February Roundup: Universally Misunderstood
Newsletter 029 -- What's Universalism? How has it shaped our global perspective? How has it become our biggest roadblock?
Hi all,
Welcome to the February roundup! A short month means a short(ish) roundup. Let’s get into it:
*TW: death*
Over the last few months, I’ve thought a lot about death. It’s not as morbid as it sounds considering we’ve seen so much of it in the Congo, Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, and here in America.
What I was trying to sit with and deeply consider were the many ways people understand death and the ways we eulogize those who’ve left us. Back in November, I was in Mexico during Dia de Los Muertos, an annual holiday when families across Mexico gather to remember their loved ones who have passed on. It was a heartfelt celebration of life, as opposed to a solemn reverence of death.
It got me thinking about how odd it can be for some to celebrate life, in the event of a death. My Black Christian family, from the South, refers to funerals as “homegoings” — an idea rooted in Black Christian religious teachings and our experience of slavery. The core message is that we — delicate, lovely humans — were not meant for the cruelty of the world we, Black beings, encounter. That we come for a short time, to do good works, move our people forward, spread our love around, and return to our true place of belonging in heaven. Homegoings are a celebration of a person’s life and their perseverance in the face of all the injustices they encountered during their time here on Earth. It is a time for families to express their deep relief that their loved one has finished “fighting the good fight”; it’s a celebration of a job well done. Death, then, in a way, is the final front in our long battle to prove our humanity and oppose the systemic injustices that spent a lifetime trying to prove we weren’t human. For some, what I’ve just described is the concept of martyrdom.
The predominance of Western ideology, its insistence on a universalism that is not kind to or understanding of the beliefs of those it desires to flatten under its supremacy, has made our sacred and beautiful ways of community seem shameful. Turning our grief practices into just another benchmark used to prove we fall short of respectable humanness.
If the future is a multipolar world, where the West is no longer the dominant hegemony, we must confront and unlearn the ways we have personally flattened the “other”. In a multipolar world, there will be many hegemonies and epicenters of power, and there will also be more ways of thinking that will not fit into our frameworks of understanding. And, this, I promise, is okay.
Enjoy!
» Understanding Today’s Universalism
Who Gets to Be Chinese?
China was once made up of many warring tribes and for the safety and survival of their people, these tribes would create allyships: pooling their resources together and fighting rivals that threatened them both. As tribes continued to join forces with other tribes, eliminating others through battle, there came a time when there was only one tribe left standing: the Han. During their crusade, the Han assimilated the smaller ethnic groups into their growing civilization. This is referred to as Huaxia: the many different tribes united under one civilizational unit in their use of the Han script and cultural rites. This is the longest-lasting social structure on Earth, and many global powers have used this social structure to maintain the order of an extremely diverse group of peoples and territories united under a singular banner. According to a Mongolian man interviewed for this story, he believes Chinese assimilation poses a greater threat to the region than Russian military aggression. In Mongolia today, the education system is mostly carried out in Chinese, the country’s natural resources are exploited by Chinese entrepreneurs, and ethnic Mongolians are a minority – an example of China’s modern-day assimilation tactics. But China is not alone in its desire to assimilate the rest of the world to its ideology – assimilation is a long-used tactic of the West as well. It can and has been argued that the West (more specifically the US) has reached a stasis of assimilation proven true in the establishment of its “universal international norms” (norms according to/defined by the English-speaking world). Philosopher of Chinese Modernity, Zhang Taiyan, once said, “One cannot take the data of one place and treat it as authoritative and applicable everywhere – this much is sure!” Taiyan understood universalism as a modality of oppression. The universalism of the West (also referred to as Western Hegemony) is deeply entrenched around the world. So much so that it doesn't require much-concerted effort to maintain anymore. But the seeds of Chinese universalism are still being sown and this is, in large part, the creeping power grab the US is worried about. Although America is the established hegemony of our modern world, it has had difficulties winning the “hearts and minds” of the Global South, a feat China has proven more capable of doing through its foreign infrastructure investments (like across the African continent). Chinese assimilation isn’t as forthright as those of us in the West are used to seeing – which is a less elegant, militaristic forced assimilation. Nevertheless, in my reading of this article, I gathered a better understanding of how assimilation is part and parcel of universalism. — Alexis
Midwives Sue Hawaii Over Law Regulating Native Birth Workers
Last year the Hawaiian government passed a midwifery licensure law prohibiting birth workers from providing maternal care until they obtained the new license. The new law would require midwives to attend training programs accredited by the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council, but the MEAC only offers eight programs, all located in the continental US. Native Hawaiian midwives are pushing back, calling this move, medical colonialism. The cost of the program, of relocating to the mainland for the duration of the program, and the fact that it would mean they cannot work while they’re attending classes, makes this certification prohibitively expensive for most Hawaiian midwives. In addition, the program doesn’t teach native care practices. Native Hawaiians are the only indigenous group in the nation that doesn’t have self-governing rights. A month after the state banned unlicensed midwives, Hawaii’s deadliest wildfires broke out creating an even greater health crisis, pushing maternal healthcare on the islands into further chaos and sparking an invigorated call for native sovereignty. The push for greater recognition of native practices was in direct response to the fact that many felt the fires could have been avoided had the native practices traditionally used to keep these weather events at bay, were implemented. Overwhelming frustration from these simultaneous events has Native Hawaiian midwives deeply concerned. They understand that, in part, the licensure law is an effort by the State to address the grim state of Hawaiian maternal healthcare. But they also believe that the lack of recognition for the legitimacy of their native practices is an oversight that is already proving to have dire consequences for women on the island. They see the State’s lack of consideration for native care work/workers in their plan to address Hawaii's issues as detrimental to the State’s ability to purposefully attend to the needs of Hawaiians. Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women are 4.5 times more likely to experience pregnancy-related deaths than white women. Midwives serve expectant mothers in remote parts of the island, for whom the nearest hospital can be up to 3 hours away. Native midwives travel to their patients’ homes and offer support to the mother, and the family as a whole. For Hawaiians living on islands like Lana’i, where there are no labor and delivery services at the only hospital on the island, moms have to fly to O’ahu to give birth. Some health insurance providers cover the cost of their flights, and if women are unable to afford an “evacuation birth”, their only option is to have an unassisted birth at home. Even if their insurance covers airfare, it doesn’t cover the airfare of family members, meaning women are evacuated to another island to give birth alone. Native midwives highlight that in many ways the licensure law hinders a woman’s right to choose their course of care and care provider. Almost a year after the devastating wildfires, Hawaii’s already precarious healthcare system is struggling to address the needs of those who’ve been impacted. The wildfires and the current state of Hawaiian maternal healthcare are unfortunate examples of how the devaluation of indigenous practices, in favor of universal Western standards, actually stands in the way of purported Western progress.
*Additional note: One midwife interviewed for the article, laments that as one of the few midwives in Hawaii with the “iki” (extensive knowledge of traditional practices) left on the islands, Native midwifery might die with her if the State continues to chip away at her legal right to teach and provide Native midwifery care. — Alexis
Palestine’s Martyrdom Upends the World of Law
“Martyrdom refuses to make passivity and innocence prerequisite criteria for recognizing victimhood. It insists that a death took place in struggle. Cue the political and epistemic unease, from left-wing squeamishness to outright racist revulsion, that accompanies the discourse of Palestinian resistance—with its emphasis on martyrdom and the prominence of Islamism in its ranks—in most Western public spheres.”
Western culture is deeply uncomfortable with the concept of martyrdom — which is precisely the point. But their unwillingness to sit in this discomfort is a marker not only of their privilege but also their belief in the thoroughness of their universalism (which, it turns out, is not all that thorough). There's so much about witnessing martyrdom that brings me great discomfort. Aaron Bushnell’s act of self-immolation sparked conversation and elicited a wide range of reactions. It is incredibly alarming and indicative of someone’s mental state that they should feel led to self-immolation. A soldier, whose job it is to maintain and carry out the sanctioned violence of the American government, used an incredibly self-destructive form of protest to embody how the catastrophic destruction the US inflicts on peoples of other nations flys in the face of the moral superiority it believes it maintains. It is both alarming and confounding that more people don’t feel Bushnell’s same sense of helplessness, betrayal, and anger at the violence our government perpetrates around the world. The psychosis I am most worried about is the soul death of the Western world, made possible by its cognitive dissonance, and brought on by its insistence on its moral superiority. The original meaning of the word martyr was “witness”, used in secular recountings and with examples in the New Testament of the Bible. It communicates a person’s refusal to comply with the demands oppressive ruling forces make on a person’s body, personhood, and life. Their memory (meaning whether they are considered a martyr or not) is produced by the community and enshrined in the community's collective memory, as a reaffirmation of their collective cause, and as a stand against the powers controlling their lives.
“To acknowledge and echo the methods of eulogization which Palestinians themselves have devised for their dead is to recognize that ordinary mourning is often made impossible by the colonizer.”
Many non-Western cultures have histories and practices of martyrdom. Popular examples include hari kari and kamikaze (used by Japanese airmen and the Tamil Tigers). This article looks at the history of Palestinian martyrdom and explains the politics of death that many cultures adopted in direct response to the everyday structural violence of colonization and Western imperialism. The author situates martyrdom as a nuisance to the Imperial power, a practice that exposes the West’s fraudulent idea and formation of human rights. For this, the West was compelled to denigrate this practice as barbaric, evidence of these groups’ inherent violence, and worse, lack of care for their bodies and, in effect, rendering them not human, without the ability to feel pain. They used their inability and unwillingness to understand these foreign customs and concepts, to legitimize and codify, their violence towards these groups to establish their “universal” values. We then, get to decide what Aaron Bushnell’s act means to our collective memory. Those interested in upholding the West’s universal value system would prefer to sully his protest, deeming it a mental health crisis. But those of us from backgrounds familiar with these self-sacrificial, and deeply communal ideologies refuse the universalism of the Imperial core that would deem us mentally ill for not wanting to fall in line with their ideological norms. — Alexis
» Understanding Borders
This episode makes the case for open borders by discussing the ways they boost economies and benefit societies. During the Pandemic we saw how dependent America was on migrants who made up many of the essential worker positions. And, experts have said time and time again, that people only migrate when they have to. When they do migrate it’s because there are opportunities available to them in that other place. Their conversation was also a great thought exercise on what open borders look like and how they practically work. They explain how Americans have the privilege of, and benefit from, their unhindered global mobility (open borders): Americans can travel nearly anywhere they want to in the world, the American military has 800 bases in other countries, Americans travel freely across state lines within the US, and The New York Police Department (NYPD) has sixteen foreign outposts and just recently created a full-time position in Bogota, Colombia. According to their estimation, it would seem that there are not many borders closed to American citizens. The episode frames the conversation as one meant to push back on America’s insistence upon borders, and lay bare the cognitive dissonance of the American government. — Alexis
Somaliland announced that it had finalized a Memorandum of Understanding with Ethiopia that would lease 20km of its coast to the land-locked country so that they could establish a military base. In exchange, Ethiopia has agreed to give Somaliland a stake in their national airlines and is even considering recognizing Somaliland’s independence. The recognition of independence is a huge deal for Somaliland, and if Ethiopia follows through with its recognition, it will be the first nation in the world to do so. — Alexis
» A Look At Today’s World Orders
Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto ‘Confident’ of Election Victory
In this interview with Indonesia’s future president (before his election win on February 14th), we hear about his plans for the country when he takes office this fall. On several occasions throughout the interview, he reiterated his commitment to building upon the successes of his predecessor, Joko Widodo (Jokowi), who was focused on strengthening the country’s economy and, by many measures, was one of the country’s most beloved leaders. Since the end of colonization, Indonesian leaders have placed nation-building at the core of their politics through projects and measures aimed at forming a cohesive sense of statehood, economic strength, and social services across hundreds of islands. When asked about Indonesia's role on the world stage, Prabowo doubled down on the nation’s long-held philosophy of non-alignment. He says Indonesia, a country courting foreign investment from the US and China, will not join any bloc, preferring to maintain their unique position as a neutral, but active player on the world stage. During his time in office, Jokowi courted China for foreign investment deals to expedite infrastructure development projects in the country. And while the US is looking for Asian countries to align with in their effort to out-influence China in the region and beyond, resource-rich Indonesia, home to the world’s largest nickel reserves, is an enticing option. On top of having the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia is the third-largest democracy in the world. Although those outside of Indonesia are shocked at how voters on the island have seemingly glossed over Prabowo’s past, they look on, unable to say much. Democracy is a characteristic the West wants to believe they can maintain, despite Prabowo’s military background, and the 1998 ban the US imposed on him due to alleged human rights violations after the fall of the late military dictator, Suharto. Since becoming Defense Minister under Jokowi in 2019, he has made several visits to the US which leads people to believe that the West is still willing to work with him…for now. Foreign Policy experts are concerned about the possibility of a democratic regression during a Prabowo presidency, as his proclivity for military rule (due to his background) is well known. Indonesia’s neighbors (mostly island nations) are also skeptical about what a Prabowo presidency might mean for the interdependence of the islands in the area. Australia’s bilateral relationship with Indonesia is the most important one it has in the region. And, already, there have been reports of aggression by the Indonesian army, in Papua New Guinea where the two nations have a long-standing conflict. The international community is going into this new phase of Indonesian democracy with eyes wide open. — Alexis
The most interesting part of this episode was their discussion about the contributions Jake Sullivan has made to the Democratic Party’s foreign policy framework. Sullivan is the National Security Advisor to Biden, he was the Policy Planning Director at the State Department under Obama and was Hillary Clinton’s righthand man on her 2016 campaign trail. Sullivan came up with the “Foreign Policy for the middle class” idea; the insistence that every foreign policy decision made by the State Department/Democratic leaders must benefit a person in the American middle class. He is responsible for building this new foreign policy infrastructure and intellectual framework for the Democratic party. The Democratic Party was largely blindsided by the fact that such large numbers of middle-class voters defected in the 2016 Presidential election, thereby ushering in a Trump presidency. What had they misunderstood about the middle class in America? The Biden administration is the first to implement this “Foreign Policy for the Middle Class” messaging aimed at connecting high-minded foreign policy goals with ideas the middle class can support. In the last few weeks I’ve listened to podcasts, read articles, and seen talking heads espouse the lie that foreign policy doesn't win elections, and if the overwhelming number of “Undecided” votes cast in Michigan proves anything it’s that: 1) Democrats still have not made substantive connections between their foreign policy objectives, and the desires of the middle class, and 2) foreign policy does factor into elections. — Alexis
» Updates
Journalism as a Front of War: On American Media and the Ideology of the Status Quo
“And whether it is covering bombs and battlefields abroad or reporting on school districts, city council meetings, police, or gender domestically, journalism in the United States is especially steeped in warfront framing—because public discourse, culture, and language in America are literally referred to as wars.”
In this collection of essays regarding how Journalism in America sparks and perpetuates a culture of war through the language and framing used, we gain insight into how a culture of war and violence is created and valorized in America. — Alexis
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In Solidarity,
The 823 Team