy and immigrate for. Ignoring the wars and chaos spread by the White Empire that force tens of millions to move in terror, let's look at the category of citizenship within the component states of White Empire itself (the capital US, satraps UK, Australia, the greater EU, and occupied territory like Japan, Korea, and Germany).
"The fact is that citizenship, far from being something to be proud of, is a shame and a stain upon humanity."
In his excellent book Citizenship, Dimitry Kochenov examines the concept closely and finds it to be a system of violent exclusion, rights for some and not for other, allocated on an arbitrary and racist basis:
Like slavery, like sexism, like racism, citizenship knows no justification once you leave the purview of those few whom it unduly privileges. The sexists, the racists, and the super-citizens have convinced themselves, and want to convince all of us, that dignity, equality, and freedom are not to be applied to all. This is wrong.
The fact is that citizenship, far from being something to be proud of, is a shame and a stain upon humanity. It is saying that certain people have freedom of movement while other people should be caged, separated from their children, and drowned. Why? Because of some paper they hold, and where they were born. Is there any more rank form of discrimination? And this hides in plain site, as a value. People try to be ‘good citizens’. It’s an oxymoron. A contradiction in terms.
Having shattered some shibboleths, let’s return to the question at hand. Inclusion in what? By including women in the workforce and politics, what do they get, and what do they become? By including ‘minorities’ (what White Empire calls the actual global majority), how do they benefit, and how do they help others? Well, just look.
Female CEOs and leaders can rise if they are as exploitative and ruthless as their male peers and if they also spend time away from their families. They can rise so long as they freeze their eggs and become the bonded servants of capital. They can tinker around the edges of capitalism, but never change the trajectory, which is exploitation of people and planet leading to catastrophic collapse. Women will rise just in time to be left holding the bag, while men complain that they did it better.
Colored capitalists and politicians can rise so long as they call for and enforce migration policies that would keep their own parents out and generally become white people with a few pieces of ethnic flair on their uniforms. Many over-compensate and become worse racists than the original oppressors. So what has happened here? We have moved from steerage to first class on the Titanic, but the ship is still going down. Now with us at the wheel and in the stock photography. Congratulations?
To return to the Roman Empire, which expanded from the city-state of Rome to much of West Asia because of inclusion. They had African rulers and rulers from all over the provinces. These non-Romans were able to rule as long as they continued the general task of the Roman Empire, which was a particular hierarchy. That is to say, inclusion within a hierarchy means continuing it, not overthrowing it. Inclusion within capitalism means continuing climate collapse, just with a coat of green paint on top, and colored faces announcing it with gleaming white smiles. Inclusion within White Empire’s political institutions means continuing their corrupt policies and forever wars.
Hence you get the American military crowing about all gay bomber crews and the inclusion of women in their killing machine. Is this really what we mean by inclusion? What about the rights of all the poor people under those bombs to be included in the living? Those rights are excluded, because they’re not citizens, they’re not living in officially denoted democracies, and thus don’t exist and don’t count when their existence is severed.
Hence we get the inclusion of colored people and women in the corporate and political hierarchy, climbing the ladder and kicking all the way down. The fact is that we always worked for the White Empire, we were the ones holding the whip and trampling our own people for a pittance before. Now we get more, but the job is still the same. Preserving the hierarchy that defines White Empire, which isn’t really about color but about power. When we rise within the empire we don’t challenge that power. We give our own talents and labor to it. We prop up the Empire. That’s why I don’t want to be included in this shit, I don’t want to be used to diversify disaster, and I don’t want equality within a system that means massive inequality for everyone without. Inclusion is imperialism, and I want out.
Indrajit Samarajiva was born in Canada, raised in America, and lives in Nugegoda, Sri Lanka. He's started magazines, created websites, and as a longtime blogger, hits the proverbial nail on the head quite often. You can read more of his work here and in forthcoming issues of the Journal.