Reggae music lovers (in the Netherlands): Mystic Tammy

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 11 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. For my blog post of September 2021 I interviewed again a "bloke" (fun way to say" "man") selecta Hobbol Backawall.

MYSTIC TAMMY

This time, I interview a woman again, namely a female selecta/selectress (deejay) residing in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, called Mystic Tammy. Besides selecta, she is also a Reggae-oriented radio host for Razo (a local Amsterdam SE station), under the title Mystic Royal Selections. She is known as Mystic Tammy, and her real name is Tamara Wijngaarde.

I personally know her from the Reggae scene since around 2012, as Reggae selecta in some Reggae-minded clubs, or concert venues, in Amsterdam and around, such as Café the Zen, or at other events and locations in the country. I tended to like her selections. I noticed how she made quite a name for herself, also as a radio host for Razo Amsterdam (https://razoamsterdam.nl/), interviewing many local artists, and also several internationally known (Jamaican) Reggae artists like Bushman, by phone live during broadcast. Lately, her show was Sundays starting at 15:00 CET, meaning that it was (6 hours earlier) in Jamaica, often in the morning, but I remember nice and informative interviews with Bushman, Nature Ellis, and many other well-known artists on her show, as well as with local, Netherlands-based artists, like Samora and Zed I, in the studio. Her (after all: online) show seems to have an international audience.

Kind of true to her "nickname" or "moniker" Mystic, I did not know that much more of her, though on occasion she spoke quite openly with me. Still some mysteries about Tammy are left to unfold, also for me, haha. That's why I asked her the questions underneath, as she responded them, also in person with me in an open conversation. We met among other things in the Reggae-minded (duh!) bar named Jamaica Lounge in Amsterdam (West).

(Photo above: me (L.) with Mystic Tammy)

QUESTIONS

Where were you born, and did you grow up?

In Suriname, born in 1975. Grew up in the Netherlands, from around my 4th year. Lived in different places in the Netherlands: a.o. Lelystad, Groningen, Purmerend, the South, before now (last 10 years) in Amsterdam..

In Groningen (North Netherlands) I lived around 17 years.

Since what age did/do you listen Reggae music?

I first heard Reggae as a child, because my father had quite some records, incl. some Lovers Rock Reggae.. He gave me a cassette of Prince and UB40, which was played at my house, incl. Dennis Brown, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley at times.. More often as genre I heard the Surinamese genre Kaseko, growing up.

At home also a lot of Gospel, as my parents were active Christians for the Evangelische Broeder Gemeente - EBG - (Moravian Brethren), a Protestant Church (of German origin) historically adhered to among Creoles in Surinam, and they were quite religious. So Gospel, and other Black music too, like Soul, Motown.. Further, even some Dutch "crooners" like André Hazes were played, haha.. So quite varied.. With that music I grew up.

When I was grounded as punishment to my room at home, I listened also secretly to alternative “pirate” radio stations..

As I got older, I also started listening to House music more. For some reason I chose that.. I don’t even feel any shame for it, haha.

Alongside this, though, Reggae, I always kept in mind, as I appreciated the messages in Reggae, and the “tranquility” it somehow gave me. It always stayed with me, even during that House period.

As I was a teenager, Early Dancehall (Reggae) was in vogue, and I chose to listen to that too: Shabba Ranks and others, such as that found on those Strictly The Best compilation albums, my father had. I encountered that in my high school period: I started smoking weed then too, so that Reggae was connected to it.

What attracted you to Reggae then?

As said, the messages, and tranquility I found in Reggae.. Life lessons too, as girl/young woman growing up.

More or less from my 23th year of age, I got more into Reggae, after an uncle of my gave – or left - me a lot of Reggae records (vinyl). I delved into it, and in Groningen then (I lived there 17 years), went to Reggae concerts and parties, incl. in Oosterpoort and elsewhere.. Also played as vinyl deejay in bars. From then on I played mostly Roots Reggae, as from that vinyl collection inherited from my uncle: LKJ, Ijahman Levi, Dennis Brown, Israel Vibration, Desmond Dekker, and many more.

Through this scene, I got into contact with people from the Forward Sound Movement – a Reggae sound system - in Groningen. Steely from Round Beat HiFi approached me first as I was Selecting/deejaying, and got me into the Groningen-based Forward Sound Movement, training me further in Reggae “selecting” (from vinyl).

As deejay, they called me Mystic Tammy.. That moniker with “Mystic” came from that time in the Forward Roots Movement: they called me that, don’t know exactly why: maybe they thought I was kind of mysterious, as I indeed can be.. Or because of the type of songs I played/selected..

We continued with the Groningen-based dj/selecta collective Forward Sound Movement (sometimes cooperating with Jah Sound), with other dj’s like Fabulous D, Jah Jenco, Peacemaker, and Broer Hazekamp. In places/bars in Groningen, but also played at Reggae Sundance in 2005 (South Netherlands), but even travelled internationally to Germany, Tyrol, and got even mentioned in the Riddim magazine. We saw a lot.

This was all when I lived in Groningen: I only live now in Amsterdam since about 10 years (since around 2012).

Have your musical preferences changed, since then?

Now I am mostly a Roots Reggae lover, but like to listen Motown music too, quite a lot.

Also, I am really into Afrobeat now, some nice female artists in in it!

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

Roots Reggae mostly, only once so often Digital Dancehall.. I tried to play Dancehall as selecta early on, as part of the Forward Sound Movement, but we concluded it was too “slack” (sexually explicit/violent).. I stuck then to my Roots Reggae, and was glad to: gave me more tranquility. The positive message is also important for me: reason why I focus on the chorus with the main message: mixing Reggae also like this (from Chorus to other Chorus lyrics on riddims), to get the message across..

Messages are after all important for me, and I don’t want to play slackness.

Within Reggae, it is hard for me to say whether I am more a fan of some artists than of others. I enjoyed the Burning Spear concert, and I love Roots concerts, but really am not selective as fan.. Reggae is so broad. Sometimes I listen more to that artist, other times to others..

There are some songs, though, that are important, for me personally.. An example is: I Am That I Am by Peter Tosh, or Pick Myself Up by Peter Tosh.

There was also a period that I listened a lot to Lucky Dube, but at a given moment it made my kind of sad, because of its heaviness. It all depends on my phase or mood, I guess..

Since when are you a radio host?

I am a radio host since about 10 years, started at Razo (local South East Amsterdam radio station) around 2012.. I like it there: I can do my thing..

Actually, I started out with Esta Selecta, taking me under her wings. Kind of..because she wanted to make me into another Esta Selecta, but I wanted to become more “Tammy”, do my own thing, and could do that at the Razo station.

Recently I try to put variety in my shows, Roots, but occasionally also Dancehall. Since I am host, I get a lot of music sent, digitally, from (local and Jamaican) artists who want their music to be played in my show. I keep most of it, but I really have to like it, “feel” something with it, to play it on my show. Some don’t like that, but it’s my show.

Do you have a (format) preference for Vinyl or digital/cd? As selecta/dj or listener.

I started out as said as a vinyl deejay/selecta, involving a lot of carrying and lifting of boxes with records .. With my back problems, digital formats became easier: all music on a USB stick.. I still prefer the sound of vinyl, though: it makes the sound more real, even if slightly “scratchy”..

Do you play musical instruments, or are you in other ways active musically?

I play some percussion and sing sometimes. I have three djembe’s of different sizes, I play them sometimes on music at home. I would love to learn to play the bass guitar too, do more with guitar playing.

Did you have any special experiences or encounters in the course of time (with artists or producers)?

Several.. One very special one was with Burning Spear, at Reggae Sundance (festival near Eindhoven, Netherlands) in 2005, - before the “selfie” and smartphone age -, but very memorable.. Just being there, reasoning with such a great artist. Turbulence I met also there. I had many special and memorable meetings with artists, such as with Bushman. Backstage contact is sometimes difficult, because more people want attention of that same artist..

Very nice was also my meeting of Junior Kelly during a concert he did with Jahbar I in P60 (Amstelveen), not long ago in 2019: he was very kind and open..

I met the artiste Jah Mason in Jamaica, also very special: seeing how he was really active with farming. Saw a nice show in Ocho Rios (Jamaican North coast) of Iba Mahr and others, Twelve Tribe people were there, Lutan Fyah came there, and other artists. So we were with them.

Does the Rastafari message in much Reggae appeal to you? How does this relate to your background, and views?

My parents and family belonged, as already mentioned, to the EBG (Moravian Brethren) , a Protestant Christian Church, and were quite religious. I had to go to Sunday school, was in a church choir.. Yet, I have always been a rebel.. at one point I did not want to go anymore to that Sunday school.

In time, when I grew my dreadlocks, my parents were at first “not amused”, I becoming kind of a “black sheep”, but they accepted it over time, we worked it out, and I now have good bond with my parents.. They do their thing, I do mine..

I do not really present myself just as Rasta, even though they call me that.. I am just Tamara.. I try to do/enact “my own way” of Livity within Rastafari, progressing well in that sense..

I am mostly looking at the “pureness” of myself as person. However, I certainly feel there is more to all this materiality, more between heaven and earth. Some kind of divinity within us..

Most of all, I believe in “eternal love”..

How do you judge/evaluate the present-day position of women within the Reggae scene?

As a woman I do find it kind of hard.. I encountered a lot of prejudice and negative assumptions, such as the presumption that I only reached some positions or achieve things by “opening my legs” to some men. I don’t like that judgmental attitude. Accept people as they are, and let people do their own thing, I would say.

In the Forward Sound Movement back then, I was the only female deejay/selecta, but that was a fun time with oneness among us..

In the course of the years, however, I certainly fought my way through all this machismo.. if I wanted to stop, I would have stopped a 10.000 times. I just fought on and hung in there. Sometimes you need to be “tough” too and firmly defend yourself.

As a woman (deejay), men tend to “expect” more of you, want something or start flirting. When you don’t go along or refuse, they even call you arrogant or bitchy.

In my mailbox, I even get certain sexual ”pictures” or “wishes”.. Of course, I block these then..

Despite the number of female deejays/selecta’s having increased in recent times, we still have it hard in this world.. Women still have to be firm and stand their ground in this business.

Also the number of Reggae artistes have increased, recently, like Queen Ifrica, Black Omolo, and Lila Ike is blossoming now. Furthermore, here are also icons like Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths, still performing.

I do not think Reggae is worse in this male bias/machismo than other genres, though.

What Reggae artists do you listen to now, any specific artists? Any new “discoveries” you would like to mention?

I kept up to date with all Reggae developments, and appreciate the “new school” of New Roots (Chronixx, Richie Spice, Etana, etc.), and artists playing on Reggae Jam and other festivals, such as Nkulee Dube, but even an artist like Mavado I got to appreciate more..

With regard to “new” Reggae artists I think some are good and somewhat underrated, such as Mortimer, Stranjah Miller, Jahbar I, Micah Shemaiah is also very good, and Samory I. Also, Etana – although not really “new” anymore – does good things. Yeza, a good female artist who sang with Sizzla, is also worthy of mention.

REFLECTION AND COMPARISON

This was a very informative interview for me, and indeed some mysteries were "resolved" about Mystic Tammy - Tamara -, at least for me.

Interesting how the "route to Reggae" could differ somewhat between the different people I interviewed for this blog section (Reggae lovers in the Netherlands) over the years, from parents to siblings, or in other cases, via friends or media, and the relationship to other music genres around them when growing up. Reggae has gone international and has spread widely, but some heard it already at their parental house.

Some parents were religious, such as Tammy's, influencing music played (e.g. Gospel) or the ease of acceptance of Rastafari encountered in life.

As some other female interviewees already mentioned: it is not always easy for a woman in a male-dominated music industry, as selecta, or otherwise, though they also found support. Moreover, I personally doubt whether the Reggae scene is more male-biased or macho than other music genre scenes, including Western pop, or genres like Country, where certain roles are expected from women, when they are accepted as equal at all. So that is a wider problem. Mystic Tammy did point out that it still is kind of a struggle, also within the Reggae scene, with challenges and botherations men might meet less.

As a child I liked Stevie Wonder, not long before I got into Reggae in my Early Teens, so that is some "Motown" similarity with what Tammy mentioned. My parents were loosely, socialist-minded "free" Catholics, and Italian and Spanish, so I did not hear much "religious" music (Gospel, church songs) at my house, but more "Latin" music. Other interviewees heard yet other music first (and even lacked a "Caribbean region" background, like Tammy, and other interviewed before) - or listen still alternately to other music too (Punk, Rock, African, Soul, Pop, Hip Hop, even House) - to differing degrees -, but we all ended up in beautiful and varied Reggae music, haha. Each with, as is natural, own personal preferences within it. I share with Tammy, and with other interviewees, a preference for Roots Reggae, from artists like Burning Spear, as well as for New Roots (Iba Mahr, Samory I, Lutan Fyah, a.o.).

The Netherlands is a relatively small country - if densely populated and wealthy -, but strange enough I was not fully aware that the city of Groningen (w. around 200.000 inhabitants), in the North of the Netherlands, also had an active Reggae scene, by the 1990s, just like Amsterdam has, with various selecta's/deejay's and sound systems.. but why wouldn't it? International reggae artists often performed also in Groningen's Oosterpoort venue regularly, after all.

All in all, very insightful!

Bongo: an etymological journey

I admit: I like to play with language. I even am intrigued by the intricacies, the history and adaptability of different languages. It’s not the same, but this attitude helps when you want to study different languages: you stay interested, even through boring and technical (grammar) parts. Language has for me, though, to be connected to history, and actual meaning, since history and culture interest me even more. Language as such is the result and instrument of history and culture, you can say.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Basic anthropology lessons also taught me that there is a direct link between language and culture, in the history of mankind. Not everyone might be aware of that. One notable fact is that the use of “double meanings” or “metaphor” through language, is how culture – and cultural differences – took shape. A conscious linguistic creation, or “word power”, less so the other way around (first culture then words?).

POSSIBILITY AND REFLECTION

Because of all this I always was interested in etymology: the origins of certain terms or words, in the own or other languages, the historical origins and changes. “What’s in a name?”, Shakespeare wrote. He meant of course that in itself is not “truth”.. good to remember. Words are certainly not necessarily “truth” , I even argue that words conceal more “truth” than they reveal. What words always are, however: possibility, as well as reflections. Also in light of its role in cultural formation.

BONGO

From this last angle (possibility and reflection), I am going to focus in the remainder of this post on the etymology of a word I studied, with relevance for my personal interests and passions: the word “bongo”.

For this blog I wrote a lot about Cuban and Jamaican music, as well as other interests of mine, such as Africa, and international developments. Of course I discussed already on some posts the Afro-Cuban musical instrument, the drum the Bongos, more correctly in Cuban Spanish, the singular: Bongó (for both attached drums). That might be internationally the best known meaning of Bongo, among most people.

Yet there’s more to it.

DRUMS

Bongó as term for the small attached drums appeared in the mountainous East of Cuba, the regions of Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba, first around the Late 19th c.. Local music forms, such as the Son Changüí and the Son, used initially a combination of instruments, including guitars, a thumb piano as bass (marimbula), shakers, and the bongo drums. Earliest drums called “bongó” go back to the late 19th c., and were called “del monte” (from the hills).

A bit later, as Son developed (from Changüí, around Santiago de Cuba), the Bongó changed somewhat in playing style (small drum on other site, tuning pegs). This adapted “son” form of Bongó travelled later to Havana (and beyond).

(Photo above: a photo I took of a local (Son-style) Bongó player in Los Dos Abuelos, a patio-based music club in Santiago de Cuba.)

There is a strong Congo/Central African influence among the Afro-Cubans in Eastern Cuba, and the instrument the Bongó (as well as the marimbula) shows this Bantu influence (open bottoms, e.g.). Also the name, according to some historians. Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz traces it back to a few words in the Bantu and Congo area in Africa, such as “Mgombo”, simply meaning drum, but probably mixed with other words meaning something like “cultural”.

Ortiz also noted that similar early "bongó-like" drums had another name in the province Holguín, in the NE of Cuba (and North of Guantanamo and Santiago), namely "Tahona". This sounds more European than bongó, and indeed the province Holguín is ethnically much more "Whiter" than Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, as I also noticed when I once travelled from Holguín to friends in Santiago de Cuba. Incidentally, I also passed by Birán in Holguín where Fidel Castro (indeed also a White Cuban) came from. His Galician (N-Spain)-born father had a plantation there, employing a.o. Haitians. But I digress, haha.

Historian Farris-Thompson concluded that the African origins of slaves in the Americas did differ from region to region, but that the “Congo” area united them almost all, as slaves from Central Africa were relatively widespread throughout the whole Americas. Indeed, culturally it left legacies in various countries and folk traditions. From Argentina to the US South.

Relatively much in Cuba and Brazil (where an estimated 40% of the enslaved Africans were from Congo/Central Africa). Interestingly, historians points at some difference between these once Iberian colonies, as to Brazil went more slaves from the Angola area, and to Cuba more from what is now DR Congo.

Yet, in several colonies “Congo” or “Bantu” slaves made up quite a percentage among the Africans. In Jamaica, about 20%.

JAMAICA

In Jamaican speech, especially the local Creole (Patois) or variants of Jamaican English, the word “bongo” is used regularly, and not just for drums.

Bongo is used for drums in Jamaica too, to be sure, not even always the mentioned Cuban drums, but often as a colloquial term for all drums, even if more correctly having own names (conga, kete, djembe, etc.). Culturally more intriguing is its other uses in Jamaica, notably among some spiritual movements, including the Rastafari. While vague, it is deeply cultural.

In Jamaican speech a “bongo” is even a word for, simply, a “black man” or a “dark-skinned African” ("backra" is then white man, "coolie" an East Indian), but goes beyond appearance. Among the Rastafari, “Bongo” is a kind of honorary title for an elder: someone with a long, founding history among the Rastas, keeping the culture alive. A term of “authenticity”, you might say. Rastafari elders (older men) - or other "key" tradition keepers, are thus often called “Bongo”, as in Bongo Joe, Bongo Jerry, or Bongo Herman (a well-known Reggae percussionist). Often there is a link with their drumming (Nyabinghi or otherwise).

An intriguing use, also because of how Jamaican historians define it, such as in the Dictionary of Jamaican English (ed. By F.G. Cassidy and R.B. Le Page). “Bongo” or also “bungo”’s original meaning, also in some Bantu languages (around Cameroon and Congo) partly “country bumpkin”, is asserted in this dictionary. Actually, they mention a non-Bantu language, N-Nigerian Hausa where “bongo” is used for “country bumpkin”. Thus somewhat derogatory as “backward” peasants, named as such by more urban, modernized people, in some parts of Africa.

This odd mix of uses, further mixed with the inferiority complex due to Jamaica’s colonial past, as “bongo” was often used derogatory for “country” people, but also for someone looking very Black or African, thereby upholding European, rather than own beauty standards.

This makes the positive use and meanings among the Rastafari adherents of “Bongo” – i.e. a true, “cultural” Rastaman, a wise elder, cultural safeguard of tradition -, rebellious and assertive. A proud reaffirmation of the African cultural heritage. Language, - here the term “Bongo” -, as “possibility” or “word power”.

KUMINA

There is another spiritual tradition in Jamaica, though, where Bongo is used, one of largely African (Congo) origin: Kumina. Kumina is especially found in Eastern Jamaica, the mountainous parish of St Thomas and around. It originated among Africans of mainly Congo origin, becoming in time a bit more pan-African, with references to Yoruba, Igbo, or Akan cultures, also present among African slaves. The main cosmology and vocabulary of Kumina remained Congo/Bantu, however. Spirit possession dances, aimed at ancestors passing knowledge, or on “healing”, form core rituals whereby good drumming and chants – with even remnants of the Congo language – invoke the right spirits. This relates to chants and drum patterns.

Well now, these Kumina-initiated families get the title ‘Bongo’. So also honorary as name/title in that sense, with special “safeguarding” functions in the Kumina tradition.

In the collective volume ‘Chanting down Babylon: the Rastafari reader’ (several authors, ed. by N.s. Murrell, W.D. Spencer, and A.A. McFarlane, 1998), authors point out that in fact Rastafari was partly influenced by Kumina, as early Rastas knew about Kumina and had connections with them. In percussion there is a direct influence, such as through known percussionists like Count Ossie, said to be connected to Kumina. The “heartbeat” rhythm of the big drums in Congo-based Kumina influenced Rastafari Nyabinghi drum patterns, though somewhat simplified and slowed when compared to Kumina.

In the above volume, the term “bongo” is mostly used when referring to Kumina terminology, but thus with an influence on Rastafari. Kumina has a longer history (19th c., while Rastafari as such since the 1930s).

SPIRITUAL

The term Bongó in Eastern Cuba for the drums, seemed more practical, though not meaningless. It might on some level denote “African” as Bongo in Jamaican colloquial speech, distinguishing it from other instruments from other continents (Spanish/Canarian guitars, notably) in Cuban Son music, while partly also meaning, simply: drum.

Interestingly, originally the Bongó in earliest forms of Son and Changüí were called “bongó de monte” (bongo from the hills/mountains), referring to a rural origin, and the rural reference the term Bongo has in some African languages.

While many well-known early Bongo players in Cuba, also after it spread to Havana, had links with Afro-Cuban spirituality and faiths (Santería, Abakuá, or Palo), the Bongos themselves became part of popular music, first in the rural East.

When the Son genre moved to Western Cuba, the White colonial establishment at first discouraged and even forbade such “African” drums – yet in time, the Bongos joined the increased acceptance of Afro-Cuban music, later also internationally, finding a way in US-developed Salsa and other Latin genres, as may be more known.

The “spiritual” got somewhere in the back behind amusement, it seems, in the Cuban case, but not lost. Several of the early pioneers of Bongo playing in Cuba incorporated Afro-Cuban spiritual drumming aspects (from e.g. Yoruba-based Santería), but translated them for popular music. It therefore cannot be separated fully.

In Jamaica, the very word “Bongo” came to mean both “earthly” as “spiritual”. This fitted with the “natural livity” part of the Rastafari faith. Spirit possession was accepted less, due to the Christian influence on Rastafari, but some aspects of Kumina and similar African traditions found a way – as said - in Rastafari. The relationship between drumming and “spirituality” (healing, community) is shown more abstractly in Nyabinghi sessions, where often the word “bongo” is used too, though the drums have own names (kete, fundeh, repeater), from yet other (Akan) African traditions. So, like in Cuba, there were (reworked) pan-African influences at play.

BANTU

The connection to specifically the Bantu-speaking area and the Congo region of the word “Bongo” was never questioned, though. The term’s early appearance in Eastern Cuba and Kumina confirm that Congo origin, even beyond the superficial fact that the word just “sounds” Bantu: such as more words, like the “mb” and “ng” combination, but that is no guarantee.

Some words with “ng” or “mb” sound and are Bantu/Congo in origin, also in the African diaspora (“mambo” in Cuban music, “makamba” for White man in Curaçao, some even say "tango"), but more African language groups have e.g. the “ng” sound (from the Kwa and Mande languages), or even have “bongo”-like words that have another origin. Just coincidence, as in some Mande-languages (Guinea area), “kongo” means “hunger”, but has nothing to do with the river or territory in Central Africa.

It is true, though, that “ng” and “mb” are common sounds in several Bantu languages, and many retained African words in Caribbean creole languages with “mb” and “ng” are indeed of Bantu/Congo origin , also in Jamaican and other English-based creoles (“gunga” for pea, for instance).

Also the word “Kaya” (for marijuana/weed) in Jamaican patois, known from the Bob Marley & Wailers album and song, is of Congo/Bantu origin, meaning something like “ leaves” or “plants”. This is significant as Africans of Congo region origin tended in several parts of the Americas be relatively knowledgeable about “healing plants” or herbs, probably due to the(rain) forested character of the Congo basin of their African roots. Slaves from the Guinea are came from more Savanna or steppe/Sahel environments, and those from Southern Nigeria, Ghana etc. somewhere in between (partly forested too, savannah’s).

In Jamaica, therefore, the term “Bongo” is at times also used for a natural healer through plants, often at the same time an authentic Rasta man. Also, colloquially, I heard the mentioning of “Bongo” locks, apparently in reference to specific, thick dreadlocks on a Rasta man. So the term “Bongo” has gotten quite some use in Jamaican speech. A broad use, as well: used to refer to drums, as well as “a black man/African” or “Rasta man”.

This translates in several Reggae lyrics of course: by Bob Marley and many others, often in combination with Natty (Bongo Natty).

This use is also found in other English Creole languages, such as in Trinidad.

In Cuba, the term Bongó refers mostly – also in lyrics – to the well-known instrument (other terms exist to denote very Black or African people), although a similar word is found for another drum, in the Abakuá tradition: the Bonkó Enchemiya. This drum is a lot longer (and more conical) than the bongo drums – sounds therefore deeper -, but the name (as general term for “drum) might be related, the Abakuá tradition in Cuba stemming mostly from the Calabar region (border area Nigeria/Cameroun), close to Bantu-speaking areas.

NAMES IN AFRICA

“Bongo”, thus, refers to Africa, but how concretely? The name of drums in Bantu languages (even if adapted), okay, but also ethnically and geographically?

In fact, there are several geographic or ethnographic names of “Bongo” in Africa, in different countries. Sometimes a town and region, in N-Ghana, Ivory Coast, Angola, or a mountain range (CAR), and even a people in South Sudan, called the Bongo, speaking – you guessed it -the Bongo language. Again, this can be coincidence.

Studies are as yet inconclusive, so it is hard to prove a direct link between, say, the provincial town Bongo (or Mbongo, but so pronounced) in Angola – unfortunately a main “ slave source” for especially the Portuguese and Dutch. It is probable, anyway.

Bongo, a town and region in the far NE of Ghana - or the Bongo commune in SE Ivory Coast - could maybe have influenced its use in Jamaica, where many Akan/Ghanaian slaves ended up, though the enslaved Akan came from more to the South in Ghana, and had a different language family.

Even the remaining possible origins are less improbable than one would think: stories and legends can travel far away between peoples, so possibly also about the Bongo people, related to Sudanic-speaking people like the Sara and Dinka, in South Sudan and Uganda, but not far from the DR Congo. Their culture is clearly African, and drum-rich.

Sadly, the Bongo are as a culture and nation presently “endangered”.

Likewise, a Pygmy-related people in Gabon is also called Bongo, and are surrounded by Bantu. Bongo in Gabon are known as “forest people”, and speak the Bantu languages of their neighbours. They are also knowns as BaBongo, but the Ba-prefix means “people” in Bantu, similar to BaKongo.

Fittingly, the BaBongo have a percussion-rich culture, and extra remarkable for this post, know instruments comparable to those known traditionally in Cuba, such as a clay jug blown within (a wind instrument), a lamellophone (like the marímbula in Cuba) and a friction instrument similar but lower than the Brazilian cuica (also rubbed from within the drum, as the cuica), similar in sound to one known historically among Afro-Cubans of Congo descent and in Palo, as well as to the Ekue in Abakuá.

Thus, while descending from original “pre-Bantu” pygmy Africans – and not known whether some of them were enslaved and brought to the West, like their Bantu neighbours (not impossible), the Babongo culture surely is part of the Bantu cultural complex, also influential in Eastern Cuba.

Further possible links, are the common ancestor name Mbongo in the oral tradition in (Bantu) Cameroon Sawa peoples, as well as a toponym in northern inland DR Congo.

If these are direct links is unsure, the ones about the Mbongo town in central Angola (Huambo), or the ancestor name in Cameroon, seem somewhat more plausible, but regardless, the fact that the term Bongo recurs as name throughout Central Africa is telling. It is a very African word in sound, haha.

Not surprisingly, the surname or family name “Bongo” or very similar ones (like Mbongo) are common in some African countries as well (Angola, DR Congo,Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon a.o.).

AFRICAN LANGUAGES

Looking at linguistic use, apart from names, it becomes even more doubtful. There it is much more coincidence in certain cases, and maybe some historical/language family connection in other cases.

The Bongo people in South Sudan call themselves that, with “Bongo” meaning simply “people” or “men”. They speak a Sudanic – not a Bantu language.

Regarding the latter, that “bongo” means in Swahili – a widespread language mixing Bantu and Arab – “the brain”, is interesting. Again: an eventual link with the African Diaspora in the West is hard to tell, however, though not impossible. The new Tanzanian music genre Bongo Flava – actually a mix of local and international influences - is named after this, as Dar Es Salaam urban residents are known as “clever”, and the city as Ubongo: “brainland”. Some outside Tanzania call even the country as a whole (U)bongo, all from the Swahili for “brain”. Ubongo or Bongo thus became a kind of nickname among some for Tanzania.

A link with drumming seems not apparent. Among the Yoruba people of SW Nigeria/Benin, also influential culturally through enslavement in Cuba, in music the “head” is associated with bell sounds, not drums. The latter represent “bodies”, perhaps due to the skin. The Bongó was, on the other hand, used musically as time-keeper in early Son in Eastern Cuba (the counting head?).

In a relevant Bantu language, Lingala (DR Congo) , “bongo” means “exact”, which also raises questions, since Lingala is spoken in areas of Congo where many slaves came from.

Perhaps relatedly, the meaning of “Bongo” in the Zulu language (a southern Bantu language) is "that’s it”.

ANTELOPE

Finally, there is another known meaning of Bongo, even internationally, also prominent in Wikipedia, but here not mentioned yet. “Bongo” is the name for an animal, an African antelope (in Central, West, and parts of East Africa). Again, this can be a coincidence, but the name came supposedly from the Kele language in Gabon, a Bantu language.

A possible quite indirect link is with the fact that antelope skin was and is used for drums in surrounding African cultures, but also skin of other animals. I have played an antelope-skinned drum once (the Kpanlogo drum from Ghana is an example), but these are thinner - with a softer sound - than those used for Bongos. For bongos the skin was originally calf or goat, donkey, later water buffalo (German bongo manufacturer Meinl uses buffalo skin, for instance), producing a different (harder) sound than possible with antelope skin.

So at most there is just an indirect link with e.g. the Cuban bongó.

Even if these were mainly indirect links - but still links! - with the African Diaspora uses, the common, widespread use of the “bongo” term in Africa, makes it as term distinctly and typically African, and thereby proving the point of its use in Cuba, Jamaica, or elsewhere. Asserting an own cultural identity, through word power.

At the same time, it reflects the struggle against colonial indoctrination as well as historical – and current! – Eurocentric ideological and technological dominance.

Long Walk To Freedom

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

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE

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

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

ANACHRONISM

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

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

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

KNOWLEDGE GAPS

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

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

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

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

NAZISM

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

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

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

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

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

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

FIGHT AGAINST APARTHEID

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

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

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

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

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

HUMANITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

ROBBEN ISLAND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

STRATEGY

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

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

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

FINAL PART

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FINAL REFLECTIONS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Cajón and its spread

The “cajón” is by now a well-known and internationally spread percussion instrument. Meaning “(big) box” in Spanish, the wooden box that is sat on while played, has its origins in Peru, among coastal Afro-Peruvians, the presence of boxes related to port activities, and taking on a “drum function”. Early records from around 1850 mentioned them already.

Eventually, its design came to consist of a round hole in the back, for resonance. The types of woods for the surface came to be mostly rosewood for the playing surface, and a light spruce wood for the case: making it portable, and the different types of wood interacting adds to the tonality.

From then on, in Peru, the interesting journey begun.. to quote from a Eric B & Rakim song sample (on Paid In Full): “this is a journey into sound”.

The cajón’s short, staccato plywood sound apparently added sonic aspects beyond mere “drum copying”. In the early stages, among Afro-Peruvians, the cajón patterns followed more the Central African “straight rhythm” patterns, including call-and-response. The differing sounds (rim, higher, centre, bass, and hand use) enabled different tones.

Yet, it’s wooden, somewhat “shuffling” sound lent itself to more options too: more “around the beat” and “swinging”, as common in other traditions in Africa, like Senegambia/Guinee , but also in the Islamic world, South Europe, and the Middle East.

TRAVELLING INSTRUMENTS

More instruments have interesting “travelling stories” that are worth knowing: it teaches us a lot about certain historical epochs and conditions, power relations, inequalities, etcetera. The mouth-organ/harmonica is of – hear this – German origin, reaching the US through German migrants, getting somehow in contact with African Americans, the latter liking its portability and relative cheapness.. and possibilities. Result: the common role of the harmonica in Blues.

The common drum kit (snare, bass, cymbals) in Western pop originated as such in New Orleans, the acoustic guitar (with Persian/Moorish antecedents) in southern Spain, the cymbals in China, the Conga and Bongos in Cuba (with Central African antecedents), the saxophone was invented by a Belgian, as many may know, etcetera etcetera, and all these instruments spead internationally.

What is interesting about these migrations of instruments throughout the world, and from culture to culture, I think, is the reason why they migrate in that particular manner, and to specific genres. Do they fit better? Other cultural connections?

This is in fact a common, recurring theme in this blog of mine. I discussed how the originally Afro-Cuban “guiro” scraper became commonly used in Jamaican Reggae music. Afro-Cuban Congas ended up in even mainstream Jazz, Funk, and Soul in the US, for instance.

As mentioned, the harmonica/mouth-organ travelled historically from Germany to the US From fanfare-like (South) German traditional music, to something very different: the African American Blues.

SPAIN

The first international spread of the Afro-Peruvian “cajón” was different: namely to Spain, Peru’s erstwhile colonizer. This was through Flamenco artist Paco De Lucía, encountering and becoming enchanted by the cajón box, when in Peru in the 1970s. De Lucía said he almost immediately noticed, when played along with the guitar, that it fitted very well with Spanish Flamenco, and better than other percussion.

This was due to the sound. The plywood/rosewood, staccato sound resembled the hand-clapping and “zapateo” (foot-tapping) in the Flamenco tradition, in fact sounding somewhat in-between clapping and zapateo/foot-tapping.

Again the “shuffling” plays a role here, relating to the North-African “swinging”, meandering rhythmic structure influencing Flamenco. This is echoed also in, for instance, the Darbuka playing style in the Middle East and North Africa, and other (string) instruments: “around/toward” the beats, rather than straight on them (the latter more common more to the “polyrhythmic” south in Africa).

Hide drums like congas, bongos, or djembes do less allow that shuffle, and offer more “rounded”, full sounds. Congas and bongos were and are used sometimes in Flamenco, but the cajón became much more successful, even to the point of being “incorporated” regularly. It took partly over the beating of rhythms for each Flamenco type on the guitar, and clapping/foot tapping, or combined with it. Its very sonic characteristics explain this suitability.

Paco De Lucía’s percussionist, the Brazilian Rubem Dantas, incorporated the cajón by the mid-1970s, and from then it spread within wider Spanish Flamenco, with thus origins in a former colony of Spain, among people of African descent. Some ironies perhaps here, but also a nice, open influence between different cultures.

By now the cajón has been fully incorporated, almost normalized, within Flamenco music.

In Spain, the instrument was adapted: strings were attached to the back for more resonance and a louder, “buzz” sound, being in part a Moorish influence, and other details also were changed. A distinct “flamenco cajón” type – with strings tied behind the surface - thus developed.

This route from Peru to Spain, and other parts of Europe, is only one of the journeys of the cajón, though.

CUBA

Cajones – wooden boxes - , once used for transport of goods, repurposed to be drummed (and sat) on are not unique to Peru. Similar cajones arose in Cuban port cities like Havana and Matanzas, when the Rumba music genre developed among Afro-Cubans, in the later 19th c.. “Rumba” itself was born from different influences from Africa and Afro-Cuban culture, including from drumming from the Congo region, from Yoruba patterns, and from the music from the Abakua secret societies, with origins among Efik people in the Cameroun/Nigerian frontier Calabar region in Africa. These influences translated to a percussion-dominated, call-and-response-based secular style known as Rumba in and around Havana and Matanzas in Western Cuba and beyond.

Well now, historically, early urban Rumba in cities like Havana and Matanzas was played on wooden boxes, cajones, reportedly once used to import “bacalao” (cod, codfish) into Cuba. These had different sizes and functions, in threefold – an African retention. The biggest boxes had a bass function – like the later Tumba or Salidor conga, a middle one (Conga), and the higher pitched a “quinto” function, like later well-known Conga drums (called Tumbadoras in Cuba) similarly would come in 3 sizes and functions.

In more rural areas of Cuba, “regular” hide drums like the Makuta (of Congo/Bantu origin) – a precursor to the later tumbadora or conga – tended to be used earlier in Rumba. The Rumba de cajón survived longer in port cities like Havana, but later also replaced mostly by what we know as Conga drums (called “Tumbadoras” in Cuba).

There are still some Rumba groups in Havana using the cajón as part of their sets, often with conga drums, and other percussion instruments (bells, shekere).

The Cuban cajón is of wood, but is in shape more toward a conga, and is usually played between the knees, rather than sat on, as the Peruvian one.

The history of these Cuban cajones seem to have no direct relation to the Afro-Peruvian cajones, logistically that is, though culturally they can be seen as “cousins”. Though once both Spanish colonies, the route from Peru’s Pacific coast to the northern Caribbean port of Havana was far from direct or easy: the Panama canal still had to be built.

CONGO

Apart from the Spanish colonial connection, the cajones in Peru and Cuba do share an African cultural connection too, though, such as in Congo/Bantu African patterns, and some other African retentions as well.

Origins of enslaved Africans in the West could differ somewhat from colony to colony, but the “Congo” origins are quite evenly spread, connecting this African diaspora largely musically. Therefore, Cuban-based Salsa, and Cuban Son, Rumba, and Brazilian Samba have musically in part evident Central African “Congo” origins, but to somewhat smaller degrees also Afro-Peruvian, Dominican, Haitian, Colombian, Curaçaoan, and Jamaican music genres. This Congo influence was noticeable also in the earliest playing styles of the cajón by Africans in Peru, in the 19th c.: straight rhythms, call-and-response, etcetera, etcetera.

So saying: ”the cajón as instrument originated in Peru” is in itself true, but too simple. A separate origin was there for other cajones in Cuba, and elsewhere in Latin America.

In Afro-Cuban Rumba, as mostly among Afro-Peruvians, the style of playing was more on straight rhythms and involving call-and-response – like a set of hand drums or conga’s. This was altered later toward a more “swinging”, meandering playing style, adapted to guitar-dominated Flamenco in Spain.

FLAMENCO

Nonetheless, compared to most other European music genres, South Spanish Flamenco is still relatively “rhythmic”, also in light of the structural place of basic rhythms for each Flamenco style, hand-clapping, tapping on the guitar, and the castanets used in Spanish traditional music (and some forms of Flamenco too).

Furthermore, the guitar playing style in Flamenco is relatively percussive. In time, Afro-Cuban influences came back to Spain via travelers, bringing the Guaracha and other Cuban rhythms, influencing a new type of Flamenco, called somewhat mistakenly (Flamenco) Rumba (another genre), but in reference to Cuban rhythmic influences. Some music historians – such as Robert Farris Thompson – point at earlier rhythmic influences; Moorish/North African ones, but also of Black Africans in Seville, being there since Moorish times, around the 10th c. AD (initially as slaves), influencing Flamenco’s rhythmic “syncopation”, after all quite unusual in European music.

Into all these Flamenco traditions, the cajón fitted very well.

REASONS

Therefore, one can say that the cajón has also an interesting, international history behind it. Some relate the origins, by the way, to the forbidding of hand drums – for fear of rebellion – by colonial authorities, and that the boxes at ports became replacements. There were such prohibitions in Spanish colonies from time to time, and even after it, such as in 1915 in Cuba, when public African drum use was for a period forbidden. Cuba was then semi-independent under US control (Spain lost the Spanish-American war in 1898, and with it Cuba as colony to the US), but Eurocentric repression continued regularly, both by Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon authorities. Some racist policies similar to US Southern states even reached Cuba then, including racial segregation, though with differing intensity, and proving less applicable in the more mixed context of Hispanic Cuba.

Colonial prohibitions of African hand drums thus play a role in the cajón boxes developing – also in Peru -, historians point out, but also convenience, arising after all in port cities where cargo and many boxes arrived. Besides: the drumming on boxes - as alternative to hand drums - would neither please the authorities very much, while the exploiting bosses wanted the workers to work, I imagine, ha ha.

Actual hand drums of animal skin, required certain skills to manufacture, explaining why hand drums (eventually resulting in what we know as Conga’s) entered Cuban Rumba first in rural areas, whereas urban port areas as Havana wooden boxes were used longer in Rumba, before replaced by animal-hide drums.

COMPARABLE INSTRUMENTS

Always interesting is to ask how unique the cajón as instrument is, and are there similar – if not identical – instruments.

Square drums one can sit on have been known historically, sometimes as large frame drums, even in Ancient Egypt, and in Africa. Mostly, though, drums tended to be round, and even the square ones developing had animal skin as surface, rather than wood. The Gumbeh drum in Ghana and Sierra Leone – and among Maroons in Jamaica, and elsewhere in the Caribbean – is sat on, like the cajón – and with some playing similarities (using also the heel of the foot, to mute), but sounds different.

Drumming and percussion in sub-Saharan Africa – even of wooden instruments, like the Krin or Ekwe log drum – tend to be sharper and rounder, fitting polyrhythmic functions. The wooden Spanish castanets also sound sharper and different. In playing style, Guinee-area Africa and North Africa, and in the Middle East have some instruments with sonically similar “shuffling” and “swinging” characteristics, in relation to dominant string instruments in Islamic-influenced cultures. The bendir frame drum (with an attached string on the back, like with the Flamenco cajón), common in North Africa, such as among the original Berber/Imazigh population – shares a ‘buzz” feel in the sound with that cajón, as in some sense the way the Darbuka is played in the Islamic world.

CONCLUSION

All in all, also the originally Afro-Peruvian Cajón has an intriguing history, revealing different rhythmic traditions within Latin America, Africa, and the Mediterranean basin, and cultural influences.

Its suitability for these different types of rhythms made the cajón over time internationally popular, and widely used in various genres, even in Western pop or rock here and there, in India, in Brazilian music, in Blues and Jazz, but most – as explained – in Spanish Flamenco, wherein it interestingly gained a solid place.

Yet, having heard the original string-less Afro-Peruvian cajón’s dry beats, I must admit that I – being a percussionist - like this “dry” sound, slighty different from the later “rounder” Conga drum sounds, but comparable in sharp poignancy, that I like in polyrhythmic African-based “straight rhythm” music. From “dry” and groovy in Peru, the cajón became more “fluid” in Flamenco, but that also has an unique appeal, and embellished many Flamenco songs.

How a wooden box became culture.. More beautiful even: became a way of creative resistance of the oppressed, through culture.

In addition, of course, also an early example of “recycling”..

China: culture or politics?

China is now considered a global power.

Global powers are – indeed – global in impact, with economic power influencing virtually the whole world. One can argue that the whole concept has historical precedents, only in different forms and reach, from Mesopotamia, Babylon, to Egypt, Rome and its empire, Arab conquests, and European colonialism. More recently, the USSR and US. Powers absorbing and conquering others, with a disproportional impact on world affairs.

GLASS

China has historically always been powerful, but also rather isolationist in a sense. The famed Chinese wall being a symbol of that. Its economic power of yesteryear did a period compete with the Western world, until one invention/discovery by the West: crystal or glass. This in turn allowed development of telescopes, glasses for people, chemical reactions, and also e.g. electronics, based on glass. It gave the West a competitive edge over China, also a technological one, that it long has maintained.

The influence of China was culturally dominant in a large part of East Asia (incl. Japan), but remained seemingly inward-looking. There still was in history “expansionism” too, though, throughout the different imperial periods of China.

The competitive edge of the West over China since, simply said “glass”, could only recently be questioned, in modern (post-imperial) times: the Chinese republic was followed by a Communist state, that with some setbacks, in a ruthless manner, became a world power.

MAO

Mao Zedong epitomized that in the early stage, being a fascinating figure all in all. Contrary to popular myth, it was not Adolf Hitler who had one testicle/ball: it was another dictator who liked killing: namely Mao Zedong. It was never reported in Hitler's medical reports, so not the case, but probably a joke about a cruel dictator somehow overcompensating for having only one testicle.

In a sense this still applies, as Mao was certainly cruel and murderous in ruling, although his ideals seemed on paper more humane and positive: social equality versus Germanic superiority. Besides lacking one testicle, Mao was also relatively tall for a Chinese person, by the way, enabling more psychological theorizing.

CORPORATISM

The effect, anyway, the centralist Chinese state – mixing Marxist ideas with ingrained Chinese Confucian and Taoist (albeit adapted to the regime’s benefits and goals) values of obedience and family – became powerful. In time it incorporated capitalism and modernity with this centralist state approach. In reality, this shared remarkable similarities with Mussolini’s Fascism, started in Italy in the 1920s.

Probably as a way to end stifling “class struggle” in Italy, Mussolini made “corporatism” an important building stone of Fascist state rule: big capital (commercial companies) aligning with the state in controlling the masses/people. A first step toward totalitarianism, that in Italian society back then could be largely, but not fully implemented – though Il Duce Mussolini and his Fascist clique might have wanted that – due to the unorganized and “loose” structures of Latin/Catholic culture, characterizing Italy then.

It was attempted, though. My Italian father – born in the 1930s, once told me that he started going to school as a child during the last years of Mussolini’s rule (internal strive already started develop, and WW II in process), and had to give the Fascist greeting in a strict Italian school setting. This stopped with democracy after 1945.

TOTALITARIANISM

Hitler and the Nazi’s were more successful in establishing a “full” totalitarian state in Nazi Germany – influenced by Italian Fascism. Hitler named Mussolini as one of his inspirers. From school curricula, to local councils: the Nazi doctrine was supposed to shape all Germans mentally. Fascist corporatism mixed with racial and racist ideas of Northern Germanic, Aryan superiority, with partly roots in colonialism and separate sources, such as old German resentments and despise of Jews and Gypsies, or even the ridicule of neighbouring European peoples like Slavs, Celts, and Latins.

Especially the anti-Semitism became vicious, as is known, as well as the anti-gypsy policies, resulting in a mass genocide by Nazi Germany of especially Jews and Gypsies (Roma) in their occupied territories, as is widely known.

Such aspects of supposed cultural (or racial) superiority are historically recurring of course, with differing degrees of “totalitarianism”. It also recurs in China, especially today.

China’s Communism turned totalitarian/corporatist, some say, a “surveillance state”, adapted to modern technology (cameras, computer technology), but to repress and control the masses, and keep the central state power as absolute as possible, and obedience intact. Like in Nazi Germany, this totalitarianism was and is now “successfully” applied. The supposed superiority is now based on an ideology.

The cases of repressed culture in Tibet and the Uygurs (and other minorities in China), however, show that a Han Chinese sense of (ethnic) superiority is also there, despite ideological rhetorics.

CULTURE AND POLITICS

This lends itself to some interesting reflections on the relationship between culture and politics. The recent corona “pandemic” crisis showed this contradiction on a global scale. Not all people realized or saw this, since many were fooled into thinking it was actually a dangerous pandemic, and not – what it actually was – a “pLandemic”.

Some saw in those corona policies a type of global communism, China-style. Despite an obvious Chinese connection – the Wuhan lab - I consider it more capitalist-totalitarian and Western (in light of the WEF, Gates, and Fauci, being involved), and moreover: China is neither really Communist, but rather capitalist-totalitarian.

Culture in the end is stronger than politics, though it can be repressed. I experienced first- hand how Communism was applied in Cuba, in the Caribbean. A totalitarian control, including “snitching” on a neighbourhood level , seemed even to work there. Yet, there was also a way to get around it.

I do not know whether the latter is the case in China too: ways to get around it, flexibility in practice. The culture of obedience is supposedly much stronger there, although Cuba’s history of colonialism and slavery might have shaped such a passivity, albeit partly.

The “social credit” system in China, results from a cynical use of modern computer and internet technology, to control the masses’ behavior. It fights against all individuality, or individual deviance.

INDIVIDUALISM

This is a difference with Cuban communism. Some Protestants say that “individualism” arose with the Reformation: when Christians could read and interpret the Bible themselves, before it not allowed by the Catholic Church.

That is too simplistic. The creative ways of expressing one’s individuality have always existed, and even been the norm, within Catholic contexts, even if espoused otherwise.

Even during slavery in the Caribbean, Africans found ways to maintain their culture, even when not allowed. Spanish colonizers in Cuba allowed some cultural organizations for Africans, but even outside of that, more covert, African culture lived on.

The rich and varied musical legacy of Cuba is a testimony to this free spirit.

CONTROL

This “escaping state control” seems harder now in the computer and Internet age, and indeed China has a tradition of collectivism and popular obedience to authorities. At least, that is what is said.

This is only relative, and can only be, in my opinion. This is because I argue that culture is stronger than politics, even if the latter is aided by modern technology. People want love, enjoyment, relaxation, fulfillment, be pleased, and fun. Everywhere.

That “collectivist” sense in parts of Asia is in part an urge for “harmony” and security within a community, citizens may find relaxing or pleasing when knowing no better. It relates according to some to Confucian and Taoist ideas, - called “wu wei” – ingrained in Chinese culture, emphasizing from some perspective “inaction”, “passivity”, respect for elders, and “detachment of desires”.. but this is of course terribly simplified..

I think the Chinese Communist Party, however, only brought tension among most Chinese with their “social control” policies. Just like I have not encountered one Cuban in Cuba who liked to be controlled. Some went along with it, or even “snitched” to authorities, because their job or livelihood depended on it, but no one really wanted such a system. Let alone the culturally oppressed and repressed Tibetans, and other minorities (including religious ones) in China, or – I contend – most Chinese citizens.

Also, the Communist regime (Derg) that, in 1975, overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia, and with that ended the ancient monarchy in Ethiopia, was no mass improvement. It substituted a – perhaps - archaic institution (an absolute monarch), that at least did not interfere with people’s lives, replacing it with Marxist totalitarian control over citizen’s lives at Ethiopian local levels. Even the Communist promise of education, social equality, and economic improvement in Ethiopia proved in balance not beneficial: more and larger famines were reported in Ethiopia after 1975 than during Selassie’s reign, and ethnic and other strives and conflicts (latently there) only increased with this stronger, interfering Communist state. Even with some benefits (e.g., food provision, egalitarian measures), common Ethiopian citizens did not want too much “top down” state control, and preferred to live their life and culture in their own way.

FREEDOM

Despite appearances, I think that what applies to Cuba and Ethiopia, also is the case for most Chinese citizens, though many may be hesitant to admit it. This admitting and self-realization takes time. Just like some only after about two years came to realize that “lockdowns” (also before this a common policy tool in China, by the way), and that entire corona policy, might not be appropriate in free, democratic societies, for such a relatively mild virus, and that some other goals may hide behind it.

Freedom and independence seeking values may be more in the culture of Cubans (Afro- and Hispanic-) or Ethiopians historically, but are somewhere within most Chinese too, I contend. Also within most Europeans/North Americans, even if too many let themselves so passively be deceived by the corona plandemic hype, and accompanying fear-mongering. The search for freedom is, simply, too universal and human to be repressed long. In the end, I opine, people will want to break free.

In that sense, the recent “total lockdown” (in April 2022) of the city of Shanghai, because of a few corona cases, is the peak of absurd totalitarian wickedness. Millions of people in this big city were forcibly locked down in their own house, strictly limited in their movements, by the state and its forces. This is Fascism, even more than Communism.

It also is – in another sense – capitalism. State capitalism or corporatism, one can also call it. Shanghai is a crucial economic hub in China and the world, and the world’s biggest port. People with a flu (virus) might not work so hard, or at all temporarily, and slave masters want their slaves - exploited labourers - after all to be healthy, but not free..

Freedom is a road, seldom travelled by the multitude.. But it should.. (and that rhymes, ha!).

COLLECTIVISM

The cultural aspect of “collectivist” values in China, comes more to the fore when one considers the “capitalist” parts of China: Taiwan, Hong Kong, known for big manufacturing industries. “Made in Taiwan” has become economic cliché.

Someone I know well, a woman from the Philippines, settled later in the Netherlands with a Dutch citizen. She met him in a Taiwanese company (based in the Netherlands), that she already worked for in Taiwan, relating about harsh, “modern slavery” conditions: not allowed to leave a terrain, rough manners, extreme demands, no longer accepted (formally) in Western companies. The blatant disregard and lack of consideration for individual labourers/workers could be related to Chinese culture (collectivistic) – and its lack of democratic tradition -, she found, also differing from the Philippines. Her Netherlands partner, she met in the Taiwanese company based in the Netherlands, I know well too, and he told me how he was truly shocked by the bad manners and demeaning treatment he received, provoking in him so much anger, that he found it hard to control himself against the rude bosses, but contained himself, needing the job and income then.

This disregard and lack of respect for individual needs is thus found in both Chinese communist (China) and capitalist contexts (Taiwan, Hong Kong). A collectivistic culture of obedience, characterizing China historically, to a large degree might explain it. Still, there is more to it, I argue.

MATERIALISM

These "isms” (communism, capitalism) are ideological, yet also materialistic. In fact, “materialism” is the overriding category of both.

The “egalitarian” goals of Marxism and Chinese communists by Mao Zedong c.s. seem more humane, that the “profit maximalizing” exploiting capitalism represents. Both deny, however, individuality. Their materialism also denies true “spirituality” which in a sense is related to individuality.

Mao Zedong said to the Dalai Lama in the 1950s (when the Chinese started to conquer Tibet more) “religion is poison”. Tibet was then extremely religious – Buddhist -, with many religious festivals, and structures, determining the whole society, with a large proportion of the male population e.g. being trained for Buddhist “monks”.

Was it really just “religion” though - an institute and ideology -, and not just as much spirituality - a culture -, guiding Tibetan life and culture, that Chinese government forces sought to repress or destroy since the later 1950s? About 85 days of a year were up to then taken up by various religious festivals in Tibet, of an own Buddhist nature, before the Chinese communist take-over. These were all then banned by the atheist Chinese government.

DEHUMANIZATION

It is here that the “culture versus politics” question becomes more complex.

Common labourers at the bottom of societies suffer in all isms. Fascism, capitalism, and communism.

I structure my values partly by sincere, eye-opening conversations I had during my life with close ones, apart from own experiences of course (and reading good works). My mother (growing up under the Franco regime in Spain, a more or less Fascist regime) told me several times, often sadly, that she felt she was only meant to be a “slave” working - under harsh, demeaning conditions - as labourer in Francoist Spain, for bosses who were generally Franco supporters, reaching positions often through nepotism. Little freedom or respect for individual rights there, especially for the poor and powerless.

An ex-girlfriend of mine in Cuba, living then under Castroist Communism, said – also sadly – something similar: “they treat me like a slave”, with much compulsory extra work, e.g. agricultural harvesting in rural Cuba, as part of the national plan economy, also for people already working as teachers with a degree, as she did. Added to usual working hours, and compulsory. Often even uncompensated (perhaps some food items). She being mainly of African descent, made her use of the term “slave” extra painful, in light of Castro’s Cuba propaganda of “improving the position of Afro-Cubans”. In what way, improving?

All those materialist “isms” disrespect individuality, the own human “spirit”, which expresses itself in culture, replaced by a cold, dehumanizing view on humans, needing to fit in an unnatural and unequal economic ideology. As I sing in one of my songs: “ideology is not humanity”.

One can argue, thus, that historical “collectivist” and “obedience” cultural values of “harmony” in Chinese culture, have been hardened and “coldened” by these dehumanizing “isms”.

The totalitarian regime now in place in China, therefore has ironically ideological similarities with Western elites, such as those joined in the World Economic Forum, and the wealthiest 2% in all Western countries, the Rockefellers, Bill Gates etcetera, often family fortunes going back generations with large capitalist enterprises, or even to colonialism, as the origin of “multinationals” (e.g. Shell) goes back to colonial times. That the father of founder of the “club of wealthiest people” in this world, the WEF, the German Klaus Schwab, was an influential active member of the Nazi party is telling in itself.

Marxism, in theory, countered that capitalist exploitation, but within the same collectivist, materialist value system. It’s all about the money, still.

This same dehumanizing value system oddly suddenly “normalized” totalitarian, undemocratic policies, earlier practiced in China, also in Western nations, during that Covid “plandemic” since 2020. Lockdowns, curfews (in some countries last imposed under Nazi rule!), non-working (obligatory!) face masks, even obligatory “vaccination”/MRNA injection in some countries, unconstitutional yet structural discrimination of unvaccinated, etcetera.. all attacking and damaging free culture, medical freedom, bodily integrity, gathering, and small businesses, in other words: individual humanity.

The unholy, unhappy “social credit” system for citizens, in practice for some time now in a large part of China, treating citizens like children or even animals, is even experimented with – to degrees – now in some parts of Europe: Bologna and Rome in Italy, Bavaria in Germany. A cheap shot, maybe, but also countries with Fascist/Nazi pasts.

However, I am quite sure that the free individual spirit, indestructibly inherent in humans, will eventually want to break free from this, to return to “free culture” and “free spirituality”. There and everywhere.

The shocking footage I saw recently of people locked up in their apartments above sinister empty streets in Shanghai under state-enforced “covid” lockdown (for a relatively mild flu virus) – almost like animals in stables in industrial farms -, and the desperate screaming I heard from the houses, exemplifies this struggle, and this dehumanizing injustice.

It also should be a warning sign for most reasonable and decent people in this world: this dehumanizing totalitarianism is not what we want (anymore), nowhere in the world.