AfterObamawhorepresentedchangewithoutdifferenceandisleavingoffice asoneofthebiggestfalsepromisesofworldhistory,Americahaschosenanew face,afrownattheworldandapromiseoffundamentalistAmericanjingoism. Donald Trump: Frown of Empire
CHIEF among the canonical observations of Immanuel Wallerstein as the founder of World Systems Analysis as a theory is that the World System never changes; it only changes its world orders, its faces and postures. After the world bully and hooligan that George Bush Junior was, America needed a mellow Barak Obama to reset its standing in world affairs and project sobriety while sustaining an impression of so much democracy that allows even a descendant of the slaves to lead. After Obama who represented change without difference and is leaving office as one of the biggest false promises of world history, America has chosen a new face, a frown at the world and a promise of fundamentalist American jingoism. As much as the election of Barak Obama was not a miracle but the work of Empire shifting its faces and orders, that of Donald Trump is equally a twist of temper but never a change in the character of the Octopus. Empire might change its masks but never its content and character.
Decolonial thinkers, Immanuel Wallerstein included, have always observed how the modern colonial World System present a multiplicity of mesmerising rhetorics and persuasions that serve only to mask the cruel logics of the workings of Empire.
So celebrated was the abolition of slavery in the America of 1865, and William Wiberforce was lionised as a hero of iconic proportions, but behind that rhetoric was the logic that the exploitation of black labour had not ended in the plantations and factories, it had only changed its format and tactics, wages were introduced to give slavery a handsome face.
The Euro-American Empire has morphed itself up into a powerful civilisation with its economic system of capitalism and political system of neoliberalism. Throughout the planet the Empire parades attractive rhetorics of democracy, human rights, individualism, development and the priorities of human happiness. Behind that multiplicity of rhetorics the logics of rapacious capital, violent imperialism and racist white supremacy remain firmly put, alive and as dangerous as ever. The appearance of a Donald Trump as the new face of America should therefore not come as a shock or even a surprise; it is a simple frown of Empire in its progress in world dominance and the continuing scramble to eclipse all other civilisation. With the rise of China, the abstinence of Russia and the entire BRICS menace, the scramble has gained a voltage of the true Olympics of power in the world, a new Cold War.
The election of Barak Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States of America in January 2005 was a true rhetoric of Empire, celebrated throughout the world as American progress. Africa was elated, at long last a son of the continent was to occupy White House and it was hoped that Americanism would at least smile at Africa. In reality and in logic, Barak Obama became a very black man in a very White House doing white homework, finally succeeding to champion the killing of not only Osama Bin Laden, but Muammar Gaddaffi, a series of American President had tried and failed to kill that tormentor of Empire, a real thorn in the butt of the Euro-American establishment for many decades.
In 1986, on the 15th of April, in what became the most daring attempt at killing Gaddaffi, Ronald Reagen unleashed Operation El Dorado Canyon aimed at bombarding Libya and killing Gaddaffi, an operation that came to naught as Gaddaffi typically escaped. Only in 2011 did Barak Obama and NATO, paradoxically in alliance with Alqaeda, deliver the corpse of Muammar Gaddaffi to Empire.
The murder of Muammar Gaddaffi was not entirely unconnected to the EuroAmerican project of neutralising the planetary march of China and its increasing political and economic grip in the Global South, especially Africa. As much, the present political tribulations and trials of Jacob Zuma in South Africa are not totally removed from EuroAmerican attempts to neutralise BRICS and compromise the South Africa and China political and economic alliance. The Euro-American fight against BRICS saw to the political upheavals in Brazil that culminated, after the suspension of President Dilma Rousseff earlier in the year, to the election of the Brazilian right wing into office in September 2016. The Logic of Donald Trump The much awaited electoral victory of Hillary Clinton was going to be a perfect rhetoric of Empire, a pretty face. It was lauded in advance as a victory for women in the world, a conquest of reason and a triumph of equality and democracy. She was called brave and strong and an example that women of the world can do it as well. That she was an American warrior princess was not part of the discussion. Donald Trump on the other hand is the true logic of Americanist jingoism and fundamentalism. In Donald Trump the World has the stink of the Euro-American Empire unperfumed. In the vulgarity and theatrics that he presented throughout his unapologetic campaign Donald Trump became the Emperor who represented Empire performing and dramatising its rudeness. Point blank, and in good English Donald Trump told Africans that Africa needs to be recolonised because Africans have not attained the maturity to rule themselves. In the true grammar of colonial masters and imperial anthropologists, Donald Trump told a packed rally that Africans are lazy, good at sex and stealing. The stereotype of Africans as lazy, oversexed, libidinous and criminal is a classic racist colonial stereotype. In Donald Trump Africa has an honest ambassador of EuroAmericanism, the prophet of Empire who says what all Euro- Ameri c an supremacists think and believe but would not dare publicly utter. What Donald Trump will do in Africa with a frown, Hillary Clinton was going to do it with a smile. The Euro-American Empire will still perform its dirty work in Africa, and with Donald Trump in the head, racism and white supremacy will not be given a nickname but will be practiced openly and with monumental rudeness.
Expiry of Postcolonial Reason In the face of Decoloniality and its insistence that decolonisation in the Global South served only to mask the continuity of coloniality, postcolonial thinkers have charged that Decoloniality delves in past tense thinking, dwells in injustices of the past ignoring present challenges.
Decoloniality has been called a colonial hangover, an obsession with racism and colonisation which are supposed to be crimes gone by. Colonisation and racism, in the imagination of post-colonial thinkers are long over, they were little epochal crimes against humanity that have since passed by and we will do better to think other thoughts and dream other dreams instead of forever blaming the white man for our troubles.
With the appearance of a Donald Trump unwashed and spewing colonial stereotypes as he is doing, postcolonial reason expires and Decoloniality gains its deserved purchase and currency as a weapon of the oppressed in the Global South.
We might, in our postcolonial dreaming be done with racism and colonialism, but racism and coloniality are not done with us. It is that way in which in his own vulgar way, Donald Trump is a gift to the world.
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from South Africa: mailto:decoloniality2016@ gmail.com AT LAST America has finally decided to come out of the closet, they never loved us. On Wednesday, the so called “free world” confirmed that black lives DON’T matter by electing the bravest of the white supremist.
Unlike many whites, Donald Trump was brave enough to denounce hypocrisy that clothes White America. We have always mistaken their “sympathy” for us with respect. White people never thought of us as equals, we were their experimental animals. To them, a black man speaking English was a successful scientific experiment.
At this point I am reminded of the movie Rise of the Apes where an experimental primate learnt to speak and to their amusement this was recorded as a laboratory success. Trump’s philosophy is not new in global political conversations; he simply is a re-confirmation of true whiteness.
He reminds us of perhaps a more revealing voice which shows that anything white insists on regarding blacks more or less like primitive primates which Arnold Toynbee speaks of. I wonder why we are all puzzled at how he became president after all the unperceived political disgusts he retorted, NO! that simply is a true show of how White America thinks.
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