IHRC hosted an engaging author evening on Thursday, February 6, 2025, featuring Houria Bouteldja and her latest book, Rednecks and Barbarians: Uniting the White and Racialized Working Class. The online event was moderated by Arzu Merali.
Rednecks and Barbarians and Whites, Jews, and Us: Toward a Politics of Revolutionary Love can be purchased from the IHRC Bookshop.
Watch the full Author Evening here.
Read the event report here.
Arzu Merali: Salaam Alaikum, peace. Welcome to IHRC and IHRC Bookshop and Gallery’s latest author evening. If you don’t know me, I’m Arzu. I’ll be chairing this evening. We’re honoured to welcome once more our friend, Horia Boutelja, who has graced the bookshop with her presence many times already, and IHRC’s conferences and many, many times more. Welcome.
If you don’t already know Houria, she is a French Algerian political activist and writer. She served as spokesperson for the party of the indigenous of the Republic until 2020. She’s the author of ‘Whites, Jews and Us: Towards a Politics of Revolutionary Love’, and she lives in Paris, France. She’s here today to speak about her latest book, ‘Rednecks and Barbarians, Uniting the White and Racialized Working Class’.
Before proceeding with our conversation, a couple of things. Firstly, you can buy the book from the IHRC Bookshop online or in person online. It’s shop.ihrc.org. That’s shop.ihrc.org. All profits go to one of the charitable causes undertaken by IHRC, so do please consider buying it from them. And there’s also a discount on the book until tomorrow night and also on ‘White’s Jews and Us’. Please use the code, HOURIA15, that’s HOURIA15 at the checkout.
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To begin, here’s an overview of the book, after which I would invite Houria to start this session by reading an extract. In Europe and North America, we see a trend of the white working class tempted by right-wing political parties. Fascistic candidates and ideas seem to reap the fruits of social unrest everywhere. With her usual thought provoking and unyielding analysis, Houria Boutdelja shows how the history of the left explains this conundrum and how we can overcome it. Drawing from what the book draws from, she draws from black radical and decolonial Marxism. She shows that by privileging white constituencies, unions and left parties laid the foundations for a racial contract that binds workers and the poor to the state.
However, there may still be a way out of this trap. Uniting rednecks, that’s the white working class, and barbarians, the racially oppressed, will require a project of popular sovereignty, where national identity is reworked through revolutionary love. Looking to the future, Boutdelja pitches anti-racism has a redemptive struggle aimed not only at rehabilitating non-whites but also redefining white dignity. With that, Houria, please, if you could join us, please do read your extract and for those of you who have the book and are following it is from page 107.
Houria Bouteldja: This is the beginning of the chapter called ‘Do Whites Love Children?’
First of all, I want to apologise for my English. I’m going to read.
One day as I was leaving a debate I had been invited to participate in, I was challenged by a white leftist in her 40s. She could hardly conceal her anger and spoke in a febrile voice. Here is my recollection of our brief exchange:
Her: “Madame Bouteldja, you’re known to us and we know you don’t give a damn about the plight of homosexuals. That’s your right, I guess, but there’s one question you can’t escape with, your morality intact. And it has to do with our children. You can be against gay rights, you can hold forth about homosexuality as a Western phenomenon, but the fact is that there are children at stake. Do you know what a child with two moms or two dads has to endure? Do you know what it’s like for an eight year old to have to put up with the jeering and mockery of their classmates? I resent you for that and I want you to know it!
The children. The sledgehammer argument had been released.
Me: “May I ask you a question?
Her: “Yes.”
Me: “Do you know if there are children in Mali?”
She looked at me, taken aback.
I repeated my question: “Do you know if there are children in Mali?”
Her: “I don’t understand what you mean by this question. Of course there are children in Mali.”
Me: “You claim to know that there are children in Mali, but I don’t think you do. You don’t know if there are children in Mali or not, because you see, I’ve been watching you for many months. You, the France that claims to love its children, I’ve been watching you. I’ve been watching the confrontation between two white France’s unfold during the debate on equal marriage, conservative France versus progressive France. Right-wing and far-right France versus left-wide and far-left France, reactionary France versus humanist France. You, Madam, identify with humanist France. I’ve seen France mobilize powerful energies and affects, fervour and faith on both sides.”
Indeed, it was rather impressive because for both of these France’s, something deeply ethical was playing out, especially around the question of children. But let me continue.
Me: “… This lasted several months. But did you know that Francois Hollande declared war on Mali precisely during this time?”
Her: “I don’t recall.”
Me: “I do. And do you know why? Because I know that there are children in Mali. And do you know how many marches the left organized to condemn this war?
None.
You didn’t know this either because the left you belong to, the left that loves its children, just as the right does, doesn’t know that there are children in Mali because if it did, it would be outraged. And it would also be outraged for those children who were killed or orphaned by all the dirty French wars. So, when you claim to know that there are children in Mali, you are lying. I’m telling you something you don’t know. I’m just like you. You don’t know that there are children in Mali, just like I don’t know that you have children. How could I be worried about them when I don’t even know they exist?”
Arzu Merali: Houria, thank you for reading that very powerful, I think almost middle way part of your book. For me, at least, it’s the confrontation that you’re trying to resolve in this work. I just wondered when it’s that stark. And I feel the pain that you’re going through. I think a lot of us watching will also be thinking, ‘yeah, that’s what we go through.’ And that’s the impasse. How do you see, in reality, the point of break where that cycle can be opened up. And I will pick up on some of the things you’ve written, but just as you’ve chosen that as an extract, where do you want to start?
Houria Bouteldja: Can you just repeat the question?
Arzu Merali: So, this impasse between the barbarian and the redneck, that’s so kind of perfectly exemplified by this. Obviously, you’ve expanded in the book how you see that future of breaking that cycle. But maybe for those who are not familiar with the book, could you maybe give one or two pointers and then we can interrogate them a little bit?
Houria Bouteldja: First of all, the first thing to say is that it’s very difficult today to imagine, to overcome this impasse. Because it was written two or three years before the war on Gaza. How many children had been killed during this war, during October 7? What I wrote in this book is the perfect example of the way the West doesn’t care about children, doesn’t care at all, because I think half of the people who died in Gaza are children. First, it’s very difficult to be positive, to have faith, to keep its face on humanity. But at the same time, we have to fight.
So, I try to imagine that it is possible. The first reason why it is possible is because whiteness is not biological. Whiteness is historical. And something that has been constructed by history can be destructed by history. So, whiteness can be destroyed. If I think, and if you think that whiteness cannot be destroyed, first, it means that you are racist because you think from a biological point of view. And the second thing is that if you don’t believe that, there’s no use to fight. We have to capitulate right now. But I understand that people are very pessimistic. I understand that very perfectly.
But I think that if we have children, we have, we must, it’s a duty to fight. So, what makes me believe that something is possible? I think that the episode of the yellow jackets, the yellow vest in France was a kind of example of the fact that whiteness is not always, racism is not always dominating white people, not always. In this episode, while if you know France, you know that French citizens are submitted to a kind of a huge Islamophobic offensive since 20 years. The result should be that all French people are very, very, very Islamophobic. It’s not really the case. The states and the elites are very Islamophobic. A large part of the whites are racist. But during this episode, Islamophobia was not the main motivation for the whites to get involved in the struggle against the state. Is it clear? It’s clear.
So, at this moment, white, poor people and us, at this moment we had the same enemy and it was possible to make alliances on this objective. And I think it’s still the case because in France, I’m not talking about England, I’m not talking about Germany, in France there is a kind of left which represents 20% of the electorate who is based on the struggle against capitalism, against racism and for Palestine. I’m not saying that this left is decolonial, not at all. I’m not saying that this left is revolutionary, but its political project is correct.
In France, there is this little hope, in France. But when we see what is happening in Italy, in Germany, in the United States with Trump, it’s so scary. It’s threatening for the world that I don’t know if this alternative in France can overcome this situation.
Arzu Merali: If you forgive me because obviously I’m reading the book through the experience of the United Kingdom. But this moment you’re talking about the yellow vests and the common enemy of the state, I mean this was the rallying cry of the left in the United Kingdom, I guess in the 70s, maybe the very early 80s, before the miner strike which polarised people in all sorts of different directions. And it is to a certain extent also the cry now. But I, you know, I worry that maybe we didn’t learn the lessons of that period because the lessons of that period were far from decolonial and they ended up being also far from being anti-racist because oppressed and racialised people were basically turned into workers, to use your phrase, but just lower in the pecking order and, you know, de-racialized in terms of their expectations.
Now, I don’t know, France, all that well, in your book, you’re talking about the early 80s and certain of the mobilizations at that time. Is what’s happening now different or is there a kind of similarity, but there are lessons learned or is this a completely new scenario?
Houria Bouteldja: We are talking about the situation in the 80’s?
Arzu Merali: Yeah, you mentioned about the great mobilization against racism and so on and so forth, of which the left was a part, right? It was less. So, are you looking at a similar moment, a better moment, a worse moment, a completely different moment in France to that point in time?
Houria Bouteldja: The fact is that the French state is getting fascist, really. And the moment there is a positive evolution in the left. In this precise moment, it makes the state more fascist because when a kind of anti-racist and anti-imperialist left is becoming aware of what are called the racial contracts, and when this left is trying to cut, to make a rupture about this racial contract, this is the moment when the state and the fascist state, the racist state become more and more vigorous, more and more fascist.
So, it is a very strange moment because I think that I’ve never seen a white left being so anti-racist, so good. Really, the deputies of La France Insoumise are very, very courageous. For us, it’s very strange, but it’s the reality. And this is because they are making a rupture about the racial contract. This is because of that, that they are now considered as the party of the Muslims. And they are now suffering from something like Islamophobia. For example, all this white left is called now Islamo-Bolshevik. And they are treated like us. Really. Some of them are prosecuted by the state. I’m talking about deputies. Some of the conferences are cancelled by the state, but the universities, I’m talking about deputies, people who had been elected by the people. So now fascism is upon them, not only us.
So, for me, this is a huge contradiction because I’ve never seen a left that is so coherent on our issues and so courageous and at the same time, the state now is behaving like a savage.
Arzu Merali: So, this goes back to what you state at the outset, right, about the racial contract. And I want to pick up this idea about how much of the left you said is about 20%, right? But that means there is another left that’s left behind, if you forgive me, which is still bound up in what you describe as naturalistic on the one side with the right and with the left, historical approach, historicist, excuse me, approaches to racism basically or how race operates in terms of structuring the state and excluding, managing social relations. I was going to say racial race relations, but it’s actually social relations, right?
First of all, and I really appreciate you outlining it this way that state actually only exists in this way because of the fear of the ruling classes, right? And it keeps everyone antagonized between each other. Now, we have this bit of the left-left. So first, my first question is, how much of a left is there in France, which is not getting the message, and which is therefore then right to do what you’ve described for about half of the book, which is a very painful history of France, with the left, particularly the communists, but not only the communists, even to a certain extent, the trade union movement, which is otherwise historically, it seems, quite radical on the issue of quote unquote the barbarians. In this current moment, what is the possibility of damage by a left which is not on board, which is not on message?
Houria Bouteldja: A part of the left, I’m talking about the socialist party, the communist party and even the extreme left. A big part of it is against the left we support, the anti-Islamophobic left. So there is a conflict between the left on the issue of the racial contract. In the left, as you know, as you imagine, we have a lot of enemies, a lot of enemies still and the right and the far right are doing what they can to antagonize the left.
Arzu Merali: So, I suppose one of the questions I have picking up from that, was looking for my next question, which is one slightly distracted. I’m trying to join the two together. You have this problematic left. How does it operate at the grassroots? And the reason I’m asking this is because we’ve had a complete collapse of the left in this country. I obviously, I’m worried about direct comparisons.
One of the issues that we’ve had is that we had the progressive moment in 2015 to 2017. Yes. It collapsed very quickly. And I don’t want to go into my take on that post 2017. But what we have had as the result is that kind of what we felt was that movement of the oppressed white working class and the racialized communities. Yeah. With an internationalist view.
Fragmented not just into pieces and not just into the sort of, I would say we haven’t got what you’re describing as that kind of on board, on message structured left, okay? We’ve just got that problematic left, but we have a massive peel away at the grassroots to the far right. This week, in the last week in the United Kingdom, for the first time, the far right party is ahead in the polls. We didn’t have a far right party till a few years ago, right? So, at this moment of, it seems immense opportunity from what you’re describing in France and completely distinct from what we have here. And you’ve seen in your elections, you’ve seen the popularity of Marine Le Pen and the far left side of Front National.
What is the actual trajectory? Are you seeing a mass leaving from the left to the right? Or is this an old constituency that’s just now prouder to speak up and out about being openly left? Or as we have here, do even have racialized groups going in that direction?
Houria Bouteldja: In the direction of the far right? I think maybe we have the same problem. I think all the citizens of the capitalist countries are going in direction of the right. And we have in our community, in the right-wing communities, a lot of people saying that they don’t care. Now they can vote for the far right. Not because they believe in the far right, but because they hate the left. They hate really the left because they think that the left betrayed them.
I’m talking about the racialized people, but it’s the same for the whites. It’s quite the same. The masses were in the 60s were communists, most of them. Now, a third of them vote for the far right, a third for the left and a third for no one. But only the far right is increasing its votes.
Arzu Merali: So, then this moment of rapprochement or disruption through revolutionary love, we’re talking about effectively reaching out to the far-right masses. Am I reading it correctly?
Houria Bouteldja: We are talking to those who still vote left, to those who don’t vote at all. It’s a mass. I think that the ones who don’t vote in France are the first party in France among the popular classes. So, we have to reach them. We have to talk to them. And for those who are voting for the far right, it depends because I think it’s important to make a difference between being a far-right voter and being fascists. I think that the elites are really fascists and I think that a part of those who are voting for the far-right cannot be treated as fascists. I don’t think that they want a fascist government, but they are racists.
But they are racist for reasons we have to understand. I don’t want to say that we have to be to understand or to complain for them. I’m not saying that. We have to understand for political reasons. And I think one of the reasons they want the far right, it’s because the discourse of the far right is a protective discourse, is a discourse saying that we are going to protect you in this world where you don’t understand anything. There is no more democracy. If you want a hospital, you can’t because Europe decides for you. You don’t have any power. You lose everything.
So, we have to understand this sentiment, this feeling that they think that they’re losing the country. The problem is that only the far right is able to address this question. If people are afraid, if people are scared about what happens in the world, I think that we have to take that very seriously. And we have to address this question. Decolonial people and the left have to address and find answers to that fear.
Arzu Merali: I want to pick up on that idea about answers in a bit. I’ll pick up about Frexit. But I wanted to just look for a little bit because you mentioned about the vote, right? the favourite part of this book for me is your chapter on race and civil society, because you kind of put very bluntly what very few people really want to say about Western liberal democracy, right? And if you forgive me, I’ll just read a little bit. Yeah.
“To vote in a Western democracy is to cast a blank vote. When one fulfils one’s electoral duty in France, Great Britain or the United States, one costs a blank vote because choices exercised within the ideological boundaries established by the white political field, which is by definition enclosed on all sides by class division and so to speak, horizonless. And yet the characterization of class division as white indicates that there is a color and that the battle between the bourgeoisie and the people, as ferocious as it may be, respects the racial colonial paradigm that closes in on the political field like a corset. Disunited by antagonistic class relations, the two patterned blocks are united by race. A civil society that is birthed from this history is therefore branded by the colours of white compromise,” a phrase that I think is very important. That’s my intervention, excuse me. “A civil society that is birthed from this history is therefore branded by the colours of white compromise, which it must be subjected to for lack of daring and imagination and which it must validate out of an instinct for self-preservation. Judge for yourselves. A vote for the far right is a vote for white supremacy, the watchdog of the bourgeoisie. A vote for the right is a vote for the imperialist bourgeoisie. A vote for the institutional left is a vote for bourgeois reformism. A vote for the Communist Party is a vote for class collaboration. A vote for the far left is rare. To vote is to cast a blank vote.”
So what… And I appreciate that you don’t have all the answers, you’re identifying the space, but I’m just wondering what you see as possible to fill in to that blankness, to how do we basically take this space which is not just devoid of expression of the racialized classes but in effect has no meaning for the white majority or the white communities by the elite and the ruling classes. What is your proposal for filling that space? You said you want to take the issues that are upsetting people seriously, one of them is security.
Can we really, I don’t know the answer myself, I’m just teasing this out, can we really sort of make those who are clutching onto this whiteness, the security of whiteness, feel better, feel safer, feel secure without white compromise? And I feel like that is the dilemma for all of us, whatever the nation state we’re living in.
Houria Bouteldja: Yes. I think the first thing is to have the good analysis on what is the state. I think what we like politically, we like a good analysis, a good materialistic analysis on the state. This is why the first thing I wanted to do with that book is to propose a concept of the state. This is why I talked in this book about the integral racial states. It’s important to know that and to know who is the state? Who is the state?
My answer is following what Gramsci…following the lessons of Gramsci, is that the state is not only the institutions, the police, the army, the school, the justice, it’s not only that. The state is also composed by the political parties. And the state is also the people. What Gramsci called the integral state is the organic link between the state and its institutions, the political forces and the citizens. This is the state. It’s important to understand that.
It’s important if you want to understand why capitalism is permanent and why racism is permanent. Racism is permanent because it’s not only a product of the states. It’s a will of the parties. It’s a will of the people. No one is innocent. No one is innocent in the permanency of racism, in the fact that racism is structural. Because there is a deal, there is a racial deal, a racial pact, a racial contract between the bourgeoisie that is dominating the state, the parties, even the communist parties, even the left parties that decided to make a class struggle. There is a class struggle between the lower classes and the bourgeoisie, of course, but it is a class struggle limited by the fact that all of them agrees on imperialism and colonialism. All of them, even the left, even the communists. This is what I call the organic link between the labour classes and the states, and of course the citizens.
So, if we want to fight really against racism and to make the alliance I want to do between the white labour class and the non-white labour class, we have to destroy this state. We have to destroy this state. It means not the state as it is, but we have to destroy the link. This link, this organic link between the political forces of the left that represent the labour classes and the states. This this rupture that can make possible something. If this rupture doesn’t occur, nothing will be possible.
Arzu Merali: There’s two directions I can go. I can go to the earlier part of your book or to the later. I’m just trying to work out which. Let’s go to the later part because I think we’re talking about forward strategies. In terms of disruption, the big sort of strategy you refer to is Frexit. I’m on the side of leaving the European Union. And I won’t lie, I a little panic when I read it because we’re living 10 years after Brexit and it’s not been a happy place for anyone. And now that could well be because of the failures of political mobilization in so far as there were any.
However, I feel like it’s a salutary warning to France in terms of what you could expect. And I say this specifically because, I mean, over here, we had, again, racialized people mobilizing for Brexit, in some ways they may have even delivered Brexit without one or two percent marginalized points, but they did so on the basis of the racial contract. They actually had somehow aspired to a kind of whiteness and had configured the Eastern European workers in their mind as the old days, the blacks, right?
Really what is your, it sounds grand, not strategy, but what kind of differences are there to prevent that being Frexit in what you imagine? Because that seems to me to be the big warning and lesson you could learn from here.
Houria Bouteldja: Thank you for this question because it’s very important. First, there is no Frexit or Brexit good or bad in itself. You are living a very bad situation in Great Britain with the Brexit. And we are living a very bad situation in France with Europe. Europe is very bad. Europe is like something like a super racial state. It’s the same. Fascism is growing and growing. Thanks to Europe.
So, first of all, Brexit, Frexit is not good or bad in itself. My question is what kind of Brexit and what kind of Frexit? Of course, a right wing Brexit is bad. This is what happened to England. But I’m talking about a decolonial Frexit. I’m talking about a left wing and decolonial Frexit. It’s not the same at all. It depends on the program. It depends on that.
What I want to say is that in France, and I think in Great Britain too, in several countries in Europe, in 2005, the citizens, most of them were whites, voters from the right or the left, said no to Europe. They said no because they are against Europe for social reasons, because Europe is for the rich. So, they said no to Europe. I’m talking about the lower classes in France, left or right. So, I think it’s a base to do something. If they are against Europe, because Europe is against their social interests, which is true. Europe is anti-social. Europe is anti-democratic.
So, I understand why they are against Europe. So, the reason why they are against Europe are good reasons. I think it’s a base to do something. Because as a decolonial, I know that Europe is imperialist, is racist, and is anti-immigrants and it’s anti-democratic and it’s anti-social. So, I, as a decolonial, I am against this Europe. So, I have good reasons for the Frexit. And at the same time, white people, lower class people are against Europe. So, this is a thing we can agree on. Now the program, the project, has to be decolonial because well if you come back to France, France is a white state, I know that. But what we have to know strategically is if the French bourgeoisie built Europe is because French bourgeoisie was weak.
And I think all the European bourgeoisie decided to come together because after they lose their empire. So, it was a way to stay strong. It was a way to stay imperialist. So, if you understand that they need to be together at the European level to be very strong.
It’s obvious that coming back to the national level is a way to weaken the French bourgeoisie. So, for me, it’s a strategic aim. It’s a strategic aim because the lower classes agree on Europe. There’s no problem on that. And it’s a way to put the class struggle before the racial struggle between the whites and the non-whites. Do understand what I mean?
Arzu Merali: Definitely. Definitely understood. I would just say that then, so the decolonial program has to come before the Frexit, but the impetus for Frexit may come before the decolonial programme is established.
Houria Bouteldja: I would like the decolonial project to come before, problem is that how many people are we to impose the decolonial project? This is a question of balance of power.
Arzu Merali: So, I was going to just say while we’re talking to open up the floor to questions from the audience who are watching online. I see we already have one. So, I’m going to just ask that and then we can continue talking and inshallah more questions will come. So, this is from Yahya Birt: “Can the integral racial state only be broken by ending the racial solidarity between the white bourgeoisie and proletariat? Or does it also require multipolarity to end Euro-American unipolarity?”
Houria Bouteldja: Of course, it requires multipolarity to endure American. I think in each national state, have to go in this direction. But in the same time, we have to build international solidarity, of course, in the same time. And yes, it requires multipolarity.
Arzu Merali: So, picking up from that, because one of the things that this conversation about Europe, and I’m thinking about Malcolm X and internationalizing the struggles, right? This conflict between reverting to the whiteness of France and trying to work on it internally versus internationalization and what that could mean. If you’re saying the EU is out, but then what about institutions like the United Nations? What about BRICS? What about all the other kind of possible international configurations there are that could feed into this process. Does it have meaning or does it have to be solely kind of purely through a French reimagination of the decline of the racial contract or the destruction of the racial contract shows?
Houria Bouteldja: I’m not sure to have understood the question.
Arzu Merali: Okay, so forgive me, I was rambling a bit, so that’s my bad. In terms of internationalising struggles, this is something that, from a decolonial point of view, we kind of have it as a principle, right? And this is I’m thinking of Malcolm X and, you know, he was working to destroy the racial state of the United States. But he did that by going externally. And I’m just wondering how that sits with what you’re talking about vis-a-vis leaving Europe, Europe is anti-democratic, et cetera, et cetera, and reverting back to the white French state to break the racial state.
You know, completely dismantle the racial contract within a national context. Do you see the sort of tension that I’m talking about?
Houria Bouteldja: I understand. But I think that 40 years ago, it was relevant to be internationalist like Malcolm X. I think today it’s I am internationalist, I am anti-imperialist. But I think that if I want to be in solidarity or if I want to be internationalist, the only thing I have to say to do is to fight my own imperialism, my own one. This is the best way, the most efficient way to be in solidarity with the South, which is suffering from the French behaviour, for example.
This is the only thing I need to do. I don’t need to travel. I don’t need to go to Africa. I don’t need to go to the Arab world. I don’t need to make this kind of alliances. I think my duty is to struggle my state, which is imperialist and capitalist. That’s it. I don’t need to claim that I am internationalist.
And it’s so difficult now a days to build international networks. As you know, Arzu, it’s so difficult when we are not even able to organize in the place we are.
Arzu Merali: So I’m just reading back. I’ve done it all in the wrong order, but going back to sort of earlier in the book…
See, I’m going to go back to internationalism. I understand what you’re saying about only being able to do what we can in the context that we’re in and also to understand our role as racialized people within the imperial, with the imperial guilt actually. We’re sitting here in these countries and we are also benefiting from, as you’ve said many times, I quote you, benefiting from that colonial legacy.
But this moment that we’re in, and I appreciate you wrote the book three years ago, this last 15, 16 months after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, whilst it has been so traumatic, just watching, never mind having to have lived through that as a Palestinian, but for the masses of the world, do you not feel that there is a moment right now where suddenly, I mean, I can’t speak to the French context, but here. There’s a visibility and a sympathy with Palestine that I’ve never seen before. And there is a, it’s a very different moment. And the frustration of it is that we have been so bogged down with, and I say again, your phrase, the white compromise in terms of organizing, that it’s hard to sort of capitalize on this. And at the same time, there is a moment of being a internationalist, if you like, even within the borders, if you like, of the nation state, of the racial state.
Is that something that you think, I mean, I don’t even know if that’s similar situation in France. I don’t know if left, right, lower class, white French sympathize with Palestine in the way that actually we’ve seen here.
Houria Bouteldja: I think yes. think a large part of the opinion has sympathy for Palestinians, a large part.
Arzu Merali: Do you see it as something that could form part of that decolonial disruption? In that agenda for a new France, if you like, the idea of international spirit of which Palestine could be the centre if you like as that has been this moment now.
Houria Bouteldja: I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that. I think there is a sympathy, but not something, not more than that.
Arzu Merali: So then in terms of, I go towards the end now, we are talking about not just rehabilitating the racially oppressed but also bringing a sense of dignity to white men. So why did bring white dignity to those who have been disenfranchised by the very contract that they have been complicit in the racial state, right?
How do you envisage that white dignity if it is going to be shorn of solidarity beyond the borders, if you see what I mean? It’s not part of the process of rehabilitating those people who’ve been oppressed by whiteness to make them understand that there is no whiteness and that there has to be solidarity beyond this kind of identitarian politics.
Arzu Merali: The fact is that we have to be aware that whiteness is now declining. Whiteness is declining. When you see that in France, for example, people are expelled from democratic rights. I’m not talking about racialized people, I’m talking about whites. Now white people vote for the left, for example, and the left is not in power because Macron decided not to give the power to the left in the parliament. And the left won the past elections.
So, there’s something, there’s a crisis in whiteness. This is why there is now a choice for the whites staying white or not. They have to make a choice right now.
AM: You’ve spoken about understanding when to be separate and when to be in solidarity and when to mobilize together. What is the point of separateness here? Because yes, that’s what whites need to do. But then what do you do while you’re waiting, while you’re waiting for that understanding to happen or how are you trying to get that realization to happen?
Houria Bouteldja: I don’t understand the question.
Arzu Merali: So, you spoke about knowing when to be separate and when to organize separately. At the same time, then also knowing when to work in solidarity. So there’s different modus operandi. You’re talking now about, you know, quote unquote, whites needing to understand X, Y, Z.
Is it that you have to explain it to them or do you just stand in solidarity with them, waiting for them to understand? Or is this a moment for your separate mobilization? In which case, what is that?
Houria Bouteldja: I’m not expecting the whites to understand, actually. Really not. I don’t think that they’re massively going to understand something about whiteness or the racial state, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t think that at all. I think that they are going to fight for their interests. That’s it. Now, my question is to the whites, because I think that the bourgeoisie is going to betray them. I’m sure about that. Because the French bourgeoisie is declining too, because there is China, there is Iran, there is Brazil, is other countries, there is Russia.
Now the West is declining. Is declining. And the bourgeoisie is not able now to share what they steal in the world among the whites because their part is declining too. Okay?
So they’re going to betray the working classes in France. It’s the same in England, it’s the same in Germany, it’s the same in the United States. So now the whites have to understand where is their interests. Is their interests with the bourgeoisie or is their interests with the racialized people in France and in the world. There is no other options. Nothing else.
I think that’s the…spontaneously, because they are whites, they will choose white supremacy. Because white supremacy is a real offer of security, of money, of status, et cetera, et cetera. This is what white supremacy pretend to offer to them. White supremacy is not able to offer all this. But this is what it claims to offer. And it is an offer. And it is something safe in one way.
So, the question is, is the other option, the alliance with the non-whites, give more security, more safety, et cetera, et cetera. We have to be able to prove that it’s possible.
Arzu Merali: So, we have a question here from Shifan. We have a couple of questions actually. This one is from Shifan Anias and just looking to whiteness more generally than just the issue of security. So, and how that plays into what you’re talking about. She says “people like Elon Musk are talking directly to this crisis in whiteness. Isn’t it dangerous because it is taking a racial line that aligns with the motives of the racial and imperial state?”
Houria Bouteldja: Elon Musk is doing what I’m saying. Is trying to make this unity between the whites at the moment, at this precise moment, the moment when the West is in crisis. It’s against, we all know that it’s against the fact that China is becoming very powerful and other countries.
There are huge contradictions between the West and the other countries that want to become powerful in the world. So this is exactly the answer of the fascists. We have to build, to reconstruct the unity between all the whites. So, it is very, very, very dangerous. The next question picks up on where also in a direction I wanted to talk about in terms of decolonial or revolutionary love.
Arzu Merali: So, this is another question from Yahya Birt. Is it plutocracy that will ultimately weaken or break in white solidarity, but only decolonial love that could build trans-racial alliance between the rednecks and barbarians.
Houria Bouteldja: Both of them. I think that capitalism and the fact that the bourgeoisie is not able anymore to share or to distribute power to the citizens, to white citizens, is a factor of destroying the solidarity between the whites and in the same time, that could build trans-
I’m not sure to be able to answer this question, which is very difficult. I would say both of them.
Arzu Merali: So just picking up on that, because that is, I think, where you go towards at the end of the book about decolonial love. And I think it goes back to a question I asked before, but this idea that if we are offering security in that alliance, if this is our modus of decolonial love, is it not a case? And you’ve said it quite explicitly. Actually, what we’re doing is getting our hands dirty. This is not a case of something utopian. This is very pragmatic. So where is the room for utopia? Is there one in this movement or do we have to just wade through the muck at the moment or maybe endlessly?
So, is there a utopia in this vision? Is there something to work for beyond the pragmatism? And if so, how does it feature in the narrative? It’s one thing for us to be pragmatic in the moment. if we, you know, what is the end goal?
Houria Bouteldja: I think revolutionary love is a utopia. I don’t think if it can exist, really. I don’t know, but it’s utopia, it’s a dream. But in everyday struggle, we have to be very pragmatic, not to think about revolutionary love. We have to think about strategy, about having power, about how to build alliances. This is something very pragmatic. This is not something that has to do with dreams of utopia or love.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how to feature this utopia. So difficult to say because we have a long history behind us and a lot of people dreamt before us. For what? Because we have our ancestors who thought that after the independence of other countries, everything will be good. It was not the case. It was not the end. It was only the beginning of a struggle. The independencies of the South were not the end. It was only the beginning. It’s only the beginning.
Arzu Merali: So, Yahya has a follow up question here, which is what is the relationship in your mind between dreaming and getting your hands dirty? Thank you, Yahya.
Houria Bouteldja: I think there is the world is so dirty. The world is so dirty that it’s impossible to escape that. We can’t even if you want, we can’t stay pure. Purity is not possible when you are doing politics. Now it’s impossible because all of us are dirty. All of us. We are dirty because first of all, we are dirty because we are exploiting the self. We are dirty because we are all integrated in the Western ideology. Racism, sexism, homophobia, et cetera, et cetera. We are, all of us, antisemitism. All of us, we are, can’t say I’m not racist. I can’t say I’m not antisemite. I can’t say I’m not homophobic because all of these feelings are not only feelings. They are based on structural things. So, we are all dirty. All of us. And if we want to change, to be less dirty, if I may say, we have to accept that doing politics means having the end dirty.
Because for example, thinking alliances with the whites. Whites who are racist. This is the contradiction. I’m a decolonial activist and I’m saying that we have to make alliances with people who are know they are racist. I know that, but as non-whites in the North, we are a minority.
We can’t do anything if we are not able to make alliances. So, we have to invent the new whites. We have to create the new whites. This is what we did in France because in 2005 when we began, there were no anti-racist whites as we understand anti-racism, political anti-racism. There was not that. These whites, these new whites had been invented, had been created, had been producted by our struggle.
I’m not saying that now they are not racist at all because I think that the left of Mélenchon is still racist. But their projects, their politics is not racist. But if you see the people individually, you can be sure that they are a little bit Islamophobic, a little bit racist, a little bit blah blah blah blah blah Sure.
But the collective project is not racist and it means that themselves are becoming less white than they were in the past. Less white.
Arzu Merali: Before I start asking my last questions, if anybody does want to ask a question online, now is the time to do it. Towards, right towards the end of the book, you talk about in the section on revolutionary love, you’re talking about choosing your ancestors. And you go into both, you know, the really erudite and you know, you miss him, even though most of us were not around during his lifetime.
CLR James’s throwback, “these are my ancestors, they could be yours too if you wanted.” This moment where we could actually share radical histories and disassociate ourselves from this kind of racialized lineages that we are sort of being forced to accept as our eternal identity.
And then also this idea of the unknown soldier if you want to maybe just unpack that a little bit in terms of how to have a conversation with whiteness around what is national and what is this, you know, the history of the nation if you like?
Houria Bouteldja: Yes, I think that it’s very political to think that we can choose our ancestors and to denounce the national narrative. We are not obliged to accept the national narrative. I’m not obliged to say Napoleon is my ancestor. I’m not obliged to say that. I’m not obliged to think that de Gaulle is my ancestor. I’m not obliged to say that Pétain, who was a fascist, is my ancestor.
But they are part of the French narrative, but I don’t want them to be my ancestors, not because they’re white, because of their politics. And in the same time, I can choose among white figures, some of them can be my ancestors for political reasons. Robespierre, the revolutionary man, can be my ancestor not only because he was revolutionary, it’s not enough for me because he was against slavery. I choose him as my ancestor and he is white.
So, as a non-white, I want to decide who are my French ancestors. And I propose to the whites to choose their ancestors too. They are not obliged to accept the national narrative. They’re not obliged to accept Petain, Napoleon, de Gaulle, et cetera, et cetera. We can offer our own ancestors to them, not because they are non-whites, not for that, not for question of colour, of skin, of whatever. Because our ancestors, our ancestors, those who fought slavery, those who fought French colonialism, those who fought racism. All of them, those who fought Zionism. All of them
When they are fighting all this, are fighting for the whites, for the white liberation in the same time. The whites can recognize them as their own liberators. It’s possible. It’s a political choice. And yes, I can talk about the unknown soldier. This is the word, unknown soldier in English. Because it’s a symbol of the French Republic, of the French nation. The soldier who was sacrificed in the first world war. But we don’t know anything. The French states say we don’t know anything about this soldier. This is why he is unknown. But in the mind of the French, this soldier is white. But how can they know he’s white? Because a lot of our people came to France and fought during the first war for the French to liberate France. How can they know that is not black or African or Arab or Muslim? Maybe it is. So, I suggest in this part to think that maybe is black, is African. And maybe the ancestor, this liberator of the French, maybe is black.
If he is black, an African is the ancestor of all the French. Why not? We can decide to think that this soldier is African and I want to think that because it is unknown. I can think that.
This is a choice. This is the best way to denationalize and deracialize the French narrative.
Arzu Merali: This idea of reimagining the story of the nation is such an important task. It’s something we’ve written about at IHRC, actually, in the context of both the UK, as a project for, dare I say, Europe and the different nation states who are all in various ways going around similar trajectories, as you’ve said, the right is ascendant, the narrative is being controlled by them. We have Mr Musk helping along the way.
Before we conclude, Houria, is there anything you want to highlight about what you’ve written about, the purpose of your book, et cetera, et cetera, that I have overlooked or that we haven’t talked about?
Forgive me. I did really did not do justice to this incredible book. There is a whole long history of the racial state with the example of France. Yeah. And it’s very painful to read actually in terms of the betrayals and the repeated cycles of oppression, both of those who are constituted as white and those who are constituted as other.
I highly recommend this book. Please do go away and read it. As I said, forgive me, Houria, I did not do it justice in talking about it. I just want to remind everyone that you did your best. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just want to remind everyone that you can buy the book and also ‘Whites ,Jews and Us’, Houria’s previous book from shop.ihrc.org.
Thank you, Houria. Thank you so much for your time. Also, especially seeing as you’re obviously not feeling too well as well. Thank you. Thank you to everyone who watched and contributed. For those of you who watch later, peace and blessings on all of you.
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi
