Resisting and accepting change in society: Part I

Photo: Global Teen Challenge

The 1960s is a period that might not, perhaps, come back even when common knowledge has it that 'history repeats itself.' Whether it repeats itself as a tragedy and then as a farce as Karl Marx once put it, the 1960s is unique in goodness and badness. The radicalism of that era will never be replicated. Undoubtedly, the historical importance of this era is transformatively reflected in many impactful and fundamental political, economic and cultural changes that endure to the present. 

This period saw the youth rebellion in drug use and sexual expression and the general counter-cultural revolution that still makes cultural conservatives and religious leaders groan in anger; the passage of the civil rights act and its affirmative action provision; the independence of African countries; the assassinations of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, John Kennedy and Robert Kenney; the increasing acceptance of bikini use in society and by women generally; the near descend of the world into nuclear annihilation; the economic prosperity that would open the way to the rise of neoliberalism and the fundamental form of capitalism (which Noami Klien calls 'disaster capitalism') in the mid-1970s...among others. 

While people always talk of  'good old days' or that "old is gold', it is good to note that these comparative expressions are usually ways we escape contemporary realities even if there might be some truth to them. Indeed, there are times when past historical realities are preferable to contemporary changes. An example is the lives of American natives pre and post-Columbus. There is no doubt that the destructive effect of European voyages makes native Americans long for the 'good old days' of pride, cultural and linguistic expression of their human-ness. Before Columbus, they were indeed 'good old days' for indigenous peoples.

And for Europeans (continental, in the Americas and Oceania), the past (with slavery and colonialism) was 'good old days' given their then unbridled control of the world and the ability to act without any (or with little) moral accountability. Good old days indeed for far-right Europe as it is trying to re-dream their past glories and our past dreads as exemplified by Brexit and the resurgence of right-wing extremism and populism in western and eastern Europe. 

Against our dreadful past (colonialism and slavery), African scholars are now moving toward this pre-colonial African 'good old days' reality for better (because of paradigmatic importance of African viewpoint) or for worse (for this good old days is not well known). For Europeans, however, 'good old days' may be the 'dreadful old days' for Africans and Native Americans.

However, historical changes in values of society and the normative resistance to such value changes are part of the numerous dyads of history that repeat themselves like Siamese twins. Change is instigated by others within society and resisted at the same time by others within the same society. No change is accepted by everyone in society and at the same time unless there is a coercive force behind such a change instigation. Whether it is in society, at the church, in schools, in universities, at work, change is both necessary and dreadful. But what makes change necessary yet dreadful? 

Essentially, change is usually proposed by people who have found a flaw in contemporary structural and functional norms, or by those who don't benefit from that contemporary, normative structure. The former case can be seen in resistance to proposed changes in paradigms in scientific research as explained by Thomas Kuhn in his influential book, The Structure of Scientific Relovution. As Kuhn explained, older scientists whose scientific theories have been received, find it hard to accept that new research pieces of evidence undermine their theories so they resist these new pieces of evidence until their death, after which their theories die.

The latter case can be seen with minority groups in the west, especially in North America. In this case, minority groups are challenging dominant ideologies and paradigms that benefit those who created and functionalized such ideologies and paradigms. What minority groups see as a rational quest for inclusion or representation as Stuart Hall would call it, the dominant party sees as an unreasonable demand to either wrestle power away from them or to undermine their cultural essence. To the latter group, it is not about inclusion but the cultural destruction of their dominance. The change-resistance is a historical dyad that is repeated in history. The change group, whether slowly or rapidly, always (I risk saying) wins. 

However, it is good to note that those who resist change don't necessarily think that change is a bad thing in society; they just don't like its disruptive effects and the time it takes for them to readjust. Change always target the elites so they only embrace change only if they've found a way to embrace change without any fundamental effect on their bottom line. 

While change-instigators are usually those who fight for inclusion, it would be naive to see all change-instigators as always acting as moral agents who are only after egalitarian agendas. There are those who are indeed after either the destruction of the very playing field or the upending the balance of power. 

So what am I suggesting here? What I am suggesting here is DIALOGUE no matter how naive and unrealistic it may sound. A dialogue with hate groups might sound very naive when it comes to change, which they perceive as a power-upending project. 

Admittedly, those who resist change have a number of reasons that should be put into consideration instead of assuming the moral imperative that necessitates that change is enough a reason for everyone to accept change. People need to be listened to even when we think that their reasons are not worth listening to. Avoidance of dialogue is what we do with the so-called 'white supremacists groups', who are dismissed as nut cases without the need to listen to why they hold hateful views.

No one is born with hateful views. They are learned as Nelson Mandela and develoment psychologists tell us. So instead of seeing these people as unworthy of any dialogic process, we should keep the dialogic door open. As historian Nell Painter has argued, what we believe is what our culture has trained us to believe.

Hate groups (for there is nothing supreme about hatred) are products of their cultural ecologies so blaming them without addressing the deterministic forces that make them assume such a dangerous mind set, is to add to the problem rather than address it. 

On the other hand, those who fervently and ideologically resist change need to understand historical realities and the futility of resisting change without listening to its moral imperative. Slavery, segregation, scientific racism, European superiority, and racial segregation, were accepted historical truisms. There used to be a time when they were considered established, immutable facts. Now, only the waste bin of history knows them well even when some conservative writers try to reanimate them into the popular discourse on racial identity. 

While change-instigators suffered gravely when they attempted to inspire societal change that would later engender their abandonment, they still had the last laugh. While change was resisted through blood and politics, history still took the day: slavery ended, segregation (the officially sanctioned one, that is) ended, colonialism ended, scientific racism ended etc. It is therefore futile to resist the irresistible. 

Social Justice

Picture: Legal Bites

Women's rights and LGBT rights are controversial topics in Africa. In some countries, they are not only non-negotiable but also unmentionable. In the west, their intersectionality with other minority rights is well acknowledged. However, in Africa and other non-western countries, such intersectionality is not there because the very people who become minorities in the west (and get discriminated against) are the very people who frown at women's and LGBT rights. 

The visceral reality of these issues makes reasonable men and women unreasonable. However, nuanced cultural contexts are important in understanding any sociocultural issues, otherwise, de-contextual rationalization of such issues become destructive to the culture in question and the people who question some harmful elements of such a culture. There are no bad cultures, but there are bad cultural practices in every culture. Not a single culture can brag of having no unsavory cultural practices. Not now, not in the past. 

Given the fact that all people are culturally located and socially conditioned, it is imperative that one understands the cultural positionality and sociocultural conditions and structures that inform how people look at extra-cultural values. Critical interrogation of how people view things is important as opposed to a blind and uncritical dismissal of how people view issues. I can bitterly criticize Africans who oppose LGBT rights and the feminist discourse without regarding Africans are 'bad people.'

While some people see women's rights and LGBT rights as western political hegemonic-imperialistic 'agendas' that are imposed on non-western people, it is important to know that there is no absolute consensus in the west as to the morality of these issues. Conservatives and religious groups still oppose some of these rights (abortion, reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work etc), arguing that they are against their family and religious values. They forget that family and religious values are all social constructs and conventions. It is also imperative to note that these rights are recent in terms of their moral and cultural currency in the west. 

Women's suffrage moment gained traction at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century (1890s -1920s). The feminist movement gained traction in the late 1940s with the publication of Simone de Beauvoir's Section Sex.

Those who regard these social issues as western values instead of seeing them as human values forget the fact that they have not always been welcome in the west. Men who were accused of sodomy were arrested and some hanged in England. Gay people in Canada used to be arrested - like it happens now in Africa - if they professed to be gay. To argue that LGBT rights and women's rights as a social justice campaign is a western agenda is to lose sight of the fact that it has not always been rosy for these groups in the west. 

Hilde Johnson wrote in her book, South Sudan: The Untold Story from Independence to the Civil War, that the easiest way to stigmatize something in South Sudan (and in Africa I guess) is to argue that it is a "western idea." This is a psychosocial move meant for control. Once people are made to believe that a given idea is 'western', they are driven toward nationalist-culturalist populism to frantically fight 'westernization." 

While I understand that cultural acknowledgment and tolerance are phenomena that don't happen overnight, something I think western activists should understand, Africans and other non-western people need to understand that westerners have not always been (and some are still not) kind to women and the LGBT community. 

Westerners need to acknowledge that it took the west more than 400 years to acknowledge women's and the LGBT rights. Yet, they frown at Africans, who find such rights preposterous.  While Africans need to acknowledge that women's and LGBT rights are not western agenda but human rights, westerners need to understand how long it took for them to accept these rights as part of social justice campaign. 

As someone who writes about issues of social justice and human rights, I find it imperative for activists and social justice campaigners to avoid hypocrisy stealing into their campaigns. I fight for social justice because I know what it has done to me and "my people." I find it despicable that people who have been oppressed and looked down upon for centuries can be part of a process that oppresses others. 

Women and the LGBT community are not out to harm me or go against the values I find imperative; they are only asking me and people like me - straight, cis-gendered men - to allow them to love whoever they prefer without them being stigmatized or oppressed.

Women are asking me and people like me, to be fair to them. To allow them to go to school if they so chose instead of marrying them off at 15 or 16. Women are asking me not to assume they are emotional or weak just because they are women as society tells me. They want me to value them for what I see in them not what society has inculcated on my mind as the 'truth' or 'fact' about them. 

As long as a given group of people is not out to harm me, I don't see any reason why I should be up in arms against their well-being and the rights they are asking from me. 

I understand Africans' frustration with the hypocrisy of westerners at times because they expect Africans to embrace in a few decades what took them centuries to accept. While some of us only need to see the value of given social issues to accept them, some need more time to unlearn prejudices planted in them by their cultures. 

Social issues are not accepted because they are 'good' or 'moral'; they are accepted because they make sense within a given culture.

However, Africans and other non-western peoples need to know that cultures are meant as structures to order society's norms and govern our morals. We need to evaluate the rights of others against the health of our societies instead of assuming that there is a natural, objective cultural stance that should not be violated. Societies, where LGBT rights have been accepted, have not crumbled. 

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Kuir ë Garang is the editor of THE PHILOSOPHICAL REFUGEE. Twitter @Kuirthiy