René Depestre, or Communism against the Negritude, de final battle

Jean Prince-Mars resolves in his anthropology the Haitian contradiction, logical in its emergence from the French crisis; and which bet on a political miscegenation, which did not respond much to its cultural reality, as neither in Cuba. As everyone recognizes, in its cultural nature, this is the basis of Negritude as a political projection; and its consistency is dangerous as an alternative to the entropic development of the West, heading for its own apotheosis.

From this point of view, Haitian Negritude is a phenomenon politically appropriated by Western liberalism; not born of it, as in the case of the United States, which responds to the same political determinism of this entropy; or in the case of its African extension, where it is based on the anti-colonial thought of that same liberalism. That is also why it is so dangerous and more effective, responding to its own contradictions and not external ones; or as the second aspect of the American case[1], which was only an alternative —obviously more pragmatic— to the original idealism.

There is a mistake when Depestre quotes Fanon, and probably of Fanon in his original definition of Negritude; which for Fanon it was the black man's reaction to his ostracism by the white, singing and admiring himself[2]. That may be precisely part of the Bovarism that Mars denounces, but it still has a deep meaning; just that it’s existential, because it resolves in aesthetic reflection its singular understanding of reality, as culture.

Then, it’s not an extension of that Bovarism, but of the logical space created by it, in its reflexive function; so that Mars —and Negritude as his space— is not a genius but a logical apotheosis of the American black. This is what escapes Depestre, who thus enters into the difficulties of the foreign country as his own[3], into that of proletariat; but when he himself is not a proletarian, but participates in the intellectual elitism that usurps that representation of the popular class; and even worse, because it becomes the black mask that the white spirit assumes, in that expansion of its entropy.

The illusion that the Negro is endowed with a particular nature would refer first to his political marginality; and immediately there, to this as a reservoir of his cosmological singularity, defined by contrast. This is the spiritual supplement that the West needs, like the rainbow of its own poetics[4], even if he does not know it; just not in that inconsistency of the dialectical loop that is the proletarian paradise, dystopian like any utopia forced in history.

What happens there is the divergence of interest and meaning, between liberalism and blackness, explaining each one; but which was already exposed by Sartre in the Black Orpheus, and which was logical in its whiteness, but which is now assumed by the black. The conflict is always of that defective ontology, only now harsher in its incomprehension of the bourgeoisie; but because of that hermeneutical defect of Transcendental Idealism in which liberalism is born, even in its Marxist theory.

The defect, coming from dialectics, consists in economic determinism, reducing culture to the social; but in what individual power is subordinated to the collective, from the Kantian imperative to the Hegelian dialectic. Culture as a historical reality, and as a human reality transcends this determinism, in the functional relations with which it is structured; and capital is not only financial but also spiritual, as the set of resources with which existence is resolved.

That is what makes the Western defect of an ontological hermeneutical nature, typical of his understanding; And that is what the alternative development of Negritude can provide, as a political reference, in its spirituality. The restoration of culture, of that anthropological disaster caused by the humanist apotheosis, correcting that defect; as in fact the Belgian Liyan Kestekoot postulates —cited by Depestre himself[5]—, alluding to that same restorationism.

 

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[1] . It refers to Booker's accommodation strategy. Washington, in its Atlanta Commitment.

[2] . Cf: René Depestre, Welcome and Goodbye to Negritude.

[3] . It alludes to the poem Notebook of a return to the native land, from Aime Cesaire

[4] . He is referring to his play A Rainbow for the Christian West, Casa de las Americas Award.

[5] . Cf: René Depestre, Op. Cit.

Haitian Echoes: Transcendence and Threat to Cuban Culture

The Cuban founding myth has many historical contradictions, but its thickness prevents them from being clarified; above all because this thickness is hermeneutical, and extends as the political scope of that history. Thus, the main myth is composed of smaller ones, whose partial reality is what obscures everything; like that of miscegenation, which seems obvious in the splendour of the mulatto and his multiracial ancestry; but it hides the split from his behavior, marginal —like a black person— or conventional, no matter its color.

This myth of Cuban miscegenation is based on the other major myth of the supposed national tradition of anthropology; which is not such but only of ethnology, because it focuses on the marginality of the black, as a passive object of history. It does not matter how big the names that make up the Cuban pleiad, all suspiciously white and bourgeois; which is only natural, given the importance of the economic determination of society, but it does not define a national profile.

This does not ignore blood, since before the massacre of the 12th and the derogatory name of little war of the blacks; the reality after the death of Quintín Banderas in 1906, was the accumulation that led him to the uprising against Estrada Palma. In the midst of all this, the danger of the blackening of the country since the times of Captain General O'Donnell boils; which is another myth —although not minor— and therefore with a great deal of real danger for the Creole bourgeoisie.

This danger, sustained by the Haitian revolution, was not that of its extension, impossible in the geography of the country; but it is that of political destabilization, due to the pressure of a true and inevitably mestizo culture. This would explain the schizophrenia of Cuban culture, embedding miscegenation in the conventionalism of the whites; that by default throws the marginal whites to the center of the black universe, where it ends up displacing them with its appropriation; and everything under the sublime dogma of that miscegenation, which is in reality a surreptitious and fallacious racism.

On the other side, like a threatening horizon, breathed the Haitian enlightenment, to be ignored in its blackness; which is the meaning of that hermeneutical thicket that hides its pleiad, in the scholasticism of the anthropologic discussions; but which is deeper and more cultured than the national one, from the interests and objects that concern it. Haiti has in its space —to the horror of others— the entire possible universe of the intellectually developed black; and the fact that it’s unknown does not mean that it’s weak, but that it has been and still is just ignored.

Still, it brings together personalities as profound as those of Du Bois and Morúa Delgado, and everything in between; take the case of Anténor Firmin, with his heated debates in the early French Society of Anthropology (1859); and in which he confronted none other than its founder Paul Broca, and the pioneer of Darwinism Clémence Royer. Firmin is only the excellent sample of an entire pleiad, whose references are lost in endless debates; but whose work counteracts the surreptitious racism of the so-called Cuban anthropology, which is really only ethnology.

This thickness is ignored by the other whites, who comes from Europe to lead the blacks again in their liberalism; without anyone suspecting the spiteful Frenchification of that enlightened elite, which insists on its plantation dominance. It does not matter if now capital is ideological and not financial, since the conflict is political and not economic; because it is not a question of capital in itself but of what it allows, in the spasm of the return to the determination of society; which as the primary is cultural and not political in its existentialism, questioning the entire development of the West.

In any case, the Negritude remains an ominous and great presence projecting itself from that Haiti's historical past; lurking over on the wear and tear of that Cuban elitism, while salivating for that open expanse at its feet. Cuba, as the definitive solution of the West, goes through that correction of the world with its blackness as its own power; but only because of this precariousness of her —already critical—, in which she consolidates the mediocrity of her Enlightening.

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.