Human communities tend to overestimate their own way of life and distrust that of others. In order to maintain the cohesion of their group, some of its members have a reflex of rejecting newcomers. However, as soon as they get to know them, as soon as they understand that they are men like them, tensions ease.
To this ethnological functioning, ideologies were added in the 19th and 20th centuries : racism and anti-racism. In the context of British imperialism and the development of biology and genetics, these theories made it possible to justify the hierarchy or equal rights of populations.
Scientific racism
Following the theories of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) on the evolution of animal species, Herbert Spencer (1820-93), posited that there were distinct human races and that natural selection had led to the superiority of Whites.
This was the beginning of “social Darwinism”. A cousin of Darwin’s, Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), calibrated the races and linked the fertility rate of women to the degeneration of individuals.
He was able to prove not only the superiority of whites over people of colour, but also the superiority of the rich over the poor.
A “scientific consensus” established that interracial mating was the cause of many handicaps. It was therefore essential to prohibit interracial mating in the same way as incest in order to preserve each race. This was “eugenics”.
The application of this principle was all the more complex because, whatever the definition of each race, no individual is purebred, therefore each situation is subject to discussion.
In the United States this logic not only led to discouraging the formation of couples between Europeans on the one hand and Indians, Blacks or Chinese on the other, but also to privileging Anglo-Saxon whites over non-Anglo-Saxon whites (Italians, Poles, Serbs, Greeks etc.) (Immigration Act in force from 1924 to 1965).
The Institute of Kaiser Wilhelm (German equivalent of the French CNRS) demonstrated that not only did the preservation of the race require not to breed with individuals of a different race, but also not to mate at all.
Indeed, in the case of anal penetration, the genes of one and the other mixed together even though they had no offspring. Hence the prohibition of homosexuality by the Nazis.
It wasn’t until the fall of Nazism and decolonization that the “scientific consensus” was turned around and the incredible diversity within each supposed race was realized. What we are like in some individuals of other supposed races is far more important than what distinguishes us from individuals of our supposed race.
In July 1950, Unesco proclaimed the inanity of “social Darwinism” and “eugenics”. Quite simply, humanity may have come from several distinct prehistoric races of Homo sapiens, but it is only one race whose individuals can mate without risk.
Of course, one did not have to be a scientist to notice this, but imperialist and colonial ideologies had temporarily clouded the minds of the “scientists”.
Legal racism
As the scientists regained their unity, the lawyers divided into two different ways of approaching the issue. This time it was not imperialist and colonial ideologies that separated them, but their conceptions of the nation.
For the Anglo-Saxons, it is an ethnic gathering (in the cultural sense), while for the French, it is a political choice. The main US legal dictionary states : “Nation : A large group of people having a common origin, language, and tradition and usu. constituting a political entity,” Black’s Law Dictionary, 2014.
On the contrary, France since the Revolution has had : Nation : “A legal person constituted by all the individuals making up the State” (Order of King Louis XVI of 23 July 1789).
Today, the French vision is more or less universal ; that of the British is defended only by them and by their colonial creations : the Muslim Brotherhood and the Indian SSR.
Thus, despite the progress of science, the British today live under the Race Relations Act 1976 and are arbitrated by the Commission for Racial Equality, while the official French texts speak of “alleged race”.
In practice, the two societies do not establish “racial” differences, but class for the British and social level for the French.
Anti-Racism
In the West, anti-racism is now confused with antifascism. Even though there is no longer racism for lack of race, nor fascism for lack of the economic situations to which this thought responded.
The groups that claim these ideas today have the peculiarity of claiming to be from the anti-capitalist far left, but they are subsidised by the speculator George Soros and work for NATO, the champion of capitalism.
So they have military training.
It is not without delight that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not fail to point out, during a telephone interview with his US counterpart on June 8, 2020, that NATO had used the International Anti-Fascist Brigades against both Syria and Turkey ; the same “Antifas” who coordinate the current anti-racist riots in the United States.
In reality, racism and anti-racism are two sides of the same coin. Both are based on the fantasy of races that we know do not exist. In both cases, it is an outdated conformism.
The racists corresponded to imperialist and colonial ideologies, the anti-racists to financial globalization. Their only common political utility is to occupy the ground to mask authentic social struggles.
By Thierry MEYSSAN
Originally published by Voltaire Network
The 21st Century
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.