Is the state racist by nature?

Old writes at the Weblog: (additional interventions: from sometimes and theoria):

The modern state, by its very nature, is inescapably racist. Our histories as French, Indonesian, Chinese, Canadian, Brazilian are decidely not the histories of other similarly situated nations. As such, dual quests are in order, internal racial purity (those who don't find their place in the racial narrative are a problem to be expunged) and the ability to wage total war against external competing races (the nuclear situation). In the shift from the sovereignty of the king to the power of bureaucratic peoplehood, the state took into its very structure the form of religio-race wars.

Old raises a mightily important question. If he is right, to defend the state is to defend racism. To support any kind of state power is to favor a biopolitical approach to goverance, to find the only possibility for collective political solidarity to rest in eugenics. In fact, his idea suggests that the most fundamental step toward eliminating racism would be eliminating the state. Is he right?

I don't think so. Overall, I think Old reads the state as such as fascist--rooted in an racial identity that seeks to establish its (impossible) unity through the violent annihilation of difference. This isn't convincing to me because there are, in fact, multicultural states and constitutions that seek promote or preserve different ethnicities. And, I don't read all claims made in terms of the inhabitants of a state (of its citizenry or people) as necessarily racialized or racializing, though they can be. Yet, I have a number of more specific problems with Old's view.

First, I don't think there is such a beast as the modern state. As I understand it, there have been different kinds of states. The fact that there are different states recognized within the UN, say, or part of the international arena, does not mean that the states are states in the same way; it does not mean that, the efforts of hegemons to the contrary, all states are based in nations; nor does it mean that all nations are totalities or even wanna-be totalities. This suggests, then, that there is not one form or nature of the state that even could be considered racist.

Second, and consequently, it seems important here to consider differences among state forms and histories. China, for example, didn't take its structure from religious-race wars. Anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggle impacted the state forms that arose in their wake.

Third, the ability to wage total war and annihilate other races doesn't seem to me to characterize the structure or goals of most states. If so, then we would find the vast majority to be failure as states. Now, maybe they are failures, but surely for other reasons.

Contemporary international relations theorists Mark Laffey and Jutta Weldes (in their chapter to the book Empire's New Clothes) can help this discussion. Rejecting the all too limited Westphalian model of states, they point out that the sovereignty narrative is state-centric:

Many social processes--such as the internationalization of capital or modernity--and relations--such as those of gender, class, race, or colonialism--transcend state boundaries in complex and significant ways. Indeed, reflection on the past three hundred or so years--since Westphalia--indicates that the dominant political form has in any case been the imperial state and empire rather than the sovereign state.

Laffey and Weldes also take up the Eurocentricism of Westphalian sovereignty, rejecting the idea that the territorial state arose in Europe and was imposed on the rest of the world. Why? Because this model neglects

the persistent and integral relations between Europe and the non-European world and their joint role in generating the characteristic social forms of modernity, including the state itself.  As Fernando Coronil observes, for example: "Since the European conquest of the Americans, the West and its peripheries have been mutually constituted through processes of imperial transculturation and capital accumulation that continue, in different forms, in the present."

They also observe the limitation of a state centered approach to analyzing state violence (a point relevant to Old's claim regarding total war)

European states have used foreign military and security manpower. Recruiting local soldiers and police forces from within colonized territories was integral to imperial relations between Europe and non-Europe throughout the period marked by the so-called Westphalian sovereign state, as the British empire in India attests...the sovereignty narrative obscures the international constitution of state power, a routine practice in the history of imperial relations

Comments

[Rob]

Fred Perlman makes the same argument in The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism...it's a fairly convincing one, too

flies his black and red forevah :)

http://www.spunk.org/texts/misc/sp000166.txt

[s0metim3s]

Perman, yes.

I don't really follow the argument about Westphalian sovereignty, the internationalisation of capital and so on.

The only people who claimed that Westphalian sovereignty was exported to the rest of the world, as a template, are those who saw a linear line of progression in which 'Third World' states would eventually come to resemble those of the 'core' (EU, etc). It was a mythical proposition of capitalist universality, but hardly undermines the arguments about biowar, which is precisely an argument about the distribution of violence.

And the argument about the internationalisation of capital is just that, about *inter*-nationalisation. I'm not clear about how that suggests states are not central to this process?

Anyway, someone who has put Foucault together with Marx with some interesting results is Warren Montag: http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/2006/01/necroeconomics.html

[Amish Lovelock]

And you don&t think multiculturalism is racist??? My god the whole point about biopolitics in the 1920s-30s was to incorporate the views and life of the colonies! Contemporary democracy and liberalism rests upon colonial nationalism and self-determination. Empire without colonies!!!

[Amish Lovelock]

Recruiting local soldiers!!! Thats the whole point!!

Read Yamanouchi Yasushi and Narita Ryuichi @Total war and mobilization@ followed by anything that might suggest implications for the colonies such as Louise Young @Japans Total Emopire@

[jake]

perhaps another way of addressing this issue would be questioning whether democracy leads to imbalances, inequities--including perhaps racism (which might not simply consist of caucasians against "minorities")...and in many cases it could be shown that democracy does result in, or tend to, various inequities, tho' that is not imply communist or fascist remedies...but perhaps rethinking consensus, voting, representation, or, barring that, Bakuninia ...

[Virgil Johnson]

The use of racism is just a tool employed to bring about a division. In America's early slavery days it was necessary (in their minds) to debase a race in order to profit by the slaves demise. They tried to justify their position in the eyes of the people by perpetuating lies.

Racism is an instrument to set at odds one ethnic group with the other. Elites will always posit their aristocracy into a specific group, if it has a certain racial quality it merely accentuates this separation to enforce the condition to their benefit.

It is the mass of people that embrace this lie of superiority that become tainted with racism - however, their racism is never beneficial because they have been propagandized. You find racism of this sort among the intellectually challenged - those not able to see beyond the smoke and mirrors of the elite.

It justifies in their mind that they are superior and therefore excell, while those not so gifted (blacks, hispanics, indigenous people) suffer because of their inherent inferiority - they just do not have the "right stuff." You can see this same tool being used in Iraq - the occupying power put's extreme groups in power, in turn everyone begins to fight each other rather than concentrating on the occupying force.

Before this invasion anyone of differing religious position, whether they were Shia or Sunni intermarried with no thought - now because the differences have been magnified, they fight, each camp struggles to become the controling power. Those who want to grasp the reigns of power press on the differences, and unfortunately all this does is enforce the occupying powers position - that they have to stay there a long time. If the fighting gets too fierce they will probably partition areas - this is always how colonial, neo-colonial powers advance.

So, there is no grand plan to destroy a certain race per se, it is merely a tool used by the elite to gain control of whatever they desire. However, I do not think it woud bother them if their perverse ways comitted genocide on a given population - as long as they get what they want. Hence, this gives rise to certain theories, like the one Jodie quoted - but it is merely mistaken because it only concentrates on the external activity rather than the underlying reasons.

[Virgil Johnson]

Here is another illustration using the religious principle to divide. Take a look at the girl blog:

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com

Here you find a classic example of the division principle in practice. Note carefully her words of discription:

"...the rift that seems to have worked it's way through the very heart of the country, dividing people...Sunnis are like this, Shia are like that....discrimination based on sect has become so commonplace....political parties are pushing this with every speech and every newspaper....what role are the occuppiers playing in all of this? It is very convenient for them, I believe....they can be the neutral foreign party trying to promote peace and understanding between people who, up until the occupation, were very peaceful and understanding."

It does not matter the tool that is used to divide - religion, race, politic - division is the primary tool of the ruling and rich elite. It is used so much someone could mistake it for the nature of a state or nation, when it is merely a tool employed by those - if I can say this just to make a point - who are truly evil.

[ricia_pd]

To say the Nation State is inherently racist, founded upon historical materialism, would be correct. I don't think this can be debated. To say the State is inherently motivated by racism - I couldn't agree with. Money. Money and Power. That's the principal motivation and excuse for a State in the first place. Race, religion, ideology et al.. is a poor excuse to attain the prior and shockingly affective means of culling the gullible masses under State control.

.... my two cents....

: )

[Eric]

I am of a firm belief that the dominate reason that there is no solution to racism is that there are to many people with a vested interest in continuing it. Many of the organizations that profess to fight this cancer in fact perpetuate it. If a black man or woman is successful he is not held in esteem but lambasted as a sell out, why?

Fortunately I see that many young blacks are beginning to see through the hypocrisy of it all. They are beginning to see the value of education and that being accepted into the society is not being isolated to your race but becoming part of an open society that accepts that hard work, intelligence will lead to success with out consideration of skin color.