Read The Roots of Obama's Rage Online
Authors: Dinesh D'Souza
The Roots of Obama's Rage (6 page)
A third anti-colonialist tenet is that colonialism is a system of piracy in which the wealth of the colonized countries is systematically stolen by the colonizers. In
The Wretched of the Earth
, Fanon writes, “The well being and progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians and the yellow races.” The Marxist scholar Walter Rodney makes the same point in
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
. Anti-colonialist writers insist that the former colonized countries are poor because the West is rich; the West, they say, became rich by looting the wealth and resources of other countries.
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The Wretched of the Earth
, Fanon writes, “The well being and progress of Europe have been built up with the sweat and the dead bodies of Negroes, Arabs, Indians and the yellow races.” The Marxist scholar Walter Rodney makes the same point in
How Europe Underdeveloped Africa
. Anti-colonialist writers insist that the former colonized countries are poor because the West is rich; the West, they say, became rich by looting the wealth and resources of other countries.
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A fourth tenet of anti-colonialism is that the colonial powers have a new leader: the United States. As Said puts it, “The United States has replaced the great earlier empires and is the dominant outside force.” Lest you naïvely think that America was not a colonial power and does not have a history of oppression like Britain or France, historians Michael Omi and Howard Winant draw our attention to what has happened within America. “The broad sweep of U.S. history is characterized not by racial democracy but by racial despotism, not by trajectories of reform but by implacable denial of political rights, dehumanization, extreme exploitation and policies of minority extirpation.” Omi and Winant are referring to the displacement of the native Indians, the seizure and occupation of their territory, the ideology of Manifest Destiny, the war with Mexico and the capture of large tracts of Mexican land, and the annexation of Hawaii, all aimed at expanding the settlement we now call the United States.
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Anti-colonial critics also point to the 1823 promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine, in which America basically declared that Central and South America were “our” sphere of influence, telling the European powers to stay out of “our” neighborhood. In the twentieth century, the United States routinely intervened in Central and South America to protect U.S. political interests and also the interests of U.S. corporations such as the United Fruit Company. Anti-colonialists also highlight America’s 50-year imperial adventure in the Philippines, which was short-lived by European standards but by itself discredits any attempt to declare America innocent of participation in colonial escapades.
And today? Well, anti-colonial critics say that the problem is worse than ever. While America’s global dominance has been evident since World War II, it has only increased with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union as a serious rival. So now America has the power and uses it to subjugate other countries and bring them under the American jackboot. Sometimes this is outright colonial occupation, as when American troops invade and occupy another country, such as Afghanistan or Iraq, but mostly America exercises its domination through political and economic strong-arm tactics. The effect is the same as what the Europeans once did: America uses its might to plunder the land and resources of the world, leaving behind a trail of dead and destitute nonwhite peoples.
This brings us to the fifth and final tenet of anti-colonialism, which is that there is no end to this system of injustice without getting the colonizers out. This may occur peacefully or it may require violence, but either way it must occur. Fanon calls this “total liberation.” But total liberation is not limited to taking down the foreign flags and sending the men in military uniforms home. Rather, it also requires purging the colonies of the enduring political and economic influence of colonialism. Here we have the crucial idea that colonialism does not necessarily end with national independence. Instead, anti-colonialists say, it can continue in subtle but powerful forms to dominate the life of supposedly free nations. Of the Western powers, Chinweizu writes, “Even now the fury of their expansionist assault upon the rest of us has not abated.” The Indian social critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak deplores what she considers to be “the continuing success of the imperialist project.”
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The idea that colonialism continues even after countries officially declare independence is called neocolonialism. In his book
Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism
, Kwame Nkrumah, who became the first president of independent Ghana, argues that Africa’s freedom was freedom only in name. That’s because “in reality its economic system and its political policy is directed from outside.” Nkrumah points to powerful Western corporations and other forces that, like puppet-masters, manipulate Africa’s destiny. For Nkrumah, there is only one way to fight back: socialism. Nkrumah insists that state socialism on the part of the newly independent peoples can effectively stop the new threat posed by neocolonialism.
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Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism
, Kwame Nkrumah, who became the first president of independent Ghana, argues that Africa’s freedom was freedom only in name. That’s because “in reality its economic system and its political policy is directed from outside.” Nkrumah points to powerful Western corporations and other forces that, like puppet-masters, manipulate Africa’s destiny. For Nkrumah, there is only one way to fight back: socialism. Nkrumah insists that state socialism on the part of the newly independent peoples can effectively stop the new threat posed by neocolonialism.
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Why is socialism the solution? How specifically are socialism and Marxism connected with anti-colonialism? Many people are surprised to discover that Marx was actually a defender of colonialism: he argued that it brought primitive societies into modernity and laid the foundation for industrialization and eventually communism. Marx predicted, however, that Communist revolution would occur first in the industrialized nations of Europe. That didn’t happen, and it was a serious problem for Marxists. In the beginning of the twentieth century, an English author, J. A. Hobson, formulated the ingenious thesis that the Western capitalist countries had delayed their internal economic crisis by invading foreign countries and pirating their wealth. In effect, European colonialism was the way to postpone European capitalism’s day of reckoning. In 1916, Lenin reformulated Hobson’s thesis in his well-known tract,
Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism
. As Lenin succinctly put it, “Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism.”
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Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism
. As Lenin succinctly put it, “Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism.”
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Notice the similarity between the titles used by Lenin and Nkrumah. Many anti-colonial leaders like Nkrumah embraced Lenin’s analysis and became lifelong socialists. Many of them didn’t even read Marx, but socialism was a way to position themselves against what they perceived to be an oppressive alliance between imperialism and capitalism. One of these anti-colonialists was Barack Obama Sr. Obama became an important figure in the Kenyan independence movement, but his greatest influence was not in Kenya. Rather, through an incredible osmosis, he was able to transmit his ideology to his son living in America. That man is today the president of the United States.
My argument in this book is that it is the anti-colonial ideology of his African father that Barack Obama took to heart. From a very young age and throughout his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America’s military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father’s position that the free market is a code word for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. He began to detest corporations as institutional mechanisms for economic control and exploitation. In Obama’s worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America’s power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe’s resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.
For Obama, the task ahead is simple: he must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. First, he must rein in the military so that it does not conduct wars of occupation against other countries. Then he must use American leverage to restrict military adventurism on the part of America’s allies, especially the former colonial powers in Europe. Even symbolic measures of humiliation are helpful in showing the former European colonialists that their day is now gone. In addition, Obama seeks to check American and Western consumption of global resources so that the former colonial (and now neocolonial) powers do not consume what belongs to others. Another objective for Obama is to bring the powerful sectors of American industry, such as the investment banks and health care, under government supervision and control. Obama seeks a large custodial state as a protection against the dangers of concentrated corporate power. Finally, Obama seeks to castigate and expose the rich, who are viewed as a neocolonial force within American society, so that they cease to be exploiters of the rest of the population.
It may seem shocking to suggest that this is Obama’s core ideology, and that he believes it still. That is what I am saying. I am not suggesting that Obama has a comprehensive knowledge of anti-colonialism; a whole body of anti-colonial scholarship, associated with such names as Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, V. S. Naipaul, and Derek Walcott seems unknown to him. Nor am I implying that anti-colonial views are the only determinants of Obama’s beliefs. Certainly I admit that Obama must occasionally and pragmatically bend to the realities of a given situation or to the exigencies of politics. Still, Obama’s anti-colonialism is deeply felt, and it suffuses his writings and speeches. In fact, it is the moral and intellectual foundation of his ideology. In a sense, I am saying nothing more than what Obama himself says: that his father’s dream has become his dream. It is a dream that, as president, he is imposing with a vengeance on America and the world.
CHAPTER 3
OBAMA’S PRIVATE WAR
T
he best way to verify a theory is to test its explanatory power. Our theory, derived from Obama’s testimony, is that he adopted his ideals from his father, and we know that his father’s ideals were anti-colonial ideals. Based on this, we are in a position to examine the merits of our theory by checking it against what Obama is actually saying and doing. If the theory can account for Obama’s major policies and enable us to predict what he is going to do in the future, then we are really onto something. But if the theory can also explain the little details about Obama, details that otherwise seem puzzling or mysterious, that would give our paradigm a degree of confirmation that very few comprehensive theories enjoy in politics.
he best way to verify a theory is to test its explanatory power. Our theory, derived from Obama’s testimony, is that he adopted his ideals from his father, and we know that his father’s ideals were anti-colonial ideals. Based on this, we are in a position to examine the merits of our theory by checking it against what Obama is actually saying and doing. If the theory can account for Obama’s major policies and enable us to predict what he is going to do in the future, then we are really onto something. But if the theory can also explain the little details about Obama, details that otherwise seem puzzling or mysterious, that would give our paradigm a degree of confirmation that very few comprehensive theories enjoy in politics.
So let’s see if our working hypothesis fits the data available to us. We do this by putting on anti-colonial spectacles and viewing the world through those lenses. Events are reported in the press one way, but we are going to see them Obama’s way. This approach not only has the benefit of giving us a radically different angle of vision. It also enables us to see how Obama, who obviously cannot reveal his true motivations, must constantly translate his ideology into terms that are accessible and palatable to the American people. In other words, our theory about Obama also predicts his mode of rhetorical delivery. If we are right about him, then he has to be careful about what he says.
He cannot say he hates the rich, so he has to talk about fairness and equality. He cannot say America is a nuclear menace to the world, so he has to say that he wants a nuclear-free world. He cannot say he thinks Wall Street is evil, so he must accuse the investment firms of not looking out for the interests of Main Street. Obama sometimes blows it; he doesn’t always succeed with his anti-colonial marketing. Even his attempt, however, is impressive; this is a skill he has been honing for many years. Thus even as we verify our working theory about Obama’s ideology, we can also admire the “translation” skills of a true political artist.
A good way to begin is with Obama’s cool, detached temperament. Even typical liberal causes such as egalitarianism and the eradication of poverty don’t seem to excite him. The minimum wage scarcely moves him as an issue, and he has never been known to show a passion for recycling. But Obama’s voice rises in pitch when he condemns the scoundrels on Wall Street or gives a tongue-lashing to the CEOs of large banks or insurance companies. “The rich in America have little to complain about,” Obama wrote in
The Audacity of Hope
. Recently in Illinois he condemned well-heeled executives for trying to earn as much as possible. Obama snapped, “I do think that at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
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The Audacity of Hope
. Recently in Illinois he condemned well-heeled executives for trying to earn as much as possible. Obama snapped, “I do think that at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”
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This seems like an odd thing for a president to say. Isn’t it good for America that Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett, who have more money than they can ever spend, still continue to do what they are doing? I am not concerned, however, with the merits of Obama’s statement. Rather, I want to draw attention to what makes the guy irritable and mad, what makes him go bitter and sarcastic on us. The answer: big corporations and rich people.
Obama seems to have a longstanding prejudice against these groups. After graduating from college in 1983, Obama hoped to become a community activist. But first he went to work for a company to make some money. He described himself as “a spy behind enemy lines” in a “consulting house to multinational corporations” where he allegedly hung out with financiers and bond traders. “I had my own office, my own secretary, money in the bank.” Dan Armstrong, a former work colleague, pointed out on his blog that Obama had no private office and no secretary. Nor was he employed by a major consulting firm, but rather as a copy editor for a small, low-paying newsletter company.
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Obama’s exaggeration is not important here; what is important is his attempt to portray even his service at this lowly outpost of capitalism as a kind of political espionage.
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Obama’s exaggeration is not important here; what is important is his attempt to portray even his service at this lowly outpost of capitalism as a kind of political espionage.
On May 13, 2009, Obama delivered the commencement address at Arizona State University where he told the graduating seniors, “You’re taught to chase after the usual brass rings, being on this ‘who’s who’ list or that top 100 list, how much money you make and how big your corner office is; whether you have a fancy enough title or a nice enough car. Let me suggest that such an approach won’t get you where you want to go. It displays a poverty of ambition.”
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It may seem strange for a president to be lecturing students on the perils of economic striving in the teeth of a recession. But if you recognize that when Obama hears the word “profit,” he thinks of neocolonial “exploitation,” then all of Obama’s stern rhetoric becomes comprehensible. Not that it makes sense, but we can see why he said it. Notice how artfully he puts it, though. “The poverty of ambition” is a typical Obama phrase. Obama criticizes ambition, but not in the name of modesty or restraint; rather, he implies that there is some higher form of ambition just waiting to be discovered by a new generation of young people. Could it be that this ambition is for organized activism against rich people and profit-making companies—Obama’s own chosen vocation?
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It may seem strange for a president to be lecturing students on the perils of economic striving in the teeth of a recession. But if you recognize that when Obama hears the word “profit,” he thinks of neocolonial “exploitation,” then all of Obama’s stern rhetoric becomes comprehensible. Not that it makes sense, but we can see why he said it. Notice how artfully he puts it, though. “The poverty of ambition” is a typical Obama phrase. Obama criticizes ambition, but not in the name of modesty or restraint; rather, he implies that there is some higher form of ambition just waiting to be discovered by a new generation of young people. Could it be that this ambition is for organized activism against rich people and profit-making companies—Obama’s own chosen vocation?
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