Maktoub

Let’s start with a definition, not in reference to an absolute truth but simply to preserve the consistency of logic in the script and what transcends passed it. Art is the struggle to communicate, or deliver, what is otherwise difficult or impossible to communicate through conventional means. Consequently, we can think of art production as the abstraction of an experience, emotion, or idea to the sensible. Criticism in art then becomes the struggle of the receptor of art production to approach the whole of humanity, the totality, manifested in the artist behind the production, beyond the sensible.

In the painting for instance, the artist manifests the whole across several levels, in an infinite network of processes, persistently evolving, such as the poetic process, and the aesthetic process. With the impossibility of addressing the infinitude of art, the receptor of art production surrenders to their human finitude. Consequently, with their consciousness of this finitude and surrendering they seek refuge in aesthetics, the science of the sensible, in their struggle to approach the artist. But this limitation and acknowledgement, particularly, engenders a new form of art: the art of criticism. The critic now, through addressing the whole of humanity manifested in the artist behind the production, are in fact now approaching that same whole within themselves. 

However the absence of such consciousness breeds confusion between art and aesthetics, and results in the abolition of art and replacing it with aesthetics: replacing the end with the mean. Now aesthetics is considered to be art itself. It follows then that the definition of aesthetic imperialism in art is the abstraction of the whole to the partial whole. In the context of the painting, it is the abstraction of the artist (whole) to the painter (partial): contrary to the painter that is defined and labeled based on the medium, painting, the artist is defined independent of the medium.

In this vein, we can represent society as a painting, manifesting the whole of humanity starting from its first artist, the primitive man, as an infinite network of processes, under persistent evolution, such as the economic, political, cultural, natural, and historic processes to name a few. Consequently, we define the capitalistic methodology in society as the abstraction of the whole to the economic process (the sensible) where materialistic privileges become the drive and machinery behind the development in society. This machinery particularly takes on different forms and manifestations at different stages in its development: colonialism and settler-colonialism being instances of such development. Eventually reaching its climax when “economic feasibility” becomes the common denominator as the dominant factor in the evolution of all processes within society: rot. Within this climax, the whole in society descends to an economic unit that feeds off “economic feasibility”: parasitism. Within this rot-parasite interplay particularly we can declare the definition of imperialism in this capitalistic machinery.

The notion of boycott must then emerge from this rot in order to counteract it. For boycotting is an art, it is the struggle to counteract against imperialist methodologies that cannot be otherwise achieved through conventional means (such as the armed struggle) due to lack of sufficient social maturity. By this token, it acts as a catalyst in order to reach sufficient social maturity. Boycotting is not only about banning consumer goods and products outputted by the imperialist machinery, for within this limited scope it is in-line with the machinery itself: abstracting the whole of society to the economic process. The art of boycotting takes this struggle against all manifestations across all processes, cleansing the rot wherever it appears.

In the context of interest, Arab society, with reservations on labeling this society as such, Western imperialism, naturally, is of concern: particularly Israel and the West (with the US being the lead force in the imperialistic machinery today). Some take the initiative of boycotting Israeli products and consumer goods. Others take even a step further and boycott such goods produced or supplied by the US. While such acts are essential, yet their ceiling is low as they abide by the definition of imperialism, and capitalism by scoping the struggle to the economic process. While in reality any struggle for liberation should be a return to the whole. I will present next how such imperialistic methodology and machinery penetrates to the cultural process, as an example, to highlight the depth along and across several dimensions if the act of boycotting ascends to become an act of struggle: to a form of art.

Some of us, for instance, still seek refuge in the West and its institutions during times of turmoil and crises, even when such circumstances are imposed by the West itself and its imperialist machinery. In the current aggression on Gaza for instance, you can still hear some folks appealing to the United Nations and internationally renowned ‘human rights’ organizations for refuge and support. Some even show more alarming signs of such perversion by appealing to Western corporations and CEOs for this purpose: such as the current trending request and appeal to Elon Musk for Starlink service in Gaza. With such appeal, double standards may appear to be the accurate description when contrasting the tendency of such institutions, organizations, and corporations in the Palestinian struggle with that of the Ukrainian struggle for instance. In reality however it is nothing but conformity and consistency in standards from a  Western-capitalistic outlook. Contrary to the Ukrainian cause that screams ‘economic feasibility’,the Palestinian cause, in its essence, aims at the abolition of the Zionist state, and consequently the abolition of the current geographic and demographic decree in the region which is no more than a manifestation of the penetration of Western imperialism in the region. 

We can elaborate even further in the context of current events. The United Nations and human rights organizations were quick, ‘continental drift’ quick, to condemn the Israeli occupation army’s killing of civilians in Gaza, of course after emphasizing the condemnation of the Palestinian resistance and, by this token, leveling between the oppressor and the oppressed (rot!). A small minority even went so far into turning that condemnation into accusation of terrorism against the occupying army, completely discarding the fact that these acts are byproducts of Israeli terrorism and not the essence of it. But this rot, in both cases, that lies in the bias towards retribution and punishment over thought and understanding is in the essence of parasitic morality within capitalism through all its stages.

Particularly in the aftermath of the second World War, the Western bloc invested in this ‘retribution over thought’ methodology against the Nazis: the bias towards ‘Who is a Nazi?’ rather than ‘What made this sickness an epidemic in Germany and other parts of Europe?’. If we break down this tendency from a capitalistic outlook, it is easy to see the economic feasibility in the first question versus the economic infeasibility in the latter. Addressing the latter question would shed-light on the conformity of Nazi Germany with Western standards, morality, and ideals, with the sole difference of applying such standards, morality, and ideals in Europe instead of the colonies. 

In the case of Israel, however, that ‘difference’ does not exist. Israel is abiding by the Western, originally European, morality in a colony, similar to the application of the same ‘morality’ on indigenous people in the Americas (a model that very much appealed to Hitler himself), and Australia, for instance. To support Israel, regardless of the extent of its atrocities, was and will always be economically feasible. The same economical feasibility that led the West to exporting the ‘Jewish question’ (a loose end in Europe after the rise of the ‘nation-state’ during the renaissance) outside Europe even after putting Nazism into an end. The irony.

ٍStill along the same lines, we can find traces of such rot outside political culture. In the context of social culture, more dangerous residuals of imperialism appear. Going back to the embodiment of Western imperialism in the current geographical and demographical setting in the region, it is not a coincidence or a surprise that the elites in the region, among states and also amongst the people, play a key role in the penetration of this machinery. For such elites were either maintained, or even labeled as elites by the Western-imperial machinery itself after the First World War, leveraging material and social privileges. 

The role of these elites is not limited to adopting Western ideals and standards (the Western definition and outlook on liberation, prosperity, civility, peace, justice, and terrorism, to name a few). For such elite class is also a key factor in the penetration of the Western machinery into social culture: socialization of the means of production. This is manifested in academic/educational curriculums, such as in the outlook on the Great Arab Revolt, and the rise of nationalist tendency that were purely Western-induced, in the social infrastructure governed by economic treaties that either preserves the West the sufficient ‘cut’ of national resources or by forging a necessary dependency on Western resources,  and in the descent of art to aesthetic appeal (notable in music, for instance, in  the stagnation of, rather transformation from, Tarab), to name a few examples.

I can go on and on, providing further examples and elaboration on the spread of this rot all across the region. But I do believe at this point a more fundamental question must be addressed. Why have boycotting campaigns been limited to the economic process in the region, while the manifestations of the penetration of Western imperialism clearly transcends past that particular process? Perhaps overlooking stimulates the ease of boycotting, as a ‘position’, limited to recreational and consumer goods, compared to the sacrifice when accompanied with the social, cultural and political boycott with which the act elevates from a ‘position’ to a decolonial ‘struggle’: to a form of art. So long as boycotting campaigns stick to its narrow scope, it will only engender the spread of the rot rather than contribute to eliminating and abolishing it.