Gwendolyn Albert: Connections of the ultra-right in the USA with the Kremlin reveal the persistent ideology of "white supremacy"
The British daily The Guardian recently reported on the connections between the ultra-right in the USA and the Kremlin, specifically with regard to the ongoing victimization of Ukraine. The facts discussed in that article make sense if we look at world history from a broader perspective. Why are fascists from the USA joining forces today with authoritarian Russia? Their convictions regarding "white supremacy" are one of the things that brings them together. Let me explain what I mean by that.
Because I was born in, grew up in, and studied in the state of California in the United States of America, I consider it my duty to recall that many eminent figures from my native country and my native state were pioneers in the early 20th century of the absurd, racist, repugnant concept of “white supremacy”. That idea did not start with Hitler. It was born in my native country and cultivated there decades before Hiter’s rise to power. Leading scientists promoted it internationally, including ones from Austria-Hungary and later, from independent Czechoslovakia.
This concept was inextricably linked to the pseudo-science of “eugenics”, which viewed human beings as ranked on a scale of inferiority and superiority, as animals whose reproduction should be manipulated for the purpose of achieving certain results. In its most extreme form, this way of thinking required that the human beings who were considered “unfit” be prevented from reproducing – and in very extreme cases, that they be killed, as those who aided and incited the Holocaust were to do.
This philosophy led to forced sterilization programs, to racial limitations on marriage, and to the adoption of segregationist laws in more than half of America’s states. In the year 1909, California adopted such laws and became a significant center of the eugenics movement. On the basis of those laws, tens of thousands of forced sterilizations were performed until 1979. The state of California did not officially apologize for facilitating those sterilizations until the year 2003.
After the Holocaust, the General Assembly of the United Nations unanimously adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948. Let’s recall some of what the Convention says. Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following actions committed with the intention to destroy a national, ethnic, “racial”, or religious group per se, in whole or in part:
- killing members of the group,
- causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group,
- deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,
- imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group,
- forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
As human rights defenders have already documented, it is exactly this last aspect that is being practiced by Russia during its unlawful invasion and occupation of Ukraine.
Other aspects of genocide continnue to be perpetrated worldwide. Humanity is not progressing.
There is no doubt that the absurd idea of “white supremacy” is as strong today as it has ever been. It’s why Americans like Steve Bannon and Elon Musk use the Nazi salute with smirks on their faces. Donald Trump’s likes and dislikes also follow the color line. People today remain connected by ideologies which have persisted through the centuries, and this is one of them.
Another persistent ideology is the belief in democracy, equality, freedom, and human rights – and people worldwide have also developed that line through the centuries.
The accident of your birth in a certain body or on a certain part of the globe should not limit you. The authoritarians and fascists of the world, however, want to do nothing but limit you. Do not let them.
