On the mystical and recurrent ghost of Duvalierianism

One of the most incomprehensible and strange phenomena of Haitian political culture, is the recurrence of voodoo; as an example, by Western standards, of the primitivism of this culture, whit repercussions on its social backwardness. In the first place, the problem would be that Haitian political culture does not respond to these parameters of the West; not being able to materialize as such since its emergence as a country, product of the same Western political crisis.

In this sense, and beyond its historical references, Haitian political tradition and culture is hard broken in its periods; without a connection between these, allowing the consolidation of any residual tradition, to be used as a reference. The first problem here is in the French pressure, posing the economic debt that prevents this organization; not only in that conflict of the nineteenth century, but also in the present, with the American interests, throughout the twentieth century.

It should be remembered the creation of the Haitian central bank, transferring the debt to the United States; and the occupation of the country for two decades, creating the imbalance that conditions any attempt at restructuring. In this context, Duvalier's rise to power —like that of Batista in Cuba— responds to this structural deficit; which is of a sufficient political tradition, and dates to the destabilization caused by the Petion-Boyer’s republic.

This instability is not due to the brutal tribalism of Dessalines and Christopher, with their monarchical pretensions; but precisely to the idealistic pretensions about a democratic republic, without the economic resources to do it. Due to the early stage of modern humanism, the incomprehension of this is easy to understand, as with any development; but no the persistence of those pretensions, despite the evidence of this importance, while still not allowing this development.

Strangely, this is what explains the ascendancy of mysticism, as a substitute for an organized political culture; which, not being able to establish itself, subsists in that perpetual —and certainly brutal—contraction of religious functionalism. This is what the monarchism of Dessalines and Christopher meant, legitimizing itself as a revolutionary mysticism; from that Boukman's proclamation to the Bondye, in which the revolution began, to Louverture's struggle with the French recalcitrance.

The answer to the Haitian political problem is thus anthropological, because the problem is first anthropological; emerged from the great crisis that was the French Revolution, as an anthropological disaster of West culture. This does not mean that the alternative to Haiti's political deficiency is Duvalier's violence, but only that it’s deficiency; and its solution would be an emergent development, by which these contradictions are appeased, in a national reconciliation; allowing the weaving —as anthropologic— of economic relations at popular level, no corporate and less still of foreign.

This is the meaning of Haitian gangs, which are also popular and not elitist, as an alternative to interventionism; whose violence is not different from that of the recurrent dictatorships, because it fulfills the same coercive function. In fact, it is not new but the same as the movement that opposed the martyrdom of Charlemagne Peralta to American interventionism; which resurfaces after the same threat of intervention, from the dictatorship —no less brutal— of Raoul Cedras.

No one will ever want to accept this premise, because of the idealistic faith that keeps the whole West in crisis; not just Haiti, which is only the place that lacks a sufficient tradition to assimilate and consume that disaster; but to the entire West, converging in the transitive —even racial— tension, that begins in Haiti and culminates in Cuba. Haiti is then only the extreme expression of that crisis, which by its dimensions resembles the Minoan cataclysm; now reproduced as culture, thus preventing its recovery, as that of Phoenician commerce on Mycenean population.

So spoke the uncle, introductory review to the book

This major catauro by Jean Prince-Mars ispublished by Memories of the Inkwell, explaining its synthesizing function; by which, even with political value, it is in truth an understanding of politics in its anthropological, not ideological, value. This already establishes it as the updating and adaptation of all the references in this regard, from Antenor Firmín, who establishes them as the very principles of humanism, but which Mars applies to Haitian singularity.

At both extremes is the development of that understanding of blackness as a nature, in Blackness as a possibility; which as typical of the West culture, adequate its idealistic excesses, with the realistic practicality of African cosmology. We must be careful with this, because there are many meanings of Realism, most of them of a materialist nature; but here the notion of realism refers to reality —or the real— as the object of reflection, distinct from its transcendent determination. It is from this that this black cosmology is understood as a new pragmatism, but already practical in realism; not idealistic, like that one —lacking the Dasein— of the tradition it opposes, as Western Idealism in general.

Mars begins his treatise asking —without rhetoric— whether the body of Haitian traditions are their own or assimilated; this allows him to establish the measure of consistency and uniqueness of this culture, and therefore its value, if any. The book then proposes an inquiry, which allows this probabilistic development of realism, in its pragmatic approach; avoiding the errors of extreme positivism, which does not differentiate between appearance and reality, or in fact dissolves one into the other.

Of course, none of this is possible ignoring that dense extension of the Haitian enlightenment, crowned by Mars; especially if it is based on a conditioned approach such as that of René Depestre, who precisely says goodbye to Negritude. But that does not have the fatality of the oracle either, since Depestre is only an ideological and not a philosophical wall; beyond him, the rainbow of communism dissolves his optical illusion into Haitian reality, and this is narrated by Mars, not by him.

Mars's analysis is acute, he uses a principle of discrimination instead of infinite sum to organize this body; starting from a demand for idealist rationality (Leibniz), which guarantees him the right understanding of reality. This is the kind of subtleties that culturalism resolves as a practical realism, in its reflexive pragmatism; Mars's contribution is thus philosophical, with the adequacy of transcendental pragmatism (Peirce) in Du Bois; which is here immanentialist, and thus more efficient in its probabilism, as the realistic basis of black thought.

By rationalizing this body of traditions as folklore, Mars distinguishes the analysis of the masses from that of the elites; obviously opting for the popular, which in its pragmatism extracts the desideratum from all traditions, even those of others; appropriate in their practicality and not because of their apparent necessity, in a function that is then existential rather than political. Blackness is important here, because it is that African cosmology —not western philosophy— what allows this realism; which survives in tradition, and not —Mars clarifies— as a vestige of the past, but actualizing the functional principles of the social structure, as a culture.

The Western defect is to ignore this cultural nature, solving its structure in its political expression as a determination; thus provoking the crisis of modern humanism, from its origin in medieval Christianity, which inverted that order. The Haitian enlightenment —as of blackness— is the effort to reverse this disorder, which is the entropy of the West culture; renewing its structure, with that contraction to the functional principles in which it organizes, through the reflexivity of African cosmology.

Welcome Back to Blackness

The conflict that Captain General O'Donnell faced in Cuba was not one of effective rebellion, but of cultural blackening; as a danger emanating from the recent Haitian republic, providing a paradigm political for black Cubans. This does not translate into dangerous uprisings, which the geography of the country would have allowed to control easily; but the formation of an enlightened focus in Santiago de Cuba, which would hinder the primacy of the white sacrocracy.

It is no coincidence that the Independents of Color rose up in Santiago, nor the Haitian ascendancy of their leaders; nor that this was also the ascendancy of Rómulo Lachatañeré, the black anthropologist who questioned Ortiz. Santiago de Cuba was undoubtedly a focus of new hermeneutics, arising from the conflicts between Haitians and Dominicans; who landed there with their problems, even of identity, immersed themselves in their discussions, foreign to Havana.

The reference is strong, with an Antenor Firmin who challenges the founder of French anthropology in France; and a Joseph Janvier who rescues the discipline to its own value on humanity, from its ethnological reductions. Black tension is strong in Cuba, with the West threatened on two fronts, not only the one at the East; there is also that of the trade with Louisiana, to where fled Haitians and French, mixed in their disagreements.

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Meanwhile in Cuba, the most that can be done is to launch that dove of intellectual flight of miscegenation; which is postulated as pure logical necessity, but of difficult reality in this fiction of political syncretism. In short, miscegenation is not only an abstract and conventional category, but also conditioned by its subordination; while people behave like blacks or whites —no emulates— relatively but also firmly.

Mestizaje cannot access the intricacies of politics, which reacts angrily every time the rule is broken; that is what the bourgeoisie did not forgive Batista, justifying the violence against him as revolutionary. Behind Batista was the broad wing of black conservatism, which had bourgeois aspirations in its proletarian character; and that was unthinkable, like that constant threat emanating from the Caribbean, until the revolution was able to control it.

That is what René Depestre's work consists of, with a title as illustrative as Welcome and Goodbye to Negritude; but so meticulous that it collects and organizes even his own political shortcomings, with which he dissolves the movement. This book by Depestre emulates the dissolution of the Niagara Movement, by W.E.B. Du Bois, in North America; subordinating all possible American blackness to the political strategy of liberalism, which is ideological and white.

Depestre's critique focuses on the culturalism of the movement, as a futile effort to establish a new ontology; not seeing that it was a matter of recovering the original ontology of black ancestry, adequating the defects of the Western one. He could not understand it —as it cannot yet be understood— because the problem is not only ontological; it is in fact hermeneutical, because that dependence of Marxism on the Idealist tradition from which it evolves, even as its expression; and whose transcendentalism derives to the historical, trying to resolve some immanentism for its lacks, but unsuccessfully.

Blackness still offers that capacity for renewal for the whole of the West, which stubbornly refuses to do so; not because it is perverse but childish in its stubbornness, given that insufficiency in which it cannot understand its shortcoming. The New Black Thought, by reorganizing the phenomenon, can make up for this lack, which is hermeneutical; and that due to the enlightened excess of modernity, has precipitated its entire civilization into entropy; which is not serious, if after all there is Haiti, ready with its own enlightenment, welcoming Negritude again.

Harris for president?

Anyone who thinks they know Kamala Harrys is wrong, because she has not had the opportunity to project herself; her period as vice president was not that opportunity, but only to cement herself and forge alliances. That may indeed be her strength, against a Republican candidate who is fearsome for this inability; since politics, because it concerns the whole society, is the art of negotiation, not of personal enlightenment.

The truth is that Harrys survived the thick surveillance of the Democratic Party, becoming the viable candidate; a skill that includes the use of force, and above all knowing how to handle it to the right extent, with damage control. Add to that the way she thrashed Biden in the presidential debates, making herself taken into account; when he was an expert politician, only ignored in his mediocrity by the corporate nature of his party.

That is important, Biden won the presidency because of the support on Kamala Harrys, with the Operation Floyd; only for that reason could he surpass Trump, by a narrow margin and without a real mandate, showing his weakness. Harrys' presence in the vice presidency was muted, but that may indicate more cunning than clumsiness; especially in a structure as iron as that of the Democratic Party, which ignores political individuality.

In fact, no one or few knew Obama before running for the nomination for the party, and so he prevailed; and if he was disappointing it is because of the concessions he had to make, demonstrating his genius. Obama's problem, however, was his skin, making him a necessary precedent, something that needs to happen; which thus prepared the ground —beyond its own pretensions— for other developments in the general scheme. One of these developments may be Harrys, with the other precedent of being the first woman president; if she succeeds, she will have definitively displaced Clinton, the disinherited heiress, showing her skill and resilience.

Not much should be expected from a Harrys term though, it is hard enough that she can set such a precedent; but even so she can give surprises, with the astuteness with which she has been able to negotiate her ascension to the top of the party. She capitalized on the support of a specific sector, she did not dazzle humanity like the charismatic Obama; that gives her the margin to work as a team, which she definitely knows how to handle; a difficulty that Obama didn’t overcome, exposing himself to the pulse of Pelosi, in the resentment he created with Hillary.

That's important, the state of the Democratic Party is as critical as that of the Republican, but she can renew it; while the other can only continue its decadence, in the hands of a lesser dictator, who only has his indisputable personal genius. The same maneuver of ensuring permanence with an ineligible vice president —such as Vance— makes Trump more fearsome; who, repeating the strategy of his previous term —with Pence— shows his inability to negotiate.

We have to see what she can do effectively, but she can definitely do something, if she has come that far; that credit is in the mere fact of having stoically gone through Biden's presidency, with all his white man disdain. We will also have to see how she surfs the sea of international politics, under the armamentist industry pressure; among the pending tests, she has the left wing —which Biden was able to pulse back— shouting against Israel; also the war in Ukraine, the conflict in Taiwan and the centrality of the United States' leadership in NATO. But it is likely that the Party will exempt her from this effort, with valuable, effective and always necessary advice; after all, it is a joke to think that foreign policy is not the responsibility of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Harrys in any case is a valuable asset for all parties in the conflict, and deserves the attention she requires; above all because of the respect she commands for those who supported her, making it clear that they would not accept her displacement. It is this game of certain interests, and not of abstractions and pettiness, what makes a state policy real; and this is the first time that has happened, even potentially, since Reagan and Clinton precipitated us into neoliberalism.

As a prudence, I would recommend spending the vote on a lateral movement like Cornel West, the liberal Trump; who it is not going anywhere, but it is a reference, reminding the sector behind Harrys that the country is bigger than the party. It's also a good maneuver, giving Harry time to demonstrate, but also requiring her to do so; because the vote is not an act of faith but of negotiation with its own power, and it is not necessary to give a mandate until it shows its value.

About the return to the native land, from Cesaire to Depestre

Cuba's impact on the projection of blackness as an identity is important, because of the problems it poses; first, it allows us to understand the legitimate function with which liberalism appropriates the problem and capitalizes on it. Even if it is presented as historical manipulation – which one is not?—, this has a raison d'être, also historical; which, in this sense, is not unaware of this emergence of the phenomenon as part of anti-imperialist and decolonization efforts.

Before the Cuban process, and for whatever reasons, England led anti-slavery efforts in the world; adding the payment for the manumission of slaves in their territory, with a debt that only ended in the twentieth century. The rise of the scientific-technical revolution can be argued, which required the development, production and sale of machinery; more efficient, but requiring a heavy investment, compared to the slave method, more onerous but already established.

We should remember that, at the height of the Enlightenment in France, it suffered a depression in England; which reaching the closure of universities, sees its elite emigrate to North America, refunding them in line with this process; which does not include this abolitionist aspect, at least as a political priority, but does include strong industrialization. But even in America, the emergence of the Democratic Party does not occur as a harmonious an organized liberalism; and the racist reticence of the first workers struggles in the United States, is soon overcome by a more radical faction.

This is the one that monopolizes, pointing to an openly socialist formula, and capitalizes on the racial cause; not the Republican Party, whose strategy is one of accommodation and appeasement with the country's sequential segregationist legislation; but that elite —Enlightenment if you will— that will lead the violent struggle for civil rights on the legislative front. The important thing here is not that it is a manipulation, but that it is already a legitimate historical fact; and which cannot solve the racial problem, because it’s not interested in it as such but as a class; but at least it does allow the development of this new phenomenon, although it must consolidate and mature by itself.

This is what dilutes the phenomenon of Blackness —like the so-called Harlem Renaissance— in its contradictions; given by its inevitable immaturity, as the first stage of that development, in which it will acquire that maturity. That maturity is what comes gradually, with the correction of precisely these problems and contradictions; as the set in which this phenomenon will organize its own hermeneutical spectrum, with its respective ontology.

That ontology in turn, obeying the decline of that of the West, would be the one that works regressively; as a recovery of the original reflexive functions, prior to modern political determinism of Modern philosophy; which, arising from the apotheosis in that sense of Christianity, would reach its own apotheosis in the Enlightenment. Therefore, these are not illegitimate or incomprehensible processes in any way, but only defective; which must be resolved in a constant and inevitably critical correction due to its contradictory nature, like all development.

Therefore, it is not strange but illustrative, that in this whole process contradictory and internal reflections arise; above all that these occur in art, at least in the case of the Francophonie, because of their reflexive scope. The example here is Aimé Cesaire's Notebook of Return to the Native Country, not A rainbow for the Christian West; but it is the complexity of Depestre, not the consequence of Cesaire, what will unfold all these contradictions with his life. That is why it is like the appropriation —in such a transcendental universal authorship— of one by the expression of the other; because in the end both are the expression of the same phenomenon, which is all less harmonious and clear in its ambiguity.

Carlos Martiel and the actuality of Slavery bondage

There should be no doubt about the religious edge nature of art, but religion is no longer a cultural reference; reduced to its mere political function, in contradiction to the historical transcendentalism of modern Idealism. That is why this nature of art goes unnoticed, with the distortion of the anthropological structure of society; which, no longer determined by culture but by politics, resolves its ideological character in this projection of art.

That is important, because in this religious edge nature, art becomes a pseudo-religious function; providing in this a hermeneutical structure (ideology), for that political determination of society. In this sense, art assumes the reflexive-discursive function of mystical traditions in religion; with an emphasis on the discursive, channeling this ideological rather than reflexive function, with its ethical referents; but also with reflective scopes, in this mystical character that it provides in its spiritual exaltation.

On the face of it, that order is already inverted as part of this distortion of society's determination; which is not resolved in culture itself —as an existential praxis— but in politics, with this effect. That is why, as a mystical sublimation of discourse, art no longer contradicts the institutional function of discourse; contrary to the pre-modern tradition on which it is based, and in which mysticism continually subverted this institutionality.

This is again important, as the dialectical loop in which society loses its capacity for renewal; by justifying, rather than adapting its institutionality, in the hermeneutical function of this historical transcendentalism. It is here that the contradiction is serious, as seen in the extreme cases of social marginalization; which segmented into conceptual abstractions, such as intersectionality, it cannot comprehend the individual.

The serious thing here is that the individual is the ontological basis of society, resolved in its existential praxis; which —thus disappeared— causes the stagnation of the whole structure, already doomed to an accelerated entropy. As an example, see the case of performances in plastic art, with their openly discursive projection; which, by recreating itself in the drama of an original experience, prevents its overcoming as practical.

The example would be in cases such as that of Carlos Martiel and his treatment of racism, which is always political; as it does not refer to an existential experience, but only recreates that of slavery in the black historical past. Martiel, to explain the example, does not contextualize the phenomenon as historical, but only morally; so that in the end it is decontextualized, in the same Manichean tradition of moral institutionalism; which born in Christianity, subverts its own anthropology as soteriological, with the political function of ideology.

Martiel thus reproduces the impact of the mystics on the Christian tradition, with its metaphysical drama; but, as we have seen, not in the anthropological function with which this mystique subverted tradition; made in the updating of that soteriological character of the experience he proposed, against institutional political pressure; but rather confirms and justify —as transcendental— that institutionality, with its moral transcendence. In fact, Martiel's work —as a postmodernist in general— requires a massive and systematic subsidy; which would already corrupt him, in that supposedly unconventional nature, with a political compromise.

As a result, to continue with the example, the black person will never be able to overcome his past as a slave; as the modern Christian can never escape the supposed but institutional blackmail of his liberation by Christ; which is supposed, since in reality it would occur at the individual level, by their consciousness, not institutionally. In this case, the black people is affiliated as a principle to an ideology, which spreads its protective mantle over him; that is to say, he loses the power of his own political expression, which is individual as practical and existential.

Negros cubanos del exilio

Por supuesto, los negros tendremos que organizarnos si queremos tener alguna influencia en el desarrollo de cuba; pero para eso tendremos que entender las experiencias anteriores, y la recurrencia con que fallan. El problema parece ser la ambigüedad, por la que la red de intereses personales se expande en los políticos; como una proyección social de los mismos, que es lo que los explica en su autenticidad, pero también los pierde.

Eso es entonces apenas natural, ya que los intereses no existen en abstracto sino en esa consistencia de lo personal; pero como una relación peligrosa, en que el peso del egoísmo y la mezquindad arrastra a la inteligencia en su falta de alcance. Es por eso que este esfuerzo no debería estar sesgado por esas limitaciones personales, no importa la premisa; y eso por una cuestión incluso práctica y no moral, en tanto proyección personal, que nunca generará la confianza que necesita.

La experiencia ha mostrado que como objeto común, la expresión política ha de ser colegiada; asumiendo la reunión de todos los intereses, no importa lo difícil que sea, y hasta las contradicciones que eso implica. En definitiva, la contradicción es sólo el condicionamiento de toda proyección, más allá de lo personal; que así deviene en práctica, en vez de sublimarse en el idealismo, cuya falsa moral la hace inconsistente.

Los negros cubanos podemos seguir intentando todas las exclusiones que queramos, legítimas o no; es la realidad misma la que se impone, decidiendo qué tiene futuro y qué no lo tiene. El error es la persistencia de posarse sobre el ego, ansioso de reproducir el poder blanco; porque esto es lo que resta posibilidades a toda proyección, con la misma soberbia que dice combatir.

El mismo hecho de que alguien lo reconozca y no se atreva a cruzar ese límite, sería la señal de peligro; que no reside en la legitimidad, sino en la inconsistencia, terminando por socavar esa legitimidad. ¿En definitiva, si una proyección es tan personal, cómo puede ser legítima y coherentemente política?; ese es el contrasentido que secuestró a la revolución cubana, conduciéndola al desastre antropológico que es.

Eso es lo que, por ejemplo, permite la manipulación en discursos que secuestran la fuerza colectiva; haciendo que los conflictos sean insolubles, abstraídos a su legitimidad, tras el prestigio personal; que es en definitiva aparente, ocultando sus falencias inevitables, y que no tendría que ser tan importante. Lo práctico es entonces lo que permite la solución de los problemas, explotando todas sus aristas; pero para lo que tiene que ir más allá de lo personal, desconfiando de ese genio sublime que no puede negociar.

El ejemplo de esto sería la incapacidad de los negros, para establecernos como fuerza política en el exilio; no importa el crecimiento proporcional desde el éxodo de 1980, que reconfiguró al exilio histórico. Quizás el problema esté en sus genios, ocupados en construirse un nicho político en la élite blanca de ese exilio; en vez de dirigirse a una mediación con los afro norteamericanos, que redunde en el debilitamiento de su liberalismo.

O quizás no, sino que ese puede ser precisamente el propósito, en un esfuerzo solapado por ese ascendiente; que con su fe en lo político marca al liberalismo desde su nacimiento, con la Modernidad. También quizás, esto provenga de que esos líderes no son genuinamente negros, sino sólo por defecto; porque los blancos les recuerdan que no son blancos, siendo negros por resentimiento y no por valores positivos. Esto explicaría esa dependencia del liberalismo blanco, que a cambio los usa como moneda de cambio; pero debilitándolos tanto que no pueden intentar ningún esfuerzo efectiva, dado que su consistencia es ideológica y no existencial.

Eso explicaría la incapacidad anterior para actuar en una mediación efectiva ante la fuerza política de los afroamericanos; a los que no se puede presentar una alternativa suficiente, en esa inconsistencia, que nos sume en su misma ambigüedad. Para eso necesitaríamos una proyección que comprenda incluso nuestro conservadurismo, que es pragmático y no moral; e incluso la verdadera hondura en una nueva profundidad ontológica, en vez de repetir lugares comunes con la mera esperanza de —por fin— hacer filosofía.

Ibaé, Tomás Fernández Robaina

Para comprender a Tomás Fernández, habría que saber que investigó, compiló y publicó a Gustavo Gutiérrez; que no es sólo una personalidad importante de la negritud cubana, sino probablemente la más controversial. Ese es exactamente su valor, teniendo en cuenta el contexto de agresividad y vigilancia ideológica en que trabajó; porque Gutiérrez es una contradicción en todo sentido, que requiere un esfuerzo de coraje e inteligencia sublimes.

Que él pudiera hacerlo, reconociendo el peso de esa personalidad, es lo que mejor lo retrata por lo que es; no por el folclor del humor cáustico y snob, por el que Cuba no entiende sus problemas y los padece para siempre; sino por la tenacidad de una persona que trabaja en silencio, desde la oscuridad, y en lo que importa. Mientras el cubano común trata de sobrevivir —lo que es legítimo en su inmensa dificultad—, él vivió a plenitud; no porque careciera de dificultades, sino por la entera y la generosidad con que las enfrentó, al punto de este trabajo.

En este sentido, los negros cubanos se aferran a esa ambigüedad de clase que es lo intelectual, y tratan de vivir; por eso se venden al mejor postor, y protestad la maldad de los blancos, a los blancos que viven de eso. Robaina se vuelve y establece la bases para el movimiento de la antropología cubana al lado negro de su mestizaje; e inteligente, no lo hace sobre la base de una retórica política, enarbolando la apariencia manipulable de una necesidad; sino enumerando los aportes específicos de eso negro a la cultura cubana, que rebasan el burlesco de su música y su baile.

Justo por eso, su muerte es tan terrible como temible, porque no hay personalidades que llenen ese vacío; todas las investigaciones se mueven ahora en la legitimidad mayor de comer todos los días y viajar, o la vindicación personal; pocos —si alguno— exhiben ese nivel de satisfacción, por el que pueden despreocuparse de sí mismos y simplemente trabajar. Todavía hay que poner perspectivas, y centrarlo en el problema racial, al que dedicó sus mayores esfuerzos; y por el que pudo sortear los problemas de esa contradicción ideológica de Gutiérrez, para sacarlo a la luz.

Probablemente ese de Gutiérrez no sea su trabajo más importante, pero sí el más ilustrativo de ese esfuerzo; que es de lo que se trata, como la comprensión de su personalidad profunda y amable hasta con la historia. Robaina así da sentido hasta a la Sociedad Aponte, a la que ofrece la trascendencia de que carece en su ilegitimidad; sacrificándole la suya, como un escalón en que el futuro puede posar sus pies de esclarecimiento para la historia nacional.

Another side of the black struggle

With a poem to Washington and Du Bois[1], Dudley Randall shown the root problem of the political black struggle; which is its reduction to a dialectical opposition, and so keep unsolvable in this oppositional nature as its own. The problem here is that each of them solves an aspect of reality, but ignoring the other on this effort of understanding; and so creating and imbalance in this comprehension, to which reality is reduced as an idea, not reality itself.

It doesn’t matter which side of reality a person chooses, it still needs the other to be real, overcoming its idealistic nature; and this relationship can’t even be of subordination of one to other but equal, so that reality is not distorted in this subordination. That's the problem with political conflicts, as a recurrent reduction of reality to a set of ideas, in a hermeneutical function; they’re always this formal reduction of reality to an idea of it, that then lacks its consistency, as an ideology.

Centering in ideology rather than reality itself, determinations will respond to a logic —but not to reality real— needs; as political, but when since politic is the expression and not the determination of reality, which is always culture. This is why both sides are irreconcilable, to the same irrationality, presented as a transcendental rationalization (Moral); but it doesn’t matter if one makes more sense than the other in its more practical nature, as with the capitalist scope of industrialism; it’s still irrational as pure counter rational, ignoring —and thus distorting— reality on its political projection.

As the other false contradiction of Socialism Vs Capitalism, this could be solved only by overcoming its dialectical fatality; with the proper understanding of reality, in its own trichotomic rather than dichotomic nature; thus in a trialectic rather than a dialectical way, that allow the better understanding of reality on its own scopes. This is the pertinence of Garveyan pragmatism, still dysfunctional without these projections of Washington and Du Bois; since all of then just have an intuition, but that of Garvey is just about the complementarity of the others two.

What Garvey had that the others lacked, was the moral consistency of his projection, as a real rather than a political need; but he lacked the ability to overcome his political difficulties, as the material ways to secure his own consistency. So Garvey —like the other two— failed in its own idealism, although he brought this intuition about complementarity; and so will lead any effort to establish a political reality for black people, but just as long as he can assembled what the others made.

It should not be a surprise that just a poet could understand the nature of this contradiction as purely formal, in a poem; because is art what truly understands reality, as an also formal projection that can understand it objectively. Is this what put the existential scope in the reflection of reality, finding its hermeneutical references in its own possibility; developing then as an effective probabilism, without the political vices of philosophy, in its own —and just apparently— gratuity.

It should not surprise either it were Garvey the one who brought the complementarity, from its root in reality; not even the pragmatism of Washington, based on its own political specialization with its faith in Capitalism; as idealistic as Du Bois with its own faith in Socialism, because both of them ignored the real nature of reality itself. Contrary to them, Garvey came from the syndical movement in the black Caribbean, with its ascendence in England industrialism; which was different from that of Washington, was based on the real conditions —and contradictions— of workers struggles. This was the cause of Washington own struggles with his own students at Tuskegee, because his own political specialization; that only Garvey could solve in a real —not just political— pragmatism, even if still in need of political the organization he never got.

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[1] . Cf: Dudley Randall, Booker T. and W.E.B. Du Bois

El Monte (the wild) or the Igbo example for black American political contradictions I

In some accounts, Igbo means wild —signifying forest and woods—, so they are the people of the wild; with their rejection of the so-called civilized conventions, although their own culture is politically exemplar. This is what primitive African oppressive political systems had, different from those the westerns; the ability of the people to leave and star again by their own, creating a new society from the scratch of mere living.

This is then how Igbo people organized their society, based in economical relationships but not as political determinations; which keep dissociated of economic power, and linked to age, as a gerontocracy nucleated in the family. That’s why the system was able to regulate their political development, avoiding those western sclerosis of Modernity; at least ‘till that same modernity overpowered them, since the weakness of this model is its military disorganization.

Still the system is so efficient, that allows its immediate reparation, as long as people find a way back to the wild; that means, if only people are willing to leave the accommodation of civilized society, and start from the ground. This Igbo culture is especially interesting, because it allows the understanding of African anthropologic structures; and in this sense, humanity evolves cellularly, splitting societies when their overgrowth makes them sclerotic in their determinations.

Because of this, deities are of an ambiguous nature hard to understand, but which is not even necessary at all; because reality is what is at stake —and it’s always concrete and immediate in its functionality—, no matter if human or divine. Which makes African culture so different from the western, which always depend on universalities and abstractions; leading to development as precious as disastrous, like that of Western philosophy, specifically its modern Idealism.

That explains the flexibility and adaptability of the Igbo pantheon, which is only and organization of reality; subjected to the constant adaptation of the nature it manifests in, with the specialized interpretation that adequate culture to reality. Thus here lies the importance of the medicine men —root workers and curanderos— as the priesthood, rather than philosophers; responsible for the interpretation of this entanglement of determinations, and so organizing them in an intelligible sense.

What’s curious here is that this is how pantheons evolved in human history, even those of Western civilizations; and not only with the fusion of religions but even in its internal development, as in the case from Atonism to Christianity and Islan. This is then what shows the resilience of human nature, over the sclerotic decadence of its western structures; as the true consistence of humanity, based on its own reality and not on the idea they have of themselves.

The difference is in the beginning, where Igbo culture insists on splitting while West cultures insists in the overgrowth; to the point where it can no longer overcome its own entropy, after that moment of its splendor that was modernity. This is then what happens with Modernity, with society becoming postmodern and thus starting its declining; with this example of United States as the New Rome, in a position no other power has been before in the West.

Everything has been a just development, between these two splendors of Rome in antiquity and the United States in postmodernity; and so the new developments would lie in the cultural group that holds the functions of German at the moment of Rome decadence. This would be the case of black people, as the ones stablishing their own determinations to survive the crumbling of the structure; but for which they need to do nothing else than preserve their own ancestrallity, because it’s the only source of sense for the new reality; and other than that would be the extension of the same crumbling structure, dragging us in its agony.

Black people on political contradictions III

Black people are complaining that liberal state governments waste public money, helping immigrants before them; they allege that those states need the population increase by immigration, in order to keep they seats in Congress. This is based in the lack of population for those states, due the high taxes of their model of welfare; so black people will vote Democrat or Republican, depending on their particular understanding of the problem.

From here, all of them will be defending this dependence on government help, not their ability to live on their own; and the problem with this is that this living in government assistance is to live as client of the political class. The question of who or how to distribute that help is secondary, as the problem is political rather than practical; and defined by ideological lines, one side notes the help is shrinking, while the other just add it to the national debt, already astronomical.

None of them is right, because none brings the real solution, of making people able to live by their own; so black people and immigrants are fighting the fight of the whites, from which them will get nothing. Instead, we could ask candidates nearest to us, even if looking to what are they really able to do; like Cornel West, to whom nobody takes seriously —not even himself— but nobody confronts him with real questions either.

Cornel West looks at politics like a philosophical abstraction, and not the entanglement of dirty interests it really is; but the right questions could face him with the harsh reality of constituency, forcing him to develop his better tools. Instead, black people are scared with the demoralization of Trump or Biden, placing the hope in just another black or liberal; not seeing that Obama —black and liberal— did nothing to fix that real problem, of their government dependence.

Obama even have the help to the financial institutions that pushed everyone, more harshly yet the black people; and just set the path for more of that anti-black war on drugs, with the duo of Kamala Harrys and Joe Biden, after the impasse of Trump. Republicans aren’t better, if they can free themselves of that liability of Donald Trump, whom —despite his achievements— can just negotiate; and that shows how that party is crumbling with the system, unable to responds for itself and less still for anyone else.

This means that the entire system is in crisis, in a momentum black people could profit from, playing their interests smartly; like with this lateral push of the most improbable candidacy of Cornel West, who can just clear the path to real freedom of black people. Cornel West may not know what he is doing, but the crisis of his erratic liberalism would have that desired scope; we already know the crisis of an erratic conservatism with Trump, and very well could evaluate the flavor of this other, if at the end the game is always against us.

Black people on political contradictions II

Capitalism is a joke for black people, because its economy is based on power consumption rather than of production; and that means that blacks have not chance on it, due to that bad start without that power of consumption. That’s what makes blacks dependent of society, but being socialism equally a joke due to its ideological nature; that forces people to feudal clientelism, with politicians who never fulfill their promises, because then they would lose the source of legitimacy.

This doesn’t mean that black people don’t have a space in politics, but that we need to put that power to a real use; like forcing society out of that fake confrontation of Capitalism Vs Socialism, which always use black people as clients. Black people can and should force society back to its industrialism, shrinking economy to production instead of consumption; so we could build our own possibilities through economy, based in our human sufficiency rather than in the constrictions of political protections.

The problem with this is its political dissonance, as out of that fake contradiction Capitalism and Socialism; that turning capital to ideology, dries human sufficiency to collectivism, through that political dependency. It doesn’t matter if that dependency is directly political like in socialism, or indirectly as in capitalism; in this last case it’s still political, through economic dependence of government, and so its allegiance to liberalism; and in both cases results in the same inability for political sufficiency, subjecting persons to political corporatism.

As the main problem is the economy, the best example here is the neoliberal overgrowth of corporate capitalism; which is the socialist economy, as governmental capitalism, modeled by Lenin to sustain its proletariat dictatorship. The problem is that this corporatism is what reduces individuality to clientelism, thus to the abstraction of social class; so the solution would be to retort to basic industrialism, with the growth of a small and middle bourgeoisie from that middle class.

The fake solution is the promotion of that middle class as a false small bourgeoisie, with the small and middle enterprises; which still depends on the services from those corporations, from financial services to supply and utilities; just taking from their shoulders the task of management and direct supply to society, but not allowing the individual resilience of the small bourgeoisie. So a real solution would lie in politicians able to shrink back to real industrialism, based on production rather than consumption; that means real money, as when industrialization began, not just services that tie people to financial institutions.

This is what the system will not allow, as a whole corporate organization, integrating politicians and big finances; turning postmodern societies into a kind of neo-feudalism, that just doesn’t allow the growth of individuality as contrary to clients. It should be remembered that this false contradiction of modern politics was created by the push of those financial elites; acting corporately in the support of Monarchy against traditional aristocracy, which supplied the military as capital; and to which they substitute, supplying that capital, turning it from military to financial nature, as the ability of government to govern.

So a real solution for black people is to look locally, resisting the push to integrate a category as client of a corporate trust; this would allow us to survive the crumbling of the whole system, doomed by its political sclerosis, due to its corporate overgrowth. Again, this doesn’t mean that black people shouldn’t or couldn’t participate in politics, but that we need to play it defensively; growing our own kind of politician rather than accepting whomever that now traditional aristocracy sell us as black leader; because like that earlier bourgeoisie of the financial elite, they will sell us in their own lust for power, which is only natural.

That thing of black conservatism

Black conservative differs from the white in that it is neither political nor economic, but existential; although it manifests as political, because it’s based on the existential precariousness of black people. All this manifests as political, but because politics has displaced the cultural determinations of reality; but this political nature is just functional en that case of black people, as related to the conservation of resources; which —like morals, religion, family, etc.—  are what provides existential support through that social precariousness.

This cannot be understood by white people, who relate to black people in function of their own political interests; like in their dialectical contradiction between socialism and capitalism, and everything in between. First at all, this is a false contradiction, related to the contradictions of western culture development; since the early capitalism, when Phoenician commercial expansion rescued their culture, after the Minoan disaster. That’s when Capitalism was born, as opposed to religious supremacy on the determinations of culture, with politics; and while it gave society its best tool with Democracy, it also deregulated the growth of economy in politics.

This is how dialectic became the way to understand reality, through the parallel development of philosophy; which with formal reason (dialectic) was the hermeneutical reference in the understanding of reality. As with Democracy, Dialectic is an useful tool to organize culture as a reality with a human sense; but as Democracy too, it’s unable to fully understand reality in its universal scope, since it’s part of that same reality.

That’s a natural contradiction, since as real itself, humanity is overwhelmed by reality, in this universal scope; but also, and as a principle, the need of humanity is to exist in this reality as its own, not to understand it. Here, what religious provided was the formal determinations of reality, reflected in its magical manipulations; not even objective but as a residual of that practices, that served as the hermeneutical references for the existential reflection. That’s why the reason provided by religion was not formal or abstract but practical, related to immediate needs; regulating culture with this, keeping it in a manageable dimensions, without that exponential growth of formal reason.

Is for all this functionality that it doesn’t exist such a thing as black liberalism, but just its conservatism; because —formal as politic— that contradiction is privative of western culture, and even related to Christianity. As a principle too, it looks like liberalism was born as late as the French revolution and the first ideas of socialism; but even that French revolution was an artificial crisis, produced by the development Christian Humanism as ideology; just when Christianity became a political (official) religion, to manage the crumbling of Western Roman empire. This is even when dialectic became that absolute way of reasoning, and so the first hermeneutical reference; which centered in society as its main object, cut the ability of the individual to get its references from reality.

As seen, this is even a distortion of Christianity in its own nature, by the overgrowth of formal reason in western philosophy; explaining the value of black American Christianity, putting back the magic in religion, with an existential function; providing reason that practical nature it lost to with the contraction of Christianity to ideological function, as political.