Marx contended that under certain specified conditions, namely when rationality is the expression of man’s species-will, then and only then will true democracy as a reality come into existence. This is not the case under Wallerstein and Balibar, for each democracy presents itself as an idea only. This in no way alters the reality of democracy which exists in “the ensemble of social relations.” Real democracy will perforce emerge, not from the abstract proclamation of “the end of the system” nor when the European teaches those of color to “reason,” rather, in the community, “in the unity of man with man.” This will be exactly when the myth of white maleness and its privilege to oppress are no longer with us.
-Anthony Lemele

When a Negro talks of Marx, the first reaction is always the same: “We have brought you up to our level and now you turn against your benefactors. Ingrates! Obviously, nothing can be expected of you.” And then too there is the bludgeon argument of the plantation-owner in Africa: Our enemy is the teacher. What I am asserting is that the European has a fixed concept of the Negro, and there is nothing more exasperating than to be asked: “How long have you been in France? You speak French so well.”
– Frantz Fanon

Racism is not universal, or rather, it is not universal outside of ‘modern’ Europe. Mr. Etienne Balibar, through the European rational dialect and subject-constitution, puts forth a paradigm which not only misnomers the concept of race, but the application of universal itself. The purpose of this work is to critique the formation of thought by Mr. Etienne Balibar, with a particular emphasis paid to the Eurocentric limitations and biases in the work, Racism is Universal. The focus of this paper being to nuance the methodology used by Balibar, contesting the logic, theme by theme, with a particular emphasis placed upon the universal, to establish that there is rather (the) lack of such established by Balibar.
Balibar begins rather astutely in the mention of his reflection being led in a quazi-logically manner (9) to formation of thought that Racism is a Universal. But to allow him to start in a different way, “all this is largely a matter of language (I do not say a matter of linguistic conventions).” To begin this critique, let us examine this above sentence. Firstly, the notion of language as the primary location of culture, or ‘oneness’ is an ancient concept. Even in the European paradigm, the Roman themselves called those barbarian as one whom did not speak their (the Roman) language. My dear friend from North Algeria, recounts the naming of his ‘Race’ gleefully, stating,
“Our people (upon the discovery of the Roman) had no linguistic similarities. So much so that when the first words were uttered between the two aliens, the words to come out were Burrrr Burrrr” (Nazim-Bistro in Le Marais, Troisième Arrondissement, Paris, 2018).

Hence, was the identity of the Berber created. The location of the identity in the inability to speak the shared language is a facet that challenges the theory of Balibar directly (also the timing of this event in the ancient period directly challenges the notion of the colonial period as the invention of Race). The notion of the “Buurrr Burrr” as the other, not only codified the Northern Algerians of the time, but all other Barbarians of the North.Genealogically, the other was one who did not share the language, be it a Berber in Africa, or Europe, the barbarian was an entity alien to one’s own medium of meaning-making (language). Not only does this challenge the location of Balibar identity and imperative of distinctness in categorization, but also a direct challenge to Balibar is the morphing of these groups to not retain the defining characteristics trans-historically (the imperative of the transhistorical to be explored later in this work). Much more could be challenged, in such that: linguistic conventions root culture, language as the site of culture, the notion of language as the process of cosmological/ontological conscriptions and as such the creation of ideology; but alas, this is a rather short critique, and we have only gone through but a sentence of Balibar.

The very next words state, “It has to do with the use of certain formulas as context-bound or context-free sentences.” Well, if Balibar’s analysis itself is the appeal to “both the pollical scientist (because of racism) and to the philosophers (because of universalism)”, let us examine this proposal in a philosophical manner. The use of certain formulas as context free or context bound by the very thought initiates the response that we must examine the formula that Balibar himself is using. The application of the Universal, very much could be understood to be “context-free”, but much more astutely to be identified would be rather in the first sense, “context-bound”. To be context-free, is to exist outside of system, of epistemology, of thought, of the basis of cosmological conscription itself. However, the Universal, is not outside (the) system, it is the total system, the all, every-encompassed part-of-one-as-the-whole and the whole-as-one; in another manner, it is ‘context-bound’ in the context of universal. If one were, to approach the universal in this manner, it would not only break the paradigm proposed by Balibar, in that the universal is but the non-particularistic (a negative), and places another stipulation of thought, as proposed by Balibar himself; to be context-bound in the Universal (positive). Alas, again the constraints of this work are such that this topic cannot be fully explored further; but to bring the argument unjustifiably short: Balibar does not possess either capacity; to be context-bound necessitates the placement of (Balibar) himself within the state (context) of the universal, a placement never attained by Balibar. In the inverse, to be context-free necessitates that Balibar places himself hermetically outside of context, a placement which not only does he fail to achieve, but rather further devolves deeper into.

This uncomfortable position is articulated through the analyses of but 2 sentences (upon the premier page of Balibar’s work). Continuing, Balibarian logic deduces that
What racism, nationalism, sexism seem to have in common is that they are all categories which from an intentional or an extensional viewpoint divide the universality of the human species into exclusive transhistorical groups which are supposed to be separated by essential differences, or to become self-conscious and act as if they were separated by essential differences. We must add: such essential differences are always explicitly or tacitly understood and institutionalized as hierarchical differences. (10)
Let us explore but a snippet of the above statement. The transhistorical requirement of categorisation implicitly requires the categories themselves to retain the very ‘essential’ characteristics of difference (as a universal). This develops upon the logic of the genetic as the container of such difference, one which is immutable. This thought is ripe to be picked apart with the case study of the Aryan, in that even-though Iran translates to the land of the Aryans, they would not be classified as such (by the Euro). Adding the temporality of phenotypic, one which challenges Balibarian theory upon the dissolution of observable geographic (tribalist) similarities. With the continual integration of the global population, (and elementary science stating in about a millennia) all of humanity will have no observable difference. Further counterpoints could include the notion of Semite. With the Semitic region is just that, a region; those of the “Semitic Race” would be, in a millennium, indistinguishable from anyone person in the world. The very contemporary definition (of the Semite) challenges Balibarian typography. A “once” regionally associated typographic description, but now is seen as those (of whomsoever are) pertaining to those of Jewish blood, but not the Arab. The unsoundness of these culture-race-religion-sexism-nationalism paradigms proposed by Balibar is a bold proclamation of such theory of universality; but like all universals, all one needs is just (a) counterpoint for the universal to cease. The very notion of the Semite now a Jew is a rather perplexed notion in-it-of-itself, and yet another method of thought which challenges the transhistorical (universality) requirement of not only racism, but sexism, and that of nationalism. Persians do not have a Persia to belong too; or those, like myself, with about 40 odd nationalities located within their ‘genetics’, no one (distinct) race to belong too.

The last sentence in the above quote is also worth pondering through. Balibar states, “such essential difference are always explicitly or tacitly understood as institutionalized hierarchical difference.” Therein lies a connection in Balibar to the notion of Race as Class, and a rather puzzling philosophical statement. From the works of Locke one is hard-pressed to find the European considering the coloured even a member of his species. Long is the tradition of the scientific othering existed in the British, with the equating of the coloured closer to that of Neanderthal and beast, rather than man. The very notion of the horizontal indicated that total of humanity is in perfect vertical alignment, one which the European has never accepted from the start of the genealogical project. Another facet (to be challenged) in the flow of this paradigm is the “institutionalization” as a universalistic component, one which is accepted by all. This is a rather unsettling logic, in such that, there is no one institution in the world which creates a shared epistemology. Taken in a Fanonian aspect, one could state that the one true shared universal amongst human has been our shared system of violence, and violence itself as a shared methodology, but that topic is for another paper, let us continue to delve deeper in the Eurocentric bias and the inherent contradiction in thought by Balibar. One need not look further than page 13, upon which Balibar states,
But the example which I would prefer to analyse in detail (if I had time for that) is the case of Aristotle. This really is the origin of what we understand as universal rationality.
The most glaring term from the above statement directs our attention to whom Balibar is speaking of, and to a greater degree, to whom Balibar is speaking too. There is no need to argue or reference the vast trove of the global intellect which existed prior too, coinciding, or in spite of, the European teacher. The location of we and placing Aristotle as the origin of universal rationality indicates that the very reader of Balibar is himself/herself of Latin-based instruction. I would daresay, this quote departs not far from the theory of the European as the master, the teacher, the enlightened. This is a rather privileged position to have articulated by Balibar within the scope of the post-colonial.

The further tarnishing of the Logos to be intrinsically tied to its “anthropological-ontological hierarchical conditions” (14), can be challenged, in that these hierarchical divisions can only be done only in a binary manner as one can either be with logos or without. To put in another manner, the only hierarchy that could emerge (in the above stated paradigm by Balibar) is that of one over two, or white/black, in the sense that one either possess human or is without human, there can be no degree of logos, that would be illogical to the very notion of logos itself. Further adding to the convolution is the (implicitly required) notion of the absolute verticillately (of logos) in the hierarchical condition of the “anthropological-ontological”, one which again could and should be challenged. If logos has a hierarchy, it is in the binary, but the very notion of human as having the capacity of logos, places then one in the category or either a human or non-human, which is akin of a non-species demarcation, much rather than a hierarchy. This rationale (along with previously proposed lines of logic) would contradict the subsequent statement by Mr. Balibarn as well, as he states,
No definition of the human species, or simply the human-something which is so crucial for universalism, or universalism as humanism- has ever been proposed which would not imply a latent hierarchy.
As the author of this critique is but a humble postcolonial scholar (of the humanistic school) it would take but one of two words to contradict this logic, that being of either Ubuntu or Namaste. Of a perplexingly similar (cosmological) manner to Logos, both terms (of Ubuntu and Namaste) are in the totality, the blending of the one as the whole, with the whole contained in the one. Ubuntu, a concept loosely translated to I exist because you exist, or Namaste, the soul-god in my sees and salutes the soul-god in you (both translated in the natural sense) bring the notion of the humanity both particularistic and universal, coinciding. One if properly examined, will take a scholar of thought lifetimes to properly discern and understand. Both concepts are the (hermetical) humanist decryption of the human in relation to one another human; the possession of humanity in all human and in anyone human. These notions directly challenge the paradigm (of) horizontality, with one either in possession of (human) or without. The above statements also directly challenge the subsequent logical development by Balibar, as he states continuing on page 14
that no definition of the Human as such could be attempted which did not include the infinite process of demarcation between human, supra-human and infra-human (or process of demarcation between Supermen and Untermensch) and the reflection of these two limits within the imaginary boundaries of the human species.

In a dutiful manner, Balibar informs the reader, that even through the process of over half the volume,” this does not prove that universalism is racism…but that proves, at least in my opinion, that you cannot find a clear-cut line of demarcation between universalisms and racisms” (15); the overlap being the demarcation in transhistorical categories that universalisms elicit as race (in Balibarian deduction). To employ the universal as one which is an (infinite) process of differential and the creation of a (negative) boundary. The bane in the utility of Balibar is contained in the very notion of a negative boundary (of identity, rights, humanity, etc.). As detailed (previously in this work) by both the concepts Ubuntu and Namaste, in the application/paradigms of positive liberalism, Balibarian logic is upended. One need not look far for such model examples as Berlin or Sen on these notions. Even Master H.K Bhaba’s paradigm would befit such a reply, alas one does not have the length to bring about these matters to an appreciated conclusion; each of the above-mentioned masterful authors allude to one simple aspect, the notion of the man giving into man, the very definition of the human as that of given humanity of existence in humanity, the rights provided for not taken from man. The death of both racism and Balibarian logic is not an identity of difference, but of positivism, one which is only added, never subtracted. As Baliibar himself states that the racist answer is because we are different, and tautologically, because difference is the universal essence of what we are: not singular, individual difference…but collective differences, made of analogies and, ultimately, of similarities.
But if the sharing of similarity is that of the very medium of which exists for such similarities to be formed is called humanity, then the poles of such race creation would have no such space to exist within. Spoken in another manner, if culture was not a product but a process, then the very medium itself for it be created, the very medium for its creation being man, then there would be no hierarchy of culture, as that concept itself would be alien to the notion of shared humanity.

The bane of Balibar is for himself to be trapped within the paradigm of a created European universals of assumption, one which not only is illogical in the application of the universal, but in the particularistic. With sexism rooted in Freudian theory in the application of bisexuality (10) one must argue such derelict applications of such (European) universalism and presumptions that Balibar himself never truly deduces as the application of the particularistic. Professor Lemele, whose quote started this papers critique, is setting to be its end, he himself critiquing Balibar, in that,
The reaction of both Wallerstein and Balibar is a reaction to the Western construction of the Other. It is now a well known and legendary historical development from the European regions to the modern world system. Racism itself was embedded in the European image of, particularly, the Islamic world and Africa prior to European expansion. The Greco-Roman imagery of race was present in Pliney the Elder’s Natural History, where the typology eventually associating the relationship between physical appearance, moral character and geographical location became grounded in Euro-culture. From this conception emerged the dichotomous complex white/black, pure/diabolical, spiritual/ carnal, good/evil, and Christ/Satan. That system of thought was exported in complicated ways into the world through the period of colonialism. But this is Euro-centric history…The conceptual approach for this “science” is the viewpoint of the world from the “teacher” who instructs that whites much reject racism. However, from the subaltern view, this is essentially a misrecognition: whites must reject privilege.
Making Balibar’s work to read, Racism as Not Universal. At the end of this humble critique, the paper has explored the formulation of thought by Mr. Etienne Balibar as one which is hyper-rational, but alas filled with misapplications and presumptions of European universalist claims. The hyperbolic claim of racism as nationalism, as culture, as class, as distinct trans-historical categories has been provokingly challenged with counterpoints via methodology and logical deduction. Balibar’s work has been shown as brilliant yet following the limitations of his own constraint, a methodology created of which applies to but the narrowest of European circumstances.

Respected Authors Cited

Balibar, E. (1989). Racism as universalism. New Political Science, 8(1-2), 9-22.
doi:10.1080/07393148908429618

Lemelle, A. (1993). Humboldt Journal of Social Relations,19(1), 175-179.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/23262532
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