Imperialism in the WC
By Fernando Buen Abad: The geopolitical ideology of inequality for sanitation meets in the WC. In a world that sells “smart toilets” as a new capitalist luxury, while the sanitary infrastructures of Asia, Africa and Latin America suffer from abandonment, delay and exasperating insalubrious.
All the merchandise and symbols of imperial power, of individualistic consumerism and of ideological-cultural colonialism meet in the “bathroom”, starting with furniture for washing the body (whole or in parts), for “exoneration of the womb”, and for other purposes such as rest and recreation when purchasing power allows it. All functional thanks to water, converted into a privatized commodity, under the cloak of neoliberal corruption and under corporate and multinational mafias. Water mafias, such as Nestlé, Veolia and Suez. Unclean symbols.
Because of its importance in everyday life, it has a multitude of names: bathroom, service, toilet, washbasin, toilette, toilet, bathroom, toilet, restroom, lavatory, salle de bains, cabinets, banheiro, bagno… In some cultures, euphemisms or colloquial expressions are also used: “The throne”, “The little retreat”… are names that not only reflect linguistic diversity, but also cultural and ideological ones, all of them overwhelmed by imperial brands.
With soap, for example, myths have been fabricated of a civilization washed with colonial inventions that have used the “hygiene of the whites” against the “filth of the poor”, as a publicity and racist syllogism that uses soap as a corporal and symbolic “whitener”. There, in the intimacy of the bathroom, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive reign, among many other brands. There is cosmetics associated with the colonization of bodies with bourgeois standards of beauty, cleanliness and neatness, imposed globally. Soaps such as Pears Soap used racist and paternalistic images, presenting colonized peoples as “dirty” and “backward”, while cleanliness was associated with European order and progress. The Guardian report (2019) on the cosmetics market in India highlights how 61% of the cosmetics market is dominated by skin-lightening products, with brands such as Fair & Lovely (now Glow & Lovely, by Unilever) benefiting from the internationalization of beauty stereotypes.
Moreover, the “bathroom” is now dominated by “sophisticated” verbiage, full of “exotic” ingredients, looted from very diverse countries (argan, shea, aloe vera). “Natural” and “organic” are used as labels for the commercialization of green demagogy. There are also sanitary pads, even scented ones, for the female body market. Monopolies such as Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson market menstrual hygiene in disregard of all inequalities to impose the dominance of pads and tampons, which are humiliatingly overpriced, while advertising “sustainable alternatives” and the “menstrual cup” subject to imperialist business. The menstrual products market is monopolized by a few large corporations, such as Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson, which control production and distribution. A report by Plan International (2021) reveals that more than 500 million women and girls around the world lack access to menstrual products, which limits their ability to participate fully in working life.
The geopolitical ideology of inequality for sanitation is at play in the WC. In a world that sells “smart toilets” as the new capitalist luxury, while the sanitary infrastructures of Asia, Africa and Latin America suffer from exasperating neglect, delay and unsanitary conditions. According to the World Health Organization report (2021), more than 3.6 million people lack access to safe sanitation. And all covered up with perfumes and deodorants, with the dictatorship of the colonial sense of smell, of the “smell of cleanliness”, the plutocratic, white and wealthy “cultural revolution”, capable of selling “indigenous essences” and perfumes with ingredients against the “bad smells” of “races” with dubious hygiene, according to the bourgeois mentality of advertisers. Meanwhile, companies like Kimberly-Clark destroy primary forests to sell “toilet paper”; dental hygiene and the colonization of the mouth sells toothbrushes and flashes of whiteness like that of Colgate's fangs, plundering ingredients with orthodontic marketing and dental aesthetics from the North. Multinational companies like Kimberly-Clark and Procter & Gamble cut down thousands of trees a day in countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Canada so that you can have toilet paper rolls in your bathroom.
They have turned the bathroom into a consumerist circus with mostly unnecessary products, invented by the cosmetics industry as a symbol of bourgeois status and its personal hygiene routines with the ideology of the perfect bathroom as a pure, white, modern space and as a class privilege, a stage for aspirations of well-being and self-care. Imperialism has infiltrated the bathroom, even the most reserved spaces of daily life, traditionally understood as an intimate place of cleanliness and personal care, but now converted into perfect stages to infiltrate the ideology of the dominant class, the dynamics of unbridled consumerism and global imperialism poisoning the everyday. From the privatization of water to the imposition of brands and hygiene, they plague daily life with the structural inequalities of capitalism.
It is urgent, of course, to decolonize the Bathroom, which is a very sensitive microcosm subject to the mercantile and monopolistic interests of the Yankee empire. From the privatization of water to the commercialization of personal hygiene and the imposition of colonial aesthetic standards, this space of diverse fragility reflects the power dynamics that shape manipulations of behaviour against everyday life threatened by capitalism. To decolonize the bathroom, it is necessary to question and resist the forms of exploitation and domination that are reproduced as temptations of “comfort” through products and services associated with hygiene and well-being.
This implies democratizing water as a human right, against the privatization and exploitation of water resources; questioning bourgeois stereotypes of imperialist beauty; promoting diversity and acceptance of bodies and their diversities; ensuring self-sustainability in the market for menstrual products and cosmetics, combating the consumer logic of monopolies; denouncing and combating the predatory production of toilet paper and other products, opposing it with ecological and ethical production that does not allow environmental destruction. A semiotic revolution and a humanist ethic that understands the bathroom as a space of hygiene and privacy, but also as a crucial scene of symbolic dispute where the global dynamics of exploitation, domination and alienation are manifested today.
