Professor Sanjib Baruah on How the UN’s Ukraine Vote Shows the Racial Subtext of Global Politics
Sergiy Kyslytsya (on screens), Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations, addresses the UN General Assembly during a meeting to adopt a resolution demanding that Russia immediately end its military operations in Ukraine. UN Photo by Loey Felipe
In Professor of Political Studies Sanjib Baruah’s article “Not the World’s War,” published in the Indian Express, he argues that the ambivalence of many countries in condemning Russia has made the fault line between Europe and non-Europe visible. The UN resolution was supported by an overwhelming majority of countries with 35 abstaining to vote. Baruah points out that commentators have mostly speculated on the interests of the abstaining countries rather than try to understand their positions. “Ukrainians now strongly identify with ‘Europe’ and ‘the West.’ Unfortunately, these concepts are haunted by the memories of colonialism and racial segregation,” writes Baruah. “Orientalism, as Edward Said put it memorably, ‘is never far from … the idea of Europe, a collective notion identifying “us” Europeans against all “those” non-Europeans.’ ” Ambivalence from abstaining countries in “non-Europe,” according to Baruah, should hardly be surprising. “One can’t expect the struggle for recognition as privileged ‘Europeans’ to inspire warm sentiments of solidarity in non-Europe. In these circumstances, abstaining from the vote to reprimand Russia for its war on Ukraine was not an untenable position.”
by Sanjib Baruah
“Like sex in Victorian England . . . race is a taboo subject in contemporary polite society.” This is how the late R J Vincent, a highly regarded British international relations theorist, began his 1982 article, ‘Race in international relations’. Behind the diffidence about race, he said, there lurk dire apprehensions about racial divisions in international affairs. Apparently, Alec Douglas-Home, British prime minister in the early Sixties, was among the few politicians to publicly acknowledge such forebodings. Douglas-Home is reported to have said, “I believe the greatest danger ahead of us is that the world might be divided on racial lines. I see no danger, not even the nuclear bomb, which could be so catastrophic as that”.
His fears were not unfounded. It was during his brief tenure as prime minister (1963-64) that radical Black American leader Malcolm X appealed to the leaders of newly-independent African countries to place the issue of the persecution and violence against Blacks on the UN agenda. “If South African racism is not a domestic issue,” he said, “then American racism also is not a domestic issue.” US officials worried that if Malcolm X were to convince just one African government, US domestic politics might become the subject of UN debates. It would undermine US efforts to establish itself as leader of the West and a protector of human rights.
Two years ago, the worldwide protests against racism and police violence sparked by the police killing of George Floyd reminded everyone that the influential Black intellectual W E B Du Bois’s contention that America’s race problem “is but a local phase of a world problem” still resonates in large parts of the world.
Perhaps America’s Ambassador to the UN, Black diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield could have given some thought to DuBois’s prophetic words before commenting on the large number of African abstentions in the UN General Assembly vote deploring the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She vigorously rejected any analogy with the non-aligned stance of former colonial nations during the Cold War. The resolution was supported by an overwhelming majority of countries: 145 to 5 with 35 abstentions — India, China, and South Africa among them.
Post Date: 03-29-2022
Not the World’s War
(Originally published in print by Indian Express, excerpt below)by Sanjib Baruah
“Like sex in Victorian England . . . race is a taboo subject in contemporary polite society.” This is how the late R J Vincent, a highly regarded British international relations theorist, began his 1982 article, ‘Race in international relations’. Behind the diffidence about race, he said, there lurk dire apprehensions about racial divisions in international affairs. Apparently, Alec Douglas-Home, British prime minister in the early Sixties, was among the few politicians to publicly acknowledge such forebodings. Douglas-Home is reported to have said, “I believe the greatest danger ahead of us is that the world might be divided on racial lines. I see no danger, not even the nuclear bomb, which could be so catastrophic as that”.
His fears were not unfounded. It was during his brief tenure as prime minister (1963-64) that radical Black American leader Malcolm X appealed to the leaders of newly-independent African countries to place the issue of the persecution and violence against Blacks on the UN agenda. “If South African racism is not a domestic issue,” he said, “then American racism also is not a domestic issue.” US officials worried that if Malcolm X were to convince just one African government, US domestic politics might become the subject of UN debates. It would undermine US efforts to establish itself as leader of the West and a protector of human rights.
Two years ago, the worldwide protests against racism and police violence sparked by the police killing of George Floyd reminded everyone that the influential Black intellectual W E B Du Bois’s contention that America’s race problem “is but a local phase of a world problem” still resonates in large parts of the world.
Perhaps America’s Ambassador to the UN, Black diplomat Linda Thomas-Greenfield could have given some thought to DuBois’s prophetic words before commenting on the large number of African abstentions in the UN General Assembly vote deploring the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She vigorously rejected any analogy with the non-aligned stance of former colonial nations during the Cold War. The resolution was supported by an overwhelming majority of countries: 145 to 5 with 35 abstentions — India, China, and South Africa among them.
Post Date: 03-29-2022