Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

Planet of Slums by Mike Davis

1 review

stguac's review

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challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

4.0

 
reading some of the reviews on here [imported from goodreads], i realize just how deeply this book disturbs and even angers first world readers. i am brazilian, reading this from rio de janeiro, and this book just chills me to the core. i dont live in a slum. but the favelas are ever-present to anyone outside the massive gated communities in barra or recreio. but the violence FROM the favela is vastly outshadowed and barely stands in comparison to the violence of the state, ever-present in brazilian society.

the clearances of favelas are now done by militias, an issue that is too complex to delve into here. this month, may 2021, the military police of rio de janeiro slaughtered 29 people in jacarézinho under the excuse of fighting drug dealing gangs. this is rio de janeiro in 2021, during a pandemic where at least two thousand people are dying every day from the already out of control pandemic.

no, davis does not 'offer solutions' to make some intrepid white reader, sitting comfortably in their goddamn brooklyn apartment paid for by their fucking parents, feel better about themselves. what an unbelievably selfish sentiment. youre reading a book about the horrors of capitalism inflicted onto BILLIONS of people and your first thought is 'this makes me feel sad ):' and your second is 'its not MY fault!'

indeed, white brooklynite crying to themselves, there is no solution under capitalism. this book does not exist to make you feel good about yourself. im actually shocked at how many of the reviews were negative because the book was 'too sad' and somehow hurt their feelings. why does it hurt your feelings to know that the third world is a gigantic slum, created in your own image, to provide you with cheap fuel and iphones and avocados? why are you so attacked by this?

i later read some of the other criticisms around this book about how it's 'anti-urban' and 'city-hating' and i think its actually fucking laughable how drastically people miss the point. its not cities themselves that inherently produce poverty; davis at several points discusses rural proletarianization, which destroys existing ways of life to create jobless, floating proletariats who must sell their labor power rather than live off the land but are unable to do either because there is no work and there is no land. to come away thinking that davis 'hates cities' is, i think, one of the stupidest fucking things you could do. i figured id address this because there seems to be a fundamental unwillingness to engage with the core argument of the book, which is how imperialism shapes the very geography of the third world.

another thing i saw was how davis was 'apocalyptic' in this book. and that, again, is something that you, the white first world reader, must sit with. yes, most of the world is actually in dire straights and has been for centuries. yes, most of this is a direct result of the way the global economy is structured to favor the first world over the third. no, you have no right to feel attacked over this simple statement. if you believe planet of slums is 'apocalyptic' then i beg you to live in the conditions that some of these people live in, near open sewage drains, without toilets, on hills threatening to give way at every thunderstorm, huddling in terror of police 'operations' (the only time the state recognizes the slums). the way most of humanity lives IS apocalyptic.

i think people dont seem to understand just how serious the crisis of capitalism is, how even when the economy is good for the first world, life is an endless hell for 2/3s of the planet. from experience and just from casual observation, first world people inherently lack complete empathy for third world people. but davis' epilogue discusses the possibility of eventual overthrow of the system. and i think you will have to accept that perhaps you are not the only human beings on the planet,; that there is another 2/3s of the world that one day, will not accept being treated as subhuman sewage. 
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