Chandran Nair 瓦解全球白人特權

瓦解全球白人特權：後西方世界的公平

作者：錢德蘭·奈爾  貝瑞特-科勒出版社/2022

https://www.policymagazine.ca/dismantling-global-white-privilege-a-roadmap-for-change/ 

評論人：羅賓·V·西爾斯

2022年7月7日

過去十年中為數不多的令人振奮的政治趨勢之一是性別平等運動的日益壯大，更令人驚訝的是，種族正義的呼聲也日益高漲。然而，種族主義和性別歧視背後存在著更高層次的歧視結構：白人權力精英在全球幾乎所有人類活動領域都占據主導地位。

錢德蘭·奈爾是亞洲最受尊敬的公共知識分子之一，在他的新書《瓦解全球白人特權：後西方世界的公平》中，他有力地論證了一條白人主導的紐帶將體育、金融等七個截然不同的領域聯係起來。奈爾的著作於六月被《金融時報》評為當季最佳書籍之一。書中，他以無可辯駁的論證，揭示了麥肯錫、德勤、NBA以及全球媒體如何通過歐美領導力和西方價值觀的主導地位緊密相連。

奈爾接受過工程師的專業訓練，因此他對係統的敏銳分析並不令人意外。此外，他還是亞洲最成功的環境顧問之一，從業超過三十年。如今，他是亞洲智庫“明日全球研究院”（Global Institute for Tomorrow）的首席執行官。他曾為世界各國政府提供谘詢，並作為羅馬俱樂部的高級董事會成員，與全球白人高管圈子有著密切的聯係。

在書中，他逐一指出西方白人主導的組織在各個領域的統治地位，從世界銀行到四大會計師事務所，從常春藤盟校到時尚和出版業，無一例外。他挑戰了我們現行治理體係的自由民主敘事——認為它不僅是世界上最好的，而且是唯一可行的。

從我與他的交談中可以看出，他拒絕在中美之間選邊站隊。他承認中美兩國存在種族主義和其他弊端，隻是指出西方仍然主導世界，而中國不再主導，而且可能永遠也不會。奈爾並不提倡接受中國或其他任何威權模式。他關注西方，是因為當今的權力和問題都集中在西方。

他抨擊西方自由派人士在種族主義問題上態度強硬，卻未能提拔非白人候選人擔任首席執行官等要職。

他的論點之所以如此引人入勝，是因為他不僅從行業和地域，而且從曆史的角度，將支撐全球白人特權的要素聯係起來。他清晰地指出，從早期歐洲在亞洲的貿易往來，到殖民主義，再到今天，白人特權始終存在。他認為，非殖民化的遺產是表麵上的獨立和自治，但實際上白人特權仍然控製著經濟、聯盟和貿易關係。他還將當今美國以軍事優勢為基礎的地緣政治戰略，與維護西方商業利益（其中最著名的當然是石油利益）聯係起來。

他還指出，此類幹預行動中對非白人死亡的漠視，並引用了美國前國務卿馬德琳·奧爾布賴特在1996年接受《60分鍾》節目采訪時令人震驚的回答。當時，奧爾布賴特被問及海灣戰爭後對伊拉克實施製裁導致50萬平民死亡，她回答說：“我們認為這個代價是值得的。”

作為一名偶爾從事學術研究並經常在大學論壇上發表演講的人，他質疑為何美國常春藤盟校以及牛津和劍橋大學至今仍在全球學術界的權力、財富和排名中占據主導地位。他指出，這些排名是由受西方白人特權支配的群體評定的，他們使用的評估標準也隻適用於這些老牌名校。

奈爾的論述或許不可避免地不如其批判性描述那樣細致入微，尤其是在提出具體方案方麵。他承認，許多領域——或許金融業首當其衝——會強烈抵製他提出的為非白人爭取更大公平待遇的要求。

奈爾在馬來西亞長大，他以自身經曆為例：青少年時期沉迷於英美搖滾樂，長大後卻意識到，即便滾石樂隊標榜“革命性”，也隻不過是西方白人青年生活的另一種寫照。他成長為一名音樂愛好者和音樂家，如今專注於亞洲、非洲和中東的音樂巨匠。他不禁疑惑，為何這些音樂人即便在自己的國家，也無法獲得與英美巨星同等的關注。

青少年時期，他曾質疑，為何一位印度裔馬來西亞人會選擇學習莎士比亞，而忽略了奧馬爾·海亞姆、老子或《奧義書》等亞洲文學巨匠。他認為，這反映出太多亞洲學生的思想仍然被西方白人主導的文學和曆史敘事所殖民。他非常合理地呼籲，非白人學生不應該為了進入西方大學並在大學取得成功而被迫接受這些觀念。

鑒於奈爾在環境領域擁有30年的經驗，他在此提出的批評尤為尖銳。他稱之為“粉飾太平的環保運動”的種種弊端，阻礙了人們真正走向可持續發展的道路。他質疑那些被公眾視為環保明星的群體——一個完全由白人組成的全球領導層——並質問為何會出現這種情況。他認為唯一的解釋是，西方人認為非白人社區和組織並不真正關心環境，或者認為他們沒有能力和資源做出真正的改變，又或者認為通過排除非白人的批評聲音，就能確保白人特權帶來的氣候罪責得以轉移。

無論你是否接受這種尖銳的批評，他對富裕社會在環境美德問題上玩弄數字遊戲的論述都是無可辯駁的。他承認印度和中國都存在持續的汙染和排放問題，但他指出，中國仍然是全球太陽能裝機容量的領頭羊，2019年裝機容量達到20.5萬兆瓦，是排名第二的美國（6.2萬兆瓦）的三倍多。

奈爾在提出具體方案時，或許不可避免地不如其批判性描述那樣細致。他承認，許多行業——金融業或許首當其衝——會強烈抵製他提出的為非白人爭取更大公平待遇的要求。他也承認，他所呼籲的變革可能需要數十年，甚至幾代人的時間。

然而，支撐他整個論點的並非是天真地認為掌權者會慷慨地放棄權力。除非他們意識到拒絕放棄權力將麵臨暴力抵抗，並有可能失去更大的權力，否則這種情況永遠不會發生。曆史為這種做法提供了佐證。畢竟，富蘭克林·羅斯福曾私下向美國資本傳達這樣的信息：接受我的社會正義改革，否則就等著共產主義吧。奏效了。

他最有力的行動呼籲是對白人特權如何從幼兒教育一直延伸到高等教育的詳細剖析，以及如何著手轉變並消除其中最具歧視性的價值觀。要改變花旗銀行或殼牌石油公司高管對可持續發展和正義的責任感，不能從這個層麵開始。這必須從小就樹立起普世價值。

奈爾的這本分析著作，以通俗易懂的方式，首次清晰地描繪了西方白人主導的商業、政府和學術機構在全球占據主導地位的複雜網絡。盡管偶爾帶有爭議性，但他的論點令人信服。這本書值得在權力中心廣泛傳播。

撰稿人羅賓·V·西爾斯曾於1990年至1995年擔任安大略省駐東京亞洲總代表，之後在香港私營部門工作。他目前是渥太華的獨立危機公關顧問。

Dismantling Global White Privilege: A Roadmap for Change

https://www.policymagazine.ca/dismantling-global-white-privilege-a-roadmap-for-change/

Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World

By Chandran Nair  Berrett-Koehler Publishers/2022

Reviewed by Robin V. Sears

July 7, 2022

One of the few uplifting political trends of the past decade has been the growing strength of movements for gender equality and, even more surprisingly, the demand for racial justice. But a higher-level structure of discrimination governs both racism and sexism: The global dominance of a white power elite in virtually every arena of human activity.

Chandran Nair, one of Asia’s most respected public intellectuals, makes a powerful case for the existence of a white thread connecting sectors as diverse as sports and finance, and seven others, in his new book Dismantling Global White Privilege: Equity for a Post-Western World. Chosen in June by the Financial Times as one the best books of the season, Nair’s thesis weaves an undeniable tapestry of  how the McKinseys, Deloittes, the NBA, and global media are connected by the dominance of European and North American leadership and Western values.

Nair is an engineer by training, so his acute analysis of systems in not surprising. But he was also one of the most successful environmental consultants in Asia for more than three decades. He is now CEO of an Asian think tank, the Global Institute for Tomorrow. He has advised governments around the world, and as a senior board member of the Club of Rome is personally acquainted with the global club of white senior executives.

In sector after sector he points out the dominance of Western white-led organizations, from the World Bank to the big four auditing giants, to the Ivy League, to fashion and publishing. He challenges the liberal democratic narrative  of our system of governance as being not only the best, but the only workable one in the world.

From my conversations with him, he refuses to take sides between China/US, for example. Acknowledges their racism and other dysfunctions, simply observes the West still rules, and China does not, and probably never will. Nair does not advocate for an acceptance of Chinese or any other authoritarian model. He focuses on the West because that is where the power and the problems are today.

He takes swipes at Western liberals’ willingness to take tough stands on racism, while failing to promote non-white candidates to CEO level roles.

What makes his thesis so compelling is that he connects the elements that underpin global white privilege not only by sector and geography, but by history. He draws a straight line between early European traders in Asia, to colonialism to today. The legacy of decolonization, he maintains, is the appearance of independence and self-government, but the reality of white privilege continuing to control economies, alliances, and trade relations. He also connects today’s American geopolitical strategy, so often grounded in the use of its military dominance, to the maintenance of Western commercial interests, most famously, of course, in oil.

He cites as well the casual dismissal of non-white deaths in such interventions, quoting former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, stunningly answering a question on 60 Minutes in 1996 about the 500,000 civilian deaths attributed to post-Gulf War sanctions against Iraq saying, “We think the price is worth it.”

As a sometime academic and frequent speaker at university forums, he wonders why the American Ivy League and Oxford and Cambridge dominate global academia to this day in power, wealth and rankings. He observes that the rankings are done by groups dominated by Western white privilege as judges, using factors of assessment uniquely suited to the established big universities.

Nair is, perhaps inevitably, a little less granular in prescription, than in critical description. He acknowledges that there are many sectors – finance perhaps first among them – that will be deeply resistant to his demand for greater equity for non-whites.

Nair grew up in Malaysia and cites his own experience moving from a teen addicted to British and American rock and roll to an adult realizing that despite their “revolutionary” stance even the Rolling Stones were merely another evocation of the life of Western white kids. He grew into a music fan and musician now focused on Asian, African and Middle Eastern musical giants. He wonders why they do not get the same attention, even in their own countries, as the Anglo-American superstars.

He questioned as an adolescent why a Malaysian of Indian ancestry was studying Shakespeare, to the exclusion of Asian literary giants such as Omar Khayyam, Laozi, or the Upanishads. He links this to continuing colonization of the minds of too many Asian students in a white Western literary and historical narrative. He calls, quite reasonably, for non-white students not to have to ingest these constructs as the price of their entry into and success in Western universities and commerce.

Given his 30 years of experience in environmental practice, Nair’s critiques here are especially biting. What he dubs the “Whitewashed Environmental Movement,” is guilty of many obstacles to a real path to sustainability. Challenging the role of the green public rockstars, an entirely white global leadership, he asks why this is so. The only possible explanation he claims is that we in the West believe non-white communities and organizations do not really care about the environment, or that they don’t have the ability and resources to make real change, or that by keeping non-white critiques out of the green spotlight we ensure that white privilege’s climate guilt can be deflected.

Whether you accept this searing critique or not, his citation of the games with numbers that rich societies play about environmental virtue are unchallengeable. Conceding both India and China’s ongoing pollution and emissions issues, he points out that China is still the world leader in solar energy installation at 205,000 megawatts (2019). More than three times number two,  the US at 62,000.

Nair is, perhaps inevitably, a little less granular in prescription, than in critical description. He acknowledges that there are many sectors – finance perhaps first among them – that will be deeply resistant to his demand for greater equity for non-whites. And he concedes the kinds of changes that he is calling for may require decades, even generations.

However, underpinning his entire thesis is not a naive assumption that the powerful will generously cede their power. That will never happen unless they are persuaded that failing to do so risks violent resistance, and the potential to lose much greater power. History offers support for such an approach. It was, after all Franklin D. Roosevelt’s private message to American capital: accept my social justice reforms or risk communism. It worked.

His most powerful call to action is a detailed examination of how white privilege is built into early childhood education through to post-secondary study – and how to begin to transform and roll back its most discriminatory values. Transforming the attitudes of a Citibank or a Shell Oil executive about their responsibility for sustainability and justice cannot begin at that level. It must be set as universal values among the very young.

Nair has produced the first analysis, accessible to all readers, that clearly delineates the complex spider web that tightly binds the global dominance of Western, white-led business, governmental and academic organizations. If occasionally polemic, his thesis is compelling. The book deserves a wide audience in the corridors of power.

Contributing Writer Robin V. Sears served as Ontario’s Delegate General to Asia in Tokyo from 1990-95, and later worked in the private sector in Hong Kong. He is now an independent crisis communications consultant based in Ottawa.