This past Halloween
weekend, my students and I traveled to D.C. for the Model United Nations
conference, where students from around the country had come to learn about the
inner workings of the U.N. Clad in their formal dress, equipped
with research on countries’ international initiatives, and knowledge of
delegate protocol, we descended upon the conference to recreate the political
machinations of the world stage.
Upon arriving we
realized that model UN was not the only make-believe event occurring.
An anime conference was beginning. Amine is the Japanese cartoons of
mystical warriors, talking non-human animals, and other fantastical characters.
A cross sectional/generational/ racial throng of people in full garb, acted out
the behavior characteristic of the cartoons.As the weekend began, each group became engrossed in their separate worlds of mystical battles, UN protocol and position paper development. I began to realize that the two conferences had much common: both make-believe.
While the fantasy offers a place for most people to let off steam, become something other than themselves, or just have some fun--- In speaking to some of the participants, many of them wished that this was their everyday life. The fantasy is more appealing than the reality.
At the same time, the model UN seemed focused more on protocol, motions and language rooted in the institutionalization of western orientations of social order. Even when we visited an actual embassy-- the answers seemed less about reality and more about canned responses.
The political is fantasy. While there are often lofty intentions, the structures, particularly the U.N. a rooted in a racist system, founded when many nations were still colonized. Established after World War II, to end the scourge of war- most African and Asian nations were colonies, so their interests could not be represented.
As noted social contract philosopher, John Rawls describes- 'the formation of a society or institution begins with those at the table'. While there have been additional covenants, such as the rights of women and indigenous rights for example- that make space for those initially excluded- the structure is still flawed and works primarily for those who were there at its beginning. Consider those at the table of the security counsel--permanent members with veto powers Russia, U.S., the U.K., China and France. Mostly western countries hold the power. The U.S. even spied on other nations as they met to hammer out the details of this organization.
To this effect, the U.N. could have intervened in Rwanda and now Syria and the potential genocide that could be Burundi, as well as an African Migration crisis, which we hear little about.
I won't drone on and on, but my experience is that there is a global hierarchy of race. The notion that Israel is a democracy is fantasy.
Sometimes I'd rather live in a world of Anime, being from St.Louis, one of the most segregated cities in the U.S. I know that politics is bullshit and most people would like to go on believing things are going to work out somehow. Yet, many who engage in this kind of fantasy play want a better world. I noticed the participants of the Anime conference fit the description of people we might call nerds or geeks, who in my upbringing were often the ones bullied and excluded.
We have to make people get their heads out of the sand. I see the same dynamics forming around this conference, with the hierarchies emerging, the exclusion of nations from the global south. While the goals are lofty and there is some cooperation, unless we disrupt this system by addressing global hierarchies of racism, sexism and colonialism, we are doomed to repeat the same.
Even the notion of a world stage is a European notion, where the lives of ordinary folks are not significant in our thoughts, because it is a game to be played. Do we only care about the Syrians because of the realist geopolitics of Russia and Iran's influence in the region? The African migrants crisis, the disproportionate murder of Palestinians, the continued theft of land by the apartheid Israeli government and ongoing degradation of indigenous lands is not in the headlines.
We must base any social order on human dignity of all persons. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, based on the Nuremberg principles resulting from the Jewish Holocaust. The world saw the horror of white bodies killed. Yet, no real change has come from the visuals of black and brown bodies spoiled daily. Capital is built on the destruction and usury of black and brown bodies-- prisons, weapons sold to African countries, blood diamonds, theft of native land in the U.S. and Canada (and the recent revocation of treaties for oil on native land). There is a pattern here obscured by fantasy of international/political cooperation and rights that fail to address minorities around the world.
This is why Black lives must matter. It is a declaration of attaching human dignity to the most belittled bodies and cultures on this planet. Black lives matter is a statement moral worth declaring the a demand of equal moral and ethical consideration. It takes discrimination and history into account. Our societies deny opportunities, use brutality, violence, while forcing people without power to accept the will of the powerful.
If black lives matter, and since there is a global racial hierarchy, where the lives of the least, people of color and poor folks too, must be respected as dignified persons, requiring all the considerations, economic political and otherwise.
Being white, because of the legacy of European colonialism, carries privilege everywhere. The fantasy of the world stage has played itself out in the form of police violence in Ferguson, schooling inequity and segregation, lack of indigenous rights and violence against minorities throughout the world.
As a teacher, my hope is to expose the truth of the lived experience for students, who have not learned about these communities. We can not recreate the same structures that maintain status-quo. We must be critical of NGO's and the non-profit system that do more harm. Red Cross has been in the news for its practices in Haiti.
There has to be global systemic change, allies and people of color have to unite to disrupt and remake the world so that human dignity and rights for the most vulnerable are respected. Otherwise its all fantasy, smoke and mirrors. And this reality does not work for most of us!
