smoknashes

we think its ok to act condescending towards a people if we share a nationality with them. so if a white man says “Africans are so deeply rooted in tribal culture that they cant progress” he’s a racist and a bigot. but if a black man says “take an African, give him a bit of power, and he will likely become bumptious, arrogant, intolerant, and jealous of his prerogatives” (p 70, Etouna-Mangelle, Does Africa Need a Cultural Adjustment Program?) he’s enlightened. and moderate, leave us not forget.

Does Africa Need a Cultural Adjustment Program? a Cultural WHAT?? are you fucking insane? how do you pass that off as fucking academia? how? how? I’m having fits trying to get through this. i have to dig my nails into my palms, bite my teeth to keep from tearing this book up (edited by Lawrence E. Harrison, author of Underdevelopment is a State of Mind.) oh lord, give me strength.

this is for all those who hoot on mightily about “low levels of interpersonal trust in Pakistani society” and how the poverty and totalitarianism we’re facing is an outcome of the “Pakistani mentality.” there is no such thing as a “mentality”, alright? not since the colonials left, and believe me, they’re GONE. they only live on in the way we think. who is the “the average Pakistani”: the guy who snatched our mobile phone, the jirgas and rapists, the mob that burnt the bank, the lady who cleans for you, the woman with ten children? how stupid, right? how stupid and lazy and UNEDUCATED and jaahil, right? when was the last time you shared a meal with “the average Pakistani”? when was the last time you embraced “the average Pakistani”? when was the last time you worked besides her? then what the FUCK made you authority on her?

but arrogance aside, how does such bigotry make it into a field that is supposedly governed by academic rigor and careful, conservative emperical-based judgements? people have nightmares about the statements they make based on even slightly dubious data, and you just get up and call an African fat, stupid and narrow-minded and thats ok? did i miss something? is no one worried about this.. at all? or are we going to hold our tounges for fear of being “ideologically loaded?” as if anti-capitalism, anti-consumerism is the only IDEOLOGY. you know when that happens? in the middle of a goddamn HEGEMONY. and we play along, insecure in what we feel and know, scared of being left out of the loop, scared of not gleaning knowledge that might be TRUE, just because, well, everyone says its true.. there must be some truth to it, right? lets be objective, now. they are intelligent people, there has to be something to what theyre saying.

boil, toads, boil.