Doug wrote:
> >To the women too? Or just the men?
joanna bujes:
> According to Fannon, to both women and men. He has a long essay on the
> unveiling of women in Algeria in his book on colonialism. I forget the
> exact title. It's not "White Skin Black Masks" and it's not "Wretched of
> the Earth." What he was saying made sense.
>
> I am not writing as an anti-feminist. Once upon a time, I was in a
> trotskyist group in San Francisco and a young woman came to attend a
> meeting. At the end, she said that what she found really hard to take about
> us commies was the way we wanted to impose a homogeneous code of behavior
> upon people and that we didn't respect "cultural differences." I responded
> very vehemently that it was hard to talk about freedom when half the
> population has to walk around with a paper bag over their head (veil). I
> still think that. But I also think that the liberation of women: how it
> happens, why it happens is much more complicated than we were led to
> believe.
But does the empire of Capital have any choice? It seems to me that its internal logic dictates its expansion by whatever means necessary into any and all unexploited regions. This would include, eventually, the imposition of liberalism and capitalism on the most recalcitrant areas, by seduction if possible, by violence if necessary. The being the case we must expect to see feminism of the liberal variety (women are differently-shaped men who can compete for the same jobs and roles) in Afghanistan as in America, even while everyone pays the most profound respect to cultural differences and other noble savage things. I have the vague idea that Marx regarded this sort of thing as progress, in fact, speaking of commies.
-- Gordon