BRITISH Prime Minister Keir Starmer was recently accused of having a ‘colonial mindset’ by fellow lawmakers for declining to discuss slavery reparations in the Commonwealth Summit in Samoa. PM Starmer claimed his denial stemmed from a desire to “look forward” rather than holding ‘discussions on the past’.

The construct ‘colonial mindset’ is a powerful one, for as authors like Frantz Fanon, Edward Said and Bernard Cohn explain, colonialism was as much an exercise in psychological control as it was of physical domination. The brown denizen of the subcontinent, for instance, was forced to recognise and internalise the white man’s superiority — a mental trauma that people of colour continue to carry today.

This perpetuation of colonial forms of control — both covert and overt — necessitates a scrutiny of PM Starmer’s dismissal of even discourse around slavery and reparations. Defence couched in ‘looking forward’ remains unsatisfactory as well, primarily because as we witness today, the past continues to inform and shape the present.

Dismissal of an open and honest conversation on past depredations is thus not only flawed but also points towards a deeper malaise: the inability to recognise how modes of control continue to operate, which disenfranchise the Global South. This takes on numerous forms: harsher immigration policies and hate towards refugees, heightened surveillance of black and brown bodies and communities, condoning genocide and the contrasting responses to Ukraine and Palestine.

The Global South must not dismiss the past’s impact on lives.

In some aspects, therefore, PM Starmer is correct; there is a dire need to look forward, but any efforts to mould the future must actively engage with structures of injustice inherited from the past. This requires a critical discourse on colonialism, race, gender, Islamophobia, inequality and the global financial structure.

The inability to launch or sustain critical discourse highlights yet another fundamental concern: the dearth and sheer impotency of modern political discourse and activism. Ever since the advent of neoliberalism in the 1970s and the rise of the ‘new left’, the ideological spectrum in the political landscape has drastically shrunk, converging on what Tariq Ali calls the “extreme centre”: a vapid political domain where economic exigencies emphasising GDP growth dominate other concerns.

This phenomenon is not limited to the UK. It is prevalent across the world, including in the US where conversations on race and drastically rising inequality are jettisoned in favour of economic growth. This has resulted in an ‘indistinguishable political elite’, to yet again quote Tariq Ali, one that offers little alternative or solutions to impending crises. Conversations on means of production, inequality, and curtailing capitalism are dismissed as ‘too radical’, further revealing this dearth of imagination and political alternatives. Instead, half-baked solutions are proffered that do not address underlying causes. The inability to effectively tackle climate change globally or address land-use and developmental models triggering smog in Pakistan serve as examples.

Dissent, however, finds avenues for expression. This occurs on the margins through the rise of populist movements including Donald Trump’s and the far right which are casually dismissed by the mainstream. Very often, this dissent manifests in violence as we saw with the Occupy Wall Street Movement in 2011 and the more recent Islamophobic hysteria in the UK. Present upheavals across the world — protests in Pakistan against a private educational institute, the overthrow of Hasina Wajid in Bangladesh or farmer agitation in France can all be contextualised in the larger economic and political failings of our day.

What does all this mean for the Global South? First, we must actively recognise the past and not dismiss its continuous impact on our lives. Justifications of colonialism including ‘they gave us railways and the penal code’ too must be criticised, recognising how colonialism altered the very social fabric and psyches of non-white societies. This backdrop must then inform attempts at reform that highlight not just reparations but also change in immigration and employment policies in the West, and greater First World responsibility to combat climate change.

Considering the anaemic political environment, this is a protracted struggle but it is a necessary one to rectify centuries of historical injustice. Individuals such as Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Clive Lewis — British lawmakers who called out PM Starmer on his stance on reparations — and dissident voices like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar in the US — show us that silver linings do hide behind the clouds.

The writer is a civil servant and is currently pursuing graduate studies at the University of Oxford.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024