Rastafari and psychology

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

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

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

HUTTON AND MURRELL

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

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

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

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

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

GARVEY

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

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

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

FREUD, JUNG, FROMM, ADLER, & LACAN

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

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

DRIVING FORCE

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

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

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

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

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

RELEVANCE?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BLACK PSYCHOLOGY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GENDER RELATIONS

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

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

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

LIVITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CONCLUSION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Europe underdeveloped Africa

In an earlier post from 2016, I already discussed a work by Guyanese scholar Walter Rodney, notably his The Groundings With My Brothers (1969). In this book he combined a Black Power and a Marxist perspective, and drew connections with the also rebellious Rastafari movement in Jamaica. He worked in Jamaica at the UWI (University of the West Indies), but came in conflict with Jamaican authorities.

I chose in that post to highlight what he wrote about the African continent and its culture, because I could connect that to other works about music and culture I read, in line with my activities as percussion player. My focus was cultural. True, more joyous a theme, than usually politics or economics: culture we “want”, economy we “must”, I always say.. Though I notice “political animals” among humans exist, who actually enjoy political games and their study and analysis: I am not one of those. Still I think it’s good to study such “cold” themes (colonialism, politics, economics), to understand the current world I live in too.

The best-known work of Walter Rodney has indeed a more political-economical theme, which he wrote a few years later than Groundings With My Brothers, when living in Africa, working as scholar in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (the scholar and Black Power activist Rodney had an eventful life, eventually returning to Guyana, where he was murdered by state forces in 1980): this book was ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, first published in 1972, and I recently could read it. You guessed it: this post is more or less my review and opinion about it.

First and foremost, I conclude that How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was a “good read” (I like Rodney’s clear, attractive, at the same time somewhat humorous writing style), and to take it a step further, also a “necessary read”, a “must read”. The latter for myself, but broader for all people claiming to be Black Power - or Rastafari- adherents. Broader still, for all – what in French are called “tiersmondistes” (“Third World-ists”): mostly Left-wing, multicultural-minded Europeans with a postcolonial guilt complex, but mostly well-intending. I even argue that this book is recommendable for all people (irrespective of ideological leanings) to learn about colonial history and Africa – and therefore the world - , even though in my bitter experience closed minds (even if proved mistaken) are not easily opened, and hard hearts not easily softened..

In my personal past (also professionally), I have already studied colonial and slavery history, so not all was new to me, but professionally I was focused on the Americas, less on colonial developments in Africa. Walter Rodney’s book is precisely about that. The title, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, is rather summarizing or self-explanatory, and indeed “to the point”.

MARXIST

It is good to point out that Walter Rodney had/has a certain Marxist perspective, and definitely anti-capitalist. His focus is – at the same time – on modernization and progress. He sees state socialism as preferred direction, differing in that from anarchists, as well as from more “return to nature” and self-sufficiency answers of other anti-capitalists. Most Rastafari (though there are internal differences) tend to be the latter type of anti-capitalists, arguing that “isms” and “schisms” (capitalism, socialism, whatever) are Western, or: "Babylonian", schemes, systems to dehumanize people, in a totalitarian manner.

History has – in hindsight – proven the Rastafari movement more right than Rodney’s (albeit relatively open-minded) Marxist ideas. Capitalism is exploitation – very simply put – by capital- and means-owners, resulting in lacking freedom and dependency of the majority of the working populations. The Communist regimes that arose, however, such as the former USSR, the Eastern Bloc, now still China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba, are not known as “free societies” for their populations, and not just in biased Western (“capitalist”) propaganda. Personally, I have most experience in Cuba under Fidel Castro. I have visited it several times, befriended Cubans, and speak Spanish.

Besides personal experiences some might have, also what we hear through media about Chinese repressive totalitarian policies restricting and controlling people, the treatment of minorities in China, repression in Tibet, etcetera, may put doubt in heads of even the staunchest (neo)Marxist or Communist apologist, about whether what’s called “real existing communism” actually is a success “for the people”. Older Eastern Europeans I spoke to (i.e. old enough to remember Communism before 1990) were neither positive about the restrictive Communist societies, even those with more or less socialist anti-capitalist ideas themselves. Only Croatian and Serbian people I spoke with, had some positive memories of Communism, but Yugoslavia had a mild, open variant of it (even allowing free international travel) under Tito (who for that reason came into conflict with the much stricter Stalin: they say Stalin even tried to get Tito killed).

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

Be that as it may, Rodney’s critique of capitalism-driven colonialism in Africa by European powers, the main theme of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, seems very sensible to me, the history well-explained, using the proven, in itself valuable method of “historical materialism”. This last method is – ideally – a way of letting history speak for itself, and therefore can exclude many biases and hidden interests, cloaked falsely in scientific jargon. I appreciate that about it. Later (e.g. in dictatorial Communist regimes) historical materialism as method also got polluted with propaganda and biases, including simplistic, self-interested distortions.

Rodney is too intelligent and open-minded for the latter propaganda nonsense, rendering more neutral historical accounts, very engagingly told, of how colonialism by European powers took place in Africa, and its effects.

These negative, halting effects (overall: underdevelopment) of Africa stem, he insists, from capitalism’s inherent exploitative base, but not just that. Racism and earlier colonialism also played important roles in shaping policies in Africa, he also shows.

This book, thus, deals with this whole process, from early colonialism, and to the infamous Berlin Conference (1884/85), during which European countries subdivided Africa (further) among themselves. Africa was then largely colonized, until independence struggles gained some success since the 1950s and after.

CAPITALIST MODES

A period of less than a century, this African colonization since the Late 19-th c., but with intense economic changes, and what can be called “capitalist strengthening” in Europe itself through imperial expansion. It followed on periods of mercantilism and (earlier) British colonialism and slavery eventually financing the First industrial Revolution in Britain (Late 18th-Early 19th c.), in turn normalizing “capitalist modes of production” as Karl Marx called it, characterized by private ownership of means of production and wage labour.

He goes on to show - with many telling examples -, how all economic policies or “investments” by the European colonizers of Africa since the later 19th c., were self-interested and exploitative, even harsher than exploitation of capitalist societies in Europe itself: lower wages (relatively) for African labourers in set-up industries, only allowing a passive role as consumers of (European-made) products.. In short: an even more intense cynicism and inequality than wage labourers already faced in Europe, with not even the “modernizing” gains and opportunities that capitalism did in theory produce (despite its exploitative premise) for European economies and even workers (economic individualism).

Foreign investments meant mostly foreign dependency for Africans - Rodney summarizes these policies as "growth without development", based on exploitation for European interests, with no real long-term benefits for Africans. Regarding agriculture, it made "monoculture" dominant in African colonies, e.g.: Gold Coast centered on cocoa, Dahomey (now Benin) on palm, Uganda on cotton, etcetera. This was forced on these colonies for European demands. To quote directly from the book: "Diversified agriculture was within the African tradition. Monoculture was a colonialist invention". Also this had a lasting negative influence.

Alongside this racist “thread” of exploitation, there were of course differences within Africa, dependent on regions, as well as colonizers. Britain, France, and Germany modernized and industrialized (and became “democracies”) earlier, adapting colonial goals to human advancement, including modern patronizing philosophies of (supposed, fake) inclusion, and the “white man’s burden”, aimed (supposedly) at helping Africa and Africans to develop and modernize. Rodney convincingly shows that this was largely hypocrisy.

The tone and indirectness differed from what he calls, quite justly, then more “backward” capitalist nations exploiting Africa, notably Portugal under dictator Salazar (with a Fascist-like ideology), and (though with only small colonies in Africa) Spain under Franco, Italy under Mussolini, but also – of course – the Apartheid regime in South Africa. These did not “sugar coat”, and directly stated the preferred racial inequality and racist presumptions, reminding of equally candid Nazi-examples, especially the White regime in South Africa. Similar harsh exploitation and direct statements on African inferiority were found in Portuguese colonies, albeit mixed with patronizing Catholic missionary goals for Africans, as variants of the “white man’s burden”, hiding harsh exploitation and self-interest behind seeming benevolence and aid.

FEUDALISM

Interesting is also how Africa was developing – or would have developed – before/without European invasions and intrusions. Rodney treats this too in the earlier part of this book, pointing at “organically” developing feudalism in parts of Africa, as societies became more large-scale, hierarchical, and complex (less primitive). Several African states and nations did not need Europe for that, this modernization seemed to develop organically, although the Islamic/Arab world (also foreign, after all) influenced it in some areas. This was a learning experience for me, especially the word “feudalism” and “feudal”. I knew what capitalism and colonialism was, but “feudalism” I had to study a bit more – to define it well for myself - , as a stage in human development.

It turns out that (as stated on Wikipedia) feudalism is: “Broadly defined, .. a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour”. Of course, this dependency on nobility and “lords” owning land can be seen as serfdom of the masses. Karl Marx said that capitalism in theory enabled these masses the freedom to choose their employer, but in reality did not improve much for these masses, just bringing different, more confusing dimensions to dependency and exploitation. Centralized state/monarchy power and administration usually meant the decline of (inherently regional/local) feudalism.

According to Wikipedia, feudalism flourished in (mainly) Europe between the 9th and 15th c., not coincidentally before Columbus and the start of European colonialism, requiring centralized monarchies. Parts of Europe maintained some feudal aspects (Russia, Eastern Europe), but even pockets in Western Europe (including the South of Spain, from where Columbus sailed, ironically enough), even persisting partly as Spain was colonizing the Americas.

What we now know as “capitalism” thus followed – and came forth out of! – colonialism, especially as more developed societies as of Britain and the Netherlands began colonizing too, investing colonial gains with more foresight in their economies, starting the Industrial Revolution. Some see a link between the Protestant ethic and the rise of capitalism (like in Islam still, Catholicism then forbade “interest” on loans, Protestantism allowed it). Spanish and Portuguese colonizers- or “conquerors” as they were called - wasted a lot of those gains on “stupid” luxuries (palaces in Lisbon, Barcelona, or Seville, or even rural areas), or on limitedly successful agricultural experiments.

Capitalism was fully developed, though, when European powers started to colonize Africa mostly in a later stage in history (19th c.). This colonialism in Africa was therefore clearly capitalist (mercenary/exploitative) in nature, and Rodney – as self-declared Marxist – criticized this, but with an open mind. Of course, he was also critical of inequality or injustice in earlier or other systems (feudalism, but also primitive, closed communities with no individual freedoms), showing his open mind and true interest in humane justice. I respect that.

INDIVIDUALISM

Some economic scholars find the term “capitalism” a misnomer, preferring instead to call it “economic individualism”. Walter Rodney would not agree, and gives some good arguments for it in this book, through various examples. While he in itself appreciates that “individualism” as moral stance or ideology can have a “liberating” value in too collectivistic, strict societies, Rodney indicates how it was soon corrupted by narrow, “bourgeois” owners and elite powers - read: capitalists -, simply only claiming it for themselves (individualism became egoism) and their rights to exploit, but preferring the masses and wage labourers dependent on them.

This inequality was the case in Europe and the Western World, but even stronger and worse in Africa, during this colonial period, and the postcolonial history after it. Rodney’s book does an excellent job in showing this, as economic freedoms or progress for local Africans were deliberately excluded and discouraged from any colonial investments of European powers in Africa. "Growth without development".

Racial prejudice - or persisting assumptions of African inferiority - played a role in this, while further the proven colonial strategy of divide-and-conquer proved useful, in various ways. This could be within families and communities (European colonialism diminished the importance of female labour, relative to male “breadwinners”), and between different ethnic groups within colonies, sharpening tensions to avoid unity against the European invaders.

LEGACY

This relatively short “colonizing period” (though longer in some Portuguese colonies) of about one century (roughly between 1875 and 1975), seemed to have cemented Africa’s postcolonial dependency on foreign investments afterward. Further Western/capitalist/political machinations, and combined historical developments (end of Communism in the Soviet Union by 1990), made this foreign investment with dependency on the West part of global “neoliberalism”, the newest variant of Euro-Western capitalism, building on all previous variants, including “corporatist” (state supporting big private companies) ideas from Fascism (first used by Italian dictator Mussolini, who himself tried to “colonize” Ethiopia - then Abyssinia - in the 1930s).

More involvement of formally Communist China in Africa in economically investing in Africa in recent times, seems to point at change and other trade connections, sometimes but not always more “equal”. So does the increased cooperation between “non-Western” BRICS countries, including South Africa.

All of course – for better or worse – a “far cry” from what Walter Rodney seemed to expect as best economic policy, namely state socialism, planned economies, etcetera.

COMMUNISM

I spent a quite intense period of my life travelling to Cuba between 2001 and 2006, having friends and intimate relationships there. Due to my Spanish mother, I was fluent in Spanish, so could get to know the society in Cuba - then under Fidel Castro - well, also because of the type of relationships I had.. way beyond polite “small talk”, let’s say.

As even some (former or adapted) Communists admitted: the absence of private ownership while having to develop an entire economy and society – on that scale -, requires almost by definition an authoritarian state, operating in a totalitarian manner: the bottom up-ideal (or rhetoric) thus gets abandoned for top-down repression of people’s individual freedoms. Read: “dependency” on, well, just other type of exploiters, oppressors, and bosses, with some “party member” or “politician” now interfering with you instead of – but in the same way as - “Mr. Boss Man”.

My experiences in Cuba (also undergoing an economic crisis, called Special Period, with lost USSR support) in 2001-2006 confirmed this. The bottom was a bit less low (state services for food and shelter, education, and medical care) than in other developing countries, but much broader and firmer. The censorship, lack of free speech or movement, and the highly regulated society, mixed – as usual in dictatorships – with corruption in high and low places. This latter limited the trust between people, while the restrictions on and force used on people had more to do with a type of incarceration and Fascism under another name.

A woman in Santiago de Cuba (Eastern Cuba) who I knew well, worked as teacher but had to assist in other state-led jobs (like harvesting/rural work) when asked, or rather: “ordered”. Refusal would have consequences. She told me, sadly, that she felt as if she was a slave. She was of African descent (Afro-Cuban), making her statement, perhaps even more sad and symbolic.

My own mother – at another time – also told me she “felt she was a slave” when living - and having to work - under dictator Franco in Spain in the early 1960s, and that dictatorship was largely Fascist/Right-wing, mixed with some older reactionary (Catholic) elements. The “backward capitalist” countries of Europe, Walter Rodney referred to in his book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Portugal under Salazar had a similar Fascist ideology as Franco in Spain, and Portugal had large colonies in Africa up to 1975).

An excellent book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, in my opinion, and Walter Rodney overall an inspiring scholar and activist, but if there is a critique on him possible, it is that he overestimated the democratizing tendencies of state socialism “for the people”. Marxism seems to lack the cynical, egoistic greed and exploitation that capitalism (now neoliberalism) implies, but with a similar power inequality and dependency, on a similar scale, the masses simply are not that much better off or freer.

Marcus Garvey called Communism: “the white man’s solution to problems created by the white man”, implying interestingly also something like “two sides of the same coin”.

This is somewhat in line with the Rastafari movement, developed since the 1930s in Jamaica, influenced by Marcus Garvey, and aimed toward Haile Selassie and Africa. For Rastas, all “isms” are oppressive systems from Babylon (the Western world), calling instead for a natural living, with self-sufficiency in full equality, on a small scale. Other tenets within Rastafari thinking (such as the “I and I” concept, that the divine lives within beings), also strengthen a healthy sense of individual freedom and creativity, as well as a communal focus, make it – you might say – anarchist/anarchic, in some sense. The cultural focus on Africa, and its origin in the Black Power movement, further make the Rastafari movement less “suitable” to fit in the globally current, foreign/”White” economic systems, let alone those bluntly based on exploitation and/or control through totalitarianism, and this happens to apply to both capitalist and communist states and economies.

CONCLUSION

Despite this mild critique and caveat, Walter Rodney showed in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa from 1972 to me to be overall a sensible, perceptive analyst of colonialism in Africa and its effects, writing in a pleasant style (well readable, but also allowing humour and irony). The book is very educational regarding Africa’s development, with negative effects up to the present (as earlier colonialism, of course), somewhat broader: regarding North-South inequalities in the present world.

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa is also educational in a deeper, more philosophical sense, namely as a “bird view” – or in this digital age: “zooming out” – of world history. Earlier scholars, including Eric Williams (in his work Capitalism and Slavery), showed how slavery and colonial gains eventually helped finance the very first Industrialization in the world, in Britain (Birmingham being the first “industrial city” as such) by the Late 18th c. This industrialization – in turn – led to the development of “capitalist modes of production” or capitalism, still dominant in this world, developing via postcolonialism, to present-day (since the 1980s) “neoliberalism”, shaping global policies by Western powers and even some non-Western powers (e.g. in Asia).

We all – as present-day global citizens - live now under such an economic system, in some way. Whether we want to, or not, haha.

This has the same “capitalist exploitation” base, as more harshly exhibited (although often hidden/subtle, especially in British colonialism), due to historical racism, during the period of colonization of Africa (1875-1972), as Rodney describes in this book.

Tragically, the enslaved Africans brought to the West/the Americas (since the 16th c.) - with partly genocidal effects - during slavery and earlier European colonialism, were used and “sacrificed” for not just temporary profit of some individuals or families, but for wider Western economic progress toward wider profit for (racially, geographically) privileged, thus ensuring global inequality between the haves and have-nots.

When slavery was abolished by Britain (1836, later elsewhere), the industrialization and capitalist society was already well-established in Britain. Unfortunately, as How Europe Underdeveloped Africa shows, Africa as continent was a bit later used to “test” or even strengthen this now “capitalist” exploitation for this new, industrialized economy, based on global inequality and Western dominance.

A recommendable book for, well.., one and all.

Why Columbus deserves no statue

Christopher Columbus is of course a controversial historical figure.

Long heralded in Western culture as an innovative global explorer, only quite recently more criticism came.

I encountered these critiques early on. As a child I read quite a lot, such as from the public library (pre-Internet days), including works by anticolonial writers.

Furthermore, I encountered this critique in a lot of Reggae lyrics. Reggae, developed by Afro-Jamaicans – victims of colonialism, as such -, and known for relatively many (Rastafari-inspired) socially critical lyrics, of course were critical about Columbus as starter of European colonialism as such. Lyrics by artists like Burning Spear, Mutabaruka, Peter Tosh, Culture, and several others, described and lamented the genocide of Amerindians, through disease and explotation, by first Spanish colonizers, and the enslavement of Africans and the slave trade it necessitated.

SLAVERY AND GENOCIDE

That first Spanish slave trade in Africans was not yet as massive and structured as it would become over time, but it certainly was the start of something bad and dehumanizing, including massive enslavement and transportation of Africans, and high death rates and short lives among these Africans. Especially the British and Dutch “perfected” and amplified this slave trade in Africans and plantation slavery (starting in Dutch Brazil and Barbados), making it even more massive, but also the Spanish and Portuguese later profited from this British and Dutch expertise; Spain for instance contracted the transport of slaves in part out to Dutch or British companies.

There was a large genocide among Amerindians in the Caribbean area, and other parts of Latin America to differing degrees too. In some countries, the Amerindians became part of the racially mixed population, including Spaniards, Amerindians, Africans, and even others. In the Caribbean few Amerindians remained, and several islands became mainly populated with people of African descent, or mixed with Europeans.

This was also the case in Cuba, where I have been several times. In some parts of Eastern Cuba (close to Baracoa) there was some remaining Amerindian blood in the population, but mostly it was disappeared or diluted in Spanish and/or African blood.

In certain other parts, such as the small island Dominica, some Carib Amerindians remained, while in Puerto Rico some Amerindian blood is still there in a part of the population, as it is in an island like Aruba.

The colonial period of exploitation inaugurated by Christopher Columbus caused therefore genocide, slavery, and poverty lasting for centuries (up to now), as European colonies exploited the American colonies, and later applied the same colonial logic to Africa and Asia. Racism increased strongly with Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas, especially as part of a power and colonial logic. Amerindians and Afro-Americans are disproportionately more affected by poverty throughout the Americas and the Caribbean.

RACISM

If racism was "invented” with this American colonialism is harder to say. Arabs, Portuguese and Genoese already traded in African slaves before 1492, and saw them as inferior, and also in the Islamic world and parts of Europe and India there was historically a view of “inferiority” of African people, which can be viewed as early forms of anti-African racism. Significantly, there were also Black Africans in Islamic ruled, Moorish Spain (between 8th c-15th c.), besides locals, Berbers, and Arabs, but these Blacks were mostly slaves or servants. In that sense Blacks did not really rule over Spanish people, as I read somewhere about Moorish Spain; more North African Berbers and Arabs (along with converted locals) with Black African slaves.

This “White” or European sense of racial superiority, however, certainly got a boost with Columbus pioneering colonialism.

Columbus himself was neither in any way an heroic person. His biography shows perhaps an innovative, explorative, and adventurous man, but not a good, moral, and loving man. His zeal to gain more knowledge about the world – even if sincere – was trumped in his own mind by an egoistic urge to conquer and gain wealth: to rule and get rich. This at the cost of other people.

More details of his biography confirm this ruthless, wicked, and uncaring character, certainly as he forced women – even young girls - to have sex with him and others (i.e. raped them), and killed the weak and defenseless.

Only a deeply ingrained sense of Western, White superiority could make Europe blind for such moral and human considerations. Catholicism and Christianity was a part of this. Columbus, born in Genua, now Italy, later became a Portuguese citizen, called himself a Catholic.

COLONIAL GAINS

Though perhaps not the most devout Catholic, his stated goal to spread Christianity among the heathen was said to help convince the Spanish king and queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, to back his journey to the West in the year 1492. The promises of riches even more though.

Isabella at first articulated some objections against genocide and enslavement of other people – as contrary to what she considered Christian love – but her and others’ objections soon muted in Spain, as wealth and colonial power came to Spain. Certain groups in Spain suddenly got to live in luxury. In that pre-capitalist era, colonial gains were not yet always “invested” thoughtfully, as the British would do later. The Britons’ more strategic, so-to-speak “Protestant” treatment of colonial gains by investing in planned economic development, eventually enabled the leading role of Britain in the Industrial Revolution.

Also, the Calvinist Dutch invested their colonial gains (from Suriname, Indonesia and elsewhere) much more deliberate in their economies, than the more “loose-spending” earlier Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. So, one can say that blood money was either spent on luxury or invested more durably, but either way created wealthy elites in several European countries.

In this sense, it stimulated inequality, but in fact helped shape the Western world as we know it now. The tropical products that first entered Spain from its colonies, like tobacco, potatoes, rum, and much more, became popular throughout Europe. This is thus also what Columbus started and normalized: the exploitation of other parts of the world for their food or agricultural and raw products, removing their ownership from the local people. Multinational companies as such have their origins in the colonial era, many specific ones too (like Dutch-British oil company Shell), and these are very powerful in today’s world, as we know.

All this is by now quite well known, or should be. From exhaustive, lengthy scholarly studies about colonial history, to e.g. Reggae and Calypso song lyrics, the figure of Christopher Columbus is now presented in quite other lights: as a criminal, a murderer, a racist, a rapist, and a thief on a large scale. He was all this without a doubt, but he was at the same time influential politically in high places. He got, though first hesitantly, the support of the Spanish monarchs, and later inspired British and other monarchs, and British seafarers with colonial aims, such as Henry Morgan, and Francis Drake. Also explorers and pirates mentioned, by the way, in Reggae lyrics.

STATUES

Knowing all this, I find it simply absurd that there are still statues for Columbus in several places in the world: quite a large one in the city of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), somewhat smaller ones in other parts of Spain, a few in Italy (his native Genova, notably), some other European countries, and still several throughout the US (like in Central Park, New York), Latin America, and the Caribbean (like in Santo Domingo).

Objections and popular demands sometimes removed some of these, but many remain.

BARCELONA

The large one is Barcelona was the most noticeable, in my recollection. I went over a week to Barcelona, after I finished my academic studies in the year 2000. By then I was well in my twenties, and already a Reggae fan for over 14 years, plus I had read quite some anticolonial works. I was therefore not pleased with that large Columbus monument – close to the water front and where the Rambla begins – but neither paid very much attention to it. I was puzzled by the direction Columbus pointed, namely to Italy (his birthplace Genua), and not to the Americas from Barcelona.

ELSEWHERE: MADRID AND SAINT ANN'S BAY

I saw a few smaller Columbus monuments, after this, some of which I even almost did not see. Such as the one on the Plaza Colón in Madrid (named after Columbus, Colón being his name in Spanish). I was looking for a specific club on a nearby street, so my attention was here also distracted.

Mutabaruka, the Jamaican poet and musician (and radio host), once pointed jokingly at the irony of a statue of Marcus Garvey (Black Power thinker and activist) in his birthplace Saint Ann’s Bay, on the North Coast of Jamaica, with nearby in the same town a statue of Columbus. I went to Saint Ann’s Bay – a tranquil town with friendly, easy-going people - , and found the statue of Marcus Garvey, but did not see the one of Columbus.

OTHER STATUES

Of course, he was an influential historical figure, but a statue is a strange thing: it is not a impartial, neutral phenomenon. Inherently, statues serve to commemorate and praise at the same time. It implies that the person was a “positive model” in some sense and to some degree. There are statues of famous entertainers, musicians, or sportsmen/athletes too, but these were also seen as “positive” influences culturally somehow.

The final statues of Spanish dictator Franco have now mostly been removed all over Spain, even from Franco’s birthplace El Ferrol (Galicia). The same happened with any remaining public statues of Benito Mussolini in Italy. A public statue of Hitler in Germany or elsewhere is simply unthinkable.

Other statues of dictators, especially the more ruthless, oppressive ones, tend to be removed as much as possible too in several countries, with the arrival of democracy in societies.

This is so because a statue – as said – represent by its nature a “positive model”, or even a “hero”. It is not a book with information about the history , or a neutral documentary or description: statues imply honouring and veneration: immortalizing historical figures for the future with a sculpture. To differing degrees, of course. In birthplaces of famous people a statue of them can often be found, even if only active in the arts, or being wealthy or a powerful politician. They might have achieved something, but not necessarily something that made our world better, more equal, or only partly.. they just had a lot of power and influence in a certain epoch or location.

By all means, these historical periods and people (good and bad) should be studied scholarly and otherwise, and can even be an interesting theme in a neutral, balanced museum exhibition about local history.

A statue is something else, though. Due to his personal history and overall negative historical influence, Christopher Columbus should not be honoured, venerated, or heralded. Not in the least bit. He deserves it no more than people like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, or Mussolini, or other dictators like Pol Pot, Salazar, Pinochet, Idi Amin, and Franco, or even big-time criminals like Al Capone or Pablo Escobar.

Many sensible people in the world understand very well, and would agree that such people deserve no statue and were no positive, heroic models for humanity.

For some reasons, this consciousness about Columbus - and for instance the large statue of Columbus in Barcelona - is lacking. One of the reasons might be that colonialism is further back in the past, and another reason is that European people do not like to see their country’s history – and their foreparents - in a bad light, connected as they are to that country and history. All-too-human, but therefore not justifiable.

European countries are beautiful and varied in their own way, like all countries, Spain has a varied, rich history, culture, and natural landscape, being at a Mediterranean crossroads. Other countries, like Britain, France, and the Netherlands have equally interesting, unique aspects, developed over time in their own way.

COLONIAL HISTORY

Denying, the “dark pages” or a bloody colonial history, including slavery, only makes that “blood money” more decisive in the sensed national identity than it needs to be. That period was about money, racism, and exploitation, “ruling the world”, but let’s hope that there is more to a nation’s people, and a country’s culture than that. From interesting ways to shape a country, cultural peculiarities, food habits, and organized societies, to nice folkore: the castanets of Spain, the Dutch clogs (wooden shoes), to name something.. not even always based on things copied from elsewhere (like the Pasta in Italy, based on Chinese mie taken by proto-colonizer Marco Polo), but at least an equal sharing among cultures. Columbus was on the other hand about domination and exploitation, taking and capturing, not sharing.

DENIAL

In addition, I think the still heralding of colonial “heroes” where it is present, but also the structural denying of colonial misdeeds keeps people separated. This structural denial is found in Spain and Portugal, but also in Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, where a seemingly more open and democratic atmosphere allowed more anticolonial critique as well as more neutral and balanced scholarly studies about the misdeeds. This anticolonial view has luckily increased recently also in Spain’s academic circles.

This anticolonial critique – both by migrants from former colonies, and local progressive intellectuals - was however only influential to a degree, and met its limits among a part of national elites and population, having still links with this colonial past. Former PM of Britain, David Cameron, had slaveowners in the Caribbean among his forefathers, Royal houses in the Netherlands, Britain, and Spain profited from colonial wealth.

Some cities or parts of them even were built with this “blood money” (colonial and slavery-derived income), Liverpool, Bristol, and Nantes being known examples, but also parts of Amsterdam, Seville, Barcelona (where many Catalan slaveowners in Cuba for instance invested money), Madrid, London, Bordeaux, and Paris, and to a lesser degree also other places and cities throughout Europe and the Western world. In that sense, the colonial history influenced not just economy but also culture, like all historical episodes (good or bad) do, of course. It also filled some museums, like the British Museum.

I argue therefore, that recognizing this colonial history openly for its misdeeds, even if of ancestors, is a mature and intelligent way of learning from the past, and keeping an open mind to the rest of the world. Ideally, we can learn from each other’s history and culture. In other places, slavery and exploitation, religious wars and such were known historically, just like in Europe.

Man kind never learns: from e.g. the unequal Indian caste system, common slavery in parts of Asia, Africa, and in the Islamic world, the dehumanized, lesser status of women in several societies worldwide, inhumane treatments of “outsiders” (or minorities) in societies, exploitation of poorer ones, religious fanaticism, and violence. Also, ethnic and religious conflicts, people feeling better than – and threatened by - other groups in the same societies and subjugating them, can be found on all continents historically.

All this is of course not just the domain of Europeans, and injustice and evil are found historically and presently among all humans, especially since we lost touch with nature. Some of these injustices, though, are certainly influenced by European colonialism and global inequalities.

REMOVE THE STATUE

All the more reasons why Columbus should not be honoured with a statue, in Barcelona, or anywhere.

The Columbus statue in Barcelona was made by well-known Catalan artists, and though it was entire Spain (and not just Catalonia) that obtained all these colonies, as made by a local Catalan, the statue connected to a regional pride within Catalonia, where many object to excessive centralist Spanish (Madrid or Castilian) influence on Catalan affairs.

I do consider such considerations however mundane, certainly in relation to the negative role of Christopher Columbus in history.

Removing that statue would be merely symbolic, I know, but it certainly would be an important and promising symbol..

How the "click" was lost: DNA and historical racism

DNA and genetic studies represent a relatively recent breakthrough in modern science. In fact, it really only developed with the birth of “molecular biology”, around 1957. The study of “blood” (actually: genetic material from any body liquid, like saliva), and biological descent, has after that been put to use for practical and technical purposes: in law and medicine. Perpetrators can now be traced better, more secure, through their DNA. It helped to solve seemingly unsolvable crimes. Hereditary diseases can be examined also by studying one’s DNA: for instance to know of genetic health risks: required for instance when one wants to be a blood donor.

Another use of DNA that intrigues me a lot seems less practical and is more theoretical. This deals more with historical science: ethnicity, population groups, and ethnic mixture over time. It sheds new light on human history and genetic mixtures of the world. It makes tracing one’s family tree possible also for, for instance, descendants of African slaves in the Americas; at least more specific ethnic groups can now be traced as one’s origin, because of DNA. A welcome - and just - possibility for people who have been in history forcibly cut off from their family and genetic (thus: ethnic) history, because of slavery and forced deportation. Many people of African descent in the West also have some White/European blood, largely due to the fact that many slave owners or overseers (mostly male) fathered children among female slaves, and in rarer cases through (semi-)consensual relations, although there generally were power differences.

ETHNIC IDEOLOGIES

Interestingly, “ethnic” DNA studies dealing with the whole world, require also reconsidering age-old, ideological ideas living among nations and states about “our foreparents”. “Ideological” in the sense of national identity, that could take extreme forms of superiority delusion. Much sinister and evil use has been made of this: Nazi Germany being a notable example, and similar “racial purity” ideas were part of European colonialism, related to slavery and conquest, divide-and-rule policies in colonies, and in several nation states meant to exclude or oppress certain people. In Spain, the Spanish Inquisition, at one point strived to inquire if one was of “pure blood”, i.e. being Old Christians with no converted Jews or Muslims in the blood line. This added a racialist idea to religious fanaticism.

Maybe more innocent (though with possible racist effects), but nonetheless mistaken ideas live on in several countries of the world. Do – for instance - all French really have as foreparents the (Celtic) Gauls, and only those Gauls? Do all Italians descend mainly from Romans? Or Germans, English, and Dutch from Germanic people? This was until recently generally more or less taught in schools in these countries.

Written history – before DNA studies – already had established mixtures and casted doubts on too simplistic ideas of racial/ethnic “purity”. This got however mixed up with lies deriving from (political) ideologies. DNA therefore provides now a more secure, objective “proof” of which people and ethnic groups mixed over time in a certain region, and what that says about the local population’s history.

OLDEST DNA IS FROM AFRICA

However, apart from these historical lies and ideologies propagated in specific European countries, the most profound knowledge and fact, affecting the whole of man kind!, that came with increased DNA study, is the confirmation of the genetic roots of man kind in Africa. Before this, the oldest remains of human beings, as we now know them, have of course also been found in Eastern Africa: Kenya and Ethiopia.

DNA studies likewise also traced the oldest human DNA to sub-Saharan, Eastern Africa, around Kenya. The present-day people with this oldest DNA include peoples like the Khoi San, and related peoples in Southern Africa (e.g. the Xhosa, the ethnic group of Nelson Mandela). These have languages known for their remarkable “clicks”, so rare in other languages. This brings me to an interesting hypothesis, a linguistic one: people with the oldest genetic material speak/spoke with “clicks” in their language: “later” people, including those that spread from Africa, for some reason have lost this “click” in their languages. Why? It is a sound which is easy to make.

All people in the world – no matter how blond or white - thus descend ultimately from an East African woman, that’s what DNA studies essentially has proven. From this early DNA, different, later DNA types developed over time. These DNA types became associated with specific regions and peoples. There is for instance a DNA haplogroup – as DNA subtypes are called – associated (roughly) with Berber peoples, other ones with Semitic peoples, the Middle East or Anatolia, the specific Central European/Celtic, Nordic/Germanic ones, also distinct Slavic, or Northern Spanish, Greek and Italic ones. Several distinct East Asian, Pacific Region, African, and Amerindian ones exist of course as well.

All these developed, however, over time from the oldest DNA of the type/haplogroup L, from sub-Saharan Africa.

I have read and studies much about this genealogy and DNA in its relation to human history in recent years. The Genographic project of National Geographic, on this theme, got my interest, even though it had a very broad – not specific - focus. Also, I found interesting a more specific DNA study: the already mentioned possibility to trace genetic forefathers of for instance African-descended people in the West, on which I saw also some engaging documentaries. This possibility is quite recent and intrigues especially because the African Holocaust destroyed family relations and meant the loss of African surnames. Unlike White people in the West, like the US, (or Indians and others) who largely maintained these bonds and knowledge thereof (orally and written). John Travolta knows for instance he is of Italian-Irish descent (probably also what part of Italy or Ireland) to give an example. Other White people have vaguer, but still traceable connections to Europe. Now, with DNA, it’s possible to know also more on the African Roots of Blacks in the West. This seems only fair.

Black US comedian Chris Rock, for example, traced through DNA his genealogical foreparents in part to the Udeme people of what is now Cameroon. Quincy Jones, on his mother's side, to the Tikar people of also what is now Cameroon. US comedian Chris Tucker to what is now Angola. Martin Luther King’s genetic foreparents were found in part among Mende-speaking people in what is now Sierra Leone.

Also Europe got my attention. Specifically also the countries I have something to do with: where my parents are from and I heard most of. My mother is for instance from (Southwest) Spain, my father from (North) Italy.

SPAIN

Spain is an interesting case, because the ideological “lies” spread by ruling powers have perhaps been stronger there historically. Spain (and Portugal) have been ruled by Islamic Moors from the 8th c. onward, up to the late 13th c. in the central and southern parts, and a southeastern part (Kingdom of Granada) up to 1492. Spain also had (since Roman times) a relatively large Jewish population.

After the Christian conquest from Northern Spain over time of the Iberian peninsula a fanatic Christianizing effort took place, of which the strict Inquisition was part. This led to expulsion of many Jews, Berbers, and other Islamic remaining people, if only in part. Though it is – probably for ideological reasons – propagated in official history writing that ALL Jews and Moors were expelled from Spain in or around 1492, in reality only a part was: many more or less converted and mixed with the local population. This was already assumed by more neutral historians, but recent DNA and genetic studies confirm this. Spaniards are genetically mixed, including Jewish, Berber and other non-European blood, mixed with Celtic, Roman, Greek, older European/Basque, Germanic and other blood.

This Christianizing effort tried to hide this, and propagated another national identity for Spain. Probably stimulated also by the imperialism/colonialism Spain and Portugal more or less inaugurated with Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas. An ideological and “racial” distancing of non-European, non-White “heathens” - even if Africa is only about 14 kilometers away from Spain – was deemed necessary for that.

TENERIFE (CANARY ISLANDS)

I recently went for a trip to Tenerife, one of the Canary islands. These became Spanish around that same year 1492 (after settlement with Portugal who already owned Eastern Atlantic territories). In relation to this ethnicity and DNA, Tenerife/the Canary Islands are also an interesting case. Having become Spanish at the dawn of Spain’s imperialism (1490s), the Canary islands served as a “testing ground” for Spain for the Americas. After being introduced by the Portuguese, slave trade in (Black) Africans, and enslaved Black Africans in the sugar industry more or less began for Spain on the Canary Islands. Later it continued on a larger scale in the Caribbean.

The Canary Islands were originally inhabited by peoples related to the present-day Berbers from Northern Africa, called Guanches. Though some sources said they were all wiped out (strange how regarding Spain’s history, population genocide is always stated in such “total” terms); in reality a large part of these Guanches mixed with Spaniards that settled on the islands, such as Tenerife, of whom many came from Andalusia or other parts of Spain. Some Black Africans were, as said, imported as well, and also some other Europeans, like Portuguese, settled there. A museum I visited on Tenerife sketched this history. All these populations mixed and resulted in the present-day Canarians.

I knew already some people from Tenerife, and having now been there, I saw indeed what I perceived as Berber traits among a part of the Tenerife people. Relatively stronger in more rural, mountainous part (and Tenerife is very mountainous). To differing degrees, I must say. Some mainland Spaniards from the South have these traits as well, so at times it was difficult to determine.

While in places like (South) Portugal, Extremadura, Andalusia, and other parts of Spain, Berber traits recur sometimes, as well as Semitic traits – confirmed by actual DNA studies - relatively many Canarians seemed overall dark Mediterranean, Berber-like types.

BOOK ON RACISMS

I would like to place these DNA studies and the new historical knowledge they provide further alongside a recent book I read: ‘Racisms : from the crusades to the twentieth century’, appeared in 2013. It was written by Francisco Bethencourt, and presented as “the first comprehensive history of racism”. This is quite a claim – perhaps for marketing reasons of course - since historical racism has been and is being studied by other scholars as well. Bethencourt takes in part a new, original stance, though.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10082.html

He traces the history of racism, as ideas and practice, aimed at the exclusion of people because of descent, in Europe, from before the start of colonialism and during colonialism, as well as in other continents or historical epochs. He focuses most on the Western world. He discusses these political ethnic ideologies I mentioned already. Especially the period following Moorish (Islamic) rule in Spain and Portugal gets much attention. Not because racism started there: Bethencourt points at different sources and places (hence the plural Racisms of the title), but early forms of racism, based on descent developed there, mostly due to religious policies, like the Inquisition I already mentioned, distinguishing “Old” Christians from “New" Christians (converted Jews or Moors) based on descent, aimed at repressing and excluding. The Portuguese started trading in Black African slaves in the Eastern Atlantic even before Columbus went to the Americas, and this Bethencourt also discusses.

I heard some say that racism did not really exist against Black Africans until this slave trade and slavery in the Americas developed. Bethencourt confirms this in a way, though not totally. After discussing all types of racism: Inquisition, slavery, as part of colonialism in other continents, wars, in different parts of Europe, by Arabs, Roman times, Nazi Germany, against Amerindians, Asia, Africa, he comes to these main "concluding" arguments:

one:

“racism preceded any theories of race and must be viewed within the prism and context of social hierarchies and local conditions”

and two:

“in its various aspects, all racism has been triggered by political projects monopolizing specific economic and social resources”.

The first argument makes an intriguing distinction between racism and (semi-scientific) “theories of race” (superior and inferior, more animal-like races etc.). In Portugal ideas on Africans inferiority or animal-like status (“racism”) actually preceded their starting to trade in enslaved Africans and taking control of the Angola region, in the 14th c.. Later (quasi-) scientific racial theories only institutionalized these ideas. In other European countries like Spain, Italy, Germany, and France similar racist ideas existed, to differing degrees, even if then slaves were not just Blacks (as later). Also the Arabs, and some Moorish authorities in Spain, expressed ideas on Black inferiority, especially when the Arab slave trade increasingly involved Black Africans as slaves.

Spain’s Catholicism’s “purity of blood” ideas were the official norm, though with differing degrees of consistency or enforcement, and excluded and discriminated Jews and converted Moors (called “Moriscos”). Portugal meanwhile increasingly used Black Africans as slaves, a practice later taken over by the Spanish, and still later other European powers as the British, French, and Dutch.

All this shaped the racism inherent in the colonial project Spain and Portugal engaged in after Columbus (Italian/Genoese but in the service of the Spanish kingdom) “discovered” and claimed the Americas for Spain since 1492, of which a part (Brazil) would go to Portugal.

Northern Europe was before this not free of racism, and negative ideas on other races’ inferiority, existed also there, independent of Iberian developments. The Biblical use to defend slavery of black people (the curse of Ham idea), was probably first stated in the Netherlands, historians found.

However, European colonialism as such started earlier with Columbus, so to speak. So, in 1492. In slavery’s systematization and expansion, increasing the racial aspects, the Dutch and English were later also important, must be pointed out. Overall there is therefore not much use in trying to determine which European country was the most colonial and racist: there were different sources and conditions shaping it over time, in different parts of Europe and even outside it. Also, the Muslim and Arab behaviours and ideas after Islam’s rise can in part also be seen as definitely racist toward Black Africans, even after these converted to the Islam.

Jamaican poet and reggae artist Mutabaruka was, overall, in essence right when he stated in his poem ‘Columbus Ghost’, recalling this history, that with Columbus’s “discovery” in 1492 “White supremacy” really began. It did indeed initiate a lasting global inequality on racial (mixed with religious/cultural) grounds. This still is noticeable in today’s world and North-South relations.

An interesting read, overall, Bethencourt’s book, but it is history writing based on documented, “traditional” sources: DNA and genetical studies are not included (nor mentioned). These however can add some interesting insight to the historical developments, such as the ones he sketched about Spain (relatively much discussed in the book). Did such “purity of blood” policy have effect on the ethnic make-up of the present-day Spaniards? To what degree?

Early racism (mixed with religious fanaticism) as part of political projects – the “purity of blood” - were thus present in Spain and Portugal. Portuguese were furthermore early slave traders in Africans (bringing these also to Iberia). How does all this history as Bethencourt related, show in the current genetic and DNA characteristics of Spanish (and Portuguese) people? I’m curious about that.

SPAIN, SOUTH EUROPE, AND DNA

My mother told me that in South Extremadura, close to the province of Córdoba, in Southwestern Spain, where she was from, there were both darker and lighter people, though blue eyes and light blond hair were unusual. Physical traits further also differed.

Having travelled throughout most of Spain and Portugal, I noticed all these differences too, alongside a dominant Mediterranean type. Genetic, DNA studies further give more insightful background information about this.

The specific DNA haplogroup/types associated with Berbers and Middle Eastern peoples are to be found - within Europe - presently relatively more in South Europe, especially Portugal and Spain, followed by South Italy. The L Haplogroup of the oldest DNA, from sub-Saharan Africa, is even found a bit there, while rare in the rest of Europe (it can be found among more recent African or Afro-Caribbean migrants in Paris, London, or Amsterdam of course).

The broader DNA haplogroup E1b1b: (http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_E1b1b_Y-DNA.shtml) has many subtypes, but is partly associated with North Africa and Semitic peoples. It is overall - degrees differing per E1b1b subtype – overall among Europeans a bit more common among people in Southern Europe, as studies show, with intriguing regional differences in for instance Spain. Yet, this DNA haplogroup is not a strictly South European or Mediterranean affair, as the maps with frequency of the above link show. Some of these also spread as north as well into Germany , England, Austria, or Czechia for instance. That Hitler had this DNA type, which is also found relatively frequent among Jews, including Albert Einstein, can be considered ironic, but it is a broad haplogroup.

The specific M81 “Berber” subtype map among these – points most directly to North African (Berber) genetic influence in Europe, relatively more frequent in South Europe. Regarding Spain, it oddly is relatively frequent even where the Moors (who were partly Berbers) did not rule that long (North Castile/León, Galicia), along with more predictable southern parts (Extremadura, Western Andalusia). Around Granada less, maybe because of repression, forced migration…or the Inquisition’s focus..who knows. Bethencourt indeed relates how after a rebellion “Moriscos” around Granada were forcibly removed and dispersed throughout what was then the kingdom of Castile. The Semitic (African/Middle Eastern) M123 subtype/haplogroup is also interestingly found in some regions more than others, but is a bit more frequent overall in the southern half of Europe.

Berber genes, you can conclude are found among many Spaniards and Portuguese, not just in the Canary islands. Another recent study found that 20% of all Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) people have some Sephardic, Jewish ancestry in their DNA. A higher percentage than many expected, and also regional differences that many did not expect (more in rural Aragón than in “more international” Catalonia for instance, higher in rural Extremadura than in other places). Like many scientific studies, the results and methods are not uncontested, but they are intriguing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/science/05genes.html

http://download.cell.com/AJHG/pdf/PIIS0002929708005922.pdf?intermediate=true (entire study article in PDF)

Like I already concluded earlier in this text, and almost needless to say: Spaniards are not “of pure blood”, neither “Aryan”, as it is called (but which is really a nonsensical term). One must furthermore not forget that African and Middle Eastern (Semitic) genes might have entered Spain already well before Roman or Moorish times, seeing its location, and Phoenician/Carthaginian historical presence. So it can also be seen as separate from “arrival of certain religions” (Jews, Muslims).

Then again: no ethnic group or group of people in the world really is “of pure blood”, no matter how isolated.

Looking at all these results for Europe – and to the other haplogroups on the Eupedia website -, it seems hard to see some consistency, beyond general tendencies. It is still an interesting website where people can for instance look at DNA results in the geographic place where their family roots happen to lie (just like I did), but also to know about the world in general.

South Europeans have overall somewhat more Middle Eastern and African DNA, with intriguing regional differences within countries. It points at migrations and mixtures due to social changes over time: from Africa to (West) Asia, then to Europe, within Europe and regions etcetera.

L HAPLOGROUP

There is one consistency, though. The main origin of all DNA in the L haplogroup of sub-Saharan Africa. Of all people in the world, including all Europeans. The Wikipedia article on this (Macro) L haplogroup is in this regard insightful. Again, a bit more found in Southern Europe (especially Iberia and South Italy), but indirectly at the root of all DNA of all Europeans and other humans in this world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro-haplogroup_L_(mtDNA)

These DNA studies show that man kind thus comes from Africa, and all people are essentially mixed. This proves once again the stupidity of racism in general, and the evil, “political” use of its moderate or hidden variants like ethnic/racial ideologies in some countries/regions, leading to superiority senses many people apparently need to have. This increased with Europe’s colonial project since 1492, somewhat ironically pioneered by an Italian (Columbus) and by Portugal and Spain – all countries with intensely mixed DNA and relatively much African and Middle Eastern admixture – , in tandem with the rise of organized, repressive, “conquering” religions like Christianity and Islam. This led to racial and cultural divisions and inequalities among human beings, because of lust for power, competition, the will to gain more territory, and war. Or: “political projects monopolizing specific economic and social resources” as Bethencourt described an origin of racism in the aforementioned book.

In other words, the “click”- in the symbolic sense of an equal, harmonious relationship – was lost between “Whites/Europeans” and “non-Whites/non-Europeans". Parallel to how “the click” - literally, as sound in the languages spoken by the oldest DNA bearing people in Africa - was lost in most later human languages.