Hypocrisy of egalitarianism in a highly unequal society
Historical evidences prove that clash of movements is the
most significant milestone in the development of the society. Historically
speaking, it is absolutely natural and organic process, where history counters
with the contemporary human actions. Coming to the ongoing movement for the
rights of black community; their movement has a history of more than one and a
half century, and over a period of time they have achieved a number of rights and
entitlements, but if those are pertinent enough to take into consideration or if
they are not consistent with the idea of “equality”? This is the core question
of this movement, which is what every young citizen on the streets trying to
ask to the people in power. Interestingly, this very language in itself seems unfair in an “egalitarian democratic society”, where we have to talk a
language of ‘give’ and ‘take’, as a society we are supposed to live and enjoy
the rights we are entitled for by our constitution equally, irrespective of
color, caste, creed, and sex.
PC:theprint.in
The movement going on in the north (and now almost across the
world) against the racism, whose impetus
was the murder of George Floyd, an African-American, by a police officer who
pressed a knee to his neck in Minneapolis on May 25. Hard to believe is that it
is one of the many such murders that are happening because of the police
brutality, on yearly basis. Across the Europe and America people are
marching with placards and sloganeering for the justice and demanding reform in
the constitution to prevent from the systematic lynching of a community. As a
part of the movement they have reminisced the incident with number of historical
occurrences, which resulted in vandalism, plundering and looting. This is
worrisome because these instances have the potential to divert the path of the
movement, as already witnessed in some places, where it led to a conflict between
‘whites’ and ‘blacks’, this is something which is or has never been the objective
of “Black Lives Matter Movement”.
PC:chicagocrusader.com
Historically speaking, there has been a range of ideas from
theoretical evidences which strenghtens the idea of institutional racism, especially
in “settlers countries” like US, Australia and New Zealand, which share the
common past. This movement is a reminiscent of what W.E.B Dubois called “the
most threatening problem of the twentieth century is the color line.” And even
after the expedition of democratic political movement across the world, the
social institutions and its prejudices has not changed its deep discriminatory
practices which stemmed in the society traditionally. Its more coaxed form emerges
from what Dubois said, “…the black or colored man is being more and more
confined to those parts of the world where life for climatic, historical,
economic, and political reason is most difficult to live and most easily
dominated by Europe for Europe’s gain” this statement explores the deep theoretical
debate of colonialism and capitalism.
Hence, capitalism is less to do with political system for its
regulatory purposes and more to do with social institutions, which somehow
works in favor of the capitalism to run unquestionably. It is like, political
support is just the one time investment but social backwardness is the life
time profit. Because of the degree of diversity in a liberal world and the
‘backwardness’ of the majority of the state and communities, where high level
of dogmatism exists, strengthens the position of capitalism. This is
exactly the reason for their prejudices, stigma, backwardness, and oppression
for the ages.
PC:thecitizen.in
A comparative view would help us to understand the kernel of
the problem that blacks are going through, one can compare it with the plight of Dalits in India, which is well elaborated by Jyotibha Phule in his book “Slavery”. In the book he emphasized on the idea of ‘informed citizen’ which he claimed is the only solution to counter the
oppression of the oppressed, which in turn is only possible through
the institution of education, accessible to all irrespective of caste,
class, color and sex. This is what later liberal and Dalit scholars have
proposed and formulated.
This is exactly where, democratic rights can base itself in
the reciprocal effect of the socially endorsed duties based on the moral
principles, where we all should be duty bound to protect ourselves and our
fellow being from the act that is popularly considered as immoral. And
that ethical ground has to come out of the social efforts through its ‘informed
citizens’ which must be inculcated from the passionate and revolutionary readers
and thinkers.
