NOI, Garvey, and beyond

Funny how things go..

As I got into Reggae music around my 11th year, and since then learned more about the associated Jamaican culture, “Black Power” as such I first encountered in Marcus Garvey and Reggae lyrics.

Yet, around the same time (Late 1980s), more US influence came through television and mass media, in the Netherlands. Hearing about Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam, Minister Farrakhan, and movements where Rappers belonged to (5% nation), I initially thought they were “trying to imitate” Jamaicans, or – nicer said – “were inspired”, by e.g. Marcus Garvey, or even Rastafari.

I was even right, to a degree. The influence of Marcus Garvey – active in the US since 1917 into the 1920s -, and his movement, were present in all these US Black Power movements, including the Nation Of Islam (NOI).

Yet, they worked out in different ways. As I later focused on Malcolm X as person, the Nation Of Islam became a backdrop, though I still learned something about the NOI, and its ideas.

There were also differences with Garvey, I noticed. For one, Garvey was not a Muslim, but neither (as a Christian) religiously aimed: his goals were social and political, keeping religion more in the private sphere, though still criticizing “pro-White” religious teachings in general.

Beyond this: what are the differences between the Nation Of Islam, and e.g. Rastafari, why ‘Islam” , Black nationalism, etcetera?

A good excuse, moreover, for me to study the Nation Of Islam more in detail, for comparing, with what I have studied already in detail: connecting knowledge I acquired, personal reflections.. the synthesizing essence of the “essay”, in short.. While learning myself along the way..

NATION OF ISLAM

My knowledge about the US organization the Nation Of Islam (henceforth: NOI) was – to be honest – “medium”, and here and there sketchy. Reading more and more about it, I saw more dimensions: “zooming out” or “bird’s view”, to put it in either digital or pre-digital terms. I could compare better with what I have read about and by Marcus Garvey, and general history.

Tellingly, the aspects in which the NOI differed from “mainstream Islam” were aspects that shared similarities with Garvey and Rastafari, but also with ancient African folk beliefs. While the Islam is seriously adhered to, and even seen as the “original religion of Black people” (which – IMHO – is at least a debatable claim, though some want to believe it), at the same time the NOI’s Islam serves similarly as Catholicism once did among Yoruba African slaves in Cuba and Brazil in colonial times, simply as a mask and “front” to hide own beliefs.

STORIES

Own interpretations, deviations are all parts of “story telling”, and history of mankind has taught us that a “good story” can connect masses of people to external, then internalized, goals. For better or worse, certainly. The Bible being a prime example. Also Fascism, Communism, and other totalitarian regimes, – after all - had stories that convinced many, to bind the populace.

There’s a lot of quite imaginative “storytelling” within the NOI I noticed, with several story lines, creatively describing the history of mankind and races. Originally, in the NOI’s teachings, Whites were a race created by an evil scientist on a Greek island named Patmos (strange detail..), lacking all virtues of the original (Black) man, and having only vices and wickedness in them, therefore at one time banned by the supreme being to Western Asia (actual Europe) to live in caves. This view was later sidelined, but was also what Malcolm X was taught, as he entered the NOI: whites were a race of devils.

Absurd?, maybe; racist?, probably; vindictive?, certainly.. but still a creative and powerful story, in some sense. Of course, more nonsensical stories can be found within the NOI, as well as some more positive and plausible ones. In essence, that is the same with the Bible. The strength of Christianity lied in the engaging story: it convinced, and was well-written. The Bible had good, thrilling “plots”.. But.. is what the Bible relates all true, did it really happen? Some scientists doubt that, even beyond the obvious absurdities like Moses splitting a sea, or Jesus walking on water. It is still a good story/plot, and culturally interesting. Moreover: it is of course about the “symbolic” value, the metaphorical meanings, not to be taken literally. Some fools do, though (in all religions).

The latter also applies to the NOI, in my opinion, interesting cultural response through stories/storytelling, but in this case a clearer symbolic, and “social” role and response, namely to the racist conditions and inequalities disfavoring Blacks in the US. That gives it a dynamic, “activist” vibe. One of self-protection, making it more understandable, and – in a sense – more benign.

MAINSTREAM ISLAM

The interesting “off-shoot” of the NOI, “the Five-Percent Nation”, founded in 1964, in the 1970s growing among Black youths, was also nominally Muslim, but strayed even further from mainstream Islam as such. Its (the Five-Percent Nation's, as well as the NOI's) views of Black self-sufficiency and pride are echoes of Garvey, whereas their idea that each Black man is a god, goes toward the Rastafari concept of “I and I”, e.g. God/Jah “within man” (inna man).

Likewise, the NOI has a different view on the “afterlife” than in mainstream Islam, emphasizing more to live good today, with Rastafari adherents having similar ideas, though probably earlier in time. This allows a more activist stance during one’s actual lifetime, more seeking one’s rights while living.

This sets Islam as older (and Arab) religion apart from such later emancipation movements. Islam began as an ideological religious movement among some Arabs on the Arabian peninsula, and became a spreading, conquering religion.

The Garvey movement and NOI were mostly occupied with finding and defending oneself, one’s own group. Seemingly, the Islam served to give “structure” to such goals, for the NOI, while Marcus Garvey kept religion out of his movement, though considering himself a Christian (first Methodist, later Catholic).

Religion is essentially “power”, else it would be a loose spiritual movement, so adding Islam to Black Power probably provided that power base.

For the same reason, though more gradual, the Early Rastafari adherents, largely fitted their views in a Biblical context, and Christian world view, as common in Protestant-dominated Jamaica. A sense of stable power.

Garvey, however, focused on economic organization and international organization of all Black people as source of “stable power” for the UNIA movement. Though not just that: Garvey left religion out of it, but origins certainly not: Africa as Black motherland became equally a (desired) power base, once freed from colonialism.

Therein lies the crux of the difference between the NOI in the US, and the Garvey movement, of which Rastafari can be seen as a branch: the role of Africa, the motherland/continent of origin.

BIGGER WHOLE

Marcus Garvey famously and eloquently said: “ I won’t give up a continent for an island” (meaning Africa for Jamaica). This was later quoted in some Reggae song lyrics by Rastas.

This answers to common human, psychological needs to belong to “bigger wholes”, which is healthy when it is natural. Unhealthy when it is fiction, and only effective for so long, crippling over time, as it alienates someone from oneself.

That psychological need for “a bigger whole” was among the NOI answered by the Islamic faith, after abandoning the “repatriation goal” to Africa, while recognizing the African roots as (merely?) “something of the past”. That is less natural, and not even historically totally correct. Islam originated on the Arabian peninsula by Arabs, then spreading with armies conquering toward North Africa, further into Asia, and even reaching parts of Europe (Iberia, Sardinia, and Sicily).

The connection with Africa – of Islam - is therefore more indirect, as the North African countries “converted” to Islam, were before that Christian, without even European imposition.

This is a fictional element that need not be destructive for a movement, but is nonetheless distracting from truth. Only focusing on the truth secures a strong, lasting foundation.

Eventually, the NOI “gave up on the continent Africa”, as in its pleading for separatism, and a separate homeland for African Americans, it meant (even explicitly stated) a separate state for Black people “on American soil”.

Another key difference, thus, with Garvey’s UNIA movement, which kept aiming at repatriation to an independent Africa. The Rastafari movement in Jamaica, one of the heirs to the Garvey movement maintained that.

AFRICA

Is one Black Power movement therefore better than the other? Mutabaruka describes Rastafari as a “Black power movement with a theological nucleus”. In itself true, but when comparing – as I do now – with the NOI, a word should be added: “with an OWN theological nucleus ”, namely on Haile Selassie – many Rastas consider divine - and Ethiopia, while reinterpreting the Bible. NOI copied an Arabic religion, adapting it also a bit to its own needs, but maintaining its tenets and banner.

The abandonment of a focus on Africa in the NOI started quite early in the movement. The NOI claims that the early precursors of the NOI were the enslaved Africans who were Muslims in parts of the US. A reference to Africa, where parts in the wider Sahel region – from Senegambia to Northern Nigeria -, were Islamicized earlier by Islamic invaders, mixed in within the local culture. This occurred before English, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and so on, got their slaves from there.

While it is true that Africans from those Islamic areas ended up in the US – even relatively more than in Latin America -, they were still not the majority among enslaved Africans in the US, who mostly had other “religions”, “beliefs”, spirit/nature religions before Christianized. The Mississippi Delta was a region in the US South where relatively many “Senegambia/Guinea/Sahel” Africans ended up, having an interesting echo in the Blues, and guitar playing (and the swing/shuffle feel).

Another caveat is that – as many who travelled through different parts of the Islamic world can tell you – that Islam in African countries like Guinea, Senegal, Mali, parts of Ivory Coast, northern Nigeria, Cameroun, parts of Burkina Faso, etcetera, is evidently an own, local, “free” interpretation of the Islam, especially when analyzed beyond the superficial “main pillars”, upheld there too (5 times prayer a day, no alcohol, women dressed with veils and modestly, no public nudity/sexuality, fasting, diet, etcetera). Islam is in Guinee/Sahel Africa mixed with own African traditions. Also among, e.g. the Hausa (a quite numerous ethnic group, also in neighbouring Niger) in northern Nigeria, although a violent Islamist group like the Boko Haram seeks to enforce a stricter Islam.

While – musically - the Mississippi delta Blues, and “swing” in other US Black music styles echo and reflect the heritage that Africanization of Islamic influences (like e.g. “string” instruments) of the rich Guinea region “griot” (travelling musicians) tradition, the Nation Of Islam (NOI) apparently did not attempt such a cultural Africanization, even over time leaning more to the “Orthodox Islam”, the original “Arab model”, so to speak. This also came to the fore in the Malcolm X movie by Spike Lee.

AFRICAN CULTURE

What about more historically accurate alternatives, one might ask? Just like among some Rastas, directly African-derived spirit religions, surviving now in Haitian Vodou, Santería (Cuba), Candomblé (Brazil), or Obeah (Jamaica), known “spirit possession” religions seem to be viewed as backward and “devilish” within the NOI.

Among Rastas, Haile Selassie, and “old” and indigenous Ethiopian Christianity seemed a better foundation, or just some Biblical/Christian aspects “from an African perspective”.

This disdain of Vodou-like actually African religions within some Black Power movements is interesting for its connotations. Of course it relates to a cultural inferiority complex, because of the colonial and slavery past. It also has to do, however, with an already mentioned “stable power base”, and the idea of/believe in "one supreme God". The old-fashioned, rather conservative views on male-female relations within the NOI and (to a lesser degree) among some Rastas – with the man as “head” of the household, women serving him and dressing modestly and behaving sexually conservative, of course are also found in the Bible and the Quran (and Hadith: extra, oral accounts of Mohammed). Stable, strong families, must be the idea, but with a patriarchal structure of male dominance, even bordering misogyny at times.

There’s the idea that matriarchy – or mother/female dominance within families – within Black US (and Jamaican) culture arose from the disruption of family ties due to slavery conditions. This is partly true. Many of the enslaved Africans, though, came from areas in Africa with quite matriarchal, often polygamous cultures, even with polyandry (one woman having several men), and loose relations between even those sharing children. The “extended family” was in such cultures much more important than that Western “nuclear family” idea. Partners (even sharing children) often even did not live together (separate places for women and men, with occasional, let’s say “visits”, haha).

This was the case in many societies from Southern Ghana to Central Africa, which the Islam reached less. North of it (the Sahel zone), remnants of this were somehow fitted in Islamic male patriarchy standards.

In short, male dominance was originally not the family culture in much of Africa, also parts where many slaves came from (percentages dependent on colony: Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroun, Congo, or Angola).

Some historians even claim that colonizing Spaniards of the time of Columbus were more patriarchal culturally than Yoruba or Congo men in that time, ending up as slaves in Spanish colonies (often brought and sold by other Europeans), or many Amerindians, due to Spain’s religious (Catholic and Moorish/Islamic) conquest history, both upholding male patriarchy and “machismo”.

Further relevant facts: the enslaved Africans in Jamaica came for over an estimated 40% from the (non-Islamic) Ghana region, while Afro-Cubans in nearby Cuba for about 40% from the Congo region, and in also nearby Haiti Africans from the Benin/Togo area were dominant..

To the US went/were brought quite some Senegambian and Guinee-region slaves – Islamic-influenced before -, but also many from non-Muslim areas (many from Igboland, Nigeria, for instance).

The legitimacy of choosing the “Islam”, by the “Black Power movement” NOI, seems thus weak, at best. The NOI thus chose mostly fiction over reality. This is dubious, in my opinion. It betrays political, hidden goals, without knowing what’s hidden.

Reality is the African origins, from which African Americans (and Afro-Caribbeans, of course) were forcibly taken. Reality is however also “cultural heritage”. Culture is very much neglected in political discourse, probably because it is “feared” as too free and liberating for the masses, especially folk culture.

Rastafari is reasonably connected to culture, also to African retentions in Jamaica. While an African retention like Obeah is by some criticized as “devilish” magic, African remnants are in many small and big things in Jamaica, with a “Western” or British superficiality, or even influence, but always mixed.

The connection of Rastafari with Jamaica’s rich musical tradition (and notably Reggae), and Bob Marley’s global fame, brought Rastafari influence in Reggae music, and more African-derived percussion, for example. Subtly woven through Reggae music (and its precursors), the African polyrhythmic and harmonic musical heritage has, by the way, always been present and essential to it.

In addition, the “back to nature” focus of many Rastafari-adherents, with communal self-sufficiency and natural living, also draws on African traditions, long-lost in most of Europe and the Western world since its modernization and industrialization.

The NOI also has acquired economic power and ownership of businesses – along Garvey’s lines –within Black US, but simply fitting in the US capitalist society, without even much of a “cultural” change.

These contradictory aspects in the NOI were forgotten with extremely communicative and intelligent leaders like Malcolm X, keeping it together.

IDENTITY

In time, however, the “slippery slope” of “identity” politics slipped in the NOI, with as effect a superficial and political “identity”, totally detached from (lived ) culture stemming from an actual history. This can have – temporarily – a beneficial, emancipatory effect, but can go terribly wrong, especially with totalitarian regimes. After all, the German Nazi’s had as political identity “the Aryan”: a superior Germanic race, that should rule the world (according to them).

I now also live in a country (the Netherlands) said to have (like Germany) mostly a Germanic/Teutonic (ethno-historic) origin, and in time I got to wonder: what is this own Dutch, originally Germanic (in English also Teutonic) culture? Maybe some countries, like England, the Netherlands, and Germany modernized and industrialized too soon too much to maintain much “original culture”, and the Nazi’s replaced that, indoctrinating the people with a mythical, absurd “racial supremacy” notion, at the cost of others.

Nowadays, despite hidden ancient, Germanic cultural “remnants” (beyond the language), the Netherlands people are international, even imitating aspects of other cultures: from the US (even Black culture), more Southern parts of Europe with presumably more “temperamental” and “life-enjoying” people, or other parts of the world. I noticed this identity crisis – in hindsight – among White Dutch people I encountered, trying to “out-Black” me, because I (of South European descent) showed some appreciation for Black culture: a Reggae t-shirt or patch, for instance. For some odd, mistaken (slightly psychopathic) notion they considered themselves “gatekeeper” (for having more Black friends, maybe?), a phenomenon - White gatekeepers of Black culture) still found here and there. Seems almost like politics.

I guess that “culture” keeps the mind softer and opener than politics..

A Black Power movement based on Vodou-like beliefs would be strange – or to be honest: I would find it funny and intriguing -, but without going so far, still a fruitful, open-minded balance can be found, as is achieved in the Rastafari movement, lacking authoritarian, strict rules.

A balance seems most reasonable in the case of the African Diaspora in the West: colonial past, adapted to other societies, but knowing one’s roots. Realistic about one’s history, roots and routes.

The NOI – for all its interesting aspects – seems to deny some “realistic” aspects, but that is just my opinion, and it’s their prerogative..

IMPLICATIONS

Still, this choice to “abandon” Africa, the continent, as focus among the largest “Black Power” group in the US, the NOI, can have in my opinion negative connotations. For one, it replaces solidarity with the brothers and sisters on the African continent, with a semi-fictional one with the Arab world. You notice this even in the Palestina protests. Fine, and even noble, that Black people feel solidarity with the Palestinians’ cause, and critique Israel’s harsh, brutal, and discriminatory policies in Gaza and elsewhere. Too often, though, these same “selective” activists do not mention what happens elsewhere in the world, such as Africa, with genocides also having occurred or attempted in Sudan (e.g. Darfur) – some say still going on - , and some brutal regimes and violent conflicts here and there (I mentioned already Boko Haram).

Could it be that the fictive/symbolic alignment with the Islam as a “Black man’s religion” – popularized by the NOI – made many turn a blind eye to whatever is done in the name of Islam in Africa, especially when combined with a nice, melanin skin? Could it be that superficial?

People in Islamic (Northern) Sudan call themselves “Arabs”, while clearly mixed with Black Africans, pointing at cultural annihilation and depreciation of Africa and its people. Not unsimilar to what occurred among some African-descended people in the Americas. In the Dominican Republic, most people are mixed (mostly Spanish-African) and Mulatto-like, but long upheld a vague “Hispanic” identity, derived from European Spain. This differed among Dominicans (some saw themselves as mixed also culturally), but was the political norm. The same in Jamaica, where the political elite long fought the Afro-centric Rastafari movement, including even brutal repression and raids up to the 1960, and customary discrimination even into the 1970s. A “Black British” culture aimed at the Anglo-Saxon world, was the proscribed norm for the populace, it seemed.

BLACK-WHITE

Another negative implication is the Black-White discourse. In my opinion, this has gotten out of hand. In the early stages of emancipation it had a function, and even a positive, path-making one, as also Marcus Garvey used that dichotomy (albeit in his days (1910-1930s), also with now old-fashioned terms like Negro and Coloured).

Garvey however never forgot or abandoned the connection of “Black” with Africa.. Despite the politically (and historically) correct now common moniker of “African Americans” for US Blacks (along the lines of Irish American, Italian American, etc.), in common parlance “Black” and “White” is still the norm, not even just among stand-up comedians, for comedic effect (of variable quality in my opinion, though sometimes funny, I must admit).

This seems innocent, and just words, but psychologically can legitimize superficiality of skin color, over a rich African heritage, from even way before slavery. Even the interesting history from “way before Islam came to Africa (7th c. AD)” for that matter.

In my opinion, one’s sense of its (true) origins and culture makes one truly stable and stronger, and even more balanced. Ironically, also more open-minded, as less involved in “politicized oppositions”.

If you know “who you are”, as some put it, you are honest and spiritual enough to show sincere interest in the true beings of other humans – and other cultures! – as well, without games or hiding.

You also are more able to step out spiritually of the “rat race” of Western politics and economics, and apply other worldviews, with distinct, more natural and communally based lifestyles, also found in the African tradition, and applied (in their own way) by e.g. Rastafari adherents in Jamaica or elsewhere.

Also, in different ways, Vodou practitioners in Haïti, or those Afro-Cubans involved in Santería (Yoruba-based) or Palo Mayombe (Congo-based) spiritual faiths, kept open their mind for “alternatives ways of looking at Western culture ”, the (in this case) Catholic colonizers forced on them.

CULTURAL IDENTITY

Sometimes forming one's own personal cultural identity is a matter of “taking the best of both worlds”: I have known in Cuba some (pitch-) black Cubans – who would physically hardly stand out in Lagos or Kinshasa -, who only spoke Spanish proficiently -, and who could quote some poems by Spanish poets (like Federico García Lorca), and even from the famous Spanish novel Don Quichot – while at the same time attending Santería gatherings, and dressed in African/Yoruba attire on occasion, or playing Batá drums.

Rastafari artist and radio personality Mutabaruka also said in an interview that he tries to get the best of both worlds (Western modernity/technology and Africa), and learn about different parts of the world, while at the same time seeking to expand (also in his radio show) the knowledge about Africa and its history in Jamaica and beyond. It broadens one mind, in short, also to compare better internationally.

Though there were interesting and open-minded intellectuals within the Nation Of Islam (NOI) in the past and present – knowledgeable about global affairs, and sometimes say something sensible about it, even Louis Farrakhan – most of its rhetoric deals with the US situation.

Even if this is often just and right criticism of a certainly racist system and society in the US (and also other Western countries, for that matter) – keeping African Americans back structurally -, I think the knowledge of an own origin, and knowledge of one’s culture, offers more ways to deal with this, in an enduring, fruitful way, than playing along with that superficial (colonially inherited) game of “skin colour”. Even if your color is used against you, you can stand above that with pride in your own culture, your actual history, as a “true identity”. True self-assurance and true self-confidence.

That is also the power of a “story”, but more importantly: an indestructible power base in “truth” and love.

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 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.

Long Walk To Freedom

Despite its pollution by the pushy commercial nonsense now all too “bon ton” in the modern Western world, the term “must read” does – I think – apply to some books also genuinely and morally.

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE

I am referring to historical importance. Books that even would improve mankind if more people had read them. One of those “must read” book in my opinion is the autobiography 'Long Walk To Freedom', by Nelson Mandela (pubished in 1994). A well-known historical figure, of international – perhaps even universal – appeal –, Mandela as subject goes way beyond activist “niche” markets with particular interests, for, say, Africa, or “the Black struggle”.

Both these themes – Africa and the Black struggle – are of course more than “niche” interests, and in fact important to learn about global and human history for people of all races – in my opinion -, but are rather ignored compared to other themes. The white/European guilt complex about the colonial and slavery past explains this disinterest partly, as well as remaining racist and colonial notions. And material interests. Simply said: the US, Europe, but also Chinese, Japanese, or Arabs are economically too powerful to ignore (and just exploit). Africa unfortunately not yet so.

ANACHRONISM

Still, despite this bias among some white or non-African people, the person Nelson Mandela breaks in a sense through barriers, even of relatively closed minds. The blatantly racist Apartheid system in South Africa lasted up the early 1990s, and was met with moral indignation more and more throughout the world, including among liberal whites. Seemingly a remnant of Europe’s colonial past, the harsh discrimination and violence seemed an immoral anachronism, as Western powers claimed to have become more civilized.

In a superficial sense, Nelson Mandela became over time a welcome figurehead for the anti-Apartheid struggle for people worldwide, due to Mandela’s firm stance, yet also thoughtful, nonviolent, and dignified image.

Leaving all this - superficial “images”, white guilt, and liberal self-congratulations – aside, I just considered it time for me to finally read this autobiography by Nelson Mandela. I knew about these memoirs before, but did not have the time to read them yet. I also thought I had learned over time roughly enough about South Africa from different sources: books and articles, but also first-hand accounts by a white friend, who told me he had to leave South Africa during Apartheid, for his relationship with a Black African woman. I saw some good documentaries about it too,.. and some not so good ones too. Likewise, some good movies, and some bad (read: “too Hollywood”) movies too.

KNOWLEDGE GAPS

Still, there still were here subtle “knowledge gaps”. I am interested in persons, their life stories, especially of influential heroes and intriguing personalities like Nelson Mandela. Yet, admittedly, there were also some questions about that whole Apartheid period in South Africa I still had. I am relatively knowledgeable about colonial history – and African history - , but lack some knowledge about especially the recent history in South Africa. I thought this book could give me some answers.

To start with: the book was a very good and pleasant read. I even forgot soon it was relatively voluminous (over 750 pages). There’s a Dutch expression that translates as “it reads like a train”, meaning: an easy, good read. These memoirs by Mandela did indeed “read like a train”.

So did I learn new things? Yes, I did. Obviously about Nelson Mandela’s life story. I knew he was from the Xhosa ethnic group (some people might not even know that), speaking a pretty southern Bantu language (with clicks). He became more and more an opponent of racist colonialism forced upon his country South Africa by the British and other White colonizers, but first became a lawyer, also to help his people. Like with other people – and as is simply human -, his consciousness about the injustices grew over time.

What I learned most from this autobiography were the political changes in South Africa itself.

NAZISM

There is a protest song by African Reggae singer Alpha Blondy (hailing from Ivory Coast) titled Apartheid Is Nazism. This book taught me that this is not just metaphorical. Apparently, as Mandela explained, there was support and sympathy among the Afrikaners or Boers (White South Africans of mainly Dutch, Protestant descent) for Hitler’s Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930s/1940s. This went even beyond tensions between South African Whites of British or Boer/Afrikaner descent. South Africa was a British colony, in the commonwealth, and when Britain joined the allies in declaring war against Hitler Germany, South Africa automatically went along.

Yet, there was an opposing movement among some White Boers or Afrikaners in South Africa pleading for at least neutrality. Wars between Britain and the Boers have been fought, and this related to this, alongside conservative views. Well now, the Nasionale Partij (National Party) that established and expanded Apartheid in South Africa fully in 1948, was led by White Boers and Afrikaners, with leaders once openly supporting Nazi Germany, such as later prime-minister Vorster, who even went to prison for this stance.

Another main architect of Apartheid and segregation, the Amsterdam-born Hendrik Verwoerd, also seemed to have such Nazi sympathies, and chose to study in then Nazi-influenced Germany.

Links between Nazism and Apartheid continued, an example being the father of the now influential German billionaire Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF, whose father was member of the Nazi party, and later worked with the Apartheid government/regime in South Africa. Some even note much similarities in the methods of Apartheid, especially “petty” daily-level policies – in the covid 19/corona pass “new normal” since 2020 – son Klaus Schwab seeks to promote, albeit now discriminating more on supposed medical grounds, than on racial grounds. Also, “lockdowns” became normalized since 2020, and are similar to control methods used by the Apartheid regime.

Since Hendrik Verwoerd – known as the architect of Apartheid - was thus an Amsterdam-born Dutchman, this Nazi sympathy cannot be explained by the fact that the Boers/Afrikaners were also partly of German descent (besides mainly of Dutch, and some French Huguenot descent). Presumably, the racial hierarchy fitted the time, and colonial culture and interests.

Identity and even more “ideology” after all almost always relate to “interests”, in my opinion. Delusional ideas about racial superiority and inferiority – and primitive ethnic pride – exist, but get mixed with colonial interests and properties, resulting in migrant whites treating indigenous Africans as burdens in their own country: insane, even psychopathic, but from this viewpoint explainable. They also defended their material interests and wealth.

FIGHT AGAINST APARTHEID

Mandela relates it well and balanced, though. Though the strict Protestant Boers of mainly Dutch descent were largely to blame for the National Party’s Apartheid policy since 1948 (though tacitly supported by White Britons), the White British were before this also racist and colonialist, - and exploitative - as elsewhere in Africa, but more indirectly and subtly. The way the Boers-led National Party operated with its Apartheid policy had indeed strongly Fascist elements, with “democracy” (e.g. voting) only reserved for a minority of “superior” White people. The majority Black population was since around 1950 openly made second-class citizens, stripped of most human rights, and made dependent on White people.. Indeed, in their own country. They were segregated into separate Bantustans, with in name self-rule.

Before 1950, discrimination of Africans was already there, including a “pass-system” restricting their free movement (not required for Whites), and an European bias in education and economy.

This harshly racist Apartheid is what Mandela fought against, with the African National Congress (ANC) organization – already founded in 1912 -, in which he became a leading figure. Predictably – as he narrates in this book -, repression, harassment, oppression, and persecution of him by the White authorities ensued (bans, censorship, limited movement, arrests, spells of incarceration), ending up in the (well-known) long incarceration at Robben Island (near Cape Town) of Mandela, as a political prisoner, lasting from 1964 up to the 1980s. Since the late 1980s, Mandela was transferred to another, more comfortable prison on the mainland, as political changes seemed somehow to be on the horizon. International condemnation has increased by the Late 1987. Very hesitantly, by the way: and the hesitance of powers like the US under Reagan and the UK under Thatcher to condemn Apartheid more strongly was morally dubious.

Indeed, the National Party government became by them more open for negotiations – especially as international sanctions were put in place (supported now by the US and the UK) -, which Mandela initiated on behalf of the ANC, toward his goal of multiracial democratization.

This is “in a nutshell” the context of these memoirs, but I recommend people to read it fully, for it is very insightful, precisely because of the details and how Mandela relates it. It gives insight about an oppressive political system in South Africa, as well as human psychology. It also shows Mandela’s intelligence and open mind.

HUMANITY

I noted through this book that Mandela indeed had an open mind, and was a good judge of character, placing humanity first. He commented on when white authoritative figures treated him rough and rude, but also when there were more reasonable or “kinder” people among them, only brainwashed too much in the system. He still kept hope due to the “glimmer of humanity” he even saw in guards in grim prisons he was in under Apartheid.

In the final, more reflective part of this book, Mandela says it eloquently: “Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished”..

In a way, that’s the ultimate rebellion. Despite harsh personalized aggression and oppression keeping your sane mind and composure, allowing even compassion. Maintaining good sense, reason, and your “cool”, even when instability (“losing your mind”) seems understandable. That stability and firmness of character of course also makes a good leader. Not one to be easily blown away or weakened. Neither easily corrupted or bribed.

Furthermore, Mandela maintained a love for all humanity, his account shows, which seemed sincere, and quite remarkable. Imprisoned since 1964 for decades until 1990, he states in this book that he through those years he learned to hate evil systems more than people.. even those working for/in it. Remarkable, as the cynical route of “I’ll be hard: after all, the world is against me..”, could be the choice of a lesser, less compassionate soul.

More things I learned I can mention – without spoiling or giving a way too much of this very readable book – is the lying propaganda of the National Party, and how it claimed to fight “Communists”. It mainly used this label to “frame” opponents to their (Apartheid) policy, mostly unjustly, as dangerous rebels or terrorists. This included Mandela and the ANC. This proved effective to gain support of the then anti-Communist USA.

Again the strength of character and wisdom of Mandela showed here. He did not consider himself a Communist, and above all certainly not opposed the National party on that ground: it was their racist Apartheid system he fought. Yet, Mandela explains how he studied aspects of Communism to examine its workability or possible usefulness, with an open mind. Never really embracing it, but neither excluding it in advance. He determined his own values.

ROBBEN ISLAND

Mandela’s account on prison life at Robben island since 1964 was fascinating and educational. In broad lines, summarizing what being there does to a man – not always detailed – but evident nonetheless.

Not everyone can imagine being for years locked up and at the mercy of guards, wardens and state, and throughout this unjust solitude, it seemed Mandela’s “hope” and firm stance kept his spirits up.. against all odds.

Prison for political prisoners under Apartheid South Africa – and on Robben island - was meant not just to “lock away”, but rather to make an intimidating political “fascist” point as well. Much of the behaviour of wardens, such as strict rules, limited favours, and structural discrimination and humiliation, can also be described as “extreme bullying”.

This could take “calculated” forms: easing of bans or prohibitions, extra favours granted (somewhat better food, study time, books, allowed to talk, a bit less work) were mostly conditional or temporary, and often wickedly compensated with new bothersome rules and limits.

The discriminatory Apartheid system translated by the way on the small scale as well: Black Africans got lesser food in prison, compared to Coloureds (mixed-raced), or Indians. Wisely, Mandela could see through all these evil games over the years, and somehow rise above it, keeping his focus on his ideals and principles, and a better future.

These ideals were essentially positive, inclusive and antiracist: it emphasized equal individual rights for all South Africans (of all races), and the One Man One Vote principle. A far cry from the segregated racial inequality the Apartheid policy upheld, aimed at Black Africans’ dependence on Whites.

The “Socialist-leaning” focus of the ANC was also multiracial, which conflicted a bit with other Black African resistance movements in South Africa at the time. In these memoirs, Mandela speaks for the ANC, while explaining how its “pro-Black, yet multiracial policy” would according to him be better than of the pro-ethnic African movements, such as the Pan-Africanist Congress (the PAC), that broke away from the ANC in 1959, having a more exclusionary Black Power stance.

This PAC objected to ANC’s tight connections to Communists and White and Indian people (even if against Apartheid), they considered too undermining of the Black liberation and authorhisp. Mandela considered such stances immature, while being not much less radical.

Radical, in that he never gave up violent resistance against the White apartheid regime. He thought this rebellion necessary for the time being, while preferring where possible peaceful means to overthrow it.

STRATEGY

These memoirs are thus – largely – about socio-political “strategy”: how Mandela endured the oppression and incarceration only to keep his values and goals of a free, democratic, nonracial South Africa intact. This I find quite admirable: he gave his life for his nation and people.

Being this “freedom fighter” – he resumes in the final part of the book – almost inevitably is at odds with a “common” stable private family life: a steady job, a present father, loyal husband, etcetera. He saw his children much less than he wanted when imprisoned, and though his love for Winnie Mandela was strong and guiding him, a practical “harmonious love life under one roof” hardly could develop with his life. He really gave his life for the struggle.

“It seems the destiny of freedom fighters to have unstable personal lives”, as Mandela summarizes it in this book.

FINAL PART

The final, more reflective part follows on Nelson Mandela’s final release from prison, and the victory since 1990, when Apartheid ended, and South Africa democratized since then, resulting in an electoral victory of the ANC. These include beautiful reflections full of wisdom, captured in some brilliant citations. Mandela e.g. writes (on the way forward after Apartheid): “to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others”..

The problem of violence among Africans (Zulu versus others) was a problem in South Africa regaining freedom, and Mandela relates how he assumed the National Party regime’s involvement, hoping to derail the changes through destabilization, and holding on to “White power” as long as possible. Again, through "divide and conquer".

South Africa – while becoming free and democratic - all in all thus had a lot of crime and violence problems - along with remaining poverty among the masses - in the Early 1990s, when this book ends.

I can add that I also learned through this book about other important individuals in the struggle against Apartheid, such as Oliver Tambo, longtime and respected leader of the African National Congress (when the ANC was banned after 1964, he was in exile in Lusaka). Mandela had a deep love and respect for this long-time friend and companion Tambo, resulting in deep grief at his quite sudden death, after a stroke, in 1993. This was not long after Mandela’s release. “It’s like I myself died a little bit”, he writes emotionally, also in this final part of the book. I felt that.

Though these memoirs are about politics, they are thus certainly not “cold”.

The only mild critique I can give is that “culture” does get much less attention than politics (strategy, freedom fighter) in this book. The differences between Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho among the native Africans, or among the Whites (English or Afrikaans speaking) get less attention.

I guess freedom fighters like Mandela cannot escape the Black-White dichotomy the Apartheid regime after all was based on – however nonsensical it is - , and that makes it understandable.

Overall a must – or politer: “recommendable” - read, one can learn a lot from.

FINAL REFLECTIONS

Though Amsterdam has a progressive image, the birthplace of Apartheid’s architect Hendrik Verwoerd – of who some say he “raped” South Africa – still has street names named after Boers/Afrikaners, recalling the British-Boer wars, and other parts of South Africa where the White Boers ruled and had wars. This was due to the historical Dutch-Afrikaner connection.

The Transvaal is such a part of South Africa, and the neighbourhood with those street names is in Eastern Amsterdam therefore called “the Transvaalbuurt”, and before as “Afrikanerbuurt”. Maybe by today’s standards morally dubious and politically incorrect, but some streets have since been renamed after Black African freedom fighters: there is a Steve Bikoplein – plein is Dutch for “square” - there (which replaced the name Pretoriusplein), in that same part of Amsterdam, and an Albert Luthulistraat, however alongside several street names named after prominent Boers/Afrikaners, like Kruger. Besides this also more neutral South African geographical references, often related to Boer wars. No, like I said, not really politically correct in these times.

Amsterdam is hardly alone in this, of course, with streets named after colonial figures in several European countries, and slaveowners on dollar bills in the US, or seeing the large monument to Columbus in a city like Barcelona (and his birthplace Genua, Italy), and many other statues of colonial “conquerors” in Spain, Portugal, Britain, and elsewhere. Not politically correct, and meeting occasional objections, but often still remaining.

Interestingly – and symbolically -, there later came a Nelson Mandelaplein (square) in Amsterdam, but more to the South East: significantly a quarter with a majority of people of African descent (mainly Creoles from the former Dutch colony Suriname, and communities of Ghanaians and Nigerians).

I think, however, that these memoirs show that Nelson Mandela was a moral model for all people, of whatever race, believing genuinely in equality, of all races, but also between sexes. As an example: his breaking up with Winnie Mandela in the final part of the book, he worded in respectful terms toward her.

Above all: his wisdom and strategic, in essence positive and humanitarian, approach remains truly exemplary for all freedom fighters. This book showed that.

“Long walk to freedom: the autobiography of Nelson Mandela” (Abacus, 1994). – 768 p. – ill.