Capitalism and the rise of xenophobia

THE NEW XENOPHOBIA
Tabish Khair
Oxford University Press
220 pages; Rs 495

In Bram Stroker's Dracula, Jonathan Harker becomes suspicious of the stranger in his house when he sees only his own reflection in the mirror, and not that of his guest. "Vampires are not reflected in mirrors… Neither, one can argue, are strangers…" writes Tabish Khair in his study of the effects of late capitalism on xenophobia. "What one sees is a construct of the self, reacting with fear." How this stranger is constructed - and this is always a construction - and what are the different ways in which we respond to it is the subject of this fascinating and slim book that travels easily between philosophy, economics, literature, politics and popular culture.

Mr Khair distinguishes between what he calls the "old" xenophobia and its newer variant in the introduction to the book. "The fire bomb in the letter box of an immigrant; the Jew, Muslim, or Hindu being chased down a street by skinheads… These are what I bracket under old xenophobia." This is not uncommon to us, nor is it waning: as millions of refugees from war-torn West Asia washed up on the shores of Europe last year, right-wing groups found the perfect historical moment to turn up their volumes and intensify the violence against the "strangers" at the door.

But what, then, is "new" xenophobia? Mr Khair's answer is as erudite as it is complicated. "Old xenophobia is monstrous, spectacular, and quickly identifiable. New xenophobia is less visible… [It] operates with varieties of 'push-in' violence". In other word, it is a violence that consumes the stranger, instead of exiling them; it identifies the difference with the express purpose of eliminating it. This is a sort of a post-Hegelian argument, where the other is still essential for the self but the antagonism here is essentially concealed. For Mr Khair, the ways in which "new" xenophobia operates can be understood only through a critical eye at high capitalism, which serves as the dominant power structure in our contemporary times.

Though personal criticism is anathema to me, one cannot help wonder how far Mr Khair's own experiences have inspired this study. Born and educated in Bihar, Mr Khair began his career as a stringer for The Times of India in Patna, but was forced to move to New Delhi - where he became the newspaper's staff correspondent - after "a conflict with Islamic fundamentalists", as the biographical note at the end of the book records. After moving to Copenhagen, Denmark, he worked for a few years in odd "immigrant" jobs, such as a hotel cleaner, dish washer, and house painter, before completing his PhD in 2000, at Copenhagen University. How much of his experiences would he bracket under his classification of "new" xenophobia?

In any case, Mr Khair's most ingenious thesis is not the differentiating between the different kinds of xenophobia but linking its newer manifestations to the rise of financial capitalism. To explain the growth of financial capitalism and how it has spread across the world, Mr Khair makes the broad point that global financial flows are several times larger in order of magnitude than global merchandise trade.

Thus, the traditional "market", where value was exchanged, has ceased to exist and the financial market in itself creates no value - money has become wholly abstract, an idea, but not solid ideas of scientists and poets. Mr Khair writes: "We are talking empty air", because the value of these numbers exist only within the financial markets. Yet, this is where the arguments seems to get a little frayed. For instance, holding up farmer suicides in India as examples of "new" xenophobia stretches the argument too far. Undoubtedly, the farmer suicides are the result of newer forms of capitalism - but they are not the results of any real or constructed fear.

Despite my disagreements, I must add that this is a timely book, written engagingly, and addressing many of the issues that we are forced to grapple with every day. Critiquing the manner in which genocides were legalised in Europe, particularly Nazi Germany, in the mid-20th century, Albert Camus wrote in The Rebel: "As soon as man… makes his crime reasonable, it multiplies. …Yesterday, it was put on trial; today it is the law." If philosophy is used to justify murder, as it is often is in our time, it has to be combatted by philosophy, such as Mr Khair's.