Russell Brand's 'Revolution': a review

For some reasons, I wanted to read the book ‘Revolution’ (2014) by Russell Brand, recently. Of course because I knew the author, mainly from his online videos and “podcasts” I saw around the period 2020, when the world got in the “corona craze”. I recall him being one of the few dissonant voices, in this seemingly massively shared fanaticism about a supposedly dangerous virus, criticizing the veracity of the corona “hype”. Justly, in my informed opinion.

Brand stood in that sense out positively as alternative thinker, and - along with others I encountered a bit before - helped to break down the foolish corona narrative, and wider elite policies it was part of. Awakening more people.

PODCASTS ONLINE

So I watched some of his “podcasts”, maybe seeking some “confirmation”. Following confirmation, comes – hopefully – edification and education, but for that next psychological stage, there were many critical thinkers in the alternative media, I could reliably count on. Not only to further analyze what the hell was behind that imposed global corona hype – that was insightful, but got boring and repetitive later. Still some remained critical and came with new insightful information about how later, current global elite policies (warfare, energy, climate), are part of the same Agenda 2030.

Me myself, I am not really a “political animal”, so also that I took in small doses, but still try to keep myself informed about the alternative movement’s critique of elite policies, and different perspectives.

CONFIRMATION

Brand thus played a role in my earlier “confirmation” step, but only because I lacked time to continue watching his podcasts. He was – moreover – often a bit too “busy” and “frantic” to my temperament. Still, I pleasantly remember I agreed with some things he said, often with some humour.

While I was following other things and people – including selecting others of the many, many podcasters – I later found out Brand underwent a change, others in the alternative movement deplored. It seemed even condemned as if it were a “betrayal” by David Icke: Brand became a born-again Christian, returned to mainstream Christianity. With all its conservative, “powers that be” connotations, that was ill-understood, and seen even as hypocritical. Criticizing the powers that be, while joining them.. something like that.

I am not sure whether it is just some spiritual relief he personally sought, but separate from his continuing social criticism, or if it is indeed “betrayal” of some sort.

Be that as it may, Russell Brand as a person I found intriguing enough, also because I remembered he talked at least around 2020 vividly and with some wit. Enough to read his book about “Revolution”.

REVOLUTION

The theme intrigues too, but “revolution” is not by definition a positive term – maybe only for the Cuban Communist regime, and some other such regimes in the world – but it just means “radical change”, even a “total turn-around or restart”, of a situation, radical, not gradually as in an “evolution”.

Knowing Brand a bit, though, I imagined his ideas about a “revolution” could be something even for me desirable, toward democratization and freedom “of the people”.

Indeed it was. His anti-elite criticism became clear from the start in the book, but not just the vague “state”, or abstract politics or governments, but concrete manifestations in our daily lives, notably consumerism.

Brand relates about his past life, including addiction, and fortune and fame: apparently he was a well-known actor in the US, while British: I missed that, I must admit. When I saw his first podcasts around 2020, I did not even know what he actually did in the UK or elsewhere (stand up comic?). I just noticed he said some sensible things –read: I agreed with.

His rich, “jet set life” as well as his escapist addictions (alcohol a.o.) taught him lessons about what really gives satisfaction, aided in this – he tells – by Yoga, meditation, and related thinking. Fair enough. Everyone has his own way. I found it in nature and African “dance religions”, and eventually Rastafari.

Brand looked spiritually a bit more to India, I more to Africa and the Caribbean, but that’s okay.

I largely agreed with him in this book, just like I did with his earlier “Left-wing” podcasts: against big business, their political allies (“big politics”), greedy capitalists, consumerism, and those participating in it.

ELITES

Such elites – he states – control the masses of the population “the people” with confusion and binding them to their economy without input (modern capitalist slavery).

Again, the “confirmation” modus entered me, because I knew all this already before. Even before 2020, I knew more or less what he described, partly because I studied a lot of human (political) history, including e.g. colonial history. So not “mind-blowingly” new to me – the notion that a wealthy and powerful elite wants to remain like that, therefore keeps down and binds the masses.. I knew that already. I still found pleasantly “confirming” that someone agrees with me, putting some rest in my mind. More like relaxing and sitting down when tired, than an inspired thrill of excitement. Still pleasant, though, and interesting to read about from someone who is from another country (UK), and had another life than me.

PERSONALITY

Does Brand’s personality and character traits also differ from mine, despite sharing some social views? From what he writes, I think partly.

He seems more extrovert than me – loudly addressing strangers in unknown places, lacking shyness. He also seemed more “flexible” – or “easily affected” – than I think I am. Empty buckets go with every wind, while I was already as a child more steadfast, often quite skeptical and doubtful about what people – even adults - around me said or did.

For better or worse, since young, several people told me I have a “strong personality”, people who studied psychology, but also family members, ex-girlfriends, colleagues, concluded as much.. for better or worse. I take it as a complement – “a strong personality” - , though, even if I am not fully sure of its significance. I experienced it does not make you many friends, to put it one way. Empty buckets are after all more useful.. ha!

Even as a youth, I was at times skeptical about “fashions” and “trends”. Sure, some things seemed cool and fun to me for a while, but if someone followed a fashion I found nonsensical, I tended to let that know, losing even some potential friends in the process. I just liked to think for myself, and go my own way, I guess.

Brand seems more adaptive, and more of a “social animal”, which need not be bad or morally deplorable. Even in me, there is a “social animal” somewhere. In the case of Brand – though – he gave me the feeling that he was insecure, not knowing what he was doing, thrown off-balance by lust and greed – and insecurity – doing regrettable or “ugly” things. The insecurity he shows in his name-dropping, as well as in his image building of a cool guy somehow “above it all”. We all have an ego – me too -, so I get that too: keeping face.

However, the “failure” trope, such as in Woody Allen movies – the Jewish “schlemiel” story tradition – is at times a welcome change to such boastful “I got it all under control” attitude.. No you don’t, say e.g. those Woody Allen movies. We’re all searching losers, who can fail and make mistakes. That’s closer to the truth: we’re only human.

Again, caressing one’s own ego is maybe more deplorable, but also very human, and that makes him more accessible. If you lived some life like I did, you learn that people who uphold a rigid, “righteous” image, showing no weak sides, tend to be, well, “wicked” imposters. Often with a (blue collar, white collar, or street) criminal past. In high and low places..

So, I could appreciate the sincerity of Brand in this book (addiction problems, admitting his mistaken attractions). Not total sincerity, though. He escapes through his life philosophy about a more just society (“revolution”). This is after all the book’s theme. Also a way to escape his own psychological doubts, but that is in a way also endearingly human.

INSPIRING EXAMPLES

Interesting is how he refers to different philosophers, philosophies, books, persons, or (international) historical epochs, he stumbled upon, and found relevant. Most I knew already, but not everything, and he puts it – combines them - in another light, adding thus analytical value.

His spiritual ideas were at the time of this book more in the Yoga (kundalini) and Hindus spheres, but with references to “God” as well. He mixes this well in, I must say, with his general message to make his point: how can people regain control of their own lives, from the economic and political elite. An economic and political elite on top, keeping the majority of “common” people in today’s modern (somewhat moderate) wage and debt slavery.

Politics and elections are also a façade, serving the maintenance and strengthening of this wealthy elite, Brand also concluded, also to explain why he never votes in any elections.

COVID

Mind you, this 2014 book was written years before the “covid hype” since 2020, during which those same elites, showed another absurd, yet cruel, side. Politicians in most countries followed orders and the corona playbook of the elite, as if it were a military drilling. Vaccines/injections were promoted globally, along with harsh social measures and restrictions, including war-time (and or: "prison-like") measures like lockdowns and curfews. During an evening curfew in Amsterdam (starting at 21:00, later 22:00) I remembered staring at my front door from inside: if I walk through that door, I will be breaking the law, I realized. I felt weirdly imprisoned.

The president of Tanzania of the time, John Magufuli, “did not get the memo” – or was truly rebellious enough -, - and criticized/ignored corona policies in 2020 - so was gotten rid of. They say he died of “covid”.. Oh, irony: the same disease against which he found policies nonsensical. Of course, I do not believe that he died of that. Interests are too big. Before I get into legal trouble, I’ll leave it at that, just my opinion, haha. He died – anyway – in Late March 2021, and was conveniently replaced by a more pious (scarfed muslima) and especially more “compliant” president. Just coincidence.

SOLUTIONS

Brand in this book and I thus seem to have the same enemy. Some other ideas (due to my more Left-wing background) I also share with him, or partly. We also share anarchist views.

“It takes a revolution to make a solution”, Bob Marley sang, so what about the solution to this inequality problem of elite dominance, Brand has to offer?

Do they make sense? I think so. Direct, small-scale democracy, in self-organized communities, with no top-down rule. Self-rule, owning the production means, as in anarcho-socialist views. That’s more or less his proposal.

ANARCHISM

Indeed, Brand sees the anarchist experiments during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) – which general Franco unfortunately won – as good, working example. In parts of Spain, like Catalonia, there were also left-wing anarchists, among the socialists, or moderate democrats, and others (the Republicans) opposing Franco’s Right-wing, Fascist coup. For a period during the war in “republican” areas , everything was made communal and “popular”, even bars. No more bosses and owners. This loose and chaotic approach led to conflicts with more structured Communists in Catalonia itself, causing division within the “Left” and among Republicans. Sadly, it also meant a weaker, less united front against Franco’s troops, who were more militarily prepared and experienced.

The anarcho-socialist movement – and anarchism in general - was stronger in Spain than in Northern Europe. The reason for that – as historians point out – is that while places like England, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, industrialized relatively early and stronger, Southern Europe remained longer in agrarian stages, with limited industry, thus less “factory-like” structures, as shaped Communism and Socialism (and trade unionism) in Northern Europe. A freer idea of popular freedom arose, so you will, beyond in-factory, worker-friendly favours.

Russell Brand, speaking from the UK, being the first industrialized nation of this world (financed by colonialism), realizes that in the UK a lot has to change to realize this.

COMPASSION AND HOPE

He shows compassion and optimism with some elite members – as ultimately human and unhappy with the skewed situation -, quoting Che Guevara, who said that many elite people of power will defend their interests only to a point, but will give up as society no longer rewards them. Thus making the revolution victorious for all in the end.

Good to dream, but is it realistic? A long way to go, to say the least. Giving up one’s generationally built wealth like that, seems not very realistic to me. Some will hold on to it stronger than one might think. Millions or billions (money and acres) one possesses in this world, ideally (in their mind) go to their children, their offspring. Not to “society” as Brand’s revolution foresees. It is almost an identity – used to one’s own family power – that is defended at all costs. Historically shaped elite positions, connected to pride, ego, survival (the reptilian brain reflex), superiority delusion.. probably all that, but either way stubborn.

This explains “controlling” corona and climate policies, other global control increases (secret services, NATO, WHO, EU), the military-industrial complex, the banking system, international, economic “oil”-related conflicts,..

INTERNET AGE

This expanded more - with some seeming "panic" - especially when information became more freely available, historically: the rise and spread of Internet, since roughly the 1990s. Too many common people came to know too much. Too much free knowledge.

This also shows in the recent increase in censorship even in Western so-called democracies, including calls to limit free access to Internet, cunningly disguised behind “ID” or “protection” arguments.

This increased however strongly after this 2014 book by Brand, so understandable he does not mention this, but he does see Internet as potentially democratizing for common people. It was already corrupted by commercial parties (thus: economic elites) and consumerism – wanting your money for their products – but in recent years political parties try the same, now wanting your obedience..

REVOLUTIONS GONE WRONG

A good point, Brand repeats throughout his book, is that well-meant popular revolutions can go wrong, as an elite often just replaces another one, as history showed in several instances. A “hegemon” shift, nothing more, not benefitting the masses of people. The Russian and Chinese Revolutions, and other “communist” revolutions soon degenerated into totalitarian, oppressive regimes, to several degrees, with new, hypocritical elites. Including Cuba, I am sad to say, from my own travel experience.. Even without US economic “bullying” this would often have occurred: ego, hidden interests, nepotism, etcetera. Again, the excluded masses, expected to work for an elite.

In the case of Cuba, someone like Carlos Moore (an Afro-Cuban refugee), even saw a racial/cultural component, as Fidel Castro (whom Moore once worked for as translator, before his disappointment with the Cuban Revolution) had - according to him - no affinity with Afro-Cuban culture, showing in limiting, repressive policies. The oppressive treatment of Tibet and Uygurs by Communist China are other cases in point.

Aware of this danger, Brand among other things takes what he calls the “Spanish revolution”: periods of localized, anarchist rule in parts of Spain, during the Spanish civil war (1936-39), as main example to follow.

Brand does not really believe in “nations”, favouring a world of truly democratic and local, self-ruled communities, with “bigger government” or “economics” only having temporal, “admin” functions, as he calls it – for specific purposes - , with no lasting social power.

CAVEATS

A nice theory, though there are some things I think one should be aware of, in this idyllic, naïve picture painted. Humans will be humans, often still with big ego’s, and many insecure men (and some women) would still like to dominate, only on a smaller scale. Personal ego’s, but also other inequalities (race, gender, background) might persist in such groups. Women’s emancipation and equality seems reached in some Western, liberal countries, but in many parts of the world, yet also in many male minds in the Western world, women are still “second-class citizens” to men.

Also: do all people really want to interact voluntarily, intensely with other ethnicities (not the one of your family/parents, let’s say), if given a choice? Studies of some Western cities – including Amsterdam where I reside – showed after all that about 80% of all people mainly interact socially within the own ethnic group (Dutch, Moroccans, etc.), subtly eschewing other ethnicities, expect when inevitable (e.g. professionally). Don’t be on forehand too optimistic about man’s “open mind”, is all I’m saying.

Self-ruled, democratic groups can thus lead to fragmented societies, with racial, religious, and ethnic preferences, creating islands of peoples, who want to stay apart from others. “Live and let live” measures – as Brand proposes – can limit that, but a very stimulating, varied world does not arise, isolated in a uniform group, including possibly even social control of wayward members, as prejudices and personal interests still might persist.

People who have participated in the Flower Power period “democratizations” of the 1960s and 1970s – some of whom I met – in hindsight found the debates and decision-making in “hippie or squatter communes” chaotic, ineffective, and skewed. Nepotism and a big mouth determined directions and decisions, rather than a balanced, democratic weighing of options. Many only in theory want democracy, and only for themselves. Still better than a top-down humiliation and wage slavery for unknown bosses and interests, but neither perfect. So we must remain careful.

To Russell Brand’s proposals I would therefore add some more spiritual and psychological dimensions to protect this democratization from corruption from within. Like I said, Brand seems more adaptive and more a “social animal” or “group thinker” than me, and I believe more in “healthy individualism” or better: a “healthy individual focus”, as we Rastas do not like “isms”. Respecting each individual as valuable – beyond race, sex, nationality, or other attributes – should be ingrained in society’s make-up. Even in “democratic sessions” in such self-ruled, self-chosen human communities, this should not be forgotten.

The “I and I consciousness” in the Rastafari movement – arguing that divinity is shared throughout all living things, but also in each human being. Jah (“God”) – or “the divine” is according to most Rastafari adherents also “within” each man or woman. Not in some, but in each person.

This is my conviction, differing perhaps from those (e.g. Christians and Muslims), separating mankind from divinity or nature. Having the divine within, you also maintain an agency to stand up for your rights and dignity, and be no one’s subordinate or slave, as we are all equal. This ensures true democracy, according to me: a healthy individual focus, which I personally draw from the Rastafari tradition, but makes sense more broadly, I opine, for all people.

OTHER BLIND SPOTS

Other “blind spots” in this particular book by Brand – perhaps he addresses it elsewhere – are global inequalities. Fine that big companies, and their billions, are shared with society for the people, but let’s start with hungry, and suffering people world wide, outside the well-off Western world, even in medical need, before addressing “first world” or “luxury” problems like another hospital in a Western city. Brand does not exclude this, but does mainly give Western examples of money reinvestment for the people. The emphasis on “local democratic communities” need not make one myopic to the rest of the world. Nothing wrong with thinking global (also educationally), as long as it is not just for selfish power goals, as the Western, economic and political “powers that be” always have practiced since colonialism, up to neoliberalist and neocolonial capitalism now. You can still think international, as many do already culturally (food, culture, etc.), only now with equality in mind.

There is also corruption, local power elites, and discrimination of women and minorities, to deal with in other parts of the world, disturbing equity ideals.

DICHOTOMY

A final blind spot in this book is “culture”. Owning the means of production for work is okay, being self-sufficient and self-ruled in democratic communities, likewise a good idea, but life is more than working to pay bills/ and have food and shelter. People need the inspiration of culture and art too, in my opinion, so there is something to say for breaking that dichotomy, as Pablo Picasso also once lamented: that dichotomy between “having to work” on the one hand – as a sensed obligation, and “fun” and “culture” on the other hand.

An intertwined balance might make us in the end happier. Making and enjoying art or music every day, alongside working – preferably with some creative aspect to that work! -, to express your full humanity, instead of working for days in a row uninspired as a robot, and then some time for “fun” or creativity.. realizing then that you’re too tired for the latter, having worked too much. With the “clock” as persisting tyrant, even after a “revolution”.

We must somehow break through that too, if Brand’s proposed “revolution” for people’s self-rule is to really make all humans happier as individuals.

Still, Russell Brand expressed some good ideas in this book that I agree with, and with – as he did and does elsewhere – some interesting and funny stories to tell about his life, and other humour and wit, making this 2014 book both very readable, and insightful.

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.

Dennis and Bob

Dennis Brown became known as the Crown Prince of Reggae. This title was given to him by someone known then as the King of Reggae: Bob Marley, who called Dennis his favourite Reggae artist..

Perhaps such laudatory titles, while creative and playful, should not be taken as absolute truths: especially in a wide and varied music scene as that of Reggae and Jamaican music, with many good singers, artists, and songwriters. Many of whom only did not reach the level of international fame of Bob Marley, or even less than Dennis Brown, who hardly reached the mainstream.

It is interesting, though, to compare these two artists with honorary titles musically. I – and other Reggae fans – did that already.

There is some truth to the Spanish saying "las comparaciones son odiosas" (all comparisons are hateful), but comparing can still be useful to describe and analyze cultural developments.

VOICE

My opinion has always been that purely focusing on “voice” and “singing” Dennis Brown is better than Bob Marley, though this may come close to sacrilege for some. A (Reggae) musician friend of mine, here in Amsterdam, placed a nuance.. "Bob could sing very well, it’s maybe the “timbre” of Dennis Brown’s voice which is prettier or more soulful". In the whole, this friend (a Reggae bass player) further argued: "the lyrics, melodic flexibility, and songwriting, Bob Marley was a “fuller” artist than Dennis Brown".

LYRICS

Regarding Bob’s lyrics I imagined he had a point, though I had some doubts. We must beware of commercial aspects: you just get to hear Marley’s songs much more, so also the lyrics. That being said, I must admit – and said it before, also on this blog – that Bob’s lyrics were special and wise. Much wisdom about humanity, poverty, the Black struggle, and, well, life. This was formulated, moreover, – as Lee Perry said – in accessible, understandable words for many people. That’s a skill Bob Marley had, and made him appeal to many people, especially the poorer people of the world, even outside of Jamaica or the Reggae scene as such.

SINGING

Still, I am willing to argue that Dennis Brown’s appeal was on the other hand not just his soulful voice or timbre. Indeed his singing had even more “reach” (technically/musically) than Bob Marley’s. This reach is not just relating to chord progressions or other such musical issues, but also regarding a certain recognizable, “original” style of singing.

This Dennis Brown singing style has, after all, inspired other singers in Jamaica too, even by their own admittance. Echoes of Dennis’ soulful, powerful “deep tenor” singing can therefore be found in later Jamaican Reggae singers like Frankie Paul, Luciano, and Bushman, and more (e.g. Natty King), relatively lesser known ones. That’s influence.

That voice is a good way to bring lyrics across, but can also “distract” from text, from some perspective. Or it adds another layer, is another way to look at it.

LYRICS

Another interesting question is whether the lyrics and songwriting of Dennis Brown really stayed that much behind those of Bob Marley’s. I heard and read several people say that, but even that is not so clear to me. The “distracting” voice of Dennis may influenced that thought, but is it true?

In other words: did Dennis have lyrics comparable to Bob’s?

An interesting comparison, due to their both being Jamaican Reggae artists with a Rastafari adherence, conscious lyrics and love lyrics, and a short generation apart mostly in the Roots era (Dennis lived on partly through the early Dancehall era), but different degrees of international fame.

MISTRUST

There is mistrust in Jamaica about Bob Marley’s fame being “helped” by the fact that he was half-White, and that musical qualities thus became secondary to racial preferences in the Western world.

Though I would not discard this – as is too often done nowadays – as a “conspiracy theory”, as I think race might have played a role. I also think, however, that it is not the only reason of Bob’ s relative fame, when compared to people like Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, Bob Andy, Peter Tosh, etcetera.

Marley certainly had some extraordinary talents, in particular the combination of them (catchy melodies, memorable lyrics, charisma, and accessibility). Bob maintained his Rastafari and pro-Black stance, confirming his sincerity, even with messages running counter to the dominant Western economic system. Bob himself kept his integrity, in other words, and maybe he could because of his talent and charisma.

MUSICALLY

Besides lyrically, also musically this integrity was kept, but to a lesser degree. The adaptations of Bob Marley's music in the mix (by executive producer Chris Blackwell, mainly) toward Rock and pop were mostly at the cost of rhythm and groove. I as a percussionist notice that even more, probably. Elsewhere on this blog I spoke in a post/essay of April, 2017 - (how time flies..) - of this as “subdued percussion”, i.e. percussion and drums too soft in the mix. For my taste..

This somewhat more “Western” Rock sound (though limited) is not irrelevant for the theme of this post. It explained Bob’s music wider appeal, also outside the Reggae scenes, and among different races.

The Joe Gibbs, Niney, or even the earlier Studio One home-made Jamaican productions of Dennis Brown seemed less “translatable”. Especially the more “Rootsy” ones. Or were deemed as such: it often did not even reach enough of the public in the first place, due to this "commercial" (or ideological?) estimation.

Maybe Dennis Brown’s songs were too Black and Jamaican, for it to have the same international appeal as Bob’s? Or is that just an illusion in some minds, wishful thinking, even?

LYRICS

First the lyrics. I know many of Dennis Brown’s song and I remember several memorable lyrics, phrases from his songs. Singing them. Expressing Rastafari faith, often in Biblical terms, popular sayings. Kind of repetitive, but functional. Rebellious lyrics, against the system, are there too. They are either way more “messages” than stories, and that’s a difference with Bob, I think. Bob tells more original stories in his lyrics, and depicts visual imagery in well-chosen words.

Dennis Brown certainly has intelligent and commenting lyrics, but focusing on mental, or even metaphorical/abstract, messages, Rasta vocabulary (“Rasta children, I and I come from Zion"), or Bible scenes. It is more introverted than Bob’s lyrics, really. Bob looked and commented at the wider world, and many people world wide understood. Also a difference between Dennis and someone like Peter Tosh, who had a more “rebellious”, directly socially commenting image. More political, while Dennis was overall more “spiritual”.

Otherwise put, Bob’s lyrics were more realistic, Dennis’s more symbolic and conceptual. Bob’s more prosaic, epic, and Dennis’s more poetic.

That does not mean that Dennis Brown’s lyrics do not have the same wisdom as in Bob’s lyrics, with similar “emotional truths”, especially when touching human relations.

A good example is the song Let Love In (Your Heart). An essential truth, and well and soulfully sung, kind of meandering (a difference with straighter-singing Bob).

Also songs like Looking and Watching, Revolution, Tribulation, The Half, Concentration, or Rasta Children, contain deeper human wisdoms, way beyond formulaic statements of faith.

The lyrically claustrophobic Three Meals A Day about prison life is minimal, but nonetheless poetic. And again inward-looking: Bob was on the other hand more often outward-looking..

LOVE SONGS

Dennis had more love songs than Bob Marley. Besides a Roots icon, Dennis also became somehow known as a Lovers Rock man, alongside the Cool Ruler. Some of his relatively bigger hits were love songs.

His handsome, joyous – pleasantly seductive - smile when dancing (inherited by his daughter Marla), made him have a sex-appeal with women.

Yet, again: the love song lyrics were also more inward-looking than those of others. Dennis’s relatively biggest hit was Money In The Pocket (high in the UK chart in the 1970s) even spoke of inner, mental processes, rather than the outside world.

If there is one truth about the claims by some that Dennis Brown had less appealing lyrics than Bob, it is that Bob’s extrovert “outward” lyrics appeal more to people than introvert “inner monologues” or mental processes with which Dennis often surrounded his (social) messages.

Maybe that’s all too human, even if superficial. Some might prefer those “inward”-looking lyrics, as some big commercial hit songs at times show. Different tastes, majorities and minorities, etcetera.

SONGWRITING

Lee “Scratch” Perry also said about Bob Marley: “he had the best melodies”. He had good melodies and catchy vocal lines, but “the best” is too absolute. Perry worked a lot with Bob, but several other Reggae artists had a talent for catchy melodies in song, that stay with you. Too many to mention: Bob Andy, Alton Ellis, Gregory Isaacs, Mighty Diamonds, Burning Spear, Culture, Sugar Minott, Chronixx, Tarrus Riley, Beres Hammond, and, yes, also Dennis Brown.

Dennis’s songs like Prophet Rides Again, No More Will I Roam, I Don’t Want To Be A General, If This World Were Mine, Should I, The Promised Land, from early Studio One days: I Have Got To Go, are but examples of memorable songs owing that in part to the strong melodies. Sung well, that also helps.

I am even willing to argue that, overall, Dennis Brown had more immediately catchy melodies in his songs than Bob Marley. More memorable at least, partly due to a fact that I mentioned before: the more repetitive nature of Dennis Brown’s lyrics and songs. This combined with “filler” often wordless “wailing” soul cries (“Oh yeah”, Yea-ah”, “Oh now”) making the lyrics with words – and the chorus lines! - stick out more.. The function of variation.

Bob Marley tended to stick more to the “conventional” Verse-Bridge-Chorus structure of songs, thus more multifaceted and ordered, but recognizable. Dennis Brown in some songs too, but just as often mixed this with “chanting” a main and secondary melody/vocal line, playing with them on the Riddim/music. Not unlike Burning Spear, or another Brown: Barry Brown.

Dennis could pull that off with his talent and soulful voice, but it misses some structure that many are used to in pop songs. Bob had that more (and in a good way). Another explanation for the difference in international fame or (relative) mainstream appeal.

Bob Marley said himself that he wanted to sound like the then Reggae singer Little Roy (of the 1969 hit song Bongo Nyah fame), while Dennis Brown, said his singing style was influenced by earlier Reggae singer Delroy Wilson.

Interestingly, also the relative songwriting styles seemed inspiring: Little Roy more of the Verse-Chorus school, and Delroy Wilson (like Dennis) more of the free soulful singing school.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, about the reasons for the difference in mainstream popularity between Bob and Dennis: are they commercial? Yes. Racial? Most probably too.

If there are any sensible, nonbiased reasons for the difference of popularity/commercial success, they are cultural. Dennis stuck more to Jamaican cultural interpretations of Reggae, some of which “translated” not so well to non-Jamaican audiences as did Bob’s Reggae, maybe stimulated by the deal with Chris Blackwell and Island. The Joe Gibbs “sound”, and his even “Rootsier” work with Niney The Observer knew few adaptations to European tastes. Luckily, in my opinion. It kept the groove.

That this authentic culture is not always appreciated outside of it, is a lamentable fact in this world, though it is also that there are true fans of authentic cultures other than their own.

Reggae’s international spread proved that, and Dennis Brown is known and respected among Reggae fans all over the world: Black, white, Asian, or otherwise. Several of his songs were not just hits in Jamaica, but also – among reggae fans, at Reggae parties - “inna di dance”, at sound systems, or “inna di club”, throughout Europe, North America, Japan, Africa, and elsewhere. Even well into the Dancehall era.

The translatability is therefore difficult, but not impossible.

Pan Flutes

Some Dutch commentators in newspapers described certain recurring street musicians in Amsterdam as “panfluit-indianen”, to be translated as: pan flute Indians. They referred to South American musicians from the Andes region (Peru, Bolivia, or Ecuador), travelling and playing their pan flute in touristy central Amsterdam streets - as in other cities of Europe -, usually solo or in small groups, combined with singing or other instruments, or even recorded tape music, giving the folk music a pop edge, haha.

The term “pan flute Indians” is in itself condescending, as all dehumanizing remarks are. It can even be considered racist, due to both the “othering” and dehumanization it implies.

While factual, the at the same time condescending qualification, also denies that playing the pan flute – also known as panpipes - is not at all easy. It is a developed skill, connected moreover to a rich musical legacy.

In the case of Peruvian musicians, it is of course the cultural legacy of the Andes region, the highland Amerindians, representing an intriguing world and culture, albeit perhaps clouded by clichés put in our head (lama’s, woolen hats and ponchos). The pan flute combining with the shamanic drum, and guitars, in Andean countries makes an unique, magic feel. Since I am a percussionist, the role of the drum naturally interests me.

Pan flutes are quite known globally as being an instrument in that part of South America, but it has a history elsewhere in the world too. Maybe less known among the common populace. This post is about that.

Historical and archaeological studies found that pan flutes were throughout history known all over the world, in many different cultures. On all continents.

The intriguing thing is – I find – that as main musical instrument it only remained important in a few cultures: the said Andes region, and – for some reason – Romania, in Eastern Europe. Why did it “survive” in particularly those two regions? Perhaps inexplicable, yet an interesting mystery.

Pan flutes are further known – still today – also in a few other places, such as (other) parts of Europe and the Americas, and in Africa and Asia. Interestingly, though, Peru and Romania remain the two countries most associated with the pan flute.

ANDES

In the case of Andean Peru and surroundings, wind instruments predate European arrival, so also the pan flute go back to the Amerindian roots: with the (Spanish) Europeans came later the string instruments, guitar, and guitar-like. Maybe a but comparable to how hand drums might represent the African roots within Black music with also modern instruments.

Elsewhere in the Americas, “scraper” like instruments represent an Amerindian remnant, though these scrapers were also known in African music. In the more maintained and purer Amerindian cultures in the Andean region, the pan flute is definitely a direct connection to the “pre-contact” indigenous culture, as are other less-known instruments used there traditionally, such as shamanic drums.

That means music’s original connection to the natural surroundings, and in that sense “pure” or “pristine”, but also more spiritual.

ROMANIA

Romania as “pan flute island” is more enigmatic. The pan flute’s first use there is, anyway, hidden in the mist of times, though according to some sources not that far back, known since the 17th c. (and perhaps before).

An explanation – though hard to prove – might lie in the relatively large Gypsy, or more correct ethnically Roma(ni) – population Romania has. In fact, percentage-wise, Romania is one of the countries in Europe with relatively the largest Gypsy/Roma population, along with Bulgaria.

In Western Europe, only Spain is known for having a substantial Gypsy/Roma population. In Eastern Europe in a few more countries, with own musical traditions. The Flamenco music of South Spain received some Gypsy influences, but is South Spanish music in essence.

Gypsy music/Roma music in Romania is therefore different, more adapted to the region there, with East European/Klezmer-like traits. As a nomadic people, Roma tended to take musical elements from parts they traveled through, rather than hold on strictly to own traditions, though these (North Indian elements) persist.

Historically known in Ancient Greece too, the pan flute is named after a Greek God Pan, and it might just be that exactly the “nomadic” lives Roma chose to live, made them safeguard ancient musical traditions lost in more settled, modernized communities in the surroundings.

Local, Jewish, Romanian, but also Turkish influences are notable among the Lautari musicians, as the Roma music class is known in Romania. Among the Lautari (named after a lute) various instruments play a role, but also a pan flute. Sources say it was brought by the Turks (also because of etymology of words for it: muscal and nai).

The pan flute is now used seldom among these lautari, though they were known as their “primary” instrument. Besides in Romania, Bulgaria and elsewhere, also in Turkey (and indeed Spain) Roma were known as relatively often musicians.

As with the Spanish guitar of local, South Spanish origin (with Persian/Moorish antecedents), the Roma in Eastern Europe, Greece, and Turkey used local instruments from there, including thus probably the pan flute, and later more violins, accordions, as the clichés on Romanian Roma music are known.

These Roma/Gypsy Lautari musicians in Romania used the pan flute originally, but in time less. Its tradition however survived in Romanian folk music.

ORIGINS

There is even a source that states that the Romanian-area pan flute influenced its used in the Andes region of Peru, since around the 17th c.. This seems nonsense to me, and thus a dubious source.

Maybe driven by too much pride or cultural nationalism, historical sources showed that pan flutes have existed worldwide in various cultures, and it is also common sense. It’s a very basic instrument that could arise everywhere, requiring after all blowing at the edges of different-sized tubes.

Even the presence of Bamboo - while useful - seems not to predispose Eastern Asia, as woods have also been used for them. I learned that this blowing is not that simple, and does at first seem not natural – i.e. requiring effort, as with blowing a trumpet – but it is a skill that in time can be acquired.

A further argument that the pan flute is not of Romanian origin, but known originally world wide, is that they are historically also known in (central) Africa, and centuries back. In the Bantu regions, far from regions of Turkish or Arab influences, and before dominant European colonial influences, such as in Congo, Kenya, South Sudan, and Mozambique, they have a historical presence.

The Luba (DR Congo), Konso (South Sudan/Ethiopia), Shona (Zimbabwe) and Nyungwe (Tete region, Mozambique) peoples, are examples of peoples with an important role for pan flutes in their traditional music.

Today, especially in Mozambique, the “Nyanga” as panflutes are known there, still survive in music.

Its historical presence in China (later reaching Turkey), still in Vietnam, and also in e.g. Papua New Guinea, further shows that pan flutes ere universally human, and not Romanian or Turkish in origin, and not even of Peruvian origin – even if found there from a long time, way before the Spanish came, but even in pre-Inca times). The sizes and shapes (and number of tubes) may differ per culture, as do the musical structures, but the principles of playing are the same.

Pan flute-like instruments were known all over the world historically, though. Another example is the still present pan flute tradition of the Solomon Islands in Oceania, often combined with interesting bamboo percussion.

SURVIVAL

The most enigmatic about this instrument’s history is not so much that it originated (easy to come up with), but rather where and why it survived in certain regions, and others (even neighbouring ones) not.

Why not among other Amerindians, outside the Andes region? Known in certain parts of Iberia historically too, but especially in Galicia (NW Spain) and bordering North Portugal (less known elsewhere on the peninsula), and in Italy mainly in the (far northern) Brianza region, while it was known in ancient Rome as it was in Greece. Why common in Romanian folk music, but not in bordering regions like the Balkan, Bulgaria, or Ukraine? It is less known there, anyway.

Why still maintained in parts of Mozambique, among the Nyungwe people, but absent or less in other parts of Africa as an instrument?

Above all, this shown an interesting aspect of folk culture. Folk culture is largely a natural development, for sure, but also a conscious choice of original creativity, self-expression, an aim of “distinction”, or to use a modern term: “identity”.

“Originality” is what makes folk culture distinct, to summarize. If all folk culture were the same, there would be no folk culture. Its essence lies after all in its originality and distinctiveness/difference from other (surrounding) cultures.

The life-affirming creativity and originality of folk culture is beautiful..

Some cultures chose the pan flute for this, but each in their own distinct ways, as the differences in uses – within wider music and dance - between South America, Europe, and Africa show..

REGGAE

Having become more or less a Reggae connoisseur over time (“expert” sounds so lame), I do have an idea about its use in Reggae music, that is: of the pan flute.

Not really, only a few examples of pan flute or very similar sounds, with Burning Spear’s song Free Nelson Mandela as prime example. Adds a nice touch to that song..

POP MUSIC

The pan flute did reach wider Western pop music here and there, however. With a solo in the famous hit California Dreaming, by the Mamas & Papas, in the equally famous Africa by Toto, as well as - more predictably - in covers of the Andean classic El Condor Pasa, such as by Simon & Garfunkel. Then to songs of other rock/pop acts, from Sting and A-Ha to the Spice Girls, and, well, Shakira..

SEE ALSO: http://music.africamuseum.be/instruments/english/congo%20drc/mishiba.html

https://www.panflutejedi.com/pan-flute-history.html

Brazil and the world order

Brazil is the country with the highest number of people of African descent, outside of Africa itself.

The largest country of South America was once an important destination for the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Eventually, it outnumbered in number of imported slaves all other also major destinations in the Americas, numbering well in the millions.

In the course of time, Brazil became independent from Portugal, and in recent times even kind of an “economic power” of sorts. In these times, the BRIC countries, and more updated BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), became a common term, representing a counterweight to the dominance of the US.

INFLUENCE

What’s interesting to me is how Brazil - as largest South American country and economy - influenced our lives, or, more personally, mine: my musical and cultural interests notably. How and why?

What is the Brazil that is presented to the world: the Amazon and its Amerindians, Afro-Brazilians (incl. Samba), football, carnival, or the white elite? Clichés and stereotypes, simplified images, or some of its complex reality?

How did this reach me? Growing up in the Netherlands since the 1980s, and with Latin-speaking, South European (Italian and Spanish) parents?

NEOLIBERALISM

In the Netherlands, because of economic might, but also due to linguistic reasons, the US was culturally much more influential, when I grew up. This was especially in mainstream culture and entertainment: pop music, cinema, television. This was in tandem with the US economic influence: companies and brands, neoliberal capitalism (of which I am NOT a fan), to which European countries adapted. Along with it came a commercial, pushy advertizing and "consumerism" we're supposed to take for granted, as Naomi Klein explained well in her work No Logo (1999), with as telling subtitle: 'taking aim at the brand bullies'.

Personally, I think that the type of capitalism, the “Chicago school”, called “neoliberalism” has been an underestimated, virulent evil in this world. Its materialist, “money shark” and pro-rich focus had spectacular effects, but at the same time mainly favoured the wealthy, increasing global inequality.

Its favouring of shareholders, replaced the once more “social” entrepreneurship (called “Rhineland model” by some) in parts of Europe, considering also employees’ well-being and rights to employment, the environment, i.e. a company’s wider social context. This was not all about the money, unlike this US-shaped neoliberalism, where harsh unsensitive firing of employees is stimulated rather than avoided.

Compared to this strong cultural and economic mainstream influence the US obtained in Europe, Brazil remained strongly behind. Even in “Latin” countries as Spain or Italy – and even erstwhile colonizer Portugal -, the US got a more dominant influence than Brazil. Brazil remained an exotic place of which most knew not much beyond football, carnival, samba, bossa nova, and perhaps favelas.

COMPARISON

The comparison between the US and Brazil I chose not randomly: they represent the largest countries in the Americas, the most numerous populations, yet a totally different position in international relations.

This has historical reasons, such as the different colonial patterns, the later date of independence, and all kinds of social and climatic reasons. The connection of the US to the Anglo-Saxon world, ensured its ties to industrialization, that started in Britain in the Late 18th c.

Yet, other countries reached that heightened degree of industrialization, outside of the West, notably Japan and South Korea, as well as China to a degree. Perhaps a tropical climate limits the “super power” potential in this capitalist, exploitative world, seeking control over “raw materials”.

Lula Da Silva apparently just won Brazil’s elections in Late 2022, as I write this. I remember that same Lula Da Silva said in a speech for an international audience, about 20 years ago, (during an earlier presidency, I reckon) that: “for all intents and purposes, Brazil belongs to the Western world”. For some reason, I remembered this. It seemed at odds with his “Left-wing” image, and I do not know if I agree with it fully, maybe only partly.

It is somehow disrespectful to the large African population in Brazil, as well as the original Amerindian population: the only cultural values that matter internationally are supposedly Euro-Western ones. There is however a strong cultural impact of Afro-Brazilians on Brazilian culture and society.

CUBA AND BRAZIL

In that sense, a comparison can be made between Cuba, a country I know better, and Brazil. Both were Iberian colonies and important destinations of African slaves.

For a large part these Africans in both colonies (Cuba and Brazil) were taken from roughly the same regions in Africa. “Roughly” because there are interesting differences regarding the Central African slaves ending up in Cuba and those in Brazil. Historical sources say that in Brazil more enslaved Africans came from is now Angola, and in the case of Cuba more from what is now DR Congo or Congo-Brazzaville, with the cultural differences this implies, even while sharing a Bantu heritage.

It is noticeable in main cultural exports of both countries: the Brazilian Capoeira “martial dance” has clearly precursors in present-day Angola, while Afro-Cuban music genres like Son and Rumba – in turn shaping what we know as Salsa – evidently show Congo region musical characteristics: straight rhythms, polyrhythms and clave, pelvic moves, dances, etcetera. Some of these Central African traits, though, are also found in Afro-Brazilian Samba

To both colonies, also relatively many slaves from Yorubaland (Nigeria, Benin) were brought, but from different parts of Yorubaland, again implying slight cultural differences.

PERCUSSION

As a percussionist, I focused on both cultures (Cuba and Brazil) and its instruments, noting that these instruments differ: partly attributable to different colonizers: the “Portuguese/Lusophone” world e.g. uses more tambourines than the Hispanic one, but also due to different places of origins of enslaved Africans, even if bordering. There are interesting, remarkable peculiarities, alongside partial similarities.

While a “conga-like” big drum can be found in Brazil too - and also like in Cuba several drum types -, there are differences. Tambourines are little used in Afro-Cuban music, but much in Afro-Brazilian music (Samba, capoeira music, carnival). Bongos (two attached small drums of different sizes) are not really found in Brazil, while on the other hand the Yoruba-derived Agogo bell in Brazil (with two connected different-sized bells) has no real equivalent in Cuba, where mostly single cowbells are used.

Friction, rubbed drums with the high “monkey-like” sound, called: “cuicas” are typically Brazilian, although friction drums are used in Cuba, though with a much lower sound.. perhaps more akin to the sound of lions or lionesses. Why that difference in sound? The origins are mostly in Central Africa.

Though as a percussionist I am overall more of the “Afro-Cuban” school and soon also of the Reggae and African schools, in time Brazilian instruments and music influenced me too, making myself even compositions based musically on Afro-Brazilian genres Samba or Afoxé.

Then there are other instruments, developed over time, that became unique to Afro-Brazilian culture, differing from e.g. Afro-Cuba.

Both Cuba and Brazil represent cultural “power houses”, also with regard to internationally spread percussion instruments, each with own characteristics. They influenced music and not least percussion worldwide.

In Cuba, guitars follow either Andalusian (South Spanish) or Canarian models, in Brazil smaller, Portuguese models, all used in Africanized contexts.

Song structures and singing styles came to differ too, in relation to different colonizers and African influences. In part, Brazil also has stronger Amerindian influences.

RACE RELATIONS

Through all these relative differences, within broader similarities (Iberian influences, Central African and Yoruba influences), a main similarity is the racial mixture.

The latter is much stronger in both Brazil and Cuba, when compared to the US, where races “stayed apart” more historically. The Black or White worlds one might distinguish in the US, are less clear-cut in Brazil (and Cuba), though not absent.

Political power, for example, remained – up to today! - for the largest part a Euro or White domain in both countries, in sharp contrast to “the street”. In Cuba, the Castro family (with roots in Galicia, Spain) shows this, but also most of the Communist Party’s leadership are White Cubans. Not representative racially, because in Cuba, about 60 % is either mixed or mostly African, with similar percentages in Brazil.

Also in Brazil, politics and parliament remained long almost “lilly-white”, dominated by people of European descent, thus hardly representative.

This “racial fluidity” – albeit with hypocrisy and inequality – did not reach Europe as much as influences from US-style Black-White dichotomies, echoing in US-style “minority” and "identity” discourses in some multicultural European countries (Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, France).

This again shows a stronger US influence in Europe. This also showed in the relative attention to police violence often targeting Blacks in the US. As I wrote in an earlier article/post, this also happens in Brazil, and in much higher numbers: police killings in the Rio de Janeiro state alone outnumbering those in the whole of US, and disproportionately affecting young Black men. We only hear less about it.

In fact, I think comparing Brazil and the US – as comparable regarding size - and its present position in the world, is useful to highlight some major historically grown inequalities in this world, stemming largely from colonialism.

Brazil is not really a “white" nation, but mostly mixed, with large minorities of mainly Africans or mainly Europeans - or Amerindians in some regions -, but mostly mixed, often also culturally. This is further complicated by migrations, such as the large Japanese community in the big city Sao Paolo, Italian and German migrants more in South Brazil. Nonetheless, Brazil has an image of “racial mixture”, including Africans.

The US, despite its quite large African American minority, has the image of a “White”, European/Anglo-Saxon country, presenting itself to the world as such. With this, it gained power and influence and maintained it, showing – as much more - the colonial legacy of white supremacy today.

Neoliberalist capitalism is largely a “US” invention, but another “economic model”, for instance developed in Brazil, would not be so influential and popular. We are stuck with the “hard”, shareholder-biased capitalism of neoliberalism, bearing a clear WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) system of values. A bit more popular or looser, Third World or “Latino” minded approach to economic life would actually be refreshing, but has little chance to influence European or global affairs.

NEW WORLD ORDER

The recent lockdown policies and alignment with Big Pharma and Business of most Western countries, only showed that this neoliberal capitalism only became “harder”, until reaching totalitarian, Fascist characteristics.

The term Fascist I chose specifically, because the alignment of Big State and Big Business we now see, has a precursor in Mussolini’s Fascist policies in Italy since the 1920s: this was called Corporatism, sharing the same principle: big money is big power.

The former President of Brazil Jair Bolsanoro was not perfect, said some nonsensical things probably, but at least was to a degree justly critical of such lockdown/fascist directions and of Big Pharma’s and WHO’s influence. He differed in this from more compliant leaders, also in Latin America, and in the West.

Some Brazil experts I know here in the Netherlands, told me that Bolsonaro – while White and Middle-Class - did not come from the traditional elite (with its dubious links to the historical plantocracy), and as an outsider was more independent.

That the newly elected President of Brazil, Lula Da Silva, once said – as mentioned - that “for all intents and purposes, Brazil is part of the West”, does not seem promising for an own course, though some commentators say he wants to go an own way. It will be merely “neoliberalism with a social face”, Dutch scholar Kees Van Der Pijl said.

I can only hope that his election does not represent a “putting in line” of Brazil’s government policies with global governance – present neoliberal fascism -, or any Agenda the UN has (2030), which do not benefit the poor people of this world (only in name).

That’s another thing, when comparing the US and Brazil: Brazil has (overall) still a much higher poverty rate than the USA, including predictable racial disparities.

Lula Da Silva must know this too. Would he sell his soul to this globalist capitalist elite at the cost of his multiracial people?

Time will tell, and will show whether the elections were indeed fraudulent, or that corruption/bribing is hidden from sight.

If this is the case, the vague yet outdated image of Lula Da Silva as anti-elite Left-wing is precisely that: an outdated memory, past and gone, fake and false, in this negatively changing, corrupted world of politics, shaped by a global, Western-led capitalist elite.

Unfortunately, Brazil is then indeed part of this exploitative Western world, and more compliantly so. Such as it became since colonialism.

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.