So, I had a conversation with my sisters husband about politics, he gifted me a book (the power of geography) , which he claimed to be leftist… because it merely mentioned colonialism. He framed that as anti-white racism and how we, the ‘whites’, should be proud of our ‘accomplishments’ and how it’s badass that ‘we’ conquered the entire world.
He then further went on to mention that after colonialism ‘ended’ the natives didn’t know how to do anything, because they kicked the smart whites out.
What the hell do I do about this nutjob? Is there any hope for him? Should I even try to convince him that he’s an absolutely moron?
I’m in a somewhat similar boat myself. The BIL is a bachelor in business administration and a pro-business crank. Recently he has started going in hindu nationalist tirades to impress my fascist parents. It is diabolical.
Sometimes I wish we had a cultural revolution so I could snitch on these people.
Hindutva could be framed as an inferiority complex towards white people turned inwards and against minorities to feel more superior, backed by an economic system justifying fascism. With so much to be proud of from India it is telling of a person’s lack of inner strength to prostrate before such a failure of an ideology.
Maybe have Vijay Prashad play on the TV (or loudspeaker!) in the background? :)
/edits for clarity and levity
Yeah. It screams a lot of the view that “the only thing that sucked about colonialism was that we were the ones colonised”. Anti-colonial education is very shit in India’s school curricula probably because of this reason. There seems to be no desire to see colonialism as fundamentally unjust and undesirable. There is zero solidarity with other colonized nations. There used to be friendship with USSR and China at some points in the past but with the plunge into neoliberalism those have been forgotten. On the other hand, Gandhi for one wanted Indians to fight for the British in the Boer War. Maybe there are other examples like that.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” - LBJ
I feel the above has been universalised to some of the colonised.
And your penultimate statement reminded me of another book to add to my reading list: The Mahatma and the Ism by EMS
Wait, is this a book he read? Maybe get him “A Peoples History of the USA” as a kind of counter gift.
Or perhaps even better, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.
There’s not a lot that can be done if they’re unwilling to learn.
You could try to explain the lies colonialists told, and the systems of oppression they built. You could try to show them the direct results of colonialism, like the famines, the reservations, etc. But if they’re closed off from accepting that colonialism was an evil system, perpetrated by white supremacists, you won’t be able to fix their issue.
we, the ‘whites’, should be proud of our ‘accomplishments’ and how it’s badass that ‘we’ conquered the entire world.
What about Mongols? Wasn’t there a famous dude who expanded the empire till Poland? Does it count or is the skin colour not white enough?
He has strayed far from God and unlikely to return
Probably tempting to cut off your sister and him, but I’d offer another path that will make him much more miserable. If they have or end up having kids… slowly radicalize them. You can probably start young but gotta be careful because kids will just say shit to their parents. But once they’re in high school there’s a lot of opportunity to just expose them to all sorts of shit that their dad will hate them learning. Probably the easiest thing to do though is be active in politics, belonging to organizations that do things beyond like reading clubs (which are good too), and have your future niece/nephew maybe go along, see stuff, be the cool counter to their asshole dad, and yeah.
Not much else to be done besides… well, I shouldn’t say that. Anyway. Oh, by the way!..
