As I am fairly cheap – I exercised great monastic-style patience – awaiting Audible to finally allow Walter Rodney’s masterpiece – “How Europe Undeveloped Africa” – to be available “free of charge”, at least for a short-time (I have linked a “free” PDF version above). Walter Rodney is an absolute genius and I consider him my spiritual and material brother in ideology. After-all, we have both emerged out of two identical things:
a) British exploitative imperialism and oppressive (capitalist) culture
b) British left-wing (Socialist) academia which used to oppose US anti-intellectualism
Of course, a glaring difference is that I am “White” (in that I fully acknowledge and take responsibility for the crimes of my national ancestors – despite my actual British family never personally participating in any of this – we were too poor and disempowered) and Walter Rodney is “Black”, but these (fictitious) indicators is how Social Science demands that we refer to one another for “objective” (categorising) purposes. In our hearts – we are identical and this indicates a better and a worser time in world history. Furthermore, British imperialism brought my family and an ethnic Chinese family together – so that we are now forever entwined and consider one another’s identity – our own. I sit here reading Mao – whilst my Chinese friends sit across from me reading Ruskin, etc. Every so often – we swap books.
What is odd is that we are all anti-imperialist (rejecting the British imperialism that historically brought us all together) and yet at the same time we quite literally “love” one another – and appreciate one another’s culture. Indeed, for a time, I thought I was ethnically “Chinese”. However, I cannot fully associate myself with “Englishness” – as I have been repulsed by much of which I have seen and experienced. I am “English” – that I do not and cannot deny (as there is much to love about English culture) – but material reality has led me logically to “Internationalism”. I was born in Oxford (I love Oxford) and I even studied at Oxford for a time (Philosophy of Mind) – so there are concrete anchors to reality – this cannot be denied. Physical reality, however, should not limit psychological or perceptive scope of being – as this is an ongoing development that quite often transcends material reality to an alarming degree.
Whiteness is not real – but it does (temporarily) exist as a sign-post pointing toward something. Once that “something” is resolved – the label of “Whiteness” will disappear. As a label, we all inherit certain responsibilities regarding its symbolism. Blatant or shallow “reaction” is very common – but it is not helpful. Adolf Hitler is the arch-reactionary and his disorganised intellection is no answer to the historical crimes of the capitalist ideology. In this sense, we are ALL victims in the broad sense. In the narrow sense, victims and oppressors are identified. Where should the lens of visibility focus? Even within Whiteness there are internal victims and oppressors (every girl and woman reading this will understand what is written). The middle class oppresses the working class, the rich crush the poor, and so on. Then, the White monolith imposes its collective will beyond its own geographical boundaries – upon those who are not “White”.
Myths disappear when they are no longer required. The capitalist system has acquired great wealth and power over the last 500-years – and yet insists upon teaching its youth that nothing happened in the past – and that European wealth is “natural” and has always been “here” in an ahistorical existentialism. Any questioning of this reality – such as through the study of Marxism – is deemed an attack on the State and constituting a form of terrorism. Imagine that – declaring the study of objective history to be a “terrorist” act! This is where we are at with regards to US anti-intellectualism – which now dominates Europe. To educate the White youth into the reality of its imperialist past is now declared left-wing propaganda – implying it to be a false narrative rather than a revealing of a true reality. The bourgeois State has resorted to assassinating (murdering) those left-wing thinkers who have insisted on telling the truth about the past of the imperialist West. This is why Walter Rodney was killed by a car-bomb in 1980. The capitalists had had enough of his advanced intellection – and just as with the murder of Huey Newton, Malcolm X, and ML King, etc – the White world barely noticed or protested.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 