Here’s a funny thing we sometimes forget. We got independence in 1964. That’s just 60 years ago. Meaning there’s only one generation separating my cohort from colonization. It seems far away, but some of our parents remember what it was like to live under the rule of the colonialists. All of our grandparents remember it. They don’t talk about it, but they do remember it. My granduncle talked to me about going to war for the white man. How they had to carry heavy bags everywhere they went. How those heavy bags compressed parts of their bodies. How carrying those heavy bags for prolonged periods caused nerve damage. Nerve damage that made his life significantly harder later in life. And just in case this seems far, segregation in South Africa ended as we were being born. There is no generation separating South Africans my age from the colonialists. Their parents experienced it. Fought it. Their parents remember victory. They have a good picture of life before and life after.
For a long, long time, this was the norm. And the funny thing is, just as there are people on our side who remember subjugation, there are people on their side who do too. And given that this was the natural order for a long time, these people still live by those standards. We call them neocolonialists today. People who still subscribe to the old order. These are people who never accepted that the world was changing. People who think we're poor, and need help. There are some from our generation. Most are from the generation that remembers.
Racism
Here’s something that’s a bit jarring. Segregation in schools and public places in the United States of America - the paragon of modern culture - only got fully abolished in the 1960’s. Like colonialism for us, that’s just 60 years back. Meaning there’s a whole generation of Black Americans that were brought up in a world that considered white people a separate breed. They remember not being able to sit with white people. They remember having to use different toilets from white people. Having to go through an education system completely separate and different from that of the white man. And their children still remember being treated as lesser than. Because even if segregation had ended, it was still fresh in our minds. It was now a soft rule, rather than a hard one codified in law. What we call racism now, was for a long, long, time, the norm. And Black Americans had to fight very hard to get their voices heard. To create change, no matter how small. The struggle, by that point had been going on for two hundred years. Small changes here and there that culminated with the civil rights movement in the 1960’s.
But there were still people, on the other side, who didn’t accept this change, whether full or partially. There are people who still consider themselves superior. And there are some, who just by existing during that period, got conditioned to see us a certain way. You can’t really blame them. We call these people racists today. There are some who are from our generation. But most are from the generation that remembers.
Misogyny
Here’s something that we don’t really think about - at least men don’t that much. Women only got generally accepted in the workforce something like 30 - 40 years ago. Before women were only to do certain jobs that were for them. Secretaries, nurses, seamstresses, and such. Most other white and blue collar jobs were for men. Women were to stay home and raise children. Tend to the home. Men went out to earn a living for their families. These were the roles set by society. And everyone played by the rules. And while there were some - think Marie Curie - who broke from this norm a lot earlier, it was generally accepted that this was the way of life. Even for something as trivial as pants, the change is relatively recent. There were churches where you’d be thrown out of if you went wearing pants, leave alone the tight ones that are the norm today. Pants were for men. Dresses were for women.
Traditional roles, and all the quirks that come with them, are what we call misogyny today. The rules of the old world are what we partly call - or attribute as - the patriarchy. And unlike colonialism and racism, which happened long ago enough for us not to remember or be part of, this is something we are actively or passively participating in. This is a change that is happening in the world we occupy today. And for this, the people who never accepted are still part of the ether. We don’t hear stories from the past. We see it in the present. Happening to our mothers, our sisters. There are many among us who haven’t accepted that that old world is dying. There are still many among us who consider women weak. Who think women can’t lead, despite of the increasing evidence to the contrary - think Angela Merkel, Jacinda Ardern. And unlike colonialism and racism to an extent, for misogyny, we will be the generation that remembers.
Barabbas
‘Crucify him,’ they all cried. Give us Barabbas. That’s what the crowd demanded. The choice was between a man whose sins were known - who the bible described as a notorious criminal - and a man who has just said some stuff. And the people chose the criminal. Maybe because they understood his sins. Maybe because the sins of the man were known to them. Were familiar to them. Maybe because they had, at some point, committed those same sins. Or at least had thought about it. Maybe because the sins of Barabbas were common place. They were usual. They were part of the system. On the other hand, the sins of this other guy, in the crowd’s mind, we’re highly unusual, and created a sort of cognitive dissonance. Whatever the reasons were, we know the crowd chose to spare a criminal, and crucify a man who didn’t do anything particularly unlawful. That’s the effect something contrary to the norm has on people. They get hostile. They get moralistic. We’d rather deal with a sin we know than one than we don’t.
What’s my point with all this exactly? It is that change is inevitable. It is part of the human condition. It is how we as humans progress. But all change faces very stiff resistance. Because it fucks up what people have become accustomed to. What they call normal life. There was a lot of struggle when it comes to our liberation from the colonialists. There was a lot of struggle when it comes to blacks fighting for their civil rights. And there is a lot of struggle for women to be respected and recognized. With these struggles, comes some level of cognitive dissonance for those who are used to their old lives. And its not exclusive to the oppressors. But progress is agnostic. It does not whether its for good or bad. It only knows one thing. Forward, never backwards.