Detachment

I guess “detachment” is a welcome concept at the time of writing, amid a “corona crisis”, that many see as an elite’s pLandemic.

These corona policies resulted in gradually normalized, yet still “surreal”, measures like global lockdowns and curfews, trampling of people’s rights and liberties, increasing inequality, divide and conquer, segregation, and recently even discrimination and “medical apartheid”. Something like “covid passports” in several countries, including France, Germany, Italy, and recently also the Netherlands, where I live, is now required for simple entry into free public life (bars, restaurants), and hacks at the roots of liberal democracy as we know it.

A sad and disturbing period, also because the “infection risk of a severe and deadly virus” narrative of the international governments, seems to be believed widely, or at least upheld as accepted fiction.

Many say these governments are elite-driven, negative forces “against the people”. They assume mass control goals by a wealthy elite, with a hyped-up virus/pandemic as excuse, or pretext.

Others (at least in their public statements) believe such strict, undemocratic measures might be unprecedented in liberal democracies since Fascism and Communism, but are necessary to deal with a pandemic and the dangerous Covid 19 virus. Simply said: some think it is about power and/or money, some think it actually is about health.

I am not going to walk that well-trodden path of these hopelessly opposed stances – even if involving reality or true facts (with few “true” facts on the side of those who think it is about health, and more plausible, yet difficult to prove, facts on those who think it is about power).

In reality, if it is just a control plan based on lies, it can be considered “too much honour” to dignify it by having it become the main subject of conversation: “cold” and tense themes like disease effects, virus infection, infectiousness, IC capacity, and so on.

More important I consider now the attack on and limiting of democratic values through corona policies in once liberal democracies like the Netherlands or France. These were built after all successfully, though with imperfections, since WWII, and these changes in them touch us individually, our way of life, how we move in our societies. It changes our lives, whether we want to or not.

The gradual nature of all these policies are suspect, but also obscure that by now we must conclude: since March 2020 we have lost control over our lives vis-à-vis the state and politicians, due to this corona crisis. This cannot be denied. Most harshly and humiliating for those not submissive enough to take the experimental "vaccine", but requiring "a pass" to go to e.g. a bar, restaurant, or museum, should be questioned also by the now newly privileged vaccinated, even if their ego is caressed.

Gathering freely as humans, travelling freely, even going out to a restaurant or bar (requiring covid passes/codes in some countries).. all has been made problematic, through some kind of “commandment politics” by “tough” politicians, giving their statements suddenly - in tone and content - as “closed” and “final say”, as in Fascist or other dictatorships.

GLOBAL POLICY MONSTER

In a sense, it made us as individual humans feel more powerless, especially as this Fascist “final say” and "definite" tone political leaders use nowadays in once democratic countries – from Macron in France, to Rutte in the Netherlands, Merkel in Germany, Trudeau in Canada, and Biden in the US -, seems part of a big “global policy monster” which for individual citizens seems impossible to fight. Or even leave out of one’s life.

Yet.. I argue it only seems impossible. I return therefore to the first sentence of this post and the word “detachment” for a philosophical concept. There must be a spiritual way to detach oneself from this – in essence – psychological war - , and I think this detachment is necessary.

The totalitarian nature of the policies, show especially in the “behavior” ordinances for citizens that oddly became commonly accepted: when to gather, how many people in your house, where to work, how to go out. Using “fear from infection” worked apparently wonders, even in “free” societies.

The gradual nature of this corona hype, hid from plain sight that the focus is always negative: both tone and content. Commandment/ordinnances rather that consolation, threats rather than advise, division rather than unity.

Against this seemingly unbeatable foe of negative energy, I think a spiritual approach, or rather spiritual “detachment” or disconnection can help us humans maintain balance and positive purpose. Especially because of much of it is “fear-based”, thus irrational.

First of all: how can detachment be defined?

DETACHMENT

In its philosophical sense, the Wikipedia article on Detachment, contains some interesting things , but is too limited in scope. It restricts philosophical “detachment” to Eastern religions in Asia, notably India, China, and Persia (Buddism, Hinduism, Bahai, a.o.), and Christianity, but excludes e.g. Africa, and the Americas.

Detachment might be best known in its Zen Buddhist meaning: being detached (unstained) by one’s thoughts: not to be harmed mentally and emotionally by them.

Also interesting is Detachment in Hindu thinking as “living in the moment” (focusing on the task at hand). Both in parts of Buddhism and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Detachment is connected to being “free from lust or passions”, being available solely to God, related to the lambasting of “temptation” in the Bible and Quran.

These are mentioned in that Wikipedia article, but ignore therewith many other equally interesting faiths and spiritual beliefs in this world, such as in Africa, among Amerindians, or African American ones, like Rastafari, or Vodou.

AFRICA

Focussing on belief systems in some African cultures one can find Detachment in this philosophical sense in some way, but indirectly through “spirits”.

The Igbo in Nigeria know the concept of “Chi”, a spirit/godliness belonging to an individual. While connected to a higher encompassing spirit or deity, “almighty creator”, the “Chi” itself is individual, and therefore represents one’s own godly, spiritual essence and destiny. It is an initiating and animating force. The detachment lies in its independence from all else: the material world, and societal demands, while indirectly connected to higher deities, or ancestral spirits.

Similar personalized spirits among other (higher) spirits can be found in other African peoples as well, such as the Akan in Ghana, the Yoruba, and the Bantu. All have this implied “agency” for each individual human, which also can be understood as “rising above”, disconnection form worldly affairs, as well as an “inner strength” or “fire”. Or indeed Detachment.

Even the concept of “cool” in the African aesthetic – to which I devoted an earlier blog post – is related to this detachment.

RASTAFARI

This African type of “detachment” found its way into the African Jamaican spiritual movement Rastafari, originating in the 1930s, now well known through Reggae music.

The “Livity” spiritual concept – of which there is also a Wikipedia article – is certainly relevant here.

Livity is according to that Wikipedia article:

“Its essence is the realization that an energy or life-force, conferred by Almighty Jah (God), exists within, and flows through, all people and all living things. This is seen as the presence of Jah living within humans, and is often expressed in Rastafari vocabulary as "I and I", where the first "I" refers to the Almighty, the second "I" for oneself.”

Later on:

“In Rastafari philosophy, Livity can be enhanced by intense prayer and meditation (often enhanced by sacramental cannabis use), adherence to an Ital diet, and perhaps most importantly, loving behavior toward others.”

The remarkable similarities with the mentioned Igbo concept of “Chi” (and similar notions among the Akan and Bantu people) shows that this must be an African retention, mixed with Christian/Biblical influences.

It also shows an idea of “detachment”.

Spirit possession cults and beliefs in Africa and the African Diaspora, such as those in Vodou, Santería, Kumina, or Winti, are ways to connect with ancestors for sure, but their very “possession-like” or “trance-like” character – often through rhythm and drums - forms an escape or detachment by itself.

RECONNECTION

It is, then, a reconnection with one’s spirits within – or ancestral ones -, but when “reconnecting” one apparently felt disconnected before. Too attached to the worldly and material. To "the system".

Since the drastic and ineffective “lockdown policies” were stubbornly chosen internationally since 2020, this also meant a limitation of culture and the hospitality sector, and an increased focus on home life, avoiding people, especially by those very afraid.

This increased loneliness and mental problems among many groups, largely due to the lack of “outlet” or stress relief, or even the togetherness and consolation of other people with similar lots.

In this confrontation with oneself, in such a tense time, I think a positive and spiritual detachment is crucial.

Power politics and fear are negative, yet strong, invasive and polluting forces that can take over minds, limiting a clear view on things.

The detachment in all senses seems necessary, whether from Zen Buddhism, the idea of “living in the moment”, to African, and other ones, simply to escape monotonous, tense themes like viruses, infections, and such – “hyped up” –, and related politics and power games.

Then to look within oneself: at first detached from passions and worries (as in Buddhist and Christian interpretations), then finding what really makes you tick, what are your unique needs and qualities (as in African interpretations).

Here, the “African” concept of an individual “inner spirit” or “inner divinity” – yet connected with ancestors – really can be helpful in maintaining own pride and agency. Detachment with a purpose.

Labi Siffre sang about it in the fine song “Something Inside So Strong”, while African American author James Baldwin in an interview interestingly said that however oppressed and limited – and damaged - by historical White power structures: these will “never have ME”..

The world needs this individual pride and agency. This also in light of cultural differences. Chinese culture developed through time as collectivistic, rather than individualistic, making a “social credit” system, probably not loved, but accepted there more easily.

CONDITIONS

The corona policies, especially the digital “covid passports” made many fear similar plans in Western democracies, as it introduced external conditional aspects to one’s behavior. Conditions by other forces, beyond our control.

In my opinion, history can largely be seen as wealthy elites, fearing - and therefore controlling and restricting - the poorer majority, and their possible rise or rebellion. A "control state" seems only a more totalitarian "solution" to this long-held "fear of the masses".

This very idea of another party being able to place “conditions” on your behavior as free individual, would seem absurd and morally unacceptable – as it should be considered – when you know that inner, “divine” strength, your right to agency. Living and not being lived. Ruling your own destiny. To say it with a cliché: “believing in yourself”.

The long-upheld Christian and Islamic idea of a “God in the sky”, apart from humans, limits human agency, also toward such unprecedented political “control” goals, and therefore seems less helpful in maintaining one’s own strength. The same applies to a quite naïve "blind" trust in authorities, that is still common, though not universal.

We need to “detach” from that entire system through our own energy and agency, I think, before the “control state” and patronizing, demeaning “social credits” systems goes any further than it already has, and then “roll it back”, toward true humanity.

This is best done by having faith in one’s own spirit of capacity, of self-study, intelligent thought, despite outside pressure, “shaming”, or “fear-mongering”. Independent self-confidence. True independence requires courage.

In short: this type of detachment helps in my opinion in “opening one’s third eye”, realizing the self-ridiculing absurdity of the undemocratic, rights-trampling policies, and also in presenting an alternative.

This alternative is an individuality detached from - in the "Zen" sense - materialism, including all man-made oppressive/freedom-taking structures, but also aligned to all living beings and nature (and natural immunity!), and the ancestors, - as in the African and Rastafari senses, or in the Bantu concept of Ubuntu: human through other humans.

A good way to deal with trauma, and revive culture, togetherness, and social living, as a way out of this dystopia..

Reggae music lovers (in the Netherlands): Hobbol Backawall

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

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

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

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

Before this I have interviewed 10 persons – reggae lovers I know, “breddas” (meaning “brothers”, or "friends" in Jamaican parlance) of mine – here in the Netherlands.

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

HOBBOL BACKAWALL

This time, I interview a “bloke” again (I mean, a man: just wanted to use the word bloke), whom I encountered in the Reggae scene in Amsterdam. I saw him in several places in (roughly) the decade 2010-2020, but mainly at events of the (Michelle van Boekhout Solinge-led) Black Star Foundation, organizing Reggae festivals/concerts and selecta/dj sets in and around Amsterdam. People like Johnny Osbourne, Lone Ranger, as well as "new school" artists like Exile Di Brave, performed then in the Netherlands.

At some events Hobbol Backawall was “selecta” or deejay, playing mostly Roots Reggae – strictly from vinyl. He even “doubled” at times as Dee-jay (vocalist) in the Jamaican sense, “toasting” vocally over Riddims, to nice effect. I liked the flow and overall style, but also his selection of Reggae songs, not dissimilar to my tastes.. some “overlap” let’s say, alongside – interesting – differences.

I soon found out his real name was Remi, but that he was known also under the nickname “Hobbol”. The name of his "sound" was/is "Back-a-wall movement”. That name seems to refer to a former part of the downtown ghettoes in Kingston, Jamaica, known colloquially as “back-o-wall”. It was since the 1950s known as a poor, neglected slum in downtown Kingston, inhabited by Rastafari adherents, at the place of where is now Tivoli Gardens, which in turn was built after 1963 (I have visited it: now with - decaying - apartment buildings, but still a poor ghetto). Interesting reference, anyway.

Over time I got to speak more with Hobbol, about where he lived, what he did, etcetera. He told me he lived in Medemblik, a small town, about 60 km north of Amsterdam in the North Holland province (a part known as “West Frisia”).

Rurally, and outside the urban hustle and bustle, but Hobbol seems to travel around, also as selecta.

Also because I usually enjoyed his selecta sets, I find it interesting to get to know more about Hobbol Backawall as a person, and his Reggae tastes and journey.

QUESTIONS

Where were you born and did you grow up?

I was born in Utrecht, and after many wanderings ended up living in Medemblik.

Since when (age) do you listen Reggae music?

More or less since my 13th year, Bob Marley died, and was played a lot on the radio. I immediately got pleasantly addicted. Doe Maar played a part as well, but also UB40 and Revelation Time.

What attracted you to it, then?

That music.. lovely!. Felt as if I was coming home. Until that time, I only listened to the radio, and to records that my parents or older brother had.

What other music genres did you listen to?

On the radio you mostly heard Pop music, and my parents mainly conveyed to me Protest singers, and 1960s music. Through my brother, I got to know Queen, as well as the Stones and the Beatles.

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

I almost entirely listen to Reggae and related, and in the time that I deejayed/selected I interchanged New Roots with classics, nowadays I listen more to Roots Reggae and older.

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

There is undoubtedly good Digital Dancehall out there, but it is not “my thing”. I love Roots Reggae very much, not just its Rockers sound, but love also tunes that are about something, and have a positive message. I further also like Rocksteady and Ska from the 1960s-Early 1970s.

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

Since I went for the very first time with a crate of albums/LPs to a camping site, to spin Reggae songs that evening. I liked that so much, that I immediately went to the nearby community centre with a mixtape (on cassette tape). This was after all more than 30 years ago..

Why the selecta name Hobbol Backawall?

I always played/spinned as Back-a-wall movement, and Hobbol is my nickname. The name Hobbol Backawall came to be, because Facebook required a surname or Last Name. That thus became Backawall.

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

Too many to mention. I still enjoy meeting artists whose records I have in my collection. If I have to mention one thing, I can recall a car ride with Johnny Osbourne. That day we came terribly close to a car crash, only because I hung on Johnny’s lips so much, that I forgot to pay attention to Amsterdam’s busy traffic .

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

At the moment I am not doing much. I am still partly involved with Shamba Lion sound system, and gladly help out at events of the Black Star Foundation.

Do you play any musical instruments?

Unfortunately, no. I tried to master the guitar for a period, but unsuccessfully.

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

I myself only play Vinyl, and have never done otherwise. I never even connected my CD player.

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

The message I get out of it, is “love”, and that appeals to me a lot. Thanks to the lyrics of Bob Marley, but also especially Brigadier Jerry and many others, I delved into and studied history, religion, spirituality, and Rastafari. I call myself a convinced Rasta, but if others call me that I still feel a bit “labelled”.

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

At home I mainly listen to Early Reggae, Rocksteady and Ska. If I’d had to mention one name now, it will be Slim Smith, but that might be because I just acquired a wonderful gem of his. He is known longer, besides that.

Inside of the Netherlands, I am a fan of Rapha Pico and of Lyrical Benjie, both great singers. I also appreciate the band Bagjuice, because they know how to “swing” and “rock’n groove”. I could mention many more, since there is quite some talent in the Netherlands, both singers as bands, and don’t forget the Sound Systems: more and more groups of friends build speakers together, and that’s great.

What is, you think, the effect of the long-lasting “corona crisis” on culture in general, and Reggae in particular?

The Netherlands are right now being ruined and run to a wreck, so also culture suffers. Even: especially culture. What surprises me most is that most people seem to accept all those “covid” measures, and still listen to those (proven) liars at the top. I specifically refer to the Reggae scene, with the same people singing along with Alpha Blondy’s song Apartheid is Nazism in a dancehall, not seeming bothered by the fact that others are not allowed entry into that same dancehall.

I am still optimistic, though, and think that in time things will improve. At one point, the people won’t take it anymore, and will rebel, or organize things for themselves.

Last summer, I could spin/select almost every weekend, in various places. No big festivals, but enjoyable, nonetheless.

Anything else you want to mention?

Cool that you invited me to appear in your blog. One love.

REFLECTION AND COMPARISON

I got to know more about Hobbol Backawall, and notice there are some similarities with my tastes in Reggae, but of course also own accents and differences. He seems to focus - qua tastes - more on the 1960s and (Early) 1970s - including Ska and Rocksteady -, I myself a bit more on the period 1974-1983, though I appreciate some older Rocksteady as well.

Hobbol, as selecta, played/spinned however from various periods, old and new. Indeed, I remember him playing New Roots (Capleton, Sizzla, Tarrus Riley, etcetera), even some (Reggae) “club hits”, alongside older tunes (like Roots). More importantly, the songs he selected were mostly good and groovy. I rocked my body line!

Also similarities with me, in Hobbol’s route toward Rastafari, through Reggae lyrics, along with self-study, seeming gradual and organic, like in my case.

Hobbol got into Reggae around his 13th year (early 1980s), I around my 11th year (since 1985). The Dutch Reggae- and Ska-influenced band Doe Maar – not the “realest”, but nice and adequate - I only got to know years later, but UB40 I knew then. I guess that after Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, I soon got further into the Jamaican “real thing” (Wailing Souls, Gregory Isaacs, Don Carlos, Ijahman, etc.). Only after that I encountered bands like Revelation Time, but I always listened to it openly, not as an uber-critical "Reggae snob".

Apparently, Hobbol made a similar musical journey, with different accents: I did and do not listen very much of Brigadier Jerry or Slim Smith, only a few songs, but mainly because of time constraints.

We also have in common – as selecta’s – that we focus on vinyl, and that we vocalize (toast or sing) over instrumental/dubs. I also use percussion intruments. So, well versatile, haha..

Corona

The “corona policies” have become to me what the jailhouse is in Gregory Isaacs’s song Out Deh, wherein Isaacs sings: “I was tired of the jailhouse, but the jailhouse wasn’t tired of me”. I am tired of them, - it's probably all deceptive nonsense -, but the policies won’t go away, with all those powerful "Babylon" forces behind them. Not easily, anyway.

Hobbol neither agrees with the lockdowns and other corona policies, as he stated openly elsewhere too, doubting like other skeptics - like myself - whether these really have to do with health, or rather with elite “control” or economic gain. He also fears a "medical apartheid" related to the promoted/marketed "vaccines"/gentech injections, to which he referred in one of his answers.

Besides the probably realistic - but depressing - question of who benefits from such a “hyped-up virus” under false pretenses – my educated guess: the 2% wealthiest people of the world – and in what way, these international lockdown-based corona policies since March 2020 were especially negative and detrimental for “culturally active” people. Especially those in "culture" for culture itself, and not for the money.

Those culturally active, after all, love live music, actual parties and gatherings with human company, and “creating/making culture” (music, events, dances etc.). Under the lockdown regimes (with NO proven efficacy against the virus, by the way), live concerts were mostly impossible, or made unpleasant (having to stay seated at Reggae concerts?), for reasons that were a lot, but definitely not based on science or even health/infection risk

Anyway, both Hobbol and I were indeed “culturally active” in the Reggae scene years ago, organizing, or as selecta, and I also as musician performing at times. That all was largely disrupted due to the lockdown policies.

Many of us, though, have found - out of necessity - creative ways to continue - and share! - our passions or express our talents: live shows forbidden or molested by “Babylon”?, then musicians redirect energies toward more studio work - and some to "spectacular", party-like video clips, haha -, sometimes with others, continuing to create and compose. Of course, online deejay/selecta sets “exploded” on the Internet since those lockdowns, also in the Reggae scene, thus continuing selecting/mixing, and somehow interacting with an audience.

Rent-A-Selectah

Hobbol also came with the good idea to operate as a type of mobile selecta, calling it "rent-a-selectah", travelling toward people with turntables and records, for small-scale or private parties, as selecta and “sound”.. a bit closer to the “real thing” – one can say – than another online/Internet set. He also "toasts" on such occasions, sometimes together with others, such as Black Star Foundation associate (and good toaster/chatter) Jahforth.

A good substitution, such "pop-up", mobile sound systems, and perhaps even an added remaining possibility.

Yet, above all, I personally hope that all those nonsensical, non-scientific government restrictions on free culture and human gathering will end as soon as possible, to enjoy “sound systems” - or “live music” by musicians - as they are meant to be enjoyed and lived: totally free, and with your whole body and essence: whether private, small parties or public, big ones with many people, and if desired deep into the night..

In other words: as Reggae parties have always been, up to those lockdowns/curfews. Parties/shows at which I could easily meet people like Hobbol Backawall, and many more bredren and sistren over the years.

Bodiliy integrity: control and autonomy

What really is “bodily integrity”? That is a question I ask myself not only for this post, but it is in fact something I asked myself during a large part of my life, subconsciously, later consciously.

It is a good and necessary question for human beings, consisting in essence of an elaboration of our own innate survival sense (“spirit”, “soul”).

It goes beyond the body, and that is where it gets tricky, and connected with all manmade corruptions and wickedness. Violence, rape and molestation, enslavement, confinement, are all sensed bodily, yet reflect overall power differences, the lack of an “own input” or “say” in it, so to speak, to whatever is done to our body. Therefore to us.

Crucially, in human rights discourses, the “freedom of movement” is often seen as part of this “bodily integrity”, not as a distinct, separate “right”. This makes perfect sense, yet in practice is still separated by higher authorities, with manmade boundaries, and border control. Recently with imposed curfews, supposedly in relation to a pandemic (some say plandemic). Bodily integrity, as long as you don’t move or travel too much or freely..

This corruption and confusion is so strong and even taken for granted to some degree.

As Bob Marley – as so often – put it simply yet eloquently in his lyrics for the song Rebel Music: “Why can’t we roam this open country? Why can’t we be what we want to be? We want to be free..” .

GYPSY IDEAL

There exists something of a “gypsy ideal”. The feel of total disconnect with responsibilities, living by the day, no steady place, while travelling free. As modern societies became sedentary, the echoes of the “nomadic” human forebears, were both feared and missed.

That gipsy romanticism is found in parts of Europe with relatively many actual “Gypsies”, now more known as Roma or Romani. Roma people – most probably originally from North Western India (Rajasthan) – got known as “calé” (from their own language) in Spain. In Western Europe, Spain is the country with historically relatively most Roma (Gypsies) inhabitants, while in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria and Romania have relatively most Roma “gypsies” , and quite some also in some other countries in the Balkan region.

Music and songs made by Gypsies in Spain, and in Eastern Europe, often convey that “nomad” or “gypsy” spirit of freedom and roaming, against confinements and obstacles from the sedentary surroundings (discrimination, limitations, persecutions, etc.).

The genres are different, as many Gypsies are active in South Spanish Flamenco music, which is exactly that: South Spanish music in origin, with different historical influences in that region (inc. Moorish ones, local ones, a.o.), but with later added Gypsy/Roma influences.

Flamenco is thus not “Romani/Gypsy music” as some think, as such, but South Spanish music, later indeed influenced by Romani.. Many Flamenco artists are however Roma/Gypsies, so through this best-known Spanish music genre, Roma/Spanish gypsies certainly contributed to Spanish culture internationally, even its image.

The Romani people of Bulgaria, Rumania, and the Balkan also were influential musically. They mostly, likewise, picked up mixed international influences from other cultures – with their travelling – adding their own style, such as what is known as Tallava in the Balkan countries (Bosnia, Albania a.o.). Due to their nomadic living, the Romani could not preserve fully original instrumental genres of themselves, only some vocal songs, and more general recurring characteristics they add from their culture to other genres found along the way, in music (e.g. hand-clapping) and dancing.. This is noticeable also in Flamenco.

In Europe and the entire Western world, most Romani now also settled/became sedentary, and the “nomadic” lifestyle became essentially outlawed, and strongly discouraged.

Maybe there is some symbolism in the fact that one of the few persons of Romani descent that obtained a high political position was Juscelino Kubischek, the founder of Brazil’s new inland capital Brasilia (his mother was of Czech and Romani descent).

The “freedom of movement” is therefore in itself framed and limited even on a local level, while crossing a national border can in none of these controlled societies be really done unnoticed, only relatively.

Looking at “bodily integrity” as such, there is much more of this systemic corruption slipping in these modern societies. Partly this is connected to medical care, but also to uniform school systems, required presence and obedience.

Also, for adults: going through life without working yet still eating every day, and having a place to rest one’s head, is impossible, unless depending on someone else. Humans are thus forced to participate in this (money-based) system, which of course in itself conjures questions of “bodily integrity”.

In the strictest sense: the right for your body not to be touched, chained, violated, or penetrated by others, without permission, seems in the recent century a bit more accepted by authorities. When you think about it, though, not fully. In judicial and police spheres there are legal exceptions, and in the medical field, with so-called emergencies.

This last aspect I would like to discuss in the remainder of this post, along the way reflecting on the current times.

COVID 19

There is a lyric by another great Reggae artist, Gregory Isaacs, about his time in prison (for gun possession, they say, some say cocaine), a song called Out Deh: “I was tired of the jailhouse, but the jailhouse wasn’t tired of me”..

That is how I feel right now about this lasting, frankly dystopic, “corona/covid 19 crisis”. I came – after careful studying - to the conclusion that it is a hyped-up virus, and that this is about elite economics and control, and not about health. I wrote some songs about it myself, heard insightful and convincing explanations and counterarguments by many intelligent people and true scholars. I also wrote about it before on this blog.

I guess that after this, my saturation point is reached – let’s face it: viruses had sometimes my interest but never was my passion..why would it? I find that theme not that interesting, as a person. I know by now well what there is to know – and what is wrong – about the plandemic. I prefer to look to better alternatives: reviving and retrieving the freedom and culture we lost. To show with my life how freedom and culture are the essence of being human. Despite even opposition, giving the example. After screaming what’s wrong, comes showing what’s right.

I maintain my same stance, however: this “corona crisis” (I prefer to call it “lockdown policy” or “pLandemic”) is about control, not about health. This brings us back to “bodily integrity”.

The quite sudden “urge” to control of authorities was somehow – successfully - camouflaged by the pandemic threat and disease “emergency” thrown into the world. Internationally coordinated policies against this supposed virus threat, included some new policy measures, including “lockdowns”, quite unknown in democratic societies, yet presented as necessary.

They were neither necessary nor effective (against viruses) those “lockdowns”, yet the basic human rights “bodily integrity” and “ freedom of movement” were corrupted again. The Covid 19 virus is not severe enough: now at an Infection Fatality Rate even under the 0,20%, with moreover specific vulnerable groups.. but like I said: this is not about health.

Curfews were unknown in the Netherlands, where I live, since the German Nazi occupation (1940-45), and the curfew imposition reminded citizens in other countries of former dictatorships (of Franco, Mussolini, Ceaucescu, Honecker a.o.) too.

Being punishable when walking out your own front door. Huh, how did that become illegal? Only propaganda and fear-mongering could make this acceptable without mass rebellion (safe in a few countries where authorities dared not to impose mass curfews). Of course a far cry from the “free, nomadic spirit” still somewhere in us humans.

More unacceptable restrictions became acceptable with these ever-expanding or prolonged corona policies, absurdly supported by most people. “Supported” is perhaps often a big word: some people “support” such limitations (having some interested goals, or for ideological reasons), while some “accept” it, like many accept taxation, paying the rent, or having to work: a necessary, inevitable evil. What can you do about it?

It is here where a danger lies. Governments deciding if private businesses can open and at what hours is absurd, but became only accepted because of a fabricated “emergency”, which is actually a hype, as it is a health problem that could be solved, well, medically, without lockdowns, as countless actual medical experts and professors have already said (often more or less censored).

Testing and vaccine requirements (even obligations!) touch most directly “bodily integrity”. Nonsensical (you can only infect others when really sick, vaccine/gene therapy not fully tested, potential side-effects, little effective and – just as important – not urgent or necessary). Nonsensical, and therefore even more violating “bodily integrity” rights.

This bodily integrity is important to keep in mind, as boundaries that are pushed by this plandemic should be pushed back. When you are not sick with symptoms, you should be able to go where and when you want, how you want, uncontrolled: no test or vaccine proof (private matter anyway), no required face-mask, no forced distance when interacting. You know why? Because you are not ill with symptoms, you cannot infect others more than usually. You are no danger or disturbance. You’re just a human being living naturally, further like always of course keeping in mind things like legality, and not bothering/respecting others, etcetera.

We are far from that now in many countries worldwide, during this absurd, totalitarian plandemic.

As could be expected, this extra corona legislation in many countries, provide more excuses for discrimination of specific groups, hitherto “difficult to control”. The mentioned Romani or Gypsies were before (and partly still) one of those “difficult-to-control” groups/minorities. This is – in my opinion – probably one of the goals of the plandemic – controlling the relatively less-controllable, but others may have another analysis or opinion about this.

Culture and free gathering are limited and affected most strongly, and connected “night life”. Curfews in “festive” countries with rich musical cultures like Jamaica, Cuba, or Brazil were very impactful and, well, destructive, and demoralizing. Luckily not fully. Again, accepted because many people do not know the virus is not so severe (comparable to the flu, now). Propaganda worked well. Instilling fear works.

So there it is: people are conditioned, even many in “defiant” countries (with rebellious histories), to (self-)control, with an added “annoying cop” in their heads, judging their own formerly natural behavior, like freely moving about, gathering/socializing, distance when interacting with others.. moving and doing, thus “bodily integrity”. For no good reason: there is no extraordinary emergency in a medical sense.

Just as bad that authorities and big business want this control (for money and power), is the popular acceptance. Not universally, but broadly. Apparently people who get by financially, and do not consider “doing outdoor cultural things” that important for their happiness. They have after all loved ones at home, a tv, and an internet connection, but also people simply “feared and terrorized” accepted it, and “stayed home”.

TRIMMED FOCIBLY

I see a parallel with a recent case in Jamaica, certainly concerning “bodily integrity”. That of a 19-years old Jamaican woman, Nzinga King, recently “trimmed” – i.e. her natural dreadlocks were cut off forcibly in a police station after arrest (for, they say, “disorderly conduct”). There is no good reason for this. It has no justification, rationally or morally.

Yet it was common practice in Jamaican history, in the first decades after the Rastafari movement arose, during the 1930s, following the coronation of Haile Selassie in 1930. Even up to the 1970s. Reggae singer Max Romeo explained that even into the 1970s, Rastafari people with dreadlocks had to “hide” to several degrees in Jamaican society.. At first beards were grown among early Rastas – and some copied Haile Selassie’s Afro-like hairdo - , later (in the course of the 1940s and 1950s) “dreadlocks” became more common, some say in imitation of Kenyan Mau Mau warriors against British colonizers.

Jamaican conservative authorities feared the Rastafari movement for their anticolonial, anti-authority stances. They had own, free communities - and outlawed income sources - the state had difficulty controlling.

HYPED UP

There is the parallel: the danger of Rastafari in Jamaica was: “hyped up”, exaggerated through propaganda, as it disturbed the social order. Like now, a mass hysteria or psychosis of sorts was stimulated around this among common folk too. This narrative was accepted by a part of the conservative Jamaicans (mostly Protestant Christians), more accepting of authority and the (neo-) colonial order.. Some out of conviction, some out of necessity: again: a necessary, inevitable evil for functioning in society..

There was never a real, extraordinary danger from Rastafari people in Jamaica: they were no criminal organization targeting other people. Their outlawed activity was marijuana cultivation: after all a plant being called (unjustly) a “drug”..

Still there was perceived or fabricated “danger”, legitimizing harsh treatment of state forces, against Rastafari groups, often - as elsewhere often too - with some invented pretext or excuse (supposed crime,even rape or murder). This in turn triggered police’s unlawful arrest, physical violence against Rastas, and, yes, the trimming of the dreadlocks, cutting this hair by force.

I consider natural hair as intrinsically part of the body, so that is part of the physical violence against persons, and thus the violating of “bodily integrity”. Likewise, being discriminated for your looks, goes against “freedom of choice”, but also“freedom of movement”: sure, you can walk and move about, just expect to be bothered and insulted. It still tramples that right.

Rastafari gained more and more acceptance in Jamaica over time, especially since Bob Marley’s rise to fame, and the connection of many Rastafari to successfully internationalized Reggae music, as known Jamaican export. Further insights and “civilizing” developments toward human and cultural rights recognition, also made that “forcibly trimming dreadlocks” by now seemed mostly over, and a thing of a grim Jamaican past, up to at most the 1970s.

That explains the just outrage among the Rastafari community in Jamaica (and internationally), as the dreadlocked hair has a “religious” or “spiritual” significance. Even without that “religious” meaning, cutting off someone’s hair (if e.g. too long) for a minor arrest is of course absurd and immoral by itself, but with Rastas extra disrespectful toward their cultural and religious rights.

Some of the fiercer critics of the corona/covid 19 “lockdowns” and measures in countries, call these measures a “war against individual autonomy”, and, relatedly, a “war against culture” (also a name of a song by me), or even “joy” as such. It seems like it, anyway..

The trimming of Rasta’s dreadlocks has unfortunately a longer history –as explained – in Jamaica (and elsewhere in the Caribbean, in Africa, and Latin America), from way before this corona crisis. Also the documentary Bad Friday : Rastafari After Coral Gardens (2011), relating events of violence against Rastas and dreadlocks trimming in 1963, documents this.

The essence is remarkably similar, though: a hyped-up emergency to legitimize violation/abuse of human rights, of bodily integrity, and with the underlying goal to “control” dissident, difficult-to-control groups in society - like once in some countries the Romani/Gypsies, or the Jews for that matter - , not fitting well in the elite’s wider economic plan. Especially a “culturally” (i.e. Afrocentric) dissident group like the Rastafari – in a pro-European, (neo)colonial context - was seen as a nuisance or danger for authorities and their societal control.

CLEVER PLAN

Using “health” and an “infectious disease”, as powers that be/authorities/”Babylon” does now, proved a clever plan for this control goal, perhaps more clever and effective than “public order” or (supposed) “criminality” as was used before to oppress people. Poor people did not like disorder, and even less crime, but could understand, grasp it, as very human and contextual. A virtually unknown, infectious and dangerous/”deadly” virus is another story.

Against this new clever plan of “Babylon”, as the Rastas call the “powers that be” or authorities (including the wealthiest 2% in this world, Bilderberg group, WEF, etcetera), Rastafari should hold firm to its principles of “cultural autonomy”, human and bodily integrity, and “(individual) freedom” against the prevailing, repressive, “streamlining” system. It did so since its start in the 1930s, and inspired even several resistance movements worldwide, alongside other Black Power and Human Rights organization.

On a personal note, as I listened and liked a lot of Roots Reggae lyrics since my teens in the 1980s, and even got into the Rastafari Livity definitely and more fully in 2010 (before that I sympathized), this Rastafari wisdom of rebellion against a powerful system, autonomy, freedom from mental slavery, cultural self-respect, and essential human freedom, helped me to “prepare” for even this totalitarian covid 19 nonsense, Babylon now came with.

“Just the same old Babylon, trying to run things to a wreck”, as summarized well in Richie Spice’s song Righteous Youths, but many Reggae lyrics more or less predicted this totalitarian “Babylon control”, against popular (poor people’s) freedoms and rights. It is in the historical line since conquest, colonialism, enslavement, capitalist exploitation, cultural repression, poor people’s oppression, so common in many countries in the world, mostly started or stimulated by Western powers, and a wealthy few.

That is one way to push those boundaries of violating bodily integrity and freedom back: the Rastafari sense of cultural and human autonomy. Even if it is against all odds, as it is necessary. We should not make acceptable what is not..

That 19 year old Jamaican young woman, Nzinga, whose dreadlocks got trimmed by a police officer, was arrested for disorderly conduct, a minor offence if any, but the initial reason (or excuse) of her arrest was in reality one of those Covid 19 rules: she did not wear a mask (on her own face, without symptoms, masks that besides do not protect well, etc.). It all interrelates..

Apart from this regrettable incident, I fear that – and in fact notice it already – that Rastafari culture will be repressed with “covid measures” as welcome pretexts/excuses” for this. In Jamaica and elsewhere. Apart from just the dreadlocks as symbol, the attack and war on the people and their culture, by outlawing cultural gatherings, concerts - “live” culture let’s say - along with increased censorship in the online context people are relegated to.. All this seems all too welcome for people who do not want Rastafari’s message to be spread too openly and freely among people, as it goes against their interests and power base.

Mental slavery: Garvey and psychoanalysis

“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind..” (Marcus Garvey).

This quote is perhaps best known from Bob Marley’s classic song Redemption Song, a song justly loved by many, poignantly yet soulfully “summarizing” in its lyrics the history of African enslavement. I think that in this case, mainly the lyrics make the song great.

Good messages with simple words were Bob’s strength – as Lee Perry once said of him -, but for Redemption Song, he quoted Marcus Garvey in the above line.

Marcus Garvey, the early Black Power leader and activist, surely focused on this “mental slavery” as self-evident part of his emancipation movement for African people at home and abroad.

Both psychologically and sociologically, there are intriguing ways to look at mental slavery.

OMNIPRESENT

The phenomenon “mental slavery” is in fact omnipresent in our world of unequal human relationships. Anything in the course of our lives when we do something we “have to” instead of “want to” –when we compromise – we become kind of a “mental slave”. Childs have to go to school and focus on school (subjects) since a quite tender age. Preparing for what? Citizenship, society, or just economy?

In time, many get caught in the system of “having to” work several days a week for a boss, simply for sustenance.

Of course, Garvey focused on the emancipation of Black people, and their “mental slavery” (self-deprecation due to the colonial past) relative to the White and other races. I argue, though, that Garvey often referred to deeper and more “universal” meanings, psychologically.

The “colonized mind” of Africans abroad, can even be seen as an aggrandized, extreme example of “mental slavery”, for all races to learn from.

PSYCHOLOGY

While I agree with people who consider this “Eurocentric”, I think that in this case it is at least “educational” to analyze in how far the “big names” in Western psychological studies, like Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, might relate to Garvey’s treatment of an essentially psychological phenomenon (mental slavery). Was Garvey more a Freudian or more a Jungian, for instance? Or, to please the anti-Eurocentrism people: “who of Freud or Jung was more Garvey-ite?”.

Or: showed perhaps Garvey’s life whether Freud, Jung or others were right about human behavior?

FREUD

Sigmund Freud was a Jewish Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst who was of course quite influential. I have studied Freud before, and I personally remained intrigued by some of his known theories, testing whether they are realistic.

The whole line of Freud’s view, that sexual/biological energy is the primal urge behind everything, do I agree with that? I still don’t know, to be honest. Human history seems to reflect this as quite plausible. Substitutes for this primal sexual urge indeed seem to include “wars to conquer”, “destruction”, “subjugation”, addiction, greed, and enslavement.

In my own personal life - and even more of others I know of - , I do not always see a clear “sexual primal urge” underlying everything I do, everything I enjoy, or undertake. Substitutes for that sexual energy, in some way? I am not denying it, but it stretches the mind that e.g. “beating a drum” or “playing a guitar” are redirected sexual energy, while music offers a sensory sensation of its own, sensual, but not merely “sexual”.

Garvey’s large UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) movement in the US (and Americas), the largest up to then among Black people, with millions of members (in the US and Americas).. redirected sexual energy?.. No.. I would say: redirected love energy.. Love toward his people and fellow humans: thus a much broader energy.

Freud also argued that humans are determined by their history (others, like Jung, deem the present more determining, including current life goals).

In Garvey’s case, both Freud and Jung seem right, but also in the case of most human beings, when I think about it. After all: if you don’t know your past, you don’t know your present.

JUNG

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist/psychoanalyst, and I studied his theories too, and like with Freud: I see some things confirmed among humans, some things seem less plausible to me.

Like Freud, also Jung gave Western languages many terms describing simply existing phenomena, which only needed to get a good “name” for them: word power. Inferiority complex, repression, subconscious, “extrovert/introvert”, archetypes, alter-ego, libido, persona, defense mechanism, projection, etcetera.

Jung came with the term “collective unconscious”, as one of the theories in which he differed from Freud. It represents shared, “cultural”, even ancestral, mental concepts in people’s unconscious.

That can somehow be related to Garvey. Marcus Garvey referred a lot to the enslaved ancestors and those before and after, and connected himself to them symbolically, for action today, . In this regard, Jung might have had a point, and is there something like a “shared” subconscious among nations. On the other hand: Garvey had a strong (“Freudian”) individual personality, as I also read in his biography, a bit contradicting that.

Another difference with Freud, is that Jung considered human psyches as teleological: working toward a goal, not just following biological urges, as Freud emphasized. That also seems to fit Garvey’s life and goals (Africa for the Africans, repatriation, African upliftment).

NEO-FREUDIAN SCHOOL

Then there is the “neo-Freudian” school, following up and deviating from Freudian psychological theories. Born Hungarian Alfred Adler was a main representative of this. This school places more emphasis on social relations and less on biological urges, as Freud did. Also, it focuses more on personal creativity and “life style” of humans as social beings, and on the “ego” in relation to others.

Adler argued that humans feel inevitably inferior and aim at superiority, relative to others: Adler more or less coined the now known term “overcompensation”. Relatedly, according to Adler, humans have an inherent “urge for power”.

In Marcus Garvey’s biography titled ‘Negro With a Hat’ by Colin Grant – with much attention to the person Garvey as well -, one might be able to suspect an “urge for power”, “ego”, or overcompensation. In my opinion, though, this does not apply fully, as Garvey seemed more focused on plans and collective goals, than on individual ego plays or individual competition.

In that biography by Grant, much attention is paid to Garvey’s “competitive conflict” with the other influential Black leader in the US at the time (around 1917) W.E.B. Dubois.

Garvey sometimes criticized Dubois’s adaptive, moderate stances as pleasing the White establishment, and found Dubois elitist toward the mass of labourers (Dubois thought that a Talented Tenth among African Americans should lead the other 90%), while Garvey rather sought to speak for these masses. On the other hand: Garvey sought open contact with Dubois, and invited him to his speeches and gatherings. Yet Dubois largely ignored Garvey, and soon ridiculed his influence among the masses as untrustworthy. Garvey felt offended by this, and paid back with interest, lamenting Dubois as too dependent on Whites.

Here, some “ego” aspects become clear (on both sides), as well as a “will/urge for (social) power” .

GESTALT

The later “gestalt therapy” school emphasizes “present human relations” as defining human personalities, rather than past or future goals. The life of Garvey (and others) show a planning for the future, thus contradicting it, although his relations in the presence shaped his directions and own style.

While aiming at democracy and politeness, Garvey dominated strongly his movement with his ambition, powerful speeches, and leadership, hereby even trumping ambitions of others within his movement, “chasing” some former comrades away, so to speak. Unintended mostly, but representing the versatile present, as in the Gestalt theory.

FROMM

Another psychologist is Erich Fromm, a Jewish German, who belonged to the “humanist psychology” school. Fromm pointed at the difference between humanistic and authoritarian ethics. He also analyzed why people made themselves submissive to dictatorships, even as collaborators, relating this to sado-masochism (demeaning codependency).

Though Garvey was accused of a big ego, and personal dominance, his movement the U.N.I.A. , and related endeavors (newspapers, repatriation efforts, economic initiatives a.o.) were relatively accessible for common Black people, even for expressing themselves. Garvey’s dominance can be seen as ego-based, but also as overly enthusiastic, as he mostly wrote and spoke about how to improve the position of all Black people – Africans, within world affairs.

This reflects a bit some theories of Fromm: a human urge for “positive freedom” and “love” to search for sense. Fromm’s rejection of both Socialism (deeming it too rational to be human) or Capitalism (prioritizing external material “things” over own humanity) has some similarities with Garvey’s views. Garvey identified with labourers, yet strived overall more to “own businesses” and economic independence of Black people from other races.. thus expressing their own (internal) worth and “humanity”, instead of following external, cold rational plans (communism) or things (capitalism) as in the main Isms..

GARVEY

Interesting is now whether Marcus Garvey had a perspective that the mentioned known Western psychologists lacked or disregarded, though he was not a psychoanalyst.

I think rather that some aspects of Garvey’s thought are a crucial addition to – or correction of – psychological studies (Freudian, Jungian, or otherwise).

The emphasis of race as physical appearance is one of those aspects, and how it results from colonialism, and the history of slavery. Another one is his more pronounced critique of elites.

Though some of the psychoanalysts I mentioned belonged to a persecuted Jewish minority (Freud, Adler, Fromm), and had to escape Nazism, the hierarchical race-class interjunctions in former slave plantation colonies like Jamaica, Suriname, Haiti, Martinique, Barbados, partly the US and Brazil etcetera, offers new psychological insights.

Whereas Jews like Freud, Adler, or Fromm indeed might have had some experiences with “othering”, discrimination, or dehumanization, in Germany, Austria, or elsewhere, the structural dehumanization through poverty and discrimination of black majorities in a country like Jamaica – ruled by a wealthy minority lighter-skinned elites – and the attempts of deculturalization of Africans, offers added insights into psychological responses, hitherto less explored. Garvey (and other Black power thinkers) explored this.

As part of this, Garvey paid much attention to resulting psychopathological effects among people of African descent. Garvey criticized Black newspapers in the US for having advertisements for skin bleaching, or the lengths other African American organizations, such as W.E.B. Dubois’s NAACP, went through to please White authorities, despite a somewhat comparable activist focus (racial pride, African connection).

So he noted among many Black people a (Neo-)Freudian defined “inferiority complex”. Likewise, the “overcompensation” from the Neo-Freudian school, Garvey noted too, as he lamented some of his race (some even darker than him) in Jamaica, trying to be, for instance, more British than the British themselves, thus denying their own race and cultural heritage..

Also the “Uncle Tom” notion – or as related term “Boasy slave” in Jamaican English/Patois – for an adaptive, overly obedient slave to White masters, stems from the slavery history, and has become common parlance, also of common Black folk, including related terms like “house slaves”.

This “uncle tom” phenomenon has self-evident psychoanalytical connotations and implications that can be found in the theories I discussed (self-deprecation, overcompensation, inferiority complex, repression, ego, split personalities). I argue that it has relevance beyond Black history, namely everywhere where masses are oppressed (ethnicity, politics, poor people, labourers, women, minorities) by powerful elites.

It is here where “mental slavery” gets his historical and sociological meaning, somewhat summarizing this all. It represents a crucial expansion of Western psychoanalytical thought, derived from the African diaspora, but relevant for all mankind. Garvey contributed to that.

SPLIT CONSCIOUSNESS

Psychoanalytical concepts like “inferiority complex”, “repression” apply, but certainly also Fromm’s notion of “authoritarian ethics”, in this case during colonialism and slavery. Though enslaved and forced, there were degrees of collaboration among a part of the enslaved Africans, betraying other (rebellion- or escape-planning) slaves, for some gain. Also, the internalization of European superiority, and therefore one’s own origins’ inferiority, was unfortunately successful among many Afro-Americans, leading to a disdain of much of preserved African culture. This results in another psychological phenomenon: schizophrenia, or “split personalities”, also a theme Freud treated.

Interestingly, Freud saw a split personality or consciousness as a way of avoiding a rupture of the ego, by effecting a division of itself.. It is also seen as a defense mechanism. Surely, also the term “cognitive dissonance” – combining opposing values mentally – is relevant.

Alongside these Western, scholarly psychological explanations, a main “psychotherapy” is found in the beautiful variety of Afro-American cultures that developed over time. Carnivals as parodies by Africans of European culture. Combining song types from colonizing countries, quadrille, English sea chants, Spanish folk styles, with own African influences, gave birth to several music genres, some more “African” sounding than others, but also with various instruments, including European ones, such as the predominant originally Spanish (with Moorish and Persian antecedents) guitar, or e.g. pianos, saxophones, or synths. All resignified with African musical patterns.

Most clear, the lost languages, replaced by Africanized variants of European languages (Creoles), and the lost family names of enslaved Africans, to be replaced by European ‘slave owners’ names, bear in themselves this “split personality” or symbolic schizophrenia.

This can be seen as a main theme throughout Marcus Garvey’s ideas and actions. This shows both from his writing, as from a biography on him. Divisions within himself, and among Black people generally.

DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

This “mental slavery” relates mostly to this “double consciousness” and it is quite ironic that the term ‘double consciousness” among Black people in the US came from a nemesis – or competitor – of Garvey among Black leaders, namely W.E.B. Dubois, coining this term in 1897.

After all, despite their conflict, Garvey and Dubois seemed to agree (in different wordings) on some themes, but also Caribbean thinkers like Paul Gilroy and Frantz Fanon, had theories very similar to Dubois’s “double consciousness”, and so did Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Turé), as part of the Black power movement. And Garvey. They owe this to Garvey at least as much as to Dubois and other thinkers.

Mental slavery refers to “double consciousness”, but so do other of Garvey views and statements. His emphasis on self-knowledge and self-confidence, own organizations and businesses, and to not look up to the White man, were all efforts to make Black people’s consciousness less “double”, or at least more focussed on own pride, you might say.

The “duplicity” in it is however there regarding the framework of European-centered – or modern Western - values: modern industries and technologies, money, and power politics, to which this pride inevitably relates and is bound. There psychoanalytical ideas on the “ego”, “overcompensation”, and an “urge for social power” – all from the Neo-Freudian school (Adler a.o.) – certainly apply.

Marcus Garvey added to this “positive freedom” – present in many cultures, but theorized in the Western world by humanist psychologist Erich Fromm, who opposed it to self-deprecation and sado-masochism under authoritarian (and slavery/colonial?) rule.

RASTAFARI

Rastafari now, take this even further, as the Rastas as a Jamaican scholar said; “used Garvey to go beyond Garvey”. Garvey was by necessity influenced by European culture, growing up in a British colony.

From what is said in Grant’s biography on Garvey, his cultural tastes were partly little known, but included global art (pottery, including European), biographies (including of Europeans like Napoleon Bonaparte), and were discussed by him according to British academic norms. Rastafari partly abandon these colonially inherited norms, seeking African spirituality and natural connection, and cultural expressions (life style, music, festivities). The cultural stage following on an actual freed and independent African people, free from subjugation by other races.

The importance of the Bible within much of Rastafari seems again “split”, especially as some Rastas dismiss African magic- and “spirit of the dead” folk beliefs like in Vodou or Kumina, like also Protestant Churches in Jamaica dismiss these as evil. Ethiopia in Africa being an early Christian country, before much of Europe, however kind of compensates for the colonizers perceived misuse of the Christian religion, and indoctrination.

This in fact exemplifies the past- determined (Freud), present-determined (Gestalt), as future-aimed (Jung, Fromm) psychological explanations. Especially Erich Fromm’s idea that humans psychologically inherently “search for sense”, explaining behaviours, can be related to part of the Rastafari ethos and goals. The sense in this case an African identity of people after all of African descent.

Also it responds to Jung’s idea that humans seek “wholeness” and the “social power and relationships” of the later Neo-Freudian and Gestalt schools. The urge to return to one’s biological/genetic roots/origins, has moreover some Freudian aspects.

Thus, Marcus Garvey’s very life proved them all wrong and right at the same time.

MENTAL SLAVERY TODAY

The analyzed “mental slavery” or “double consciousness” is still a wide phenomenon among people in today’s world, not just Black people, colonially indoctrinated. All people having to work for a boss, part of this surrounding material economic system, are somehow mentally enslaved, ignorantly or cowardly adapting/inconveniencing themselves for survival, as still are women in a largely male-dictated world.

We knew this already, about all this inequality in power structures worldwide, but I argue – finally – that this was not realized enough, questioned enough. We could e.g. have followed Garvey’s example (or Dubois, Fanon a.o.) of mental emancipation and self-determination vis-s-a-vis the wealthy capitalist minority in this world (a few % of billionaires), seeking to exploit the world at the cost of the poorer masses: starting wars, dominating economics, politics and governments.

COVID

The mass submission – or economic war against poor people - was tested over time with upcoming Neoliberalism (“hard profit-driven capitalism” aided by government policy), eventually to result in what even to more and more first gullible and government-friendly citizens, appears to be a covid “plandemic”. Seemingly less to do with actual health problems – the mortality rate and severity of the new strain Covid 19 soon in 2020 dropped to flu levels – than with an elitist aim of economic restructuring at the cost of democracy and human freedoms.

The fact that a prison/penitentiary term like “lockdown” became normal in democratic countries (before this only in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes) for a policy tool, and even accepted sado-masochistically (dixit Erich Fromm) by many common citizens, is worrisome to me, and, well, limits democracy. The psychological Uncle Tom-effect of easily bribable people – from the African Diaspora – is certainly noticeable in these obedient responses to such drastic (and medically unproven!) measures as lockdowns, quarantines, curfews, etcetera.

It moreover showed how the masses became indoctrinated with fear for this new Sars virus, making them collaborate with their own imprisonment end oppression, even long after the truth could be found out. Some obedient or “enslaved” mind-set or confinement keeps them from searching the truth. Garvey has some lessons to teach here.

This coronacrisis was and is maintained largely with instilling fear, effective even if largely irrational. So was slavery, of course: fear of punishment and violence made many slaves obedient, or even cooperative. Equally irrational racist theories of skin color or superior or inferior races, not making any objective sense, aided this then. Now a hyped up flu virus, related to Sars.

Now the same elitist – Rastafari people would say “Babylon” – forces, use fear and violence psychologically for such control and confine functions of annoying or dangerous masses. We must free our own minds first from this.

ATTACK ON CULTURE

Another shocking similarity – making Garvey’s and African Diasporan ideas equally relevant – is the attack/effect on culture of the coronacrisis. Banning gatherings, closing public places and cultural events cannot but limit and halt cultural development. The online replacement is only a meager alternative, leading only to a repetitive stagnation, not “living culture”.

Keeping Africans away from their cultures and own communities was purposefully done to mentally displant and use slaves economically, unhindered. Mental slavery, alright, and the power of the people tamed. Probably also for some economic reset, benefitting a few. Can’t say Garvey never warned us.

Also other psychoanalytical ideas seem confirmed in this crisis, with quite a lot of Freudian, male “phallic” and penetration symbolism (vaccine/injection, intra-nostral/anal testing, possessiveness (no parties with others, but state-sanctioned penetration), punishment, and stimulating primary fears.

The Freudian term "projection" (accusing others what oneself is) is likewise very evidently present in these p(l)andemic policies, largely consisting of powerful people stimulating fear for a virus - and infection through other people - whereas they themselves and their oppressive plans should really be feared.

As Garvey wrote in his 1927 long poem The Tragedy of White Injustice: "Capitalists and money sharks, make life unsafe, like ocean barks.." (quoted in a Wailing Souls song).

Jung’s collective consciousness (culture) and emphasis on relations, and Fromm’s “positive freedom” are sensed more than ever (in absence). Fromm’s idea on “sense seeking” obtained a deviation, though, as what is at conflict now is those that “invent” sense (fearing a disease more than required) as a part of psychosis or cognitive dissonance, and those that search actual sense in a world that confuses and worries them.

FREEING OUR MIND

“None but ourselves can free our mind”, is another intriguing line by Marcus Garvey quoted by Bob Marley in Redemption Song, that sure is confirmed now, with governments all over the world in love or seemingly even hooked on rights-trampling “lockdowns” as policy tools. People have to free themselves from such powers that be (“Babylon”) – corrupted governments - fighting against the people (and their culture), not with them or for them.

A nice way in this freeing of our own mind, is another line in Bob Marley’s Redemption Song, namely “Have no fear of atomic energy, cause none a them can stop the/Jah time”. There is a higher truth of essential humanity and inherent self-worth we all have within us.

Power is an illusion, yet this “positive freedom” (as Fromm called it), or “repatriation” or “sighting Rastafari” as others define it, other forms of spirituality, or even as “finding one’s self and identity”, remains there as a way to give sense, and keep our good senses. In that sense I agree with some of Erich Fromm’s theories.

This sense-giving positive freedom must awaken and reign among people to achieve an eventual freedom from this “mental slavery”, caused by hidden dictates from a wealthy, powerful few, resulting in psychological warfare.

A wealthy few that is – after all – also historically racially privileged.

There is in that sense nothing new under the sun.

Migration is freedom

In reality, it is an example of how we ended up in a strange world: the often problematic and politicized use of “migration”.

Humans, after originating in Africa, roam from the beginning, seeking livelihoods, greener pastures, even adventure and joy, populating the world. Humanity is in that sense interwoven with migration, and with that human “culture”. In an episode of the Migrant Journal, nr. 6, titled Foreign Agents (2019), the author/editor writes in the introduction: “the grounds of culture rely on a capacity to develop local traditions, which are then transmitted not only across social groups, but also across time and space. The very foundations of culture appear inseparable from the logics of migration”.

Of course, separate civilizations developed, urbanization, modernizations, distinct nation states, and hierarchies of power, up to the 21st c.. During this process, “migration” became “framed” as intrusive and disturbing an order. Man kind lost an essential and existential – and original! – freedom. Migration is essentially freedom.

Dutch critic of Neoliberalism, Ewald Engelen, justly argued that in today’s world, movement of “capital” is problematic and detrimental, not movement of “people”.

Yet, it became accepted policy to halt people crossing over to another piece of the earth, while using their natural freedom of movement. Most of this world is after all not an unorganized, small-scale and fragmented “society” through which one can freely roam around – unbound – like a Gypsy or nomad. There are upheld boundaries.

Rhetorics of “national protection” against all things foreign are widely accepted, being in fact an off-spin of warring empires and kingdoms from ancient times, the times of Babylon, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, way before AD.

In modern times, passports, visas, and citizenship cards keep people in control, and essentially bound to nation states. Loss of original human freedom, that many now even take for granted.

The large wealth inequalities in this world, shocked some humans into going back to that original and inherent “migrant” within, that always remained there. Illegal migrations from nearby poorer areas are well-known, such as from Mexico to the US, and from North Africa to Europe.

Not to dwell too much on an abstract level, I will now make it more concrete and topical.

CORONA

The “corona crisis” since Early 2020, in relation to a proclaimed pandemic, showed how we took more freedoms for granted: free migration we gave up already, now with unprecedented “lockdown” policies, which I personally am NOT in favour of, for a variety of reasons (Covid 19 is not severe enough, being a main one), but that’s not the issue here.

The long ago loss of free migration of humans was limiting “where” we go, while recent, enforced, international measures (like obliged facemasks, forced closing of places, keeping distance, gathering bans), deal with “how” we go. Other draconian measures, like travel restrictions and curfews, come closer to that “original loss of free migrating”, impacting on “where we go” , limiting even more and in a detailed manner our freedom of movement.

The Main Stream Media is lost and utterly corrupted in this stage in human history. The uncritical propaganda for the corona policies of mass media, raise suspicion of corruption (mentally or financially). As part of this, even large popular demonstrations against corona policies, lockdowns, curfews, etcetera, are either downplayed or ignored, like in fact all critics or opponents.

In reality, there are worldwide many opponents – and skeptics - of these corona policies, increasing with consciousness, lamenting the loss of freedoms. Justly, in my opinion.

PERSONAL STORIES

I wish to elaborate deeper on the human search for freedom though migration, by discussing personal stories of migration I have encountered – or am connected with. I live in the Netherlands.

I myself am Netherlands-born, and a son of immigrant parents, my father came from Northern Italy, my mother from Southern Spain, via Madrid, both in the 1960s. Both the different countries my parents came from, plus the fact that I was born in the Netherlands, while my family roots lay elsewhere, made it difficult for me to embrace a “national protection” or “national purity” idea. Many Dutch people have less difficulties with that, I noticed.

“The paradox is in the ugliness of vanity”, as singer Vaughn Benjamin from the Reggae band Midnite sang. The ugliness in this case being the judging by “locals” of people on their descent or presence, not their behavior or personality, of treating foreigners – in worst cases – as polluting hindrances. As absurd as it is cold and evil.

To make sense within this evil absurdity, I will discuss a few of the “migrant” stories I heard in my life, mainly from “foreigners” in the Netherlands I know.

One main fallacy, I soon learned, is the simplifying as “one-dimensional” of migrant motivations. Of course, escaping poverty is a main motivation (or sending money to poor families home), but even with that there are nuances. Others, refugees, escape political oppression or persecution in their own country.

SYRIA

One such refugee I know told me a lot about his travelling and “migrations”. He is a young man from Syria, the civil war in which, seemed “eclipsed” in the global news, by everything related to corona/Covid 19. That Syrian civil war has been in fact going on since 2011, so now over a decade there is war in Syria. The war and conflict is still continuing in Syria during the now pandemic policies, though less intensely. This Syrian I know, was accepted as refugee, and obtained the Dutch nationality.

He told me stories of bombing by state forces where “rebels” hid, fearing it, when rebels hid near their building. He told about intense corruption dealing with Syria’s bureaucracy, state control mechanisms, obligated military service, and Syria’s wider political context under the Assad dictatorship.

I understood through him, that for all intents and purposes, Syria is a dictatorship, even in the classic sense. It can be compared to what we heard about Saddam Hoessein’s Iraq, but also harkened back to other known dictatorships: big photos of Assad in the streets and in every school, artists must first praise Assad in their work, before censorship might loosen. Hard to “breathe” in such dictatorships, is what you often hear. Another analogy is of a life “without colours”. Of course worsened with the tensions of civil war.

SPAIN

In fact, I found comparisons with the story of my mother, similarly “escaping” a dictatorship under Franco. The dictatorship with photos of the “leader”, state propaganda, censorship, reducing gathering and demonstrations, seemed to have parallels of the stories of my Syrian friend. One difference being maybe that in Spain “democracy” lost to Franco’s Fascist dictatorship in the period 1939-1975, while the ongoing conflict in Syria is between myriad forces, some of which are pro-democracy, but others not much more democratic than President Assad himself.

My mother was officially a labour migrant. Though not made easy, under Franco’s Spain travelling or migrating out of the country was partly allowed, also to limit the strain on the economy. Spain was then poorer than the Netherlands, surely, and she found a job in the Netherlands, near Haarlem, in 1966.

This was part of the “guest labourers” program, with labour migrants from the wider Mediterranean area, doing work that Dutch, German, Belgian, French, or Swiss people did not want to do anymore.

There’s more to it, though. Having talked a lot with my mother, I found out she was also a kind of a refugee.

“Bullied away” you can say, but anyway, she told me that having to work to contribute supporting her younger siblings and parents, she noted the harsh treatment and exploitation at virtually all workplaces in Spain. She felt treated “like a slave”, she even said to me. This related to the Fascist doctrine of Francoist Spain, where poor people’s “obedience” to bosses and work was promoted, and “Left-wing” democratization discouraged. My mother told me she did not feel “free” in Franco’s Spain: neither at workplaces nor in society as a whole (Spain was then more or less a police state), though with differing intensity (and arbitrariness).

Her migration to the Netherlands, was as much an escape toward wealth, as one toward “freedom”. This is an essential birthright of humans: finding another place, maybe better. Being a good guest when the host treats you good, is likewise natural for most migrants, I argue. Loyalty is however not an obligation, and human dignity comes first. Having crossed a border can never be an excuse for trampling one’s rights, though it has become that.

UNPLANNED

These, and other migrant stories, point at other aspects that are often disregarded in politicized “migration” debates. The haphazard, chaotic, and “unplanned” steps one takes toward eventually migrating to a foreign land. A land of which one does not even know or speak the language, as both was the case of my Syrian friend and my mother.

Many migrants, especially pre-digital ones, did not even know that the Netherlands actually had an own (Germanic) language. Even in European countries like Italy and Spain, some thought that people spoke French or German in the Netherlands. Of course, they found out soon enough about that own language.

INTEGRATION

Also, I learned from migrant stories, the confrontation with the other culture of host countries, in this case the Netherlands, was also multidimensional: haphazard, changing, and contradictory. Of course, some Dutch people likewise criticized immigrants’ behaviours and cultural customs, and still do. My Spanish mother attributed such demeaning remarks about South Europeans (such as the countries of my parents) to Dutch “jealousy” and thus a hidden inferiority complex. That is a way to look at it.

DIFFERENCES

Many irritations uttered about “other cultures” are also “guesses” about human behavior, less recognized from one’s own background. In time they understood or accepted the differences more, I noticed.

The “speaking loud (or fast)” norm among many migrant groups (including Spaniards) in the Netherlands, versus the “speaking soft” norm in the Netherlands, being an example of anecdotal difference. Controlled temper and emotions (Dutch “reserve”), or the Dutch fame for being “Protestantly” economical with money, other differences.

Politeness with strangers is not very common anymore in the Netherlands, causing some cultural misunderstandings. Harsh insults as sarcastic “jokes” are for instance sometimes accepted among close friends in countries like Spain or Italy, but not by strangers just met on the streets, as occurred with Dutch people making harsh (racist?) jokes toward them. Like in Britain and Ireland, Spain and to a lesser degree Italy still have a norm of “public politeness” in social life. The Netherlands is in that sense “freer” and rougher (especially in the cities), but even to that many migrants become accustomed, dealing more with Dutch people.

Often, such traits are both admired and ridiculed concurrently. At the same time, noting them shows a genuine curiosity in people with other cultures. It is no cold detachment or dehumanization. This curiosity is not static, but always continuing and changing. All too human, and as natural as the original human urge to travel.

The interesting thing is that even poor, individual immigrants over time tend to influence local cultures, but organically and voluntary. Cultures with not very developed cuisines (Britain, the Netherlands) enriched their food choices, and for instance Jamaican migrants attributed to British youth culture, and also in part Surinamese migrants in the Netherlands.

Even other migrant groups are influenced by other migrant groups, such as Moroccans in the Netherlands, using Surinamese terms, or in the choice of music genres. There is no force in such processes; it is all voluntary and organic.

Only racist or nationalist ideas, or feelings of cultural superiority or conservatism, make many object to such “multicultural” mixtures and ways. In reality, it innovated and broadened culture and creativity. It increased options for all.

Even without “bigger”, geopolitical contexts, highly individual stories of migrations – often involving simply sense of adventure – migration is not by definition “negative”. Somehow that was put in our heads: migration is a bad thing.

Falling in love, just wanting a change in life, or limited options due to direct family or surroundings, are less “sensational” than heroic stories of “escaping deep poverty”, “escaping war”, or “escaping a dictatorship or repression”. They are still “all too human”. I think they are also legitimate migration reasons for free human beings.

ITALY

The northern Italy, where my father came from, became soon after World War II, more industrialized and wealthier than Spain, where my mother came from. Like in Germany (but less disciplined), Northern Italy experienced a kind of “economic miracle”, after being on the wrong side during the preceding devastating war. Many industries developed, e.g. manufacturing, textile and automobiles. My father even told me that because of this rapid growth, wages in many companies in parts of Northern Italy for low-wage workers, were even higher than in the Netherlands he migrated to. He just migrated for several reasons, partly economic, largely relating to personal circumstances, and including the search for freedom.

There is nothing wrong with that: that is personal freedom.

The crux of the matter is that the now politicized “migration” falsely is depicted as an ‘invasion”, as if it were an invading army “taking over” and imposing its will. An inappropriate and unfounded “war” terminology, especially when dealing with individual poor, virtually powerless immigrants.

REGGAE

Being a Reggae fan for decades now, I more or less specialized in Reggae music, including its lyrics. Relevant to this post, I can mention that “migration” is a theme in Reggae lyrics, but especially with regard to Jamaicans going to wealthier countries like US or Britain.

Also, the Jamaican national hero and intellectual – important for Rastafari adherents – Marcus Garvey, was migrating for various reasons: economic (labour- and poverty-related), political, and personal. It can be seen as part of Garvey’s studying of the wider world, and particularly the downtrodden position of Black people in it.

In Reggae lyrics, other, contemporary migrants are also discussed, including common Jamaicans who went astray, as they got caught up in urban and modern confusion and temptations abroad.

Linton Kwesi Johnson’s classic song Inglan Is A Bitch exemplifies in its autobiographical lyrics adequately the poor Black immigrant labourer’s life – and social position of poor newcomers - in Britain.

Mutabaruka’s Johnny Drughead, and Don Carlos’s Cool Johnny Cool deal with a Jamaican migrating to New York and it going wrong, ending up addicted, or involved in crime.

Also Lutan Fyah’s discusses this “migrants gone astray” theme in the lyrics of Rough A Yard, also as a “cautionary” tale against losing yourself.

This may seem a negative or pessimist take, yet only goes to show that with freedom of course should come responsibility. Freedom without responsibility is dangerous. Responsibility without freedom is slavery.

More positive, in some lyrics, hard-working immigrants are praised.

Success stories are discussed less in Reggae lyrics, beyond the impressive movement Marcus Garvey – against all odds - set up for Black Americans in the US since 1917, pioneering even the Black Power movement as such in the US.

Meanwhile, being a poor and problematic country, many Jamaican artists migrated too, some temporarily (such as Bob Marley to Britain, following a shooting of him), some for good.

POLITICIZED

Over time, many Right-wing politicians raised objections against “free migrations” (especially of poor people with “other” cultures) as disturbing. They used economic and cultural arguments, and some Extreme Right parties even racist arguments. This denies the fact that, as I outlined above, humans are inherently migrants, historically. As natural as walking or breathing, and therefore limiting it, simply infringes on humans’ natural freedoms and rights.

CORONA AGAIN

The “freedom of movement” came under attack again with the current corona policies, and its increased “control focus”. Some opponents even speak of “psychological warfare”, in this regard. This did not lead to a massive global uprising, as many world citizens thought the restrictions had actually to do with a pandemic or health (I myself lost that belief in the course of 2020). I see it as an aim of a world elite to control the world population even more strictly than before, and indeed a psychological warfare.

Curfews, lockdowns, or gathering bans, in essence make that where before you were impeded to “cross national borders” – limiting that freedom -, these stricter corona policies now go further: even impeding leaving your own house (curfews), or limiting what you can do outside of your house, forced to show you are not infected with a flu virus, which is not even that grave or extra infectious.

While “the whole world” did not stand up against this as one (unfortunately, in my opinion), of course there was protest, critique, and opposition to such corona policies.

CONTRADICTORY

Somewhat contradictory in all this was that the formal political opposition was - at least in the Netherlands - not of (most of the formally “Left” parliamentarians), who were remarkably supportive of this elitist new order plan, but more often of Right-wing parties, combining corona policy critique in some cases with anti-immigration stances. This I consider contradictory. Migration is after all freedom, and represents the essence of human freedom: the same essence now trampled upon with these corona policies. Open up the society, but do not let those poor immigrants with other cultures in to be part of it?

A somewhat smaller political party (FVD: Forum for Democracy) in the Netherlands is critical about the corona policies and its negative effects, saying some sensible things in this regard. On the other hand it also pleads to not allow much more “poor” migrants entering in the Netherlands, and for instance proposing to send back Syrian refugees to “safe areas” in Syria (with less war activities).

The biggest and governing Right-wing political party in the Netherlands, the VVD, holds similar (though more diplomatically worded) views, but supports strongly the corona policies and the nonsense of ineffective lockdowns (for whatever reason). At least they are consistent in their attack on and fight against human freedoms and rights. Consistently wrong and immoral.

Also Right-wing presidents like Trump in the US and Bolsonaro in Brazil (both having made some anti-immigration and xenophobic statements), were a bit downplaying regarding the Covid 19 virus, with fewer restrictions on freedoms.

Again contradictory, also because those Right-wing policies do the same as what in my opinion is fundamentally wrong with this “lockdownism” of international corona policies: it “dehumanizes” people, reducing them to soulless – potentially annoying - “numbers” or “factors” that can be manipulated without consent or involvement. Without respecting their freedoms, fundamental rights and desires, their humanity, physical integrity, and birthright to self-determination.

Some things the mentioned Syrian friend of mine also told me can bring this point home.

When I mentioned that idea of some Dutch politicians of having Syrians return to “safe“ parts of Syria, he responded that “if I could return to live among my people and family there, I would”. Politicians not knowing actual situations in countries, and like so often (and now with the corona policies) reducing individuals to abstract, one-dimensional factors to be controlled, not as complex persons with complex stories.

Even more significant was therefore another thing this Syrian friend said to me, as we were facing more and more absurdly strict “anti-corona” measures in the Netherlands: besides the patronizing facemasks and “1,5 m distance between persons rule”, these included a ban on groups over 2 or 3 people, and there was even a curfew, where Dutch citizens could not leave their own house between 21:00 and 04:30, as in more countries around the world. Meanwhile demonstrations were roughly disbanded, and dictatorial methods like censorship became more common in Dutch mainstream press, especially against anti-corona policy voices.

In response to this police state-like measures, my Syrian friend said: “I exactly left Syria because of these kind of things, for a free country like the Netherlands. Now it’s here in the Netherlands too..”

Nuff said.