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Therefore, when this screed was issued by the alleged perpetrator of this massacre in El Paso, I was not surprised at all given this historical background, and I certainly was not surprised as well that he made this reference to so-called great replacement, which also comes up in Charlottesville in August 2017. This idea amongst some who are defined as white that not only are they being replaced by people of color, but it's part of a so-called Jewish conspiracy as well who are portrayed as the masterminds. This theory has also taken root in New Zealand. Recall what happened in Christchurch some months ago. In many ways it comes out of France where there's a similar amount of hysteria.
MARC STEINER: Renaud Camus and that whole school of thinking, right?
GERALD HORNE: Exactly. This is taking place in the context, I'm afraid to say, of another epical event, which is the rise of China, which may be the leading economy on planet earth sooner rather than later. By some measures, it already is. That'll have cultural, geopolitical impact as well. And so, in some ways as they like to say in the United States, we're facing a perfect storm when it comes to the struggle against white supremacy. That is to say, the rise of white supremacy. Then this raises the question of what to do about it.
On a more positive note given I've been issuing pessimistic notes up to this point, one of the things I was heartened by is the fact that the government of Mexico City says that it may have to intervene to protect its nationals because about one-third of the people massacred in El Paso were Mexican citizens. Not to mention, a disproportionate number of people of Mexican origin in this 22nd largest city in the United States with an 80% Latino, Latinx population. That's good news because hopefully they'll take it not only into Mexican courts, but into the Organization of American States, in Washington, DC and then they'll get support from the Caribbean nations who are pressing their own claims for reparations.
Likewise, with regard to the negative rhetoric of the 45th US President, when he said, "Send them back," in reference to the progressive Congresswomen, one of the more heartening aspects of that is the attack on him by Chancellor Merkel of Germany. I say that because if you look at the history of struggle against white supremacy in the United States, historically, in order to be successful, we needed a global movement. It wasn't enough just to organize within the four corners of the United States of America. That's the import of the anti-slavery movement. Reference my previous comment about abolitionist Britain and revolutionary Haiti. That's the import of the struggle against Jim Crow accelerating in the 1950s when Washington is under siege by the socialist camp and trying to win hearts and minds in developing countries as independent Africa is surging to independence and wanting to appeal to independent Africa. Therefore, this puts pressure on Washington to do the right thing, at least move away from the more egregious aspects of Jim Crow. In a nutshell, that's my analysis.
MARC STEINER: I'm going to take some of what you just said and figure out where we are in terms of our history and what this teaches us for this moment. As I said earlier to you before we went on the air together, that I've been working a lot around the end of Reconstruction in 1877, when we see Rutherford B. Hayes becoming President of United States. The Klan is already in emotion, and they've been terrorizing people in the South, and especially in the South.
You had these moderate Republicans and the redemptionist Democrats pushing him in. A minority of the vote he wins and it sets up 90 years of abject terror against the black community in the South. It takes hold. So, "Make America Great Again." The question I have is, how does that moment also in its international complexity that you refer to, how does that moment speak to us now? I often think we're in some ways facing a similar time where everything people fought for, whether it's Reconstruction or the Civil Rights Movement and movements that place in the '60s and '70s, it could be pushed back in very serious ways. I mean, did that historical knowledge hold water, and if it does, what does it mean for us?
GERALD HORNE: Well, you happen to be talking about a person who wrote a book about 1776 called The Counterrevolution of 1776, which is the launching pad for my historical thesis: The counterrevolution has been a constant thread throughout the body of US history. And not only in 1776, but 1836 when Texas secedes from Mexico in order to perpetuate slavery; 1861 the Confederate states secede in order for Dixie to perpetuate slavery forevermore.
Part of the contradiction with Reconstruction that historians are only beginning to grapple with now is that at the same time that the Union government, the government in Washington, DC was moving forward on Reconstruction, in some ways they were trying to ride two horses going in different directions at the same time because there were also moving aggressively to take land from Native Americans. Recall that 1876-1877 is also the time of George Custer, for example. That is to say, trying to massacre these what we refer to, at least in the non-Indigenous community as Plains Indians, and their battle royales between the blue coats, the US government forces, oftentimes including Buffalo soldiers, I'm afraid. That is to say, Negro soldiers and Native Americans fighting for their land.
This is a major contradiction. It's difficult to move in a regressive direction and a progressive direction simultaneously, particularly in a country where the major theme has been counterrevolution. To that extent, looking backwards, you can almost say that Reconstruction was almost doomed to run aground. What I hope today is that we don't make the same mistake, that we don't try to disengage, say for example, foreign policy from the debate about domestic policy. In that light, I'm somewhat concerned about some of the Democratic Party aspirants to replace Trump because they rarely discuss foreign policy. At the debates, foreign policy rarely and barely comes up.
MARC STEINER: And the connections you're talking about never come up.
GERALD HORNE: Oh, please. Now you're going too far. Of course not. As I said, if we're really going to prevail, we really have to take advantage of these global currents, reference what I just said about the government of Mexico City is doing, et cetera. I think part of the problem with regard to Reconstruction was once again, despite the fact that slavery's abolition had been propelled in no small measure by abolitionist Britain and revolutionary Haiti, by the time of Reconstruction, you have the spectacle of Maryland's own Frederick Douglass working with the US administration to annex a good deal of the island of Hispaniola that includes Haiti. Then, dispatching a goodly number of the Negro population there. Once again, trying to go in two directions at the same time is doomed to failure.
MARC STEINER: Fast forward to where we are now both in terms of strategy, the strategic look at it in terms of where we are, and what those moments tell you about who we are as a people and what our politics are. What does that leave us? I know part of the huge thesis in your work is this counterrevolution you just mentioned. You can look at 1946 to the early '70s as a revolutionary period that made massive changes in this country and the counterrevolution that's taking place. It's sort of taking place in late '60s, early '70s. It's galvanized and it's in power at the moment in the executive branch. What is our history and say to us about what our strategies could be, should be, and what we might be facing?
GERALD HORNE: I would make a point domestically that I think all progressive people can agree on unfortunately, which is that if you look at the history of the anti-Jim Crow movement, it could not have made as much progress as it did without the support of unions. Martin Luther King's movement was funded in no small measure by District 65, now of the United Auto Workers in New York City. Not to mention UAW itself headquartered in Michigan.
If you look at movements on the left, for example, the petition at the United Nations, 1950-1951 charging United States with genocide against black people led by Paul Robeson. A lot of that funding came from the West Coast Longshoreman who of course played a pivotal role in the anti-apartheid movement shutting down docs from Seattle to San Diego, making sure that apartheid merchandise was not delivered in the United States of America.
The role of unions is critical and essential, and I think all of us can agree on that. If we don't have buy-in from unions, I'm afraid to say that the outlook is rather pessimistic. Then secondly, what I've been saying all along, which is the internationalism of filing petitions at the Organization of American States, at the United Nations, at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Sending delegations to Brussels, Brasilia Victoria, China, Russia, et cetera.
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