Calabash

As a percussionist I almost inevitably encountered the calabash, perhaps more known as “gourd” in English. The fruit of a wider family, including also the pumpkin, squash, but also the courgette (zucchini, in English), the calabash (also: gourd) obtained in several cultures in dried form a wider function than a nutritional one (container, for one). Whereas the strong US influence in this world, and even the imitation of Halloween parties in European countries – for some reason – made the pumpkin’s decorative, “ritual” use most well-known, in my life as percussionist the calabash had another significance altogether. First, in my case, as resonator of – acoustical - musical instruments I used. Not unimportant of course, but while I enjoyed the sound it helped produce, I took it somehow for granted.

RESONATOR

A shékere I use (of African, Yoruba origin), and the guiro scraper (originally known from Cuba, but also long used among Amerindians in South America) – both made from dried calabash - would not be the same without the calabash, or gourd, as resonator. That because it is in reality not just a resonator, but also a natural “amplifier”.

The dried gourd is hard and firm enough for that use. Interestingly, a small balafon (xylophone-like) I have, from Senegal, has gourds as resonator under the stones, to very nice effect. Recently I got a shaker made of gourd/calabash, in a “bottle” shape – a bottle gourd- probably from Igbo culture in SE Nigeria, similar to shape as the shékere, but without beads around it.

Another shaker I have for a long time (even before I delved more intensively into percussion, since about 2006) consisted of two calabash resonators on each side of a kind of basket, filled with metal beads. Here also the calabash makes the difference with other shakers, but I maybe did not realize it that much even. I just liked the sound, and how it combined with other instruments.

The Kalimba thumb piano – a wide-spread modern (“westernized’) simplification of the Zimbabwean Mbira thumb piano – also is often made often of gourd, although the one I have is – as someone said – probably from coconut (also common). The original Mbira (with more metal tines) – by the way used traditionally the gourd.

Another lamellophone/thumb piano I have is actually African, from Cameroon, but is also from wood (with bamboo tines). Calabash/gourd is however used a lot for African instruments, as resonators (also for Kora lutes, for instance, mbiras, or musical bows), and as “drum” itself.

Thus throughout my percussion compositions (I call these “percussion instrumentals”), or jamming with percussion instruments live in some clubs, I in fact used “calabash” quite regularly, but especially as resonators, contributing therefore to some degree nicely to the whole musical experience. It was therefore in this sense like the proverbial “elephant in the room”, though not as much ignored, as just not deeply analysed.

I suddenly realized that I have quite a lot of dried “calabash” in my house, spread throughout several instruments, haha. A percussionist’s thing..

SHEKERE

The shékere shaker (beads around a calabash with a hole) – common in Yorubaland, Nigeria, but spread throughout Latin America, might be the best known use, with the roundish beads wrapped around it. Enslaved Yoruba and other Africans brought this to Cuba, Brazil, and other countries. The shékere is still used there, especially in folk culture, such as Afro-Cuban and –Brazilian religions (Santería, Candomblé).

In addition, especially the larger Shékeres – known as sekere in Yoruba – function often as calabash drum as well, as it is tapped at the bottom while shaken at the same time, customary also in traditional Yoruba music (SW Nigeria, Benin).

Interestingly, the also quite well-known Cabasa shaker – more modern and with metal beads, was developed in Brazil as a modernization of that Shékere, but without calabash (instead: wood, metal, and plastic) in its shaking or resonating. The calabash Shékere however still tends to be more used traditionally in Brazil, as in Cuba, and elsewhere in the Americas and Africa.

In more southern Africa, by the way, the gourd/calabash also has a resonator function for the semi-percussive “musical bows” there (Angola, Namibia, Zambia, South Africa), the foreparent – of course – of the Berimbau bow of Afro-Brazilian Capoeira (still using a gourd resonator for the sole string).

AS DRUM

Directly hitting or drumming on a calabash also is possible of course – to which the large Shekere use already hinted, but without the beads -, and I got interested in that later. I hit the calabash shaker I have with a stick sometimes as extra sound (even live in the mic), but especially in Africa itself, actual calabash, or gourd, “drums” are still commonly used, also played by hands. In fact, this is the case in a large part of Africa: from Mali and Ghana, Cameroon, to even more southern in Southern Africa, alongside its mentioned use for musical bow resonators, and large and small balafons (in fact all over Africa).

I vaguely knew this, but my interest in this was revived when I saw another musician I know (drums and percussion) in the Netherlands, Freddy Poncin, play a larger calabash drum (open bottomed) at a concert in Amsterdam. Poncin played with several (also Jamaican) Reggae artists as a drummer, but in this case played that calabash drum – with a kind of bass function – on a concert, November 2023, accompanying nicely local Surinamese-Dutch Reggae artists Rapha Pico and Miriam Simone in Amsterdam.

Instead of a standard drum kit, this concert had two percussion sets for the rhythm section, one by Freddy Poncin (the other one played by experienced Netherlands-based Reggae percussionist Ras Maiky), turning out groovy (read: danceable) enough as replacement of that drum kit. I got especially intrigued by the unusual use of that calabash drum by one of the percussionists, Freddy Poncin.

It was then that I entered something more “new” for me: the calabash as drum. Theoretically it was not new to me, but in reality I did not encounter it as much. I saw - also online – how Africans played such a large calabash (with open bottom), alone or in a drum ensemble, rendering a low, full sound. It can be played with sticks and hands.

When with hands, there was one hand use that intrigued me, as it seemed adapted to the unique material and sonic characteristics of the calabash shell: the fist-down hit (like when you slam your fist on the table, pinky-side down). This “fist down” hit on a larger calabash drum renders a deeper, nice sound (bass-like), that sounds quite unique, when compared to other (skin-based) drums, or wood-based instruments I am used to playing. A distinct, unique sound.

Sure, on larger skin-based drums this fist-down (pinky at bottom) hit is possible, but usually does not add much difference, from e.g. a palm hit. For a calabash drum it seemed more required for a certain sound.

In Ghana and Burkina Faso this calabash drum is e.g. known, but in other parts of Africa as well: the Mande-speaking regions (Mali, Niger, Guinea, a.a.). It is most known from that West African region, but further study showed it is also used as drum (besides as resonator) or “hitting block” up to Southern Africa.

A pity I could not find such a calabash drum for my collection and compositions (and jamming), I began to think..

WATER DRUM

Another use that intrigued me was the “water drum” use of the calabash. I read about this in a paper book I have since long (‘Trommels & klankinstrumenten’, by Töm Klöwer), in Dutch, translated from German (title transl.= Drums and sound instruments). This water drum was mainly found among the Malinké en Senufo people, spread throughout Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast, this book said.

In this instrument, in a large though emptied melon basin filled with water, half-calabashes are put in belly-up, and hit with a kind of spoon (also traditionally made from calabash), by the prestigious female Poro community. Whereas in many African culture skin-based drums are the domain of men, these water calabash drums are played by women.

This skin-based-drum played only by men in Africa is a common gender division, though more strictly upheld (traditionally at least) in West Africa, and less so in Central and Southern Africa, where women more often play skinned drum. The calabash-based water drum in West Africa – not skinned - can however be played by women.

This division (men can only play skin drums) might seem strange or sexist to some, or at least rigid. Motivations given for it relate mostly to (spiritually) “purity” or “strength”, or (socially) “desexualizing” the context, especially in sacred settings. Some – more practically - associate it with the skin and wood: taking skin of killed or deceased animals for drum skin, and chopping and reworking wood, are “men’s jobs” (also in Europe, btw), so also the drumming that they result in..

The Nyabinghi drummers of the Jamaican-originated, spiritual and Afro-centric Rasta i movement, still more or less uphold this distinction, as often only men drum, and women tend to play shakers and chant along. This water drum in Mali/Burkina Faso/Ivory Coast, however is played by women, and is known in the local language as “gi dunu”, a funny “onomatopoeia”, as linguists call it: the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named. In this case a “watery” sound.

Indeed, its sound is kind of “gi dunu-like” , “underwater” bass-like, and deep and warm. They exist in different sizes, with differing tonality. More modern uses (also by Westerners and men), include with metal basins, newer sticks, or played by hand.

The Tuareg nomadic people in Northern Mali and around (Berber language, mixed with black Africans) use a similar calabash water drum, to imitate the sound of the camel, so crucial in their desert lives.. Also an interesting use. Men play it among the Tuareg.

DOMESTICATION

According to Wikipedia, the gourd or calabash was known in Asia from “ever since”, so to speak, at least since around 8000 BC, then around 4000 BC in Africa, then parts of Europe, and not long after Asia, being there long, so long before Columbus came. It was also “domesticated” in cultivation (adapted, strengthened by humans) quite soon in history, in all these continents.

ASIA AND ELSEWHERE

It is therefore quite possible that those musical functions of gourds (resonator or percussive) could be found outside of Africa as well. I became curious, but know also that Africa is the most percussive continent. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s true musically: Africa is the most percussive/percussion-rich continent. It also is, also almost a cliché, the most rhythm-focused continent, especially sub-Saharan Africa.

I said this before, but over-simplifying one can say that, musically, Europe focuses overall more on harmony, Asia on melody, and Africa on rhythm.

Tellingly, a known example from a gourd-based traditional instrument in China is a reed instrument: the “gourd flute”, or Hulusi, in fact known in a larger part of Asia, from Myanmar/Burma, to Vietnam, and mainly in the most southwestern of China’s provinces, Yunnan, bordering both Burma and Vietnam, and with a subtropical climate. So, as resonator it is found outside of Africa and the African Diaspora (in the Americas) as well. The flute consists of bamboo flutes, with a gourd resonator. Drum in Chinese is “gong”, and in Chinese, and other Asian music, metal seems indeed the preferred material for “drums” or general rhythmical functions. Skin drums are not absent, but of lesser importance, and calabash as drum (as in e.g. Mali, Africa) also unknown..

The Chinese/SE Asian Hulusi resembles in sound somewhat the Clarinet, and has popularity in some regions, and the calabash resonator is part of that. Hulu in its name is Mandarin for “calabash gourd”, by the way, recognizing its importance. There are similar reed/flute instruments in China as well, such as the Sheng.

In India the gourd is also used as a resonator of reed instruments, but has in the remarkable Gopichanta (or Ektara) instrument, which is a string instrument with also a drumming/tapping function. Besides in the India region (inc. Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh) a similar instrument is found in Egypt.

In Vietnam there is likewise a string instrument using a gourd/calabash resonator, called Dan Bau, known as “gourd zither”. Bau is “gourd” in Vietnamese, Dan means “string instrument”.

In the Middle East and Turkey regions, the gourd resonator is found also with stringed instruments, with violins (The Kemane violin in Turkish folk music) and other string instruments, like lutes, as the Kora in (Islam-influenced parts of) Africa.

All very interesting, but not really percussion, being my main field of interest and expertise. The shaker among Amerindians in the Americas (the early Maracas: that I also wrote a blog post about), as well as scrapers, used gourd/calabash as resonators, and are more in the percussion category (idiophones, they call them). The guiro shaker in Cuba tends still to be made of calabash.. The Amerindians also knew the Peyote “rattle” made of gourd.

Yet, shakers and scrapers were also long known in Africa, also with gourd resonators, long before colonialism, so to say.

INTERNATIONAL DIFFERENCES

It is just that the material characteristics of dried calabash (in its later domesticated form) as hard and water-resistant, made it suitable for many functions, across various cultures, as containers and carriers for households, and more, especially in subtropical and tropical climates. From Spain (where the word Calabaza – at the root of English calabash as synonym of “gourd” – appeared from Moorish Arabic, in the times of Moorish Spain, with probably Persian roots) to Vietnam, and from Turkey to Namibia, and to South America (where gourds once arrived from Africa, long before Columbus), the calabash was found useful.

Yet, in culturally different ways, and here again becomes evident that “Africa is the most percussive continent” is perhaps a cliché, but certainly not nonsense. Calabash used for specifically drums or blocks are really only found on the African continent or in the African Diaspora in the Americas. Then gourds were traditionally used as resonators of musical bows (in southern Africa, like in Angola, South Africa, Zambia – the Brazilian Berimbau in Capoeira derived from this), for types of harps and lutes as the Kora in Sahel/West Africa and the Mande-speaking regions (Mali, Guinea, and around) - not to forget the precursors to the Afro-American Banjo -, marimba and balafon, both “xylophone-like” instruments in large parts of Africa (from Senegal to Mozambique).., all using calabashes/gourds as resonators.

The use for different types of shakers (shékere being the best-known) of gourd/calabash for shakers goes way back in Africa: in fact known as early as the maracas shakers among natives in the Americas.

Besides in Africa, and partly among Amerindians, calabash functioned more secondary to melodic and harmony instruments (reed and string instruments) in most of Asian cultures, and seldom percussively, as in Africa.

The solid, dried calabash was used across cultures and continents, but in different ways. We call these “cultural differences”, that seem predictable, but are largely true, with nuances: for string instruments in the Middle East and India, flutes/reed instruments in South East Asia, shakers/scrapers in the Americas, and for shakers/scrapers and for drums and more other percussion-like instruments in Africa.

All cliché’s generalize too much, and of course most folk music – world wide! - combines to differing degrees melody-harmony-rhythm.. It’s just a matter of emphasis. Even within musical “cultural zones”. For instance the folk music of Spain and Southern Italy has relatively more “rhythmic aspects” than elsewhere in Europe, while Italian folk music (as its classical music) is more “melodic” when compared to German/Austrian more “harmonic” folk music influences. Classical music enthusiasts sometimes point at the – relative - “rhythmic” strength of Spanish classical music (by e.g. Manuel de Falla), the “harmonic” strength of German/Austrian compositions, and in turn the more “melodic” strength of Italian classical compositions.

India, Indonesia, South East Asia (and the aboriginals), as well as the Middle East, of course know drum and percussion instruments as well, though often with secondary functions to more melodic or harmonic pieces.

Calabash drums (and scrapers) in Africa, however also foreground Calabash musically, rhythmically, as main instrument, as it does with the other (skin-based) drums, often with polyrhythms (several rhythms at the same time), especially important and common in sub-Saharan African traditional music.

Interesting, and illustrative, cultural differences therefore also show in the different historical and present calabash/gourd uses in different regions, especially its musical and wider creative use..

MODERN POP

Its present use in modern, mostly electric (“western”) “pop” or “rock” music, is of course more limited, though “calabash” as sound maker or resonator can be found as part of the added percussion sections of especially modern Afro-American genres like Reggae, Salsa, Merengue, Soca, or even Soul and Blues (and some Pop and hip-hop), often combined with electrical instruments of modern pop (electric guitar, drum kits, keyboard, etc.).. a reminder of the “acoustic era” after all at the root of all music of today. Also in Jamaican early folk music (like Mento) gourds were used, after all, not just in Cuba. This is after all often a function of “percussion sets” in modern (popular/rock) genres, especially Afro-American ones: reminding of the roots and acoustical times.

More prominent in Latin styles like Salsa (Cuban-derived) and Merengue (from the Dominican Republic), but Jamaican Reggae uses the scraper (often of gourd) quite a lot in the mix (as does Salsa or Cuban Son) too, as well as some shakers made from calabash.

CONCLUSION

What I can conclude from this research and reflection is that the calabash or gourd, especially as used in subtropical and tropical areas of different continents, contributed strongly to folk music globally, mostly as “resonator” (read: amplifier) for other instruments, and specifically in Africa also as primary instrument (drum, percussion) as well. It proved in fact crucial in folk and traditional music historically, due to its tough and water-resistant characteristics as the fruit got domesticated in human history, alongside of course wood, or other natural materials (clay/earthenware, mud, straw, coconut, bamboo, from animals..).

Hip-Hop / Rap and I : parallel lives

This year (2023), 50 years of Hip Hop-music and –culture is celebrated. As I understood, in 1973, at an “epic” summer party in the Bronx, New York (US), Dj Kool Herc, mixed two records from different turntables (without a mixer, back then, mind you), by switching from one drum solo to the one on the other record, creating thus a continuous drum groove, on which he rapped (the "merry-go-round" technique). The rest is history, you can say.

ABOUT THE SAME AGE

If this is really the beginning, hip-hop has about the same age as me. So, a good occasion, this celebration, to reflect upon my relationship with hip-hop and rap music. I am after all a music lover, since young, and especially Black music. I also try to make songs myself.

Granted, I am much more a Reggae fan than a Hip-Hop fan, but I kept an open eye for other genres. I grew up in the Netherlands (not far from Amsterdam), and got into Reggae since I was about 11 years old, around the year 1985, in the vinyl age, listening to Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, the Wailing Souls, and more and more Reggae artists. I also kept track of newer Reggae (New Roots).

Inevitably I got into contact with “pop” or more commercial music as a child (through mass media, via other people), but Rap for some reason was less on my radar back then. Some guys around me liked hard rock (Kiss), my parents played Italian or Latin/Spanish music, but I also heard some songs by Stevie Wonder, or funky sounds by James Brown I liked then. Somehow I felt “Black” music attracted me a bit more, and less “heavy electric guitar” rock music. I liked folksy rock or the Beatles a bit more, but, importantly, I liked to dance to music (limiting my interest for e.g. some melodic Italian songs, though there were nice songs between them). Some songs of Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias I admittedly liked (guilty pleasure?) – he could sing -, though maybe in part because Julio had a few more rhythmical aspects in his songs. I liked some Flamenco (from South Spain) for that reason too.

RAPPERS DELIGHT

My biggest love became Reggae, however, by 1985, and it stayed like that. What in hindsight puzzles me a bit is that the well-known world Rap hit Rappers Delight (around 1981) by the Sugar Hill Gang largely escaped my attention. It probably has to do with my age or high school, as my older brother told me as that song was a hit among boys at his high school (in the Netherlands), and they even rapped along with the catchy flowing lyrics, knowing them by heart (“and do the hip hop, the hippie.. etc..”). This song must have opened many eyes of European youths toward Hip-Hop and rap from New York, and might have some made fans, who knows. When it was a hit in the Netherlands and Europe (an influential one, at that), I was just about 6 years old, so perhaps too young to get it then.

Grandmaster Flash’s The Message, soon after, became also quite a hit (more "alternative", though), but I only remember that one very vaguely too from the time itself, and mostly the “project/ghetto” scenery of the video.

My music interest was since around 1985 more focused on Jamaica than on the US, perhaps unusual in the Netherlands and Europe, though some US soul, blues, or funk I liked. When I got more attention to New York hip-hop, it was already in the later 1980s and early 1990s. The interesting fact is that I viewed this hip-hop and rap from a Reggae perspective. That route is interesting I think: from Reggae to Rap.. you have it the other way around too, as well, of course, especially nowadays, and with US dominance on Western commercial pop culture.

YO! MTV RAPS

This Western commercial pop culture was not my thing, and even less MTV , but when MTV aired (compensating after a - probably racist - anti-Black music policy at MTV), with Yo! MTV raps, it got some of my interest. That regular show Yo! MTV raps, luckily lacked the subtle censorship (since they were caught?) of MTV before, when it avoided Black artists besides Prince or Michael Jackson, as Yo! even gave attention to hip hop with Black awareness messages like Public Enemy, Poor Righteous Teachers, KRS One, Slick Rick, also more fun-based hip-hop too of course, big names like Run DMC, Kool Moe Dee, Biz Markie, and LL Cool J, and even gave some attention to upcoming acts. I enjoyed this often, especially the “free creativity” the young rappers showed, their “informal” ways even seeming refreshing to me. Furthermore, I liked that they were common Black people “from the streets”, to use a cliché.

That “casual” or “informal” aesthetic has of course remained a characteristic of hip-hop, haha. That is: being or acting “casual” only becomes “cool” when there is some talent involved (rendering groovy stuff), else it’s just seeming annoying. One of my brothers tended to comment when we saw mediocre rappers on tv, acting casual: “those guys seem annoying” (or in Dutch: “van die vervélende gasten, zijn dat..”). Only quality makes the casual cool (goods sentence for a Yogi Tea bag btw, haha).

Quality.. in other words: substance and originality. According to the Wikipedia article on hip-hop, I fell - I was around 15 or 16 years old - into the Golden Era (Late 1980s, Early 1990s) of Hip-Hop, and indeed it seemed a good period musical-wise and “conscious”-wise to me, as far as I could tell, with artists like Public Enemy and De La Soul coming up, and Eric B & Rakim, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Queen Latifa, and others in their prime..

TOASTING

I was well into Reggae by then, and knew the “rhythmic vocalizing” – called: “toasting” – within Reggae well. “Old school” Jamaican Toasting (U Roy, I Roy, Dennis Alcapone, Trinity, Prince Jazzbo, U Brown) from the 1970s tended to be rhythmical, but meandering around the beat (like a percussionist, so to speak), but by the 1980s a straighter “on the beat” rhythmic flow had developed in Jamaica as well, starting with Early Dancehall singers (also called DJ’s in Jamaica) like Lone Ranger, Admiral Tibet, Charlie Chaplin, and Brigadier Jerry, continuing with later artists like Capleton, Burro Banton, or Buju Banton and Sizzla even later.

Well now, that later “on the beat” Toasting of 1980s Reggae, of people like Lone Ranger can be seen as a vocal precursor to the likewise “straight” style of Rapping of US rappers: on the beat. While earlier “free” toasters like U-Roy certainly also influenced hip-hop culture, originating the whole aesthetic of rhythmically vocalizing on existing music (instrumental versions of vocal songs). I even am willing to argue that Wear You To The Ball, an early, 1970 U Roy single on existing music (on song by Jamaican group the Paragons), was the first Rap-like studio recording ever.

The specific style of Toasting that developed in Jamaica by the 1980s (heard on 1980 and 1981 songs already, such as Lone Ranger’s Love Bump above), was also a precursor to Rapping, though. Perhaps coincidence, as everyone can hear the beat and choose to rap on it or not, but the direct influence of Jamaican music and Reggae on New York Hip-Hop has been more than proven. Key pioneering figures, including the mentioned pioneer DJ Kool Herc, were of Jamaican descent, knowing Jamaica’s sound system and Toasting culture. DJ Kool Herc also liked James Brown, he said, explaining that direction of hip-hop.

The musical shift from Jamaican (Rocksteady, Reggae) riddims to US Black music in New York, but with the same principle, further gave hip-hop its own identity.

OLDER SCHOOL

When I got more into hip-hop, around my 15th year of age, the older school-hip-hop (not the oldest) of the day was based on samples or instrumental parts of songs by often James Brown, George Clinton, or other Funk greats.. funky licks and riffs that were good to rap on, with extensive lyrics telling stories, rather than repeating phrases as in pop songs with, also making it interesting.

I was intrigued by the mere creativity of this sampled hip-hop, also with regard to the videos accompanying songs, showing other urban worlds (New York then mainly). Another aspect that I appreciated were the poignant, direct lyrics in hip-hop – social commentary from the streets -, even without the repetition of phrases as in other genres, the message came across, often through forceful delivery, very creative word play and rhyming, or a good flow. Especially (but others as well), in my opinion, Chuck D – of Public Enemy - was a master in that, with “cool” sentences and lyrics I still remember, forming often “poems within poems”, while expressing social commentary about racial injustice: “Something ain’t right. Treated like dynamite. Gonna blow you up, and it just might..”, is one of those poems within a poem. “Bruised, battered, and scarred, but hard”, another cool sentence I remember by Chuck D (from song Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos).

For a period I even knew some Public Enemy lyrics by heart, of some songs at least: it went that far.

Did this influence me so much as to become a hip-hop fan, instead of Reggae? Nope: I stayed primarily a Reggae fan, interchanged a bit more with some hip-hop I liked, hip-hop having after all Jamaican connections. I bought Public Enemy albums, and a few other hip-hop albums (De La Soul, Eric B & Rakim, LL Cool J.).

As I stayed more within the Reggae realm, I did not follow developments closely “on the foot” within hip-hop, but mostly from aside, so to speak. It was not really my subculture, usually, and did not know all insiders' “codes” such subcultures imply. Some songs I kind of liked, but with the “newer” school of hip-hop, I lost the touch more and more, safe some artists.

I encountered some Netherlands-based, Dutch hip-hop as well over time, also of differing quality, with Black artists generally (and predictably) better in it, though some White Dutchmen (like Extince) could actually rap, on funky beats, to groovy effect, even making it work in the Dutch language.

Some was definitely corny or fake (Holiday Rap was whack), but not all, haha. Britain’s Derek B seemed somewhat “forced” to me, but here and there some “okay” non-US hip-hop was made, such as in Italy (e.g. by Jovanotti). Also the laid-back style of French rapper MC Solaar I liked, for instance.

I noticed of course that, while I remained a Reggae man, that hip-hop reached the mainstream relatively more than Reggae, and influenced pop. European early 1980s “copying” efforts, sometimes to “fun” effect, such as Pino D’Angio Ma Quale Idea (1981), the “rapping” Flamenco-like Spanish 1982 song about the tv series Dallas’s JR character, A JR,(though singer Pepe Da Rosa, claimed he followed rhythmic Flamenco traditions, and did not follow Rap). Ironically, he rapped better than the early Dutch “rap” hit” MC Miker G and DJ Sven’s Holiday Rap, according to me, at least.

With local, national hip-hop/rap scenes in several European countries this “copying” went further, and deeper, without the ironic distance, but with devotion. Of what I heard, some was okay.

PARALLELS

Apart from hip-hop’s influence on me (also slipping through in some cases on my music making and composing), that parallel development of Reggae and hip-hop, reveals quite some interesting aspects of musical developments of two Black music genres in the Americas, in time influencing each other.

One aspect, though not really positive, was the commercialization of less-conscious hip-hop, of course in the interest of the “powers that be” that Public Enemy protested against, powers that be that are remarkably crafty in “defusing unwanted explosions/bombs”, by destroying or weakening resistance from within (but after their input from outside). A similar strategy seemed to have – by the way - worked effectively with the world wide Left or Liberal in Europe and the US, mostly de facto adhering now to (right-wing) neoliberal capitalism as well, and even blindly following propaganda, or totalitarian tendencies.

Gangster Rap – and its increased popularity during the 1990s - started this corrupting “negativity” in my opinion, and I was kind of shocked by the cynical lyrics on some NWA albums, and also videos of that new Gangster Rap, had a vibe I liked less, making me return to Reggae more strongly, keeping more distance of hip-hop, also because I never really became a Dr Dré/West Coast hip-hop fan.

SLACK

There is a parallel here with Jamaican music. The “slack” (explicit, violent/sexual) lyrics of modern Dancehall music in Jamaica, lacked the conscious, rebellious lyrics of earlier Roots Reggae. Conscious Reggae was still made, and I chose to listen to that, but “powers that be” in Jamaica, also tried to make superficial, sometimes violent/sexual lyrics – though overall a bit less cynical in content than US gangster rap – more popular than lyrics criticizing “the system”, status quo, inequalities, or injustices. Among many youths, this strategy partly worked – Dancehall is nowadays relatively more popular among Jamaican youth, than Reggae -, but not fully.

As hip-hop with better messages co-exists alongside the gangster nonsense, also conscious Reggae kept being made, and also conscious lyrics on Dancehall music arose. The New Roots school in Jamaican Reggae, represented by artists like Sizzla, Luciano, Richie Spice, Lutan Fyah, Junior Kelly, or Anthony B. had a fan base in Jamaica too, not just among Reggae fans outside of Jamaica, keeping thus the “conscious” and message flame alive. Some youths in Jamaica like that too, even though “spectacular” Dancehall of people like Vybz Kartel or Mr. Vegas seems more popular or fashionable.

Like in hip-hop, though, many less-conscious people, or even those living or aspiring to a life of crime, eschewed too deep and conscious lyrics, preferring fun, or worse: more spectacular sex- or violence aimed lyrics. In relative numbers that is. Hip-hop is moreover “in the belly of the capitalist beast”, in the US, with larger corporations and more money to shape tastes, making Eminem – with in my opinion largely nonsense lyrics, and mediocre beats/songs – one of the most successfully selling artist, to name one thing.

POPULARITY

A main difference is also one I discussed before on my blog: a song’s popularity is decided in Jamaica from the bottom-up, really the grassroots: in the dancehalls – at local dances -, among common (poor) people, a song’s appeal is tested, so to speak, then becomes popular and demanded, and artists popular. In the US, commercial corporations try to direct popular tastes to a stronger degree (though not always succeeding), more “from above” and “top down”. This difference remained, up to today.

The New Roots Reggae in Jamaica, meanwhile, has Rap-like toasting or – as it is called today in Jamaica “chatting” - too as its vocals, often continuing on the “on the beat” straighter style since the 1980s, but not quite. The “sing-jay style” is a Jamaican invention – and a common vocal approach among a part of New Roots artists, combining toasted/rhythmical “chatted” parts – mostly the verses – and more or less “sung” choruses.

CHATTING

Those toasted/chatted parts have in their groovy flow some similarities with better hip-hop, but have own Jamaican characteristics, even beyond language/accent, e.g. in accentuation. A hip-hop influence reached some Jamaican New Reggae artists like Protoje and Kabaka Pyramid too, though even those artists could at the same time draw on own, older Jamaican toasting traditions since the early 1970s, that in turn go back – of course – to the African roots (vocal rhythm on rhythms). Protoje even achieved widening his fan base with some hip-hop fans, making his concerts relatively much visited, or earlier sold out. I like Protoje’s chatting/vocalizing style, even if at times Rap/hip-hop like, because it tends to have musically a good, groovy flow on the riddims/music.

The same applies to Capleton or Sizzla, in turn influencing hip-hop artists in the US, such as Busta Rhymes (of Jamaican descent), who said his style was influenced by Jamaican artists like Capleton, which is quite audible, even on some of Busta’s big hits like Fire It Up.

The Jamaican vocal “rap”/chat style has a (somewhat more musical) “dramatic development” – working toward a peak, speeding up vocally - in Jamaican New Roots chatting, is besides more musical, also an interesting African heritage (some relate this to spirit possession traditions of old), a bit less present (though not absent) in US hip-hop, tending to continue the same flow, though with some additions.

DIGITAL DANCEHALL

Modern Jamaican Dancehall I got into more recently, so even after hip-hop, while Reggae remained my main interest, as said, before Hip-hop, and during and above it. The digital straight Dancehall riddims/music attracted me less, preferring myself a live music feel.

Some Dancehall riddims, though, I found groovy and well-made, even if digital. They show a rhythmic complexity (the Flip Riddim, where Dancehall group's Ward 21's song Style is on, for instance), with several layers, while digital hip-hop rhythms – especially when newly made, not just samples from James Brown songs like before - tend to be less complex or layered when compared to Dancehall, though some hip-hop added nice effects. This can relate to a stronger maintained African polyrhythmic heritage in Jamaica, as rapping (rhythm on rhythm) is an African retention, but can be more “advanced” or varied, or simpler. Hip-hop rhythms are simpler (less polyrhythm) than Dancehall rhythms, even the latter’s digital ones. Vocals of course adapt/relate to that.

This “easier rhythm” may explain the “easier” spread among White or European people of hip-hop, but of course along with US dominance on culture in a country like the Netherlands, and perhaps language (US English/Jamaican) issues.

Not to say that there is no other creativity in hip-hop, also evident in golden era-hip hop, with new subgenres, and more musical layers in songs, notwithstanding the relative simple rhythm. This often simple rhythm could be the result of creative sampling, or have that around the main beat (slight syncope or polyrhythm), along with some instrumentation (bass, piano), sampled or not. The repeated bass riff in the beat of Public Enemy’s Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos is magnificent, to give an example. Still inventive with some groovy or funky effects, hip-hop showed to be, but simple and relatively straightforward in a purely rhythmical sense..

It is kind of ironic that a wealthier, powerful country like the US (though with many disadvantaged Blacks, of course), have less-sophisticated or developed rhythms, than a “developing economy” and poorer country in the Caribbean.

Or perhaps it is not ironic.. The poorer the country, the richer the culture? And rhythm is the heartbeat of culture..

Reggae music lovers (in the Netherlands): Eve Lien Dubwise

How people got to be reggae music lovers or fans has always fascinated me. Maybe partly because reggae still is off/outside the mainstream, also in the Netherlands. It is not found that easily, let’s just say. It requires (to a degree) an extraordinary life path: that is, different from copying the masses, or simply following what’s commonly on television or the radio.

Reggae has of course since decades gone international and widened its fan base, but I have known individually quite different reggae fans within the Netherlands. Black and white (and Asian, or mixed etc.). Males and females. Old and young. Some with little education, some highly educated. Of different class backgrounds. Some combine liking reggae quite equally with other genres (e.g.: some with African, funk, soul, some with hip-hop, some even with non-black music genres), while others on the other hand adhere almost “strictly” to reggae music, and do not get into much else. Some like roots reggae more than dancehall or vice versa. There are even reggae fans – believe it or not - who do not smoke the “ganja herb”.

Furthermore, some have an interest or sympathy for the related subject of Rastafari, some do not, or even despise it. The latter, despise, I find somewhat odd since Rastafari is not the same as reggae, but is nonetheless connected to it.

These differences (and similarities) between and among reggae fans/lovers intrigue me, also in relation to personal backgrounds. That’s the reason why I would like to interview specific individuals who love reggae.

Before this I have interviewed 12 persons – reggae lovers I know, “breddas” (meaning “brothers”, or "friends" in Jamaican parlance) or "sistas" of mine – here in the Netherlands.

I started the series on this blog with a post of June 2012, when I interviewed Abenet. In April of 2013 I interviewed Bill. After this I interviewed Manjah Fyah, in May 2014. For my blog post of August 2015, I interviewed, somewhat more extensively, (DJ) Rowstone (Rowald). In August 2016, then, I interviewed Vega Selecta. In October 2017, I interviewed DJ Ewa. Then, for my post of September 2018, I interviewed for the first time a woman, namely Empress Messenjah or Empress Donna Lee. In August 2019 I interviewed another woman, namely Sound Cista. For my blog post of September 2020 I interviewed another Reggae-loving woman, French but living in the Netherlands, Selectress Aur'El. For my blog post of September 2021 I interviewed again a "bloke" (fun way to say" "man") selecta Hobbol Backawall, and in my blog post of September 2022, I interviewed again a woman, Mystic Tammy

EVE LIEN DUBWISE

This time, October 2023, I interviewed another woman, one that I recently met in the Amsterdam Reggae scene. I might have seen her around before, but I got to talk to her for the first time earlier in this year 2023. She is called Eve Lien, and was when we first spoke “selecting” – playing as Reggae dee-jay – at Café Havelaar in central Amsterdam (close to Spui). There earlier in 2023, there were still weekly, Wednesday Reggae sessions under the title Rocking Time, with varying selecta’s/dee-jay’s from the Reggae scene. I played there sometimes too.

Nice place, Café Havelaar, though with a “low ceiling”: I was aided a bit by my South European genes (Dutch men tend to be taller), but I had to be careful with some of my (Masai-inspired) dances involving “jumping”, haha.

Some memorable moments at Café Havelaar: Lila Ike – the Jamaican singer – trying out some selecting after her show, semi-incognito (two latin words, ha!), the interesting Mexican Reggae band Leones Negros (Black Lions) with a nice, groovy performance with sound and even instruments. Plus: the many (mainly local) selecta’s/dee-jay’s playing good Reggae and Dub music, from records: mostly vinyl.. anything between old and new Roots Reggae, Early Reggae, and UK Steppers and more experimental Dub, was played during those Rocking Time sessions.

Due to some conflict, these Havelaar Reggae sessions came to a premature end before the Summer of 2023, but in one of these last ‘Rocking Time’ sessions at Café Havelaar (June, 2023), Eve Lien, my interviewee now, could still try a selecta/dj session with her (vinyl) records. Good selection, I remembered, including also old Roots Reggae, besides what I call “nowadays King Shiloh-music” (incl. steppers).

Later, hearing/seeing more from her (also online, via social media), I noticed she was really a King Shiloh sound system fan, but also of other “crucial” Reggae and Dub sound systems, also those she travelled to places like Germany, Italy, France (Dubcamp!) and London UK (Notting Hill carnival!!) - or elsewhere - for, Dutch-based and international, including “sounds” like: Indica Dubs, Rootical HiFi, Covenant sound (NL), Rootical HiFi, but also Channel One in London, and Ariwa/Mad Professor’s sound system. She also went to Reggae festivals, like Reggae Geel in Belgium.

This she shared on her Facebook page, so I got an idea of her interests: she surely loved those “big speakers” Reggae/Dub sound systems, but Reggae in general, I deduced.

After the Rocking Time sessions at Café Havelaar in central Amsterdam had to end - around the Summer of 2023 - Oliwia (selectress name: Pinedub) - and other organizers - searched other places for Reggae selecta/dj sessions in Amsterdam. They eventually encountered open arms at the - Reggae-minded - Earth Works music studio, with Ben King as custodian. It is at the grounds of the ADM-terrain (free artistic area), in the North of Amsterdam.

Somewhat peripheral at the brink of Amsterdam-North, Earth Works studio, but a nice place, combining a recording studio (where local musicians, but also Jamaicans like Micah Shemaiah came to record), with a record store, a record "burner" even, a “chill out zone”, and.. a sound/equipment for Reggae selecta’s/dee-jays to play their records. Selecta’s known from the Amsterdam Reggae scene played there (like they did in Café Havelaar) – some of whom I interviewed before on this blog -, I was selecta there also once, but also Eve Lien could continue at Earth Works her selecting and dj-efforts, playing good (also older) Reggae also from vinyl. She did this several times until recently before I write this (October, 2023), mostly in the weekends.

Besides this what she shared, I still did not know so much about her. I noticed some “exotic looks”, but she spoke Dutch well, unlike Italian, Polish, French, Spanish, or Balkanic bredren and sistren, I also know from the Amsterdam Reggae/Dub scene. I found it therefore interesting to know more about Eve Lien Dubwise – as is her FB name -, and her evident passion for Reggae music, and asked her the following questions, which she gladly answered (translated from Dutch).

Where were you born and did you grow up?

I was born in Gdansk, Poland, but I grew up in Hoek van Holland, the Netherlands. I am Polish myself too.

Since when (age) do you listen Reggae music?

As a teenager I on rare occasions listened to Reggae songs, from Natural Mystic and Masada for instance. I think that from about my 25th years of age, I really started to listen to Reggae much more.

What attracted you to it, then?

The tranquility it gave me, and the lyrics.

What other music genres did you listen to?

Reggaetón, moombahton (a Reggaetón-influenced House genre), dancehall, Nigerian pop music, R&B, hardcore.

Has there been a change in your musical preferences since then?

Yes, because now I mainly listen to Roots Reggae and Dub.

Do you have any preferences within the broad Reggae genre? Does, e.g., Digital Dancehall appeal to you as much as Roots Reggae?

I prefer to listen to Roots Reggae from the 1970s, and to Dub, and not so much the “newer” Dub styles, with a few exceptions.

Since when are you a Reggae selectress/dee-jay?

Haha, I am not “really” a selectress yet, I think, but I am seriously working on it. I think I can describe myself best as an “upcoming” selectress.

The very first time I really could play as selectress was at Café Havelaar (Amsterdam), which was – I believe – in June, 2023.

Do you have a preference for Vinyl or Digital/CD? As listener, and as selecta/selectress?

As selectress strictly Vinyl, at home both vinyl and Digital.

Any special experiences or encounters over the years (e.g. with producers or artists)?

At Rastaplas (Reggae festival in the Netherlands, near The Hague) I met Brother Neil from King Shiloh. This was very special for me, because King Shiloh is one of my favourite sound systems

Are you active in other ways within the Reggae scene as well? E.g. radio, organizing events, design, or otherwise?

I go regularly to sessions and festivals, and recently I started to spin/play regularly as selectress from vinyl at Earth Works (Amsterdam).

Do you play any musical instruments?

I used to play organ, and still can play a little, although I forgot how to read notes.

Does the Rastafari message in much of Reggae appeal to you? How does this relate to your own background, or beliefs?

I am not a Rasta myself, but I certainly agree with aspects, such as the equal treatment of people, “do good, and good will follow”.

What kind of music (reggae) do you prefer to listen to now – at this moment -, what specific artists? Any new “discoveries” you would like to mention?

Twinkle Brothers, The Gladiators, Danny Red, Horace Andy, Dub Dynasty.

New discovery; Henry Skeng.

Other things you would like to mention?

“It’s better to be hated for what you are, than be loved for something you are not”

REFLECTION AND COMPARISON

Well, within the constraints of time of us both, I am still glad that she, Eve Lien Dubwise, could answer some questions. Indeed, I learned some things about her I did not quite know.

These include her Polish background, being born in Gdansk (the German occupiers called it Danzig), a toponym I always found funny/intriguing, with a remarkable combining of consonants, making Polish words – or surnames – sometimes difficult to pronounce for non-Poles. Anyway, it maybe explains her connection to Polish people like Pinedub or Vega Selecta, and others, in the Amsterdam Reggae scene, but that’s cool and understandable too.

She additionally told me that she initially did not know there were so many Polish people in the (Amsterdam) Reggae scene.

I noticed these Poles in the Amsterdam Reggae scene early on (even more than 15 years ago), and in an earlier (2016) interview I did for this series with Vega Selecta (also Polish), I learned it might be linked to the active rebellious and underground Punk, anarchist scene (with also Reggae influences) during the communist regime in Poland, up to 1990. There is thus also a connection with the (anarchic) Squatter scene in e.g. Amsterdam.

Eve Lien’s Reggae preference is toward (older) Roots Reggae, so that she shares with me. I listen to Dub less, but can appreciate some of it, if not too digital or Euro “Techno” like, but that is a matter of taste.

Eve Lien is a King Shiloh sound fan, and I've been to their sessions too. I liked these often, but to my taste, sometimes a bit too much digital “steppers” was played (personally I prefer with actual musical instruments), but mostly still nice or audible, and just danceable enough. Other sound systems Eve Lien mentions and visits play more (older) Roots Reggae.

Nice also how she could practice her skills as “upcoming selectress” – as she calls herself – also at Earth Works studio in North Amsterdam, alongside other Reggae selecta’s/dee-jay’s like DJ Ewa, Selectress Aur’El, Pinedub, the Zen Rockers, Sound Cista, Jah Code, Loddy Culture, and several others, who play from Rocksteady and Early Reggae, via Roots Reggae, and New Roots, to Dub, and Steppers.

Hausa music

More active in percussion for over 10 years now - beyond privately: composing/releasing compositions and performing -, I can conclude that my own percussion style may have been influenced by different sources, related to my personal trajectory and preferences. Like with other instruments (bass, guitar, drum etc.), I after all noticed that each percussion player I know has his or her own style..

In the case of percussion, with many bigger and smaller instruments, an “own style” can apply to both choice(s) of instrument(s), as patterns/playing style for each instrument (e.g. congas or bells).

OWN STYLE

I love Reggae music, so that is an influence. Afro-Cuban music and percussion – having been several times to Cuba – another one. African traditional music also had my interest, partly as part of the wider African Diaspora approach I take to music. I always found the African retentions in Black American music genres, and in folk music in the Caribbean and Latin America, intriguing. Obvious in music of Vodou, Santeriá, or Jamaican Kumina, more subtle – in gradations - in popular or “secular” music genres as Rumba, Samba, Salsa, Cumbia, Merengue, Reggae, Calypso, Blues, etcetera.

AFRICAN DIASPORA

This African Diaspora approach made me look at Africa as a direct percussion source. Personally, I got most interest in music from Southern Nigeria – Yoruba and Igbo -, and a bit less (though not absent) for the Guinea and Senegambia regions.

Other percussionists I know specialized more in “Guinea/Senegambia”, mostly Djembe enthusiasts. I, in turn, specialized a bit more in Southern Nigeria, percussion-wise, you might say. Neither this is exclusive, and more parts of Africa I studied (notably Congo and Uganda, besides Guinea), but somehow it was easier to find information on, say, Yoruba music, and bordering areas. Patterns, playing styles, and instruments from roughly South Nigeria, all helped to find my own style. Illustratively of my particular path, I got and played an Ashiko drum (drum of Yoruba origin), before I started (about a year later) playing the better known Djembe (Mande/Guinea/Mali origin).

This influence shows not so much in instruments, but in patterns. Congas I play regularly, and are of Afro-Cuban origin, with strong Congo/African influences, but patterns for other drums can be played on them too, of course. Similarly “round” shaped, open-bottom drums can moreover be found in large parts of sub-Saharan Africa (also in e.g. Benin and Ghana).

This being said, South Nigeria’s percussive influence on me, a question imposes itself. Why specifically South Nigeria, and not other parts of Nigeria, like the North-Centre parts, where the Hausa are a large ethnic group. What about Hausa music?

It is kind of odd, since I received some Guinea influences, having had in time Djembe lessons, learning patterns from Guinea and South Mali, yet I did not really got into Hausa music directly.

HAUSA

The Hausa consist of a large ethnic group, mostly Sunni Muslims, in a.o. Northern Nigeria and Niger, speaking an own Afro-Asiatic (Chadic) language. They are however largely of African descent, according to genetic studies related to Nilotic groups (such as in South Sudan). Some geneticists assume alongside this about 45% of the DNA of Hausa from Afro-Asiatic language speakers, others assume less (estimating more Nilotic DNA), and only regionally, suggesting thus cultural over ethnic influences. Some sources state that “Hausa” refers not so much to a race or nation, but rather to a common language and culture.

Anyway, degree of racial mixture aside, the Islamic influence became strong on the Hausa, shaping – some say: “de-Africanizing” - their culture. The Hausa live in quite a wide area of Northern Nigeria, but are also important in Niger, and are substantial minorities in other countries like Ghana, Chad, Benin, or Cameroon, sometimes mixed with the also Islamic Fulani. Northern Nigeria (Kano state) and Southern Niger are either way the strongholds of Hausa culture.

With a total of about 80 million members – or Hausa language speakers- , the Hausa people, are one of the largest ethnicities of the region.

Negatively put, as described in some (South) Nigerian sources, the stronger influence of/conversion to Islam of the Hausa, limited the traditional African heritage in favour of Islamic norms and prohibitions. Positively put, you can say that Islam and Arab influences mixed uniquely with local, present African culture, into a new culture.

Culture is after all not just about heritage and authenticity – however crucial -, but also about creativity and innovation.

The truth is in fact something in between, I think. Islam limited and destroyed parts of the traditional African culture (and music), but only partly, and incorporated some of it into a new mix. The conquerers‘ religion got hierarchically the upper hand, though, as did later colonizers, the British, bringing Christianity.

IRONIES

Traditional African music in Northern Nigeria was thus more affected/conscribed (“Islamicized”) than e.g. Yoruba or Igbo music in Southern Nigeria, at least in an earlier stage. There was of course a strong British colonial and Christian influence in South Nigeria, but in a later stage in history, and more indirectly.

There are some interesting ironies here, and some “painful” ones too. The Islamic conversion since mainly the 13th c. among the Hausa, created a stronger central rule before the British came, than in the South, seemingly representing a cultural “defense”. This Hausa culture was however not fully indigenous, bearing strong influences of pre-European, but non-African Arab invaders bringing the Islam. This same Islam historically also could work on occasion against “African solidarity”, as the history of Yoruba enslavement shows.

When the (Hausa-Fulani) Jihad – Islamic conquests - spread southwards in the early decades of 19th c., many Hausa conquered non-Islamic Yoruba in SW Nigeria, enslaving them. While Britain had by then formally abolished the slave trade (some illegal trade continued), France, Spain and Portugal still needed slave workers, especially in Cuba, where plantations increased, being the reason why many Yoruba ended up in Cuba and Brazil, especially brought by Portuguese slave traders (also for Spanish colonies), but often bought from Hausa middle-men, holding Yoruba as war captives. That is the painful part, I guess.

The irony is that in present-day Nigeria, superficially the South (with big cities like Lagos and Ibadan) seems more Christianized and thus Anglicized/Westernized – in part -, while the largely Hausa North seems to have maintained an own strong (Islamic-based) culture as seeming counterweight to the colonial influence.

As shown, though, the influence of earlier external conquerors (Arabs), already diluted and limited, its indigineous Africanness.

HAUSA MUSIC

To focus on the positive: what is maintained or perhaps reworked interestingly, of the traditional culture, including musical forms, in Hausa-land? One can focus on “traditional purity”, but of course the mixing of cultural influences resulted throughout history, and on different continents, in interesting new musical genres. “Black music” in the Americas, I already mentioned (think e.g. also of Jazz), but “different cultures mixing”, one also finds in e.g. (South Spanish) Flamenco music, Italian Tarantella, Greek music, Turkish influence on Balkan (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Albanian) music, some genres with mixed influences in India or Madagascar, and some Ethiopian genres. Perhaps being something like the process of “taking the best of both worlds”.

Did interesting “own” musical genres arise among the Hausa, perhaps also percussively interesting for someone like me?

Besides this, folk culture has the inherent beauty of resilience against authorities, and against all odds, I love so much. The totalitarian, prohibitive aspects of organized religion (Christianity or Islam) need not wipe out or even dominate local indigenous culture, only limiting it maybe.

The also nominally Islamicized Guinea, South-Mali, Northern Ghana, Northern Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast and Senegambia (Sahel Africa), often Mande-speaking, regions, definitively have developed an own interesting culture, also regarding percussion, with the Djembe instrument as prime example, only the djembe’s goblet shape (similar to the Darbuka’s) betraying Middle Eastern influences, but further part of an African-based mixture, with Islam only an element. More “swing” besides polyrhythm, Islamic adaptations, but a same focus on rhythm, dancing, and communal story-telling, such as through travelling “griots” (folk musicians, “jeli’), as in other parts of Africa.

There is also some beauty in the creativity of culture: the popular inventiveness to create something new from what is there, without remaining “stuck” in inherited traditions. This can also be organically and collectively, especially in Africa, for cultural reasons.

INSTRUMENTS AND PATTERNS

Drums are used in Hausa culture, at times dominantly (especially the Talking Drums), but not in an extensive or very multifaceted way. Not always dominant in the sense of “central” to the musical piece, as more to the South in Africa (with combined drum rhythms). Drumming serves more to underline vocals or other instruments, and at most helps “meander” the main musical accompaniment. The hourglass-shaped ‘Kalungu’ Talking Drum is nonetheless a steady accompanier of both urban and rural music, as some other kettle drums, usually somewhat high-pitched and often played with sticks, rather than with hands, and some other percussion instruments. Playing styles tend to be “meandering”, as said, and not “staccato” or “straight” rhythms (as in Congo/South Nigeria), but more akin to Darbuka playing styles in the Middle East and North Africa.

TALKING DRUM

The Talking Drum (called "Kalungu" among the Hausa) is typically African, and in fact as common among the Yoruba in SW Nigeria, as well as elsewhere (Guinea/Mali/Senegambia and Ghana). It is found in both regions with or without Islamic/Arab influences, so is indigenous to Africa, mimicking often the tonal languages in parts of Africa (at least the Yoruba language). The Kalungu among the Hausa is relatively big: the Yoruba know bigger and smaller sizes Talking Drums, Dagomba in Ghana bigger ones, Mande-speaking peoples (Guinea a.a.) in turn smaller sizes. The difference is that the Talking Drum (known as Gangan) is among the Yoruba (and Mande-speaking people) only one of several drums with prominent roles - drowning in wider drums, you might say - and remains more dominant/audible among the Hausa.

Other instruments among the Hausa are the Goje (one-stringed fiddle), trumpets, and flutes. The Goje is somewhat similar to the Ethiopian Masenqo instrument, also one-stringed. So, apart from a Middle Eastern influence, it can be an Eastern African one too, in light of the genes from Nilotic (South) Sudanese people found in the Hausa.

Interestingly, but explainable, the “bells” seem less common – though not absent - among the Hausa, being more crucial in both Yoruba and Igbo music in South Nigeria. The same applies to shakers. On some occasions the bell types of neighbouring peoples like the Yoruba or Igbo are “borrowed”.

In more rural parts of Hausa-land, ancient spiritual traditions are kept alive, including the invoking of ancestor spirits, besides nominal Islam. Here more African aspects and even bells are used in the music. Yet, even in “mainstream” Hausa culture, such as with urban songs for the Emir, African culture remains, such as the Kalungu “talking drum”, also found among the Yoruba, and in Guinea, which has no original equivalent in the Arab world, and is thus African.

Less pitch changes or polyrhythm than more to the South, but still a focus on drumming, as with some kettle drums, also used in Hausa celebrations. Other aspects of Hausa culture, like trumpet and flute use, or the importance of horses, show other influences, so there is an own, not uninteresting cultural mix.

I find as percussionist the most interesting – and potentially educational - the importance of the Talking Drum – relatively big ones - among the Hausa -, kept underneath the arm to change the pitch, played with bent stick. I play a smaller talking drum (from another part of Nigeria), sometimes, in the same way (one hand a bowed stick, other hand hitting on skin too).

Remnants of call-and-response singing are also there in official Hausa celebrations, as elsewhere in (also non-Islamic) sub-Saharan Africa, again pointing at mixture, and cultural survival.

DANCING

About "dancing" - of course related to musical structures - and differences between the Hausa or Yoruba, Igbo or other dancing, I found less information. Characteristically African, exuberant, hip and pelvic movements among the Yoruba and Igbo confirm what many people imagine of Black African dancing, along with at times acrobatic moves, and indeed dancing is important in these cultures. There is common dancing among Hausa too, but it seems more modest/contained or "stiff", which might relate to different male-female relations, and Islamic inhibitions regarding too free female dancing, seeming sensual, even if the hip and buttocks follow the rhythms, as a way to enjoy the music in the African tradition. They are not always as "sexual" as they seem.

Nonetheless, there are some dances known as "acrobatic" among the Hausa too.

TWO THEORIES

Musically and historically the Hausa are thus interesting. Some theories I studied before (and partly discussed on this blog) seem relevant to further contextualize Hausa music.

GRIOT AND FOREST AFRICA

The distinction between “Griot (Sahel) Africa” and “forest, polyrhythm” Africa, made by Western anthropologists like Robert Farris-Thompson, is certainly relevant here. The Islamic influence shared with Guinea/Mali/Senegambia created a “swing” aspect in musical patterns, i.e. going/gliding “around” a basic beat (like guitars/strings), and not straight drum-based rhythms as in “forest Africa” (South Ghana, South Nigeria, Benin, Congo), several simultaneously, around a clave (“key”). This lack of this “key pattern”, explains also the scarcer use of bells or shakers in Hausa music. This type of “time-keeping” was simply less needed, in the meandering, Arab-influenced music, less focused on combining multiple rhythms.

Rather, Griot African music (including Hausa music) is swinging around a beat like string instruments (e.g. the Kora) do, distantly related to the vocal melisma (stretching syllables to different notes) of singing in Islam-influenced cultures (including Flamenco), or perhaps best known for the muezzin’s calls for prayer at mosques. Even the Talking Drums follow partly this meandering pattern.

Echoes of music from “polyrhythmic”, forest Africa can be found in Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latin American genres, and echoes of “swing”, Griot/Sahel Africa in Blues and Jazz. Interestingly: that whole “shuffle” and “swing”, reached Jamaica too, via radio stations playing Black US music like Blues, R&B, Jazz), partly influencing Reggae, though mixed with local, as scholars call it, "forest Africa" (Congo, Ghana, Igbo) musical aspects and accents, adapting that shuffle input according to Jamaican norms.

This makes Reggae a representative, varied representation of the wider African Diaspora, and thus also fit for varied percussion.

ISLAMIC CONVERSION

Quite different, but also relevant, I consider the work of the Dutch scholar (of Arabic and Islamic studies at Leyden University, Netherlands) Hans Jansen, about religion. Jansen wrote a book with the somewhat provocative title Het Nut Van God (The Use, or Function, Of God), in Dutch. I read it in Dutch. It was published in 2001.

Not all in this book by Jansen I found interesting, but parts of it – when he went deeper, beyond news or topical issues – I certainly did, even making me look differently at certain things. Religion served, Jansen argues, for people in certain places or cultures to provide them what they lacked in their environment, their real world.

According to Jansen, the chaos and lawlessness in war-ridden areas where Arabs and the later Islamic converts lived (Arabia, Middle East, parts of Africa), had religion serve the function of bringing “order” and “structure” by the good example and instructions from God (Allah). By contrast Judaism and Christianity of the Old Testament (with enslaved Jews) emphasized more “justice”, and New Testament Christianity, in materialist, money-driven societies, “love” (beyond interest). With the Saul-to-Paul conversion, he also contends, the emphasis in Christianity came more on “believing” than just practice.

Islam went a bit in a different direction. Believing mentally – or being able to “read” a holy book – seemed less important than clear, practical rituals, which were easy to adopt: praying 5 times a day, fasting in a part of the year, food prescriptions.. All once present in Christianity too, but diluted in favour of more abstract “belief”. Due to Islam’s clear, easy-to-adopt rituals, partly fitting local customs (polygamy, for instance), many people converted to Islam more willingly, even convincingly, if not always deeply. Added to this, the idea of “order” and a “high – if abstract - moral norm” of Islam was welcomed in violent, chaotic environments.

All this might explain why the Hausa so readily embraced Islam, and some among them even quite fanatically. The emphasis on rituals, though, still left some space, hidden or not, for own indigenous interpretations or survivals, clear in the Guinea region, as in other parts of Africa.

In Hausa-land, also with the recent Boko Haram fanaticism, this maintained, freer “own” Africanness, seemed less clear than e.g. among the more “flexible” Guinea or Ethiopian Muslims (or Somalian Muslims, before a conservative jihad there), but is still there.

CONCLUSION

I mentioned the African (not Arab) Talking Drum in common use among Hausa, and some other African musical aspects. Sure, the Middle Eastern “mono-rhythmic” focus is there, but Africanized rhythmically with a “swing” focus, and still some call-and-response, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.

It is precisely this cultural resilience of Africanness which still makes the Hausa music interesting for a percussionist like me.

Percussionists are by definition “multicultural”.. they have to be. Me too, playing African drums and percussion instruments (from different regions), Cuban drums, Brazilian shakers, Spanish castanets, the Middle Eastern Darbuka, North African Bendir frame drums, bells, Western tambourines, modern “pop” jamblocks, etc.

I thought a period that an interest in Africa – as most percussive continent –, or the African Diaspora, was inevitable – even required - for a percussion player, but I later heard about percussionists strictly playing Middle Eastern or Indian instruments. That is them: I prefer to focus on the African Diaspora and Africa, and Hausa music is an affected, yet enigmatic and interesting part of it..

Historically, the Hausa were (relatively) less affected by the European slave trade, especially when compared to the Yoruba and Igbo in South Nigeria (or the Coromantee in Ghana, Ewe in Benin, and Congo peoples). The beauty of resilience of Yoruba cultural retentions in the Americas shows in Yoruba-derived instruments in Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music, from there internationalizing: the Shékere (common in both Brazil and Cuba), and its modernized version invented in Brazil, the Cabasa shaker. The Ganza shaker, the Agogo double bell, the double-sided Bata drums survived in the Afro-Cuban (largely Yoruba-based) Santería faith, etcetera etcetera.

Congo music influenced Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music (with clear echoes in Samba, Salsa and Son), and even influenced Reggae music from Jamaica, alongside Ghanaian influences. Congo drums even influenced the Afro-Cuban “inventions” of the by now well-known drum types the Conga and Bongó. Igbo ended up in Jamaica, Barbados, and parts of the US too.

Escaping (more) enslavement by Europeans can partly be explained by the inland, non-coastal location of Hausa-land, but also the Arab enslavement – likewise affecting millions of Africans – affected Hausa a bit less, probably due to their early conversion to Islam. In Islam, Muslims were formally not allowed to enslave other Muslims.

The book about ‘The Use (or Function) Of God’ by Hans Jansen I mentioned, thus also sheds light on this: how “modern times” and expansion and conquest through military means of both European Christianity and Arab Islamic expansion – and the inherent hypocrisy of exploitation, under the guise of “holy faiths” – apparently needed an organized religion to make sense of this, to structure this.

Within and despite this, “free” indigenous, original (“African”) culture and music still survived, also among the Hausa. Again: the beauty of cultural resilience, against all odds.

Also, the nice creativity of combining sources into “new art”, in this case Arab/Middle Eastern and African influences. The prominent drums, call-and-response of Africa, but the monorhythmic meandering of Arab music, yet “swung” in an African way.

Not uninteresting, but I always felt more attracted to polyrhythm of other parts of Africa: South Nigeria, but also the Congo region. Rhythms responding to each other, and intertwining. Evident in Yoruba, Igbo, and Congo music, more subtly in Afro-American genres like Reggae, Calypso, Samba, Merengue, or Salsa.

This does not mean that I love only that, as I see interesting aspects in most of authentic folk music, even if not very rhythmical, only less.

The continuous and fluid, meandering/swinging, talking drum-led drumming among the Hausa I find somewhat appealing, also as a change from my usual approach (clave, dialoguing and intertwining separate drum patterns), as well as the “intense” singing over it, fitting it due to its “melisma” (“trembling”) influences.

Perhaps this appeal increases into "inspiration" one day, who knows..

Stereotypen

Zijn stereotypen per definitie beledigend? Of kunnen ze “goedaardig” zijn, “onschuldig”, dan wel een “kern van waarheid” bevatten, zoals men over cliché’s zegt?

Het bezwaarlijke van stereotypen is uiteraard de generalisatie. Dat blijft mijns inziens bezwaarlijk, omdat het in zekere zin het indidividu als mens ontkent, en derhalve “dehumaniseert” tot groepslid. Grote woorden, maar in gradaties kun je dat wel zo stellen. Als vooroordelen kunnen ze ook tot discriminatie in de praktijk leiden.

“Alle Nederlanders zijn zuinig”, bijvoorbeeld, bevalt mogelijk niet elke gulle, niet-materialistische Nederland als stereotype, maar is relatief onschuldig. Het is een van die stereotypen die, denk ik, Nederlanders zelf ooit de wereld in hebben gegooid. Het heeft immers iets nuchters en bedachtzaams, evenals het andere stereotype dat Nederlanders “nuchter” zouden zijn.

Minder onschuldig zijn generaliserende stereotypen als “Marokkanen zijn agressief”, of “Surinamers zijn lui”. De inzet is namelijk al negatief. Een opgefokte Marokkaan die dat bevestigt kun je zo sneller dehumaniseren, en een uitkeringstrekker die het wel prima vindt zo en liever niet werkt, en toevallig Surinaams is, krijgt wat meer kritiek dan een autochtone Nederlander die nog luier leeft: omdat hij niet “van buiten” komt, natuurlijk.

TOESLAGEN-AFFAIRE

Dat laatste bleek des te minder onschuldig, omdat tijdens de Toeslagen-affaire in Nederland bleek, dat de Nederlandse overheid (eventuele) uitkerings-/bijstands-fraude specifiek meer bij bepaalde etnische (minderheids)groepen ging controleren. Dit is net zo racistisch als het klinkt, maar ging zelfs uit van de premier Mark Rutte, als eindverantwoordelijke. Het betrof onder meer Somaliërs, die extra controle kregen op fraude. Later volgde daar een juridische reprimande op – zij het halfhartig -, en werd Mark Rutte zelfs formeel veroordeeld voor racisme. Rutte’s populariteit bleek echter onverminderd: vele verarmingen van volksdelen, leugens, lockdowns en avondklokken later. Vraag me niet waarom..

Je trof zelfs de nodige gecorrumpeerde – of op zijn minst: verwarde - dwazen aan – vooral ter “nep” linkerzijde - die quasi- of selectief verontwaardigd deden over de toeslagenaffaire (al dan niet terecht), maar Rutte en het kabinet in alle andere (inmiddels aantoonbare) onzin bleven steunen, inclusief de loze, op totaliarisme gerichte corona-hype/pLandemie, de verhulde Navo/militair-industriële belangen bij oorlog in Oekraïne, en de door Shell bedachte klimaat-milieu wisseltruc. Maar dat terzijde..

Het stereotype van de feestende Somaliër (of Antilliaan, of andere etnische minderheden) van “ons” belastinggeld, opgebracht door hard werkende nette Nederlanders, speelde bij deze toeslagenaffaire in ieder geval een rol.

“POSITIEF”

Stereotypering is generalisatie en derhalve versimpeling, en misschien ook al te menselijk, kun je redeneren. Zoals mensen (wereldwijd) wel meer – ook racistische en seksistische - onzin denken en praten, gebaseerd op frustratie en te weinig kennis. Zijn ze echter, nogmaals, altijd beledigend of verkeerd? Je hebt weliswaar ook positieve stereotypen, of die dat lijken, over volkeren, waar een zeker wantrouwen op zijn plaats is: “Joden zijn slim”, om maar wat te noemen, of “Latinos’s feesten graag”, “zwarte mensen kunnen goed dansen”, “Indiërs zijn goed met computers”, etcetera..

Sommigen zullen denken: deze hebben een kern van (zij het versimpelde) waarheid, maar ze zijn alleen quasi-onschuldig.. Ik denk namelijk niet dat de mensen uit die etnische groepen zelf deze stereotypen bedacht hebben, wat ik bij (vaak Europese) mensen wel denk: Nederlanders zien zichzelf graag als zuinig en nuchter, Engelsen als koel en flegmatisch, Italianen zichzelf als gepassioneerd.. Ze vinden het ook ego-strelend om dat van anderen te horen. Zelf-beelden zijn per definitie “coole beelden”, zeg maar.

Stereotypering heeft derhalve, betoog ik, nare en dubieuze, zelfs discriminatoire kanten. “Reducerend” , en het woord “ontmenselijkend”, schuw ik zelfs niet. Het reflecteert onvermijdelijk de ongelijke machtsverhoudingen in deze wereld. Aan de andere kant heeft het – althans: de aandacht voor stereotypen -, betoog ik tegelijkertijd, menselijke en leerzame kanten. Soms ook grappige kanten.

BINNEN EUROPA

Stereotypes binnen Europa kunnen ook als onterecht ervaren worden, maar zijn soms grappig. Grappig, puur door de menselijke behoefte aan bevestiging bij twijfel en onzekerheid, aan simpele, overzichtelijke categorieën. Een zwakke behoefte, toegegeven, maar de mens is nu eenmaal zwak. Dit bleek immers ook bij allerlei politieke manipulaties van “het volk” door de geschiedenis heen. Dat “zwakke” hoeft echter niet altijd (bedoeld) “slecht” te zijn: en eigenlijk net zo flexibel als de menselijke geest.

CASE STUDY

Ik zal al deze aspecten nu nader bestuderen aan de hand van een case study van persoonlijke aard. Als halve Spanjaard (Spaanse moeder) en Spanje als land goed kennende (en de taal sprekend), en opgegroeid in Nederland, met ook nog een Italiaanse vader, kwam ik onvermijdelijk stereotypes over Spanje tegen, en reacties van Spanjaarden erop, die ook weer hun stereotypes hadden.

DAT ZIJN NOU TYPISCH SPANJAARDEN

Ik heb daar pas wat over gelezen, zoals het grappig bedoelde, informatieve boek: ‘Dat zijn nou typisch Spanjaarden: gids voor xenofoben’, uit 1994, vertaald uit het Engels, maar ik las het in het Nederlands. Drew Launay, een Engelsman met Franse ouders, schreef het. Het is met zo'n 63 pagina's niet al te omvangrijk.

De titel verraadt al de zelfspot en –relativering, wat ik wel waardeer. Hier geen mensen aan het woord die pretenderen de wijsheid over Spanjaarden in pacht te hebben: ze willen gewoon grappig, luchtig generaliserend over de Spaanse cultuur schrijven, in een niet al te serieus “informatief” boekje. Humoristisch bedoeld ook.

In dezelfde serie verscheen ‘Dat zijn nou typisch Grieken’ of ‘Dat zijn nou typisch Fransen’. In het vervolg kort ik het boek over Spanje in ieder geval af tot DZNTS.

Wat betreft Spanje, voel ik minder afstand en kan me dus ook in theorie “beledigd” voelen door zo’n flauw boekje. Ik kan ook dingen “herkennen” of (rationeel) als juist of onjuist zien.

ASTERIX

Erg oppervlakkig ben ik niet, en ben o.m. historisch onderlegd, dus zal de stereotypes ook breder kunnen duiden. Dit deed ik zelfs met een ander, evenmin erg serieus, maar wel “informatief” boek met stereotypes over Spanje voor het grote publiek: ‘Asterix in Hispania’, ouder, uit 1967. Ook hier: gelukkig speels, humoristisch, en relativerend, en als kind was ik eigenlijk een fan van Asterix de Galliër. Leuke verhalen, zonder dat ik me onderworpen voelden aan racistische propaganda. Bij Kuifje en Suske & Wiske had ik dat idee wel, zelfs als kind, voelde ik bezwaren (Afrikanen met dikke lippen en kookpotten). Het Belgische geweten en de verhulde schaamte rond de koloniale misdaden in Congo, werden hier vals duidelijk.

De geschiedenis toegankelijk gemaakt, zo zag ik Asterix stripverhalen eigenlijk. Belgen, Goten (Scandinaviërs) en Britten (of hun voorouders in de Romeinse tijd) dronken toen al veel bier. Bier drinken heeft ook een lange geschiedenis in Noord-Europa (want het bestanddeel hop groeit daar, niet in Zuid-Europa), dus historisch feitelijk.

Galliërs, belangrijke, Keltische voorouders van de huidige Fransen, hielden toen al van lang tafelen, met een wijntje erbij, Romeinen praatten met hun handen (samengebalde vingers) als huidige Italianen, etcetera. Stereotypes, maar ook grappig.

BELEDIGEND OF GRAPPIG?

Vond ik dat ook gelden voor Asterix in Hispania? Kon ik er om lachen, als halve Spanjaard?

En om dat andere boekje DZNTS ook?

Het antwoord is ja. Om weinig was ik persoonlijk beledigd in relatie tot mijn waarden. De beschreven “stereotypen” in beide boeken waren toevallig in mijn beleving ook niet negatief, dat scheelt. Als er een negatieve trek als “gewelddadig” of “ongemanierd” gegeneraliseerd zou worden, zou ik wel wat bezwaren hebben. Ik vind Spanjaarden in het openbaar iets beleefder dan dat deel van Nederland dat ik goed ken (Randstad), dus zou ik ook een onterechte karakterisering vinden.

Zelfs het hardnekkige stereotype van het grotere “racisme” van Spanjaarden – meerdere mensen spraken erover dat Spanje lang “de rednecks” van Europa waren, omdat een term als “negro” (letterlijk: “zwarte”) voor een voetballer openlijk en direct geuit wordt – klopt denk ik niet.

De multiculturele, stedelijke samenleving die we kennen van Amsterdam, Londen, of Parijs, kwam evenwel wat later (en beperkter) naar Madrid en Barcelona. Dat verklaart het verschil. Landen als Nederland en Engeland hadden derhalve meer tijd om een “subtiel” indirect racisme te ontwikkelen ten opzichte van mensen die er nu eenmaal zijn (maar wel hun plaats moeten weten). Grotere groepen van “je eigen mensen” maken ook dat je in een “bubbel” met je eigen mensen kunt blijven, dus ook minder last hebt van negativiteit van de autochtonen: je hoeft minder contact met ze te hebben. Zo simpel is het. Spanje had dat eerst minder, dus iets meer (openlijk) ongemak.

Het boekje DZNTS (uit de jaren 90), stelt dat het moderne Spanje (na de dictatuur van Franco) inmiddels op zich niet xenofober is dan andere Europese landen, ook omdat het open naar de wereld ging, mede door toerisme, en migratie wat normaler is geworden.

STEREOTYPEN OVER SPANJE

Welke stereotypen onderscheiden Spanjaarden dan wel van andere Europeanen, volgens datzelfde boekje (en Asterix In Hispania, dat in 1967 verscheen)?

Dan werd het grappig: ik moest soms ook echt lachen om de droge toon. “Alles moet leuk zijn” voor een Spanjaard, en werk is een "noodzakelijk kwaad", is de rode draad in het boekje DZNTS. Nogal wat anders dan het ernstige, protestantse arbeidsethos dat andere delen van Europa (waaronder Nederland) beïnvloedde.

Het woord “negocio” voor “zaken” (business) in het Spaans komt, veelzeggend genoeg, van “neg” (niet/afwezig) en “ocio” (vrije tijd): “niet vrije tijd” (negocio) dus tegenover het Engelse “drukheid” (business). Cultuurverschil.

Spanjaarden praten veel en lang, stelt het boekje voorts bewust overdrijvend. Daarnaast, ook overdreven stellig: Spanjaarden “plannen” niet graag, en als er een afspraak is, wordt die makkelijk vergeten of vervangen door iets dat “leuker” is op dat moment (een gesprek, bijv.). Zo’n overdreven stereotype met een (kleine) kern van waarheid, denk ik.

Albert Helman (Lou Lichtveld), een Surinaamse Nederlander die verslag deed van de Spaanse Burgeroorlog in 1936, beschreef die neiging als “nonchalance met betrekking tot organisatie” en als inderdaad terugkerend, ook in een situatie waar dat ongunstig uit kan pakken, en organisatie vereist is, zoals in de strijd tegen de veel beter getrainde en geëquipeerde troepen van de couppleger Generaal Franco: een modern, professioneel leger, zogezegd, bijna on-Spaans. Dat anarchistische vertaalde zich in Spanje in bepaalde episoden ook in politieke bewegingen, ook tijdens die Burgeroorlog aan “Linkse”, Republikeinse kant. Dit kwam helaas de effectiviteit niet ten goede, en de gedisciplineerde, getrainde militair Franco maakte daar uiteraard misbruik van, om de oorlog door zijn coup te winnen (wat hem lukte in 1939).

Dat vrijheidslievende/anarchistische, ongeplande, heeft historische voorlopers in de Spaanse geschiedenis, met geconcentreerde Romeinse troepen in steden, maar anarchie erbuiten, en de lang durende (met tussenpozen) strijd tegen de Moorse, Islamitische overheersing, met langzame “herovering” van Christenen vanuit het noorden, maar met veel “niemandslanden” en bovendien veel interne verdeeldheid binnen het Moorse deel, dat vaak ook een “strakke regie” miste. De eerste eeuwen van Moorse overheersing werd de Islam ook weinig dwingend opgelegd.

VOLKSAARD

Dit alles droeg bij aan wat je een Spaanse “volksaard” kan noemen. Een bekend begrip, maar bestaat dat wel: een “volksaard”. Is het niet een verzameling stereotypen, dus te generaliserend?

Ik denk wel dat culturele patronen zich geografisch kunnen concentreren of beperken vanwege een bepaalde geschiedenis, in combinatie met natuurlijke omstandigheden. Spanje is een van de bergachtigste (na Zwitserland en Oostenrijk), en droogste landen van Europa, deels onherbergzaam, met een centrale hoogvlakte rond bergketens.

Lijkt toch iets moeilijker te organiseren en tot welvaart te brengen dan de groene polders met sloten, zoals in Holland, of zelfs de vruchtbare Po-vlakte in het welvarende deel van Italië.

“Plannen” gaat in zo’n ruig landschap wat moeilijker, en gecombineerd met chaotische episoden met autoritaire regimes, afgewisseld met weinig strakke, centrale regie en planning, in de Spaanse geschiedenis, ontstaat dan vanzelf een wat anarchistische, niet-plannende, ongeorganiseerde levenshouding.

ZEDEN

Ook het Franco regime (1939-1975), hoewel een dictatuur, was niet zo totalitair zoals hardliners rond Franco eerst wilden. Het botste op de Spaanse en Latino cultuur. Hoewel moordpartijen in de vroege dictatuur, wat extra wetten, en simpelweg veel politie en militairen op straat, het Spaanse volk wel degelijk intimideerde. Er was een katholieke invloed in de Rechtse dictatuur (verder gemengd met fascistische elementen), dus die nieuwe wetten waren deels zedelijke wetten, die een beetje zoals in Iran vooral “vrije” vrouwen en seksualiteit/genotzucht moesten inperken (vrouwen mochten niet fietsen, geen strakke kleding dragen, lang geen broeken voor vrouwen), naast bijvoorbeeld niet zoenen in de openbare ruimte, of al te vrije feesten/samenkomsten op straat.

De belangrijke avenues en pleinen in steden als Madrid en Barcelona die alle toeristen wel kennen (Plaza de España, Plaza Mayor, Puerta del Sol, Callao, las Ramblas, Plaza de Cataluña), waren tijdens de dictatuur gevuld met politie en militairen (of guardias civiles).. ter controle. Dit nam aan het einde van de dictatuur (vanaf ongeveer 1968) wat af.

Anekdotisch bewijs, ook binnen mijn eigen familie, toonde echter aan dat de wetten niet overal even strikt werden aangehouden, tenzij er een politie-agent in de buurt stond, en zelfs dan (als bevriend) was er flexibiliteit (oogje toe, deze x geen boete of arrestatie), kon je geluk hebben: op zijn Latijns dus, en Spaans “informeel” dus. Zoenen op straat bleef wel verboden, zoals mijn Spaanse peettante (vriendin van mijn moeder, al in Spanje) in Madrid onder Franco ondervond, toen ze zoende op straat met haar nieuwe, Nederlandse vriend, en een politie-agent haar vermaande. Mijn moeder stond hierbij.

Hoe dan ook, na Franco’s dood in 1975, kregen alle typisch Spaanse neigingen tot vrij, ongeorganiseerd leven weer alle ruimte, zo geeft het boekje DZNTS ook aan. Ook de seksuele moraal in het dagelijkse leven in het moderne Spanje, wordt er gekarakteriseerd als “los”, en seksuele lust als normaal en geaccepteerd, voor mannen en vrouwen. De auteur(s?) relateren dat interessant genoeg aan het relatief wat minder voorkomen van zware zedenmisdrijven, dan in samenlevingen met meer religieuze repressie. Juist tegenovergesteld dan preutse autoriteiten beweren, dus.

In een ander boek dat ik las, over een ander deel van de wereld (niet-Islamitisch, Sub-Saharaans Afrika) werd vreemd genoeg hetzelfde gezegd: minder zedenmisdrijven dan elders door lossere seksuele moraal, dus minder frustratie. De in de media nogal uitvergrote verkrachtingen tijdens oorlogsgeweld in Congo – die overigens ook plaatsvonden tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, en de recente Joegoslavië-oorlog – spraken dit echter tegen, en bevorderden helaas weer een ander hardnekkig (eigenlijk ook onjuist) stereotype over Afrikaanse mensen.

Om een cultuur echt te kennen, moet je erin zitten, blijkt hier maar eens uit. Anders krijg je, inderdaad, stereotypen, generalisaties, en vooroordelen.

Het boekje ‘ Dit zijn nou typisch Spanjaarden’/DZNTS noemt voorts een relativering van geld en carrière als middelen en niet doelen op zich: het moet vooral “leuke” doelen hebben (feesten, familie, opscheppen) en dient geen arbeidsethos op zichzelf. De natuurlijke omgeving – de familie - wordt meer als geluksbron gezien in Spanje dan rijkdom door werk, wat zelfs nog iets “verlichts” lijkt te hebben ook. Dit lijkt dan een “positief” stereotype.

NEOLIBERALISME

Wel verfrissend in dit neoliberale tijdsgewricht, en tegelijkertijd aantonend hoe “angelsaksisch/protestants” dat neoliberalisme (moderne VS kapitalisme) in feite is. Dit verklaart ook de financiële (begrotingsdiscipline) conflicten in de EU tussen Noord- en Zuid-Europa. Spanjaarden hebben zich een beetje aan dat neoliberalisme aangepast, is mijn indruk, maar niet heel sterk. Het informele en ongeorganiseerde, en de voorkeur voor plezier en “natuurlijke relaties” boven werk, is wat beperkt, soms even gaan slapen, maar zeker niet dood.

Veel armere mensen “moeten” in Spanje zo’n 40 uur werken, zoals overal, om rond te komen, maar een cultureel aspect wat in Spanje wat sterker is dan in, zeg, Duitsland of Nederland, is dat het ook als “moeten werken” wordt ervaren. Als het even kan dus “vermeden”, evenals (strakke) “planning”, want “niet leuk”. De siësta – lange middag-pauze – waar Spanjaarden koppig aan vast blijven houden, maar ook past bij het warme klimaat, dient naar mijn idee ook als tegenwicht tegen “moeten werken”.

Ook de vele patroonsfeesten op de Spaanse kalender, en vele dorpsfeesten, geven die voorkeur voor “feesten” aan, inclusief dansen en zingen.

De latere en gebrekkige industrialisatie, en de gebleven connectie met “het (platte)land”, deelt Spanje met Ierland, inclusief de neiging tot feesten en plezier (naast werk). In de westelijke helft van Europa, zijn dat om die redenen ook de landen met de relatief rijkste “volksmuziek” (Ierland en Spanje). Helaas deelt het ook de conservatieve katholieke traditie, inclusief reactionaire perioden.

Volgens het boekje ‘Dat zijn nou typisch Spanjaarden’ is ook de rol van de katholieke kerk in het dagelijkse leven van moderne Spanjaarden inmiddels sterk verminderd. Nu niet veel anders schat ik in, dan pakweg het huidige Frankrijk of Zuid-Nederland. Tenzij het een aanleiding voor patroons- of andere feesten zijn, want dat vinden Spanjaarden – daar is het weer – “leuk”.

Over de Franco-tijd zegt dit boekje het volgende: “toen Franco nog leefde deed hij erg zijn best om de Spaanse bevolking onder controle te houden, maar hij slaagde er niet in het Spaanse vermogen tot plezier maken aan banden te leggen. Hij kon de Spanjaarden alleen maar een aantal jaren iets minder gelukkig maken”.

Leuk verwoord, en tegelijkertijd verwijzend naar de verborgen werkelijkheid achter het “achterlijke”, conservatieve imago Spanje had, elders in Europa in de jaren 60 en 70 (1960-1975), en wel daarna.

Mensen als mijn moeder en andere Spaanse migranten naar bijv. Nederland in de jaren 60, “vluchtten” veelal, minstens economisch, maar vaak ook politiek. Spanje bleef economisch achter, kreeg geen Marshall-hulp na de Tweede Wereldoorlog, en Franco werd door sommige landen geboycot, hoewel deels alleen in naam. Er vonden wat pogingen van “nationale zelfvoorziening” plaats, die veelal mislukten door zelfoverschatting, en eigenlijk ook de lage industrialiseringsgraad en technologische achterstand.

Wat mijn moeder het meest waardeerde toen ze in Nederland kwam rond 1966, zo vertelde ze mij, was niet de welvaart, de betere economie met beter betalende banen (ook voor haar), nee.. dat benaderde ze meer met de houding van “a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do” (ze stuurde, zoals andere migranten uit arme families, ook geld van haar loon naar Spanje, naar haar moeder). Ze sprak vooral de waardering uit voor het respect dat ze ontving als werknemer (bloemen op de eerste dag als “chamber maid” in een hotel in Zandvoort, bezit van de rijke Amsterdamse Caransa familie).

In het harde fascistische Spanje van toen, werd ze als werkzoekende, voor slechtere banen, als zeurende zwerver behandeld, dan wel als sloof, dus meer botte, cynische afhankelijkheid zonder respect.

Behalve dat, waardeerde ze ook de formele beleefdheid en behulpzaamheid op meer plekken in Nederland, en de vrijere samenleving en bijeenkomsten, ook voor jongeren.

Dit lijkt los te staan van het begrip “volksaard”. Hier heeft de politieke situatie invloed, autoritair regime of democratie.

Iedereen, ieder mens, wil vrijheid en plezier maken. Hoe die vrijheid en dat plezier ingevuld worden kun je “cultuur” noemen. Een mooi, vaak complex iets, maar vaak versimpeld in “stereotypen”. Soms is dat denigrerend (of afgunstig?), soms humoristisch bedoeld, zoals in het boekje DZNTS dat ik hier bespreek.

Dit boekje bevat verder grappige one-liners over die “volksaard” als:

“Van systemen verwacht men in Spanje meestal niet dat ze functioneren”, of:

“De Spanjaarden drinken niet om hun remmingen los te laten, want die hebben ze niet”,

“Stilte werkt Spanjaarden op de zenuwen. Dat is ook de reden dat het Spaans niet gewoon gesproken, maar naar elkaar geschreeuwd wordt”, en deze:

“Spanjaarden laten zich weinig gelegen aan regels – want regels zijn niet leuk”.

Dit laatste citaat herhaalt nogmaals het “niet willen plannen” of “niet aan tijd willen denken” en het vermaak-zoekende als stereotypen. Een soort rode draad door dit boekje, DZNTS.

Nogmaals, niet echt negatieve stereotyperingen, en als overdreven of onjuist, dan toch te grappig verwoord om echt beledigend te zijn. Ze worden zo gerelativeerd.

ASTERIX

Ook in de Nederlandse Wikipedia-pagina over het begrip ‘stereotypes’ worden de stripverhalen Asterix de Galliër genoemd als milde, amusante hanteringen van stereotypen. Ook visueel, heel goed en treffend getekend, door de soms geniale illustrator Uderzo.

De tekeningen zijn zo leuk, de verhalen en humor erin zo speels, dat je vergeet dat veel van het verbeelde stereotypen zijn. Wederom: meer grappig dan beledigend.

In Asterix in Hispania (1967), komen alle cliché’s langs: het hete klimaat, Don Quichot, de vele feesten, stierenvechten, Flamenco en zigeuners, olijfolie, alsmede slechte organisatie en traagheid. Daarnaast ook aspecten als “trots” en “eer”, en het bekende vurige temperament. In de chaotische organisatie en in het vele feesten en dansen in het Asterix in Hispania verhaal worden de stereotypen uit het boekje DZNTS nogmaals bevestigd: vermaak-gericht, en niet willen plannen, traag- of luiheid.

Met mijn kennis van geschiedenis kan ik natuurlijk wat bezwaren aantekenen en correcties plaatsen: de Hispaniaanse mensen in het Asterix boek over de Romeinse tijd, zeggen voortdurend, cliché-matig “Olé”, terwijl die term uit het Arabisch komt (Moorse overheersing), zo’n 6 eeuwen later dus. Net als het Castiliaanse woord Ojalá (betekent: “laten we het hopen”, “hopelijk”) verwijst het naar God (Arabisch: Allah), bij God’s wil, prijs God, dat idee. Een van de vele Arabische leenwoorden in het Spaans (Castiliaans) om historische redenen. “Olé” als term gebruiken huidige Spanjaarden als uitroep wel veel: een beetje in de betekenis zoals zwarte Amerikanen “right on!” gebruiken – positieve bevestiging, dus, dus dat stereotype heeft wel iets van waarheid.

Om diezelfde historische redenen is de opmerking van iemand in het Asterix boek dat “we” (Spanjaarden) “van Grieken afstammen”, simplistische onzin. In de loop der eeuwen is het DNA van Spaanse mensen nogal vermengd, en bovendien verschillend per regio. Romeinen en Moren (Berbers, Arabieren) droegen eraan bij, maar ook eerder Kelten, Feniciërs (een proto-semitische taal sprekend), Carthagers (dat verhaal van Hannibal speelde deels in Spanje), Basken en hun voorouders, Iberiërs, Westgoten, Vandalen, Joden, en weinig Grieken. Daarnaast ook mensen die er al woonden toen de Feniciërs zo’n 1200 vóór Christus de eerste stad in Spanje stichtten (het huidige Cádiz, in Andalusië), van onduidelijke etnische origine.

DNA

Hoe dan ook, serieuze, wetenschappelijke DNA-studies sinds de jaren 1950s (toen DNA-studies eerst opkwamen), laten niet overtuigend één belangrijkste etnische voorouders van de huidige Spanjaarden zien, alleen een beetje bij de Basken. Andere landen in de wereld hebben dat wat meer (een dominante groep - nooit enige - voorouders), maar Spanje is veel gemengder. Zelfs de inquisitie bleek niet al te succesvol (te "Spaans" gepland?) en aardig wat in naam bekeerde Joden bleven uiteindelijk toch in Spanje (toch ruim 40% van hen). "Keltisch" DNA in Spanje wordt geschat op zo'n 30% (Portugal iets meer), geconcentreerd in het Noordwesten, maar "Germaans" DNA maar op zo'n 5%, "Berbers" DNA al met al op minstens 10%, maar dit alles is soms moeilijk te meten, onderzoekstechnisch gezien: Westgoten spraken een Germaanse taal, maar waren gemengd met Slaven, en Semitisch DNA kan ook van eerdere Feniciërs komen en niet alleen van Joden of Arabieren, Romeinen stuurden soms soldaten van Gallische of Griekse afkomst. Etcetera, etcetera.

Verder vind ik DNA-studies vanuit historisch perspectief wel een interessant studieterrein, overigens pas historisch ontwikkeld na de dwaze rassentheoriën van de Nazi's. Het had die Nazi-onzin mogelijk wat gerelativeerd, hoewel voorspelbaar de landen met Germaanse talen inderdaad wat meer Germaans DNA hebben.

Misschien neem ik het allemaal te serieus, kun je betogen, want het is grappig bedoeld. Asterix – gericht op kinderen – heeft echter ook wel een educatieve functie.

Wat ik inderdaad niet te serieus moet nemen, in dit geval, zijn de stereotypen in Asterix in Hispania, en evenmin die in het eerdergenoemde boek DZNTS. De auteurs relativeren zichzelf al, en daarmee hun stereotypen. Dat maakt het minder denigrerend of kwetsend.

STAND-UP COMEDY

Hetzelfde zie je bij veel stand-up comedy, zowel in Nederland als daarbuiten. Vooroordelen en stereotypen bespreken – en er grappen over maken – is in dat genre erg gangbaar, soms zelfs de norm. Richard Pryor en Eddy Murphy deden dat al goed en grappig, niet zonder zelfspot. Je hebt verschillende soorten humor, uiteraard, en ik schreef daar een eerder blog artikel over. Humor kan ook verschillende functies hebben, deels ook nare en ideologische: stereotypen bevestigen, volkeren denigreren en uitsluiten. De “blackface” traditie in de VS en deels in Europa bijvoorbeeld, humor tegen Joden (cartoons in Islamitische landen), en andere racistische grappen, zonder enige zelfspot en relativering. Dit is meestal “sarcastisch” van aard, waardoor ik niet zo positief ben over “sarcastische” humor, zoals anderen.

Nederlanders vinden zichzelf sarcastisch, en Amsterdammers helemaal. Tenzij ze het woord verkeerd gebruiken en “ironisch” bedoelen (een gangbare fout), zou ik iets anders zoeken. Humor kan situaties en wereldlijke onzin leuk relativeren en in een ander perspectief plaatsen, zonder dat je mensen persoonlijk, laag-bij-de gronds, per se hoeft te vernederen. Iets van zelfspot en zelfrelativering (als karaktertrek niet zo sterk ontwikkeld bij Amsterdammers) zou al helpen. Als er iets is wat ik bij Spanjaarden iets sympathieker vind dan bij Nederlanders (ik ben het allebei, in feite) is dat Spanjaarden meer zelfspot hebben.

Veel stand-up comedy, ook in de VS en Groot-Brittannië, en zelfs in het sarcasme-rijke Nederland, is goed en grappig omdat het die zelfrelativering, die zelfspot wel heeft. De eigen mening wordt niet zo bloedserieus genomen, en bescheiden genoeg wordt niet verhuld dat het vanuit een eigen, beperkt perspectief is. Niet al te serieus te nemen, en daardoor prettig. Geen “bully-achtige” metaforische “hand tegen de keel” waardoor je niet kunt ademen en in een hoek gedwongen wordt, zoals een keiharde racistische grap die je op straat in Amsterdam soms keihard kan overvallen.

Zelfs de meest met stereotiepen spelende delen van deze comedy van mensen als Eddy Murphy, Richard Pryor, en latere goede, succesvolle comedians als Lenny Henry, Dave Chappelle, Katt Williams, Russell Peters, Sarah Silverman, waren niet zo denigrerend als ze leken (over blanken die niet kunnen dansen bijvoorbeeld). Het zijn meer begrijpelijke observaties over cultuurverschillen. Geen wetten van Meden en Perzen.

Ze hoeven niet in alle gevallen waar te zijn, zoals de Nederlandse zuinigheid, en in Spanje noemen ze Catalanen “zuinig”, mijn moeder noemde Italianen “jaloers”, etcetera, maar de manier waarop het gebracht wordt – met “zachte” humor - , maakt dat relatieve, betwistbare eigenlijk al duidelijk.

HOLLYWOOD

Stereotiepen en het verwante cliché’s vind ik wel negatiever uitpakken in Hollywood-films. Deze zijn nog veel invloedrijker dan stand-up comedy, met name de laatste decennia. Ze zijn wereldwijd populair, gericht op vermaak en spektakel, maar drijven toch vaak op cliché’s en een (soms verhulde) pro-VS bias. Zelf-beelden zijn altijd “coole” beelden, zei ik eerder, dus ook hoe de VS gepresenteerd wordt in Hollywood films uit de VS. Orde, rationaliteit, en democratie in de VS, gekken en chaos daarbuiten, al te beginnen in Mexico.

Dat is soms subtiel, omdat politiek-correcte stromingen direct racisme in een kwaad daglicht stelden, sinds de 1970s met name, maar het is er nog steeds. Heel toevallig – of eigenlijk niet – sloten en sluiten ze ook heel goed aan bij het buitenlands militair/politiek beleid van de VS, met invallen in Iraq en Libië en zo, veelal gericht op eigenbelang. Britse films en series hadden lang datzelfde pro-imperialistische euvel.

Ook de African Americans lijken dan wel een plaats te hebben in vele Hollywood-films, net zoals sommige “token” Latino’s, maar in veel films worden toch negatieve stereotiepen over zwarten en Latino’s eigenlijk bevestigd. Ook in populaire, invloedrijke films die vanuit het zwarte perspectief lijken uit te gaan, zoals in Boyz In The Hood.. Er zullen ook wel wat mooie, menselijke, universele aspecten in zulke films zitten, maar ook veel “vieringen” van een minderwaardigheidscomplex en een laag zelfbeeld. Jezelf reduceren tot een groepslid, een stereotype.

Met name kwetsbare jongeren, met een beperkt referentiekader, worden daardoor beïnvloedt, ook in Europese steden, denk ik. “Gangstertje spelen”, zeg maar, als de enige “zwarte” film die je keek Boys In The Hood was. Hadden ze beter Spike Lee-films kunnen kijken.

Stereotiepen kunnen dus op verschillende manieren gevaarlijk zijn. Zowel bij minderheidsgroepen zelf in het gedrag, maar uiteraard ook in verband met machtsverschillen, als een witte werkgever mensen onterecht discrimineert voor een baan (niet aannemen/uitnodigen) vanwege niet een individu maar alleen een (in potentie irritant) groepslid ziet, of als een overheid in een Europees land raciale, etnische minderheden strenger gaat controleren op bijstands-/uitkeringsfraude dan de eigen mensen, en dat nog geaccepteerd wordt ook (de Toeslagen-affaire).

Onschuldig is alleen de relativering, en daarmee betwijfelen van die stereotiepen, soms juist door ze te benoemen en uit te vergroten. Met goede, positieve humor, zeg maar.

In gradaties zit dat in zowel dat boekje, Dat Zijn Nou Typisch Spanjaarden, waar ik het over had, de Asterix-strips, en in de betere (stand-up) comedy. Het gaat toch om de intentie. Lachen om cultuurverschillen maakt de wereld denk ik ook leuker en interessanter. Mijn ouders deden niets anders, zelfs die van de eigen echtgeno(o)t(e).

Het is daarnaast historisch leerzaam om te onderzoeken hoe die stereotypen zijn ontstaan..

CONCLUSIE

Tja, welke conclusies kan ik hier verder nu uit trekken? Kloppen de grappig weergegeven stereotypen over Spanje in de genoemde werken, naar mijn ervaring, ook met familie?

Laat ik zeggen dat ik deels meen te herkennen wat ze bedoelen te zeggen. Qua gebrek aan planning en aversie tegen kloktijd zijn er ook volkeren “in de tropen”, zoals Latijns-Amerika waarvan dat nog veel meer gezegd wordt, als stereotiep, maar in ieder geval in vergelijking met andere Europese landen geldt dat vaker te laat komen en mindere planning van Spaanse mensen wel. In Cuba bijvoorbeeld, evenals in Jamaica, was een kloktijd-afspraak veelal een “vage indicatie”, ervoer ik op beide eilanden. Het gericht zijn op feesten en liever niet willen werken, ben ik inderdaad bij veel Spaanse mensen min of meer schaamteloos tegen gekomen.

Echter: ook wel (in mindere mate) bij bijvoorbeeld Nederlanders of Italianen, met name levenslustige vrouwen, wat ik leuk vond. “Girls just wanna have fun”. Niet iedereen is een robot. In meerdere mate trof ik die feest-neiging boven werklust zelfs bij Cubanen en Jamaicanen. Spanjaarden zijn er misschien iets schaamtelozer in om dat toe te geven, en dat beantwoordt aan een ander stereotype in het boek ‘Dat Zijn Nou Typisch Spanjaarden’/DZNTS: dat Spanjaarden nogal “informeel” zijn in omgangsvormen.. lees: direct, ongefilterd.

Sociologisch en historisch wijt ik dat aan de gebrekkigere industrialisatie (slechts rond grote steden en Baskenland) en de gebleven verbinding met het platteland, het agrarische. De omgangsvormen zijn daarmee ook wat “boerser”, vergeleken met bijvoorbeeld Duitsland of Nederland. Niets mis met zulke plattelands-principes, zeg ik altijd maar.

Ook het terugkerende stereotype van "sterke familiebanden" die Spanjaarden zouden hebben herken ik wel, maar is niet anders in veel andere culturen, met name ook armere landen buiten Europa, en betreft vooral de "extended family", niet vooral het kerngezin zoals elders in Europa. Wat breder dus, en de vader-zoon of vader-dochter verhouding op zich is soms daarom zelfs sterker in Noord-Europa of Noord-Amerika. Mijn moeder maakte altijd grapjes over de vond ze overdreven verering van "daddy!" in Amerikaanse films, dus dat is ook relativeerbaar.

Die verschillen in “volksaard” tussen Europese volkeren zijn inmiddels overdreven (de wereld is internationaal, men imiteert elkaar, reist meer, wil verandering), maar met nog steeds een grond, een aanwezige kern.

Spanje moet zich aanpassen aan het neoliberalisme, terwijl steeds meer Noord-Europeanen fanatieker zijn gaan feesten - de klok vergetend -, alsof ze altijd al zo waren.

Het meest interessante vindt ik hierbij zelf de connectie met de moderne variant van het kapitalisme, het neoliberalisme, die wereldwijd veel invloed heeft, zeker sinds 1980, en een duidelijk VS/Angelsaksisch stempel heeft. Derhalve ook Protestants qua arbeidsethos, en gevormd door andere “angelsaksische” filosofische stromingen als utilitarisme, en materialisme, welke in “Latijnse “ landen toch minder aansloegen.

Het “kapitalisme” komt historisch uit het Protestantisme voort, weet niet iedereen, maar het voert te ver dat nu uit te leggen. Wel verklaart dit alles - samen met ruige natuurlijke condities - de “cultuurverschillen” van Spanje met, zeg Duitsland of de VS, die te versimpelen zijn tot de eerdergenoemde stereotypen.

Die verschillen zijn bovenal menselijk en eigenlijk ook grappig. In ieder geval zeker warmer en liefdevoller dan de koude cijfers van geld en materialisme.

Cultuur is wat je krijgt als je mensen met rust laat, zeg ik altijd.

Mijn hoop is dat deze natuurlijke neiging tot vrijheid van gewone mensen, van een eigen gevormde cultuur zonder inmenging van bovenaf of machtige partijen, van plezier en inspiratie, en van echte muziek en (levens)kunst en levenslust, altijd sterker zullen blijven dan welke economisch/politieke, elitaire - en totalitaire - machtsgreep en onderdrukking ook..