Hi Raul,
I will answer your propositions below.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [-empyre-] Contrapuntos Dinamicos
From: Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet <rfbalanquet@cartodigital.org>
Date: Thu, April 28, 2005 7:59 am
To: empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Eduardo;
Con todo tu respect. I want to answer to this part of your posting
"I believe that we cannot proclaim the culture of "our ancestors."
That time is gone. Latin America after its decolonization process
was left with pluralities which are not yet fully understood because
the culture keeps changing based on its turbulent past."
You assert that Latin America lives a present after decolonization. I
don't know from where you draw this conclusion.
Decolonization could be thought of in historical terms which can of
course be contested as you have done so below. I will soon contest
your other propositions, but for now here is a not too far off
definition of "decolonization"--the mythological process that you
mention:
"Decolonization is the process of emancipation of colonies, and is
opposite to colonization. More specifically, in modern usage the term
refers to a movement following the Second World War in which the
various European colonies and protectorates of the world gained
independence. "
Let the Wiki do the job:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization
It is of course , a western historical interpretation of political
shifts around the colonies of the world--that the colonial ideology
stayed active is another matter, of course. An example of this (as you
mention) is the Catholic church's great influence throughout Latin
America, not to mention around the world.
Are you talking about
the Spanish ruling? Because if that is the case, I would like to
point out that the Spaniards came along with the Catholic Church and
they massacred the native, imposed brutal and barbaric punishments in
the name of God and burn a lot of the ancient manuscripts (Most of
the one left are in European Libraries: Madrid, Dresden). Still
today, the Catholic Church colonizes the mind of million of people
in Latin America. And nobody can tell me that we have a different
church. It is the same Klan; dominated by men, a well-organized
ideological system that lives off the work of many here. It is the
same Klan that opposes reproductive rights, ethnic equality,
religious diversity and sexual freedom.
I believe part of this is answered above. I will only add that by
using
the term "decolonization" I do not imply that Colonial ideology went
away. By no means; instead, we entered what came to known as
"post-colonialism." Having cited so many of the usual suspects at the
end of your message shows that you are already aware of this, but not
deriving such distinctions and assuming what I meant with
decolonization exposes a subtle essentialism. I elaborate on this
below.
How can we talk of "after"
if the Mayan temples are used by the neo liberal Mexican government
as tourist attraction contributing to the destruction of sacred
buildings? Oh si, but the Cathedrals built with the rocks stolen form
the Aztecas and Mayan temples and with the brutal enforcement of
labor upon the native are still up as if the true religion of Latin
America were only one.
Here we have the problem that post-colonialism indirectly and at times
directly suffers from, the idea of purity. You refer to a "true
religion." I contest: was there actually a multiplicity of "true"
religions in Latin America? Do you think previous religions were
"pure" or "true" and not just other ideological forms of control not
much different from the one that supplanted them? Were such religions
somehow "better" and less oppressive than the one the Spaniards
brought? Could this be a romanticized notion of a more complex past,
reconfigured in the present as a form of resistance by those who
otherize the power structure, calling them the "neo liberal Mexican
Government"? If so, what would it be like to be sacrificed to the
gods? A great honor I suppose. (remember here the statement you have
contested...)
Further, you talk about the government as though it were a separate
entity from those who are oppressed. This is not so. The oppressed
and oppressor share a culture, a nationality and a history that unites
them in a struggle within themselves NOT against one another or some
colonizer, which is further complicated by the intermixing of whiteness
( a western idea of purity...) with the "natives," as well as class and
gender. Drawing such binary reinscribes the problematics of
autobiography that I quoted from Spivak. Meaning, the subject
willingly places herself in a situation where resistance can
comfortably be negotiated by those in power, by immediately
reinscribing the "us and them" as you have already done in your
otherization of the Mexican Government. It became more complex once
"decolonization" happened.
Here I quote Melissa Britain from an online contextualization of
Fanon's
Black Skins White Masks:
?What he?s able to do is historically, socially, culturally
contextualize how the individual has been produced as a subject in a
violent, traumatic, racist culture in a way that politicizes and
historicizes not only race, but gender and sexuality and resistance.
[Fanon?s work] is both a psychic examination of the effects of
colonialism, and a politicization of those effects so that people can
start working toward decolonization in a material way as well as a
psychic way.?
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=1651
I am not at home, so I cannot quote directly from Fanon, but he above
quote should give others an idea of the complexity of the argument.
Do notice the term "decolonization" is used. As you know the book
talks
about the complex psyche the colonized subject developed once s/he
became conditioned to look at him/herself through colonial ideology.
We can consider your otherization of the Mexican government based on
this. While it may be true that there are marked delineations of those
in power and their subjects, intermixing still occurs. Such binary
lines simply do not work.
And in that trail, how can we talk about
decolonization if we have seen in the last 30 years the colonization
of our spiritual selves by the Anglican, The Baptist, The Mormon, The
Jehovah Witness, all eurocentric religions that came with boxes of
canned food, making the people believe that those chemical processed
food was going to save their starvation and poverty and now occupy a
very scary location in our landcape?
These are further complexities of cultural renegotiations based on
Western ideology. new forms of power struggles within the established
power structure that aim to claim the center. I could elaborate on
this
in relation to the colonial subject, but let it suffice to say that it
is a mutation of colonial ideology.
How can we talk about decolonization when most of the Latin American
countries, except Cuba and the rocking Venezuela have economies
controled by the US banks/government/Corporations? How can we talk
about decolonization if the people from the country you were born, El
Salvador, after suffering one of the most cruel and horrendous civil
war supported by the US government in the 1980's, is facing the
social issues of the Salvatruchas, who in the name of social
inequality are responding to their historical condition.
This problem has mutated into transnationalism and its contingency on
globalization. We can extend my particular argument in relation to the
Mexican government here and look at the world as a complex web of
ideological struggles that cannot be pinned down to just one "true"
particular narrative. Each person lives with multiplicities of
cultural traces.
I do not fetish my ancestor as if I were a new age seeker in search
of my lost soul. Thanks to my spiritual upbringing and my constant
process of inquiring, I have searched into the knowledge of the
people marginalized by the European colonial process and there I have
found not only answers, but the strength to decolonized by
subconscious, my soul and spirit, which is mi gran amigo, as Fanon
and Foucault have greatly pointed out, the space where the true
emancipation process takes place, not in the rhetoric of linguistic
references that are constructed as an ideological apparatus to
oppress others.
If you don't fetish your ancestor, you certainly fetish "the space
where
the true emancipation process takes place," how is that space really
different from the "linguistic references" that you consider part of an
ideological apparatus that oppresses others? I will only add that
postcolonials are sceptical about spirituality in different ways. This
does not mean that they deny it but that they understand that it too is
understood as a social construct. How that is negotiated is up to each
individual. Foucault in particular is critical of this. So to equate
him to be in par with spirituality is something I do not understand.
Cuando hablo de los ancestors, quiero implicar que nuestra identidad
es un sitema de flujo que navega en muchas direcciones y que si la
estancas en nuestro presente "multi-etnico" o "hibrido" pierdes las
conexiones con el conocimiento que hemos heredados de nuestros
abuelos y con las proyeciones que nos da el futuro. Anclarse en un
determinado tiempo es un arma de doble filo. Yo me considero 100%
meztizo, pero esa unidad es una fragmentacion mutante que me lleva a
mi herencia Arabe, mi herencia Africana, Mi herencia Canaria, Mi
herencia Catalana, mi herencia Haitiana, mi identidad Cubana
Caribeña, mi identidad sexual y todas con conexiones historicas que
informan mi pensamiento crítico y la producción de conocimiento y
creatividad.
I partly agree with this, we all have cultural traces that connects us
to different "ancestors," The problem here is how you use it to claim
an implicit state of purity by reclaiming something that belonged to
"us" in the past. This is problematic. here I quote you in a previous
statement:
"El silencio se escucha at the border, en la frontera where our sisters
and [br]others, in search of a machiavellian dream, are targeted by
platinum bullets as they reclaim what once was the territory of our
ancestors."
https://mail.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2005-April/msg00073.html
First note that once again, here we have an "us and them" positioning.
Most importantly, here "our ancestors" works in a form of abstraction
not much different from how the Samurai functioned for McKenzie's
propositions. My ancestors are not yours. That we may share an
ideological struggle is true, but I cannot relate to a history I was
alienated from through colonization. I am a hybrid, a mestizo that has
a confilcted culture, that part of me has a trace of people native of
the Americas is true, but such a culture was made foreign to me and to
try to reclaim it with implicit purity will place me in a state of
indecidablity and constant conflict, this is exactly what is critiqued
of Bhabha, he is not able to move beyond the liminal space of
undecidability. I choose to acknowldege the rupture in my history and
move from there. I have intermingled indigenous people in my country
and I have no connection to them or than the history that alienated us.
Should I feel the need to be in touch with them? That is something you
could demand of me. But this would be no different than asking African
Americans to go back to Africa to get in touch with "their ancestors."
While you may be able to trace YOUR own history to YOUR ancestors, you
should not extend such interest on others, because maybe they simply do
not have the means to go back; Some were alienated from their history
and must move forward with what they have today. My ancestors are not
only those who were oppressed but those who oppressed. I am BOTH.
Eduardo Navas
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