The West's Colonial Racism That Enables The Gaza Genocide.

From the presenter:

Beyond the racism that Zionism is and how that one leads IDF soldiers to commit unspeakable crimes, there is a second type of racism at work that enables the Genocide in Gaza. The West's societally ingrained, colonial racism that implicitly accepts that lives of Palestinians (and Arabs in general) are worth much less than the lives of Israelis and hence their mass-slaughter as an acceptable outcome of a conflict dynamic.

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

HEO/GED

10-22-24

 

The guy in this video gives a very good explanation of the racism and bias of the western media when it comes to the present genocide in Gaza.  The clips of the interview with Bari Weiss are very telling. The mass media in the US in particular is very powerful and to a great extent unchallenged. Lame duck president, the demented Jo Biden as well as Kamala Harris and her opponent in the race for the White House, Donald Trump, deny there is a genocide, or that Israel is an Apartheid state and that it is merely defending itself against a bunch of savage terrorists. 

Why not? The US killed millions of Arabs and Muslims in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11^th 2001. “Pre-emptive strike” is a term that has its origins in the events of 911 and is a form of self defence even if others are thinking of harming US capitalism’s interests in any part of the world. Why a group of people (former friends of the CIA) would attack us like that was never a question worth considering. The answer is too damaging to the image of the US as the world’s greatest symbol of democracy and freedom. 

 

In order to colonize a people, they have to be demonized. England, and then Britain’s first colony was Ireland, a ferry ride across the Irish Sea. The Irish were the “savage race”. They were once referred to as “White Chimpanzees” by the British ruling class.  How else can a colonizing power drag its working class in to a predatory war that is not in their own interests if it doesn’t portray the colonized as less than human and a threat? Millions were tortured and murdered in the European colonies in Africa and India. Millions of indigenous people wiped out in the colonization of the Americas.

 

We don’t simply live in a “society”. We live in a particular type of society, a class society, a system of oppression where one class, a minority of the population, exploits and rules society, and where the wealth and power of this ruling class is made possible only by the exploitation of the other. Our society we know as a capitalist mode of production.

 

Colonialism is a by-product of this capitalist mode of production. Marx said of it, “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere……… it creates a world after its own image.”

 

Malcolm X pointed out that “You can’t have capitalism without racism”. Racism is built in to the capitalist system. Skin color, religion, national traits, sexual preferences, and at all times the oppression of women are means of dividing working class people and maintaining this system of oppression.

 

Those that resist must be subjugated, dealt with. Even its own working class were faced with this fate. The propaganda talked about in the video above is necessary if working class people of the colonial power are to be convinced that the stubborn resistance of the foreigner is to be overcome and it is in their interests to participate.

 

The narrator says that we all know what’s going on in Gaza and occupied Palestine. But it is not easy to overcome the propaganda. And even when we see it and are horrified by it, what can we do? I think there is a powerful mood in the United States that there is nothing we can do to change things. This helpless feeling is a major cause of the alienation and despair that exists in our society. People seek refuge in drugs, alcohol, cults, and religion or just shut it all out, never seek information. Others lash out; the old saying, “You can’t fight city hall” is almost ingrained and it will take a huge movement to breach that psychological dam.

 

There are many crises in the world today that are evidence of capitalist decay but none where social media has such a presence as in the Palestine genocide as far as I can see. 

 

There is also the existence of some alternative challenges to the global domination of western and US mass media in particular with the popularity of Al Jazeera and also Indian media and Russia today and Chinese state media, particularly in the global south or what we might call former colonial countries.