Systems of Oppression, Supremacy Dynamics & Ways of Seeing

‘Genocide prevention cannot be exclusive to elites’. This is one of the principles of the Lemkin Institute, which is committed to the effort of genocide prevention.

One of the things they highlight is the need for there to be a language for genocide prevention.

I’ve thought a lot about systems lately, systems of health and inclusivity and care for everyone, and systems of destruction, supremacy, and racism.

It’s disturbed me greatly that in the Western world, there are so many places in which we seem to have no real capacity to enter deeply into conversation and action around this. We appear to have no language for it and we also have systems of profoundly entrenched blind spots, racism, and supremacy dynamics at play.

I’ve also personally found this to be a real issue in the (predominantly white) Western spiritual world. I write here to uplift the voices of those being oppressed, and not to share my own experiences in general, but I also recognise that without each one of us who has an experience of these dynamics, lending our voices to the places where at least some people can hear, there will be no development in how toxic systems run. And when the systems stay the same and refuse to look at how they are complicit in oppression, racism, cancel culture and supremacy at the grassroots level, the wider systems of supremacy and the status quo at the more macro level also stay the same.

What this ensures, is that predominantly black and brown bodies are abused and oppressed for the benefit of Western systems that lust after land and resources that are not theirs, for their own advantage and to the detriment of those they are mass murdering and exploiting, in short, the violation of the indigenous populations. So, if you or the system around you, in any part of your community is silent on this, or trying to give colonialism, and genocide a makeover and downplay the reality, you are helping the status quo to remain entrenched. I’m not here to shame anyone to be clear…

Sadly, there are many cases of people who would like to be vocal about what is happening in Palestine and can’t for fear of losing their jobs if they speak out, and of course, in a shaking world, everyone needs to take care of their mental health, but this is all the more reason for those who can speak and act to do so.

In a world where you can now be indiscriminately targeted anywhere, via an electronic device - children were killed by Israel’s indiscriminate attack on Lebanon the last days, as were doctors, hospital workers, people inside hospitals, and other civilians going regularly about their day, which you probably haven’t heard about via mainstream media - we don’t have time to coddle our fragile egos.

I include myself in that statement by the way. There are plenty of things happening in the world right now that I keep having to stretch myself to become more educated on, and I’m always horrified by what I didn’t know, but if I sit around doing some Western version of processing about ‘myself’ in relation to where I’ve been ignorant for too long, the focus becomes ‘me’ and that’s not useful in terms of asking ‘what can I do to help OTHERS?’ from a supported and integrated space within myself, and also asking those ‘others’ (who are no different to me in their wish to live with dignity and equality) what they would find helpful from me, from a listening space, receptive to what they need and are requesting, rather than diving in and thinking that ‘my’ ideas or offerings are what are useful, before taking time to connect.

We have become very narcissistic in this way in the world of influencers, celebrities and spiritual communities. There is a blind spot in which the focus has become ‘me, my, mine’. We can be sure that when the genocide ends in Palestine, and at some point it will, many so called (at this moment) silent ‘healers’ amidst others, who have been part of the cancel culture and status quo will be taking their selfies for Instagram and declaring how they were against this all along, and taking pictures of themselves visiting the region and promoting their own businesses, and therefore doing another form of capitalising off of other people’s suffering.

If anyone I know is tempted to do this at some point, please don’t. Please don’t be an ‘Instagram healer’ capitalising off the genocide of others. Have conversations now if you didn’t already. Learn about the history of Palestine, and listen to Palestinians now. Read, educate yourself, and ask them what they need from you. That is one way to cut loose from supremacy dynamics. These are steps everyone who cares about equality can take, and across multiple systems, not just pertaining to Palestine, especially where marginalised communities are concerned.

Ask people about their experience, (especially people inside Gaza) ask what they need, and be prepared to truly listen, without trying to manipulate the conversation or their answers, and be open to feeling uncomfortable without making it all about you. We can both feel uncomfortable, and at the same time acknowledge that in the Western world we have all been indoctrinated into certain ways of seeing.

What matters now is getting beyond that, and finding ways to shift into life sustaining systems that honour all beings. That won’t come from lies, or ignoring the roots of the injustice or trying to give genocide a makeover to make what’s happening appear more palatable, as opposed to facing the reality that there is a trapped population of more than 2 million people held hostage by Israel’s blockade for decades inside Gaza, who are now being exterminated by Israel, bombed even in their displacement tents, with the support and blessing of Western governments, and the support of our collective silence and inaction.

Many of the spiritual systems and practices we engage in are cloaked in ‘love language’ and concepts of community and equality, but the reality is, that as the world burns and more than one genocide is unfolding, that we are global citizens and could do something even in our small ways to apply pressure for this to end, has been ignored at the wider level.

If you want to keep a toxic and supremacist status quo in place, it’s very simple. Just ignore someone and what they are trying to tell you, and act like they don’t exist. Treat them like an object. I’ve had my own personal experiences with this. My ethnicity, roots, and the way I’ve used my voice to highlight oppression and suggest we do something about it, ensures that the ears of any colonial, cancel culture, racist and supremacist system cannot hear, and sometimes the dynamics are subtle and not obvious, hence the words ‘blind spots’.

I’m not speaking to people whose ears haven’t yet connected their humanity with all other people’s humanity, nor am I speaking to people who don’t comprehend why standing up to prevent genocide, dismantling apartheid, and dismantling systems of oppression matter, both in ourselves and others. I AM speaking to you though, if you do have ears that are able to connect, and connect the dots between systems of oppression on the doorstep at the grassroots level, and systems of oppression in the wider world.

Personally, I believe that everyone has their own journey to go on with this, but we all suffer more, when we fail to love enough that we can go to difficult places, and create change where there is injustice and oppression.

When what is at the core of our actions is an idea about our own power, importance and supremacy (look at the UK and US on the macro level), we will never be able to create systems of health, equality and inclusivity, and genuine kindness and care.

Taking time to have difficult conversations, with a willingness to learn what we may not have known previously about our own (in many cases inadvertent) participation in supremacist systems, and to connect, and to make connection, care, and regard for one another a priority, means that there is a possibility for both change, flow and healing.

Power games and supremacy do not facilitate healing. Power games and supremacy create more traumas and more damage. It’s something to put under the microscope and catch in ourselves, particularly in the Western world, where culturally we are hypnotised from birth to participate in systems that are killing the planet and each other and to believe that we somehow matter more than the global South.

In the case of Palestine, Israel will not stop without sanctions and an arms embargo. At the time of my writing this, the UN General Assembly has just passed a resolution demanding an end to Israel’s (illegal) occupation of Palestine within 12 months. The resolution passed with a majority backing of 124 countries, though the US voted against this resolution and the UK abstained.

With our governments and mainstream media still providing endless diplomatic cover and support for Israel’s war crimes, it really is up to us as a global community to choose if we want to turn a blind eye, or take actions within our communities to hold our governments (who also send weapons to Israel) accountable. Whatever we have allowed, are allowing and continue to allow, will become the new world order. That world order will migrate to all nations. Borders will not protect anyone, so we have choices to make.

Change throughout history, be it Vietnam, or the end of South Africa’s apartheid and countless other examples have always happened at the grassroots level first, never from the dominant powers that hold the systems of injustice in place. An oppressor never gives rights to those it oppresses. The system changes through grassroots resistance that puts pressure on the world order for justice, equality and change.

The Western attitude is (in my experience) very reductive in terms of labelling people and ourselves as roles, jobs, callings, purposes etc. Is each person really a label, a job, a purpose? For me, I always try to look beyond the superficial masks of someone’s job, calling, role etc. because I want to connect with human beings, not just the projection of their ‘usefulness’ in the world. Placing everyone in these narrow little boxes of status, purpose, job, the list goes on, can end up stripping others of the vast universe they are beyond all of those mental ideas. It’s another attitudinal off-shoot of the colonial world.

I mention this for two reasons. Firstly, because very often, when someone uses their voice as I have done the last year, we find out very fast where we were just a throw away object as soon as we no longer fit the roles and boxes others have ascribed to us in their lives, because we dared to challenge systems of injustice and shake the status quo. If we can’t see beyond the masks to each other’s human value and humanity in times of challenge, I wonder where we are headed as a world in terms of our genuine capacity to love and to be kind.

The second reason I mentioned the above, is because sometimes I hear people referring to what I am doing as activism. I’m not an activist to be very clear. I never have been, and when I speak, I don’t see myself as someone engaged in activism. For me, standing against injustice, and for equality, and rights, be it for fellow human beings, animals, or the rest of nature is simply a way of life. I don’t see it as something separate over there that I’m doing, and then work, family, job, role, calling, purpose, friends, everything else over here. It’s not a reductive thing that I put in a little box and say ‘this is what I am; this is what I’m not’.

A human being, beyond the limited concepts of the colonial and supremacist world, is a far more fluid and dynamic presence than that, at least in my humble opinion.

How we see and label each other is something to catch in ourselves, because as soon as we become overly reductive, it’s a lot easier to de-humanise each other. Look at the stereo types that the Western world has been convinced into believing about all Arabs and Muslims over many years and how this is now unfolding, even more recently on the streets of Britain.

When we become reductive as opposed to curious and caring, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump to all sorts of supremacy dynamics playing out, and us giving ourselves excuses and permission to become complicit in holding together systems of oppression and injustice.

Reductive ways of seeing are a part of manufacturing public and systemic consent for genocide, because we convince ourselves there’s nothing for the separate individual little me to do. The narrative becomes ‘this is my role, this is me over here’ whilst everything else is ‘over there’ and we construct all sorts of reasons for our silence and our inaction, even weaponising our spirituality to do so. All of this, even as the British medical journal The Lancet estimates that the true death toll from Israel’s actions in Gaza is closer to 186,000 human beings, and that is a conservative estimate. This estimate was published in early July.   

Much of this is a considerably deeper and longer conversation, and here I am starting to talk about un-learning toxic and supremacist ways of seeing and learning new ways to listen and see that include all of us. We are all human are we not? We all deserve life.

With love to you whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey, and may your day bring something healing and connecting into your heart. Be well.