Intersecting Optics: A Dialogue on ”Race, Nation, Class“ 30 years on

[Music] my first question would really be about you know the series of seminars that you both organized together in Paris in the 1980s and how this came about the idea of the of the book and how did you decide on to use these three core categories as the main starting points for your discussions well personally I'm no longer sure how it all came about we met in 1981 through at a conference that was organized in New Delhi we became friends we met each other and one day we had lunch and we said why don't we why don't we do this kind of seminar we were only planned one year originally I think it was the racism and ethnicity and that was a big success in the sense of people came more interested so we did a second year and then a third year that worked very well the it was precisely the beginning the moment when people were raising questions about what had seemed traditional ideas about class about race and so forth it was a good moment to do this but having done it the original idea I suppose was to have a book as a result of each of these years seminar but you you know papers are of unequal quality and then you can't get people to do it in time and so it occurred to us let's forget about the other papers let's talk about our papers since we wrote papers for each of that and basically the book is there for our the discussion between a 10 and me of the intellectual problem that is posed by the relationship of race to nation to class so I think that's how it came about I agree may I add a few details to that sure remember we had met in in India and then we meet again in Paris so you are after that also having lunch as he said I even remember what it was and we start exchanging ideas and healings about the situation in which we were so that was in 83 if I were remember Emanuel Ax asks me what is your main interest what is your concern and of course implicitly that meant on the side of theory but also on the side of politics and that was immediately after the neo-fascist French political party that grew even bigger later the National had won its first important local elections which was very striking and to most of us I mean you know our circles very worrying phenomenon of course they were already having the same political themes insisting on the question of Islam was not yet central but the question of course of migrations so-called invasions from the former colonized people what is now called I find this absolutely disgusting reverse colonization you know so so this was very central it was very racist already at the time but not in the traditional language so migrants in France Macomb was very insisting seems so I said to Emanuele what bothers me is racism and it bothers me because it's politically worrying and meaningful but also because I feel somehow theoretically disarmed or unable to address this question in efficient so I said this is what bothers me and then I returned the question and I said to Amanda what is it that you find interesting or what would you like to work at this moment and I remember you said ethnicity I mean there you said which of course had a slightly different background not only American but so we found that in in a sense we had the same interest at the same time and that couldn't be by chance there's one more thing to say about class you have to remember that it was a period right after the Second World War from 45m where everyone was a Marxist I mean more or less and especially in France everyone on the Left everyone on the left yes and then how should I say there was a sudden relatively sudden shift in which people said oh no that's you know it's old stuff and they they've removed the concept of class from the discussion so putting it in this book is in sense attempting to restore the discussion of class which had in fact disappeared and as I say especially in France but not only in France France Italy in Germany if I can go back to the situation in the u.s. because you know emanuelle it's it's an it sorry it planned how he saw the importance of discussing the issues of racism in this particular situation in the 80s and he said you were interested in ethnicity and so I would be really interested and to hear more from you how was that in this situation I mean it's like breathing in to Marxism these very difficult categories that have been ignored for a long time from Marxism in order to renew Marxism but at the same time you know these these these are very unstable contradictory analysis and this I think you know is the strength of the book until today that exactly this is what they provide so that they they show the limit of heed of the other categories but at the same time they are their external factor well in a sense we were trying to reopen the discussion of all three categories from how should I say agreed upon agreed-upon analyses which we came to think of us rather simplistic and so they were open for for an attempt to reutilize them and create a discussion which is more useful theoretically and more useful politically and that discussion is still going on today in fact it's going on more strongly than when we published the book my son's in some ways is and this is why you know I have this passion for your book and it was so helpful in my own BIOS oh yeah grateful in some ways I think this book is less simplistic than a lot of discussion that we have today and it's particularly because it it addresses the question from an interdisciplinary and at the in you know in the eighties international almost global scale and it has this integral and at the same time discrete analysis of these categories and the integral racism is a tricky bit and it's something that I would like to you know to have you talk more about when I agreed to participate in this discussion I began to think about what was the point of the book and I think the the big message of the book is that race and nation and class are categories which should not be analyzed separately that's the first thing and should not and our how shall I say three different pairs of glasses looking at the same phenomenon if you do it from the angle of one or the other it misses out so the whole issue is what what what is the relationship of race to nation to class and the answer is it's a kind of 80 percent overlap the if you if you self-identify or analytically identify others and use racists racist terminology ring I shouldn't call it racist racism terminology or class terminology you get the same picture but not quite okay and it makes a good deal of difference to your theoretical analysis and to your political analysis which one you wanna which pair of glasses you want to use and the answer is at different times I want to use different pairs of glasses I mean that's my answer if if I say the working class the working class which was an old Marxist category right that was supposedly proletarians it turns out that the people who are the proletarians by traditional definition are not the wipes from the dominant class but the blacks or people of color who are suppressed etc etc etc and so what what's missing when one deals with them separately is this not to see that 80% of the people who are proletarians are in fact of an undergone the group according to class or I mean according to race or according to nation but at the same time it's not smooth because race and nation is something that you you know you have a problematic and it's different to their issues of class relations that you discuss starting a new seminar that's probably reading good because we don't have time for that it's tempting it's tempting so what he says about the overlapping of the categories and the necessity of overcoming a rigid and mechanistic understanding of either race class or nation and study there their interaction this is more or less what people today would call intersection we already discussed that in a manner that I find funny retrospectively when we discussed the title or rather the subtitle of the book the first edition is the French edition and Emmanuel had proposed correct me if I'm wrong a subtitle which was Lizzie delta-t Abbeville and he had proposed ambivalent identities and I said look I don't like and given it so much it's not exactly what I have in mind I propose ambiguous identity and I think that in fact the two adjectives both mean something and they are not unrelated but that so if you insist on the idea that identities are ambivalent so you think of class identity of national identity of race identity what you essentially suggest to the reader is the effects can go in very different direction nationalism of course is the nation on nationalism is I I think we basically agreed even if we proposed it in slightly different terms on the idea that nationalism is not a stigma nationalism is the organic ideology of whichever political and social movement or institution that creates or defense a nation if you looked at anti-imperialist liberation struggles which for both of us from where absolutely central elements in our intellectual and political consciousness because Emanuel had been directly involved in Africa and other places in what would become settled world emancipation struggles and I had been a weekend so to speak to political consciousness because I was a student at the time of the war of independence of Algeria you know so there is here an example of nationalism that not only is progressive but without which you have no liberation no emancipation it's essentially from a left point of view a necessary and a positive factor but of course at the other end you have what in English they have a whole terminology jingoism I mean you have all sorts of xenophobic forms of nationalism and of course in the Imperial nations like France or the u.s. others this is the most visible aspect which goes in the absolutely opposite direction so can you say the same about race to some extent can you say the same about class perhaps Emmanuel just gave the example of certain forms of class consciousness in the centre so to speak which include in fact racist and sexist I come to that damages so there is none there's no example of one of these identities which are rooted on one side in objective structures of capitalism of the world system of imperialism and so on of Eurocentrism but which on the other side are identities or create identities that is a subjective dimension there's none of them which is not ambivalent but on the other hand ambiguous is also in my view at least and we agreed on that in the end necessary category because of what because of intersection because if you look at concrete collective identities even more if you take into account movements forces that become active in politics and in society they're never too early class identities or national identities or race or ethnic so you never have something that is pure you always have something that is ambiguous in that sense and now to just add one thing if you if you want to so if you look at things from that point of view and it's on purpose that I use the term intersection there are several things that are clearly dramatically missing or that seem to be missing at least missing in the title and the blatant the most visible of all legs and Laguna's not by chains not by chains is gender agenda so but as soon as I because that's another equally decisive identity which has objective foundations in perhaps even older than capitalism in patriarchy and so on and of course decisive subjective dimensions and and and consequences so as soon as I said that I must qualify because in fact if you look at the book the only one from among us who does take it into account is Emanuel and not me Emanuel explicitly says in the book that there are two great I would say anthropological structures if you like which are is it their intention it's not a question of intention it's their function that help producing hierarchies and stratifications among the workforce or the labor force in the in the capitalist world system and these are race and gender and he from I haven't reread the book but he draws a very powerful parallel or analogy between the two yeah and that's the introduction of the term household structure which i think is very helpful in this respect and something that sometimes in this current discussion that we have on issues where you know it's about intersections it gets lost and this is particularly the combination that you have just outlined of the household structure the reproduction of the family within the genealogical scheme but not only this but also in terms of inheriting inheritance and yes we're not using exactly the same conceptual frame frame frame work but this is something that definitely I think so I you know I'm you know I'm far from saying you know shouldn't be in the book but I think it's more in the book that one would think with the factor image that we didn't dare yeah we've talked about you know the the integral analysis a little bit can we go to the discrete definitions or determinations of those terms going back to the question of racism I would be very interested if you if you look historically at it and today maybe what would be the most you know you know are we and are we in a situation that in which the idea of racism has changed even in in in in in comparison to the 1980s and then if so how look because we have rhetoric confusion yeah just just today I I've read in the New York Times or on the web where somewhere that in our dear president in the United States President Trump has in trying to defend himself against various things said I am NOT a racist so he seems to think that to call someone a racist is a very is how I say an insult and he denies that he is it's a kind of deference to anti racism on the one hand you could say well that's that's really very good because he has to say I'm not a racist okay he wouldn't have felt that way fifty years ago okay on the other hand where you know that's nonsense he is obviously of the most virulent variety and and and and the most shameless variety but nonetheless he has to make he has to defer so from a long-term point of view you could say well then anti racism has achieved something if they make if they force people like him to deny that they are racist race is a very is a very plastic and fluid if you like if you look at things from a historical point of view in which you need to include of course institutions representation semantics pseudo scientific discourses and so on and so on you see that race is not a category that whose meaning can be fixed for very long of course from Emmanuel's point of view I think the the starting point and the anchor so to speak has to do with the fact that the capitalist world system as it was built on colonization and then later post post post colonization includes very strong hierarchies and categorizations of populations on I would say essentially the basis of their origin I mean their ethnic origin which includes all sorts of visible and invisible characters but that doesn't mean that the category race or which means the same and it should go back to earlier periods when these traditions emerge in the Spanish colonies and so on even the word race doesn't mean exactly the same it's applied for example to the aristocratic races and popular and if you continue until now of course you see the progressive emergence of something that some scholars and I more less contributed to that would call racism without races in quotation marks which means that they are no longer the discriminations are no longer based on exactly the same criteria but the discriminations are there and my I don't know if you'd agree with that but I think that in the global world where we are now where many social structures are transformed race is not going to to to to disappear because there is such a mixture of population it will perhaps become intensified in especially to create antagonisms between different types of work for me but very concept of race is linked inevitably with the reality of hierarchy if you have a hierarchy so some people over here are considered more privileged than you want to know why okay and you've got to come up with some explanation of what justifies the hierarchy and the minute you do that you're being a racist you use different terminology to do that but that's why it doesn't disappear as long as you're in a hierarchical system you've got to be in a racist system you've got to because racism is simply the justification of the legitimacy of some people living better than other people in multiple different ways yeah I agree vent works critical theory Adorno hakama they spend a great deal thinking about how do we explain anti-semitism and that's what I wanted to come to because from what Emanuel said you can based on what he said and I'm absolutely not suggesting that Emanuel ignores anti-semitism but what he said just applies more or less sterically to I would say two of the classical forms of racism included in the UNESCO declaration that is colonial discriminations subjected races and of course apartheid the color bar the purse the legacy of slavery in the US but it doesn't apply very simply to the case of anti-semitism I mean in the in the in the case of anti-semitism you almost have the opposite I mean it's not the case that Jews are to be kept in an inferior racial position it's the case that they are seen as internal enemies as people who are better than the others in becoming capitalists professor and so so they are seen more psychologically speaking more as a threat is very different from to me it's very different it's not terribly different from Trump appealing I mean that's the situation of people who are in reality and underclass and who are resentful of this and decide to denominate those who are oppressing them by some categories such as intellectuals it doesn't doesn't matter so you've got the use of the concept of race there as a method from the of the under group deciding to push their way up a hierarchy by invoking this a lot that seems to me is what we're talking about with anti-semitism classically you have the idea of the Merchant of Venice right so these these these these clever people who are really suppressing you money will turn against them and and that becomes anti-semitism yes I agree but that's not like despising ex-slaves or keeping the colonial people's or races in a state of subjection it's more like of course I put all sorts of brackets and quotation marks like suppressing or even eliminating your competitor Emmanuel wood it seems to me insist more directly the economic function and therefore the articulation to class and I would insist more on the articulation with nation and therefore the link that there is between racism xenophobia a certain understanding of the national identity as homogeneous has to do with the fact that that you you need to take take into account the cultural factor in the definition of of race and you need to take even if you don't make Nazi Germany the paradigm after which everything has to be understood which was a tendency understandably of course in post-world War discusses Horkheimer and Adorno and others you have to take into account that certain forms of racism lead to examination or elimination as you like more generally and other forms need to to keeping the structures of exploitation and the hierarchies and the forms of exploitation as stable and as immutable as the rise of a new right and also and authoritarian regimes across the globe pairs up with very different right-wing religious movements so how do you understand the current situation and we're in light of this development that everyone feels that you know retreating back to nationalism retreating back to a very strong religious feeling that is you know that is very strong and it's right-wing rhetoric how is this going to unfold I mean if we're discussing Trump seems to me it's quite clear he has actually been able to use a relatively large amount of resentment of people people within the United States who have been losing ground in terms of the reality of their position in the world and and who are angry about that and he comes along and he says okay then I'll be your champion he imposed his personal role on a real situation and he was quite competent in doing that politically competent in doing that now he's running into trouble he is claiming both strengths of the United States and weakness of the United States at the same time that contradiction in his rhetoric it's going to turn people against him who have been for him and I remember that at the end of a book I included a tentative reflection on something called class racism which I more or less borrowed from both you so in the case of trumps victory or success a control element which has to do with strong hostility between certain parts of the American working classes on one side in the broad sense and the neoliberal elites on the other side has played an important role I mean Hillary's mistake in her Freudian slip when a microphone was not shut and she spoke about the deplorable that are supporting the Republican candidate that expressed a form of class racism which of course makes no difference between Democrats and Republicans and Trump managed although he's a millionaire himself he's absolutely not a representative of this elite culture he shits on it and and that has been part of his appeal part of his rhetoric is screamingly underclass against the capitalist at least he managed to to present himself as an outsider within his own class that's right but but the other question that returning to to to the previous point that bothers me and I have no answer to that is when we insist when we observe as you did that religion is now more visible and perhaps even objectively playing a greater role in political changes and and conflicts and everywhere very often the religious discourse is used in a nationalist way to exclude to purify the the collective the body to exclude foreign years who are becoming scapegoat targeted as religious Christians in Pakistan Muslims in Europe and so on and so on this is the occasion to say I tend to believe that today Islamophobia which in our country is in Europe and it's now also growing in the u.s. it perhaps always was there but it was not a central issue whereas now because of September 11 and other things and the ideological needs of Trump and his rights this is also be but in Europe of course it's absolutely central for two or three decades now because of course of the growing population of migrants from Turkey North Africa Africa and so on and so on plus other cultural factors Islamophobia is a central issue for anti racism it is very difficult here in France France a terrible country for that because our secular state form of state secure ISM plus the absolute denial and we and refusal to critically reflect on our colonization in the past in North Africa leads to a virulent Islamophobia which is proud of itself and which absolutely denies that it has racist characters so that's the logic of nationalism but I am Not sure that religion is just today a cover name or a new for it's a big big question to me do you think there is an option to go beyond racism the capitalist system is in structural crisis it will come out of it either as a new hierarchical etc system which will be ultra racist or which is something that's never existed historically ever a relatively egalitarian system so yes it's possible it's possible that we will go beyond racism but it's it's unpredictable we will ask me the question forty years from now okay forty years from now we will either have or not because we will be in this bifurcation which I see us in will go into something much worse or much better okay good it's in I I sometimes made fun that was not very nice on my side of Emmanuel's prediction that the future will be either worse or better which I said is not very different from a tautology or its era but in fact I like very much his idea of bifurcation except I tend to believe that the bifurcation is not in the future but the bifurcation is now that's right the future is not predictable but the future is not inevitable and if we believe that the kind of first capitalism if you like the worst-case more unequal an oppressive system that could succeed the forms of capitalism of historical Calvinism will have race race discrimination and hatred and violence --is as a central feature this becomes all the more urgent to imagine the other possibility because I'm a philosopher perhaps but I I remain convinced that I mean that's lady's toe smallest lévi-strauss idea was and it could lead to kind of euphemistically the idea his idea was human diversity is always a problem for humans so human diversity means we are not all the same and of course these differences are not fixed they are ethnic they are linguistic there are perhaps religious you know in the in the broad sense there are sexual and there are differences of sexualities there also there and that will never disappear in the fact that it is a problem how to handle diversity so it is not inevitable that human diversity becomes instrumentalized to build hierarchies and form racist oppressions but there was a huge underestimation of the fact that this will remain a problem if you're saying diversity is inevitable meaning every individual who's ever lived is different from every other individual who's ever lived be in some way this is obviously true but the question is whether it's bound to remain somehow conflictual yes and and that's what I'm saying that is not inevitable that it remains forever in the future that we categorize people in in in in one of ten different ways give it names say you belong in that Club you belong in that group and and then we have what is the relationship with the groups were once higher ones lower and you've got racism I think of unless you wanted a long discourse now III better stop there but I think that the answer to your question will we be will we ever go beyond racism is maybe okay thank you very much [Music] you

Channel: HKW 100 Years of Now

Views: 4,718

Rating: 4.9661016 out of 5

Keywords: Class relations, Film, Interview, Marxism, Racism

Id: EhPlDgHewAo

Length: 43min 42sec (2622 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018