Cuban and Dominican music: differences and similarities

The Dominican Republic consists of a large eastern part of the island of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean. A former Spanish colony, it has predictable similarities with a country like Cuba, which I personally have visited repeatedly, and studied the culture of. The Dominican Republic overall has a mixed African-European population – like Cuba - , as a result of African slavery, of course, but the economic intensity of plantation slavery was stronger (and longer) in Cuba. On the other hand, European (especially Spanish) added migration was during and after slavery stronger to Cuba, changing also the demographics.

ETHNIC BACKGROUNDS

Another difference is the more retained – or less diluted - Amerindian, indigenous Taíno “blood” within the Dominican Republic, more rarely noticeable (safe some rural areas) within the present Cuban population, mostly ranging from – simplifyingly said – Southern European to dark-skinned Africans, and all in between.

In a very general sense, this also applies to the Dominican Republic. This also has cultural connotations, and also musical ones. As a percussionist, and being interested in Caribbean music, I am very interested in that. This is also the case, because I studied Afro-Cuban music quite a lot, in a detailed manner for my percussion playing and songs. Dominican music, however, I studied less, for some reason. I have been several times to Cuba, but never to the Dominican Republic.

I heard Dominican genres Bachata and Merengue here and there, liked some songs, but never got the same “bug” as with Cuban music, notably Son, Changui, and Rumba. That could relate to the fact that I was simply already focusing on Cuba, so could contextualize Cuban music better, with less effort than having to delve in another culture and context (the Dominican one, in this case).

In some instances, I studied some Dominican rhythms for musical and percussive variation. It did not went much further than that, however. I kept focusing more on Cuba.

LIBRARY

Having worked in/for a scholarly library with many anthropological and socio-political works about wider Caribbean history and culture, I nonetheless acquired quite some knowledge about the Dominican Republic’s history, but more so more recent history, under dictator Trujillo (1930-1961), and later political developments. Politics got overall more attention in those scholarly historical works than popular culture (though there were some interesting works about culture too), which perhaps showed an elitist bias, I guess. There was also much attention in those works to cultural policies by the ruling classes, that can be characterized as pro-white/-European, and against the African heritage. The upper class (predictably mostly more of European descent than Amerindian or African) manifested in that sense a racist, pro-European, or Spanish, culture for the country, downplaying the African heritage at most to the merely folkloric, and even that at times reluctantly.

Also dictator Trujillo, ruling from 1930 until 1961 (partly as force behind puppet presidents), and himself a light Mulatto, promoted such policies during his strict, repressive and violent regime, albeit with some contradictions. The historical animosity with the neighboring, more African/”Blacker”, Haitians was in propaganda for instance stimulated.

Among the common population of the Dominican Republic this found some resonance, though not so much. Unlike what I noticed in parts of Northwestern Europe, Latin American people do not sense so much identification with their political leaders and their policies: there was and is much more distance with the political class, to be explained by historically lacking democracy and large social inequalities.

Studies also showed that despite that Trujillo or other leading Dominican political leaders promoted animosity to Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, in many places there was Dominican-Haitian cooperation, and even family ties. The somewhat pro-Spanish biased “Latino” identity the Dominicans seemed to favour over a “Black” or “African” one – or even instead of an appropriate Mulatto one – was not so widespread among all Dominicans, many simply recognizing African contributions as well, calling themselves “mixed”, with some African contributions.

Such African contributions are found in music, including in the well-known Merengue genre, having spread internationally over time to later also compete with Cuban-based Salsa in “Latin music” circles, as well as Bachata music, developing later in the Dominican Republic (on Eastern Cuban models).

Of both Merengue and Bachata it is clear – and recognized – that it somehow reflects the different legacies of Dominican culture: the Spanish one, the African one, and the indigenous, Amerindian one, showing in instrumentation. Guitar/string instruments – and song types – reflect the Spanish heritage, the drums and rhythmic patterns (e.g. common syncopation) the African heritage, whereas the scraper and shaker instruments (Guira) are connected to the indigenous heritage. In itself an interesting “triracial” mix, not dissimilar to what recent DNA studied showed about most inhabitants of the Dominican Republic, with European, African, but also indigenous DNA (more than previously assumed).

MUSICAL DIFFERENCES

I wonder then, though, as to a degree comparable “mixtures” (Spanish-African, Amerindian instruments) are also found in Afro-Cuban music genres – with different accents -, what are the differences between the best-known Dominican genres of today, being Bachata and Merengue, with Cuban genres like (mostly) Salsa, Son, Rumba, etcetera?

The remainder of this post is about that. How different are the music genres between these different parts of the “Spanish Caribbean”, after all, not so far away from each other geographically? What explains those differences? And also, why those differences?

Where there perhaps also interactions in historical epochs, between Cuba and the Dominican Republic?

Due to my personally acquired knowledge and experience by now, my starting point and base is Afro-Cuban music, comparing Merengue, Bachata, and other Dominican genres to that what I happen to know better the history and characteristics of: Cuban music.

MERENGUE

Merengue is faster than Salsa or (other) Cuban music. I noticed that soon enough. The dance to it is also faster (and simpler). Other musical differences are that Merengue tends to be in counted in 2/4 beat/time signature (Cuban Son/Salsa 4/4, Rumba often 6/8), shared with Brazilian Samba (also 2/4). The common instruments used in traditional Merengue include the typically Dominican double-sided Tambora drum, the Guira metal scraper, and the Accordion, that at one point replaced string instruments (since the 1880s).. The Accordion play repeated syncopated patterns, rendering often a danceable, lively groove. The Guira metal scraper bears similarities to the East Cuban Guaya scraper (in Son Changui, for instance), but plays faster patterns

The Accordion is by contrast not really used in Cuban music, neither is that (Dominican) Tambora drum type found much in Cuban music (mostly open-bottom drums). Rhythmically, Merengue has similar “swaying” characteristics as found in neighboring Haiti’s music (only faster), perhaps shaped as such originally (some Haitian influence), but denied with the later mentioned Dominican-Haitian tensions that arose. There is also a Haitian genre named Méringue, which shares similarities not just in name with Dominican Merengue (see my post about Haitian music), and has not coincidentally its origins in the same 19th-c. period (around 1850).

Later, more modern Merengue versions (such as “de orquesta”, orchestra-types) added more instruments, including wind instruments (notably the saxophone), other percussion (conga’s a.o.), often with influences from other parts of the region (including Cuba), and string instruments.

Dictator Trujillo actually promoted Merengue music as national music, related to his own humble origins (like Merengue), while at the same time contradicting his anti-African heritage stances regarding other aspects of Dominican culture. He used Merengue for his propaganda, and connection to the populace.

BACHATA

Bachata is a newer genre, of more recent origin (becoming known in the Early 1960s), like Merengue hailing from Northern parts of the Dominican Republic. It is less “local” in that it is influenced from the start by Cuban Bolero and Son, with an own touch over time, but maintaining a string-instrument base, unlike Merengue. From Cuban models, it developed into an own genre over time in the Dominican Republic, including Merengue influences, and a shift to steel and electric guitars, resulting in prominent guitar patterns, mixed with varied percussion, mostly including the (originally Cuban!) Bongos, as small, high-pitched hand drums. The syncopated, rhythmic interaction between the strings and bongo (and other percussion) still reflect its origins in Cuban Bolero and Son, albeit adapted.

One difference with the Cuban models are faster, own Bongo rolls and also “fuller” and electric guitar patterns, less “spacious” than in Cuban Son. It tends to be overall faster in tempo to Cuban Son or bolero.

PALO

Palo is a semi-religious, more sacred folk music genre in the Dominican Republic with more direct African retentions, centered on (Catholic) saints or ancestors and combined drums and call-and-response vocals of African origins. The drums are three open-bottom drums as in the Congo tradition, with the low-pitched drum providing steady beats, and the other drums variations. This has superficial similarities with Afro-Cuban Rumba types, while “heart-beat” like drum base rhythms reflect a Congo heritage, also found elsewhere in the African diapora in the Americas (Haiti, Jamaica, Colombia).

The three drums combine with different instruments in different parts of the country, with the Guira scraper recurring, but in some regions of the Dominican Republic also with e.g. tambourines.

Also a difference with Cuba, where bells are used more often, as well more shaker (maraca) types. It lacks a bit that “clave” (key beats) base of Cuban music, but further has similarities. Mainly of Congo origin, the similarities could be explained by the strong Congo influence of much Afro-Cuban music, including on Son, and (partly) on Rumba, and similar genres – also named Palo – in especially Eastern Cuba. Cuban Palo uses some other patterns and instruments, though, than its Dominican namesake.

EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCES

What I find interesting in this case, is how these differences – and similarities - between the music genres of two “Spanish Caribbean” nations, with both (in general) a mixed Spanish-African population, geographically close to each other – Cuba and the Dominican Republic – can be explained. This explanation is mostly historically, of course.

SLAVERY

More intense and longer-lasting slavery of Africans in Cuba explains some differences. The historical conflicts of the Dominican Republic with neighbouring Haiti also some. After the Haitian Revolution (up to 1804), - and in the 1820s - Haiti occupied the bordering Dominican Republic for a period, even making some Dominican leaders prefer continued Spanish colonial rule, while border disputes were also long problematic. The animosity between more European-oriented Dominicans, and more African Haitians continued for long, including racist aspects in the Dominican Republic.

This went so far that dictator Rafael Trujillo (from 1930 to 1961) hid his part-Haitian ancestry (on his mother’s side) as part of his regime’s propaganda, inventing instead a vague personal Spanish nobility origin from colonial times, and lightening his mulatto skin tone.

POPULAR LEVELS

These kinds of sentiments were mostly political, and to a lesser degree “popular”, as Afro-Dominican culture was still kept alive, albeit sometimes diluted or denied.

This was somehow different in Cuba, where “Africanness” as cultural identity was by some parts of the population proudly asserted, even though it was deemed certainly problematic by elite, pro-European circles, and seen as vulgar, in several historical epochs, even postcolonial ones, It proved, however, impossible to deny or ignore, especially as music genres like Son (from “blacker” Eastern Cuba) and Afro-Cuban Rumba gained wider popularity also in Havana.

Interestingly, in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic, “white political elite” dogmas and preferences were largely ignored, or circumvented, on the popular levels, continuing the incorporation and even celebration of African cultural retentions.

In the case of Cuba, with more slave imports, up to a later time period (even up to the 1860s), there were more maintained sensed African identities among Afro-Cubans, and more direct African cultural retentions, even of a specific ethnic nature or geographical origin (Yoruba, Congo, Calabar/Efik), including spiritual and musical aspects.

This was simply too hard to repress, although in certain epochs it had to be hidden more in Cuba. Even during Castro’s communism – frowning on Afro-Cuban “religion”, like Santería (mostly Yoruba) or Palo Mayombe (mostly Congo), the spiritual rituals continued underground.

Such African identities were more fluid and mixed – or downplayed - in the case of Afro-Dominicans, though surviving in part in Palo music (mixed with Catholicism) and subtly in musical elements of Merengue and Bachata).

It resulted – however – in less types of hand drums and other African percussion in the Dominican Republic, when compared to Cuba, though Congo-type drums are present in Palo music,. Bachata, however, adopted the Afro-Cuban Bongó. The indigenous Amerindians left their mark in both Cuban and Dominican music, mostly in instruments like the scrapers (Guiro/guira, Guaya), and in some shakers.

AFRICAN ORIGINS

While close to each other, and despite the Spanish colonial connection, some musical differences thus arose in the local contexts. The normative Accordion use in Merengue relate to German traders and travelers to the Dominican Republic, related to the tobacco trade, bringing the (after all German-invented) instrument. This did not seem to have occurred in Cuba, where the accordion remained an oddity in its folk music, if present at all. It never replaced string or other “chording”/melodic instruments in Cuba, maintaining its tres or other guitar use.

The characteristics of the Accordion made Dominican Merengue more “swaying” than Cuban “straighter” rhythms, but also the early Haitian connection of Merengue, however denied by authorities. The irony of neighboring enemies, that nonetheless share more than with others.

The bells, and clave-patterns might relate to the Yoruba influence in Cuba, as well as some other instrument uses (like the Shekere bead shaker). Africans from various nations ended up in the Dominican Republic. Christopher Columbus himself brought some from the Senegambia area around 1500 (one of the first African slave transport to the Americas), while later Congo, Dahomey/Ewe (like in Haiti), and even Ghana, became sources for slaves to the Dominican Republic.

Yoruba were less represented in the Dominican Republic, as they were enslaved and sold in a later stage in what is now Nigeria, related to the “jihad” (religious war) attacks of the Islamic Hausa invading from north of Yorubaland, enabling their capture and sale to Europeans (Portuguese, Spanish) up to the 1840s. Britain by then has (formally) abolished the slave trade, but it continued to Brazil and Spanish colonies (and illegally by Britons), but the Dominican Republic had abolished slavery already by 1822 (under Haitian influence), Cuba only as late as the 1880s, still importing slaves (also illegally) up to the 1860s.

Quite some Congo/Central African/Bantu slaves ended up in Cuba (estimated at 40% of them), which does provide a cultural link with Afro-Dominicans, though with some differences. Scholars assert that Bantu-speaking slaves in the Dominican Republic, often came from other ethnic groups in the wider Congo-Angola region than those in Cuba, besides sometimes from the same region. Still shared similarities as a cultural region, but with regional differences. Just like you have, e.g., within countries like Spain or Italy.

EUROPEANS

Regarding the Spanish, or European side, there were similarities in migration between Cuba and the Dominican Republic, such as a shared input of Canary islanders (even on the Caribbean Spanish language accent), and further Andalusian/South Spanish and Catalan influences. The Catalonian influence became stronger with the slavery peak in Cuba after 1820, as many slave owners and investors in plantations came from more wealthy and industrialized Catalonia, and other northern Spaniards (like the Basque slave-owning family Zulueta). The famous Bacardi family (from the rum) was also Catalan in origin, and were also owners of many African slaves.

Yet, sources state that among the earlier Spanish (“White”) settlers in the Dominican Republic, there were also relatively many Catalans, alongside Canarians, and others. This still reflects in Catalan surnames in present-day Dominican Republic (Bosch, Balaguer).

The South Spanish influence was still there, as what we know as the early Spanish guitar was in fact Andalusian in origin. Some Cuban music genres (like Punta) show Andalusian and Flamenco elements, while the recurring string instruments and guitar patterns show this South Spanish influence in Cuba (soon mixed with African ones), perhaps stronger than in the Dominican Republic, where guitars nonetheless were known too.

In fact, a French influence (via Haiti) might have had some effect on the European side of the mixed music in the Dominican Republic.

POLITICS

A final influence relate to political differences. Trujillo supported Merengue music for his propaganda, as pre-Castro leaders sometimes supported (selectively) Afro-Cuban aspects, despite a stronger pro-European/Spanish bias. Fidel Castro’s communism in name supported Afro-Cuban culture, yet its policies and dogmas sometimes limited it. The Marxist and Communist formal atheism was at first strongly adhered to under Castro, working also against popular Afro-Cuban faiths and folk religions like Santería, obliging practitioners even to secrecy in periods.

While music education was stimulated and is conveniently state-paid – supporting musicianship – under Cuban communism, the general cultural focus was more European/Western. This was noted also by Carlos Moore, who became a Cuban refugee and opponent of Castro, after first sympathizing and working some time for Fidel Castro. Moore - in exile - critiqued Castro’s dictatorial tendencies, but also his cultural bias and close-mindedness, restricted to Castro’s own “White”, Hispanic ethnicity. Castro was not in touch with Afro-Cuban culture, Moore argued, forming after all a substantial part of Cuban society: a majority (estimated at 80%) is at least partly of African descent, with over 25% of Cuba even mainly of African descent. Add to this around 50% of Cubans being mixed-raced.

Trujillo was unlike “Hispanic White” Fidel Castro (who was of Galician Spanish and Canarian descent), rather a light Mulatto, with some African blood, but was in denial about it, resulting in the psychological complexities and contradictions common to self-hatred and troubled identity issues. What Black Americans dubbed as the “Uncle Tom” effect. Later presidents – from 1961 to now - (often mostly White) continued the pro-European, anti-Haitian cultural focus of Dominican politics.

Like in Cuba, though, the popular culture could not be shaped or altered so easily by politicians, maintaining a strength by itself among common folk, showing in subtle yet noticeable African retentions in main Dominican genres as Merengue and Bachata (syncopation, percussion, call-and-response), and even more direct African retentions in Congo-derived Palo music in the Dominican Republic.

More recent allowance of social commentary lyrics in Merengue (also by famous Juan Luis Guerra) and Bachata (beyond romantic or party themes) affirm these genres all the more as truly nonelite and popular.

INTRA-CARIBBEAN

And yes, there were relations between the Dominican Republic and Cuba, historically (through Cuban Son and Bolero) by shaping the Bachata genre, and also on Afro-Cuban influences on later Merengue styles (“de orquesta”).

The other way around less, confirming Cuba’s special place as musical hotbed in Latin America, not unlike Jamaica for the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean. Dominican radio stations – on the other hand - reach Eastern Cuba (around Santiago de Cuba, Son’s heartland), making Bachata and Merengue songs quite popular there as well, as varying foreign influence. There are by now also Cuban artists making Bachata, like Kirenia, Michel Felix, Meyita, and Verónica Velázquez, found on a compilation “Bachata from Cuba” to be found online.

Funny how the Domincan touches that later adapted Cuban Son and Bolero (electric steel guitar, faster bongo rolls, a.o.) to form Dominican Bachata, actually came back to Cuba as well. Not the “purist” approach, let’s say, but open and creative, accepting “what they did with it”. Something comparable happened with what in New York became known as Salsa in the 1980s, but was largely Cuban Son-based.

Merengue is of course known in present-day Cuba, but as Dominican and foreign genre, and sometimes appreciated or played on the radio or in clubs (as international, foreign “Latin” hits). Yet it seemed less “absorbed” by Cuban musical artists, as few Merengue artists as such in Cuba are known (some experiment with it).

There is a traditional, percussive Haitian Merengue known with that name in Eastern Cuba, due to historical Haitian influence, but this derived from Haitian Méringue. Interestingly, yet not surprisingly, it has some rhythmic, “swaying” similarities even with modern Dominican Merengue, showing original Haitian-Dominican connections on Hispaniola, shaping Merengue.

Chad: not a dead heart

Already since I was a child, I always had an interest in geography. Maps with countries – and their names – even intrigued me. I soon began to read about different continents as well, with especially Africa arousing my interest. Why that is, I am not sure. It could relate to my musical preference that soon developed: music from Africa, and the African diaspora, music with good rhythms and grooves.

LANDSCAPES

Also, for some reason, “inhospitable” landscapes intrigued me, in relation to human cultures there too. Deserts like the Sahara, but also dense jungles. Again, hard to explain why. One explanation could be is that I grew up in the Netherlands, its Western part, with a non-wild, quite “ordered”, partly even “geometrical” landscape, and a hospitable, man-made accessibility. The flat, ordered, humid and fertile “polders” - crossed by ditches and canals -, and mostly in agricultural or livestock farm use, characterize a large part of the Netherlands.

These Dutch polders are not entirely without charm, to give my honest opinion. Sure, it is not really “wild” nature, but as a historically developed “cultural landscape” it still has a mind-easing, “down to earth” vibe. Those Dutch “polder” landscapes I was surrounded by lacked however “drama” and “character”, more natural and “wilder” landscapes elsewhere in the world had. Even landscapes that can be seen as arid, “barren”, “eroded” or “deficient” (steppes, desserts), still had some “character”, especially when in mountainous or hilly areas.

Visiting Spanish family in central and southern Spain in the summer I noticed that already: impressive landscapes with character, even if arid.. though for agriculture probably more difficult and limited, requiring even for basic production irrigation (irrigation in Dutch agriculture was only to increase production). That part where my mother was born (not far from Córdoba, SW Spain) therefore by necessity specialized in olive production, though other nice fruits grew there too (figs, oranges, a.o.).

OVERWHELMING

Even more I was intrigued by the overwhelming, mighty Sahara and other African landscapes, and the Sahara, also with cultural connotations (how do people live there?).

A Syrian friend of mine, who travelled a time throughout Northern Africa, before settling in the Netherlands, described to me journeys he had through the Egyptian and Algerian Sahara, as magical, existential experiences – perhaps even “life-changing” experiences: “you are nothing there”, he told me. He meant as a mere human in that wide, overwhelming desert, even compared to more “manageable” desert-like landscapes he knew from Syria.

Maybe it is good for humans to be reminded that sometimes nature is stronger than humans, who so often want to dominate or “tame” it. The Dutch “polders” are of course an example of such “tamed nature”, but more parts of the world adapted for intense agricultural use as well, mostly more accessible, less accidented or mountainous landscapes. A large part of England too, for instance, man-made plantations, etcetera.

CHAD

A country with also a name that intrigued me was Chad (Tsjaad, in Dutch), including how it was located on the map, amid the “untamed” Sahara desert, largely, but also extending South of the Sahara. It seemed “empty” or inhospitable, but I started reading about its inhabitants and their culture as well. Chad had indeed a relatively low population density. Later my attention shifted to other, equally interesting parts of Africa.

Still, I remember my fascination with the country Chad, and why I had that. Now I think it’s time to focus more deeply on Chad. Having studied more intensively other parts of Africa that got my interest over time, also related to music and percussion (and other interests and passions) of mine, especially Nigeria, Congo, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Ethiopia, all varied an intriguing areas as well. I am glad I studied them.

Having learned about these other African countries, Chad in reality only became more interesting: how does Chad relate to those other parts of the African continent? It is an interest that “connects” to these other ones I learned about, you can say.

I can also look from the perspective of my interests culture, music, and percussion. Southern Nigeria and Congo influenced my percussion playing as musician – to put it somewhat simplified, but still factual. For this blog, I also delved a bit into Hausa culture and music (in northern Nigeria). What has Chad then to offer musically? Always an interesting question, of course.

DEAD HEART

Quite negatively, Chad is sometimes called “the dead heart of Africa”. Its Saharan, inhospitable location and barren territory made some call that. Too negative, because the dramatic Sahara has an undeniable “strong” and overwhelming character, making – as it did with my Syrian friend – realize his own nullity and futility. Besides, also in the less populous Sahara part (the northern half of Chad), and the half-desert Sahel part (central Chad) people live their for ages, mostly living nomadically. The more fertile, savanna-like South is more populated, largely by the Sara people, a Nilotic people with an interesting culture, more akin to other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Northern and Central Chad are inhabited by nomadic Fulani, Arab, Toubou, and other peoples. The Fulani are racially mixed, and even what are called “Arabs’, are by now quite mixed with “black” Africans.

Like with the Hausa, Arab and Islamic influences are also there, and most people in the Northern half of Chad embraced Islam, albeit in their own way, and most often Sufi (milder, freer) variants. The Sara in south Chad are mostly Christian (again: in their own way) or maintained ancient, animist beliefs.

Interesting variation, although of course the result of “colonial” borders, reflecting French colonial interests. The ethnic groups in Chad share in fact only that European colonial interests made them part of the same country, but that applies to other countries as well.

SHORT HISTORY

The Islamic Northern Muslims “bothered” and molested the non-Muslim Black African Sara and others in south Chad, and regularly enslaved them (slave raids) in the past, so it’s not a tension- or conflict-free past.

Under French colonialism later, the Southern Chad was deemed more “utile”, or “useful” than the more arid, lesser populated North, for French economic (read: exploiting) goals. The French colonial system invested thus more among the Sara and neighbouring peoples, leading to some degree to an “assimilation” within the colonial system and economy. This – albeit vulnerable – upper economic hand of more populated southern Chad thus became an ironic change of relative power toward those once raided to enslave by Muslims from the North.

After independence from France, since 1960, came – after a hopeful beginning – dictatorships, several coups d’etats, civil wars, and political violence up to recently. An unfortunately all-too-familiar neo-colonial trajectory. Tensions between the Islamic North and the Sara-dominated South of Chad recurred in internal power tensions, up to the present. Sometimes external North African or Islamic support to Northern Chad rebels against the South, increased military conflicts.

This has in a broad sense several parallels within Africa. It is comparable to what happened in Nigeria (British colonial emphasis on Christian South), Benin, Cameroon, though different from elsewhere in Africa, such as Sudan, where Muslims in the North remained dominant.

The later independence struggle also began in Chad’s South. After independence in 1960 – as elsewhere – remained a dependency on the West (France, Esso and other multinationals) and neo-colonialism forced its independence toward failure, even though the discovery of “oil” and a risen petroleum industry, brought wealth into the country after 2000. Predictably this ended up primarily in Western pockets, and the remainder among a wealthy elite in Chad, especially in the South. According to critics, these economic gains hardly “trickled down”, though the government claimed it increased crucial investments in health and education.

Whatever is the truth, poverty levels remain high and the society unequal. Life expectancy is a bit over 50 years, in Chad (to compare: a bit over 80 years in the Netherlands)..

Thus contextualized, I can relate Chad better to other African countries, after all a goal of studying something.

Most interesting as a person I consider cultural history. What ethnic groups came to constitute Chad, what are their cultural customs, their location, and differences among them?

COMPARING

Again, similarities with other parts of Africa. The widespread Fulani people, found in a large part of “Sahel” Africa, from Gambia and Mali in the west, to Nigeria in the south, and Sudan in the West, are quite present in central parts, whereas the South is inhabited by the sedentary, farming Sara people, speaking a Nilo-Saharan language. In North Chad, the nomadic people include Arabs, but also Toubous, Islamic, but speaking a Nilo-Saharan language, travelling through the Sahara.

Not much use to repeat what each person can study for oneself through the Internet (Wikipedia, documentaries) about the general history and characteristics of Chad.

What is I think more interesting for my blog is how I can relate it to other countries or themes I personally studied, also for this blog. More interesting and more educational, albeit shaped by my personal interests.

CULTURE AND MUSIC

Southern Chad, dominated by sedentary farming, has a more Central African culture, with more drums, and also the balafon (xylophone-like) instrument found in Africa from Senegal to Moçambique, calabash resonators (discussed on my blog before), also common throughout Africa. Maracas-like shakers are also used. Musical structures I could find information and examples from, tend to be polyrhythm-based.

The North and Centre/East of Chad is mostly Islamic, with Arab and North African influences, mixing with local (e.g. Fulani) or Toubou (Nilo-Saharan people, but islamicized). Whereas the Sara and related peoples in the South of Chad are racially Black, the Chadians of the North and Centre tend to range from light Berber-like to (mostly) mixed-raced (with dark Africans). Ironically, this increased with the slave raids.

Musically, also in line with what I studied before, string instruments’ dominance, like the zither, show Arab/North African influences.

More peculiar, though also found among the Hausa (I also discussed the Hausa people on this blog), are a long metal trumpet, and further the use of flutes and whistles used by the Kanembu and Sara peoples in other parts (the South) of Chad, often mixed with kodjo drums. The Fulani also use single-reed flutes.

There seems to be no use of Talking Drums in Chadian traditional music (which I could find, anyway), unlike the Hausa in Northern Nigeria and bordering Niger. This makes me hypothesize that the Talking Drum is an influence from Nigeria’s South (the Yoruba know talking drums), or Sahel areas West of Nigeria, on the Hausa in Nigeria.

Harps are also known in the South of Chad, so the distinction: string instruments in Islamic North, and percussion and wind instruments in the South, is appropriate, though somewhat generalized.

The varied cultures within Chad, often mix own ethnic traditions with Islam or Christianity, in an interesting way.

The landscape variety adds an extra dimension I find interesting. Nomadic people in the desert-like North and Centre of Chad, like all nomadic peoples, cannot travel with too much material culture, like e.g. large musical instruments. Less trees to make drums as well, logically. Nomadic people – like the Gypsies in Europe -, combine an own culture flexibly with cultures they encounter, adopting and adapting it even. This happened with Flamenco music in Southern Spain, whereas related Roma gypsies in Bulgaria and Romania adopted musical aspects from there (more violins), quite different from Flamenco.

This nomadic travelling in Chad, and the ethnic/racial mixing, enabled some flexible cultural adaptations, within the same Islamic-influenced context. Also the Sara people in the South of Chad remained connected with bordering Central African peoples (e.g. in Cameroun and Central African Republic), including cultural influences.

This makes Chad much more than the negative description as “dead heart of Africa” by outsiders, only thinking of their own interests and loyalties. This reflects the common problem of colonization and exploitation of many African countries: only used by foreigners for selfish, external interests, with no interest in the people, let alone improving the lot of the Chadian people themselves.

Thus contextualized, I would like to focus on one of my main interests: African music. Interestingly, I can also relate it to what I learned thus far – throughout my life, partly reflected on this blog and on my music – about African music, and music in general.

BORDERS

As mentioned already, like most other African countries at present, the borders of Chad are externally imposed – according to foreign interests - , explaining the wide variety of ethnic groups, not sharing so much before – or even in conflict -, cultures and livelihood/economic choices, and variety in landscapes and natural conditions.

Of course, this can also be found in European countries, but the borders of countries like Spain or France were decided by internal elites, rather than foreign ones: kings with kingdoms joining forces, royal intermarriages, and so on, or at times belated “nationalist” movements uniting smaller states (Germany, Italy), based on some sense of a common identity.

This “common identity” was at the start absent in the case of Chad, though also in some “elite-constructed” European countries this should not be exaggerated (peoples like Frysians or Basques crossing borders, internal regional differences in France, Spain, or Italy – many dialects – or Spain, Flemish and Welsh in Belgium, Muslims and Albanians in former Yugoslavia, etcetera) .

In the case of Chad – as it was even imposed by foreigners with no ties to it - it was even more artificial, and remained as such. The animist/Christian South of Chad, where the Sar(a) people live, are culturally a world apart from the Muslim North, despite political ‘streamlining” efforts, not unlike as happened in Nigeria, and continuing conflicts.

The nomadic peoples in Northern Chad still tend to cross borders (Fulani, Arabs, Toubou) with Niger, Sudan, Lybia, and other countries.

MUSICAL COMPARISONS

From a musical perspective, much of the knowledge I have acquired about African music, percussion, and musical culture in general, can also be applied to Chad. That’s the interesting thing about learning gradually and organically.

In a general sense, that is, with peculiarities in the case of Chad.

Anthropologists and musicologists like Robert Farris-Thompson and Ned Sublette made the useful distinction in categorizing African music, also in relation to the African diaspora (slave trade of Africans to the Americas). “Sahel or Griot” Africa, with Islamic influences (string instruments, more mono-rhythmic, less drums, the “swing” principle), and “clave” or “forest” Africa, with “clave”-based (key) rhythms, polyrhythmic structures (several rhythms at the same time), and in general more percussion and drums.

“Griot Africa” influenced Blues and Jazz, “forest Africa” Afro-Cuban/Latin music, to put it in a simplified manner (in Afro-Jamaican Reggae you find both, for instance).

This can easily be applied to Chad as well, having a desert in the North, arid steppe (Sahel) in central parts, and a more fertile, wooded (in fact: Savanna) part in the South. The Griot and Sahel influence can be found in central parts, among the Fulani and others, with string instruments like the zither or lute being more dominant with some drums (mostly mono-rhythmic, but meandering), and the use of melisma (stretching a note over several vowels) vocally, a bit in line with the “meandering” instrumental patterns. Less straight or multiple rhythms as in the South. These are in part adapted North African and Arab influences.

In a general sense this applies, but in the details are more peculiarities, and own ways in which the various ethnic groups in Chad shape their own cultures, often with interesting, creative and unique aspects. Culture is after all not just expressing heritage, but also personal creativity, albeit in the African context often mediated socially, rather than in the detached, ego-driven “stardom” idea, more common in the Western world.

The polyrhythms in southern Chad are partly provided by the common use of Balafons (types of Xylophones, with calabash resonators) combined with several drums (some with steady rhythms, other varying, as elsewhere in Africa), harps and flutes. Crucially, the balafons, whistles, add rhythmic layers and patterns - interacting with the drums - rather than leading melodies, as would be more the case in other musical cultures.

What some people in Europe seemed to have forgotten, is that this music is also meant to dance to, in line with its inherent “rhythmicality”. In the South of Chad, this is more exuberant (shaking the whole body), also for women, while in the North this is limited due to Islamic norms of (erotic and female, public) restraint. To a degree, as dancing is nonetheless also common in the North and Centre of Chad.

There, where nomadic people live, there are some interesting, “flexible” cultural, musical aspects, somewhat countering the “serious” Islamic or conservative norms, with joyful festivities, clapping and dancing, reminding somewhat of Gypsy, Roma music in Europe, or elsewhere, with lively, merry expressions, found in e.g. Flamenco as well. The mostly non-fundamentalist, musical minded Sufi interpretation of Islam in Chad, also helps. While not as rhythmically advanced as music from Chad’s South, it still has interesting rhythmic syncopations and flows, as also found among the Griot or Jeli (with e.g. the Kora lute/harp) musicians, also travelers and nomadic, in Guinea, and other Mande-speaking areas of West Africa. This thus connects with that Griot culture in “Sahel” Africa, to repeat the anthropological categorization of Farris-Thompson and others.

Still rhythmically interesting, but more subtly, than more to the South (“forest”, Central Africa), to which southern Chad (with the Sara people) connects more. The rhythms of these arid and Sahara areas interestingly seem to mimic the camel’s cadence, in a “groovy” way. This has similarities with modernized Tuareg music (with Mali/Mande influences), such as from the well-known Saharan (Algerian) band Tinariwen.

CONCLUDING

When one reads the English Wikipedia article on Chad, one notices the problematic aspects: extreme poverty, underdevelopment, lack of democracy, and political violence, plaguing Chad up to today. A counterpoint – or response – to it is the interesting culture , with certainly room for “joy”, among all ethnic groups, mixing influences from African animism with Christianity in the South, and Islam in the North.

Culture is what you get when people are left to their own devices, undisturbed, seeking love, connection, and beauty. Politics is disturbance, limitation, greed, corruption, and power.

There seem to exist “political animals” among humans, actually liking the dynamics of such political power games, the spectacular fight for power, political parties in competition, etcetera.. I am not one of those. Like Jamaican Reggae singer Peter Tosh, who said “I am not a politician, I only face the consequences of politics”, I only feel the need to address politics when hindered by it, and bothered in my human, cultural efforts.

My fascination with Chad, even as a child starting to read, always was about curiosity in its landscapes (Sahara and South of it), how people lived there, their ethnicity, their culture, and their music. “Anthropological”, one might say, “exoticism”, perhaps, but at least more “kosher” (pure) than exploiters and economic and political powers historically and presently, taking mere mercenary or geopolitical interests in a country like Chad, betraying themselves as predatory, materialistic “money sharks” and/or political animals.

Focussing on humanity and culture, I thus found out that Chad is not a “dead heart”, neither the “dead heart of Africa”, albeit with a low population density (as all desert and arid areas on this world).

Finally, - to bring my point home that Chad is not a “dead heart” - I can recommend two ways to study that oneself, through the Internet. One is an interesting documentary from 1989 to be found online (on YouTube) about one nomadic ethnic Fulani group in Western Chad (also living in Niger) and a cultural, “mating” festivity (men dancing and showing charm to women who choose them.. all playfully, and kind of “cute”, without macho nonsense). It is called ‘Wodaabe: herdsmen of the sun’, and is made by famous German filmmaker Werner Herzog, surprising his followers with this “ethnographic” change of documentary repertoire.

The other one is an extensive and educational playlist of folk music videos and recordings someone (a Steven White) made on YouTube, combining examples of recorded and filmed music from all parts and most ethnic groups of Chad (there are over 200): the polyrhythmic, “Central African” South, and the Islamic/Saharan North, and in-between. Several interesting musical examples, showing also representative instruments and dances.

Afro-Venezuelan music: a preliminary study

The African Diaspora as a result of a tragic centuries-long history of colonialism, slavery, exploitation, and discrimination is a significant historical fact for several reasons. Knowledge about it is in my opinion crucial to understand the present world. Economically, it is less known than it should be that slavery and colonial gains in the British colonial empire - including the Caribbean - in fact helped finance the first Industrial Revolution in Britain, since the mid-18th c., and spreading to wider Europe. Birmingham, UK, thus became for instance the world’s very first “industrial city”.

That industrial revolution spread since the later 18th c. to continental Europe, but sooner to some places than to others: Belgium, Germany, France, Netherlands, northern Italy, for a large part industrialized..

It reached on the other hand some other main colonial powers, Spain and Portugal, much later and less. Even today, as a country, Spain is much less and limitedly industrialized than e.g. Britain or Germany. Some “pockets” of industrialization in Catalonia, Basque country, or Madrid aside, Spain remained since then economically behind other European nations. The same applies to Portugal, with industrialization mainly limited to main cities Lisbon and Porto.

COLONIAL EMPIRES

Yet, Spain (and Portugal) had of course once vast colonial empires as well, or as bad, as Britain and France, with similar brutal exploitation and slavery in what is now Latin America. The “blood money” gained at the cost of enslaved Africans, was – historians explain – spent only less efficiently in both Portugal and Spain, mostly on luxuries, or expanding the wealth of already wealthy families, with less wider economic investments.

Portugal was the first European country enslaving Africans on a larger scale, though there were precursors by Arabs, serving as a kind of model. Even during the Moorish (Islamic) period in Spain and Portugal (8th c.-15th c.) – known as a relatively enlightened period – sub-Saharan Africans in Iberia were often the slaves or servants of lighter-skinned Arabs or Berbers (or Iberians converted to Islam).

The “discovery” of Christopher Columbus (at the time a Portuguese citizen, of Genoese origin) in 1492, of American lands in the name of the Kingdom of Spain – that in turn claimed them - started Spain’s colonialism, and in fact broader Europe’s.

IBERIAN COLONIES

Like Britain, Spain thus has a long colonial past, with much African enslavement, thus helping to shape cynically this African Diaspora.

A difference of Iberian slavery systems with British (and Dutch) slavery systems, was the less modernized, or efficient, “industrial” nature of them: less specialized. While still inherently dehumanizing, Iberian slave systems were said to be also a bit less "harsh" (with a few more protective "rights" for slaves) when compared to stricter British or Dutch slavery systems. Nonetheless, enslaved Africans were also forcibly brought throughout the whole of Latin America, to most Spanish colonies. Often this was to “societies with slavery”, rather than to specialized “plantation slavery societies” as e.g. colonies like Jamaica, Haiti, St Vincent, or Barbados, where the majority population even became enslaved Africans.

Even then, people of African descent can be found throughout Latin America, in quite significant numbers, even if minorities. US scholar Henry Louis Gates, jr. made a series of interesting documentaries about Black in Latin America, highlighting this, and often persisting discrimination and inequality, even in nominally “multiracial” or “mixed” societies like Brazil, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, or Peru.

MUSIC

The African Diaspora thus results from a tragic history, and includes persisting historical inequalities in several Latin American countries. On the positive side there is survival, also culturally.

Many Black music genres have become internationally spread and known by now, both as a result of Anglo-Saxon slavery: from the US: Blues, Jazz, Gospel and off-shoots Soul, Funk, etc. Then, from the British Caribbean e.g. Reggae, Calypso.

Yet also, “Afro-Latin” music genres also became quite international and influential. Large, former Portuguese colony Brazil is known as the country with most people of African descent outside of the African continent, and gave the world Samba, derived Bossa Nova (largely mixing elements of Samba and Jazz), and some other genres, while Cuba – one of the Spanish colonies with most people of African descent – is musically the roots of most of what we know as Salsa, while also Afro-Cuban Rumba and Son have become quite well-known internationally by now.

Outside of Cuba, also Merengue and Bachata from the Dominican Republic (with evident African retentions and roots) became internationally known, and also Afro-Colombian Cumbia has spread by now well beyond Colombia(ns) as well.

I know all this, and often listened to these music genres my whole life, and even play now this music myself as a musician and composer, occasionally. As for other fans and lovers of Black music or “African Diaspora music”, the music helped shape my life in a beautiful way, as beautiful culture and music, albeit resulting from a tragic past.

Blues and Jazz certainly gained fans of all races, also in Europe, the same applies to Hip-hop, Funk, and Reggae. For the latter, the international fame of Bob Marley, helped spread the genre of Reggae.

Afro-Latin music remained – due to the language barrier – a bit more restricted to Spanish and Portuguese speakers (though there are many Salsa fans outside it too, of course), but widely spread across countries. Salsa and related Cuban music has had a strong influence throughout Latin America.

What we know as ‘Salsa’ music is in fact for at least 70% Afro-Cuban music (Son-based, Rumba-influenced), with Afro-Puerto Rican and Afro-Dominican elements, added among Latino migrants in the US (first the New York area).

Still, you have quite substantial “Salsa scenes” throughout non-Iberian Europe and the US and Canada as well, whereas artists like the Buena Vista Social Club or Juan Luis Guerra helped spread Spanish Caribbean music genres like Son or Merengue, outside of just the “Latin music scenes” .

There were a few international Samba, Bossa Nova, or Cumbia (La Colegiala, notably) hits in the international “mainstream”.

VENEZUELA?

This made me wonder, though.. what about Venezuela? We don’t hear much about Venezuelan music genres in Europe, or even the “Latin” world.

This applied to me personally as well. More focused on Afro-Cuban music, I still knew quite something about Afro-Dominican, Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Colombian music as well, albeit broadly. What I knew, I tried to use – e.g. rhythmically - in several of my compositions and live patterns, fused at times with other influences.

The term “Joropo” - for presumably the best known Venezuelan genre - was on the other hand, until recently, unknown to me. I read something about Gaita music in Venezuela in a book about world music, but somehow I changed my attention to other music genres, in other countries.

My mother – who had several Latin American friends – had an album – a long-play vinyl disk - of Billo’s Caracas Boys. I liked to play this album – some groovy rhythms and dynamic singing – and assumed at that time that it represented “Caracas” (capital of Venezuela) music. Later (when I learned about the musical Cuban influences in Latin America), I found out that the Billo (lead singer) in question – real name: Luis Frómeta - was actually from the Dominican Republic, influenced by Cuban genres, but also by Merengue from his native Dominican Republic. He just was more or less “stuck” in Caracas, Venezuela. Literally, as he could not return to the Dominican Republic because dictator Trujillo banned him.. for changing the band name from Santo Domingo Jazz Band to Billo’s Caracas Boys. Trujillo saw this as an insult and prohibited Billo from returning to the Dominican Republic.. Strange but true story, and a weird dictator: exiled because of a band name change..

Billo’s Caracas Boys made good, danceable music, with certainly talent there, but the Billo’s songs I heard were hardly representative of Venezuelan indigenous, own music, as it represented more Cuban, Dominican, and some Colombian (Cumbia) influences, in a Caracas context.

I began to think about this more also, because I know some Venezuelan musicians in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I live. I even played with them as musician, and they at times infused the jam sessions with “Afro-Latin” sounding music (Salsa, Cumbia, Samba, or otherwise).

I noticed the Cuban influences in what they played, but also Colombian ones. Somewhat simplistically I imagined that Venezuela, as bordering Colombia, might have music genres that resemble some Colombian ones. Upon asking Miguel Padrón, a Venezuelan percussionist I know, also active in Amsterdam, he responded with something insightful.

Miguel explained how there is quite a rich musical history in Venezuela itself, with interesting genres, also with African influences, and from a percussion perspective (we shared that percussion passion), with different drums, etc. It was, he pointed out, only less known internationally, because Venezuelans tended to “travel” or “migrate” less in recent history. There was simply less need to, because of the “oil”, the petroleum industry, simply said, and a resulting more profitable economy. Probably unequally distributed and ending up mostly in privileged pockets, but still making the economy in general relatively stronger, than e.g. the ones of Colombia, or the Dominican Republic. Less Venezuelans needed then to migrate abroad, to e.g. the US, and therefore neither could spread their culture and music. An interesting explanation.

Indeed, Venezuelan music genres like Joropo or Gaita, are even by their very names, not very much known, outside - or even within - the “Latin music scene”. As said: because Venezuelans up to recently, migrated less.

Less known, but – of course! – not per se less interesting. I will therefore focus on this own traditional and popular Venezuelan music, especially with African influences, in the remainder of this post.

The differences with music from also former Spanish colonies nearby (Afro-Colombian, or Afro-Cuban music) is interesting as part of that analysis, I think.

FACTS AND FIGURES

First some facts and figures, as needed context. Though perhaps not in quite the high numbers as neighboring Colombia or Cuba, also Venezuela received an influx of enslaved Africans, mostly for cocoa and coffee plantations as in surrounding areas. These concentrated a bit in certain parts of Venezuela, like the Miranda state in the coastal North of Venezuela (around Caracas city), and around the Maracaibo lake, in Western Venezuela. Some went to inland (Llanos area) indigo plantations.

Wikipedia says that Africans came from different parts of Africa (as in other colonies) and numbered a total of about 100.000 brought to Venezuela (in comparison: to Cuba a total of over 700.000 enslaved Africans were transported over time).

Venezuela has today around 30 million inhabitants. Of these around 9% claim significant African heritage (some say somewhat more), while over 65% of Venezuelans are considered Mestizo (mixed Spanish/Amerindian), and about 20% White/European.

Still, so while around 9% of all Venezuelans – that would be close to 3 million persons - claim main African heritage, the country’s population (as in surrounding areas) is overall very racially mixed: many combine even European, Amerindian, and African ancestry, so precise figures are difficult to ascertain.

The cultural and musical influence is certainly there, however.

JOROPO

I mentioned the funny word “Joropo” a few times now. It is the name of a genre from Venezuela’s interior central Llanos (high plains) region, characterized by semi-dry tropical grassland, and comparable to Savanna landscapes elsewhere. That’s where Joropo the music and dance genre originated, apparently among people with a “cowboy”-type of living, mostly of Mestizo descent (mixed European and indigenous), but also with some Africans in the mixture. Joropo is string-instrument dominated, with the small guitar called “cuatro” often leading, including further at times a bass, mandolin-likes “bandolas” a harp, but also maracas (shakers) and sometimes a drum or cajon.

The Joropo, known even as “national music of Venezuela, is rhythmically loosely based on Spanish examples, such as the Fandango, while also South Spanish/Flamenco-like influences are noticeable in the melismatic singing.

On the other hand, the rhythmic and shaker-instrument flow – and the ways the string-instruments are played – rhythmically – allow polyrhythm, showing all in all Amerindian as well as African influences.

MARACAIBO LAKE REGION

The Gaita music from the western Maracaibo lake region, the state Zulia – therefore it is also known as Gaita Zuliana, – mixes likewise broadly European, indigenous, and African influences, but the balance – so to speak – tipping more to African influences than in Joropo. The small but broad double-sided Tambora drum (also found in Dominican Merengue) is for instance common in most Gaita, while also shakers and other percussion (such as a metal scraper) further add rhythmic and polyrhythmic texture. Gaita as genre relates to Christmas celebrations, and funnily a Spanish-type of rubbing drum (like the Cuica: with a stick attached to the skin being pulled) is also used in it. Venezuelan musicologists recognize African musical and spiritual retentions from the Ashanti (from Ghana) in this region, but also from Dahomey (the Benin region).

More purely African musical genres are found in the Maracaibo lake region in western Venezuela as well, especially South of the lake and city of Maracaibo. These include the 'Chimbánguele' genre, with mostly drums and African-style call-and-response vocals. The drums are interesting. Most used are about 7 drums called Cumaco or Mina drums. The models were probably from the Mina people, from what is now Benin (Fon Ewe speaking peoples), explaining why similar drum types and musical characteristics are found in Haiti, and, well, Benin. They are played mostly with stick and one hand, also found in the Benin region. Less common in Yorubaland (East of Dahomey, now Nigeria), and descended Afro-Cuban musical forms (there more played by hands).. An interesting difference: more sticks are used in the drumming in Afro-Venezuelan than in Afro-Cuban or Afro-Brazilian music.

MIRANDA STATE (AND AROUND)

I say broadly ‘Afro-Venezuelan’, because other Afro-Venezuelan genres I have not mentioned yet use sticks too for drumming, such as those found in the central-coastal Barlovento region in Miranda state: with relatively many people of African descent. A region not far from the capital Caracas.

Tall, quite thin, cylindrical drums, with slight similarities to the conic Ashiko drums, but thinner and taller, are known as “culo e’ puya”, and are found in this Barlovento region. Similar tall, but with small diameter of skin, drums, are found among Jamaican Maroons.. Also broader and shorter Tambora-like drums are found in genres in Barlovento as Fulia. While some differences in drum types with the western Maracaibo region (and similarities), they are often similarly played with stick and one hand.

Some more pure Congo-influenced styles in the state of Miranda and bordering coastal states like Carabobo (a funny state name, probably to some Spanish-speakers) in Venezuela use more hand drumming, such as the Sangueo: this includes hand drumming on the skin of a larger drum one sits on, with sticks hitting the side (similar to also Congo-influenced Kumina in Jamaica).

The enslaved Africans brought to this coastal Barlovento region came more relatively often from Bantu-speaking regions (Congo, Angola), leaving their musical heritage, but also the stick-played cylindrical Mina/Cumaco drums are found there, and mentioned larger drums sat upon, combined with cuatro guitar, other string instruments, and shakers. These more “bass” drums are played with both bare hands. Both the rhythmic, “heartbeat-like” bass patterns, as the type of drum and playing style, show these Congo influences, also found elsewhere in the African diaspora (Kumina in Jamaica, parts of Cuba and Brazil).

These genres in the Barlovento region – often related to festivals – Parranda, and the more purely African Luango, show mainly Congo, but also some Yoruba, influences. Yet, with some drums and aspects shared with the (part) Afro-Venezuelan music in the Maracaibo region (with more Benin and Ashanti influences, musically and spiritually). Some rhythmical differences, relating to different African origins, are interesting to notice: more lower “repeated heartbeats” from central (Congo) Africa (oversimplified, of course), and the longer "semi-melodic" patterns from the Benin culture and Ghana region (again: oversimplified).

They all share recurring sub-Saharan African features like polyrhythm and call-and-response (also in singing), but with different accents and drums.

The Congo and Yoruba influences (in coastal Venezuela) are also found in other Spanish colonies (Cuba) and in Brazil, whereas the Benin influence causes similarities with the music in Haiti, and the Ashanti influence with Jamaican or Surinamese Maroon music (and a bit with Puerto Rican Bomba, or Afro-Peruvian Pacific Coast music.

Finally, the interesting genre ‘Quitiplás’ should be mentioned, also in the Barlovento/Miranda region. This is played with solely thick Bamboo sticks, and arose once when drums were banned by colonial policies, as (portable) replacements. Bamboo sticks are dropped on ground, as well as slammed together in Quitiplás, creating polyrhythm and cross-rhythm in the African tradition.

Interesting, lesser known African diaspora connections, and beautiful survivals of African heritage, or as academically known: African retentions. Even watered-down in Joropo, more African but mixed with other influences (similar to Colombian Cumbia), but in some regions with more African influences.

CONCLUSIONS

As a preliminary study – to term it academically – I did not go into all or full detail of all Afro-Venezuelan music. I restricted myself to indigenous, locally developed music genres, not “imported” ones (even if reworked in a Venezuelan way). Calypso from nearby Trinidad even reached Venezuela, I read, and I already mentioned the strong influence of Salsa, and Cuban music, on Venezuela, with Oscar D’León being Venezuela’s best known international Salsa star.

I however wanted to get an idea of the distinctiveness of Afro-Venezuelan music within the Americas, its uniqueness. At the same time study inevitable parallels with Afro-American genres elsehwhere.

I can conclude that there are unique aspects of Afro-Venezuelan music genres. This includes especially the instrumentation, with own type of drums. While some similarities with drums elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean, they are not “quite” the same. The most unique is the very tall/long, yet small-diametered and thin, ‘culo e’ puya drum’.

What in my judgement is most distinctive within the region, is the way most drums are played, most commonly with stick and hand: stick in one hand, and the other bare on skin. This is more common in Venezuela than elsewhere, for drums. The sticks on drum cases or sides, probably of Congo origins, can be found elsewhere (Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil), the stick-hand playing to a lesser degree. Afro-Cuban drumming is mostly bare hands-based, as is most Afro-Brazilian, and other parts (Jamaica, Haiti), though it occurs in Afro-Surinamese music.

It (stick-hand combination) is found in parts of Africa too, so is not necessarily (or totally) an adaptation to Venezuela.

The latter is the case with the Bamboo sticks-played polyrhythmic music called Quitiplás, relating to colonial bans, and bamboo growing by then in Venezuela, while originally Asian.

The rhythmic structures, patterns, and musical pieces, are in some ways unique, yet share more similarities with other Afro-American genres. The cuatro –small guitar – can be compared to the small Tres guitar combining with percussion in some Cuban Son and Dominican and Mexican genres. Parranda, Gaita, and Joropo – as string instrument-led but with some African influences too – have unique song structures, related to Christmas or other festivities, in the Venezuelan context. More akin to music in Colombia, the Amerindian/indigenous influences, mixed in with European/Spanish and African ones, in e.g. Joropo, are nonetheless an unique mix, mixed uniquely.. you dig?, haha, in Venezuela.

The more (relatively) purely African genres like Chimbánguele, Luango, Sangueo in different regions of Venezuela (central coastal and Maracaibo regions) follow general patterns of clave-based “forest” Africa music: call-and-response (in singing), poly-rhythms (several rhythms at once, on several drums and percussion instruments), and the idea of invocation of spirits, surviving amid or behind Catholicism. These are found in the whole of Afro-America, especially in Latin America, where “forest Africa” slaves, from less-islamicized areas (Southern Nigeria, Cameroon, Congo, Angola) were more common.

The “swing” aspect in some African cultures originate more from what can be called Griot Africa, or Sahel Africa: the Guinea, Mali, and Senegambia regions, sources of slaves for British and US slavers (and to lesser degrees French, Portuguese, and Spanish). This “swing” and other “griot” characteristics of the US Blues from the Mississippi region clearly show these origins in Sahel/Mali/Guinea, Mande-speaking parts of Africa, with Islamic influences and own string instruments (like the kora), less found more to the south in forest Africa (Yorubaland, South-Benin, and South-Ghana, Congo, and elsewhere).

Musical characteristics of more purely African Afro-Venezuelan genres are therefore evidently shared with Afro-Cuban or Afro-Colombian ones, yet.. with an own twist, of course. Playing styles (more often with stick on drum skin) and patterns became unique to the genres in Venezuela.

The way Venezuelans speak the Spanish language has own accents, some more similar to Caribbean Spanish (like the Caracas region), some more to the Colombian accents. Own accents of the Spanish language also influences, of course, how sung music comes across. In Cuban Spanish there is a Congo intonation, while in Peru and around a Amerindian, Inca intonation. In Colombia – the influence of the Basque (Northern Spanish) accent – more “pronounced” - is more stronger, elsewhere of the South Spanish (Andalusian) or Canary Islands variant of Spanish (in Caribbean Spanish, for instance). In some not uninteresting way, this all also affects type of musicality.

My overall conclusion (and lesson learned) would be that Afro-Venezuelan music (and culture) stands on its own within the African Diaspora – with own creations and distinct genres - , yet with several cultural parallels with other parts of especially Spanish America, related to origins within Africa of the enslaved Africans. It remained well alive today, also in popular Venezuelan music, alongside Joropo or foreign (Latin) genres.

As already said, having "travelled" or "migrated" less - thus less internationally known than other "Afro-Latin" genres - but nice, danceable genres as well, representing in their own way beautiful examples of cultural survival and creativity, within the wider African Diaspora.

Net mensen en perspectief

Je kunt het gerust een “delicaat” thema noemen, in ieder geval een “beladen” thema: het Midden Oosten en Israël daarbinnen.

OPGROEIEND

Opgroeiend in Nederland, en het onderwijssysteem in Nederland, en ook de media, volgend, krijg je al jong beelden daarover mee. Ik had sinds kind al een interesse in andere landen, en zocht informatie over Afrika of andere gebieden op in de openbare bibliotheek, zodat er wel een soort balans in aandacht ontstond in mijn geval. Mijn ouders (vader Italiaans, moeder uit Spanje), bepaalden ook deels mijn geografische interesse, en maakten het wat breder.

Desalniettemin was er zover ik mij herinner altijd relatief veel aandacht voor Israël in het nieuws en journaal.. Latere politieke machinaties van de VS of andere Westerse machten eisten ook onze aandacht op in de richting van elders in het Midden Oosten, met name Irak en Iran.

Vanwege, zegt men, het schuldgevoel van Europa over de Holocaust was er ook veel aandacht in het onderwijs en de media over de Holocaust, de Tweede Wereldoorlog, het Joodse volk, en de staat Israël, hoewel die opvallend genoeg - hoewel frequent - ook vaak oppervlakkig bleef.

Ik kon dat eerlijk gezegd wel begrijpen, hoewel ik bezwaren bleef houden (zelfs als kind al) tegen de beperkte aandacht voor gebieden op de aarde die mijn interesse hadden gewekt (soms zelfs via muziek of een goed boek..of vriendinnen van mijn moeder), zoals in Afrika en Latijns-Amerika. Ook daar ontstond wel een balans toen de Apartheid in Zuid-Afrika een tijd wat meer aandacht kreeg, zoals in het nieuws.

VATBAAR

Terugkijkend ben ik nooit – zelfs niet als kind – een “vatbaar” iemand geweest. Ook niet vatbaar voor gekleurd (“biased” in het Engels) of “propaganda” nieuws.. als iets op bijv. televisie leugenachtigs was voelde ik het meestal wel ergens aan. Ik onderzocht zelf ook graag dingen, dat scheelt. Ik had een kritische, analytische geest.

Toch.., bij maar genoeg herhaling en “drammerigheid” raakte ook ik weleens beïnvloedt of van slag. Op mijn basisschool en middelbare school (beide – ooit – van katholieke signatuur, met nog wat resten ervan) was er aandacht voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog, met – eerlijk is eerlijk – voldoende aandacht voor de Jodenvervolging en Holocaust, en het onmenselijke Nazi-beleid. Wel was de rol van het verzet in Nederland wat groter voorgesteld in het geheel. Ik twijfelde ook toen, maar het beeld dat ik kreeg was dat toen de Duitsers onder het Nazi-bewind Nederland binnen vielen in 1940, alle Nederlanders meteen massaal in opstand kwamen. Toegegeven, het werd ook weer niet zo gesteld, maar de suggestie werd sterk gewekt. De waarheid is wat anders, weten we nu. Er was wat verzet van dappere mensen, maar vooral veel angst en lafheid – zelfs deels meegaandheid -, zoals vaker onder bezettingen.

GERELATIVEERD

Ook dat werd gelukkig in het onderwijs zelf gerelativeerd. Nadat ik eerst het beeld kreeg van Nederlands massaal slachtofferschap, maar toch verzet, tegen Duitsers, relativeerden leraren die ik ook had, en die echt geschiedenis hadden bestudeerd, dit al in een vroeg stadium. Ze legden uit dat het verzet eerder uitzonderlijk was, en de behandeling van Nederlanders door de Nazi’s relatief mild was, vergeleken met bijv. Polen, omdat Nederlanders een “Germaans broedervolk” volgens de Nazi-leer waren.

Een andere (geschiedenis)lerares die ik me als leuk herinner, een blonde Groningse die goed kon vertellen,op de middelbare school in Hoofddorp, haalde mijn laatste twijfel weg, met het wrange: “na de oorlog heeft iedereen in het verzet gezeten”.. Tijdens de Duitse bezetting viel dat helaas mee.. Of eigenlijk tegen..

Latere historische bronnen bevestigden inderdaad dat Duitse invallende soldaten instructies van hogere Nazi’s kregen om zich wat rustiger en milder op te stellen tegenover de mede-Germanen de Nederlanders, of in ieder geval (niet altijd succesvol) die schijn op te houden. Het bleef een bezettende macht.

Nederlanders waren toen relatief meegaand en hadden een gezagsgetrouwe, calvinistische traditie. Deze wisten de Nazi’s in hun voordeel uit te buiten door relatief veel Joden te kunnen opsporen en deporteren in Nederland, zelfs uit een stad als Amsterdam, met toen veel Joden, en zichzelf als stad toen al “dwars” en eigenzinnig vindend. Een pijnlijke episode in Nederland en Amsterdam, ook al kwam het meestal niet door diep racistisch antisemitisme en moordzucht onder gewone Nederlanders – hoewel dat Germaanse verwantschap (en superioriteit!) idee bij sommige Nederlanders (zoals NSB-ers) wel bestond –, maar toch vaker door, wel, laffe gezagsgetrouwheid. Er bestond iets van latent antisemitisme in Nederland, ook in Amsterdam onder niet-Joden, ondanks het relatief tolerante imago, met name flauwe grappen over vermeende geldzucht of onbetrouwbaarheid van Joden, dat wel, maar dat had je in meer landen.

OUDERS

Die relativering kwam dus vanzelf wel. Soms kom je de waarheid mondjesmaat te weten. In mijn geval speelden de landen waar mijn ouders vandaan kwamen ook een rol: een Noord-Italiaanse vader, en Zuid-Spaanse moeder. Ik wist dat de geschiedenis van Italië en Spanje ook verbonden waren aan het fascisme, en voelde mij daar wat onprettig bij, als al jong open en multicultureel iemand. Daarnaast geloofde ik toen nog dat Nederland (niet alleen Joden) massaal slachtoffer was van en in verzet ging tegen Duitse Nazi’s, en ik daardoor uit “foutere” landen kwam. Onzin, achteraf bekeken.

Mijn moeder was duidelijk links en progressief en anti-Franco (hoewel ze niet graag lang over politiek praatte). Ik denk dat ze teveel humor had en van het leven hield om teveel met politiek – zeker niet partijpolitiek - bezig te zijn, maar als ze er wat over zei, was het meestal pro-vrijheid “linksig”. Eigenlijk net als ik nu.. “can’t fight genetics”, haha

Mussolini, de Italiaanse uitvinder van het fascisme, werd ook nooit positief besproken, ook niet door mijn vader. Hij herinnerde zich van de laatste jaren van het fascisme in Italië (toen hij kind was) dat er een nare, strenge sfeer heerste, veel soldaten op straat, en dat hij de fascistische groet moest geven op school, aan leraren. Niet lang daarna zette echter de democratie in, in Italië, - en economische groei -, en probeerden de Italianen te doen alsof er niets gebeurd was.

In Spanje bleef er een fascistoïde dictatuur onder generaal Franco tot 1975. Franco verbond zich wat losjes aan Hitler en Mussolini, en hun militaire hulp hielp hem uiteindelijk in 1939 aan de macht, maar hij opereerde wat strategischer en “slimmer” door zich ook weer niet te direct aan hen te verbinden, en toch een beetje diensten te verlenen aan geallieerde landen als de VS .. om zo dus niet meteen met zijn fascistische collega’s elders in Europa onder te gaan. Zo overleefde hij de Tweede Wereldoorlog: door zich er buiten weten te houden..

Binnenlands in Spanje, mengde Franco aspecten van Mussoliniaans fascisme met oerconservatieve Spaanse katholieke tradities, waardoor hij een breder deel van conservatief Spanje koest hield dat niet wist wat fascisme was, zogezegd, mogelijk mede geholpen door anti-communistische, en pro-regime propaganda. En, uiteraard, zoals in elke dictatuur, een repressie-apparaat: veel soldaten en politie op straat, censuur, en rechten ontnemen aan burgers: tegen de overheid kon je weinig beginnen.

Dat verklaart mede het eigenlijk wel schokkende feit dat mijn moeder er pas achter kwam dat die Holocaust (inclusief concentratiekampen) had plaats gevonden toen ze rond 1966 naar Nederland kwam. Spanje onder Franco onderwees dat niet. Hitler was een voormalige bondgenoot, zal een reden zijn. Er was ook weer niet een verering van Nazisme of (direct) anti-semitisme in het Spaanse onderwijs toen: thema’s waren eerder beperkt en binnenlands gericht (nationalistisch, maar niet echt een rassenleer). Het antisemitisme bestond in Spanje ook, en uitte het zich in handelsland Nederland in vooroordelen over vermeende geldzucht van Joden, in Spanje vooral in de aloude mythe onder Christenen/katholieken dat “de Joden Jezus hadden vermoord”.. Domme onzin, natuurlijk: Jezus was uiteraard Jood onder Joden.. Verraden door zijn eigen mensen, eerder..

Heel af en toe werd het wel pervers: mijn moeder vertelde dat in het staatsnieuws voor films in bioscopen in Spanje (rond de verjaar- of sterfdag van Hitler of Mussolini) ooit te zien was dat Franco als katholiek in een kerk een zegen uitsprak voor Hitler en Mussolini. Later zag ze in hoe absurd en immoreel dat was.

(foto boven: ik als begin-tiener met mij ouders in Andalusië, Spanje, rond eind 1980s).

Spanjaarden werden toen zoveel mogelijk dom gehouden, en die namen Hitler en Mussolini waren voor velen onder hen vage namen uit buitenland en historie: net als je nu tegen Nederlanders Hindenburg of Jaruzelski noemt. Schandalige, ideologische geschiedvervalsing uiteraard, maar veel verder ging die aandacht niet. Franco poogde Spanje in zijn eigen ideologische, rechts-conservatieve wereld op te sluiten. Een nationale wereld die uiteraard voordelig was voor de “powers that be” in het land, de staat, maar ook (regime-steunende) werkgevers en grote bedrijven, grootgrondbezitters, en de andere rijken, die in zo’n dictatuur (met rechteloze arbeiders) makkelijker mensen konden uitbuiten. Mijn moeder “voelde” dat, vertelde ze. Dat noemen we ook wel “onderdrukking”.

Als “linkse tante” was mijn moeder later voorspelbaar kritisch over de Israëlische bezetting van Palestijns gebied, maar zag dat – zoals ze vaker deed – vooral in termen van rijk tegen arm. Op andere punten (positie van de vrouw met name) was ze echter weer kritisch over aspecten van de Islam, maar dat was ze ook over het katholicisme.

LUYENDIJK

Ik vertel dit allemaal, “where I come from” zeg maar, omdat ik met dit verleden in mijn hoofd, pas een interessant boek heb gelezen, relevant voor dit thema: door voormalig journalist/correspondent in het Midden Oosten (w.o. Israël) Joris Luyendijk. Luyendijk beschreef zijn ervaringen in het Midden Oosten in het goed leesbare boek ‘Het zijn net mensen’, eerst uitgegeven in 2006.

Die ervaringen waren met name van 1998 tot 2003. De titel geeft al een beetje aan dat hij aandacht heeft over perspectief en vooroordelen bij een Westerse (Nederlandse) journalist als hij.

Ik zag de schrijver Joris Luyendijk ook weleens op televisie. Het was iemand die goed en prettig relativerend kon vertellen (vooral over de Arabische wereld), en ook als presentator van VPRO Zomergasten (in 2006 en 2007) dat ik regelmatig keek, vond ik hem veelal ook geslaagd. Aan dit boek ‘Het zijn net mensen’ was ik echter tot voor kort niet toegekomen.

Het Israël-Palestina conflict en andere problemen in het Midden-Oosten spelen anno 2024 uiteraard nog steeds – hoewel recentelijk tijdelijk concurrerend met die rare “covid psychose” tussen 2020 en 2023.

Vanaf met name 2022 mochten andere thema’s weer meer prioriteit krijgen, en daar zaten helaas ook dramatische ontwikkelingen bij. Geografisch werden deels de oude specialiteiten weer hervat (zoals Israël), naast bijvoorbeeld Oekraïne, en de luchtaanval op ziekenhuis in Gaza (door Israël bezet Palestijns gebied) leidde eind 2023 tot veel verontwaardiging.

CORRESPONDENTSCHAP

Luyendijk beschrijft zijn ervaringen van de periode 1998 tot 2003, toen hij de Arabische wereld “coverde” als correspondent, of een deel ervan, voor de Volkskrant en NRC, en de televisie. Zijn standplaatsen waren eerst Caïro in Egypte – waar hij al eerder voor zijn sociaal-wetenschappelijke studie (antropologie) verbleef -, en daarna Beiroet en Oost-Jeruzalem. Hij richtte zich dus eerst op Egypte en de Arabische wereld, later op Israël, en aan het eind van zijn correspondentschap op Irak, binnengevallen door de VS.

Als sociale wetenschapper van buiten de journalistiek was Luyendijk verbaasd – veelal onaangenaam verrast – door die journalistiek, i.c. de werkwijzen. De moeilijkheid ervan in Arabische dictaturen, en de afhankelijkheid van gestructureerde, internationale nieuwsfilters en stroomlijning.

Hij legt goed uit in dit boek dat in de Arabische dictaturen met sterke, bijna totalitaire repressie, vrije nieuwsgaring, of gewoon de eerlijke mening van mensen vragen, moeilijk werd gemaakt. Dit noodde bijvoorbeeld tot anoniem maken van geciteerde bronnen, om mensen niet in problemen te brengen met staatsagenten en geheime diensten. Dit maakte achtergrondartikelen ook een uitdaging vol afgeleide informatie, legt Luyendijk boeiend uit. Beeldend beschrijft hij - in meer dan een opzicht -moeizame gesprekken.

Het woord “perspectief” is voor dit boek erg belangrijk, wat al blijkt uit de titel Het Zijn Net Mensen. Zijn ervaringen in Egypte en elders botsten vaak met simplistische stereotypen die in het Westen bestonden over de Arabische wereld (eerst ook bij Luyendijk zelf), vaak overigens gevoed door partijdige – of beperkte – media. Dit betrof niet alleen politiek, maar ook cultuur en het dagelijkse leven.

De Arabische wereld is intern veel gevarieerder dan mensen denken, dat ten eerste. Verder: de aanwezigheid van “humor” onder Arabieren, moppen over anderen uit een bepaalde streek, maar ook zelfspot, ontbraken niet, en evenmin andere speelse flexibiliteit. Dit leek hem te verbazen.

MANIPULATIE

Het heeft deels met cultureel onbegrip – of vooroordelen - te maken, maar ook met partijdigheid en gestuurde belangen. Propaganda-apparaten die nieuws naar hun eigen voordeel kleuren waren er aan beide kanten, vanuit die dictaturen, maar ook bij “democratische” Westerse media. De ene anti-Amerikaans/-Westers (of –Israël), de ander pro-Amerikaans/-Westers (of –Israël), heel grof samengevat.

Vanuit deze wisselwerking tussen cultureel onbegrip, gebrek aan kennis over de geschiedenis van de regio (en van conflicten), en mediasturing/manipulatie, ontstond dan een beeld in de Westerse media, ook in de Nederlandse en bij het Nederlandse publiek.

Joris Luyendijk beschrijft hoe hij dat beeld, met moeite en beperkingen, probeerde bij te sturen met zijn stukken en bijdragen richten de werkelijke situatie onder Arabieren en in Israël.

Bij de gestuurde, “gelikte”, en geoliede propaganda of PR-machines om de journalistiek te “informeren” – en eigenlijk te binden – van de Israëlische autoriteiten, en later de VS/het Pentagon (bij de inval in Irak), staken schril af de amateuristische pogingen onder Palestijnen, en helemaal de loze, voorspelbare anti-Westerse propaganda van ondemocratische, onderdrukkende Arabische regimes, of nog erger, maar marginaler, anti-Joodse scheldpartijen, "rants", of beschuldigingen, met zowel oude economische als oude religieuze antisemitische ideeën op herhaling, maar nu door Arabieren.

Zelfs als Palestijnen in bezette gebieden toch echt vooral het slachtoffer waren en de onderliggende partij, kwam dat leed vooral op beeldgerichte televisie, PR-technisch slecht over. Het Arabische taboe op openbaar kwetsbaarheid en zwakte tonen (cultureel beperkt tot privé-sfeer), wordt in Europa, sinds ik schat zo in de hippie-tijd en 1970s (en “praatgroepen”, sociale academies) -, minder begrepen in modern Europa, waardoor het beeld van gevoelloze, Joden-hatende fanatici er soms onterecht stand houdt. Dictatoriale trekken bij Palestijnse leiders en de Hamas, bemoeilijken ook de vrije nieuwsgaring en meningsuiting, wat Luyendijk al eerder ook al in Arabische dictaturen, in nog extremere mate, merkte.

Duidelijk een cultureel en contextueel verschil, maar uitgebuit vanwege partijdigheid, en de pro-Israël (en pro-Westen) focus in ook Nederlandse media kon Luyendijk niet ontkennen. Joodse en Israëlische persvoorlichters kenden de Europese cultuur beter, en konden beter inspelen op Westerse karaktertrekken om hun kant van het verhaal te bevoordelen. Serene, rustige begrafenissen en rouwprocessen – met beperkte hysterie. Wat meer genuanceerde, of althans schijnbaar redelijk geuite, verontwaardiging of bezwaren, van toch ook Europeser lijkende Joden, leidde makkelijker tot identificatie bij Europeanen.

Luyendijk leerde hierover – de meerdere “filters” - tussen het echte nieuws en gekleurde perspectieven en belangen - gaandeweg steeds beter, en daarvan doet dit boek boeiend verslag, alsmede over zijn toegenomen begrip over wat leven onder zo’n dictatuur en bezetting in de praktijk nu echt inhoudt, ook voor gewone Arabieren. Veel angst en omkoping in dictaturen, onder andere. Veel onduidelijkheid en verwarring ook, en ook zelfbeperking. Die zelfbeperking volgend op angst leidt ook psychologisch tot allerlei neurosen of stoornissen als ontkenning of vluchtgedrag, en negatief afreageren op anderen, projectie, etcetera.

Dat kun je zo kil medicaliseren en pathologiseren. Mooier is het - en dat doet Luyendijk toch ook in het boek -, om dat gewoon als een al te menselijke reactie te zien op onrecht, onderdrukking, terreur, of oorlog. Mogelijk vanuit een andere cultuur die we niet meteen begrijpen, een armoediger samenleving, en een andere, complexe geschiedenis, die soms moeilijk uit te leggen is… maar van mensen als jij en ik.. Zonder bij voorbaat een kant te kiezen.

AFGESTOMPT

Luyendijk gaf aan dat hij deze correspondentenperiode afsloot omdat hij merkte “afgestompt” te raken te midden van gevolgen van oorlog, bezetting, conflicten en terreur.

Inderdaad een van de uitdagingen in het leven van ieder persoon: niet afgestompt raken. Niet de nieuwsgierigheid en empathie verliezen, meestal gepaard gaand met een grauwer gebruik van zintuigen, en een uitgeschakeld gevoel. Die afstomping voorkom je denk ik door je bezig te houden met positieve en mooie dingen, wat moeilijker wordt, immers, omgeven door negatieve en lelijke dingen als oorlog, geweld, gebrek, haat, en terreurdreiging.

Luyendijk was dat wijselijk redelijk voor, en kon zich blijkbaar de luxe van stoppen met zijn baan veroorloven, in die positie, en ook als iemand met “7 vinkjes” voor maatschappelijk succes, zoals hijzelf in een later boek schreef (Zeven Vinkjes). Die 7 vinkjes zijnde, wit, autochtoon, man, hetero, hoog opgeleid met hoog-opgeleide ouders, en nog wat meer (Randstad, ABN-sprekend).. geprivilegieerd dus. Wat ikzelf wel als goede graadmeter van privilege in een samenleving zie is of je zelf “wilt” stoppen met ergens te werken, of dat je ergens “moet” stoppen met werken. Onmacht dus. Verwant hieraan definieerde James Brown “soul” (zowel een muziekgenre, als kwaliteit in alle zwarte muziek) als the word “can’t”..

Luyendijk wilde en kon makkelijk weg vanuit dat 7 vinkjes-privilege, denkelijk voor iets beters elders (later schreef hij over de financiële wereld in het “wall street” van Europa: de London City), maar het leek mij een begrijpelijke keuze, zoals hij vertelt over de gewenning die afstomping werd, en die nooit goed is..

REFLECTIE

Luyendijk maakte de manipulatie van nieuws en “filters” ervoor duidelijk, ook in praktische zin, alsmede de belangen die er speelden. Mijn inschatting is dat het (het verhulde eigenbelang en de verhulde propaganda) sindsdien niet verbeterd of zelfs alleen maar erger is geworden in het zelfverklaarde vrije Westen, zoals de recente covid-hype liet zien, mede door toenemende machtsconcentratie in de media, en voortdurende ongelijke economische en militaire macht .

De vraag drong zich na het lezen van dit boek aan mij op, daar ik mij zelf eerder in de stuk als “nooit erg vatbaar” beschreef.. Ik denk althans van mijzelf dat ik een goede intuïtie voor leugenachtigheid heb, ook qua propaganda of nieuws. Mogelijk borstklopperij of mijn eigen ego strelend, en herinner ik mij opzettelijk vooral die keren dat mijn intuïtie bevestigd werd.

De kritische geluiden tegen de Israëlische onderdrukking van Palestijnen kende ik van Linkse kringen, soms ook in mijn nabije omgeving, maar ook de angst voor Islamitisch terreur. Misschien bevat een wat abstracte, maar simpele “rijk tegen arm” verklaring – zoals mijn moeder die gaf – meer wijsheid dan ik dacht. Luyendijk beschreef hoe veel geld hebben (Israël, VS, Europa) ook uitgebreide, professionele mediamanipulatie veel beter faciliteert, inclusief toegang.

De arm-rijk verklaring lijkt wat “klassenstrijd/Marxistisch”-achtig maar relativeert daarom juist het culturele ongemak dat de Arabische cultuur en de Islam soms oproepen, zoals de macho waarden, de positie van de vrouw, hysterie (je kunt ook vriendelijker zeggen: warmbloediger of temperamentvoller), en agressie en geweld. Deels ook bij mij, geef ik toe. Ik probeer dat te relativeren middels economische en vooral onderwijsverschillen, maar ook psychologische kennis die ik mettertijd opdeed.

Agressief pratende mensen die “stoer” doen, schelden, en gewelddadige bedreigingen uiten – of zelfs alleen maar druk/”hysterisch” zijn, doen inderdaad “stoer”, maar zijn ook vaak “in paniek”, “wanhopig”, en gepijnigd door trauma’s door onderdrukking en geweld, die zo overschreeuwd worden. Ze zitten “vast”. Dat kan, in ieder geval. Iemand zich zo “intimiderend” gedragend kan uiteraard even goed vol met haat en rancune zitten, zonder goede reden, maar uit onzekerheid of negatieve bewijsdrang zo zijn, als een soort gangster of crimineel. Een blik in de ogen en waarneming van houding is veelal genoeg, om te merken of iemand, zoals ik in een Reggae-liedje (Nah Tarry Ya, van Admiral Tibet) hoorde, is “ you a man of peace, or a man of war (?)..”

Wat ik mede van mijn moeder’s verhalen, levend onder de Franco-dictatuur, begreep was inderdaad het gevoel van “rechteloosheid” dat Luyendijk ook noemt als het gevoel onder een corrupte dictatuur, zoals in Arabische landen: het recht krijgt immers geen beloop, tegen machtige groepen die je benadelen of weg willen hebben. Dictaturen willen mensen rechteloos en ook dom houden, toch geldend als “verzachtende omstandigheden” als mensen hun ongenoegen iets anders uiten dan in open, vrije samenlevingen.

Veel verklikkers en verraders in dictaturen ook, en mijn moeder had het over “enchufes”, als woord voor vriendjespolitiek/nepotisme met belangrijke functies en banen voor regime-getrouwe mensen. Het Spaanse woord “enchufe” is te vertalen als “aansluiting” Of “connectie/plug-in” (voor een functie dus), en vond ik hier wel grappig omdat het een van die Arabische leenwoorden in de Spaanse taal is, namelijk volgens etymologen afgeleid van het Arabische “jawf” (maag). Dit werd dus “enchufe”, werkwoord “enchufar” in het Spaans.

Een van de punten in dit boek van Luyendijk is juist dat dit soort noodzakelijke contextualiseringen in het Westerse nieuws wat minder gegeven wordt bij Arabieren en Palestijnen, dan bij Israeliërs die hun (terechte) zorgen over terreur delen, en helemaal bij Westerlingen, of aan de kant van de VS. In de belangrijkste Westerse media werden het “Hollywood”-achtige militaire VS-perspectief uitgedragen van de militaire invasie van Irak en bijbehorende problemen (nu ook weer mbt Oekraïne). Met soms wat nuances of tegenspraak. Destijds waren de mainstream media in Nederland iets democratischer (meer debatten met tegenstanders) dan later tijdens de coronacrisis. Daar blijkt uit – filosofisch interessant – dat de realiteit complex en veelzijdig is (dictatuur, armoede, oorlog), maar leugens (w.o. media-hype’s) opvallend eenduidig en eenvormig. Veel ooit zogenaamd kritische, dwarse denkers namen immers opeens zinloze injecties/”vaccins”, bleven desgewenst thuis, en deden even zinloze maskertjes op. Even was de leugen sneller, haha.

CONTROLE

Ik definieer “trauma” deels als onvermogen (of weer: onmacht), en “de controle kwijt zijn”, t.o.v. pijn veroorzaakt door machtiger partijen. Dat doet pijn en dehumaniseert. Wat in Nederlandse, nuchtere ogen lijkt op “hysterie” onder bijvoorbeeld Arabieren, lijkt soms echter ook op “zichzelf niet onder controle hebben”. Dat roept ons wantrouwen op, en maakt wat onzeker en bang, vooral bij zich macho gedragende mannen. Zo oppervlakkig is het mediabeeld helaas, en vaak onterecht. Het voorbeeld van mensen als Martin Luther King, en Nelson Mandela laten daarentegen zien dat jezelf “toch onder controle houden” (al wordt je leven en alles wat je hebt bedreigd en onderdrukt) waardig en wijs is, en inspirerend blijft, naast ook “mediageniek” genoeg. Ook Malcolm X, iets strijdbaarder en moslim, kon in talkshows beheerst en intelligent debatten voeren met blanken en tegenstanders, zonder ongenuanceerde of onbewezen “onzin te praten” of loze, generaliserende beledigingen. Dat kwam bij weldenkende, niet vooringenomen mensen goed over.

Mogelijk zijn iets meer “vrouwelijke” waarden van zorg, communicatie,en gelijkwaardigheid - die meer een balans vonden met mannelijke in de Afrikaanse en Afro-Amerikaanse culturen -, hier nuttig voor Arabieren. Daarnaast vereist dat ook een open debat in een open, democratische samenleving waarin veel Arabieren, en zeker niet Iraqi’s onder Saddam Hussein’s onvrije dictatuur, simpelweg niet leefden.

Helaas bijt de pro-mannelijkheid focus van de Koran en Islam (naar huidige maatstaven) zich hier in de staart bij Islamitisch protest tegen het Westen.. die vrouwonvriendelijkheid is er ook ook in de Bijbel (vrouwen krijgen zelfs onterecht de schuld van dingen), maar die is gerelativeerd in het latere, vrijere Christendom. De Jamaicaanse Rastafari-aanhanger en dichter Mutabaruka stelde ooit dat die “heilige boeken” als de Koran en Bijbel geschreven zijn door “onzekere mannen”, die vrouwen op hun plaats wilden zetten (naast andere dingen), reden waarom hij er wat afstand van nam in zijn interpretatie van Rastafari.

Evenwel, alleen als je je in welvaart en in vrijheid als individu kunt ontwikkelen, heb je nog de “luxe”, of beter: ruimte, voor een vrije, aangepaste interpretatie van wat anderen “heilig” noemen. Normen en waarden, vrij leven. Zo is dat in het Westen gebeurd sinds de 1960s met het Christendom. Democratie speelde daarbij een rol, vrij onderwijs, emancipatie richting individuele vrijheid, vrouwenemancipatie, maar toch ook welvaart: niet alleen maar hoeven te overleven en strijden, maar ook gewoon leven, leren, en liefhebben. Had mijn moeder met haar (weer gewoon) “rijk tegen arm” over het Palestina-conflict toch in de kern gelijk..

De Arabische dictaturen die Luyendijk in dit boek beschrijft – met censuur en controle, en andere onderdrukkende omstandigheden en politiestaten, zoals de bezetting van Palestijns gebied, of overheersend oorlogsgeweld van de VS tegen Irak, bemoeilijken die “zelfcontrole” of “zelfverbetering voor het grotere goed” bij individuele leiders, zichzelf verbonden hebbend aan corrupte macht. Dat geldt echter ook voor die mediamanipulatie door autoritaire of belanghebbende partijen (aan beide zijden, maar zeker ook de Westerse), waardoor andere kanten van het verhaal, zelfs als er charismatische, inspirerende en overtuigende woordvoerders van zijn, gewoon minder toegang of kans krijgen.. Een treffende illustratie van hoe vrijheid en gelijkheid gerelateerd zijn.

Ik kon me altijd voorstellen dat Joden een eigen, onafhankelijk land wilden, en dat kan ik me nog, vanuit de geschiedenis. Van mij mag het, en het is niet eens onzin. Ik ben een voorstander van gezond, open nationalisme, verbonden aan cultuur/geloof, van ieder volk, dat geen andere volkeren lastig - of binnen - valt. Leuk voor de variatie ook: er bestaan immers al meerdere “Arabische” landen, dus een Joodse mag er ook bij. Dat is de “wat” kant. Verder zitten er alleen meerdere kanten aan het verhaal - met name de “hoe” kant - die het voor mij soms moeilijker maken een kant te kiezen, vooral als het nieuws onbetrouwbaar is.. Dit laatste bleek uit dit goed leesbare en leerzame boek Het Zijn Net Mensen (2006) van Joris Luyendijk.

Toegegeven, we zitten nu een tijd verder in een tijd van Internet en meer alternatieve media. De menselijke neiging om alles in het eigen voordeel en eigenbelang te manipuleren moet echter niet onderschat worden - ook niet in die alternatieve media -, vaak door middel van een quasi-beredeneerde ideologie of religie. De drammerige poging tot "verrechtsing" van het op zich legitieme coronaverzet - even kritische mensen uit de progressieve hoek (met soms meer systeemkritiek) als George Van Houts of Ewald Engelen negerend - is daar een recent voorbeeld van.

Alles neutraal van alle kanten bekijkend - en gewoon toegeven als we iets niet weten - lijkt mij dan het wijste, en dat zegt eigenlijk ook Joris Luyendijk in dit boek.. Aan de andere kant wist ik dat al een tijdje..