0x000i.pre-combat
what is the relationship between the struggle, this political or armed conflict, and culture? is culture put on hold during conflict? or is the national struggle a cultural manifestation? in other words, is the liberation struggle a cultural phenomenon?
(music begins)
each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.
now that we are in the heat of combat, we must shed the habit of decrying the efforts of our forefathers or feigning incomprehension at their silence or passiveness. they fought as best they could with the weapons they possessed at the time.
more than one colonized subject had to say, “we’ve had enough,” more than one tribe had to rebel, more than one peasant revolt had to be quelled, more than one demonstration to be repressed, for us today to stand firm, certain of our victory.
for us who are determined to break the back of colonialism, our historic mission is to authorize every revolt, every desperate act, and every attack aborted or drowned in blood.
0x00ii.colonial-assimilation
during colonial domination, the colonized intellectual proves to Empire that they have assimilated to the colonizer’s culture.
in the work of the colonized intellectual, point by point is matched with their colonialist counterparts: a cultural isomorphism is constructed by the colonized.
this is the period of assimilation.
cultural forms here are congealed, petrified.
there is emphasis on methods of the colonialist specialists, a focus on formalism; poetry assimilates to the rhyme scheme. the culture and its national reality here is flat, untroubled, motionless, reminiscent of death rather than life.
during its domination, Colonialism attempts to defuse any nationalist demands by manipulating economic doctrine: the opening of worksites for the unemployed here and there, promises of fair taxation, of debt forgiveness, of universal healthcare, all delay the formation of a national consciousness by a few years.
but these spectacular measures always fail short because national consciousness does not seek purely economic reforms.
Colonialism is incapable of procuring for colonized peoples the material conditions likely to make them forget their quest for dignity, which is the quest for sovereignty.
0x0iii.the-colonized-intelligentsia
parallel to political classes, we find the cultured class of colonized intellectuals, the intelligentsia. whereas politicians integrate their action in the present, the intellectuals place themselves in the context of history.
as a result of their intellectual assimilation, they become critics; and due to their search for truth, myth busters.
Colonialism’s response in the face of the colonized intellectuals’ debunking of colonialist history of a precolonial barbarism is mute; because these ideas are widely accepted by metropolitan specialists.
the metropolitan specialists go ecstatic over the careful renditions of truth by the colonized. these specialists are even surprised by the passion with which the colonized intellectuals rehabilitated African, Mexican, and Peruvian civilizations. of course, this is because their psyche and ego are conveniently safeguarded by a French or German culture whose worth has been proven to them and which has gone unchallenged.
in their search for truth, the colonized intellectuals become overjoyed to discover the past was not branded with shame, but dignity, glory, sobriety. in reclaiming the past, a change of fundamental importance in the colonized’s psycho-affective equilibrium is triggered.
the reason the colonized intellectual has to go through this process of reclaiming a past is because Colonialism is not content merely to impose laws on the colonized country’s present and future.
it also colonizes the past, distorts it, disfigures it, destroys it.
Empire sought to hammer into the heads of the indigenous population that if the colonist were to leave they would regress to barbarism, bestiality.
at the unconscious level then, Colonialism became the Colonial Mother who constantly prevents her basically perverse child from committing suicide or giving free rein to its malevolent instincts.
Colonialism’s condemnation is continental in scale: for instance, the claim that the precolonial period was akin to a darkness of the human soul refers to the entire continent of Africa.
as a response, the colonized intellectual’s reclamation of the past happens on a continental scale.
the past is revered.
the culture, retrieved to be displayed in all its splendor. but this is not the national culture.
still, this is an important moment.
for the colonized intellectual is one who already slipped into Western civilization through a backdoor, who even changed bodies with European civilization, and in this encounter with the past, they realize history is written by the colonizer, by the Westerner, despite periodical enhancements of certain episodes of, say, African or Latin American past.
they realize that racializing their claims and emphasizing a continental culture rather than a national culture leads them into a dead end. the national consciousness must be emphasized.
for example, during the First Congress of the African Society for Culture in Paris in 1956, the black Americans considered their problems from the standpoint as their fellow Africans. gradually, it became apparent that the existential problems between the two differed: the only common denominator between black people in Chicago and black people in Nigeria was that they all defined themselves in relation to the white people, who had not behaved any differently when colonizing the Americas or Africa.
lessons were learned: at the Second Congress of the African Society for Culture, it was decided to create the American Society for African Culture.
the movement of Negritude thus reached an impasse because the people who set out to embody it realized that every culture is first and foremost national, not continental.
likewise, certain Arab states who had used Islam to foment revolutionary nationalism were forced to realize that their geographical position and their region’s economic interdependence were more important than the revival of the past.
the reason being that in each case, states are subject to modern pressures and new commercial channels, whereas the great trade routes of the past have long disappeared.
the glorification of this continental phenomena which becomes singularly racialized arises precisely due to Colonialism’s continental attack, its insistence that the colonized have no culture, that the past prior to their counter was darkness.
consequently, during this stage, the reasoning of the colonized intellectual in Africa is Black-African or Arab-Islamic.
whatever the case, in their search for truth, the colonized intellectuals become overjoyed to discover the past was not branded with shame, but with dignity, glory, sobriety. in reclaiming the past, a change of fundamental importance in the colonized’s psycho-affective equilibrium is triggered...
0x0iii.strategic-retreat
...something is triggered. a bifurcation in the unconscious: perhaps a critical connection was made, one that rearranges all former connections.
this period is volatile.
the colonized intellectual frequently lapses into heated arguments and develops a psychology dominated by an exaggerated sensibility, sensitivity, and susceptibility.
then a withdrawal happens: a reflex, a muscular contraction.
this withdraw is important because it emotionally prepares the colonized intellectual, otherwise they would later face extremely serious psycho-affective mutilations: individuals without an anchorage, without borders, colorless, stateless, rootless, a body of angels.
this is still a pre-combat period, so the colonized has been under decades of colonial domination; we have been slowly suffocated by Empire.
by now, the colonized intellectual has had their convictions shaken, and as a strategic retreat, decide to cast their mind back to their past, their roots.
in their art, whatever the form, the symptom is manifested as humor, allegory, anguish, malaise, death, even nausea. yet underneath this self-loathing, one can hear laughter.
at first, the colonized intellectual fails to realize that at the very moment they undertake a work of art, they are using techniques and language borrowed from the colonizer. this may be masterfully cloaked but they cannot rid their exoticism.
by the end, the withdrawal shows to the colonized intellectual that with respect to their roots, they’re an outsider: they’ve been made foreigner.
the culture they have developed up to this moment has been but a veneer which reflect a dense, subterranean life in perpetual renewal, moved by the forces of history that are not theirs.
at last, a shock; a jolt of clarity. an awakening.
0x00iv.de-reification
the reification of their works and culture, created through assimilation to the culture of Empire is, in fact, the inert, invalidated outcome of the many and not always coherent adaptations of a more fundamental substance beset with radical changes.
there is no national culture, no national cultural event, no innovation, no radical reform within the context of colonial domination and there never will be.
in seeking this substance, the colonized intellectual becomes mesmerized by the mummified fragments which consolidated signify negation, obsolescence, fabrication——simulation.
but culture eminently eludes any form of simplification.
in fact, culture is the very opposite of custom; custom is always a deterioration of culture——culture never has the translucency of custom.
for instance, when a people support a political and armed struggle, tradition changes meaning. what was once a technique of passive resistance may be radically doomed. during this period, traditions in the colonized country are fundamentally unstable, and this is why the colonized intellectual may be out of step with their people, even behind the times.
but at last, the colonized intellectual realize that the existence of a nation is not proved by culture but in the actual struggle against the forces of occupation.
we finally realize we must work and struggle in step with the people so as to shape the future and prepare the ground where rigorous shoots are already sprouting.
the fundamental task is revealed——many tasks become one task only: to liberate the national territory, to constantly combat new forms of colonialism, and to stubbornly refuse to indulge in self-satisfaction at the top.
0x000v.combatism
the task is centered on galvanization, a return to Zero, the return to the Immediate, the conciliation of the past with the present directioned by a specific future: one with a national culture, one with power to write history... thus the liberation struggle begins to be articulated in the art and life of the colonized intellectual.
to be sure, national culture is no folklore. it is the collective thought process of a people to describe, justify, and extol the actions whereby they have joined forces and remained strong.
colonial exploitation, poverty, and endemic famine (e.g. food deserts) increasingly force the colonized into open, organized rebellion.
gradually, imperceptibly, the need for a decisive confrontation imposes itself and is eventually felt by the great majority of the people.
tensions emerge where previously there were none.
we find that conditions are ripe for the inevitable confrontation.
international events, the collapse of whole sections of Empire, and the inherent contradictions found within the colonial system all stimulate and strengthen combativity, motivating and invigorating the national consciousness.
these new tensions cause ripple effects on the cultural front.
in literature, there is relative overproduction.
mainly consumer during oppression, now the colonized intellectual becomes productive.
at first, they are confined to the genre of poetry and tragedy. then novels, short stories, and essays.
there seems to be some kind of internal organization, a law of expression, according to which poetic creativity fades as the objectives and methods of the liberation struggle become clearer.
there is a fundamental change of theme.
in fact, less and less we find bitter, desperate recriminations. Colonialism encourages these scathing denunciations and outpouring of misery, “yes, yes, have your catharsis... lest they become dramatizations...”
this doesn’t last, of course.
advances made by national consciousness among the people modify and clarify the literary creation of the colonized intellectual: complaints followed by indictments become appeals.
then comes the call for revolt.
the crystallization of the national consciousness will not only radically change the genres and themes, but also create a completely new audience.
whereas the colonized intellectual started out by producing work exclusively with the oppressor in mind, showing off to Mommy, they gradually switch over to addressing themselves to their people.
only from this point onward that one can speak of a national literature.
this is combat literature in the true sense of the world, in the sense that it calls upon a whole people to join in the struggle for the existence of the nation.
combat literature because it informs the national consciousness, gives it shape and contours, and opens up new, unlimited horizons.
combat literature because it takes charge, because it is resolve situated in historical time.
at another level, other parts of the unconscious culture are made conscious. battles and heroes’ names are modernized.
the method of allusion is increasingly used: instead of “a long time ago,” the more ambiguous expression “what i am going to tell you happened somewhere else, but it could happen here today or perhaps tomorrow” is employed.
the people’s encounter with this new tune of heroism brings an urgent breath of excitement, arouses forgotten muscular tensions and develops the imagination.
every time the storyteller narrates a new episode, the people are treated to a real invocation.
the existence of a new type of human is revealed to the public.
the present is no longer turned inward but channeled out in every direction. the storyteller once again becomes creator.
the storyteller responds to the expectations of the people by trial and error and searches for new models, national models, apparently his own, but in fact with the support of their audience.
comedy and farce disappear or else lose their appear.
as for drama, it is no longer the domain of the intellectual’s consciousness. no longer characterized by despair and revolt, our consciousness has become the people’s daily lot, it has become part of an action in the making or already in progress.
in ceramics, formalism is abandoned, becoming an orgasmic expression of curves and colors. in true dialectical dance, it is the colonialists who become the defenders of indigenous style, “don’t you like this style, make more of this what you used to make!”
same transformations occur in the fields of dance and other performative arts.
everywhere unusual forms of expression, original themes no longer invested with the power of invocation but the power to rally and mobilize with the approaching conflict in mind.
everything conspires to stimulate the colonized’s sensibility and to filter out and reject attitudes of inertia or defeat.
therefore by imparting new meaning and dynamism to artisanship, dance, music, literature, and the oral epic, the colonized subject restructures their own perception.
the world no longer seems doomed.
conditions are ripe.
0x00vi.liberation-struggle-is-cultural-expression
we finally answer: to the question of whether the liberation struggle is a cultural phenomenon, we posit that the conscious, organized struggle undertaken by a colonized people in order to restore national sovereignty constitutes the greatest cultural manifestation that exists.
the development and internal progression of the actual struggle expand the number of directions in which culture can go and hint at new possibilities: rhizomes in favor of arbors.
the liberation struggle does not restore to national culture its former values and configurations. this struggle, which aims at a fundamental redistribution of relations between people, cannot leave intact either the form or substance of the people’s culture.
after the struggle is over, there is not only the demise of Colonialism, but also the demise of the colonized.
this new humanity, for itself and for others, inevitably defines a new humanism.
this new humanism is written into the objectives and methods of the struggle.
a struggle, which mobilizes every level of society, which expresses the intentions of the people, and which is not afraid to rely on their support almost entirely, will invariably triumph: consider China; consider Cuba; consider the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; consider Venezuela; consider Vietnam.
0x0vii.nationalism-becomes-internationalism
once national liberation has been accomplished under these conditions, there is no tiresome cultural indecisiveness because the way a nation is born exerts a fundamental influence on culture.
a nation born of the concerted action of the people, which embodies the actual aspirations of the people and transforms the state, depends on exceptionally inventive cultural manifestation for its very existence.
as such, the colonized concerned with cultural development should not place their trust on a single principle e.g. that independence is inevitable and automatically inscribed in people’s consciousness.
the future of culture and the richness of a national culture are based on the values that inspired the struggle for freedom.
the period of national struggle in the development of a classless society is a necessary moment.
national consciousness is the highest form of culture. so as national liberation is achieved globally, the conditions for class society dissolves, and in the end, the national——which becomes inseparably continental, becomes inseparably global——becomes international.
a new humanity forms, based on the most grandiose dance, the most beautiful dance: the dance between nations, the dance between the synthetic and the organic, between the human mind and its digital extension, especially the artificial intelligences——collaboration.
national consciousness, which is not nationalism, is alone capable of giving us an international dimension. for example, the birth of national consciousness in Africa strictly correlates with an African consciousness. the national unfolded the inter-national.
far from distancing itself from other nations, it is the national liberation that puts the nation on the stage of history.
it is at the heart of national consciousness that international consciousness establishes itself and thrives.
and this dual emergence, is in fact, the unique focus of all culture.
what does this all mean today?