The journey of the triangle

To (quoting bredda Bob Marley) “come in from the cold”: might the triangle instrument be cooler than we think?

Or at least than I, myself, think? Then I started to wonder: did I ever even have an opinion about the triangle? I really only knew of its association with “high brow” classical symphonic orchestras: true, not my main musical interest, but I was still intrigued by its high sound and function in the piece, as I was in most music, as such.

The latter increased over time, especially – and interestingly – after my whole trajectory through “the world of percussion” - esp. the last decennia - with an emphasis on Afro-Cuban, and African, especially Yoruba and Igbo instruments, though further varied geographically (later came also Afro-Brazil). Triangles are after all part of the “percussion family”, as they call it.

Tellingly, since the (like the triangle) metal “campana” (“cowbell” in Spanish) is important in Afro-Cuban music, I obtained that soon in that percussion trajectory: not long after conga’s and bongos, actually, Why suddenly “campana” must be used in this context instead of English “bell” or Dutch “bel”, I really don’t know, but many do. I understand it is fun to slip in a Spanish word, haha.

More metal instruments followed adter the campana/bell for me. My first “triangle”, however, I only bought recently. I encountered it by chance in a percussion musical instruments shop in outer northwestern Amsterdam, Netherlands, a shop called Pustjens. I always look out - in this shop and elsewhere - for small interesting percussion to add to my collection (with intent to use musically!), and this time there were also triangles of different sizes. The smaller ones were cheaper than I thought, so I bought one. I soon after took it since to some jam sessions in the city, and recorded it on songs.

In this post I will focus further on the question I opened with: is the triangle in reality cooler than we think?

I could have opted for a more ambitious essay or study of all “metal percussion”, but I try to control my megalomania (a common thread throughout my life, haha), or otherwise said: choosing in this instance “induction”, over “deduction”: starting with the small example, then widening/broadening its context (read: comparing with other percussion).

So first things first. How did I become more interested in triangles than I was before?

INTEREST

I use myself as example, not because I see myself as role model or some “leading guru”. See me in this case as an “experienced percussionist” as well as a “Reggae fan”.

Neither Afro-Cuban music, African music, or even Reggae, I always loved, are particularly known for the use of triangles. I rarely recall noticing it anyway, perhaps only on the song Road Foggy by Reggae artist Burning Spear (album Hail H.I.M.), without even realizing it was a triangle. And it was, in Road Foggy: a triangle hit on the One, every four measures. That high, clear sound did add to the song’s feel..

I associated the triangle as said with European classical music, but then was kind of surprised to recently find a “groovy” and “funky” use in Brazilian music, of multiple (African, Amerindian, and European) origin, namely the NE Brazilian Forró genre, some years ago. A cousin of mine, well into Afro-Brazilian culture, confirmed its groovy, rhythmical use in some Brazilian genres. That groovy use was to me then (only some years ago!) a pleasant surprise.

ORIGINS

Its “European” image notwithstanding, the earliest origins of the triangle, are clouded in history, but are most probably found in Ancient Egypt or the Middle East, connected with religious services. It first appearance in Europe was mentioned since the 14th c., first in Germany, but unlike other instruments we all know now: like the accordion, the harmonica, or tuba, it did not originate in the German-speaking world, or even elsewhere in Europe. It became more and more used, associated later with “Turkish” music, as some very vague “exoticism”.

The Islamic Turks (or Ottomans), conquering the Balkans and Greece since the late 15th c. were travelling conquerors, having taken also culture and aspects from other people. The metal and other percussion the Turks brought, were taken once from China, via Armenia, or other parts of Asia. Also the cymbals on our drum kits, have that ultimate origin (China), and cymbal making was also more a specialty of Armenians, rather than Turks, by the way. So the idea that Turks spread “their” music with the Ottoman empire – and other cultural aspects – to e.g. the Balkan region is too simplistic, since they took much from elsewhere.

Like the Arabs before them (who eventually converted the Turks to Islam), they switched from a nomadic focus, to conquering settlers, while taking cultural aspects from conquered peoples. The origin of the “guitar” is in Spain, but based on – they say – Persian models, Arabs took from Persia, to give a known example, reworked in what is now Spain, etcetera.

Much “metal” percussion that came to Europe through the Turks, have thus their origins in the Far East, mostly China, although the triangle has – as said- more probably a historical connection with Egypt (that the Turks also conquered by the 16th c. AD.), but its presence in Europe by the 14th c. points at a different flow, and relations to the ancient Egyptian (lithurgical) “sistrum”, which was also “rattle-like”. Not uninteresting, as the “castanets” – becoming typical of Spain – also were said to have ancient origins in Egypt. Castanets, however, spread less outside the Iberian peninsula (still mostly associated with Spanish folk culture), while the triangle was found wider in Europe, even non-Mediterranean parts.

The basic characteristics of the triangle became over the centuries more and more standardized since then in Europe, including the open corner.

TODAY

Today, the triangle is still used in Coptic (Orthodox) Christian Church services in Egypt – usually with cymbals - , a bit comparable to the use of the “sistrum” in the Ethiopian (Orthodox) Christian Church (also today). The sistrum was already used in Ancient Egypt, probably being the only known forebear to the triangle, adapted over time.

The triangle thus had and has partly a lithurgical use, but in Western classical music it obtained a musical, if quite “ceremonial” function, e.g. marking transitions in classical music pieces: an announcing, often atmospherically used instrument, and a bit less rhythmically, in pieces that either way lend more on harmony and melody than on rhythm.

This being said, in classical pieces by e.g. Giaochino Rossini (the well-known Wilhem Tell Overture), Offenbach’s equally well-known Can-Can (from Orpheus in the Underworld), some works by Franz Liszt, Ludwig von Beethoven, Igor Stravinsky (in his composition The Rite Of Spring), and Johannes Brahms, the triangle is used quite rhythmically but selectively, as well as by George Bizet or Strauss.

Other composers like Bach, Wagner, Debussy, and Mozart seem to use the triangle more in an atmospheric sense (referring to festivities), though in line with the rhythm. Tchaikovsky used the triangle in his well-known piece the Nutcracker. The Ode To Joy by Beethoven is another better-known piece, with the triangle at some points.

Mozart’s opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) figures the triangle as well in relation to then fashionable “Turkish” music: again all-too-vague exoticism, although Turkish musicians could have picked the triangle up after conquering Egypt (under the Ottoman empire).

So, several examples of triangle use in (European) classical pieces can be mentioned, but its use tend to be sparingly and selectively, though often significantly for the pieces' atmosphere.

FOLK MUSIC

There are of course some European classical instruments that can also be found in less high-brow, and really popular “folk” music, that I personally tend to like more (while I still appreciate some classical music and composers, especially of the Italian school, like Puccini, further Manuel De Falla, and also some works by Tchaikosky I appreciate).

The tuba - low horn - is an example, being either of German or, as some say, Roman origin, at times the violin (though the fiddle is more common in folk music), and even the cello, having e.g. a place in Tyrolean and Trentino (Northern Italy) Alpine folk music, not just in the “posh” concert halls. Also, the harp, and clarinet-like instruments are since long part of Celtic folk music, beyond concert halls.

Reasonably - perhaps ideally - that European classical music reflects (surrounding) European folk culture, with different influences: French, German(ic), Celtic, Italian, Spanish, Slavic, and Turkish.

I think the triangle’s role in folk music came about later, after being used in more classical contexts. Despite its practical size, the triangle after all requires a specialized manufacturing with metals, including iron, and a shape.

Its use in European folk music is found in certain Eastern European folk styles (Hungary and Poland) - including in the festive polka, including by Roma in e.g. Hungary, and also dance-oriented, such as in the Hungarian Csárdás genre. It can be – or used to be - found sometimes in Alpine regions (Austria, Bavaria, Switzerland). It is found (still, I understood) in some Spanish folk music (e.g. in rural Aragón, parts of Castile, and on the Balearic isles), Sardinia, and in Celtic music.

OUTSIDE OF EUROPE

Even more interesting: the triangle is nowadays used in Thai folk music (such as Luk Tung), often in festive settings. And in the Americas, such as in Peru..

In the US, its use is most common and crucial in Cajun and Zydeco music, especially traditional Cajun, as it developed in Louisiana under French, but also African influences. The accordion, fiddle, and triangle were the main instruments of this traditional Cajun, that would influence Country music, being thus not so originally “white” or “European” as many suppose. The fiddle, and later the accordion, remained the main instruments in both Zydeco and Cajun overall, even as it modernized, with also quite regularly the use of a triangle (especially when other percussion/rhythmic instruments are absent).

Also in Cuban music and salsa, it is said that the triangle is used sometimes, such as in Cuban Son and its precursors (such as Changüí), often adding to the clave or rhythmic foundation. It is however hardly a main instrument in most Cuban genres (rather string instruments, hand drums, cowbells, shakers, timbales, etc.) though, rather exceptionally used, although it has a musical function even in some folk contexts.

I have witnessed/attended quite some (mainly acoustic) live music performances in Cuba, especially Santiago de Cuba, - outdoors and in clubs - but do not recall seeing a triangle anywhere: “campanas” (cowbells) on the other hand often..

For these reasons, I could not really find online examples.

What I vaguely assumed seemed thus confirmed: one of the few genres outside of Europe – or in the Americas – where the “triangle” is really crucial musically – is in NE Brazilian Forró. The very genre that triggered my personal interest for the triangle in the first place.

FORRÓ

While Forró is I find very interesting, also historically, there is not much use in repeating what the Wikipedia article writes about this Northeastern Brazilian music genre. In short: Forró combines European/Portuguese influences with Amerindian and African ones, and knows several subgenres (e.g. Xaxado).

Very superficially – for people less knowledgeable about Brazilian music – Forró has some similarities with what became known as Lambada. Well danceable, and accordion-driven, with a nice, meandering rhythmic flow.

I became most intrigued with how the triangle became so basic in most Forró subgenres. It is also used in some other Brazilian genres, like in Bossa Nova or Samba, by the way, though hardly as standard as in most Forró.

The accordion (originally German, by the way), the Zabumba drum, and the Triangle, are all basic and standard in Forró, with sometimes variations or additions (fiddles instead of accordion, in some subgenres), yet the triangle seems to have secured its fixed place in Forró. This makes it probably nowadays the folk music genre wherein the triangle is most important, world wide. Interesting development for a probably Egyptian origin-instrument, in time Europeanized and “Turkified”, now relatively most common in rural (mixed-raced) NE Brazil.

For this reason, it was very easy to find nice examples of Triangle use in Brazilian Forró: bands performing, but also quite some instructional videos can be found online, as on Youtube (“playing triangle in Forró or Samba”, for instance), especially in Portuguese.

Some fellow-musicians I know dismiss such “online instrument lessons” as disguised ego trips of insecure men, but I find that a bit too strict. Sometimes an ego trip, yes, but sometimes it can also be a child-like enthusiasm getting the better of these adult instrument players, which I find more “cute” than annoying.

At the very least, even such online triangle playing lessons for Brazilian music, point at a living culture of the triangle instrument in Brazil, much less present in Europe now.

Triangle is in Portuguese written as Triângulo. Unlike Spanish (having accents only for emphasis indication), Portuguese has that â – a tiny roof on the Letter A – not for emphasis, but for pronunciation, like in French.

African retentions are there in Forró, in the big (low) Zabumba drum – marking the beat/rhythm - , in the general syncopation and polyrhythms, and also the triangle has a role in this, maintaining a steady pulse, similar to the cowbell or woodblock in other African or Afro-American genres.

Its role in Forró can further also be compared to that of the “rhythm guitar” in Reggae: a steady pulse in between the drum and bass, rendering similarly a syncopated groove.

For all these reasons I got to like the Brazilian genre Forró over time, though later than other Brazilian genres like Samba or Bossa Nova, partly also because of its intriguing – and original! -, “groovy” use of the triangle in it. It adds to the nice groove, in most Forró I heard.

Most triangles I see and hear used in Forró tend to be bigger than the one I have, but never mind that.

I am therefore willing to argue that, in answering the question I opened with: Brazilian Forró made the triangle “cool”.. At least for people who are into Black music, I imagine.

REGGAE

Not that the triangle is totally absent from other “Black” genres, including my beloved Reggae.

There are also examples of uses in Jazz, Soul, and other genres, adding to the whole mix. Stevie Wonder’s Love’s In Need Of Love Today being a fine example. Also artists like James Brown, or Isaac Hayes, tending to prefer several percussive layers, occasionally used the triangle in the mix, at times quite audibly.

Then we come to Reggae. Though not many sources refer to it, I found (from experience) some use of the triangle in several Reggae songs. Mostly “by ear”, as in album or song credits/liner notes, “percussion(s)” is seldom further specified.

Very good and noticeable use of the triangle is used in the song Road Foggy by Burning Spear, as released on his critically acclaimed (1980) Hail H.I.M. album. It really helps “shape” the song and its (rhythmic) flow, almost subconsciously..

More subtly (softer) in the mix, there is a triangle in Bob Marley songs, like Satisfy My Soul, Sun Is Shining, and Jamming, though you have to listen well. On Sun Is Shining (the Kaya version) it is most noticeable.

On occasion, in the “golden era” of Roots Reggae – roughly the 1970s and 1980s - , with artists like Culture, the Wailing Souls, Pablo Moses, Israel Vibration, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Mighty Diamonds, and many others, the triangle in some songs can be heard somewhere in the mix, as part of percussion, sometimes quite deeply buried in the mix, as on the mentioned Bob Marley tunes. Also on some Linton Kwesi Johnson songs I seem to hear the triangle; maybe even on the classic song Street 66, though I am not sure whether the crucial metallic sound in this song is a high bell, or a big/low triangle.

Later Reggae songs by later artists, such as by Everton Blender (e.g. Backra), Mykal Rose, Sizzla, Tarrus Riley, Protoje, Luciano, or Richie Spice, occasionally added a triangle in the percussive whole, mostly to nice effect. This means that also in New Roots – as it is called – modern post-1990s Reggae, a triangle is often part of the percussionists’ set, and sometimes used. Mostly subtly accentuating the rhythm, and at times atmospheric. Sometimes it’s audible, other times you need a specialized headset or speaker system to catch it, but it’s high metal tone has a function in the piece.

In Road Foggy it emphasizes the One, after every 4 drum measures, - in an interesting interchange with the rattle/vibraslap. A similar role it had in other Reggae songs..

Overall, the triangle is used much less when compared to much more commonly used, almost “standard” percussion instruments in Reggae, such as the cabasa shaker, the vibraslap, tambourine, scrapers, wood or jam “blocks”, cowbells, and of course hand drums. Even the tubular metal bar chimes (in many standard percussion sets, nowadays), while not overly common in particularly Reggae, are heard relatively a bit more than triangles.

There are of course enough exceptions to this rule within Reggae, of even songs with audible and functional triangle use in Reggae Riddims (instrumental parts), such as on Mykal Rose’s recent song Tribal War, with the high brilliance of the triangle nicely woven throughout this song.

Another example of a song I liked, in which I did not even notice the triangle at first, is Bushman's Creatures Of The Night, even quite steadibly and audibly throughout the song, subtly adding to the flow. The rest of the song and its groove (and percussion) is already good, but the triangle certainly adds texture to this Bushman song.

It further shows that triangles are used with different types of lyrics, also within Reggae: both "merry" or "mellow" songs like Sun Is Shining, as more "protest" or "lamentation" tunes like the mentioned Mykal Rose (Tribal War), and Bushman (Creatures Of The Night) examples.

Percussion use differs of course from Reggae album to Reggae album, which is interesting by itself, as they seem to relate to both artistic choices, and practical ones: the triangle is - resuming - not very common among it, but neither absent.

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

This brings me to the proverbial “elephant” in the room we were dancing around: the sonic characteristics of the triangle. This is after all the reasons for its use, or eventual added value (or not). What does the specific sound of the triangle (high, clear) add to other percussion instruments, especially metallic ones?

Especially that high, clear sound, and unspecified note/tone. Melodically you cannot do much with it, rhythmically and “atmospherically” all the more. The latter we find in mentioned pieces by some renowned European classical and symphonic composers (Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Bach), but also in some Reggae songs, where the rhythm and percussion is already quite full, but adding atmosphere, such as on Bob Marley’s Sun Is Shining on the Kaya album.

Other Reggae artists use the triangle also more rhythmically. More rhythmically, but also adding to the feel, it tends to accentuate drum patterns, especially its starting, therefore mostly on the One of the measure. Often not too regularly (every 4 drum measures, mostly), yet playing a role. This might be precisely because of its high, distinctive, “clear” sound – cutting through other sounds -, within the whole, compared to other instruments.

MATERIAL

From a “material” perspective it is also interesting to point out, that “metal” is a broad term: you have iron, copper, brass/bronze (most Asian/Chinese gongs), aluminum, and steel, being an alloy of iron), with all distinct sonic characteristics.

Brass - in essence an alloy of copper with zinc - is of all the metals the most used in musical instruments. We know brass from its use for trumpets and other horns. Brass is however also used relatively a lot in percussion, due to its bright, often warm and resonant tone, and possibilities. Steel is - besides for steel guitar strings - however also used in some metal percussion: of course the "steel drum", but e.g. also in the double bell the Agogo (Yoruba/African, Afro-Brazilian) Even "iron", though with less sonic possibilities, is used sometimes. "Bronze" (an alloy of copper, with tin) is more durable than brass, and is for instance used for cymbals, as is even sometimes silver..

This is mostly in instruments manufactured in the Western world, which in this time also includes originally African instruments made in Western factories (with tropical materials), as the djembe, or Afro-Caribbean instruments like the Conga and Bongó (both in origin from Cuba, with Central African precursors), in which the “big” US-based percussion company LP (Latin percussion) was and is important.

African cowbells, locally made, can also be made of steel, but also from forged iron or metal scrap, but still adapted for flexibility regarding musical demands.

The topic of this post, the triangles, tend mostly to be made of steel and brass (often combined, emphasis on steel), resulting in a high, brilliant sound, cutting through other sounds, but with medium-length resonance: often longer resonance than pure iron or steel, yet less than brass.

I now dived like the Yoruba deity Oggun (of a.o. metallurgy and “iron”) into metallurgy and metal use. In a recent musical piece by myself, about that deity, I added for this symbolic reason to the drum patterns associated with Oggun (or Ogun) the triangle, to complete it. I kept this particular composition relatively sober and empty, so you hear well how my trangle sounds.

Such rhythms in (African) Yoruba-related belief systems (also in “the West”: Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, and Brazil), serve to evoke the respective spirit/deity, by the way, making them musically, and for some maybe even spiritually interesting.

An interesting question is when this sound is appropriate in a musical piece. This question is however unanswerable, as it is up to each individual artist’s choices. Classical composers like Mozart or Debussy used the triangle atmospherically and a bit transitional/rhythmic: not really throughout or intensely. Soul, Jazz, or Fusion artists tend to combine those feels (atmosphere and rhythm), “filling up” the whole, so to speak.

In Reggae its use tend to be rhythmic, especially in an accentuating, pace-setting way. Other metal percussion instruments are used more to “embellish” or for atmosphere in Reggae songs, notably the flexatone or bells.

CONCLUSION

What can be concluded – or “induced” – from all this? Well, that the triangle has made an interesting journey in this world: Westernized toward orchestral classical music by European composers, yet probably adapted from an (Ancient) Egyptian origin. The triangle left some traces in certain European folk music genres, most standard in Hungary, but elsewhere too, in some Asian ones, such as in Thailand and Indonesia (at times connected to Gamelan ensembles), but most notably in the Americas, in the Cajun genre (French Creole-influenced) in Louisiana, the US. Cajun influenced in part Country.

Even more so, and with a more basic, standard role, in parts of Latin America, especially in the Forró genre in Northeastern Brazil, and genres influenced by it in Brazil (on occasion Samba or Bossa Nova).

In the “pop” or “rock” world (incl. Soul, Jazz, Reggae, Country, Funk, Hip Hop) etcetera, its use is present, yet exceptional, and differing per artist and album, preferences and choices of (added) percussion, and there are examples of triangle use in certain songs by well-known artists like the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, or Joni Mitchell (her “hit” song Big Yellow Taxi: with the sampled line: “you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone..”).

The problem is that liner notes of albums or songs rarely go into more detail, by specifying the type of percussion, so one has to find out “by ear”.

Either way, the triangle has gained a steady place in “world percussion”, and while seemingly “Westernized/Europeanized” in some stage, it did become over time convincingly “multicultural” (as much other percussion), and crossed boundaries.

The genre wherein the triangle nowadays is used most, as a standard, or even “carrying” instrument, is - after all - Brazilian Forró, mixing European, African, and Amerindian influences into a “groovy” whole.

Rastafari and psychology

I got the idea for the above theme because of a chapter – or rather: article – I read in a collective volume of scholarly articles about Jamaica’s Rastafari movement. The collective volume is titled ‘Chanting down Babylon; the Rastafari reader’, published in 1998, and consists of 22 separate articles by various scholars, examining different aspects of the Rastafari movement, originating in Jamaica in the 1930s. Its history and (international) development. See also here (google books).

Or better said: I reread some articles, because I have that academic collection of articles for many years now, have read it already, and also used articles for some of these blog posts.

Yet, only some of the articles, I noticed upon rereading the volume recently. A part of them I quoted directly for essays for this/my blog (when relevant for my theme), or elsewhere, but all of the 22 articles/essays in it I have read, and became somehow part of my own personal knowledge base, to then connect it to more knowledge. “A So It Go”.. (That’s how it goes), to say it in a Jamaican way.

HUTTON AND MURRELL

The article titled: “Rastas’ Psychology of Blackness, Resistance, and Somebodiness”, by Clinton Hutton and Nataniel Samuel Murrell, I don’t recall quoting or citing – maybe as side path, one -, yet now intrigues me more, because of the psychology aspect.

I have and had some interest in psychology and psychoanalysts like Freud, Jung, Fromm, and differences between them. This might relate to the Eurocentric cultural context – living and schooled in the Netherlands – I grew up under, being thus part of “Western ideas” of psychology. Especially when I got higher education, this specific knowledge increased.

The article in the volume does not really draw connections to such “Western” academic Freudian or Jungian views or traditions, but takes on psychology of inner processes and liberation from exactly that Western, colonial mindset. Mostly British shaped, in Jamaica’s case.

Black people in the Diaspora – or Diaspora Africans, in the Americas – went historically through slavery, as well as attempts at dehumanization and deculturalization, all resulting in traumatization. The article uses the word “depersonalization” instead of “dehumanization”, but pointing at the same.

Besides real economic poverty and equally real social and material discrimination, there is thus also a lot of psychological healing needed. According to said article by Hutton and Murrell, the Rastafari movement provided Jamaicans and other Black people with the possibility of that mental healing, through “resistance and liberation psychology”. They write in the article, also:
“Rastafarian psychology involves expressions of self-confidence, affirmation of one’s Blackness and personhood, a rejection of Eurocentric understandings of black people and their cultures, and a longing for liberation and ultimate redemption of the black peoples of the world (especially the oppressed).”

GARVEY

Marcus Garvey – one of Rastafari’s inspirators – tended to pay relatively much attention to processes that can be deemed inner and psychological. In fact, he went deeper with that than other Black leaders before and of the time, limiting themselves more to practicalities and the status quo, though also commenting on mental needs, such as Booker T. Washington.

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery”, is a well-known motto by Marcus Garvey, immortalized in Bob Marley’s song Redemption Song. Even on his own accord – by the way – Bredda Bob (Marley) gave some interesting “psychological” perspectives in several of his lyrics, even if not citing Garvey.

As other articles in the ‘Chanting Down Babylon’ reader indicate, the Garvey movement was still somehow connected with Western thought, Marcus Garvey himself, often taking on a global approach, or comparing between the West and other areas, while aimed at Africa. The Rastafari movement, by contrast, was also focused on Africa, but wished to detach itself from the Western (neocolonial) oppressive system, calling it “Babylon”. It represents a cultural revival through a focus on Africa, with indeed psychological aspects, as addressed – generally – in Hutton’s and Murrell’s article.

FREUD, JUNG, FROMM, ADLER, & LACAN

Western academic thought on psychology and psychoanalysis (by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and so on) seems therefore irrelevant, and too Eurocentric for this, one might conclude. Black people need their own psychology and mental healing, after all.

Still – while maybe not in all senses required - I think that in this regard is interesting to call on – or study – Western psychoanalytical thinkers, I to differing degrees studied once. They are part of the Western canon, that is hard to escape. Well known scholars and psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, but also others, such as Erich Fromm, I personally “liked” a bit more than Freud or Jung. Freud and Jung, however, I found also to say some sensible things. Other well-known psychology theorists include Alfred Adler, and – outside of the German-speaking world, the Frenchman Jacques Lacan.

DRIVING FORCE

Even before the Internet made comparisons between these psychology theorists easier, I earlier in my life compared through old-time paper books already a bit between them, noticing soon that Freud saw human behaviour as “instincts-driven” (sexual and aggressive) –with libido as sexual energy, saw the “unconscious” as crucial, and was quite deterministic, whereas other , later theorists – even some studying periods with Freud – departed from this “instincts” focus, or partly. Jung differed from Freud in that he considered not instincts (just) as humans’ main driving forces, but more spirituality and self-integration, beyond just biology. The life-long process of “individuation”.

Likewise “my main man” (this means I agree often with him) Erich Fromm, in turn argues that instead of instinctual drives, human behaviours are more connected to society and history, and the existential search for meaning by the free will. Creativity and overcoming “alienation” (as mere producers/consumers) through love and meaning, were according to Fromm main human motivators, rather than instincts and sex. Many of Fromm’s notions - as similar ones of the Frankfurter Schule, such as author Herbert Marcuse - fitted well with anti-capitalist critique arising in the Flower Power era, among disgruntled, rebellious youth in the West (the “hippies”), but in my analysis, Fromm had good, own arguments, and not just fashionably followed the hippies.

Alfred Adler, also emphasized the “social” over the “biological”, but more specifically saw the drive for “superiority” as crucial among humans, also in overcoming feelings of inferiority (the inferiority complex). The now well-known term “inferiority complex” – also in anti-colonial writings, and even heard in popular culture – was in fact coined by Adler, seeming relevant in this context.

Another well-known theorist in the Western world, about psychology, is Jacques Lacan, who somewhat reworked Freud’s “biological urges” obsessions to explain human behaviour and of “the subconscious”, yet stemming from social and cultural factors (calling it “the symbolic order”) , and as part of this – typical for Lacan – “language”. Man’s main desire is, according to Lacan, “lack”, - not “pleasure-seeking” as Freud thought - and making human’s main drive therefore to seek “recognition” from the Other (the symbolic order/social/cultural), to compensate this lack.

Lacan stayed – compared to the others mentioned - closer to Freud, overall, but still worked things out differently. Interestingly, Lacan worked out the “phallic symbol” idea (of Freud) in relation to power in society, also popularized, more or less. The “penis”-shaped size of many bombs and weapons - or rockets -, made by white men, seem a case in point. Phallic symbolism of power.

RELEVANCE?

Focussing on their distinct views ”human driving forces” for now – though there are more differences, of course, between these known psychologists -, I find these differences in themselves interesting, but also certainly in their relation to the theme I want to address: the psychology of Black liberation through the Rastafari movement, as addressed in Hutton and Murrell’s academic article.

What “drove” the Rastafari movement psychologically? Can these Western psychologists and their different theories offer some sensible insights about this? Freud’s narrow interpretation of “libido” as sex drive does not seem to do it, Jung’s broadened meaning of “the “libido” energy as “life force”, seems to fit the movement better, but also Fromm’s attention to the existential and meaning, as human needs, seems relevant. Fromm was relatively more open to non-Western philosophies, like in the Far East (Buddhism), making him perhaps more relevant.

Adler’s emphasis on “overcoming an inferiority complex” is definitely relevant in the (post)colonial context, as is Lacan’s “recognition seeking”’, The article about Rastafari’s psychology of Blackness by Hutton and Murrell, after all speak of the “search for somebodiness” and “personhood”, supposedly driving Rastafari.

These psychologists also had different views on both religion and spirituality. Most Rastas consider their movement more “spiritual” than “religious”.

Freud was quite sceptical about both religion and spirituality, while understanding the psychological needs, rooted in – according to Freud – repression and traumas, and early childhood dependence on parents. Freud thus pathologized religious and spiritual feelings.

Jung, Adler, and Fromm, though, were all in their way more positive about spiritual needs, deeming them even crucial for human and psychological development. Fromm distinguishes however between “authoritarian” religions oppressing and stifling individuals, and the “humanistic” religions, read “spirituality”’. The latter he appreciates as aiding people to search for needed existential truths, transcending the self/ego toward meaningful connection and self-actualizing identity. Fromm also saw “love” as spiritual.

Fromm’s views on spirituality have much similarities to what many Rasta’s say regarding the matter, only earlier: Fromm wrote about it since around the 1950s, and after, while the Rastafari movement arose in Jamaica in the 1930s.

Carl Jung in turn likewise considered spirituality as crucial for the human psyche toward self-actualization and wholeness, individuation, or “balance”. Alfred Adler saw spirituality as seeking significance culturally, and thus was also more positive than e.g. Freud and also Lacan, viewing religion, but also spirituality as – in essence – pathological and illusory. So quite different views on it.

These are all Western scholarly psychoanalysts, made globally known, and in other cultures in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, - or even in common folk culture everywhere - surely own, just as plausible ideas on “mental health” can be found. I am aware of that.

Erich Fromm deplored the notion that “psychoanalysis”, psychology, and psychiatry, in the West all were aimed at conformity, to serve - eventually - the productive economy. It is not unthinkable that such conformity in certain other cultures is also demanded, especially the more hierarchical and unequal ones, misusing thus also the “sanity” concept for power goals, as Fromm sees in the West. Or different “symbolic orders” as Lacan would call them.

BLACK PSYCHOLOGY

In the article by Hutton and Murrell about Rastafari “liberation psychology” is further written:

“Without being aware of the existence of black psychology as a field of study – it emerged in the 1920s when African-American (US) researchers began to address some of the biased notions promoted by white researchers about African-American people.- Rastafari brought to light the practical characteristics of this discipline, whose major characteristics are defined by leading African American psychologists as

“a de-emphasis on deficiency based hypotheses about black behaviour... a concurrent emphasis upon the positive aspects of black behaviour which have permitted survival.. in a racist society.. a rejection of white normative standards when understanding and assessing black behaviour.. A quest for explanation of black behaviour rooted not only in psychological phenomena but also in social and economic factors as well which serves to maintain the system which subjugates blacks”.,

Notwithstanding this dismissal of “white” perspectives, and the wider Rastafari’s rejection of the West and “Babylon”, a comparative reflection with the said known Western psychologists is still interesting.

Again, some similarities with Erich Fromm, who connected psychology also with social and economic conditions, as did Alfred Adler. Jung’s focus on identity development is partly relevant, although Jung believed identities are individual and “fluid”, and changing throughout one’s life, and less connected to social reality. About “collective identities” the said psychologists have a bit less to say, as their theories tend to be individualistically oriented, albeit with (certainly after Freud) social and cultural connections.

Indeed, the Freudian psychology, but to degrees also of the others (who were also active in “psychotherapy” after all), emphasizes already “deficiency”. This becomes worse and corrupted, when weaponized for racist or economic reasons, as in Western science: to enforce conformity to society and its “powers that be”.

Fromm especially saw positive, emancipating functions of psychology and mental healing, beyond achieving conformity. There is thus a parallel with that US positive “black psychology” as field of study appearing in the 1920s, and the “black psychology” put in practice by the Rastafari movement.

Important in Rastafari psychology is what Hutton and Murrell call “Ethiopianism” and also African consciousness, in which Garvey’s Pan-African movement of the 1920s was crucial in spreading. Africa became a cornerstone for self-love and personhood.

As said, Marcus Garvey gave quite some attention to the psychology of Black people, and of other races too. In the article, they indicate: “For Garvey the greatest and most enduring impact of slavery and colonialism is psychological. It destroys one’s sense of personhood and self-worth and limits the vision and potential of black people”.

The mental slavery, “slave mentality”, or self-hatred, Garvey regularly referred to in his speeches and writings. Racial and African pride seemed the antidote against this servility to European supposed superiority and Eurocentric dominance, as taught in colonial systems.

It is somewhat in line with the “self-actualization”, the mentioned Western psychologists strived for, albeit individualized, although some like Fromm and Adler, draw social connections, and Jung and Lacan with culture and regional/specific cultures, making it – so to speak – more collectively shared among a people or nation.

Born in a British, Protestant colony like Jamaica, both Garvey and Rastafari have been influenced by a “Christian mind-set”, with a Biblical, and – in a deeper sense – “written text/word” focus. This follows in fact the “recognition” goal, humans seek according to Alfred Adler and Jacques Lacan, rather than starting from scratch, or a total cultural departure, such as to African traditional religions involving spirits and dance.

In fact, many Rastafari disparage those traditional African faiths as Vodou, Obeah, and such as evilous and disruptive to their moral goals, preferring “Biblical”, “one god” solutions. Through a back door, Alfred Adler’s inferiority complex thus still slips in, through a focus on the after all colonially taught (Protestant/King James) Bible.

Though not my favourite psychologist, I agreed with Jacques Lacan in that he saw the limits of language to express truth, pointing at the role of the “mystical”, true yet resisting language or symbolization.

In some way, this “mystical” – beyond language - still found a way in Rastafari, such as in its Nyabinghi and musical gatherings, meditation, but always in connection with nature.. The Natural Mystic, as Bob Marley sang.

That balance with the natural environment – as well as the small-scale communitarian living - most Rastas favoured and many still do, seemed also a response to what Fromm termed “alienation”, in the modern (capitalist) economic productive system, “robotizing” complex humans for economic gain of some.

With references to Mama Africa, the motherland, and such, maybe some Freudian aspects also became part of this psychology, yet all part of a sought “healing process” within the African Diaspora. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I is referred to as Jah (God), but also as “my father” by some Rastafari-adherents, confirming Freud’s theory of faith as meant to seek “parents”, in response to some unresolved neurosis. I think the latter is too negative, simplified, and also incorrect. Attention to one's mother and "roots" are in my opinion healthy and naturally human. The other psychologists I mentioned would also allow a more positive interpretation of Rastafari, which, as Mutabaruka called it, began as a “Black Power movement, with a spiritual focus”.

GENDER RELATIONS

While Rastafari is not particularly “macho”, there have also been comments (also in other articles in the said collective volume “Chanting down Babylon”) about male dominance in the movement, and a recurring tendency to view women in it as mere, serving “supporters” of their male kings or “king man”. This male dominance should not be exaggerated, in my opinion, and female individuality seems more respected in Rastafari than in say, parts of the Islamic or Hindu (or even strict Christian) world, harkening back to relatively independent women in African traditions, at the time of colonization.

Women in sub-Saharan Africa (and even women among some pre-Islamic Berbers in North Africa) were relatively independent from men, even when compared to Europe of the time, with Spain and Portugal having historical Moorish/Islamic and Catholic “male-led” household legacies, and England and the Netherlands similarly “male-led” households – the male breadwinner idea - , but in their case Protestant/Christian motivated. Around, say 1500 and 1600, or even 1700, women were de facto more “second-class citizens” in Europe, than in much of sub-Saharan Africa, where they had some more social freedoms. A relatively unknown fact, I found, as many still live under the patronizing illusion that “Europe liberated African women”. Feminist and women’s emancipation movements arose only after the 1950s in Europe.

This male need for dominance among some Rastas regardless, has in this sense both Freudian aspects of male insecurity and domination “instincts”, but also of an “inferiority complex”, wanting “recognition”, just like the white men/family heads, and other male leaders in Western society, in line with Alfred Adler’s ideas of “compensation”. That whole idea (also popularized) of “overcompensation” stems from Adler, showing how psychoanalytical ideas spread among (quasi-) intellectuals in the Western world.

LIVITY

The already mentioned Rastafari thinker, radio host, and artist/poet from Jamaica, Mutabaruka, emphasized the role of (practical) Livity: daily life in balance with nature (e.g., agriculture) in achieving wisdom about life and the world, including what can be called psychology or philosophy. “Livity” instead of the Bible or other “books” or texts. Other Rastas are more Biblical and “text” focussed than Mutabaruka, though.

The Western academic/scholarly system is part of its value system, shaped by historically vested interests, power inequality, and political/economic elites, arising or strengthened with European colonialism and imperialism. Simply said, industrialization which began in England in the Late 18th c, was financed by British colonial and slavery gains, financing this modernization, eventually spreading production-based industrialization through much of the Western world, modernizing society and academia, etcetera, while increasing global inequalities.

The desire to take distance from scholars within/from such a Western system, and come with own (“African”) views of human healing, psychology, and values, is from the Rastafari perspective more than understandable. Yet, the other extreme, discarding any Western scholar or insight, - even to just compare, not “favour” or “adhere to” - reeks too much of lazy anti-intellectualism, in my view, and not wanting to learn about the world, remaining isolated in mind-easing simplified fiction, and dumbing oneself down.

It also has an element of hypocrisy, as the Western (King James) Bible – once misused to legitimize slavery and racism – remains nonetheless for many Rastas the norm, and less the not so “weaponized” Ethiopian Orthodox, older version of the Bible.

Such comparative knowledge (with the West, but also e.g. Asia, or elsewhere) can even result in a bigger appreciation of one’s own African culture, I imagine; in Africa, cultural/human wisdom and mental healing are certainly equally present, only often more ritualized, and less in those Western technical, separate “categories” as psychotherapy, psychiatry, philosophy, or biology, and other academic disciplines. Besides, African wisdom also has unique aspects that can enlighten even non-Africans, especially in relation to rhythm, dance, natural balance, and spirits.

This Western thinking came to separate all too neatly the mind and the body, which is strictly speaking absurd, if normalized. Perhaps these are also power goals stemming from inequality, as true individual freedom as human being can only be fully achieved when both body and mind are free. The more hierarchical societies get,- i.e. away from communal living – the distinction between mind and body increases, enabling misuse through slavery, serfdom, or other exploitation.

On different continents this occurred (Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, more feudal development among Yoruba, the Aztecs in Central America, etcetera). Yet, the West – or Babylon – maximized this (mind-body separation) to the utter, cynical conclusion, during colonialism and slavery. This involved after all a de-humanization, and attempts of de-culturalization of enslaved Africans in the West.

Also the role of the “written word” gained supremacy in European thinking, especially since the rise of Protestantism in parts of Europe. This denies the all too natural given that not everything in this world can be expressed in texts/books or even language. Also a Western (French) psychologist like Jacques Lacan, and others, more or less recognized this. Predictably, the “written text” became misused to oppress other people.

There is – also in this light - indeed something to say for, instead of this, a more “holistic” and “daily life/practical” view of the world and humans, a bit of what Mutabaruka and other Rastas find in Livity (natural lifestyle), more communal and self-sufficient, but based at the same time on a wider African pride/connection, and self-realization, to heal from historical traumas and go with a needed sense of self-worth through life, to not be downtrodden again, and maintain your own agency.

The “I and I” notion within Rastafari – the view that the divine is within each person, not in the sky - ensures such agency and self-love, but is curiously not mentioned in Hutton and Murrell’s article (it is in other articles). Curiously, because it is in my opinion psychologically interesting and relevant: the Rastafari idea of “divinity/god” within each human..

On the other hand, “categorizing” themes can be practical and effective to deeply analyse phenomena, as in Western academia, but historically also in early universities in Africa e.g. Egypt, before “universities” as such even arose in Europe.

The risk of “misuse” and weaponizing this thus acquired knowledge in more modern - and unequal - societies, to maintain or gain more power over others, is unfortunately also proven historically, but even a free-thinking Western psychologist like Erich Fromm – and some others – came to this conclusion, showing how all humans on this earth can learn from all other humans, irrespective of race and culture, and even come to the same conclusion. Just by thinking free and open as human beings.

CONCLUSION

No, Rastafari does/did not really “require” the psychological works or insights of these Western psychologists as such. The parallels are nonetheless interesting to study. The way these different psychologists differ are perhaps more interesting than the views of each psychologist.

That is after all healthy scientific – “democratic” - debate: thinking free and open on some theories you and others had, reflecting upon them, broadening or revising them based on later insights, correcting, reapplying, so you can come with other interpretations than other scholars, no one being by definition more right than others. A really open, democratic debate is good and fruitful.

“Black psychology” and Afrocentric, anticolonial Rastafari psychology was needed in this debate too, I opine, following the principle of “who feels it, knows it”, rather than armchair theories in privileged circles.

It turned out to be a useful and uplifting psychology, the Rastafari one, being centered around “collective identities” , with all its “conformity” pitfalls, but with enough room for African views on individualism, or individual agency. It spread more globally with Bob Marley’s fame and Reggae, attracting even non-Black adherents, yet Africa remained the cornerstone.

With that inflated collective (national) pride and sense of superiority the British, and other Europeans, of course colonized and dominated the world, making others dependent on them. This was however aided by a strong individual senses of superiority, supported by (individualistically oriented) Protestantism and to a lesser degree Catholicism. English culture was superior to those of others, but also each individual Englishman to others, so to speak, limiting inhibitions, while legitimizing submission.

Also someone from a Catholic country (they say from Genua, now Italy) like Christopher Columbus, was not shy and shameful to do what he pleased, for his own power position, connecting it strategically with Spain, then jealous of Portugal’s earlier colonial exploits, and wanting riches and to become a colonial power. The Spanish conquistadores conquering Amerindian areas, following Columbus’ “discovery”, where likewise self-assured in their superiority, so it was not just the British or Protestant colonizers.

These (Hawkins, Columbus, Pizarro, etc.) are “criminal” personality types, one can say, but individuality can however also be worked out more positively, when considering nature, harmony, and equality, and balance within oneself’s psychology. Beyond Freud’s “instinctual” selfishness - which also exists as part of human nature (many white colonizers and enslavers embodied this) - the other psychologists, like Fromm, at least pointed at “positive” possibilities of individual psychological development, beyond self-interest and oppressing others, or mere conformity to society’s standards by resolving pathology. Rastafari as rebellious movement in Jamaica came to the same conclusion through the “Livity” idea, and Afrocentric ideas, like in some social movements like of Marcus Garvey.

Luckily – in my opinion - no “rigid authority” came to dominate Rastafari, allowing thus own ways of individual redemption or “self-actualization”. I am also glad no unintelligent, “high school bully-like” collectivistic/group identity tends to be espoused by most Rastafari adherents I know, giving the feeling you talk with other human beings who think for themselves, not just soulless “representatives” in some vague combat mode. Especially in more “established religions” such “representative” group thinking is more the norm.

Rastafari thus mostly developed in a positive and open-minded, humanistic way. Okay, some Rastas believe more in rigid rules than others, but some basic, “liberation” ideas – partly psychological – are shared throughout the movement – at least among its sincere adherents -, and its roots in the African Diaspora remains essential, as its response to social and racial inequality.

("Chanting down Babylon : the Rastafari reader (Temple University Press, 1998) / edited by Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, William David Spencer, and Adrian Anthony McFarlane.)

The Uncle Tom phenomenon

In a professional “capacity” – as it is usually formulated – I have studied (also) Caribbean history, with much attention to the slavery past. It was for the (scholarly/academic) library and documentation of a historical, anthropological, and linguistic institute – the KITLV – in Leyden, the Netherlands. I worked there between 2001 and 2014, and learned a lot.

That KITLV institute had problematic, “tainted” origins with a national government-led founding in the 1850s, when the Netherlands in fact still had the institute of slavery in its colonies, such as Suriname. Indeed, especially in its early stages, the colonial, pro-European/Dutch interests of the KITLV institute’s research were barely disguised, and in later stages more disguised, but over time these were – well – criticized, corrected, and placed in a larger perspective.

Among some slavery and colonial scholars of Surinamese and other (non-“White”) origin, the KITLV institute was long (and is still) criticized for relatively pro-colonial, conservative stances, even if recognized as engaging in insightful historical research projects about especially former Dutch colonies (Suriname, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, Indonesia), and maintaining a large and useful scholarly/academic Caribbean and Indonesian collection.

Social changes and diversity – especially since the 1970s – made its library collection of works – in tandem with research themes – less pro-European or pro-colonial than before – allowing more other perspectives -, though accusations of “apologist” stances were still uttered, to degrees.

Either way, in the period I worked there (2001-2014), the collection of books and articles (old and new) were quite varied about the Caribbean past, including outside of Dutch colonies (Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti..), focusing on the islands. Not just by Europeans or from the European perspective. I had to read a lot about it, which – as far as work goes – was not bad. Plus, it was very educational for me and my personal knowledge.

CARIBBEAN HISTORY

Somehow interested in the Caribbean, and in the slavery history - and world history in general - , and hearing it mentioned in Reggae lyrics, it was in fact a useful extension and deepening of my organically developed personal knowledge, already there. I thus even could avoid the psychological pitfalls of turning – and complicating - into “the realm of demeaning coercion” something I happened to like naturally as person.

The latter might sound “cryptic” in some ears, but I mean to say that work/jobs and economic gain in this system tend to “corrupt” human and natural things/desires for the elite, “money making” interests of some, coercing/forcing less fortunate ones (read: employees), due to privilege. Using their own urges against them, to say it in some way.

Perhaps the fact that it was a semi-public/governmental institute, the KITLV, where I worked, with no primary commercial goals (but rather scholarly/societal ones), - and only limited “political” goals - , reduced stress, and helped maintain the joy of studying and learning, without pressures and self-deprecation, while still getting my monthly pay at bachelor level (and for what I studied).

This was especially the case in the first part of my time there, up to around 2010, after which – as I sensed it – “the oppressive system" – urged the KITLV toward “reorganization” and efficiency, inevitably skewed toward a privileged few. Of course, the main researchers and scholars (doctors and professors, i.e. promoted) were spared, and kept their position. The library collection – which I worked with – was sourced out toward the broader Leyden University collection, so the KITLV lost its own Caribbean and Indonesian collection. About half of the library and documentation staff also lost their jobs with that, and had to find something else, by 2014. Harsh but true.

Regrettable, and unfortunately symptomatic of this centralizing system, but the knowledge I gained and things I learned in that period about, e.g. slavery in the Caribbean, can never be taken away. An important immaterial remnant for me as person, far beyond the employee I happened to be there then.

Especially the historical knowledge about slavery on the Caribbean islands was extremely instructive for me, even reaching “specialized” levels (in a relative sense). The theme of this specific blog post relates to this slavery knowledge I then gained, broadened with other world/social issues..

In the remainder of this post I will focus specifically on the “Uncle Tom” phenomenon. Now a term used metaphorically and colloquially – and derogatory -, but with origins in the history (American) slavery. A loaded, yet interesting term as a starting point, I find.

Interesting to analyze it therefore, based on solid knowledge (from different sources), alongside personal reflections.

UNCLE TOM

The term is of course based on the famous work by Harriet Bleecher Stowe, called Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a bestseller in the US, when it was released in 1852. That year is interesting: a year after that Dutch colonial institute the KITLV in Leyden, which I just mentioned, was founded.

By the way, slavery was abolished in the US in 1865, after the Civil War, and in 1863 (actually 1873, after a transition period) in Suriname.

Bleecher Stowe’s novel was popular after its release, spreading into popular culture in parts of the US, and even abroad. Stage plays were made from the book, for instance, later movies, other works.

Here some things went wrong. In the original novel, the character Uncle Tom, - based on a real slave in Maryland, called Josiah Henson – was in fact quite heroic, while at the same time a suffering, Christ-like figure. Suffering abuse after abuse by various slave owners, he in fact helped the other slaves, dying in the end after abuse by his slave owner, when he (Tom) refused to reveal where two female slaves were hiding. As he helped other slaves before this also, another slave overseer was “put on him” to keep him in check, called Sambo. This Sambo fits oddly enough more the stereotype of the compliant slave, collaborating with the white slave-owners.

A later minstrel show-adaptation of the Uncle Tom’s Cabin novel seems to be blamed for this confusion. In it, the character Uncle Tom was altered into indeed a submissive “sell out”, betraying other slaves to the masters for personal gain. It is in fact a misrepresentation, some say due to adaptations to other extant abolitionist anti-slavery writings of the time. Others argue it was due to racism, which in light of the “minstrel shows” image, seems probable. The climax of the novel, as Uncle Tom dies, being beaten to death (like a sacrifice) to save two enslaved women from the cruel (and sexually predatory) white master, was perhaps too heroic and positive for people deemed inferior.

Be that as it may – though good to correct it -, the reworked staged play that came later became the source among African Americans of the derogatory term “uncle tom” for a sell-out, all-too submissive black person (man) to the white oppressor, even at the cost of his own people.

This derogatory term - even if mistaken - “uncle tom”, reached popular culture as well, though largely within African American or “Black” genres: common speech, Hip-Hop (or other genre’s) lyrics, movies, series, novels, etcetera.

BOASY SLAVE

In Jamaica a similar phenomenon and “colloquial” or “derogatory” term can be found in the Jamaican patois (Creole English) term “Boasy slave”, originally referring to a slave thinking himself better and above the other slaves, while seeking favours of the white masters and helping them. So, a kind of a sell-out.

In common Jamaican parlance, and in e.g. Reggae song lyrics, “boasy slave” means more or less the same as “uncle tom” among Black Americans, with perhaps as difference the word “boas(y)” (from ”boasting”) implying more active wickedness, rather than the more passive amorality of “uncle tom” in US parlance.

Rastafari adherents – often dreadlocked – in Jamaica, tend to use the term “baldheads” for non-dreaded, common Jamaicans, with commonly cut and shaved (short) hair. It in fact arose as a counter-insult, after exclusion and discrimination of dreadlocked Rastas, implying also that those “baldheads” are- unlike them - no rebels against the system, and too “Westernized”. Indeed comparable to how “uncle tom” is meant among US Blacks, a bit more emphasizing passivity or ignorance, rather than the calculated wickedness of the “boasy slave”.

Comparable words for “sell outs” can be found elsewhere in the region, also in Spanish America. These are not even always just imitating the “uncle tom” US slang term, though sometimes partly. The term “Tio Taco” (Tio = Spanish for Uncle) is known with the same “submissive sell-out/betrayal” meaning, among Mexicans and others. In Puerto Rico a related derogatory term is “lagarto” (lizard) – for some reason (slippery?) –, while in Brazil, the term “preto velho” (old black man) is used with the same meaning as “uncle tom”: too submissive. Elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking word “vendido” is simply said of such a person, literally meaning “sold”.

Leaving terminology and linguistics aside for now, my time in studying Caribbean history taught me a lot about plantation slavery in e.g. Jamaica and Haiti, and similar or other slavery systems elsewhere. I also read a lot about slave rebellions in the regions, slaves escaping, alongside cultural resilience and African retentions in all this.

These can be deemed several manifestations of “rebellion” against oppression, and it is here that the term “uncle tom” with its meaning becomes relevant in the broader sense of the “uncle tom phenomenon”: submissiveness toward – and even compliance with – the oppressors of your own people.

Having read that “slavery literature” by Caribbean and non-Caribbean scholars, I cannot avoid the conclusion that slavery on the plantations could continue so much because of brute force – of course - , and intimidation, “numbing” the slave populations into submission, or maybe only some small-scale rebellion (lagging, stealing, trickery, etc.) within the system (plantation). Some larger-scale rebellions interrupted this, and some of the enslaved kept trying to escape (forming also the Maroons), throughout the whole slavery period. Still a minority, by definition, else the plantation could not continue. Several colonies, Jamaica, Suriname, Colombia, Cuba, and Brazil, knew “villages of escaped slaves”, mostly in mountainous or more inaccessible natural areas.

The rest of the enslaved on the plantations did not dare to rebel out of fear, but also character deformation developed. This is in fact quite tragic, and represents dehumanization at its ugliest and cruelest. Going to the slave life motions like a robot or zombie, not even knowing any better. Hence the famous quote by Harriet Tubman, who said she could have freed more slaves, if only they knew they were slaves. Dehumanization became over time normalized.

IMPLICATIONS

In the broader sense of “responding to your oppression”, the “uncle tom” or “boasy slave” term (or “sambo”), can be in my opinion seen as an archetype, recurring throughout other historical epochs, with different people and countries. “Numbed my systematical oppression” is a way to put it, but added to it, and more actively wicked: betrayal, selling out your own people, for personal gain, by siding/collaborating with oppressors.

This has recurred throughout history, in different gradations. Plantation slavery in the Americas serves as relevant model, I think, due to its harsh, dehumanizing conditions, based on brute force, and attempts of cultural annihilation, via racism. Sold like cattle, and losing one’s own name for that of the masters being examples of that, along with the whipping and other punishments for disobeying the masters/owners.

People of primarily African descent in the Caribbean therefore now have English/Scottish, French, Dutch/German, or Spanish/Portuguese/Catalan surnames. Smith, Williams, and Brown are common surnames among present-day Jamaicans, alongside Scottish surnames like Gordon or Duncan (or with Mc) for about 25% (the rest English). Among Afro-Cubans a Catalan surname Ferrer (in fact “Smith” in Catalan) is common, along with well-known Castilian names like Rodríguez, or even Basque names like Zuloaga, after (by force) a wealthy white Cuban slave-owner. An Afro-Cuban I knew well, and her family too, in Santiago de Cuba, Eastern Cuba, had two surnames (Spanish tradition) that were Catalonian/Catalan in origin, while not aware of too much “white blood” in her family (assuming only maybe a “Haitian mulatto” in the family tree somewhere).

These un-African surnames were attempts of dehumanization and humiliation , but it was a broader and longer process, persisting up to today. A rebellious spirit – and cultural resilience – also persisted though, often even competing within individuals, somewhat schizophrenically. This can have psychologically “unstable” effects, especially when trust and loyalty is concerned.

The Jamaican (Black Power) thinker and activist Marcus Garvey analyzed this very well, and heightened the consciousness among more Black people, also in the US, about the dangers of a passive, “uncle tom” disposition toward oppression. He called this “mental slavery”. Unfortunately, Marcus Garvey was not influential enough, though certainly on the Rastafari movement within Jamaica, and on early Black Power movements in the US.

The oppressive system remained too strong, and the modern economic conditions, with modern, “moderate” slavery, often had the same “numbing” effect of dependency, along with historical cultural inferiority complexes, still present in mainstream media and culture. De facto submissiveness, often combined with the more active wickedly “boasting” or betraying, as in the Jamaican “uncle tom”-like term “boasy slave”, for own personal gain.

REBELLION-RETREAT-SUBMISSION

Another layer to unpeel is also interesting. People can be partly “uncle toms” by that derogatory definition, and partly “rebellious”, or seeming that. Is it full-fledged schizophrenia, or is one of the two persona within one more a conscious, calculated “lie” or façade than the other? This of course does not always make stable, trustworthy personalities, though it can be used well artistically or culturally.

This is shown in recent cultural and popular history. Malcolm X was a street criminal wanting to be like Whites, before he became a Black Power advocate. Martin Luther King was a great personality, but was influenced by European Protestantism, even in his names, while the Nation Of Islam embraces a religion not from Africa, and also in other ways turn anyway from Africa.

That is the difference with the Rastafari movement from Jamaica, still upholding that repatriation to Africa idea (as ideal). Yet also, as Rastafari artist and radio host Mutabaruka pointed out: Rastafari based itself on the very European Bible and Christianity used to oppress them before, now just “Africanizing” the Bible’s content. Most Rastas, at the same time, have less favourable views about originally African spiritual movements, connected to nature and spirits, like Vodou and Obeah. This is deemed as wicked trickery, betraying a Protestant Christian bias, and a copying of White masters’ views, indeed submitting to it, like a hidden, generalized “uncle tom” tendency.

Also at an individual level, Rastas may differ in degrees of “African pride” – kind of odd in spite of its “cultural revival” origins -, some celebrate their roots more than others, but some insincerity or fakeness slips in, in personal priorities. This is deeper than “dietary” customs, some have less than others, and more about “human complexity” of having to balance the triple roles of rebellion-retreat-submission/adaptation within many Black persons, in a European-based system.

The author of Marcus Garvey’s well-written biography, “Negro With A Hat”, Colin Grant (a Brit of Jamaican descent) argues that those triple roles “rebellion-retreat-submission” remain within many Black people – also him personally -, due to their history.

It remains a balancing act, of seeming contradictions, also required today, within a larger, still totalitarian, oppressive system of now modern (moderate) slavery. The “Western capitalist” system, some call it, some “the powers that be”, some “the system” or “authorities”, and the Rastas call it “Babylon”, etcetera..

OVERCOMPENSATION

This “schizophrenia” or “duplicity” within one person can work out good and bad. It makes one flexible and accessible, when used with positive and open intentions. Yet, the psychological relationship between “insecurity” and an “inferiority complex” should neither be underestimated. The psychological term “overcompensation” applies when a Black person behaves as “uncle tom” sucking up to his white boss at his job, but compensates with pro-Black rhetoric, or even bullying random whites, or weaker whites, he encounters, but also fighting other black people (men, women), when socializing at other times. Fake Black Power you can say.

I have noticed the same phenomenon – selective feminism – among some women. Submissive and ego caressing with some men (with money?), but uncommunicative and bossy with other men. This opportunism should not be generalized, and depends on personal characters, but are really occurring examples of negative overcompensation.

Good to lose the childish naivité and overly politically correct notion that people are always cool just for being Black or female, but ultimately such negative overcompensation stems from – as responses to - social inequality within society, and from being too dependent on wealthy White men.

POLITICAL “CRISES” / HYPES

Somewhere between ignorance or wickedness, the “uncle tom phenomenon” showed further – in my personal opinion – when members of ethnic minorities responded to political crises in the Western world. The recent Corona pandemic – some say “plandemic” – being an example of this. The same powers that be as always talked about that pandemic but when shrewdly addressing deep fears of disease/viruses, also people of colour forgot that white men in suits represent an unequal order, and went along with it, at times even supporting harsh, undemocratic measures.

Most of what were ridiculed as “conspiracy theories” about Corona turned out to be true, we can by now conclude. It was a scam and hype, now continuing with other unproven hypes, such as climate change. Environmental problems do indeed exist, but “climate” problems not really, and serve other “elite” goals. Still, the “uncle tom” in many give trust to men in suits or “the powers that be”, just to be safe.

This went across races, but depended – again on personal characters: more or less “uncle tom” inclinations. Conscious Reggae music – known for its rebellion – had as one of the few genres some critique about for instance the corona pandemic. In fact, I first heard the term “plandemic” (the added “l” as wordplay) in an interview with Jamaica Reggae/Dancehall artist Buju Banton. It was indeed a plandemic.

OTHER RACES OR CONTEXTS?

Are there similarities in “White” (European) people’s responses to oppressive systems?: the poor, dependent groups within European populations, or those under Fascist or Communist dictatorships. We are all human, after all, with disadvantaged people within every group.

I definitely see similarities with the “uncle tom phenomenon”, even in recent European history. Collaborators with the Nazi German occupiers in the Netherlands, but even in areas with less that “Germanic superiority” lure or connection, like in Hungary, Croatia, South France, and Italy, some collaborated with the Nazi Germans. In Spain, dictator Franco sympathized with the powerful Nazi’s and Germans, but was too proud to “submit” to German demands, seeing Spain as equally important globally – if less potent – compared to Germany. This freezed further contacts between the two Fascist dictators. Hitler reportedly said after their meeting that “ he rather would have some teeth pulled out than meet Franco again”, and Franco reportedly said, “they have bad manners, those Germans”.

The case of Spain under dictator Franco I know relatively well, because of my Spanish mother, born (in the 1940s) in SW Spain, when Franco was a dictator, who had to live under that boss-friendly dictatorship, with limited rights for workers like she. She even felt “treated like a slave”, she told me. That, political repression she felt, and Spain’s dire economic situation, all made her migrate to the Netherlands in the 1960s. Franco remained dictator of Spain until as late as 1975.

She (my mother) didn’t often like to talk about politics or history, but she hardly said anything positive about Franco and his regime. “The only good thing was that he kept Hitler away”, she concluded.

In slave plantation terms, she would be on the partly adapting, partly rebellious (she spoke out even in Francoist Spain, - when not too risky - when she was wronged), but ultimately “escaping” by migrating, still connected to her Spanish culture and language. Adaptation-rebellion-retreat was thus the order in her case.

In fact, all migrations not merely “economic” – though hard to tell, at times - can have such “rebellion-retreat-submission” balances, such as by political refugees. It is also human nature and survival instinct, evidently.

What I heard from Communist dictatorships, or other ones, and noticed myself in Cuba, was that more illegal “parallel” realities (like black markets) developed, when possible hidden from state authorities, like “underground scenes”. Retreat, but with a hint of wider rebellion.

When I went repeatedly to Cuba in the period 2001-2006, I sensed the lack of freedom – much police and soldiers on the streets - , and even a horrible neighborhood political “snitching” system, increasing mistrust at the neighborhood level, and also corruption (bribing as needed solution). Such “snitches” were also known on slave plantations – slaves warning masters of planned rebellions or escapes. Definitely, these can be described as “uncle toms” or “boasy slaves” (or “pretos velhos”, “vendidos”, etc.), in that sense.

In today’s modern capitalist/neoliberal wage slavery, many companies show the same mechanisms and “archetypes”, as many may know from own experience at the workplace. Some “kiss up” more to the boss, even sometimes at the cost of other employees, with internal rivalry, while some show some rebellion (if not risky for job maintenance) or more when wanting to quit a job, and others do their job like an automatic pilot, escaping in their own head.

DOCUMENTARY FILM

Added to all this, I also finally include in this analysis of mine a film (rather: a documentary) I saw called “Uncle Tom: an oral history of the Black conservative ” (2020). It was directed by Justin Malone. It roughly represents views of “conservative”, Republican US Blacks going against what they call Left-wing Democrat, victimhood stances of most African Americans, for which they were accused of “race traitors”, “sell outs”, “house negroes”, and, yes, “Uncle Toms”.

While not entirely uninteresting, I found this documentary’s “conservative” stance quite politically biased, or maybe better said: “ideologically” biased. The makers and speakers take on a pro-Republican stance, criticizing the Democrats for keeping Black people in victimhood historically, despite the Democratic Party’s supposed “radical switch” in US history from supporting slavery to for and by minorities, since “welfare” and the 1960s. These conservative African Africans have the right to utter that opinion, and seem to have some valid arguments. Not all were though, and they were locked mentally in a rigid, pro-capitalist, US patriot worldview, which is quite Protestant and materialist.

I myself have seen some of the worse of both (and other) “-isms”, capitalism and communism, during my life, and found that both systems are (in the end) totalitarian and dehumanizing. Life is not about “business” and “working hard for money” – as modern-day Western capitalism and neoliberalism holds – that is in fact a cultural specific idea, historically stemming from European Protestantism, and neo-colonialist interests. That value system is Eurocentric by definition.

“Left-wing” movements seemed once humane responses to it, yet operated ultimately within the same Eurocentric mindset, centralizing materialism, and a centralized state control, likewise working against freedom.

All that is a genuine (African or other) cultural identity is ignored in this, only used politically. The whole political system of party politics is a charade to control the masses, that recent “corona hype” by the way also confirmed. It is about elite control.

My view is that “culture” and “honour” are important for people to assert one’s human individuality and freedom, against oppressive forces (calling themselves Left or Right), based in pride in your culture, roots and routes: “knowing where you’re from”.

Then, I think, with true self-love and self-knowledge, you will more easily “do what you need to do”, for yourself in freedom and joy. Not slave your life away just for money, neither – on the other hand – lazing about parasitically without ambitions because of ascribed victimhood, forgetting irrationally that “you have to give to get”.

So, I missed such deeper “systemic criticism” in that 2020 documentary ‘Uncle Tom’ by Justin Malone, lacking philosophical life questions like” what is our purpose in this world?”,or “how can we fulfill our human capability and be as happy as possible, also as cultural beings?”

The “deculturalization” efforts because of over 400 years of slavery in the Americas, among Afro-Americans, show here their heinous effects, also indirectly in this documentary. Many can only think in terms of US (European) capitalist value systems: money, Protestant “work ethos”, and fake “individualism”. The latter is fake, because exploitation and greed - and thus inequality – is inherent in all of this. We are in this system made dependent on money-supplying people above us, limiting our humanity and freedom. A far cry from communal, self-reliant, more humane and equal, “ubuntu”-like worldviews, Black people – and in my view the entire world population - needs more. More than “big economics”, and also more than big, power-based, established religions like Christianity or Islam.

The Rastafari movement seems to understand this better, I think. While one of Rastafari’s influencers – Marcus Garvey – by necessity had one leg in the same Western/colonial system, he still went beyond it – with his attention to Africa, self-reliance, and - to degrees - cultural revaluation. That link between own cultural pride and self-reliance seems self-evident to me, but got lost in “dependent” later Black emancipation movements in e.g. the US. Blacks there identify often as discriminated victims (however justly so, in some aspects) of a system, or identifying with a system that is not theirs. Both can be deemed “uncle toms”, in a certain sense.

Rastafari went another direction.

CONCLUDING

Culture is what you get when you leave people alone. Repressive forces and systems (clock, work) thus limit cultural development in freedom. Rebellion is thus intricately linked to an own culture, and pride in it, is my conclusion.

The attempts of cultural destruction of enslaved Africans in the Americas was therefore extra cruel, yet ultimately not achieved. Culture was damaged but retained and reworked, roughly put, and remained a source of strength and rebellion, for Afro-American peoples. Both in its “identity” and “values” dimensions, as in its “folk culture” expressions (music, dance, festivities, traditions).

Having studied – as mentioned – Caribbean history and slavery, I learned that this “culture” and (true) “African pride” always provided a base for more lasting and wider “rebellion”, as also the Rastafari movement shows, and aspects of genuine Black Power in e.g. the US, especially when leaving behind petty “party politics” or divisions. And own opportunistic insincerity.

Tigray

Even so-called “alternative” thinkers get too often lured onto the “mainstream” path, it seems. Something like “international news” has, in this context, always been problematic, as far as I recall.

Over-emphasis in TV news on certain regions of this world, and later finding out that other regions knew more dramatic, more lethal and bloody conflicts, we heard less about. This has in fact recurred during my whole life-time, even as teenager. Around my 16th year, - we’re talking 1990 - the Iraqi war took place, following an invasion of Iraq into Kuwait. Since the US (and NATO) was involved, in the (TV) news in the Netherlands, it dominated – rather: hi-jacked – all other possible news in the world. I noticed this even then, the pro US-bias, though as a music-loving teenager (I was a Reggae-fan already), I was more interested in culture than politics (still, to a degree). I was irritated, though, by the Hollywood-like propaganda tone of that operation and news coverage. I smelled the insincerity, and hidden agendas, on some level, I suppose.

Healthy intuition – one might say – but helped by critical thinkers I knew of and read from. My own (Left-leaning) mother, often critical about some news coverage and hidden interest, probably influenced me too in this.

It has only gotten worse; in earlier decades there was more space for “independent journalism”. This got a large blow since 2020.

Much has been said about this independent journalistic decline, its degree and causes. Regarding causes, I find the relation with “new media” interesting. Internet provides access to a lot of global information, diminishing the role of the “old”, mainstream media, but likewise its “filtering”, leading function. This caused – in my personal analysis – a panic among authorities and the “powers that be”. The “main media” to reach the masses was after all “disarmed” by open information, through the Internet. Hence: panic among those with vested interests.

MONOPOLIZATION

This coincided with a general (modern/neoliberal) capitalist tendency of monopolization - the power of money -, with once different media and newspapers becoming more and more owned by the same concerns. In the Netherlands and elsewhere. With that same power of money, propaganda campaigns through the mainstream media (television, newspapers, journals) – with the p(l)andemic covid scare as test – meant to marginalize internet sources, including social media. Not by coincidence, the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” were since 2020 heard a lot more, seldom in a just or true sense.

Even in formally democratic Western societies in Europe, Canada, and the US, thus the authorities/politicians/entrepreneurs , used the mainstream media to their advantage, but was luckily unable to impede access to Internet of common citizens.

Tellingly, I find, is the recent lack (say since around 2020) of open, good debates on television, with opposing stances and arguments, yet good manners. That is democracy. Political goals – largely hidden – seem however more important.

BIAS

Meanwhile the reporting, journalist, and news coverage biases keep showing in relative attention, now – as I write this – in 2025.

A but further in this post, I will give and discuss an example of this bias, which also gives insight into world relations.

In the regular Dutch news on mainstream media, the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and the Israel-Palestina conflict, compete for main attention, often – predictable – with a biased stance from the start. Strangely pro-NATO in the case of the Ukraine conflict, and generally pro-Israel (in the Netherlands). Regarding Israel, some opposing opinion can more or less still be uttered, even in Dutch media. That Israel’s actions are deemed genocidal regarding Gaza, for instance, by many people, reached the mainstream media, as were pro-Palestina voices. Not regularly, but sometimes.

Russian “apologists” are allowed even less space in the public debate: Ukraine must apparently be defended at all costs. The NATO - and US economy? - have even bigger and more powerful interests than a small country like Israel, I deduce from this.

It also illustrates my “serious joke”, I made in response to people in my surroundings criticizing (assumed) powerful Jews in the US supporting Israel, as some kind of Jewish conspiracy, aligning all too simple Israel with “all Jews”. I countered that (said it to several people personally, and - of course – shared it as open Facebook post on my wall):

“I don’t think there is such a Jewish conspiracy, if there is one, there is an “Anglo-Saxon conspiracy”..

, I stated, seeing US economic dominance with UK support, and neocolonial and neoliberalism’s global influence. Europe, Russia, and China are, after all, also powerful competitors of the US. Israel is an important ally of the US in the region, that is true, but wealthy Arab countries like Saudi-Arabia eventually also. Still, the Middle East with its petroleum industry, is also competitive to the US, in some sense.

For these combined reasons, conflicts in Africa, like the one involving Tigray in Ethiopia in the period 2020-2022, got scarce attention in Dutch and Western news on mainstream media. Scarce and superficial, generally. The increase of animosities in Tigray began in the plandemic Covid period (2020), offering – I suspect – excuses for many Western media to ignore African wars, for a hyped-up flu, and international measures. To resume: the estimated deaths of this 2-year war between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Tigray separatist rebels number up to (around) 600.000 (!). Some even say closer to a million.

TIGRAY

First, the context. As a Reggae-fan, and in time Rastafari-adherent, I maintained a strong interest in Ethiopia (and wider Africa), and read even scholarly works about its history, already before the Internet (Wikipedia and such). In my mind, Tigray was an integral part of Ethiopia’s history as nation.

Indeed, this was the case. The most Northern/NW of Ethiopia’s regions, Tigray, was just North of the Amhara region, historically the center of power of Ethiopia, but always competing with Tigray, which comprised after all Aksum, center of the first large Ethiopian empire – known as the Aksumite Kingdom -, preceding symbolically Abyssinia and Ethiopia as kingdoms and empires, including once what is now Eritrea, and the Amhara region, but also up to the Yemen region, South of (Saudi) Arabia.

The famous Battle of Adwa (Early March) of 1896, when the invading Italians were defeated by Ethiopians (of all ethnic groups, working together!), safeguarding Ethiopia’s independence in a colonial era, also took place in Tigray.

In more recent history, the Tigray protests were crucial in the overthrowing Ethiopia’s totalitarian Communist Derg regime in the Early 1990s – along with other regions/peoples within Europe -, in power since 1975.

Meanwhile, though, the Tigray-Amhara relationship was often one of competition for power, since the beginning. Petty politics and interests, eventually aggrandizing the ethnic differences for political purposes. This happened historically elsewhere in the world too, of course, and even can be seen as a common thread. In world history, that is. This competition had over time differing degrees of intensity, with peaceful periods.

There are long-standing historical antecedents, including ancient conflicts, as often in these cases. The 2020-2022 Tigray War was quite bloody and catastrophic (around 600.000 deaths as already mentioned), as other civil wars. The involvement of Eritrea made it even an international conflict.

CAUSES

The causes of the conflict are somewhat complicated, but boil mostly down to Tigray wanting more independence from the central Ethiopian government, now lead by someone from the Oromo ethnic group (Ahmad Abiy). Before - up to 2019 - a Tigrayan party was in the government (a coalition), which was however dissolved by prime minster Abiy. This “snub” combined with other long-standing irritations, and attacking actions, between Tigray and the central government..

In the course of the two-year war between 2020 and 2022 (when a peace treaty was signed), human rights violations were reported on both sides of the conflict: by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops in Tigray, but also by Tigrayans in parts of the Amhara region they invaded. Destruction, murders, torture, and even rape as weapon, were reported.

This “rape as weapon of warfare” is as unpleasant and wicked as it sounds, of course, but tends to be – for crypto-racist reasons? – over-emphasized in the case of African wars and conflicts (e.g. in the Congo). Again, an odd media bias.

In reality, rape as (demoralizing/humiliating) weapon also took place in European wars, historically (Viking/Anglo-Saxon times, fascist/Nazi invasions, Yugoslavia, a.o.), and in Asia, such as by the Japanese, e.g. during WW II. Not to forget during European invasions and colonization in Africa and the Americas! Also on slave plantations – as in the Caribbean -, which I have studied in a professional context, raping enslaving women by White overseers and masters was common, partly also with demoralizing goals/show of power. Good to point that out, I think.

The 2020-2022 conflict got known also as a “Ethiopian civil war”, yet the involvement of neighbouring Eritrea (also with Tigrayan ethnicity) – due to border conflicts - , made it even an international (rather: regional) conflict.

COMPARISONS

Though stemming from very particular historical conditions and antecedents within Ethiopia and the region, even 1000s of years back in time, I argue that in international perspective such a bloody ethnic/territorial conflict is not that unique to Ethiopia. I base this on my historical knowledge.

The 1990 Yugoslavian war was also about competitive territorial warfare, involving trumped-up ethnic/religious differences between Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, and Albanians, many of these sharing histories and even a language: Serbo-Croatian, also spoken in Islamic Bosnia.

Propaganda also plays a role in the Tigray War, and in all such ethnic conflicts (think also Rwanda, where it was unfortunately effective), - and in historical European dictatorships for that matter - though not always successful. Anti-Haitian migrants rhetoric in the Dominican Republic since the 1960s, not often could disturb the peaceful Dominican-Haitian cohabitation in many parts of the Dominican Republic, just like how even up to the 2020 Tigray War, in Tigray and wider Ethiopia, common Tigrayans, Amhara and other Ethiopians, lived peacefully side by side for the most part, in spite of political rhetoric or (state) propaganda.

Historically, some “combined kingdoms” (leading to modern states) have the same tensions as in Ethiopia. The Basque Country had a separatist movement (recently diminished), for independence from Spain (and to a lesser degree France), but in history the Basque region had a founding role in the influential Kingdom of Castile, eventually a formative kingdom of Spain, as the Basque region was a maintained Christian region in the far north, when most of Iberia was under Moorish, Islamic rule. Linguists further assume that the first Castilian kings, also spoke the Basque language. Yet, tensions between some Nationalist Basques, and centralized Spanish, “Madrid/Castilian” rule have always recurred, to differing degrees, partly triggered by economic/industrialization advantages of the Basque country. “Nation formation” is nice for history books, but in daily practice it often is about current-day economic and political interests.

Comparable to - including current economic/political issues/interests - between Tigray and Amhara: sharing a founding historical role in shaping Ethiopia as state – including the mentioned epochs like the Axum/Aksum empire and the Battle of Adwa - , and sharing largely a religion (Orthodox Christian) and scripture (Ge’ez), but still with recurring tensions and competition, regarding ethnic identities of these two “founding” Ethiopian ethnic groups.

DIFFERENCES AND CULTURE

The cultural differences between Tigray and Amhara – and other parts of Ethiopia – are to a degree there, but as between regions of any country: Sicily is not the same as Lombardy, Northern India, not the same as the Tamil-speaking South of India, Yorubaland different from Igbo-land in Nigeria, etcetera.

Tigrayan is different from the Amhara language, but a related Semitic language, with a long history in the region. Not quite mutually intelligible, but clearly related.

Both ethnic groups, the Tigrayans and Amhara, are in name (and language) “Semitic”, but – as studies found – are in fact a genetic mix of Semitic people, mixed with local African and Cushitic peoples (mostly found in female/maternal DNA, suggesting mostly male Semitic invaders). This shows in some sub-Saharan African features: darker skin, hair, other traits, among most Tigrayans and Amhara, in different gradations.

Apart from “looks”, physical genetics, also in culture – and language – there is, simply said, more “sub-Saharan Africa” in Tigrayans, than among semitic Arabs in the Middle East, such as in music. The big Kebero drum is used in churches and for religious festivities, yet the common, smaller “negerit” drum (also a two-sided drum) is commonly used as “steady time-keeper”, usually in a syncopatic relation with hand clapping. Both steady, strong rhythms, and hints of syncopation, show African influences, differing from (mono-rhythmic) use of drums and rhythm in e.g. Middle Eastern Arab music.

The vocal styles (like melisma) show some semitic/middle eastern/North African traits, but also African influences, including a “call-and-response” style (with female choirs repeating lines).

As I saw an Ethiopian online state in praise, that “Tigray music has good rhythms”, I tested this by trying to dance to traditional Tigray music. Indeed it was danceable enough, with steady rhythms, also to a point from an “African” perspective. I know that the rhythmic syncope in “hand clapping” is also found in some forms of Spanish Flamenco – must be said -, but it is of course quite possible that African influences historically reached southern Spain.

Interesting, I find all this about Tigre/Tigray culture..Yet, Amhara music (and wider parts of Ethiopia) has much of the same musical elements and instruments too, including further shared Ethiopian string instruments, like the Masinko, or the Krar lyre, or the Washint flute, and others, also recurring in both Tigray and Amhara music.

Also the dominant type of (Orthodox) Christianity is shared among Tigrayans and Amhara (both with only small Muslim minorities, the Tigrayan one a bit larger). The same applies to other aspects of culture (food, music, etc.): partly similarities. Even the “shoulder” or “upper torso” dance of Northern Ethiopia is largely similar. Some small differences, also in musical instruments and customs – traditional clothing -, but overall mostly related cultures, the ones of Tigray and of Amhara.

In conclusion, the “cultural” differences are simply overall not all that big, lying mostly in details and variations, though some crucial differences are noticeable. The differences and conflicts are more “political”, related to both petty politics and “autonomy” demands.

MIX

In addition, based on different Ethiopian people I got to know personally – also as friends - , and on other information sources, one must not exaggerate the “pure-blooded” nature of these ethnic divisions. Most Ethiopians I know are a mix of different ethnicities, often even with different religions (Christian and Muslim): mixing Amhara with Oromo and/or Gurage, Tigray, and other peoples, in their bloodline (traced back to grandparents etc.).

Even the Emperor (up to 1975), Haile Selassie – while associated with the historically powerful Amhara ethnic group - , was in fact only partly of Amhara descent, having also Oromo and Gurage blood, according to several sources. This in fact is quite common among present-day Ethiopians, especially – predictably - those in Addis Ababa, as the main city was and is a hub of migrants from other parts of Ethiopia.

POLITICS

It comes thus down to it that predominantly politics and economics - more than ethnicity and culture - are behind the recent conflicts: not very surprising. These are even related to something as vane as party politics. Some nationalistic pride and grudge on all sides, indubitably also play a role, territorial integrity, independence, etcetera. Cultural reasons play less a role in this conflict, I dare to conclude. Mostly, material, “tangible” reasons, only seeming more rational, but in fact absurd. If anything, this shows the senselessness of the conflict and war even more: culture (even if less “material”) is “the people”. Politics and economical control is “the elites” (even within ethnic groups, party/separatist leaders and such), thus sacrificing in a sense the masses.

Tigrayans accused the Ethiopians attack on opposing forces in Tigray as involving even a wider “genocide” of Tigray from Tigrayan civilians, and even of "ethnic cleansing". Ethiopia denies this.

This last accusation reminded me of the naming of “genocide” of Israel’s actions in Gaza against Palestinians, by more and more commentators, even a bit in mainstream media (and even more in alternative media, of course), often even suggesting a full “ethnic cleansing” plan of the coastal Gaza region by pro-Israel forces, which is however hard to prove.

There in Israel, and in Ukraine (with Russian-dominated provinces), also territorial warfare, economic interests, and built-up animosities, long-lasting feuds, etcetera, translated “ethnically” for political purposes. This avenges itself again and again, resulting in violence, and dehumanizing the enemy, as such wars (internationally and inter-culturally) usually encompass, and violent and deadly military attacks and terror.

We heard only much, much less about the Tigray War, than about those other conflicts, or earlier ones in the Middle East, or involving NATO interests, even when with much less casualties, than the estimated over 600.000.

Because there is nothing to gain (materially, geopolitically, o.o.), - for the “big powers” in this world - .. a cynic might conclude..

Despite the 2022 peace treaty – as could be expected – derived conflicts still persist up to today within Ethiopia, even in central parts. An Ethiopian friend of mine, who visited his family in Addis Ababa in late 2024, also still noticed tensions and security measures within the city of Addis Ababa.

MAINSTREAM

With this, I bring my point home that attention in the mainstream media in the West is biased and skewed, with much conflicts largely ignored, for being irrelevant for “big power interests”. Even self-declared “alternative” or “woke” thinkers fall in that biased trap at times, I noticed: choosing to debate or take firm stances in conflicts with less casualties/les bloody than this one, or other ones, following mass media agendas, ignoring other ones. People are people.

It is a good thing we still have access to all other kinds of sources – alternative sources of information and news -, mostly with less bias, if one searches well. Also a wider (ideologically detached) knowledge of world history – that I more or less have gathered over time – surely helps to put things in proper perspective.