Cultural appropriation

What is cultural appropriation? I heard the term used now and then, usually from activist people, or people behaving as such. Actually, I know of its use for decades, including finding it in academic studies about Caribbean culture, publications I had to index and describe for a library catalogue, of a scholarly (historical, anthropological) institute I worked in that period (2001-2014). This was in Leyden, the Netherlands, in an institute called the KITLV, that had a large Indonesian collection, as well as a Dutch Caribbean (Suriname, Antilles), but also wider Caribbean collection.

Besides these work-related encounters, I also encountered the same term “cultural appropriation” as said in some cultural debates and media discussions, by self-proclaimed activists, often of colour.

The Reggae scene I know well, and also the Rastafari scene in the Netherlands. To be honest, I joined both – in my own way. That “joining something” is however I think the crux of whether the term “cultural appropriation” makes sense.

ARGUMENTS AND COUNTERARGUMENTS

“Appropriation” implies “theft”, while – as US (African American) linguist John McWhorther argued – sensibly - when criticizing the term: “culture is not a limited resource”, and cannot be taken away by imitation. This can be found on Wikipedia. He also argues that it can stem from admiration. McWhorther, by the way, also studied the Afro-Surinamese "Maroon" Saramacca language, and that's how I first heard of him (work-related, at the said institute).. Later I found out he was also a known social and cultural commentator in the US.

Equally sensible – in my view – is the view of (originally Ghanaian) author Kwame Anthony Appiah, that cultural appropriation treats inappropriately as “property crime” (can you steal a culture?) what is actually a matter of respect or disrespect (imitation to defile/ridicule or to honour, simply said).

Those in favour of the “cultural appropriation” accusations – on the other hand – tend to argue that members of a “dominant” culture frivolously copy historically ethnic cultural practices from minorities or oppressed groups, taking them out of their “valid” contexts, while avoiding the oppression and discrimination the groups they imitate actually have to face, unlike them. It is thus seen as an expression of “white privilege”, harming the strength of original cultures, out of context.

Counterarguments – except those already mentioned by McWhorther and Appiah, by others - are that cultures tend to be constantly evolving, under the influence of other cultures and historical developments, betraying with the “cultural appropriation” accusation a deeply conservative and exclusivist view on cultural practices, as static, and as essentialist and “pure” as possible. Not dissimilar – some even argue – to how White supremacists and extreme right racists see a people or nation, when opposing e.g. migrants.

This lady sums up the discussion, in a quite sensible and balanced manner, although choosing to see “cultural appropriation” as a real problem, she at least also gives attention to counterarguments.

OWN STANCE AND SITUATION

I am on the “team” or in the “school” of McWhorther, in this debate. Yes, I might be biased, because I joined (like I said) the Rastafari movement (in my own way), wear dreadlocks (for all its superficial worth), but especially: I personally agree with main tenets of Rastafari and its attention to Africa.

I am of Italian-Spanish descent, and the Rastafari movement arose as Black Power movement with a spiritual nucleus (dixit Mutabaruka), aimed at repatriation to Africa of people of African descent in the Americas, once brought forcibly to the West.

I know all this, and that makes the Rastafari movement even more sensible and beautiful to me.

My parents were migrants to the Netherlands from Southern Europe: a bit closer to Africa, but still not Africa, so vaguely the “alienation” applies to me, but that is stretching it. “Going back to my roots” would be somewhere else than where I was born and grown (the Netherlands). So far for the “vague” and relative similarities with Black Rasta’s in e.g. Jamaica.

Though I sometimes wondered in the case of my mother (during Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, which she simply described as “terrible”) whether her migration to the Netherlands was really that “voluntary” – also because her initial irritations and misunderstandings (later partly resolved) with Dutch culture.

Since she sought work and secured a contract, it can be deemed a voluntary “guest labourer migration”, though. The same applies to the more adventurous migration (on a Vespa motorbike!) of my North Italian father, through Germany, ending up in the Netherlands. Also he responded to situations in his home country (lacking personal or economic opportunities), having heard from another Italian that “there was a lot of work” in the Netherlands. We’re talking the Early 1960s.

Italy democratized by then and was less poor than Spain, but still had some development issues, prompting emigration.

Still, it is a stretch – and wrong - comparing this migration with the harsh, violent, and dehumanizing enslavement and forced migration of millions of Africans to the Americas in the colonial era, with partly genocidal effects, and cultural damage, across the African Diaspora.

Spain and Italy have in addition - like the Netherlands - bloody colonial pasts in the Americas and Africa, as we know. Yet, neither can the migration of Moroccans and Turks from other areas of the Mediterranean, shortly following that Spanish and Italian migration, as “guest labourers”, be compared to it. That compares more to how my parents migrated, albeit with – arguably - more cultural, ethnic, and religious differences.

I added “arguably” in this last sentence because I know my parents (from Catholic countries) neither understood every aspect of Dutch culture in their entirety, causing misunderstandings, linguistically and otherwise. They did not know much about Protestantism or Calvinism, for example. Still, they were also part of wider European culture.

WHITE RASTA'S

Might my “outsider” status have attracted me more to the Rastafari movement? Maybe. Yet, it’s only a small part of it. I encountered “indigenous” White (Dutch) Rastafari-adherents, who seemed quite sincere and “in the faith”, and who thus were actually in the country where their forefathers lived, and which shaped the country. Some even with good jobs and from middle-class families.

These were individual choices, which I mostly respected. They seemed to “admire” the Rastafari movement, and predictably their love for Reggae music put them on the path, though I know of cases of personal relationships by white Dutch Rastas (a Black wife, friend, etc.) making them go that direction. Anyway, safe in some individual cases when I deemed ”gatekeeper” behavior by white Rastas all-too-condescending, most of these White Rasta’s seemed to me sincere and respectful to the culture.

POSTER

A female Black “activist group” (let’s call it that) recently hung a poster, critiquing White people with dreadlocks as ”culturally appropriating” in a former squatters café/bar in my hometown Amsterdam that I frequent sometimes, called Molli Chaoot. There (as often in the squatter movement) are indeed “white people with dreadlocks”, even working and volunteering there. This makes this poster a “provocative action” and seemingly targeted. This does not make their arguments any more reasonable. An open debate about even this I applaud, but the general “tone” of the poster’s text - including cliché's I heard elsewhere too - made me personally doubt the “open mind” of its (presumably Black female) writers, whom I maybe saw somewhere but never “met”.

You have after all people (on the Left and on the Right) – I experienced – who are so wrapped up in their ideology and/or an over-compensation of a minority complex, that they only can “accuse” or “insult”, not debate on content. Content-wise some of the arguments were on top of this flawed. White Rastas give up a part of their “white privileges” in many cases, especially when they get higher in this society and system. A “corporate lawyer” or politician, being White but also dreadlocked, is unheard of, safe rare exceptions, even if academically educated or intelligent. The other counterargument I already gave: cultures cannot be “stolen away" from its originators like material items, even if some would want to.

I personally add another counterargument. Having known many (Dutch) Whites “siding” or even “speaking for” Blacks in the Netherlands, also in the Reggae scene, focusing on an “outward”, superficial thing like “hair”, distracts from actual arrogance. Those Whites fancying themselves “cool with Blacks” – you know the type -, but without dreadlocked hair and just looking like regular White Dutchmen/-women, maybe slightly “hipper”, now feel even more “cooler” with Blacks, as they respectfully don’t even copy or “steal” their culture. What is forgotten here, is that these “square” White people still enjoy the “white privileges”, lacking the discrimination the groups they claim to respect so much have to face, and are even less hindered in this privilege than those “alternative” Whites choosing to go through life with dreadlocks.

ORIGINAL AND COPY

This culture or spiritual movement Rastafari, remains, besides all the European or Asian – let’s call them neutrally “adopters”, still of African-Jamaican origin (arising since the 1930s), influenced by Black Power ideas of Marcus Garvey and with Haile Selassie and Africa as crucial. That will never change, even with millions of White or Asian Rastafari adherents. As McWhorther said, and repeating: “culture is not a limited resource” that can be “stolen away” as such from its original creators. It stays with them.

Cultural appropriation can become more problematic, though, - and actual “appropriation”, rather than (good or bad) imitation -, when no respect is given to the originators of an imitated culture. That occurs sometimes, I recognize that, as origins are kept away from public knowledge, sidelined, even deliberately, or otherwise condescendingly degraded to a less-developed stage. Falsifying history is thus even attempted, though truth-seekers try to counter that..

The St Croix Reggae band Midnite (later Akae Beka) had interesting lyrics in their song Kaaba Stone, including the line: “Destroying the blueprint so no one can see, who is the original, and who is the copy”, relevant for this. Origins of cultures cannot be “stolen away” as such, but can be obscured or disrespected.

Some White and Asian Rasta’s can even prefer to focus mainly on their land of origin, which might not be Africa, but say Japan, Philippines, Basque Country, Netherlands, Poland, or New Zealand.

This makes historical sense, and is only immoral or “corrupting” – to use a strong word - (I think) when the tenets of Rastafari are disregarded, and Africa and its diaspora likewise ignored. At least some attention to Africa and Black history seems a sensible requirement, in my opinion, if a non-Black claims to join the Rastafari movement. Sincere concern about global inequalities - a concern noticeably lacking in today’s world! - also would help. Then “joining” Rastafari becomes a positive choice by people who chose to open their minds and hearts out of love and admiration.

This is not always the case, but unfortunately: “fake” – like good or bad – knows no race, colour, or gender. Another interesting question would be whether “fake” is always “bad” (as in “with bad intent”), and to what degree? That discussion however goes too far for now.

There are much more examples of what some deem - especially since the 1980s - as “cultural appropriation”, by “Westerners” mainly (though Islam as religion of Arabs in the beginning according to some also "culturally appropriated", e.g. from Jews).

It can go far, even within single countries. Spanish singer from Catalonia, Rosalía, e.g. having some popularity with Spanish and Latin American-tinged pop – and who studied Flamenco – got the accusation of “cultural appropriation” too, as she released Flamenco songs too, and uses its dance art in videos and such.

The critique is that she as a born Catalan (and father from NW Spain, Galicia), is not from the “right” part of Spain, being Flamenco’s heartland and place of origin, Andalusia, in the South, and directly around. In addition, Flamenco is associated with “gypsies” (Roma people), though strictly speaking Flamenco is not “gypsy” music in origins fully, but indeed influenced by Spanish Roma over time. Latin American or “Black” styles (e.g. Bachata in her big hit La Fama), and Reggaeton are also heard in some of her songs, making the “cultural stealing” accusation somewhat selective, although Rosalía’s singing style is Flamenco-influenced.

In my case (a Reggae fan, among other things), I think it’s most instructive and relevant to focus on the Netherlands, Reggae and other Black music fans, and the Rastafari movement there.

YO!, PE, AND X

During my high-school period in Hoofddorp (Netherlands, not far from Amsterdam) many other students (aged roughly between 11 and 18) were into Hip-Hop music. We’re talking the Late-1980s, Early-1990s, when Yo! MTV Raps became popular, inaugurating youth trends, also in the Netherlands. Public Enemy - and other “conscious rap” - also gained “white” fans at the high school I attended. I recall it was fashionable for a part of the boys (white middle-class, Dutch) at that school to wear the baseball cap with the “X” of Malcolm X on it. In parlance they tried to talk like the rappers too.

Just annoying, boisterous, and fashion-following adolescents?, Or even “cultural appropriation”?

I think the former. My memories are that some of these white “wannabe blacks” I did not even like so much, with their macho posture, and not being able to “talk” normally or friendly. Some even mostly behaved like insulting “bullies”, I recall. I found out because in fact I liked Public Enemy, and other hip-hop I got to know through Yo! MTV Raps as well (like they also proclaimed), but soon figured out that this shared interest was hard to share pleasantly with most X-cap wearing white youths, finding me too unfashionable and “nerdy”, to socialize with. They knew, however, about my love for Reggae then.

This was an early lesson and example of what would recur in later stages in my life, also in the Netherlands. How “fashionable” Black culture and music was among some White Dutch youth, but that it did not ensure a friendly bond with “out groups”. Music taste must be kept to myself, I learned then, else it is used against me by aggressive wannabe’s, with a negative “bully” vibe. This seems paranoid on my part, but I was confirmed in this throughout my life, when I found several White people (also in the Reggae scene) trying to – believe it or not – “out-black” me culturally.. Odd..

INTERNATIONAL

Such White “wannabe Blacks” often made an insecure impression on me, and some I mistrusted (did they really respect Black people, or were they just ego-tripping?). Still I respected – and understood, in part – their choice. So I was “insulted” by some of them, but not “offended” (that’s something else). Youths after all always search something different from their parents : preferably something “cool” and “wordly” and international.

Mitigating circumstances were also that the Netherlands largely lost the touch with its own “folk culture”, since around the 1950s. Every country, also the Netherlands, has or once had an own, local/national folk culture, including own traditional music. I sometimes think, though, that modernization through “industrialization” went too fast and far in the Netherlands as a whole, cutting ties to the rural traditions more than elsewhere.

Industrialization reached some parts of Italy and Spain too, yet there the ties with rural areas and rural-urban connections remained more intact even in cities, so also a rural “folk” culture. The same applies to Ireland, whereas England seemed to share more the (mostly) ”culture loss” fate with the Netherlands. People hardly know nowadays what is originally Dutch and English folk music, but know about Irish Celtic music, Spanish Flamenco, or South- Italian Tarantella. This is because industrialization reached these areas less (intensely), destroying less traditions.

I say all this, to show how this makes grabbing on to other people’s or international cultures understandable, since the base of an own “folk culture” has been lost. By necessity Dutch youths became more open to the outside world.

What became of these students during my high-school years – claiming to be PE and other Black hip-hop fans? - , I wondered at times since then.. Of some I found out, and no.. they usually (safe exceptions) did not start a social service to help poor Black people in the ghetto/projects in e.g. the US, or combat poverty and inequality in Africa, or racism in societies. Not very actively, anyway.

This is not to “diss” them totally as persons, but I am just saying that they got out of their fanatic “conscious rap” phase (perhaps still listening to it) as fashion - often not very “deep”, anyway -, and ended up in the usual West’s modern “wage slavery”, working for an employer for their monthly check, to pay the bills/rent/mortgage, for them and their family, and mostly bound to mainstream culture and mass media. Simple, bourgeois lives as so many in Western Europe lead, especially when aided by “white privilege”.

While I consider “cultural appropriation” mostly a nonsense term, the term “white privilege” makes more sociological and historical sense in my view, but perhaps others have a different opinion about this.

Then there is also the recent term “woke” (John McWhorther criticizes that too, by the way), but I don’t know exactly what “woke” is.. and noting the people who employ it eagerly: I do not want to know (read: I don’t trust it), so will not waste my energy on it. The term “cultural appropriation”, however, I found intriguing enough to focus on in this essay.

A baseball cap with X (of Malcolm X) can be taken off when a white/Dutch adolescent reaches adulthood, but when a white person puts dreads in his hair, and wears Rasta clothing, but especially the hair, he or she cannot hide his/her affiliation. If anything, it shows more courage and character, as it puts into question eventual white privileges. Already those “white privileges” were more limited among the lower- and laboring classes, but even there, being “dreadlocked” might work out discriminatory, vis-à-vis a straight, “normal”-looking, short haired, standard - read: preferred - white men.

If “appropriation” is “theft” than this “theft” makes one actually poorer and one’s life more difficult, side-stepping white or class privilege. True love requires sacrifices, someone said, so that shows further how nonsensical the term “cultural appropriation” is.

Instead I opt for the term “cultural imitation with or without respect”, as Appiah also describes it. If someone is respectful toward others requires time to find out, as with all human relationships, you “feel” or “sense” when someone respects you, and if not you end the relationship. That’s all it is..

I would also add self-respect. Imitating others (especially of dominant cultures) because of lack of self-respect or respecting one’s own culture – i.e. an inferiority complex -, is of course neither healthy. At most you should take the best of different worlds in your very own cultural and creative manner, without trying to be what you are not.

OWN CULTURE

That ‘s what I try to do, admittedly: I am my own culture, shaped by different cultures (parental ones, cultural and musical tastes, geographical interests, local Dutch influences, other international influences, etc.), dependent on my personality and life trajectory . At least, I opine, you should truly have an own personality and culture in this world.. Else you are absorbed and enslaved. It is this very equal “personhood” that Rastafari also once strived to achieve, after all, as an emancipatory movement. Also this “freed identity” seemed to be inspiring and attractive aspects of Rastafari, internationally, I reckon.

I personally also learned to put shared humanity first, also in my “art” (songs). We all have the same needs and desires in life – essentially – corporal, mental, and spiritual -, especially when left alone by powers that be above us, restricting and categorizing us: freedom to express and to enjoy life, music, art, all kinds of sensations (food, fun, dance, laughter, sex), pleasant, inspiring human connections, self-realization, etcetera. Circumstances, race/gender, and geography may all differ, but we are all essentially human and similar in these desires. Realizing this makes me enjoy “crossing” end “mixing” cultures, or even “delving” into specific ones (from all continents): to learn about wider humanity in a deeper sense.

This way of thinking I mostly cherish and strive to, is at odds with exclusionist “group thinkers” locking themselves in “easy” often superficial racial or group identities, and keeping polluting “enemies” preferably out. Not unlike the KKK’s thinking, when it comes down to it.

Such a defensive stance is more foregiveable, understandable – and to a degree necessary - among oppressed and marginalized - even attacked - groups, yes, I agree, but still simplistic and in the end limiting.

I as a musician, mostly play percussion (including mostly African and Afro-American instruments, but also Western/European and Asian ones), and compose songs in different genres (Black and other). Thus, in my case the mixing of cultures or multiculturalism is very evident and forward, but also people doing totally other things – even non-artistic/musical ones- can easily mix those international cultural influences to several degrees, even passively (music taste, food taste, interests). This opens up the mind to other peoples and cultures, and can never be wrong, I think. Not by itself. Neither does it by definition became “wrong” when the passive simply becomes active – an active identity – as “cultural appropriation”, accusers seem to suggest, overly simplistically. It is simply human.

If anything – as I argued before – it shows a true and determined commitment, and in a sense “courage”. As long as you don’t lose yourself, and respect other people’s cultural ownership.

CONCLUSION

My main conclusion from all this can be short. Yes, cultural “appropriation”, or perhaps better: “disrespectful cultural imitation” or to use another term “culture vultures” exists to a degree, even by those with bad or selfish intentions (ego, power, money, exploitation), but many more seem to just admire or appreciate. Yet, wickedly “meant” or not: above all, it should not affect the sense of pride in cultural ownership of groups, even when the origins are at times deliberately obscured. Better to rise and stand above those fools, as the truth always comes out on top, like olive oil in water..

Meanwhile: I think the world would be better if we all are and remain free in our creativity as human beings, and open culturally..

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.