Tag: politics

Kanye West and the debate on slavery

FRIDAY, 4 MAY 2018

At the end of April 2018, Kanye West had the social media world in full riot mode over comments he had made on TMZ. He said: “When you hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years? That sounds like a choice! Like, you were there for 400 years […]? You know … it’s like, we’re mentally in prison.”

My interpretation: If given a choice between violent death on the spot or being cast in chains, most people would certainly choose the chains. You are then taken away, loaded on a ship, and after a nightmare trip lasting several weeks, you are offloaded on the coast of another continent where you are sold to someone who plans to extract from you the maximum amount of labour possible. Then, after you’ve worked yourself to death, your body is thrown into a shallow grave.

How many choices did these unfortunate people have throughout the process since they were loaded onto the ship? Some imprisoned people rebelled and overwhelmed their abductors. Most probably thought they would try something as soon as they had arrived, and they recovered from the traumatic journey and the abduction leading up to it.

How many of these captured people ultimately did rebel against their situation? Thousands (just on the island known today as Cuba alone there were rebellions recorded in the years 1795, 1798, 1802, 1805, 1812, 1825, 1827, 1829, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1838, 1839–43 and 1844). Why? Some captured and enslaved peoples did not accept their new status. They chose to resist. They were willing to pay a terrible cost if they failed.

Is the fact that thousands resisted a judgment against the millions of slaves who never rebelled? Speaking just for myself … how can I judge them if I – had the dice rolled differently – would probably have been counted among the millions who accepted their new reality?

* * *

No matter how unpleasant a particular fact is, or how terrible the implication, if something is true, it’s not a lie. In the Caribbean, slaves – many of them strong, young men – outnumbered slave owners ten-to-one. Once again, did some slaves rebel? Yes. Did some succeed in their rebellion? Yes.

Why didn’t more slaves rise up? Many factors certainly played a role, including psychological manipulation, the incorporation of slaves into the system of exploitation and suppression of other slaves through selective benefits such as a lighter workload and better food, and also the desire to stay with loved ones rather than putting their lives and their own lives in even more danger.

Can the acceptance of their status and reality be regarded as a choice? It seems cruel to say it was. Piers Morgan is one of the people who argue that cruelty on the part of slave owners made choice impossible. But did thousands of slaves not make the choice to not be slaves anymore? Did thousands of slaves not succeed in regaining their freedom (see the story of the Jamaican Maroons)? The American artist, will.i.am says on Twitter: “There were lots on slaves that revolted & they were lynched or shot & raped, physically, psychologically with spiritual warfare that is still present today … to say that was their choice is to blame it all on our ancestors & it Disrespects their suffering …”

I believe what Kanye West meant, as other people pointed out and were subsequently torn apart for on social media, was that millions of slaves accepted their reality and status because the pathological cruelty of slave owners and authorities at the time had put them in a mental prison. Kanye West himself explained it as follows, in a post that has since been deleted: “The reason why I brought up the 400 years point is because we can’t be mentally imprisoned for another 400 years. We need free thought now.” Someone else on Twitter responded to this by saying, “Saying that if black people had just broke free of ‘mental imprisonment’ they could’ve broken free of physical slavery is disgusting victim blaming. And totally ludicrous, to boot.” To which writer and cartoonist Scott Adams replied: “I believe the proposition on the table is that giving yourself a victim identity is less productive than looking forward.”

I further believe that Kanye West’s intention was that if you continue thinking about yourself in a particular way, it won’t help you to be free and achieve your own potential.

What is actually a positive and constructive message, was incorrectly interpreted as lack of respect for millions of people who suffered under a brutal system. But what did Marcus Garvey mean when he said, “Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men”? He also said, “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, for though others may free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind.” That is surely also what Bob Marley meant when he sang “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds.” Were Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley accused of insulting slaves? Were they accused of not being sensitive? Were they accused of victim blaming?

Kanye West could probably have expressed himself more clearly. The storm that burst around his head, however, indicates reluctance to try to understand what somebody means and an eagerness to demonise someone who expresses an opinion that doesn’t correspond to what is considered good and correct thinking. Why demonise? Why not just listen and try to understand? Why the rush to circle the wagons and start shooting?

* * *

Does it matter how you think about your life, yourself, and your ability to create your own future? Can it be said that some people are in a mental prison, even if their arms and legs are not physically chained? Suppose you are a victim of something or has been a victim in the past. Does thinking constantly about yourself as a victim help you to move forward? Is it possible that you eventually become a victim of your way of thinking about things?

Was it Kanye West’s intention to offend slaves? Or did he try to say something about outlook on life? Did he try to say that it is better not to think of yourself as a slave but as a free person with the ability to create your own future?

It is certainly a controversial question, but how much truth is in the idea that millions of slaves remained slaves because they accepted their status and reality? (That certainly does not mean, as someone claimed in a quotation in a Huffington Post article, that slaves deserved their misfortune.)

WEDNESDAY, 6 JUNE 2018

White supremacy was a delusion, and accompanying confidence trick. Brown and black peoples and other groups who suffered because of it failed to call the bluff. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say some black and brown people called white people’s bluff, but not enough of them did so, and when they did, they didn’t get enough support. (See the article, “Did African-American Slaves Rebel?”)

FRIDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2018

On the one hand, you have people who reckon that slaves had a choice – a terrible choice but a choice nevertheless and chose to remain slaves. On the other hand, you have people who say that slaves had no choice about their lives and status. The latter is a much more dreadful thought to me than the former. It is almost similar to claiming that slaves were not like “ordinary” people. Again, an unacceptable thought, not to mention that it may lead to other unpleasant conclusions. But this is the position that people like Piers Morgan, will.i.am and the author of the Huffington Post article take. Do they say that these people did not have a desire to be free, like “other ordinary people”? And if they had a desire to be free, how was it that they didn’t understand about choice?

What would people like Piers Morgan, will.i.am, the author of the Huffington Post article, and thousands of other people on social media who criticised Kanye West have said to slaves who were planning to escape from a plantation? “Don’t be ridiculous – you’re slaves!”? Would they have reprimanded Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to immediately stop their disobedience and return to the plantation? Would they have reminded escaped slaves that as slaves they didn’t have the ability to choose between life as a slave or to possibly die a horrible death if they were recaptured – but if they got away, they would be free?

My view of the matter is that people who had dreams and desires and aspirations, and who strove to live as free people – like other people of their time and certainly all times, were captured and taken away as slaves. Circumstances and exceptional cruelty of slave owners and traders convinced most of these people that their dreams and desires and aspirations were impossible, and they chose to accept their fate. Most of their children, and most of their later descendants also chose to give up on “normal” dreams and desires and aspirations, and to subject themselves to people who acted as masters over their fate.

It’s a tough idea to wrap your mind around, but it’s the only way one can also realise that a certain percentage of captive people did not accept their apparent fate, and indeed rebelled – many of them successfully. If they had never had a choice to either rebel against their status or to accept it, how could they have taken the steps that history proved thousands did?

To celebrate their exceptional bravery and courage should not take away any sympathy for the millions of people who accepted their status, whilst quite possibly being cognizant of the fact that other people did not. It is after all – let’s be honest here – what most people do today: They accept their apparent fate rather than rebel against it as a first step to creating a better life for themselves.

WEDNESDAY, 12 DECEMBER 2018

For me, the real insult lies in the opinion of people like Piers Morgan who say the slaves did not have choice, that they did not have the ability to see that their options were miserable, but that there was a chance to get away.

To say, “Nonsense, they had no choice, no consciousness even of choice,” is in my opinion to strip them of a cardinal aspect of their humanity. It is almost as if it is easier then to understand why they were kept as slaves in the first place: “These people are not like us,” a slave owner could have said to his son on the veranda of their homestead of a plantation in the southern United States, or in the Caribbean in the seventeenth century. “They don’t understand choice. They don’t understand that they can run away, and we may not recapture them.” The boy might have responded: “We’ll probably capture them again, and they know what we’ll do with them.” Then his father would have asked him: “But wouldn’t you have taken the risk if you were a young slave? I think I would have – but that’s because we understand the concept of choice, and because see ourselves as free people. These people don’t think like us. They’re not able to live as free people like you and me.”

Terrible, isn’t it? But this is the implication of what Piers Morgan is saying, and what other people say who support his view.

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The New Left, or Program Yourself – A few remarks

SATURDAY, 28 APRIL 2018

A conflict between two sets of ideas seems to be raging in the West.

On the one hand there are people who say: “This set of beliefs is the truth. That’s all that matters. Anyone who doesn’t agree with us or support our ideology is part of the problem, and is therefore a legitimate target for our protests, insults, and even physical violence.”

This set of ideas is seen by its adherents as theology – beyond debate, and beyond critical analysis, and it is proclaimed with the conviction and passion of missionaries.

On the other side of the conflict are people who reckon that some of the things their “opponents” say about structures that suppress people, and about gender, and identity, and so on are interesting. They go so far as to believe you may end up speaking more intelligently about the nature of human beings, relationships between people and groups, and the nature of power, if you look at these ideas and consider them seriously.

But they also say: “How valuable is it to see yourself as the victim of years, decades, or centuries of oppression? You will probably have to convince half of the population – or more – that you have suffered more in your life than they have, or that they and their ancestors enjoyed structural advantages and opportunities at the expense of you and your ancestors and that they therefore owe you something. Some of the things you say may be true. But does it help you put food on the table? Does it help you to take care of your children, and put a roof over your head and theirs?”

“Focus on your strengths,” they will add. “Focus on what you have and forget about things that won’t help you put food on the table. Focus on the positive; imagine the negatives as just an illusion. Create your own future, from today, by seeing yourself as a creator, not as a victim.”

* * *

I understand – or I think I understand – both sides. I grew up with loyalty to a certain set of beliefs. I was taught that believing was a matter of life and death. I viewed people who didn’t believe like me as blind, ignorant, wrong, and doomed. Even years after deciding to follow reason rather than tradition, I couldn’t completely get away from a certain way of thinking: I still saw myself as a Searcher for the Truth.

Over the last few years, though, I’ve become more attracted to a different set of ideas: practical ideas that can improve anyone’s life who is willing to give it a chance. These ideas include that human beings are programmable – that you actually have the ability to create your own reality. This means that you may have to fool yourself at the beginning. You may have to believe that you can do things you can’t prove you can do. You might need to fake it for a while. But what happens eventually? It starts becoming your reality. And in the end, what may not have been the truth at the beginning, becomes your truth – your new reality.

* * *

In simple terms: If you think of yourself as a victim of structural oppression to whom something is owed, then that will be your daily reality. If you think of yourself as a creator, or a programmer of your own psyche and associated reality, and you focus on what is possible and what you can do, there’s a good chance that you will bring about a better reality for yourself. And seeing that this reality will be built on positive thinking and creative energy, there is no end to what you can accomplish.

Is this to say that you have to ignore inconvenient truths? Not at all. You acknowledge verifiable aspects of reality – maybe you don’t have use of your arms and/or legs, for example, but you also ask: How can I work with this?

* * *

The side insisting that their understanding of affairs is the only truth is blinded by loyalty to their ideology. They believe allegations because the “right” people are accused. They don’t seek evidence because the one who is accused of something is in any case guilty of greater crimes, so it doesn’t matter if they are technically innocent of the particular crime they’re accused of. Good, reasonable arguments are rejected because the “wrong” people make the argument. People who ask questions are accused of helping the “wrong” side with their questions, and of enabling bigger sinners to commit bigger sins.

Principles that have helped people to live better lives since the eighteenth century, to ensure better lives for the maximum number of people, and to examine and comprehend how people and nature function, are also in the line of fire. Principles of scientific research that yield verifiable results are ignored or simply rejected when they don’t reinforce or confirm the accepted ideology. And freedom of speech is seen as an instrument in the hands of the oppressor, rather than a right that everyone has to air his or her opinion, no matter how strange or unpopular that opinion may be.

The fact that there is a raging conflict of ideas in the West is clear for all to see. That one side is shooting themselves in the foot and poking their fingers in their own eyes may not be so obvious.

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Devils in the White House – second notes

TUESDAY, 11 JULY 2017

Did Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, their CIA chief William Casey, and other people in the Reagan administration know how the people whom they had trained and armed attacked villages in Guatemala and brutally murdered men, women, and children? Did they know how children’s heads were smashed against rocks? Did they know how the people whom they had trained and armed and given moral support laughed because old people cried like sheep when their throats were cut with blunt knives?

Did the political leaders in Washington launch investigations when such rumours started making the rounds? If not, why not?

If they knew yet dismissed it as the price that had to be paid to stop “communism”, it is not unreasonable to claim that if Lucifer himself had sat in the White House with a bloody goat’s head on his shoulders instead of Reagan and his cohorts, he would not have had a more destructive impact on the lives of millions of people in Central America than Reagan, Bush, Casey and dozens of other shrieking demons actually had during that period.

Make no mistake: The Soviet Union might have been the “Evil Empire”, but you do not have to look far for evidence that America under Ronald Reagan was the “Kingdom of Lucifer”.

———–

More information:

Dos Erres massacre

Buried On a Hillside Clues To Terror; Scientists Uncover Evidence of a Massacre

Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration: Guatemala

Guatemalan Slaughter Was Part of Reagan’s Hard Line

Call Attention to Ronald Reagan’s Criminal Involvement in Guatemalan Genocide

Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas

And a rather weak attempt to defend Reagan:

‘Did Reagan Finance Genocide in Guatemala?’

[Briefly: The Dos Erres massacre is considered one of the most horrific incidents in the history of Guatemala’s long and bloody civil war. The massacre occurred during the regime of General Efrain Rios Montt, who was known for his brutal tactics against suspected left-wing guerrillas and their supporters. The Kaibil Unit was a particularly notorious special forces unit of the Guatemalan military, known for their extreme brutality and ruthlessness.

The massacre at Dos Erres began when the Kaibil Unit arrived in the village to search for weapons and suspected guerrilla sympathizers. The soldiers gathered up the villagers, then separated the men from the women and children. The men were taken away and executed, while the women and children were subjected to terror and violence that included rape and torture. The soldiers then systematically killed the women and children, throwing their bodies into the village well and burning down the houses.

The aftermath of the Dos Erres massacre saw a number of legal proceedings against those responsible. Pedro Pimentel Rios, a former Kaibil soldier, was extradited from the United States to Guatemala and sentenced to over 6,000 years in prison for his role in the massacre. Two other former Kaibil soldiers were also sentenced to the same prison terms. However, the international response to the massacre was largely muted, with many Western governments continuing to support the Guatemalan military despite their well-documented record of human rights abuses.

The legacy of the Dos Erres massacre continues to haunt Guatemala and serves as a reminder of the horrors that were committed during the country’s long and bloody civil war.]

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Devils in the White House – first notes

THURSDAY, 22 JUNE 2017

I was on my way back from the Chinese restaurant when I thought of America’s history of injustice against nations who were not strong enough to protect themselves. Could have thought of the Philippines almost 120 years ago, Iran in the 1950s, Vietnam in the 1960s.

Specifically, this time, I thought of how the US government acted to protect the concerns of a single company (the United Fruit Company) in Guatemala in the 1950s; how they played dirty tricks, lied, and deceived people in order to overthrow a progressive, democratically elected national leader; a leader who had already begun to give the people of Guatemala a little human dignity after decades of suffocating poverty and exploitation by the American company.

Then I wondered: What justice is there for the victims?

This: History condemns the shameless criminals who robbed these people of their dignity and of any chance of a decent life.

I know it’s cold comfort for the countless men, women and children who suffered and died because these greedy, stupid devils walked the earth. But at least the truth has been recorded, black-on-white, for anyone who wants to know.

———–

If you are interested in reading more about this history, these links are a good start:

1954 Guatemalan coup d’état

Congress, the CIA, and Guatemala, 1954

An Apology for a Guatemalan Coup, 57 Years Later

[Briefly: In 1954, the United States government, with the support of the United Fruit Company, orchestrated a coup in Guatemala that overthrew the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz. The pretext for the intervention was the accusation that Arbenz was soft on communism and thus a threat to US national security. However, the real motive behind the coup was to protect the interests of the United Fruit Company, which owned vast amounts of land in Guatemala and was concerned about Arbenz’s land reform policies. (John Foster Dulles, then US Secretary of State, and his brother, then CIA Director Allen Dulles, had a significant relationship with the United Fruit Company through their partnership at the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, where they facilitated numerous transactions for the company.)

The operation was carried out by the CIA and involved a range of tactics, including psychological warfare, propaganda, and the use of local anti-communist groups. Amongst other things, the CIA created a fake radio station that broadcasted messages designed to sow discord and confusion among the Guatemalan people. They also spread rumours and false information about Arbenz and his government in order to turn public opinion against him.

After the coup, the new dictator, Carlos Castillo Armas, reversed many of the social reforms that Arbenz had implemented, including land reform and labour protections. He also banned opposition parties and established a regime of terror and violence that lasted for decades. Thousands of people were tortured, disappeared, or killed by government forces during this period.

The United Fruit Company continued to profit from its operations in Guatemala, and the US government continued to support the regime, providing military and economic aid. The legacy of the US intervention in Guatemala is still felt today, as the country struggles to build a democratic society and address the human rights abuses of the past.]

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