Migration is freedom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CORONA

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

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

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

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

PERSONAL STORIES

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

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

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

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

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

SYRIA

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

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

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

SPAIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

UNPLANNED

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

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

INTEGRATION

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

DIFFERENCES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ITALY

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

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

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

REGGAE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

POLITICIZED

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

CORONA AGAIN

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

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

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

CONTRADICTORY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nuff said.

African string instruments

I always found the global variety in musical instruments interesting. I am surely not the only one. Since young kind of musically inclined, like my older brothers, that interest was continuously fed.

Over time I tried percussion instruments, drums, rattles, Spanish castanets, or harmonicas, that we had at our home, while my brothers eventually took up guitars: one of them bass guitar, the other one mainly Spanish guitars.

Of course I tried guitars too – in my ten years -, but I found the pressing of fingertips against strings somewhat uncomfortable and hard to get used to, and for that reason, I first took up playing keyboard.

Besides this practical reason, it also relates to musical preference. The keys/piano focus might have related to my early interest in Stevie Wonder. Moreover, I am musically broadly interested, but tended to favour music with strong, groovy rhythms: Funk, Reggae, African music. Therefore, I gravitated soon toward percussion and drumming, which I eventually took up.

GUITAR-PLAYING BROTHERS

It is however not as simple – or clear-cut - as that. Guitars and rhythm can of course combine. My older brothers could play a bit rhythmically too, and my bass playing brother loved Reggae too (as well as jazz and funk), and of course I could appreciate on occasion too nice guitar solos (in any genre), the rhythmical playing in Flamenco, and in Brazilian and Cuban music. The guitar patterns in Bossa Nova, for instance, originally more or less imitate Samba percussive patterns, in a “jazzy” way.

My Spanish guitar-playing brother pointed out, moreover, that you’re more a “complete” one-man band with a guitar, as it enables combining harmony, melody, and rhythm. I of course heard some good examples of that, with convincing “full” songs, with just a guitar.

AFRICA

Broader, the association of string instruments with “European music”, and percussion and drums with African or black music, is also simplistic. I already assumed that, more or less, having heard that the banjo is of African, Congo-region origin, and about “musical bows” like the Afro-Brazilian berimbau.

The fact remains, however, that “chord structures” as such are not really present in African music originally, notably in sub-Saharan Africa, where other ways to achieve “harmony” are used, as part of wider polyrhythmic pieces. The emphasis on “rhythm” gives a larger role of percussion in all its variety throughout Africa. A varied, intriguing field, that strongly influenced my own percussion playing, with much polyrhythmic “Congo” or “Congo via Cuba” influences.

Africa is, however, a large and varied continent. Even smaller Europe is after all musically quite varied, with different instruments per region and culture.

The “Spanish guitar” (also “Classical guitar”) developed in Southern Spain under local, Persian and Moorish influences, in time from a four-string to a six-string instrument with nylon strings. Its form would serve as model for all global “guitars” to come, so it seems. Perhaps due to Spanish colonialism, although Classical guitars were soon fabricated more in France than in the Spain of its origins, spreading it soon internationally.

Smaller forms of the original Spanish/Andalusian guitar appeared in the Portuguese-speaking world, variants in the Canary Islands and parts of Latin America, while in the US a different steel-string type of guitar, called “country & western” guitar, developed, much used in US music, Country, Blues, and even more the later electric guitar.

Lutes, zither and harps are further known historically in the Middle East and Islamic world, in Europe, and are mentioned in the Bible. Violin-type instruments developed in Italy. The Hawaiian ukulele, furthermore, is based on a Portuguese/Madeira small-guitar model. So string instruments are international, yet somehow concentrated, you might say.

What intrigues me, however, as an African music-oriented percussion player, is whether there are truly indigenous string instruments in sub-Saharan Africa too. Not imported or as a reworked foreign influence (as e.g. the ukulele in Hawaii). Also, if they are a foreign influence (e.g. from Arabs or Portuguese), how are these string instruments “Africanized” through African musical principles?

GRIOT AND FOREST

An interesting distinction – I find this so interesting that I discussed it several times on this blog – is that between “Sahel” or “Griot” Africa on the one hand, and “forest Africa” on the other, a musical distinction made by scholars like Robert Farris-Thompson. It explains also musical influences of enslaved Africans in the Americas, giving through the generations birth to several music genres like Blues, Reggae, Son, Samba, Rumba, Merengue, Cumbia, Calypso, etcetera.

Well now, it is pointed out by Farris-Thompson and others that the “swing” element – playing “around” the beat – found in Jazz and Blues - stem from Griot African musical culture. More specifically relating to the use of string instruments in “Sahel” parts of Africa: the Senegambian, Mali, and Guinee regions. A region with historically Islamic influences, and known local string instruments as the Kora and Ngoni, used by the “Griots”, who were like travelling musicians and chroniclers.

The “Swing” around the beat, thus relates to the characteristics of string instruments, whereas in “forest Africa” (southern Ghana, Benin, and Nigeria, Congo region a.a., Bantu-speaking regions) drums and percussion – and thus “straighter” rhythms – and polyrhythms – were more common. The latter influenced e.g. Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian music.

The Griot “swing” style, on the other hand, clearly influenced Blues, also due to the relatively strong presence of Senegambian and Guinee region slaves in the Mississippi delta, where Blues originated.

By comparison, in Cuba, relatively many enslaved Africans came from “forest Africa”, notably the Congo region (estimated at about 40%), and from the Yoruba area (now southern Nigeria, Benin), shaping its music’s rhythmical structure. Perhaps not even in the case of Cuba, as a Spanish colony, all “guitar use” can be attributed solely to the Spanish/Andalusian influence from early on, or from the Canary islands. The influence from Southern Spain and the Canary islands is strong in early Spanish colonialism in Cuba (regarding early “white” inhabitants), to be sure (even on some music genres in Cuba, such as Punto Guajiro). It however got mixed, as guitars became part of Afro-Cuban music.

GUAJEO

When listening to how these string instruments are played, rhythmically, in Cuba, one hears often African influences, with echoes of the African thumb pianos like the Mbira, or derived Kalimba. Thumb pianos are undoubtedly indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa, found not just in Zimbabwe, with the well-known Mbira, but also in Central (“Congo”) and Western Africa, with metal or bamboo tines.

An example of an “African guitar pattern” in Cuba can be found in a very influential pattern in Cuban music, stemming from the Son Changüí genre in Eastern Cuba: the original, more African Son from the Guantánamo region and around (musically Congo/Bantu-influenced). It included a large thumb piano (called later “rhumba box”), bongo drums (two attached drums of differing size, later spread internationally), shakers, scrapers, and guitars or tres (Canarian type double-stringed) guitars.

The typical “guajeo” pattern – syncopated offbeat/on beat - of guitars in Son Changüí, were the model for later (piano) patterns in later Son, but also for Salsa, as some would recognize. That “guajeo” is with a guitar/tres, but is as much about the “rhythm” and “groove” as it is about melody.

INDIGENOUS

Time to focus on the African continent, and my main reason for this post: the search for ‘indigenous African string instruments”.

Are the Ngoni and Kora truly indigenous to the Mali/Guinee region? If so, what differentiates them from other “string instruments” as known in Europe and the Islamic world?

Some may know this already, but I have yet to learn something about this. I played shortly a Ngoni at a friend’s place, learning that you did not use all your fingers (only two of each hand) to play, due to the grip. This differs from the Classical Guitar, where even missing one finger tip due to an accident can be problematic, as some well-known guitar players found out, like Django Reinhardt, that could use it to their advantage by creating their own style. More or less I saw how the one-string Afro-Brazilian musical bow called Berimbau (used in Capoeira) is plucked, but that’s about it. The Kora sounds nice and like a harp. How it is played I only vaguely know.

Time to learn more about it, and I do that not just by reading or Internet video searches (anyone can do that by themselves), but also through conversations with or questions to people I know in my personal circle playing those African string instruments (often combined with percussion), asking them some questions.

BERIMBAU

Carlos, a relative of mine, active in the Netherlands for an organization providing information on Afro-Brazilian and Capoeira culture (called Stichting Agogo) danced/played Capoeira himself, and played accompanying music, including on the “musical bow” the Berimbau.

The Berimbau can be considered a string instrument. Carlos himself described it a string instrument “in its initial stage”. It has only one string on a wooden, flexible bow, a resonator (usually calabash), but cannot produce too many tones (“two or three”), though variation is achieved with added objects like a coin when plucking.

Its playing is essentially rhythmic, Carlos emphasizes, having moreover a “leading” role in the music accompanying Capoeira (let’s call it “Capoeira music”). The Berimbau leads the “groove”, so to speak, which other instruments (drums, shakers, tambourines, scrapers) follow, or respond to.

In light of its limited tonal variety it can be considered rhythmic and percussive. After all, also by using your hand well, you can get different tones from hand drums too (muting, slapping, open tone, heel-tip, even with elbow, such as later conga players, etcetera).

The “string” of the Berimbau - however – certainly gives it a feel of atmospheric “tension”, remotely similar to the swing, though based on straight rhythms, as Capoeira’ – and the Berimbau’s - origins in Angola suggest.

I studied it before, and musical bows – like the models for the Angolan Berimbau, can be found in a large part of Central and Southern Africa, notably the Bantu-speaking Southern half, from Angola and DR Congo, to Zambia, Swaziland, or even Madagascar. The musical bow “Malunga” in India got there with East African immigrants.

Besides in Brazil, also on some Caribbean islands, such as Curaçao and Guadeloupe and Martinique one finds such African-descended musical bows, sometimes played with the mouth as resonator..

These one-string bows are however mainly seen as a percussion instrument, or as an “initial stage” of a string instrument.

NGONI AND KORA

The Ngoni, a harp-lute from Mali is made of a gourd and animal skin, having now between 6 or 18 strings. Variants of the Ngoni exist in the wider Senegambian and Guinee region. On Wikipedia, and in other sources, its history is confirmed as indigenous to the Mali region. So yes, indigenous (full) string instruments historically exist, not only in Northern Africa, but also in e.g. Mali, e.g. the Ngoni.

The Kora – also a calabash-bodied harp/lute – is historically newer than the Ngoni, found also in Mande-speaking parts like the Ngoni, including Mali, Guinee, and Senegambia, and (northern) parts of Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso. The Kora has a wider range and has typically 21 strings.

That increase in strings (the kora developed after all later than the Ngoni, that had initially 6 strings) is interesting, since the model for the “Western” guitar – the Spanish guitar – also initially had 4 strings, later 6.

Anyway, also the Kora is described in historical sources as indigenous to that part of Africa. The Ngoni and Kora, moreover, were said to be the models for the Banjo instrument in the Americas, influenced by Mande-speaking slaves in some parts, e.g. the Mississippi delta, explaining the banjo’s presence in US folk styles (like Bluegrass), but it is also used in some Caribbean folk genres (Mento, Calypso a.o.)..

Interestingly, for this post, sources refer also to an indigenous, triangular guitar-like instrument among the Igbo in SE Nigeria, so more in “percussive” forest Africa, outside of “kora/ngoni” Griot/Sahel Africa. This Igbo instrument is called the “Ubaw-Akwala”, and is seen as another possible predecessor of the banjo.

Interestingly, because enslaved Igbo Africans ended up in parts of the US (Georgia, Carolina), as well as of the Caribbean, notably Barbados and Jamaica.

OVERVIEW

A friend of mine sent me a photo as an overview of indigenous African string instruments, pointing also at Ethiopian string instruments. I found interesting to see also an indigenous harp in the Congo/Gabon region (called Wambi).

Further, the Kundi is a five-string harp among the Azande people (DR Congo/CAR) in Central-Africa, well into more “percussive” forest Africa.. Also the Enanga – an arched 7 or 8-string harp among the Ganda in Uganda - is worthy of mention in more percussion-oriented Ganda culture. It is played quite percussively.

Through my own research I further found also that the Akan (Ghana) had an own harp (not unsimilar to the Kora), the Seperewa, (see https://ghanagoods.co.uk/ashanti-musical-instruments/), not shown in this photo. There are also some Northern African ones, but for this post, I more or less exclude Arab-influenced Northern Africa, not as a rejection, but because the topic is indigenous string instruments.

It is more complicated though. Berbers (Imazigh) were original inhabitants of Northern Africa, though said to be of Middle Eastern origin far back. Tambourine-variants, like the Bendir, are the most used instruments in Berber folk music, which in itself forms an interesting contrast with the more “string” oriented Arabs.

ETHIOPIA

The Ethiopian population is African, but mixed with migrants historically from the nearby Arabian peninsula. These spoke Semitic languages and were mostly male, explaining why – genetical studies showed - the Ethiopians still today have more Semitic/Arabian DNA on their paternal side, and more indigenous African (related to Nilotic peoples like the Nuer and Luo) or Hamitic/Cushitic/Somali) on their maternal side.

This pre-Islam Arabian peninsula migration nonetheless shaped the culture too, but was more “indigenized” than the Arab influence in Northern Africa with the later spread of Islam (since the 7th c. AD). The connection to the Holy Faith of Islam gave Arab culture after all a special status.

In Ethiopia this kind of privileging was not absent, although mixture was more common. The Amharic speak an (audibly Africanized) Semitic language called Amharic, are Early Christians, and have string-like instruments, without a strong foreign, colonizing input (only some Islamic or Portuguese influences).

These string instruments play a role, but also drums and percussions. The big, two-sided Kebero drum – distantly related to the Ugandan/Kenyan Ngoma) - is used often, also as standard in Ethiopian Orthodox Christian services (big kebero drums). For secular events smaller kebero drums tend to be used. This connection between drum/rhythm and spirituality is deeply African. Other percussion during such church services include rattles and shaked “sistrums” (of metal).

Ethiopian string instruments among the Amhara peoples and others include the lyre Krar (five strings).

Another, larger harp-like lyre is called Begena (said to be brought from the Israel region to Africa), and the more indigenous, intriguing bowed lute, known as Masenqo, with one string played like a violin, used by singers to accompany themselves.

Rhythms tend to be “faster” in the South Region of Ethiopia, while the Nuer in the South West have thumb pianos, and more variety in drums.

CONCLUSION

Africa therefore, neither sub-Saharan Africa, is not without its indigenous string instruments, even without Portuguese or Arab influences, such as harp types. The musical bows are a very primary form of a string instrument, capable of not many tones, used mainly percussively, but creatively.

It is also a matter of shape and material. “African music is mainly focused on rhythm” is too simplistic, even in sub-Saharan Africa, though it has an element of truth. Yet, the various thumb pianos like the Mbira, show a melodic, tonal tradition as well, essentially with the same musical functions as harps in Africa, or guitars (or pianos) elsewhere. These typically African thumb pianos have their unique characteristics though, influencing later “guitar”-playing patterns in Africa and the African diaspora, for instance in Conglese Soukous, but also in Cuban Son, up to Salsa (and Dominican Bachata, Jamaican Mento a.o.).

The harp and lutes with more strings are also long present in Africa, the Ngoni and the Kora being the best known, combining melodic and rhythmic functions, often combined with percussion/drums.

The original Spanish guitar, finally, was neither only meant or used “melodically” or “harmonically”, despite its Middle Eastern/Spanish origin. Flamenco music and some other folk styles in Southern Spain (e.g. Fandango, Sevillanas) have recurring rhythmic elements as well, even relatively much rhythm for European folk genres.

Some attribute this to colonial (Cuban) influences returning to Spain, but only in part. Sources point at also existing early “rhythmic ways” of playing the Spanish guitar before colonialism, also when combining with Spain’s best known percussion instrument, namely the clacking castanets, already present (the castanets) in Spain when the Romans went there, and probably of Ancient Egyptian/Phoenician origin.

Again, it is not so clear-cut or simple. I guess the innate musicality of all people in all cultures are influenced by international movements, but remain an own, individual reworking to a higher level, moving in the magical - often overlapping -spectrum between melody, harmony, rhythm, and, as well, “mood” and spirituality. The beauty of culture and art.

De gesel van het neoliberalisme: Ewald Engelen's 'Ontwaak! Kom uit uw neoliberale sluimer' (2021)

Zowel “neoliberalisme” als “technocratie” zijn termen waarvan ik eigenlijk alleen - tot voor kort - "ongeveer" wist wat ermee bedoeld wordt. Ik ben hoger opgeleid en heb jarenlang in een bibliotheek van een wetenschappelijke instituut gewerkt, maar toch kwam er tot voor kort geen sluitende definitie in mijn hoofd op van deze termen. “Neoliberalisme” associeerde ik met “kapitalisme”, het belang van grote bedrijven en banken, en verder, wel, de VVD. Wat het “neo” (nieuw) maakte wist ik niet precies.

“Technocratie” vond ik nog lastiger om goed te definiëren. Ik vermoedde iets van beleid gebaseerd op kille apparatuur en (reken)modellen.

Welnu, het pas (2021) verschenen en goed leesbare boek ‘Ontwaak! Kom uit uw neoliberale sluimer’ van Ewald Engelen hielp me uit de metaforische brand: het besprak beide thema’s, in relatie tot met name de recente Nederlandse geschiedenis.

Ik kwam het boek tegen in de sociale media, en had weleens eerder wat gelezen van Engelen. Ik was het over het algemeen wel met hem eens. Ook beschreef hij leuk sociaal-economische ontwikkelingen, niet zonder humor, alhoewel wel met soms complexe zinnen. Dat laatste zie ik ook als uitdaging.

Ook tijdens wat nu speelt, en dat ook mij meer raakte dan me lief was, namelijk de coronacrisis, bleken Engelen en ik het grotendeels eens. Laten we zeggen dat we beiden tot de linkervleugel behoren van mensen die kritisch zijn over de coronamaatregelen/het lockdownbeleid.

DUIDING

In dit boek uit 2021 was ik dus ook geïnteresseerd, omdat ik de thematiek interessant vond – mijn interesse is echter breed – maar ik vooral ook duiding zocht. Dit zeker ook in de corona tijd van pandemie, die Engelen ook in dit boek over neoliberalisme betrekt. Sommige tegenstanders van het coronabeleid gebruiken de term “plandemie”.

Zelfs als complottheorieën – zoals rond Bill Gates, WEF, Agenda 2030 etc. – waar blijken te zijn – mijn persoonlijk vermoeden: in ieder geval deels -, heeft loos speculeren over de achtergronden van het internationale coronabeleid nu geen zin. Althans: niet zonder een grondige analyse van de politiek en economie die er aan vooraf ging, zoals in Nederland. Dit leek mij een nuttige, historische duiding die ik zocht. Het is een lacune die het boek voor me vult, dat gaandeweg ook meteen “neoliberalisme” en “technocratie” duidelijk voor mij definieert.

Tenminste, dat verwachtte ik. Dit boek voldeed aan die verwachtingen, laat ik dat voorop stellen. Ik heb het met plezier gelezen, en kreeg ook het gevoel dat ik wat bijleerde. Het had iets van “bevestiging” van mijn denkbeelden – ik geef het toe -, maar zeker ook opende het boek mijn ogen voor andere ontwikkelingen en verbanden, die ik zelf nog niet zo zag. Ergens in het boek vat Engelen samen wat volgens hemzelf het kernthema van dit boek is: “de manier waarop hoogopgeleide experts het zogenaamde publieke belang misbruiken om de eigen belangen te dienen ten koste van die van laagopgeleiden.”.. Dat is nog eens duidelijke taal! Rond dit kernthema wordt veel interessants uiteen gezet.

NEOLIBERALISME

Ja, ik weet na lezen beter wat “neoliberalisme” is, hoewel een strakke, “catchy” definitie moeilijk te geven is. Engelen wijdde er zelfs een apart hoofdstukje aan met als titel ‘Wat is neoliberalisme?’, met als deel van de definitie: “meer macht aan aandeelhouders (eigenaren) van ondernemingen, en minder voor andere belanghebbenden (werknemers, klanten, en leveranciers). Dit leidde tot de karakteristieke, neoliberale focus op “winstmaximalisatie”. Het “neo” (nieuwe) ervan ten opzichte van het eerdere “laissez faire” liberalisme zit hem in de “ordening” via wetgeving en gerichte politieke steun.

Interessanter is hoe Engelen de dominantie van het neoliberalisme in het economische beleid van Nederland, en de rest van de Westerse wereld, beschrijft, hoe deze opkwam, en de status quo werd. De norm werd dat de vrije markt alles kan oplossen, simpel gezegd, en dat een minimale, maar effectieve, staat dit ondersteunt.

Dit Anglo-Amerikaanse kapitalistische model kwam inderdaad overwaaien uit de VS en het Verenigd Koninkrijk naar de rest van Europa. Dit was begin jaren 80 (1980s), met de University of Chicago als een leidend neoliberaal bolwerk, met internationale invloed. In Nederland, met een handelstraditie, was die invloed er relatief vroeger en sterker, zo vertelt Engelen, vergeleken met andere landen in Europa: landen als Frankrijk waar gemarginaliseerde economische “scholen” (Keynes, Marx e.a.) nog wel wat meer ruimte en politieke invloed behielden.

Engelen zet goed voor mij uiteen dat er weinig “altruïstisch” en “humanitair” is aan het neoliberalisme, en dat het cynisch genoeg inderdaad de belangen dient van een kleine, welvarende financiële elite in de wereld. Complottheorieën zijn niet eens meer nodig. Het idee van “trickle down economics”, dus dat de baten van winstgevende bedrijven iedereen, ook de arbeiders onderin (want meer werk) ten goede zouden komen, lijkt het cynische egoïsme te legitimeren.

Engelen spreekt zelf over een “proces” sindsdien, in plaats van een “complot”, een “gelijkschakeling” zo men wil, tussen alle machtige maatschappelijke groepen: politiek, de pers, met het grootkapitaal, tegenover “de massa”, en het “volk”. Deze gelijkschakeling -procesmatig, maar met welbegrepen eigenbelang - heeft zich volgens Engelen de laatste decennia in Nederland haast volledig voltrokken. Het omvatte ook puur machtspolitiek en druk, en subtiele omkoping ( zoals “job security” toch kan worden beschouwd).

POLITIEK

Alle “middenpartijen”, zo stelt hij, VVD, PVDA, CDA, D66, inclusief GroenLinks, voeren nu al een tijd neoliberaal economisch beleid uit, of propageren dat. Rechts-populistische partijen die het “ongenoegen” onder het volk willen kanaliseren - PVV, FVD – doen dat volgens Engelen met een verkeerde focus: op cultureel nationalisme, migratiebeperking, en harder vreemdelingenbeleid, daarbij het echte, diepere probleem, namelijk armoede onder dat volk door neoliberalisme, negerend. Partijen als PVV en FVD zitten in dezelfde “neoliberale” fuik wat betreft hun economische standpunten als de “middenpartijen” die ze zelf (als het “kartel”, zoals FVD voorman Thierry Baudet ze noemde) bekritiseren.

Het echte probleem, en dat vond ik een sterk punt van Engelen, is niet “migratie” of “mobiliteit” van mensen, maar mobiliteit van “kapitaal”.

Slechts de SP heeft een duidelijk ander economisch verhaal, volgens Engelen, terwijl de Partij voor de Dieren, ook wat meer afwijkend is qua ecologisch en economisch beleid van de “middenpartijen”, en minder in die neoliberale fuik zit.

WERELDBEELD

Wat is die “fuik” dan wel, en welk wereldbeeld zit achter het neoliberalisme? Dat vind ik interessant. Het “wereldbeeld” van het egoïsme, klaarblijkelijk, gedeeld door meerdere hoogopgeleiden. Daarnaast ziet Engelen ook het mensbeeld van de rationele, calculerende “homo economicus” terugkomen, sinds de stimulering van het neoliberalisme. Het gaat voorts, meer praktisch, uit van het “aanbod” (markten creëren) dan van de “vraag” van consumenten. Dit zorgt voor een – vanuit het perspectief van burger/klant - opdringeriger soort kapitalisme, met welbeschouwd ook meer leugenachtigheid (“behoeftes creëren” is the name of the marketing game), in vergelijking met de Keynesiaanse school van kapitalisme. Verrijking van het grootkapitaal, eenvoudig samen gevat, als belangrijkste uitkomst.

Overtuigend toont Engelen aan dat dit neoliberalisme – ondanks de “trickle down” pretenties – eigenlijk vooral negatieve gevolgen had voor de meerderheid van de bevolking. De bankencrisis van 2008 liet dat zien. Een kleine elite bleef er van profiteren, welke ook alsmaar rijker werd. Die elite werd juist politiek gesteund als antwoord op die economische crisis van 2008, en het neoliberalisme daarmee versterkt, ook politiek..

Hij zet ook uiteen hoe de analyses die ten grondslag liggen aan het neoliberalisme tot een “self-fulfilling prophecy” leiden: de scheiding van “feiten” en “theorie”, depolitisering van economie, samenhang tussen probleem en “oplossingen”. De interpretatie van feiten is inderdaad een heikel – en corrumpeerbaar - punt in meerdere wetenschappen.

ECONOMEN

Veel aandacht geeft Engelen ook aan “economie” als wetenschappelijke discipline. Met de dominantie van neoliberalisme sinds 1980 kregen academisch geschoolde economen - zo illustreert Engelen – veel macht en aanzien, resulterend in een combinatie van arrogantie en tunnelvisie. Hier gebruikt hij de term “technocraten” ook, alsmede “econocraten”. Kort door de bocht geformuleerd: meer geïnteresseerd in cijfers en winst dan in de bredere maatschappij. Of in zulke hinderlijke factoren als “het volk” of “democratie”.

Opvallend is ook – en dat verbaast mij ook, vanuit mijn tijd in een wetenschappelijk instituut – het gebrek aan open discussie in specifiek de economische discipline, het gebrek aan tegenspraak en twijfel. Wetenschap gedijt immers bij de twijfel, en elke “waarheid” erin is tijdelijk. In echte wetenschap dan.

Aan de neoliberale economen is dat over het algemeen weinig besteedt, verduidelijkt Engelen. Ze worden hierbij ook gesteund door de journalistiek, die dezelfde hoogopgeleide, technocratische positie en levensvisie delen, aldus Engelen. Het veelvuldig gebruik van de termen “topeconoom” of “topeconomen” in de media, wijzen op dat ontzag, als deel van een bredere kritiekloosheid. Dat de meeste politieke partijen diezelfde neoliberale focus hebben, eveneens.

Zo kregen deze technocratische economen veel invloed op het politieke discours, en “neoliberaliseerden” deze (mijn term) sinds de 1980s, zogezegd, tot op heden. In Nederland, en een flink deel van de Westerse wereld (en daarbuiten). Dit alles vergrootte de ongelijkheid tussen rijk en arm, en hoogopgeleid en lager opgeleid, maar vergrootte ook de ecologische schade.

MINACHTING

Voorts is een andere interessante lijn in dit boek van Engelen, het dédain of de regelrechte minachting van de hoogopgeleide “technocraten” voor “het volk”, met andere woorden: de lager-opgeleide (en armere) meerderheid. Dit uit zich volgens Engelen in een focus op “verdienste” (merit) van deze hoogopgeleide academici, voortkomend uit een vermeend superieur brein, waar goed gebruik van gemaakt is, door bijvoorbeeld die net-niet-zelfbenoemde topeconomen, en andere academische geschoolden in hun “bubble” en letterlijk of figuurlijk “gated communities”. Deze hoogopgeleide elite heeft een aura van internationaal, kosmopoliet burgerschap om zichzelf heen gecreëerd, geplaatst tegenover het al snel als dom, en xenofoob neergezet lager opgeleide “volk”, vatbaarder voor nepnieuws, populisme, en stemmen op Trump, of partijen als PVV, of voor nationalistische en racistische stromingen, etcetera.

RACISME

Terecht bekritiseert Engelen die hoogopgeleide hoogmoed, in Nederland ook sterk aanwezig, die generaliserend en onwaar is, ook wat betreft “racisme”. Het riekt ook nogal naar hypocrisie. De zwarte Amerikaanse komiek Paul Mooney gaf aan dat racisme vooral iets is wat (rijke) “blanken” DOEN (niet toelaten, niet aannemen, niet verstrekken), en dus meer is dan ergens “rancuneus PRATEN over andere rassen”, zonder verdere machtsmiddelen.

Die hoogopgeleide elite heeft die machtsmiddelen en zal de eigen groep daarmee bevoordelen. Ja, inderdaad vooral rijke blanke mannen, die al uit welvarende gezinnen komen. Daar ligt de hypocrisie.

Een autochtoon Nederlandse PVV-stemmer (werkeloos of uit de arbeidersklasse) die scheldt op teveel Marokkanen en andere buitenlanders in zijn wijk of omgeving, zal geen prettige of positieve persoon zijn, zeker niet voor individuele niet-Nederlanders, en andersom geldt dat ook voor leden van in Nederland etnische minderheden (Marokkanen, Surinamers e.a.) die alleen maar in rancuneuze en negatieve termen aan autochtone Nederlanders kunnen denken (vaak vanwege wat vernederende ervaringen), en contact met die Nederlandse meerderheid maar liever helemaal vermijden, ook al is dat wat generaliserend.

Deze “rancuneuze” mensen hebben door hun maatschappelijke positie echter weinig macht. Premier Mark Rutte, eindverantwoordelijke voor de “racistische” toeslagenaffaire, had daarentegen duidelijk wel macht.. Net als alle grote politieke partijen.

CULTUUR

Engelen betoogt dat de focus op “culturele” onderwerpen dominanter is geworden in het internationale politieke discours, met name sinds de terroristische aanslag (9/11) in 2001. De Islam en zich daarop beroepend terrorisme kreeg zeker overmatige aandacht van overheden, met strengere terreurwetten, en nieuwe, ingrijpende bevoegdheden, en meer inbreuk op privacy en lichamelijke integriteit. Populistische partijen in sommige landen maakten hier en daar gebruik van de Islamofobie, maar het werd ook deel van een breder “cultureel” discours binnen gevestigde partijen over de plaats van de Islam in Westerse samenlevingen. Het evidente feit dat de meerderheid van moslims geen terroristen zijn – en dat het vanuit de psychologie ook zomaar zo kan zijn dat individuele moslims hun religieus fanatisme gebruiken als uitlaatklep voor allerlei (eigen) frustraties -, werden daarbij gemakshalve veronachtzaamd.

Dat Islam-terrorisme was een “hype”, kun je concluderen uit wat Engelen in dit boek stelt, zelfs een afleidingsmanouevre om “neoliberaal” beleid te rechtvaardigen, via een sterkere, maar ondemocratische staat.

Hetzelfde vindt hij gelden voor de focus op andere “culturele”of “raciale” onderwerpen (naast de Islam in Nederland) in het maatschappelijke discours, en in de media in Nederland: “Zwarte Piet”, het Nederlands slavernijverleden of koloniaal verleden, emancipatie, standbeelden van koloniale moordenaars of slavenhouders, of zelfs thema’s als “genderneutraliteit”.

Dit dient vooral om “het volk” af te leiden van de macht van het “neoliberalisme”, en de ongelijkheid die het veroorzaakt, vindt hij. Verdeel en heers, met andere woorden, het volk (de “gevaarlijke” meerderheid) dus verdeeld houden.

Ik denk te snappen wat Engelen ermee bedoelt, hoewel ik het er niet 100% mee eens ben. De wetenschappelijke bibliotheek waar ikzelf ruim twaalf jaar voor werkte, had juist dat Nederlandse slavernijverleden (en koloniaal verleden) als thema, waarbij ik mij specialiseerde in het Caraïbisch gebied.

Ik heb er veel geleerd, maar vooral ook hoe belangrijk is om veel van dat slavernijverleden te leren: voor iedereen in de huidige wereld, en niet slechts mensen van Afrikaanse afkomst. Als slecht voorbeeld, voor het belang van mensenrechten en gelijkheid, en om de positie van bijvoorbeeld Afrika in de huidige wereld te begrijpen..

Ik vind het (Nederlands) “slavernijverleden” dan ook geen irrelevante “afleiding” zoals Engelen lijkt te suggereren, ook omdat de trans-Atlantische slavenhandel en plantage-slavernij in de Amerika’s, eigenlijk ook historisch aan de basis staan van het “kapitalisme” als zodanig, dus ook de huidige neoliberale variant, die Engelen in dit boek heftig bekritiseerd. De opbrengsten van de Britse slavernij financierden de bekende, eerste Industriële Revolutie, zoals wel wat bekender mag zijn.

Hetzelfde geldt voor racisme, waarbij Engelen wel terecht Martin Luther King citeert over de toch ook gedeelde belangen van arme arbeiders (van elk ras) met de Afro-Amerikanen – ook veelal van de arbeidersklasse – voor wie hij opkwam.. ze hadden dezelfde (neoliberaal-kapitalistische, rijke, witte) vijand. Nu nog steeds, zou je kunnen betogen.

Hoewel racisme bestaat, en discriminatie op uiterlijk en cultuur, ook in Nederland, aan de orde van de dag zijn, moeten de relaties met het dominante, ongelijkheid-bevorderende neoliberalisme niet vergeten worden, lijkt Engelen te stellen.

Enigszins samenvattend zegt Engelen treffend, achterin het boek:

“Het neoliberale middel bij uitstek is het creëren van een technocratie die de controle over de regels van de markten en de bescherming van de eigendomsrechten zoveel mogelijk buiten het bereik van volk en democratie houdt”.

Het doel van neoliberalisme is de staat gebruiken om markten verder te verdiepen en eigendomsrechten verder te zekeren, stelt hij tegelijkertijd.

Om dit te bereiken zijn ‘rampen” en “crises” welkome aanleidingen, en zo komen we bij een ander thema in dit boek: de corona crisis.

CORONA

Engelen schreef dit boek terwijl deze merkwaardige coronacrisis gaande is, wereldwijd, met een beleid van ongekende “lockdowns”, ook in Nederland, nodig geacht – of als zodanig gepresenteerd – om verspreiding van de virale ziekte (een nieuwe SARS variant) die via China de wereld over ging (sinds Februari 2020) tegen te gaan. Zoals we veel te veel in de media hebben moeten vernemen, wordt dit virus “Covid 19” genoemd.

Ik was onder de indruk van Engelen’s analyse van deze crisis, met name het politiek gebruik ervan.

Hij geeft zich niet over aan complottheorieën rond Bill Gates, Agenda 2030, the Great Reset, die veel criticasters van het coronabeleid aanhalen, maar refereert er eigenlijk wel indirect naar.

Interessant is echter juist dat hij het plaatst binnen het verloop van het Westerse neoliberalisme.

Hij spreekt – vind ik terecht – tegen dat de hele crisis en het ondemocratische “lockdown-beleid”- wat opvallend veel regeringen nu hanteren - een “ommekeer” is ten opzichte van dat neoliberalisme.

Integendeel: hij ziet het eerder als een bevestiging ervan, zelfs een culminatie van hetgeen eraan vooraf ging. Net als bij de “terrorisme hype” sinds 2001, de politiek gebruikte “banken crisis” van 2008, ziet hij de corona crisis - of “corona hype” zoals ik het zelf wel wil noemen – als nog zo’n noodsituatie en crisis die de “powers that be” gebruiken om het neoliberalisme verder te versterken.

Er is zelfs een vergelijkbare rol van academisch geschoolde “technocraten”, wier woord wet lijkt, zonder de gebruikelijke toetsing en tegenspraak. Voorheen waren dat dus de (neoliberale) “economen”, nu dus de “virologen”, met eenzelfde neiging tot arrogantie en tunnelvisie.

Een desastreus gezag – veelal gebaseerd op zeker betwistbare “modellen” – welke zelfs basale burgerrechten en –vrijheden die we als Nederlandse burgers sinds 1945 voor lief namen, beperkten en afnamen. Voor het eerst sinds de Nazi-tijd een Avondklok, daarvoor al gedwongen sluiting van publieke gelegenheden, reisbeperkingen, samenscholingsverboden, en andere ge- en verboden die de lichamelijke integriteit zelfs aantasten (mondkapjesplicht, meer en meer gedwongen tests en inentingen, en quarantaine).

Engelen zegt daarbij dat de angst bij het volk voor het virus, het vergemakkelijkt voor die neoliberale elite om hun doelen door te drukken.

VERKIEZINGEN EN STEMGEDRAG

Engelen zegt in dit boek weinig over de ernst of aard van Covid 19, en of dat het beleid legitimeert. Of die angst voor corona bij “het volk” (een meerderheid, lijkt het) terecht is (overlijdenspercentage inmiddels minder dan 0,23%, aanwijsbare risicogroepen, is het nog wel een pandemie?) daar kun je ook een boom over opzetten, en genoeg mensen doen dat tegenwoordig nu ook. Terecht uiteraard. Zowel aan de linkerkant als de rechterkant van het politieke spectrum.

Viruswaarheid (rond Willem Engel) is naar eigen zeggen teleurgesteld in de “Linkse” steun voor het corona/lockdownbeleid, maar gezien de partijpunten voor de laatste verkiezingen (Willem Engel was zelf verkiesbaar voor Lijst 30), hebben hun sociaal-economische en culturele standpunten meer met pre-corona GroenLinks of Partij voor de Dieren, of zelfs de SP gemeen, dan met rechts-populisme. Niet erg “neoliberaal” dus.

Wel aan die rechtse kant zit de Forum voor Democratie (FVD), waar partijleider Baudet met Wybren Van Haga een sterke criticaster van het coronabeleid binnen heeft gehaald, kritiek die Baudet nu lijkt te delen (na eerdere steun voor het beleid). FVD was van de “cultureel nationalistische” school die Engelen bekritiseerde: met dus de verkeerde (xenofobe) antwoorden op de noden van het laagopgeleide volk. Met de “corona focus” van nu ook Baudet veranderde de partij wel wat.

Van Haga is minder met “cultureel nationalisme” bezig en probeert nuchter als ondernemer naar het coronabeleid te kijken, en zelfs of Baudet werkelijk een “racist” is betwijfel ik eigenlijk, ondanks wat ongelukkige uitspraken die de media haalden, of opgeblazen zijn. Sommige hardvochtige voorstellen als deel van hun plannen (van de FVD) gaan in die richting, maar verschillen ook niet zoveel van wat in ‘t VVD-of CDA-programma staat (“opsporen van illegalen”, kansarme migratie beperken, en meer van dat soort onempathische, rechtse onzin). De FVD is in ieder geval deels zeker Rechts en elitair, waardoor ze economisch ook gewoon meegaan met het neoliberalisme. Hetzelfde geldt voor de nog xenofobere PVV.

Daarnaast joeg Baudet met zijn recentelijke “obsessie” met het coronabeleid andere FVD-leden weg, die meer met “cultureel nationalisme” en xenofobie bezig waren, en die dat blijkbaar meer dan Baudet combineerden met hun smetvrees. Hetzelfde geldt voor Geert Wilders die het lockdownbeleid steunde, maar electoraal gewin zag in het tegen de draconische avondklok zijn.

Engelen (en zijn partner)’s eigen Partij Voor De Dieren is volgens hemzelf de enige waarvan het electoraat grotendeels bestaan uit mensen die én Links én hoogopgeleid én kritisch over het coronabeleid met mensenrechtenschendende – en niet-effectieve – maatregelen durven te zijn (avondklok en de meeste andere beperkingen).

Dat geldt ook voor Willem Engel en de zijnen, maar die haalde de kiesdrempel niet (volgens Engel zelf door fraude).. Partij Voor De Dieren wel.

Ook Van Haga lijkt beloond te zijn voor zijn anti-coronabeleid standpunt (enkele zetels), terwijl GroenLinks voor hun pro-coronabeleid – zo lijkt het - juist zetels verloor, bij een deel van hun achterban (immers populair bij Linksige studenten, die levendige studentensteden als Amsterdam, Utrecht, en Nijmegen in dystopische spooksteden zagen veranderen, met na een bepaald tijdstip alleen politie of bezorgers op straat).

Het stemgedrag is een ander thema in dit boek: waarom blijft de meerderheid van de Nederlandse bevolking die neoliberale “middenpartijen” (VVD e.a.) stemmen, die tegen hun eigen belangen in gaan, en die van een elite juist versterken?

Dat is een belangrijk thema van het boek: die “gelijkschakeling” en gevoelde verwantschap tussen hoogopgeleide technocraten, neerkijkend op het volk, met de media, en politiek, die de politieke en economische realiteit in hun voordeel hebben “geframed” (grote bedrijven laten groeien, winstmaximalisatie, meer markt is goed, “trickle down economics”), en steeds meer mensen daaraan mee hebben laten doen, afhankelijk van hebben gemaakt.

Denk aan het toenemende huizenbezit en aantal hypotheken onder Nederlanders, de afgelopen decennia.. Dat is deel van een neoliberaal wereldbeeld, naast andere dingen, die veel Nederlandse middenklassers bij de VVD maar ook bij D66, of het PVDA en CDA herkennen, waardoor veel mensen die partijen de afgelopen verkiezingen (17 maart 2021) gewoon weer in meerderheid stemden (of “leken te hebben” om de optie van fraude open te houden).

Dit “stemmen tegen eigen belangen in” lijkt raadselachtig, maar Engelen verklaart in dit boek zeer goed hoe dat zo kon ontstaan. Het is uiteraard ook niet zonder historische paralellen (onderdanige slaven op plantages die anderen verraadden, slijmen bij de baas, nepotisme etc.). Met de “corona crisis” kwam de factor “angst voor ziekte” of zelfs “smetvrees” (die laatste term is voor mijn rekening) erbij, ook misbruikt door neoliberale krachten.

Engelen geeft terecht kritiek op de waarheidsclaims van (nu virologische) deskundigen, die principieel betwistbaar dienen te zijn, inclusief de achterliggende aannames, maar dat niet zijn. Die claims van deskundigen (het OMT met name) lijken een eindpunt van debat te zijn, en niet een beginpunt van debat en waarheidsvinding, zoals in echte wetenschap.

Ik herinner mij dat uit mijn tijd in een wetenschappelijk instituut, over meer – zij het soms moeizaam - “debat-toelatende” thema’s als “slavernijgeschiedenis” en antropologie. Discussie was open en soms zelfs aangemoedigd, ook vanwege het evidente, scheve feit dat blanke academici schrijven/onderzoeken over zwarte/Afrikaanse geschiedenis.

Echter: toen heikele thema’s als “herstelbetalingen voor slavernij” besproken werden, onder meer aangekaart door Surinaamse wetenschappers, ging een deel van de (blanke) deskundigen op hun strepen staan. Het ging toen immers om geld van de overheid en de elite. De “apologistische” school van slavernij historici als Piet Emmer (die het leed en de omvang van de Afrikaanse Holocaust teveel zou relativeren) of (iets gematigder) Gert Oostindie, had veel macht – en ook meer toegang tot de politiek – lieten als blanke wetenschappers van zich horen via invloedrijke kanalen, hoewel ze genuanceerde kritiek kregen van andere (o.m. zwarte) slavernij deskundigen. De blanke “apologisten” onder wetenschappers speelden dus de machtskaart.

Dat zie je nu ook, wil ik betogen. Engelen lijkt dat te bevestigen. In de “epiloog” aan het einde, gaat hij meer in op het huidige coronabeleid.

Hij ziet de coronacrisis niet als “nieuwe kans” voor een groene en eerlijke samenleving, ondanks vage (en oncontroleerbare) pretenties van het World Economic Forum (club van rijkste mensen in deze wereld), en mensen als Bill Gates, maar ziet dat eerder als misleidende retoriek, om het neoliberalisme verder te versterken, via oneigenlijke middelen.

Het feit dat – zoals Oxfam Novib ook al concludeerde – de kleine, maar rijkste (financiële) elite van miljardairs in deze wereld sinds “corona” en lockdowns alleen maar rijker is geworden, terwijl wereldwijd de ongelijkheid, armoede, en honger juist toenamen, bevestigt dat. Dit is dan niet eens een "onbedoeld gevolg”, maar zou best weleens juist de bedoeling ervan kunnen zijn.

MORBIDE SYMPTOMEN

Engelen lijkt dat te concluderen, waarbij hij ook wijst op een soort “macht der wanhoop” en overschreeuwen door de neoliberale elite van zichzelf. Ergens is er het besef dat neoliberalisme niet werkt voor de meerderheid, maar dat besef moet overschreeuwd en onderdrukt worden. Vandaar dat gebrek aan wetenschappelijke tegenspraak, de virologische “technocratie”, de strikte, ondemocratische, vrijheidsbeperkende maatregelen voor het volk, en de merkwaardige terugkeer van dingen eigen aan dictaturen (vreedzame demonstraties verbieden, censuur), in wat we dachten een democratisch land was. “Overcompensatie door onzekerheid” zegt Engelend prikkelend over dit beleid, en terecht naar mijn mening.

Is het internationale coronabeleid – met lockdowns en restricties – eigenlijk een agressieve vlucht naar voren van een onzeker wordende neoliberale elite? Engelen citeert hier de Italiaanse intellectueel Antonio Gramsci, die sprak over “morbide symptomen”, als deel van die wanhopige, elitaire machtsgreep tijdens een crisis.

Zo’n agressieve “vlucht naar voren” is een constante in de wereldgeschiedenis, inclusief bij ondemocratische (fascistische of anderszins totalitaire) regimes, hoe deze zichzelf ook legitimeerden (fascistisch, communistisch, islamitisch, nationalistisch, e.a.). Bestudeer daarvoor maar het Italiaanse fascisme, de Rode Khmer, het fundamentalistische Talibaan-beleid, 't Ayatollah beleid in Iran, Pinochet in Chili, Franco en Salazar in Spanje en Portugal, maar ook – dichter bij huis – Hitler in Duitsland, die anders dan sommige andere dictatoren, niet via staatsgrepen of oorlogen, maar gewoon via democratische methoden in het centrum van de macht kwam, om de democratie daarna dus te vernietigen.

Die “schijndemocratie” is ook lang een euvel in Nederland geweest, maar totdat sinds Maart 2020 vrijheden en grondrechten geschonden werden (sluiting publieke etablissementen, samenscholingsverbod, lockdowns, avondklokken, reisrestricties, vraag om verplichte tests en quarantaines, mondkapjes, indirecte vaccinatiedwang etc.), kon de gemiddelde Nederlandse burger zich daar wat meer aan onttrekken. Al was het alleen maar door vrijelijk vrienden te bezoeken of ontmoeten, of vertier te zoeken, in toen nog “ongeproblematiseerde” en vrij toegankelijke culturele plekken of uitgaansgelegenheden.

“De neoliberale orde staat op instorten, bezweken onder haar eigen mislukkingen”, zegt Engelen stellig in de laatste paragraaf. Om het boek te eindigen met een oproep, en ook in de hoofdtitel van het boek, ‘Ontwaak!’.

Daar ben ik het helemaal mee eens!

Zeker lezenswaardig en leerzaam, dit boek. Aan te raden!

Bunny Wailer

Sadly, the last of the living founding members of the Wailers, Bunny Wailer, died recently, the 2nd of March, in 2021. He was 73 years old, and suffering from health problems after first a stroke in 2018, causing speech problems, and a second one, last year June 2020, leaving him hospitalized ever since. The cause of death is, as I write this, officially unknown, but probably relate to the strokes.

WAILERS

Either way, though he died relatively young according to modern, developed standards, he got to live longer than his fellow-Wailers Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, the two people with whom he formed the Wailers in the 1960s, the Ska era.

In fact, Bunny Wailer, birth name Neville Livingston, knew Bob Marley from childhood days, in Nine Miles, in the rural parish of St Ann’s in northern Jamaica, including family connections: later his single father got into an intimate relationship with Bob Marley’s single mother Cedella Booker. They stayed good friends, later residing in Trench Town, a ghetto area in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, joined there by Peter Tosh, who grew up in another part of rural Jamaica.

Landscape near Nine Miles,St Ann, Jamaica

Not much use in repeating too much biographical information that is available elsewhere online, but it is good as an introduction, I think.

The Wailers are relatively much studied and described, even in more mainstream (“pop” or “rock”) sources, of course especially due to the fame of fellow-Wailer Bob Marley, rising to international stardom, and globally the best known Reggae act, by the mid-1970s. Now, almost 50 years later, this seems still the case. Bob Marley is the best known Reggae act. Though objections to this are thinkable – in light of the many talented Reggae artists that Jamaica produced over the years.

Perhaps these did not have commercial support, or did not make the “translation” to a more mainstream audience that well. Or, as some argue, because their skin colour was too dark, compared to the half-White Marley (who had a White father, - much older than his mother -, with which he had only little contact).

Yet, due to his connection to Bob Marley, you might say that Bunny Wailer achieved relatively somewhat more attention in the international music scene.

COMPARISON

I find for this post interesting the comparisons that are often made between the three Wailers: Peter (Tosh), Bunny (Wailer), and Bob (Marley). They formed and shaped the band, stayed together, well into the rising fame, including through internationally successful (for Reggae standards) albums like Catch a Fire and Burnin’, and first bigger hits like Stir It Up and Get Up Stand Up.

In 1974, they split ways, after a partly problematic tour in Britain and elsewhere, and some inner conflicts, including also producer Chris Blackwell. Peter and Bunny went solo then, while Bob continued as Bob Marley & the Wailers (including long-present musicians like the Barrett brothers, the female I-Threes-background singers, Tyrone Downie on keys, Junior Murvin on guitar, and Seeco Patterson as steady percussionist). Bob’s first album without Peter and Bunny for Bob was Natty Dread, released in 1974.

Several authors – such as Jamaican-British author Colin Grant – and many writers on Reggae, as well as many Reggae fans, tend to compare the three founding members of the Wailers, beyond emphasizing how they joined “as friends”. Certainly, they also could “complement” each other, often occurring in fruitful and successful relationships.

RESPONSES AND PERSONALITIES

According to Colin Grant, who wrote a book on the three Wailers I discussed elsewhere on this blog (years ago) – and who also wrote the magnificent biography on Marcus Garvey titled ‘Negro With A Hat’-, they indeed were complementary to each other. Grant spoke interestingly of three “archetypes”, so to speak, or – as he also saw it – three “main responses” by Blacks – as well as Rastafari - to oppression and discrimination in the White Western world. Bob represented the “adaptation” response, Peter the “rebel” response, while Bunny was the “escape” response.

The three “types” of Grant seem to make at least historical sense regarding the African Diaspora and slavery history. On slave plantations, in Jamaica and elsewhere, the three types of survival and resistance could be found.

So, the recently passed on Bunny Wailer represented according to Grant this Maroon-like, reclusive “escape from the system”.

In several writings on Reggae, and what I heard several Reggae fans say, is that Bunny was strictly speaking the best singer of the three. I kind of agree with that. While the singing voice – “timbre” – of Bob was not very special, Bob compensated that with musicality, charisma, songwriting talent, strong melodies, and enduring lyrics. Peter compensated this with an impressive baritone voice, his rebellious image, and his according to many more charming or extrovert personality, compared to the the more shy/introvert other two, Bob and Bunny.

Colin Grant, and biographers of e.g. Bob Marley, stated that Bunny Wailer differed from the other two in that Bunny “seemed always to be angry” to outsiders. An interesting combination of personalities, we can conclude from this.

PERCUSSION

His start in music received at first some skepticism among more conservative musicians. This was due to the fact that in partly Eurocentrically influenced part of the Jamaican population, the fact that Bunny first only played percussion (drums and small percussion), while Peter was a skilled guitar player, and to a degree Bob also.

Of course, I – as percussionist - disagree with this. We got used to the dominance of “chording” instruments (guitars, keys ) in Western (even “Black”) popular music, but all good music begins naturally with the heartbeat of “rhythm”, remaining essential in any music piece, accentuated by good percussion. This is especially the case in Black/African-descended music, like Reggae, with much percussive influence.

In early recordings of the Wailers, indeed Bunny Wailer combined playing percussion instruments with his background vocals. There is also video material of their performances showing this. Bunny kept playing percussion, also later on his own albums. So, he certainly was a percussionist too.

ESCAPING

Does all this in any way reflect Colin Grant’s classifying Bunny Wailer’s persona as “escaping” or “reclusive” already? Maybe a bit, but that trait became more clear in the Early 1970s, when tours with the Wailers in Britain, led to unease with Bunny, complaining that some of the “freak places” they had to perform, went against his Rastafari beliefs/way of life. He also said that he did not like to fly in planes for tours. This limited his motivation to remain part of the Wailers band, at that stage breaking through internationally. This could be seen as an “escape” from rising fame and its pressures.

He further concentrated on his solo career after 1974, building a steady fan base, and with little “commercial” concessions to the non-Jamaican mainstream, it seemed.

Then there are the lyrics. What set Bob Marley according to many apart within Reggae were also his “to-the-point, yet deep” lyrics, aptly – and understandably – expressing the woes of the poor and suffering in simple terms, yet containing timeless wisdom.

Bob was further, according to Colin Grant – and other writers, more of the “adaptive” type to the Western system, - in e.g. commercial company demands - , – suggesting a slight “uncle tom/house slave” echo. I think however that this is not a just comparison, especially when looking at Bob’s rebellious lyrics “chanting down Babylon”, and critical of politicians, colonizers, authorities, and other oppressors/downpressors.

Bunny, of the “escaping” or “self-recluse” hermit-like type, did he have lyrics reflecting this simplified typology?

A comparison of Bob’s and Bunny’s (and Peter’s) lyrics is both fun to do, and very educational, I find, at the same time. After all, Bob and Bunny were close friends since childhood. Yet different personalities? Later friend Peter Tosh was known to be rebellious, also in his lyrics, but did that not likewise apply to many of Bob’s lyrics?

And to Bunny’s. Yet, looking back over the whole career of Bunny Wailer, now with his passing, I notice some differences with Bob and Peter: he is after all an own artist, with his own style.

DIFFERENCES

I think, however, that it would be interesting analyzing a bit these differences in relation to the “escaping” persona of Bunny.

I know quite something of the work of all three Wailers, and when comparing, I notice that each Wailer has different songwriting styles, vocals, but also themes in lyrics. Since the three were not just founding members of the same band, but also shared the Rastafari faith, and grew up together, those lyrical differences are interesting.

One difference: Bunny sung relatively more songs about music itself and dancing: or specific dance, though Peter and Bob had some such festive, “in the moment” lyrics too.

ROCKERS AND RUB-A-DUB

Musically, Bunny entered more the Rockers era – led by Sly and Robbie and Channel One since the Late-1970s -, referring to a type of Reggae rhythm (added bass kick on the One), that developed outside the Wailers. Even if Bob still lived in the first “Rockers“ years, Bob’s Wailers band kept hanging on to the One Drop basic Reggae patterns at the height of fame, though with some rub-a-dub influences on the latest Bob Marley + the Wailers albums. Bunny, now, was more influenced by Rockers and related Rub-A-Dub patterns, found on some slightly (nondigital) later Dancehall-influenced, yet overall Roots Reggae albums like Rock and Groove.

Self-evidently, as he lived longer, he also could go more with the flow and changes of Jamaican music, including toward (Early) Dancehall. He chose to, actually, including “toasting”/deejaying vocally in his songs since the 1980s, something we did not hear Bob or Peter do as such, who stuck to their fine singing (instead of toasting/deejaying).

LYRICS

Bunny’s first solo album, Blackheart Man, released in 1976, though, followed more on the 1970s Wailers material, and was deep Roots Reggae, with a slight modern mainstream edge. Lyrically, with reference to the Blackheart Man “living like a gypsy, in the lonely part of the country”, “being safe and free in my fig tree”, and a “dreamland”, confirms this “escape/reclusive”response to the (Babylon) system, besides social and spiritual comment.

And yes, he had such “escape” lyrics more than the other Wailers Bob and Peter, the latter discussing more directly social and global affairs. Also the referrences to dancing on music itself in some of Bunny’s lyrics, can be seen as part of that “escape” response to oppression/downpression.

Bunny tended to express social concerns too, but mixed more often with such an “escaping” vibe, rather than a dominant “fighting” or “crying” vibe. Rastafari spiritual themes were also common in Bunny’s lyrics.

He did on the other hand not have many songs on (romantic) love, though his flexible singing voice would fit also these. He does refer to romantic love as part of the escape, though (on the dance floor, “in my dreamland”). In a sense, falling in love with someone, is also an “escape” from an unpleasant reality, without denying that reality, as more “love song” artists like Gregory Isaacs, Dennis Brown, and Ijahman Levi showed beautifully.

Bunny, though, did not have many direct romantic love songs overall, but still some nice ones in crucial moments of Bunny’s career. Notably, one of his early songs for the Wailers – still in the 1960s Ska days – was Dancing Shoes, with the nice poetic lyric “never in this world there’ll be so much love, as between you and me my love”.. And on some later albums, he had a few love songs here and there (e.g. song Another Dance).

Of Burning Spear I once noticed that, unlike some other Reggae artists – he had no “ganja songs”, i.e. on smoking marijuana. Bunny Wailer did prison time for possession of marijuana, in 1967, discussing it in his lyrics. Furthermore, it (ganja/marijuana) does recur here and there overly much throughout his lyrics, a bit less than in lyrics of his fellow-Wailers Bob and Peter, but Bunny made some songs about it. Of course, good ganja (high grade) fits well in an “escape” response, and might well be implied (“inna di dance”). He mentions “high grade” (good quality) ganja smoking in some of his later lyrics.

RHYTHMIC

As an instrumentalist as such, Bunny Wailer remained a percussion player throughout his career, also on all his own albums, such as for his own Solomonic Label. Often he combined this function with other well-known Jamaican studio percussionists as Bongo Herman.

Interestingly, on his 1976 debut album Blackheart Man, Bunny played most of the percussion himself. On later albums he was joined in this by e.g. Bongo Herman, Sky Juice, and others.

This percussionist background explains partly, in my opinion, the different style of Bunny’s songwriting, compared to the other Wailers. Bob had strong, memorable melodies and lines, crafty chord structures, and likewise Peter had good melodies and catchy “hooks” coming, across with his booming voice.

Bunny, on the other hand, had a flexible, soulful singing voice, yet: his singing style on most songs were quite “rhythmic”, somehow guided by the groove, as much “part of it” as leading it. This is a percussive feature, which I also know from my own experience as percussionist. In addition, I think that interest in dancing and percussion intermix. Their relation seems logical, but dance/percussion “mixing” is understood, in my humble opinion, better by rhythmically-specialized percussionists - and maybe trap drummers - than by others, often tending to keep apart playing/music and dance. The latter separation is a Western/Eurocentric influence. The mixing of music and dance, on the other hand, is common in all African cultures, as an anthropological fact, shown partly in Bunny’s musical style.

The sense of rhythm of Bunny was excellent, even playing with various (crossing) rhythms - another percussion influence -, and his songs therefore focused often more on the “groove” than on chord structures and dominant melodies, in which both Bob and Peter were more specialized. Both percussion and dance are – here I go again, haha – suitable ways to “escape” or “ withdraw”, as part of the “escape” response, according to Colin Grant one type of “Black” response in a White Western society.

Added to his strong sense of rhythm, was Bunny’s strong and flexible singing voice, that could be very soulful too, perhaps a bit more so than Bob’s, but less than Peter’s. Bunny’s voice was nice and playful, making even some of his melodically less memorable songs more interesting and “a pleasant ride”. Many of Bunny’s songs, moreover, had a lively, uplifting feel – a reggae party “vibe” -, especially later in his career.

SONGS AND ALBUMS

Overall, he had a lot of strong songs and mostly great to good albums, as well for “listening” as for “dancing” (I tend to combine both..joking), and even some deserved “hits” at the Jamaican dances and abroad.

His 1976 debut album Blackheart Man was Rootsy and somewhat somber, but with good, varied songs. Other 1970s albums like Protest were also very good and Rootsy. Much later, the 1989 album Liberation was another strong Rootsy album, with strong memorable songs like Rise & Shine, and a Rockers feel, differing in that from Blackheart Man, though equally “Rootical” sounding.

The Early Dancehall-influenced albums from the 1980s of Bunny were also good (Rock and Groove/Roots Man Skanking, Rule Dancehall a.o.), rendering catchy club hits.

After 1990, more modern (Dancehall) influences appeared on some of Bunny's albums, that were overall creative and fine, though some here and there a bit simple and repetitive. That is, though, the exception rather than the rule. On some albums, such as Communication from 2000, he combined modern, somewhat digitalized Reggae, with Dancehall (or Ska), but also Hip-Hop influences, such as on songs like Almighty Is A Rappa, part of his recurring “playful experimentation”. Some critics did not like it, but even those “experiments” had a good rhythmic flow, in my opinion.

Inevitably, he covered quite some Wailers songs (even those by Bob) on his albums: some good covers, some a bit unnecessary, but still well done or creatively reworked.

The percussion was on most albums quite varied and creative, as could be expected, as Bunny Wailer was as said both a singer/songwriter and a percussionist.

PERSONAL OPINION

In the Reggae scene, also to me a few times, the question is often asked: “which Wailer do you like most, musically: Bob, Peter, or Bunny?”. I always found it hard to answer this question.

I consider myself a percussionist and rhythm-focussed, so I am tempted to say “Bunny”, having several albums of him I listen regularly. On the other hand it is too simplistic. The strength of the Wailers laid in the combination of different, complementing (rebelling, adapting, and escaping) personalities.

Bob had timeless lyrics - for instance still relevant today, even with this pandemic/plandemic crisis - and good melodies as songwriter, Peter Tosh had a charismatic rebelliousness and catchy songs. Bob Marley was in addition influenced more by white Island boss Chris Blackwell, but indirectly, toward a more slightly “watered down” mainstream sound, but that was hardly Bob’s fault.

Bunny Wailer maintained a more “Jamaican dance” sound, which I at least find attractive.

I moreover personally like the flexible singing voice – the “timbre” as such - of Bunny indeed better than Bob’s voice (who could nonetheless use it well musically), but I also like Peter’s often soulful voice.

Another interesting question, now with Bunny’s passing on to Zion, might finally be: “do I have favourite songs of Bunny Wailer?” Also difficult to answer, to be honest.

Among the songs I can recall now, and that proved for me more memorable, are Fig Tree, Rastaman, Rise & Shine, Free Jah Jah Children, Trouble On The Road Again, while Ballroom Floor has a very nice, “feel good” flow to it, and there are other, lively, and danceable songs that I enjoyed equally..

I probably forgot to mention some, and there are simply too many great or good songs by Bunny Wailer to mention, throughout his varied music career. That defines a great Reggae artist, that has now left us, making him a true Reggae icon and legend.

Left-Right

At some point in my life it became a solid part of my vocabulary: being Left and Right, in the sense of political "persuasion" or "ideology". In fact, since I was a child.

Psychologically I find it interesting how as a child you "choose" one of those sides, how intuitive is it? How much relates to one's upbringing: what one hears from parents or siblings?

Growing up in the Netherlands since the 1970s and 1980s, I noticed how what was called "Left" and "Right" was not so much a matter of content or theory, but rather a "feel" or "vibe" transmitted. The Right was cold, conservative, strict, and square or boring. Of old people. The Left was passionate, progressive, loose, artistic, and "cool". Of young people. This is of course terribly superficial and simplistic, even if reflecting a worldview.

It did not take long, though, before I found what the terms historically and ideologically meant, also because I read a lot as child, going through a "bookworm period" as a member of the public library.

TERMS HISTORY

That distinction between Left-(wing) and Right-(wing) politics predates Marxism and thus Socialism and Communism. It goes back to the Revolutionary period of the Late 18th c France, when parliamentarians seated on the left side favoured a democratic society and secularization, and opposed the absolutist, and monarchist privileges, while those seated on the right supported the traditional institutions and the Old Regime. The terms Left and Right were first used in that sense in France in 1789. Later it got applied to Marxist-influenced movements, but also anarchists, and other progressive, "alternative" movements, especially when striving toward social equality. Marx's Das Kapital was released first in 1867, so much later than the first political use of the Left-Right distinction.

MY TRAJECTORY

One might argue, that I was destined to be "Left-wing". I loved Black music already then, was interested in Africa and nature, realized my parents were from the poorer labouring class, and belonged to an ethnic/cultural minority in the Netherlands.

On top of that, my Spanish mother had left a dictatorship in Spain that was decidely Right-wing and largely Fascist: that of general Franco. She complained about having to - as a young woman - look for jobs en get by in Francoist Spain, including facing disdain and even harsh abuse. On the other hand, land-owning Spanish family members sought - more opportunistically than ideologically - to maintain workable contacts with pro-Franco local politicians, so the defiant Left-wing stand got muffled (out of fear and opportunism), though not lost. Over time, my mother told me more and more about how she "was only good to work as a slave" in exploitative employer-friendly Francoist Spain, that everyone wanted "freedom", and about the sense of "suffocation" she felt under that Fascist dictatorship.

Labour conditions were much better, and more humane, when she came to work in the Netherlands, after leaving Spain around 1966. My mother called herself - perhaps in response to her youth under Franco - sometimes a communist, later moderated to "socialist", and even a "feminist" at times - ridiculing ingrained "machismo" -, placing herself at the Left-wing spectrum, even while taking some conservative views from the strongly Catholic Spain under Franco.

My Italian father, as a poor worker since his teens, associated with the labouring class too, though somewhat more, let's say, populistically than my more intellectually-oriented mother, and a bit more centrist, ideologically. He mistrusted all politicians, even those nominally Left-wing ones, - both in the Netherlands and in Italy - since he was, e.g. irritated with high taxes or state overregulation.

I was therefore predisposed, one might say, to be anti-systemic and sympathize with the Left, though as I grew up, I became Left-wing in my very own way, as everyone.

As an individual, I considered myself mostly as an artistic musician. At least that was my main ambition - making songs -, only after that I was a bit interested being "politically engaged", though sometimes I combined that in song lyrics. My being "Left-wing" therefore became very soon in my life quite "individualistic" and "free-spirited". I felt more at home with "hippies" or "squatters" than with "group thinkers" thinking in economic class terms. The forced, collectivistic "let's work together toward a communist state" led to an intolerance of dissent, I soon noted. Like with Right-wing ideologies before (like Mussolini's Fascism) the disrespect for individuality disgusted me. "You are nothing, the State is everything", Mussolini said, and Communist dictators said more or less the same, attested to by the "secret services" and snitching in East Bloc countries, such as the KGB or Stasi, and the prevalent "military" logic in such dictatorships.

Later experiences I had in Cuba between 2001 and 2006 (with also a - more informal - political "snitching system"), derived from that totalitarian "other communist" model.

FREEDOM

I prefer a world with equal rights for all, no poverty, but also social and cultural "freedom" for each individual, used as I was to strive to be original and go my own way.

This tension between "individualism" and "Left-wing" came sometimes to the fore, also in relation to "identity politics". The positive thing I found about "identity" politics is that it centralized "culture" as category. On the other hand it was a somewhat limited frame.

Nonetheless, I always associated "freedom" with the Left politically, going as far as describing the "Communist" dictatorships in the East Bloc, as "corrupted" or "false" communists. In my head there was no such thing as a "Left-wing dictatorship", maybe partly influenced by my Fascist dictatorship-escaping mother.

CONTRADICTION

That was my trajectory, but I became a bit confused after encountering other people calling themselves ideologically/politically "Left-(wing)" - in the Netherlands, Spain, and elsewhere - with seemingly other mentalities - and preoccupations - than me. From nationalists with a war rhetoric (Basque ETA-adherents, anti-Israel or pro-Palestina groups, to politically "Left" (often social-democratic), but culturally conservative Muslims, or highly placed Left spokespersons in the Dutch media, who were from wealthy backgrounds, yet presented themselves as "guarding" Left power, often never having set foot in factories or poor neighbourhoods. I assumed hypocrisy, or at least contradiction in many of these cases and people. Did the ideologies they espoused, translate in their practices?

From a human point of view, I could on the other hand also understand that complex people are "somewhere in between", showing flexibility, especially admirable when they were truly independent thinkers, despite group pressure, or their parents' material wealth. Then I appreciated the individual freedom of persons "going against the grain".

FAKE AND FASHION

Not always, though. I noticed that in the Netherlands, it was considered fashionable and "cool" to be appearing "Left-wing", without proper credentials or even attitude. In some other European countries the same applied, since the 1970s. For many it was just fashion, even mainly so, but even worse were those with wicked and bad intentions: using their "Left-wing image" to hide their Right-wing, high-class interests. "Fake-left" I called these.

During my study years (higher education/bachelor), and working at a high professional level, I noticed this "corrupted" fake-left more often. I tended to like the Left-oriented persons, especially with a "hippy-like" vibe and open mind more, but getting to know people they turned sometimes not so open minded. Or even truly "progressive", even if boasting of multicultural and multiracial friends or lovers, and intense travels - among the people - in Africa or Asia, learning even exotic languages, and expressing interest in Yoga or Buddhism. Even if lambasting Right-wing politicians or calling these Fascists (though some of them were, haha). Sometimes I found out how they had a privileged background, and their stances "quasi-rebelling" against it, but not really. Sometimes "square-looking" ones, were more open-minded. Appearing liberal or Left-wing seemed so much easier than actually being it, so with all this hypocrisy I preferred overall to focus on culture and humanity, less on politics.

In short, Netherlands became a country where even the elite found it "cool" to present itself as "Left-wing" and progressive, while the "Right" became a dirty word. The "Right-wing" spokespersons or representatives were certainly present in the Netherlands, but tended to not call themselves "Right-wing", even if mainly serving the interests of "big business capitalism" and the rich in this world.

POPULISM

In the Netherlands, the Left-wing people considered themselves more often as a bit detached intellectuals, than as "common men", as Right-wing people tended to do, even if the latter only were pretending.

The rise of what were called, vaguely and inadequately, "populist" movements, confused me even further. "Populus/People" itself is good, and Left-wing, one would think, but it got mixed up with petty, and negative, frustrations, more a determent from actual social injustice than anything else. Very basic human instincts like national pride or jingoism, ethnic preference, or macho/male, heterosexual privilege - like in Right-wing movements before - got also espoused by labourers, mixed up nonetheless with ("Left-wing') mistrust of "the high classes" (politicians, bosses), toward a quite confusing whole.

Especially that "fashionability" of being Left-wing in the Netherlands stimulated a lot of hypocrisy and fakeness.

I tried to find my way between all this, and preferred to focus on truthful people, who were truly progressive and open-minded. The free minds, without, like Right-wing self-defined "free thinkers", the big business, money, or "law and order" nonsense.

SPIRITUAL

This combined since my 30s more with spiritual interest, as my life demanded more "depth". I read the Bible, but soon also showed interest in Vodou and other Afro-Caribbean "danced" religions, as well as what were called "nature religions". In part this related to my increased attention to percussion. The Rastafari movement even answered more to my spiritual needs, fitting well with my love for Reggae music, but not in a superficial way.

Rastafari, while Biblically influenced, is overall "progressive" in aims, while the main inspiring figures of Rastafari, Marcus Garvey and emperor Haile Selassie I, also were, being further quite individual free thinkers, "going against the grain". That I liked and appreciated too.

I expressed thus my critique of "the unequal system" and oppression and exploitation partly intellectually, later also more spiritually. I kept considering myself "Left-wing", even asserted that explicitly in debates or opinions, about society and politics.

Not unlike my mother, who even contradicted Right-wing opinions of the bosses she worked for. This had often less risk than in Francoist Spain, though: the bosses in the Netherlands often just made joking remarks back... or maybe they took revenge by denying her a contract extension. In Franco-ruled Spain labourers had little protection from being fired stante pede, abuse, nepotism, open discrimination, etcetera.

I guess many of us are more like their parents than they think, but still unique individuals with own intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs.

2020

So, entering the year 2020, this was they way I carved my highly individual "Left-wing" identity, amid the (sometimes nonsensical) "Left-Right" rhetorical division and confusion. Above all, I still remained more interested in culture than in politics..

Needless to say, 2020 was an even more confusing - and troubling - year, also for me, including with regarding to the Left-Right division.

The claimed corona pandemic, based on a new, virulent flu virus called Covid 19, caused a worldwide panic, which was met with a surprisingly international and unanimous response. Supranational organizations like the World Health Organizations apparently coordinated the similar political directions to a new massive fear. This led to - as known - quite extreme and draconian measures, labelled "emergency measures".

Even when the "emergency" was not there anymore (Covid 19 as all flu virusses having softened to a common flu-level with an "infection fatality rate" of about 0,23%, already by May 2020), the panic-based policies strangely continued. Protecting health care access and capability came the stated motivation behind the continued stringent policies, even into 2021.

CRITICAL

I observed all this, and soon became critical of the corona policies. Maybe up to April, I was still somewhat worried, though I have never been a "hypochondriac" or "germophobe", neither were my parents I mentioned before. Yet I was somewhat careful with that supposed new virus.

Not for long. Always researching different sources, I began to conclude that the response in Western countries (followed by others) was not only wrong/disproportionate, but had become more a pLandemic than a pandemic: serving political and economic goals, rather than health goals. The fact that a nondemocratic "lockdown" policy was enacted in many countries made me doubt it even stronger.

LOCKDOWN

According to Irish lockdown-critic Ivor Cummins, the for Western democracies uncommon and unprecedented "national lockdown" approach to virusses came from China's Communist Party (CCP) having early successes against Covid 19 outbreaks in Wuhan and around in early 2020. Oddly, this totalitarian, collectivistic approach - only really possible when human rights and freedoms are limited, as in China - was copied in countries having on the other hand learned (since 1945) to respect and enshrine those rights.

Here is the confusion. A "communist" strategy, or, one might say, "corrupted communist" or "fake communist" lockdown policy. After all, China is in reality aimed at (state) capitalism.

This copied and - inappropriate - lockdown response in countries like France, the Netherlands, Britain, Spain, or Italy - to differing degrees of rigidity - trampled human rights and freedoms of citizens in these countries, not so much as since the also totalitarian Fascism in Europe. The exaggerated fear - through media propaganda - for the virus and "pandemic that no longer was" seemed orchestrated to be able to enact those policies. That's what I in time began to conclude.

I did not want to venture into "conspiracy theories", but just noted that facts did not add up, and that there was much lying.

RESET

The recently stated goals of a Great Reset by the World Economic Forum, representing the wealthiest economic players in this world -seemed shared by many political leaders, from nominally Left to nominally Right, translating in the Build Back Better phrase, after the coronacrisis.. This is no longer just a conspiracy theory, but a conspiracy fact, for an elite's economic reshaping, at the cost of small businesses and poor people worldwide, and of, well, a cultural life. I deplore that, as it seems to go against everything I stood and stand for.

This elite economic plan does not seem very "Left-wing", looking at who pay the price (poor, small business), does it? Well, some consider it as such, oddly. Both in the Netherlands, as in other countries. Mention "health care" or "health system" - even insincerely - and it becomes automatically "Left-wing" or progressive. Is that the simple, superficial logic? A logic I do not get.

I see mainly similarities with totalitarian systems, and the capitalist interests of Big Pharma and other wealthy elites in this world. Even some "lip service" stated in the Great Reset plan, to Left-wing aims like inclusiveness, "eating less meat", sustainability, state care toward equality, and other aspects supposedly becoming Better after Building Back, did note come across as sincere and of substance to me.

Same as always: the rich got richer during this coronacrisis, and the poor got poorer, and also as always historically: a small, wealthy elite oppresses a large, poorer majority it fears, and therefore wants to control and divide. From colonialism, slavery plantations, to fascism, and communism. It is in that line.. There is nothing "Left-wing" about that..

POLARIZATION

In the Netherlands, as critique of the draconian lockdown-based policies increased, the polarization also increased. This happened in other countries too, with similar forms of censorship against corona policy critique. A bit belated, I uttered my critique of that undemocratic lockdown-based policy too, and I do not have a strong sense of "diplomacy" - or diplomatic "filter" - I must admit, when it comes to political views. With people, I am more careful, finding no joy in hurting personal feelings, preferring to share in (imperfect) humanity.

Yet, my sometimes undiplomatic critique got - in my opinion - odd responses, from people I did not expect it from. Self-proclaimed Lefties and Rastas (fake or not) said they associated such corona policy-skeptical views with a Right-wing president like Donald Trump or Bolsonaro. Presidents I did not feel myself politically related to. Some even deemed the anti-lockdown activists as loons, influenced by the "extreme right".

Fearing a disease you know nothing about, losing rights and freedoms because of it, is Left-wing? Quite the contrary, I would say.

Encountering other anti-lockdown activists, I noticed instead a "hippie-like" vibe, but even that is simplistic. They included different kind of people, Left and Right, but a bit more to the Left, or at most Centrist-Right. No Neo-Nazi's or Fascists who - I gather - would not be so interested in halting a lockdown, setting ALL people equally free..

PSYCHOLOGICAL

Pro-corona policy/lockdown people wish to categorize anti-lockdown people as "extreme right" , against their own knowledge. Psychologically it is explainable: they have a guilty conscience following a cognitive dissonance. Supporting a health policy, but in reality a trampling of human rights and democracy, and the direction from democracy to dictatorship, with increased totalitarianism, restrictions, and Fascist measures like banning gatherings, curfews, closures of schools and even private businesses, semi-forced testing and vaccination, experimenting with citizens, etcetera etcetera.

In the back of their mind they feel guilty and ashamed about what they kept supporting, easing their guilt by "inventing" a bigger cause and enemy requiring this sacrifice, calling opponents "extreme right" being a good example of projection and turning around.

These disturbed, corrupted psyches can still be quite eloquent, aggrandizing small details and faults in whatever anti-lockdown activists say.. This eloquency is false because not sensible or reasonable. I had some of those unpleasant discussions with pro-lockdown people online, noting that they made the discusion soon personal, trying to undermine my integrity and trustworthiness, losing the focus on the content or arguments, they apparently did not have. A lot of venom in their remarks, better to be reserved for actually powerful politicians. They just had a badly targeted ideological war in their head, while wanting to see themselves as "Left-wing".

They follow thus on the "fake Left" I described before, when also members of the wealthy elite in the Netherlands (and elsewhere, such as the US and France) found it - despite their privileges - fashionable to appear "Left-wing" publicly. The "corona crisis" and related polarization merely strengthened them. Also in other countries - for some inexplicable reason - coming with harsh corona restrictions is seen as Leftist realism and not - as it actually is Fascist meets Chinese Communist totalitarianism. This showed in the early statements by new US (Democrat) president Joe Biden, as well as the stances by (once) Left-wing parties (Socialists, Greens) even voting in favour of laws trampling human rights (out of fear of disease? pavlov reaction to "health" issues?).

Again, much confusion regarding the already troubled and confusing politicized Left-Right division. Like I said, I associate the Left - in my perception - with "freedom". Not with locking down, curfews, closing bars and small business, closing schools, stay- or work-at-home orders, movement restrictions, or stopping cultural events.. For the greater goal of... health protection of a minority? Or so they claim..

NEVER CHANGED ME

I was troubled and shocked throughout 2020 by the whole dominant, elite-led "plandemic", but it never changed me, as is also sung in a Reggae song I know. Neither did I change my definitions regarding the political Left - Right distinction, though one can sensibly argue that the strict Left-Right division has become obsolete after 2020: truth versus lie is more important now. Love versus hate also, I should add. And, not least, freedom versus captivity and slavery..

Moreover, all this confirmed to me personally that I find "culture" - so under attack during this corona plandemic - more important than politics. Culture is of the people wanting to be free, politics of elites wanting to control.