A large number of people all around the world have experienced the ugliness of the American empire in so many different ways

BLMについてのCornel West氏へのインタビュー

So is the rage we're seeing on the streets far bigger than the complaints about the police?

Cornel West: Oh, indeed. I think that the fundamental impulse behind the rage is the indictment of elites who are unaccountable. So it has to do with police power and police murder in the Black community. It has to do with Wall Street power and Wall Street crimes in terms of the legalised looting that's been taking place for so long on Wall Street with high levels of wealth inequality flowing therefrom. It has to do with Pentagon power and not just the drones dropped on innocent people all around the world in Yemen and Libya and Pakistan and Afghanistan and other places, but the torture that took place with no accountability whatsoever; and then its presidential power.

So, the critique, in the end, is one of an empire that is unable to provide accountability of its elites vis-a-viz everyday people


It's amazing to see brother Barack Obama out there acting like he's part of the vanguard and struggling against police power when Black Lives Matter emerged under his administration, with his Black attorney general, with his Black homeland security.

But he helped militarise those police departments. He helped generate the levels of poverty when he had bailed out the Wall Street criminals.

And we haven't got to foreign policy, yet in terms of dropping bombs on innocent brothers and sisters in different parts of the world, especially, in the Middle East, and Asia. We haven't even gotten to the killing of innocent Palestinian brothers and sisters with US-supported Israeli Defense Forces.

Cornel West: Well, I think that there's a large number of people all around the world who've experienced the ugliness of the American empire in so many different ways. Seen not just the hypocrisy of it, but the downright effects of it in terms of their lives. The deaths and the domination and the dogmas that flow from US policy.

I mean, you've got so many US military interventions since World War Two. Those folks who are victimised by those interventions. They have a different perception of America than most Americans do.

アメリカの政治、経済的権力が国内的に国際的にも暴力で庶民を支配し、なおかつ、説明責任を負わないーーーこれが問題の核心だ、と。

世界中にBLMの同調者が多いのは、アメリカの偽善やアメリカの政策によって苦しめられ死んでいった人たちが世界中にいるからだ、と。


ーーー、責任もとらずやりたい放題のアメリカの横暴な権力が本来問われるべきものであるのだが、日本の場合、対米従属で精神の領域まで侵されてしまって、そこまで行く人はあまりみかけないーーー残念な話である。