African, Lusophone, and Afro-Hispanic Cultural Dialogue [1 ed.] 9781527522398, 9781527507654

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African, Lusophone, and Afro-Hispanic Cultural Dialogue

African, Lusophone, and Afro-Hispanic Cultural Dialogue Edited by

Yaw Agawu-Kakraba and Komla Aggor

African, Lusophone, and Afro-Hispanic Cultural Dialogue Edited by Yaw Agawu-Kakraba and Komla Aggor This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Yaw Agawu-Kakraba, Komla Aggor and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0765-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0765-4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Yaw Agawu-Kakraba and Komla Aggor Chapter One ................................................................................................. 7 Re-imagining Spatial Boundaries: Mia Couto’s My Father’s Wives and José Agualusa’s Sleepwalking Land Arthur Hughes Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 27 Debunking Racial, Ethnic and Cultural Essentialisms: Miscegenation/s and the Call toward Global and Cosmic Citizenship in Mia Couto’s The Other Foot of the Mermaid Irene Marques Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 59 Racial Identity in the 1930s Urban Landscape in the Novels of Jorge Amado, José Lins do Rego and Lúcio Cardoso Steven Sloan Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 79 Towards a Poetics of Francisco Félix de Souza Paula Gândara Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 95 Displacement and Alienation: The Challenges of Successful Integration into the Eurocentric Ideal in Nelson Estupiñán Bass’s El último río Samuel Mate-Kojo Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 119 Branding Spain: Marca España, Casa África and Spain’s African Overtures Dieudonné Afatsawo

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Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 131 “They Look at You and Nobody Cares Who You Are or What You Do”: Writings of Strangerhood Inmaculada Díaz Narbona Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 147 Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Léopold Sédar Senghor: A Comparative Study of Black Aesthetics Charles Désiré N’dre Contributors ............................................................................................. 159

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank all contributors to this volume for their unfailing cooperation and enthusiasm. The Office of the Dean of Academic Affairs at The Pennsylvania State University-Altoona College and the Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Texas Christian University have sustained their support for the biennial International Conference on Afro-Hispanic, Luso-Brazilian and Latin American Studies (ICALLAS). This conference provided the impetus for the collection of essays presented in the book. We also express our gratitude to our two institutions for the research leave we were both granted to carry out this project. Amanda Millar of Cambridge Scholars Publishing was patient and cooperative throughout the review and publication process, as was the entire team of editors and the design team that created the cover design for this book.

INTRODUCTION YAW AGAWU-KAKRABA AND KOMLA AGGOR

African, Lusophone and Afro-Hispanic Cultural Dialogue is a collection of essays of broad historical and geographic scope that advances analytical perspectives regarding a highly transcultural and changing African continent enmeshed in the vestiges of slavery and colonialism and in the complex dynamics of post-colonialism. Mostly grounded in literary studies the essays discuss the interconnections between Africa and its Lusophone and Afro-Hispanic diaspora as they particularly relate to the politics of identity and assimilation, migration and displacement, the notion of nation, Eurocentrism and racial essentialisms as well as Black aesthetics. In “The Internet Is Afropolitan,” Achille Mbembe argues that, for centuries, Africa has been a highly transcultural, mobile and changing continent. This “cultural mixing” or “the interweaving of worlds,” he believes, has long been an African “way of belonging to the world” irrespective of whether one lives on the continent or not (28). This uniquely African phenomenon, which Mbembe refers to as an “Afropolitan mindset,” does not only pay homage to the past but also sets the stage for an eventual pronounced circulation within the African continent and beyond. For her part, Selasi Taiye, who is credited for popularizing the term Afropolitanism, posits that Afropolitans are “not citizens, but Africans of the world.” Despite its apparent initial celebratory ethos, there has been a significant backlash against the term. Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, for instance, considers Afropolitanism as superficial and flippant.The word evokes for him images of pop culture and consumerism that underpin the privileged status of adherents to the term who live in the diaspora and attempt to connect with a mentally constructed Africa. “An Africa of the Afropolitan imaginary,” as Wainaina calls it. Emma Dabiri wonders whether Afropolitanism can truly be considered a more far-reaching counter-cultural movement, given its inability to challenge the perennial questions of divided and categorized societies, which Franz Fanon recognizes as one of the damaging obstacles to post-colonial African independence. In her article, “The Afropolitan Must Go,” Marta Tveit

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concludes that the “‘Afropolitan’ is just such a group identity. It is exclusive, elitist and self-aggrandizing.” The conversation and debate surrounding Afropolitanism is relevant to the collection of essays in this book in one significant way: the recognition that, by virtue of its history, its interactions and interweavings with the world, Africa has had to, and still contends with, transculturalism, circulation, mobility and a reality of unfixed identity as a way of belonging to a world that is constantly evolving. It is within this context that the pesent collection of essays explores the cultural nexus between Africa and its Lusophone and Afro-Hispanic diaspora. In this critical endeavour, the notion of diaspora and home occupy center stage as they particularly relate to cultural identity and essentialisms, subalternity as well as Black and cultural aesthetics. The concept of culture that the book advances is to be understood in its broad sense, as pertaining to such social facets as language, music, philosophy, education, traditions and customs, history and especially literature. The geographic parameters—the Lusophone, the Hispanophone, the Francophone African—covered by the selected essays distinguishes the volume against a pervasive Anglo-centric focus in the field. As an example, the edition is attentive to post-colonial Angola and Mozambique and their cultural interface with Afropolitanism in Spain and Brazil, thus bringing to the fore a vital, ongoing spatio-temporal interchange that is often marginalized in contemporary cultural studies scholarship. The collection begins with Arthur Hughes’s “Re-imagining Spatial Boundaries: Mia Couto’s My Father’s Wives and José Agualusa’s Sleepwalking Land.” In this essay, Hughes examines the consequences of an unparalled Portuguese colonialism within the context of later conflicts that afflict both Mozambique and Angola. He argues that the aftermath of gradual colonization is a reflection of the metropolis’s own de-spatialized nature and subaltern European identity. This stream of colonization, as Hughes sees it, is still palpable today, particularly in the form of “disrupted bloodlines,” violence and contested spaces that interrogate the notion of nation. In order to reimagine identity and community, Hughes reads Mia Couto’s My Father’s Wives and José Eduardo Agualusa’s Sleepwalking Land as metaphors that engender identity formation through space and its delineation within the boundaries of the nation’s territorial configuration. In “Debunking Racial, Ethnic and Cultural Essentialisms: Miscegenation/s and the Call toward Global and Cosmic Citizenship in Mia Couto’s The Other Foot of the Mermaid,” Irene Marques demystifies essentialist paradigms with a view to examining history critically and to constructing

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subtler colonial and post-colonial narratives of nationhood. Using Mia Couto’s novel as her point of departure, Marques suggests that the author transcends the oversimplified portrayal of Africa as a mere victim and Europe as the sole victimizing agent. For Marques, Couto offers complicated, fluid and historically-engaged individuals who go beyond identities and positionalities because of the exigencies of their times as well as the cultural and racial assimilation that underpin multicultural and multiracial interactions where different cultures, races and ethnicities intersect and transact. Under these kinds of circumstances, Marques affirms, no one particular ethnic group or race can be considered as oppressors and oppressed or violators and violated. Instead, what emerges, she believes, is a congregation of a multifaceted group of people who perform different roles and identities. Marques’s deconstruction of essentialism, then, offers an opportunity to comprehend better the framework within which the dialectic relationship between colonizer and colonized is operated. Steven Sloan’s essay, “Racial Identity in the 1930s Urban Landscape in the Novels of Jorge Amado, José Lins do Rego and Lúcio Cardoso” is a study of the symbolic role that the city plays in the works of José Lins do Rego and Lúcio Cardoso. In their work, both writers seek to critique Brazil’s nationalistic project, spearheaded by Getúlio Vargas, President of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 until his death in 1954. Sloan suggests that José Lins do Rego and Lúcio Cardoso critique the marginalization that emerged within Vargas’s nationalist project, which was designed to propel urbanization, industrialization and cultural unification on a national level. The city becomes a foil through which these writers highlight the underlying racial implications inherent in the project. For Sloan, even though José Lins do Rego and Lúcio Cardoso offer unique perspectives on race relations through their Afro-Brazilian characters in progressive ways, in comparison to their predecessors and contemporaries such as Jorge Amado, they, nevertheless, resort to the same racial stereotypes and myths that they sought to challenge. Still, Sloan considers the three novels that he discusses as contributing positively to a nuanced national debate on race relations. In “Towards a Poetics of Francisco Félix de Souza,” Paula Gândara resorts to historical documents and family memoirs to discuss the current status that Francisco Félix de Souza, an enigmatic historical figure, enjoys in present day Benin and in Brazil. Gândara indicates that, because of de Souza’s position as a potential freed slave who ends up in Dahomey as a millionaire slave trader, he is seen as a polarizing figure with an identity that historical records and evidence contradict and undermine. Gândara argues that it is not only de Souza that is engaged in his identity formation.

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Archival sources and their analysis, she notes, portray him as an allegory, an interpretative subject. Given de Souza’s recent unstable re-imagination and re-incarnation, Gândara proposes examining his history within the framework of Michel Foucault’s “devenir,” a process that is in constant making and re-making via a recognition of itself as a redefinition of new meanings on the basis of the imagination of both the watching and the reading subject. In “Displacement and Alienation: The Challenges of Successful Integration into the Eurocentric Ideal in Nelson Estupiñán Bass’s El último río,” Samuel Mate-Kojo studies the question of indiscriminate assimilation and its power to divide and to alienate individuals through identifiable value systems. These systems, asserts Mate-Kojo, purport to be universal but are in reality inimical to any narrative that challenges them. This critic isolates Eurocentric normative narrative as one such value system that the protagonist in Estupiñán Bass’ El último río embraces, only to descend into denial, alienation and seclusion. As the protagonist ascribes to—and embraces uncritically—the racialist ideology of culture and progress, that same paradigm not only rejects him but also destroys him, his achievements and his legacy. Dieudonné Afatsawo’s essay, “Branding Spain: Marca España, Casa África and Spain’s African Overtures,” and Inmaculada Díaz Narbona’s “They Look at You and Nobody Cares Who You Are or What You Do: Writings of Strangerhood,” complement each other. These two essays explore, on the one hand, Spain’s reaffirmation of its ties with Africa and, on the other, the challenging experiences and lives of recent immigrants, the so-called nameless people who have found their way to the Peninsular and have made Spain their home. Afatsawo points out that, not long ago, Spain’s Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación established Casa África to signal a strong diplomatic push toward the African continent. The goal, Afatsawo believes, was to allow Spain to brand itself as a global entity for the new millennium. Towards that end, seven African artists were invited to visit various cities in Spain and to present their visions of their host country at the end of their stay. In his essay, Afatsawo discusses the implications of this visit within the context of Marca España, the Spanish brand, and concludes that Spain’s strategic branding overtures toward Africa are, at best, mixed. For her part, Inmaculada Díaz Narbona contends that recent works that have emerged in Spain dealing with the experiences of immigrants in Spain are not necessarily designed to find a place in Spain’s wellestablished and elitist literary establishment. Writers of these works, Díaz Narbona contends, are interested in chronicling how recently-arrived

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immigrants came to Spain, where they came from, their motives for coming and, most importantly, how they now conceive of the Eldorado that they dreamed about. Most of these works, Díaz Narbona believes, are cautionary tales of unfulfilled dreams. In “Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Léopold Sédar Senghor: A Comparative Study of Black Aesthetics,” Charles Désiré N’dre resorts to prior critical perspectives of Black aesthetics to establishthe linkages and commonalities between these epistemologies in studies in Africa as well as in the Americas. N’dre contends that, with no clear-cut distinction between Black aesthetics and how Blacks in general conceptualize their understanding of the world, it is impossible to deny the role that functional and collective art plays in societies ranging from the Dogon of Mali to the Lucumí of Cuba and the Yoruba of Nigeria. For N’dre, it is hard to contemplate art without contending with the fact that it always originates from an ontology that is unitary and existential. N’dre arrives at his conclusions by drawing on the works of Léopold Sédar Senghor, Henry Louis Gates Jr. and, to some extent, Fernando Ortiz.

Bibliography Dabiri, Emma. Accessed June 2, 2017. “Why-im-not-an-afropolitan” http://africasacountry.com/2014/01/why-im-not-an-afropolitan/ Mbembe, Achille. Accessed April 12, 2017. “The Internet is Afropolitan.” http://chimurengachronic.co.za/the-internet-is-afropolitan) Santana, Stephanie. Accessed July 18, 2017.“Exorcizing Afropolitanism: Binyavanga Wainaina Explains Why ‘I am a Pan-Africanist, not Afropolitan” https://stateofthediscipline.acla.org/entry/afropolitan Selasi, Taiye. Accessed July 31, 2017. “Bye-Bye Babar.” http://thelip.robertsharp.co.uk/?p=76. Tveit, Marta. Accessed February 13, 2017. “The Afropolitan Must Go.” http://africasacountry.com/2013/11/the-afropolitan-must-go

CHAPTER ONE RE-IMAGINING SPATIAL BOUNDARIES: MIA COUTO’S MY FATHER’S WIVES AND JOSÉ AGUALUSA’S SLEEPWALKING LAND ARTHUR HUGHES

Abstract In My Father’s Wives and Sleepwalking Land, the protagonists’ search for family ties and relationships leads them to crisscross their nations’ territories and boundaries, a neo-colonial project that calls to mind Benedict Anderson’s description of the map, census and museum in the articulation of the national body. This re-imagining of spatial limits, however, uncovers features that highlight Slavoj Žižek’s tautological gestures on the basis of identity construction, a retroactive and arbitrary performative act that seeks to enclose a bundle of anxieties. These anxieties point to the micro spaces where relationships are built and external criteria imposed on them to make them conform to the hierarchical power structures that create knowledge and privilege in defining both human and spatial agency. This essay analyzes the effects of an exceptional Portuguese colonialism in the posterior conflicts that afflict both Mozambique and Angola, a piecemeal colonization that is both a reflection of the metropolis’s own despatialized nature and subaltern European identity.

In Mia Couto’s My Father’s Wives and José Eduardo Agualusa’s Sleepwalking Land, the reader is struck by the profusion of spatial descriptions, especially by the seemingly endless crisscrossing of southern African spaces in the former, and by the transformations Mozambican landscapes undergo in the latter. Both novels describe spatial journeys in which the protagonists’ search for relatives proves fruitless or ends in ambiguous terrain, a metaphorical no man’s land. In narratives that suggest a historical trajectory common to both, My Father’s Wives begins with the announced death of the protagonist’s putative father, while Sleepwalking Land ends with the death of the protagonist’s father-figure, a

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narrative homicide accurately reflecting events in the colonial period with their corresponding occurrences in the post-independence epoch. This double death suggests the impossibility of the paternal metaphor and entry into a Lacanian symbolic in both periods. Furthermore, the death problematizes the notion of ancestry through bloodlines as well as the uncertainty of voluntary affiliation as a means of establishing community. Though presented as one of the consequences of the civil war conflict, the novels’ disruption of kinship and geographical ties points to the tensions resulting from the colonial era and the war as an indirect outcome of these muddles. Identity is thus linked to space and a re-tracing of the territorial configuration of the nation becomes a necessary step in re-imagining community. The two novels propose a phenomenological reversibility that aims at reintegration into an ecologically harmonious relationship between humans and the inanimate world. Spatial boundaries are a result of the hierarchizations introduced in time and space with the consequent relegation of the spiritual and the magical realms (Quayson 162). As raw material for human agency, space usually is seen as passive, a notion that Edward Soja has referred to as “the illusion of opaqueness”; that space only exists to the extent that it can be measured and quantified. In other words, space is fixed, dead and undialectical (Soja 7). For Soja (50) capitalism is particularly to blame for this obfuscation through its “homogenization, fragmentation, and hierarchization” practices that produce and reproduce geographically uneven development. A similar critique of a passivity of space as objective material for human agency has been explored earlier by Gaston Bachelard and Michel Foucault among others, though the former limited himself to space’s poetics with particular relation to the phenomenology of home and architecture. Even within this restricted enunciation, Bachelard (xxxvi) signals the differences between quantified and imagined spaces, regarding the former as closer to “hostile space” whereas the human soul identifies with the latter. Inhabited space, as Bachelard (47) notes, transcends geometrical space, which, in turn, is linked to the dialectics of inside and outside, the notions of being and nonbeing that underpin philosophical thinking.1 As mentioned earlier, Bachelard’s phenomenology of spaces centers its analysis on the poetics of the home and its study of the images humans create of these spaces, images that in turn imbue these spaces with agency. Foucault acknowledges the foundational nature of Bachelard’s analysis, but his is 1

Bachelard (212) goes even further to attribute spatiality to thought: “Philosophers, when confronted with outside and inside, think in terms of being and nonbeing. Thus, profound metaphysics is rooted in an implicit geometry which— whether we will or no—confers spatiality upon thought.”

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more inclined towards an examination of microspaces and heterotopias as more relevant in the instrumental association of space, knowledge, and power (Power 361).2 Where there is space, Foucault seems to say, there is always a tendency towards homogenization, fragmentation, and hierarchization. Privileging one space or body over another or others is a function of criteria external to the spaces themselves. It is criteria that are superimposed on these spaces, based on the presumption of space’s passivity. Benedict Anderson’s identification of the census, map, and museum extends Foucault’s ideas to show how different ways of spatial imaginings (quantification of space/illusion of opaqueness) bring to bear the forces of power. Implicit in their quantification and measurement is a passivity that already structures paradigms of domination. Measured spaces are deemed passive: they are denied the ability to effect change by themselves. Nevertheless, the two novels studied here suggest that space has an agency that humans may either brutally suppress (as is the case in most urban planning) to their detriment or one with which they can identify in a harmonious relationship. Infusing primordial spaces with supernatural qualities ties humans to the immediacy of place and the connectedness that comes with it.3 A feature most often obliterated or ignored by colonial technology and development are the magical qualities of space that reflect the legitimacy of native possession. My Father’s Wives and Sleepwalking Land propose a re-imagining of space as a good beginning to displacing spatial relations created by the colonial map, census and museum. This future spatiality accepts its agency, its supernatural qualities and a phenomenological contract with the human subject. This re-legitimization is similar to what Slavoj Žižek proposes in his formulation of “the tautological gesture” that is at the basis of identity construction (25-27). For Žižek, naming an object is the result of a retroactive and arbitrary performative act that seeks to enclose a bundle of anxieties, a disorganized 2

In Aesthetics (177) Foucault suggests that Bachelard and the phenomenologists are more concerned with internal space, while his focus is on the outside [du dehors]. He proposes utopias and heterotopias as the two main kinds of spaces that are on the outside. 3 This is what Bachelard (46) seems to imply when he suggests this two-way transference: the heroic qualities of spaces are transferred to humans while spaces also acquire the physical and moral energy of humans. I share Foucault’s emphasis on the outside but find very relevant to Mozambican and Angolan cosmologies the internal spatialization proposed by Bachelard, a “poetics” that transmutes external spaces into a spiritual—and the subsequent dialectical—transfer onto the human body.

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field that is transformed into an ordered universe with an identifiable cause. The anxieties motivated by paternal filiation in both novels project their cause onto a disorganized field of spatial relations. Seen through the prism of Žižek’s tautological gesture, the protagonists’ travels retroactively uncover the cause of the anxieties produced by this disorganized field, pointing to the metropolis as the source of the spatial disruptions while suggesting the continuation of these same into the present. In the same vein, as this study will propose, the two novels imply that within this overall performative act, there is the lack of agency in the microspaces where change could be effected, where the power relations embedded in spatial hierarchization are susceptible to transformation. The complex web of family relations obviously forms the main subject of Sleepwalking Land and My Father’s Wives, with the subtext of a questioning of the notions of identity and belonging through the prisms of bloodlines, race and nation. My study will maintain that the spatial dimensions described place an equally important weight on the impact these have on both identity and belonging. As stated earlier, the two novels describe spatial landscapes as part of the search for familial relations in a quest to fill the empty paternal figure. The superposition of this search on the national geographies of the two countries establishes a parallel of national and individual identities, a rendering of the family as the basis for an imagined community. If there is a difference in the two novels, it can be seen in Agualusa’s My Father’s Wives as a more direct implication of colonialism in the description of the period prior to independence in the extension of the search to neighbouring countries Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique. The extensive range of physical topographies is replaced in Sleepwalking Land with the intensive nature of a constantly shifting Mozambican terrain that, while the result of a more recent conflict, is still redolent of colonial pasts. According to this reading, Portuguese colonialism is exceptional in its complicated gender and race relations, in addition to its diffuse connections created as a result of its dysfunctional colonial strategy and a grossly inefficient bureaucracy. These are the anxieties that a neo-colonial tracing of spaces attempts to deal with in My Father’s Wives. There is an exceptionalism in Portuguese colonialism, sui generis in its deployment and development in Lusophone African countries, from its inception to the independence struggle, and the civil war that breaks out after independence in Angola and Mozambique. Portugal’s attempts at measuring, quantifying and dominating its colonial spaces has a patchy history spread over the American, African and Asian continents. The spatial dimensions of the Portuguese incursion into Africa are characterized

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by this exceptionalism that is initiated in the metropolis proper and makes an impact on the colonies. Itself invaded by French and Spanish forces in 1807, the Portuguese Crown was transferred to Brazil with the help of the British, what essentially turned the country into both a British and Brazilian subject. The superposition of metropolitan space on colonial space blurred the distinction between the two and contributed to the myth of Lusotropicalism, the belief in a Portuguese affinity for tropical lands and peoples. Portugal effectively was a Brazilian colony until the South American country’s independence some twenty-five years later. The geographical anomaly of a European power based in one of its colonies unsettled the notion of Portugueseness, a displacement that carried over into Africa.4 It is this unusual situation of a European empire that was itself dependent on other powers that underscores the exceptional nature of Portuguese colonialism in Africa. Portugal’s subordinate situation also explains why European powers, and Britain in particular, were able to impose the principle of “Effective Occupation” (also known as the British Ultimatum) on Portugal in order to force it to establish a direct and effective administration of its African colonies. Hitherto, Portugal had started its exploration of the African continent in the early 1400s by establishing trading posts in North Africa and on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans to facilitate its commercial activities. According to Malyn Newitt (13-14), Portugal’s expansion was a direct byproduct of its poverty, given the paucity of fertile agricultural land that made armed exploits and mercantilism a favored solution for the nobility. Trading posts eventually turned into territorial ownership to further assure protection of the Crown’s interests.5 These trading posts were fortified with time and became permanent, a situation that led to clashes with the established local chieftaincies and sultanates already existing in those areas, necessitating the use of force to overcome native resistance and to maintain control over peoples and trade networks (Newitt 98). However, unlike other colonial administrations, Portugal controlled its settlements 4

It is noteworthy that a character in José Eduardo Agualusa’s Um Estranho em Goa (A Stranger in Goa) posits Portugal’s non-European nature, given its strategic historical position of being blocked from European contact by the ancient kingdom of Castile, leaving it the only alternative of looking outward to the oceans. Portugal, this character continues, consciously turned its back on Europe. 5 According to MacGonagle (5-7), the Portuguese recognized and traded with the Karanga, the dominant aristocracy in the Northern Zimbabwe Plateau, for over two centuries after they first arrived in the 16th century. This recognition faded as the Portuguese began to challenge the Swahili influence in the Sofala coast and hinterland.

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through granting territorial concessions to commercial enterprises. Plantations were established through violent expropriation of land, further compounded by forced recruitment of labour to work on these plantations and other commercial enterprises (Sheldon 51-55). These firms then acted like mini-states on cash crop plantations (coffee, cotton), diamond and iron ore mines, where black workers were described as living under “virtual state serfdom.” Good examples of this scenario are the land rights granted by the king to Portuguese men with the hope of encouraging settling by Portuguese men. The Zambezi Valley Prazos, as they were known, were meant to be kept in the female lineage for three generations, after which the property would revert to the King of Portugal. In a twist of irony, this stipulated matrilineality subverted the intentions underlying their creation. What actually happened was that many Portuguese settlers married native women, thus making them the heirs after the death of their husbands. Called the donas of the Zambezi Prazos, these women exercised enormous power and privilege and often clashed with the Portuguese governor over the right to tax even fighting as they did with trading companies over the exploitation of economic resources (Sheldon 47-49). The introduction of individual ownership of land sharply contrasted with the collective forms prior to colonialism, even under both patrilineal and matrilineal systems.6 The institution of the chibalo, the system of forced labour on the plantations of settler farmers for six months that could only be avoided by payment of annual head tax (of 800 reis in 1886), complemented this expropriation. It should be noted that aside from the inadequacy of wages on these plantations that makes survival almost impossible, the colonial division of labour into productive and reproductive activities also lead to the breakup of the African family, thus upsetting of the hitherto flexible gender systems.7 Put differently, Portuguese colonialism exploited both human and non-human spaces to a 6

The capitalist distinction between productive and reproductive labour did not exist in traditional societies, as both men and women were involved in productive activities necessary for the survival of the household, kin group or community. In societies based on mixed economies, the sexual division of labour assigned women responsibility for agriculture, while pastoralism and control over cattle was the domain of men (Lovett 25). 7 The chibalo initially excluded women from wage labour. This meant, however, that women had to work harder on their subsistence farms to enable their men pay the tax. This division of labour changed with the introduction of cotton and rice cultivation whereby women were obliged to participate, requiring a triple workload of housework, subsistence farming as well as plantation work.

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greater degree than in other colonies. The disruption of social relations this produced included spatial displacements of entire groups, migration to work in South Africa and changes in family and gender relations. The itinerant musician Manso in My Father’s Wives symbolically re-presents forced migration under colonialism and the family disruptions that resulted from spatial displacement. While the novel presents Manso’s movement across southern Africa as motivated by his relationships with women, it is his profession as musician that facilitates this mobility and survival, thereby evading direct control of colonial authority over his body in a manner similar to migration to south African mines. Comparing the similarity of racial hierarchies in Angola, Mozambique and South Africa under colonialism Manso is clear about his preference: “between a racism that’s ashamed and a racism that’s proud, I choose the ashamed one. I’d rather suffer the little betrayals, a base comment in a hushed voice, than clear aggression, than explicit blows. Any insult hurts. But a blow hurts more (318).8 Needless to say, Portugal never exercised direct control over these activities (or preferred to ignore them), depending on the rents and royalties it derived from this exploitation. As noted earlier (Newitt 14-15), the Portuguese Crown had developed the use of monopolies as early as the 15th century, as a way of supporting the high risk of investment in maritime expansion and as a means of financing its empire.9 Territorial captaincies, such as that of Sofala, became major agents of royal monopoly that were charged with granting licenses, leading military expeditions, dealing with ship owners, territorial chiefs and dominant merchant families. In effect, the captains replaced the political and mercantile role of former sheiks in the period of their appointment as Crown agent. This arrangement, Newitt suggests (26), enabled the captains establish their own private trading network in competition with that of the Crown. This is one of the reasons that Patrick Chabal (43) characterized the legacy of Portuguese colonialism as extraordinarily antiquated and cumbersome in the administration of its territories, a copy of the bureaucratic metropolis itself until the 1970s. The net effect, Chabal

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Manso’s defence of Portugal’s “ashamed racism” and its origins in the discourse of Lusotropicalism is the result of his assimilado status and ambiguous skin colour that enable him navigate the socio-economic strata conditioning the lives of the majority. 9 Newitt (17) also mentions the innovative methods Portugal used to raise funds, such as levying customs duties on all cargoes in the Indian Ocean, imposing protection fees for ships even plunder and tribute.

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indicates, was a stifling of private initiative and the placement of obstacles to social, economic and political change. This is the piecemeal colonialism that the Berlin Conference sought to regulate and regularize into “proper colonial administration,” a good example of which was supposed to be Belgian Africa. Despite this external pressure on Portugal, it took the empire nearly four hundred years before it established the semblance of an administration. To give a contrasting example, whereas French and British governments were preparing to grant independence to their African colonies in the 1950s, Portugal declared its African colonies as provinces, a strategic move that effectively disowned its own status as a colonizer (and therefore of its colonies’ spatial integrity). The Portuguese government’s disavowal of its imperial status, claiming there was only one Portugal— one indivisible and pluricontinental state—can be traced back to its colonial origins, the displacement of national integrity provoked by the French invasion of Portugal. One direct consequence of this re-respatializing of empire was the increased flooding of settlers into both Angola and Mozambique.10 For Jacopo Corrado (27), this “modern” economy was characterized by progressive appropriation of land, mobilisation of African labour, and administrative pressure, due to the dramatic lack of capital and technological know-how in comparison to other European colonizers. This situation, he says, led to the erasure of local commercial networks, the freezing of internal trade and overall recession and decay, particularly in Angola. Portuguese colonialism’s difference from other European powers is significant in terms of the extent to which Portugal held onto its territories. As mentioned earlier, most European nations had granted independence (or were in the process of negotiating this step) to their African territories in the mid-1950s. In the case of Angola and Mozambique, this step begins with armed liberation struggles in the colonies, but is effectively settled by the 1974 April Revolution in Portugal which ended the Salazar regime and its war of attrition against the liberation fighters. It goes without saying that the notion of Portugal undergoes another change as a result of this coup, an attendant effect being the facilitation of the independence process. Again, Portuguese bureaucratic and administrative disorganization impeded the creation of a coherent national space in both Angola and Mozambique.11 This is, perhaps, one of the most important reasons civil 10

In 1955, only 60,000 whites lived in Angola; by 1975 their numbers had grown to over 335,000, a four-fold increase in 20 years. 11 At independence, Portuguese colonies in Africa had the lowest level of literacy and infrastructure development as compared to neighbouring European colonies.

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wars start almost immediately in 1975 in Angola, the same year that independence from Portugal is declared, while Mozambique’s conflict begins two years later, in 1977. As is well known, the two major opposition liberation groups (Renamo and UNITA respectively), while buttressed by substantial numbers disaffected with the ideological orientation of the major groups, represented Cold War—and Apartheid— inflected intromissions after the two countries achieved independence, a struggle that would continue for almost two decades. Set within the context of post-independence conflict, Mia Couto’s Sleepwalking Land reflects this socio-political division in Mozambique. The novel takes equal aim at the destruction and displacement caused by government forces, the communist-inflected policies of the postindependence government and its fight against traditional beliefs and practices. The ostensible distinction between bandits and government forces belies the almost identical blame for the destruction attributed to both sides, resulting in a Bachelardian poetics of spatial disruption that undoes the sense of home, dispersing it over unusual spaces. The novel literally traverses the landscapes of a Mozambique recently torn by civil war in the search for Muidinga’s family. Accompanied on his journey by old Tuahir, the movement of the two through space unfolds in tandem with a movement of space itself, where the landscape changes each day in a magical revelation of the country’s different topographies. Starting from a burnt bus abandoned in the middle of the highway, Muidinga and Tuahir venture out each day to a surrounding countryside that mutates from thick bush, through desert-like vegetation and finally ends at a seashore. Home becomes a series of dislocations. Further confounding the temporal dimension of spaces, the protagonists encounter the notebook (and dead body) of Kindzu in which he recounts his origins, his flight from a village and a dysfunctional traditional family partly caused by the civil war conflict, in search of a place to call home. Intertwined with the first narrative, Kindzu’s journeys also take him across several Mozambican landscapes where the natural intermingles with the supernatural.12 Using the backdrop of Mozambique’s civil war, the journeys of the protagonists in Couto’s Sleepwalking Land present attempts to dialogue with nature, that is, to configure a new space that restores spatial agency. To stress the point, the civil war that breaks out after independence is one of the consequences of Portugal’s ineffective colonial strategy of forced labour, exploitative plantations and racial segregations. This fact is not 12 The supernatural, as Williams (468) notes in her study of Vinte cinco, is always present in Couto’s texts in the dissolution of the barriers between life and death.

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expressly stated in the novel but comes through in the juxtaposition of narratives of the two protagonists. Muidinga’s story opens the book, tracing the effects of the civil war on the landscape, of the protagonist’s near-death in a displaced people’s camp and his search for his lost parents. This is the quest that, located in the present, leads to the discovery of Kindzu’s notebooks and to his narrative of the period preceding the civil war. At the time of Muidinga’s narrative, Kindzu is already dead and his story serves as a repository for memory, an archive that ties the past to the present. Muidinga’s memory loss is thus compensated for by this resource, a way of creating community in the absence of biological and physical ties. The incorporation of Kindzu’s records into the ongoing narrative brings colonial time/space and the disruptions it entails into the present. More importantly, it also enables a dialogue between the two periods as a way of re-imagining national identity. The conflation of human and non-human (present and past) underscores a continuity in the perception of time and space that is not restricted by material changes. Ancestors play a vital role in the life of the living notwithstanding their physical absence, in much the same way sacred trees not only produce physical sustenance but also affect space. The ease of transfer between the material and spiritual worlds simultaneously stress the connection and disconnection between the two realms. The text suggests that this divide is a result of non-compliance with traditional practices, what explains the reason behind Kindzu’s interpretation of the apparitions as punishment sent by the gods and ancestors (40). Perhaps a clear example of the rift with spatial practices occurs at the death of old Taímo, Kindzu’s father, when the sea dries up completely and the plain that magically appears becomes covered by palm trees brimming with shiny tasty-looking fruit. The mad rush by the men of the village to harvest this bounty is stopped by a loud voice that seems to be coming from each of the palm trees, begging them to respect the sacred fruit. When the men disobey this plea, the first fruit cut lets out a huge jet of water that refills the sea and swallows up everyone and everything. Two interesting features underscoring the transmutability of human and material realms should be noted here. Kindzu recognizes in the plea uttered by the trees his own father’s voice, while one of the villagers accuses the palm tree of being “inhuman.” More importantly, however, Kindzu’s memory of this event blurs the line between the real and the surreal, suggesting that reality is equally present in dreams: “I only remember the flood while I’m asleep. Like so many other recollections that only come to me in dreams. It is as if I and my past sleep in alternate times, one at a standstill while the other continues its journey” (13).

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On one of their forays outside the burnt bus that is their temporary abode, Muidinga and Tuahir fall into a trap set by old Skellington. When he drags them out of the trap, Skellington tells them he plans to sow them for company, a belief in the transmutability of human and plant life. He is the only one left in his village, which has been abandoned because of the pillaging and destruction by bandits. However, when he later sees Muidinga scrawl his name on the ground with a stick, he changes his original plan and leads him to a huge tree. There, he orders Muidinga to write his (Skellington’s) name so that the tree will “deliver other Skellingtons to life, who will fertilize themselves and multiply” (67). He reasons that, with his name on the tree, his blood will pass into the tree and assure him of survival and reproduction. Skellington’s belief in the interchangeability of human and inanimate objects places both on the same ontological level. It suggests a reversibility that equates the human and non-human whereby recognition of one necessarily implies the other. This equivalency is at work when Skellington compares himself to a tree, thereby transferring to himself the plant’s capacity for yearly regeneration. Humans for their part are also enabled to transmit their blood into trees. It is a quality he hopes to achieve with his final gesture of a direct insertion into nature, of carving his name into the tree. This performative act, reminiscent of Žižek’s tautological gesture, calls attention to traditional ecological beliefs in its disavowal of spatial hierarchies and the colonial epistemologies of violence (Woodward 294). Skellington’s original plan to sow his captives is a backhanded reference to the war’s disruption of natural agricultural cycles. It is also a recognition of the severing of an intimate human connection with the land. Thus, cut off from this vital link—this life force—the war’s disastrous effect on people and their livelihoods is directly attributable to this loss, the equivalent of the splitting of the corporeal body and its phenomenological self. While escapist in nature, Skellington’s belief in the transmutation of human into plant life (or its ontological approximation to inanimate objects) is a way of highlighting the primordiality of space. It is space without duration, timeless space, a primordial space before the split between the body as space in space, to become a space that perceives itself and others. Through this performative act of repossession, Skellington reclaims a legitimacy based on a commonality with nature in both its regenerative and destructive properties. Immediately after the deed is done, Skellington sticks his finger deep into his eardrum and shrivels to the size of a seed in the fountain of blood that erupts (Sleepwalking Land 67).

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The co-protagonist of Sleepwalking Land, Kindzu, comes to life through Muidinga’s nightly reading of his notebook. Inserted in the novel as chapters paralleling Muidinga’s adventures, the notebook functions as a re-presenting of an absence, a claim to a similar ontological significance as that of the main text.13 Kindzu’s narrative tells the story of displacements inherited from colonial times. Set in a period prior to the “conflict,” the conflation of the temporal plane serves to subsume both the independence and civil war conflicts as one and the same, albeit on a more devastating scale. Kindzu describes the chaos of the current struggle as unlike any other, “not even the old battles in which slaves were stolen to be sold on the coast” (24). This specific recalling of the colonial past, placed in the mouth of the old men Kindzu consults, while a way of putting into perspective the current upheaval, also points to the slave trade and its earlier displacements as harbingers of present-day anxieties. Although Kindzu claims to have had a happy childhood, the description of his dysfunctional family undercuts the appearance of harmony. His father’s frequent trances from which he proffers dire warnings, coupled with his almost constant state of drunkenness and abandonment of his work as a fisherman, suggest the effect of disrupted traditional practices even before the conflict narrated by the text. This situation is highlighted by the division caused by Kindzu’s friendship with the teacher Pastor Afonso and the Indian storeowner Surendra Valá. Representing two points of colonial contact—educational/religious and economic—that impact traditional patterns, Kindzu’s family disapproves and deems dangerous his attachment to foreigners. Kindzu is thus out of place even before the death of his father, one of the principal factors that motivate his journeys across Mozambican landscapes. As he confesses about his dilemma, “Whatever I might choose to do, one thing was certain: I had to get out of there, for that world was killing me” (23). Similar to Muidinga’s narrative, Kindzu’s journey highlights the disjunction between the two worlds, between real and imagined spaces, and the need to bridge this gap in order to construct meaningful spaces. Unlike My Father’s Wives, Couto’s novel only tangentially delves into the colonial period, linking instead the on-going destruction to the abandonment of a coherent epistemological understanding of spatial practices with the advent of the colony. Both Muidinga’s and Kindzu’s journeys end on a shore, a literal land’s end that points to the impossibility of further forward movement in the search for meaning, the suggestion 13 For a more detailed study of this topic, see Hughes’s “Absence and Presence: The Here and There of Identity in Mia Couto’s Terra Sonâmbula.”

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that the solution lies in a falling back on both a physical and internal interior to constitute the tautological performative that makes sense for the disorganized field of spatial and human relations. Bachelard’s poetics of space becomes very relevant in this context in the transference of human attributes to space as well as the corresponding adoption by humans of spatial (and natural) qualities. This notion is represented metaphorically at the end of the novel when the two narratives merge, where Kindzu enters a trance in which he sees the burnt bus on which he was killed, and a boy he recognizes reading pages from his notebook. This boy appears to be a conflation of his long-lost brother Juney and of Gaspar, the estranged son of the fugitive Farida Kindzu meets on his journeys. The amalgamation of different spaces, times and people in this final scene points to the need for unmeasurable and unquantifiable space, an undoing of the fragmentation and hierarchization imposed by an empirical world view. As Soja (120) points out, spatiality cannot be completely separated from physical and psychological spaces. “Nature” itself is a product of politics, ideology, the relations of production and the possibility of being (121). The disruptions in the spiritual world that occur after the death of his father is another reason Kindzu decides to leave his village. After he resolves to join the napamaras—warriors of justice armed with amulets, ribbons and necklaces—his father comes to him in a dream and warns him against leaving, threatening that deserting his home space would make Kindzu his father’s enemy, for which reason he would suffer spiritual apparitions the rest of his life. Kindzu attributes to this paternal curse the many instances of dream-conversations with his father and the accompanying apparitions on his journeys: the oars of the boat in which he starts his quest leave holes in the sea, out of which spring sea gulls. At Tandissico, he is haunted by xipocos—ghosts that take joy in our suffering—while hands that look like skewers of flesh come out of the ground to grab at his legs (36-37).14 Similar to Couto’s Sleepwalking Land, the protagonists of José Eduardo Agualusa’s My Father’s Wives navigate their nation’s geography in search of family relations. Unlike the former, the familial connections in My Father’s Wives are more specifically detailed; they principally have to do with the deceased Faustino Manso, the itinerant musician alleged to have fathered eighteen children with different wives and rumored to be the father of the protagonist Laurentina. The disruption of spatial and human 14

Commenting on the presence of xipocos in Couto’s A varanda do frangipani, D’Angelo (196) notes that Couto’s use of the living-dead as a medium to narrate the past, leads to a conflation of identities and memories, establishes the role of the author as historiographer.

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relations that started during the colonial period continues into the present, represented in both My Father’s Wives and Sleepwalking Land. Earlier referred to as a neo-colonial retracing, the journeys attempt a reintegration of the space into the protagonists’ imaginary, a way of re-making the fragmented spaces of the colonial period. Given that these boundaries were arbitrarily set in colonial times, a re-examination of space contests the ideological imaginings that created these national territories. As Anderson (163-164) notes, the census, the map and the museum were at the root of a colonial imagining that not only produced the colony but also the nature of the human beings ruled there, as well as the legitimacy of its power. Space—and the attempts to map, measure and quantify it—have implications for how humans live this space and the relations that govern them. Native travels through colonially-produced spaces present an opportunity to re-examine the three discourses underpinning identity; the legitimacy of native possession, the nature and interrelations of humans within this territory and the shaping of power paradigms within the nation’s boundaries. In particular, it is the nature of interrelations of humans within a specific space that impinge, to a large extent, on the other two; the legitimacy of native possession; and the power hierarchies within their spatial boundaries. The discursive nature of spatial (and bodily) boundaries are thus elements that can be arranged and rearranged to produce contested spaces. Part of this rearrangement can be found in the magical qualities with which space is endowed in both My Father’s Wives and Sleepwalking Land. These supernatural attributes of space are usually portrayed as parallel to the modern world’s affirmation of Newtonian physics and empiricism.15 Born in the colonial era in Luanda, Manso’s musical abilities take him to several southern African countries, residing a few years in each country where he is purported to have started families with local women. Interviews with these women and their children, as well as letters by Manso, reveal a lifestyle that is both enabled and complicated by the colonial demarcations of spatial frontiers. The presence of the South African characters (Brand and Johan) points not only to the extensive geographical border between Namibia and Angola, but also to South African control of Namibia and the extension of its business and military activities into Namibia’s northern neighbour. Fishing and diamond prospecting hint at this exploitation by South Africa in a sign of the 15

See Rothwell’s (455) discussion of Couto’s rejection of empiricism in his article “Between Politics and Truth: Time to Think through the Other in Couto’s Pensatempos.” For this author, imperial knowledge, as with empiricism, is the source of tyrannical ideologies that falsely claim to have an answer to everything.

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continuation of the commercial relations between Portuguese and Boer colonialisms. From a military perspective, the protagonists encounter a South African bar owner whose narration of his experience in the army reveals his direct role in the death of one of the novel’s protagonists’ father during the civil war. This controlled but porous border is what allows the Russian Nicolau Alicereces Peshkov to settle in Luanda after marrying a Namibian woman of German descent. In a similar vein, these permeable borders enable Manso to set up families in different countries, leaving behind a trail of embittered “wives” and purported daughters. In a sense, geographical space translates into bodily spaces, their contours tracing and re-configuring territorial boundaries. The spatial displacements and the ensuing family connections Manso leaves behind become the motive for the quest described in My Father’s Wives. The principal protagonists of this tale are the Portuguese couple Laurentina and her fiancé Mandume. Laurentina’s unease with her identity contrasts with her fiancé Mandume’s staunch Portugueseness despite his black ancestry (his parents are black Angolans). At her mother’s death bed Laurentina finds out that she was adopted at birth and that her biological parents are the itinerant black/mulatto musician Manso and the Goan/Mozambican Alima. She decides to travel to Angola to search for this hitherto unknown father and other family connections with the hope of filling a gap in an identity with which she had always been uneasy. For his part, Mandume’s only motive for the trip is to be there for his fiancée, given his complete lack of interest in Africa and all things African. The journeys of the two take them across diverse landscapes in southern Africa, spaces that mark Angola’s history throughout both the colonial and recent periods and the remarkable people affected by these geographies. Laurentina ends her search in Mozambique where she meets with her biological mother, finds proof of Manso’s infertility and realizes that her white Portuguese father Dário is in fact her biological father. The result of Dário’s secret affair with Alima, Laurentina’s biological mother, attributes paternity to Manso, well-known for his multiple sexual dalliances, in a bid to protect Dário’s identity and marriage. If Sleepwalking Land highlights the interaction between humans and inanimate objects, My Father’s Wives turns the focus to human bodies and the power of interpreting and hierarchizing them. While the supernatural is frequently mentioned in relation to many places and characters, their scattered presence contrasts with the individual chapters in Sleepwalking Land dedicated to characters such as old Siqueleto. My Father’s Wives also reveals the magical qualities of nature and their implication for the legitimacy of native possession. The text’s chapters are sprinkled with

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mentions of mermaids and dugongs, and the ease with which the latter can be mistaken for the former. Dugongs are mammals with a fish tail and a snout that is almost human. An extra-diegetic filmmaker character, Karen Boswell, speculates in the novel that the origin of the mermaid myth may owe to some fishermen haven taken pity on or fallen in love with a dugong and thrown it back into the sea pregnant. Laws against sex with dugongs, states this character, exist to this day, what could be taken as an instance of the demarcation and legitimizing of bodies and spaces. Underscoring this uneasy distinction between the mythical and the empirical worlds, the narrator of the text recalls meeting a retired mathematician professor who shows him drawings of mythological-looking creatures that he insists live in the lagoon near the plaza of Largo de Quinaxixe. One of these is the minutely detailed sketch of a mermaid, seemingly dead, and on another page an impressive watercolour painting showing the same creature dissected that demonstrated how the mermaid’s tail fit with perfect logic into the human muscular system (294). Located right in the center of the city, the Largo de Quinaxixe plaza ambiguously signals the parallel world of the supernatural that refuses to release the imaginary of locals in spite of the lagoon’s surroundings of concrete apartments. Behind this plaza is a lagoon supposed to house a powerful mermaid to whom the locals left gift offerings of food and cash in the fifties. That same night he is shown the drawings of the mermaid, the narrator sees a woman dancing in the middle of the lagoon and recognizes her gestures and silhouette as the Dancer, a strange woman he had encountered several times in Luanda. The strange tale of the Dancer narrated by the extra-diegetic character who is presumably the author, acquires credence by virtue of its parallel with the fictional narrative. Within this fictional narrative, Mandume’s encounter with Alfonsina, a thirty-year old prostitute in the body of a teenager, is probably the most resonant and extended narration of the supernatural in My Father’s Wives. This encounter can be classified as the effect of the magical body and the changes it produces in human interconnectedness. As Alfonsina narrates it, her pregnant mother stepped on a “witchcraft” mine that affected Alfonsina in the womb but otherwise left her mother intact. Orphaned early, Alfonsina is forced to fend for herself working in households or selling in the market. When her physiological development ceases at age eleven, neighbourhood suspicions of being a sorceress (and the attendant violence) force her to flee from one place to another. She finally ends up in Luanda where she sleeps on the beach with her pet bird Pintada. Incidentally, Pintada is another example of the extraordinary events the text describes. Hatched and raised by a dog named Maria Rita, Pintada

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behaves like one, aggressively protecting Alfonsina against street children and other predators who gang up on her. Alfonsina’s story of her life is a continuation of the spatial displacements resulting from the witchcraft mine, itself a reminder of independence and the civil wars. If we can see mines and other military artefacts as a demarcation of contested spaces, the fragmentation they cause is transmitted to human bodies and subsequent relations. Contests over space, Alfonsina’s story seems to imply, produce direct effects on the human body, and in her particular case, on a specific status in the hierarchization of the social order. Mandume’s skepticism over Alfonsina’s story of her miraculous birth and its attribution to sorcery leads her to challenge him on the nature of Jesus Christ’s miracles, such as walking on water, curing the blind and changing water into wine (273-74). In effect, she implies, Portugal (and Catholicism) also believes in sorcery. Initially, out of pity and concern for her survival and safety, Mandume’s interest in Alfonsina extends progressively to her body and sexuality. His reluctance to have sex with her, as he reveals after Alfonsina confronts him directly, is because he considers her a child. Alfonsina’s life story and the cultural and biological challenges she poses oblige Mandume to question notions of spatial hierarchies. The encounter with Alfonsina represents a realization that the empiricist efforts at classification and categorization are based on a fragmentation that does not exist in nature. That a woman can exist in the body of child makes it possible to conceptualize the supernatural explanation of a witchcraft mine and its special effects. On a different but related level, Pintada’s behaviour like a dog, at odds with its reality of having a bird’s physical form, confounds classifications deemed natural. Confronted with this new epistemology—the interchangeability of sorcery and religion, the compatibility of a child’s body with that of a woman’s— Mandume re-examines his notions of belonging, suggested in the subtitle of the chapter “An Epiphany—or rather, its opposite.” To a large extent, both Pintada and Alfonsina encapsulate the ontological dilemma Mandume faces in his own life. We noted earlier Mandume’s uneasy situation of being black and Portuguese, as well as his rejection of his Angolan identity. He grudgingly accompanies his fiancée Laurentina on her trip to Africa where he constantly reminds himself of his Portuguese identity. Two other events conspire to shake this crisis of identity. The first is the discovery of an uncle and cousins of whom he had never heard. The second is the news that his fiancée is pregnant by a mutual friend, an Angolan mulatto who also claims descent from Manso. Considered from a spatial perspective, the discovery of his hitherto unknown family establishes a connection to a

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land to which he had never previously felt any bond. The realization that his father had concealed this relationship all his life thus weakens his sense of familial belonging and opens up the potential links that provide a way out of his identity crisis. Bereft of the three poles of his stability— nation, family and fiancée—that free him from relationships he had never before questioned, Mandume’s epiphany signals a rediscovery of the liberation of choice, this time a conscious choice aware of its implications. The evolving and changing landscape in Sleepwalking Land, and the continuous displacements of My Father’s Wives, highlight the dependence of narratives of belonging on both time and space. Set within the context of a search for the “real” Faustino Manso, an itinerant musician rumored to have fathered eighteen children with seven wives across several southern African countries, the question of legitimacy through the spatial comes forefront in several dimensions. The physical and temporal displacements in the two books suggest that, although previous narratives of interconnectedness may have become dominant through their sedimentation by way of external forces, these narratives are always subject to a re-reading to provide a more adjusted view of human relations. In other words, what official history records only has weight because it has remained unchallenged for so long. My Father’s Wives in particular takes up the notion of times past and memories associated with colonial spaces. In a mixture of past and present, the novel starts and ends in Lisbon, paralleling the imperial project, but this time it leaves the metropolitan protagonists in a figurative no-man’s land. The novel also suggests that this neo- imperial project—retracing of colonial travels—also has consequences today for people and spaces alike in Africa, a retracing of the disrupted bloodlines, colonial violence and contested spaces that interrogate the notion of nation. The civil wars in Angola and Mozambique brought destruction on physical landscape and human structures. These wars also signaled unhappiness with the inheritance of spatial and human relations from the colony, for which reason the civil wars can be read as a re-writing—albeit with devastating consequences—of this legacy. The resultant changes are both a direct and indirect consequence of spatial destruction that leads to an emptying out of the relational structures on which the human body depends to make sense of self and environment. Set in Angola and Mozambique, the two novels’ emphasis on space underlines a clear link between people and space, how perceptions of space inflect our view of the world and ultimately of our own bodies as space. My Father’s Wives’ magical bodies, though peripheral to the main storyline, point to the conception of the body as space that contains identities that may defy the

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norms of what such containers are supposed to be like. These bodies emphasize the phenomenology of the visual and its role in creating what are perceived to be realities. Sleepwalking Land’s magical landscapes, on the other hand, present a fantastic imaginary that laments, but also enables, escape from the dreadful spatial (and therefore social) realities of a wartorn nation. More importantly, however, this magical space calls for a deeper alignment of humanity with nature, a symbiotic relationship that allows space to be seen as a positive agent for social relations and not merely as resource material for human agency, passive, quantifiable and to be appropriated by humans. Appropriately, both novels end on a supernatural note: the simultaneous flashback and flashforward that combines both the past and the future spaces and peoples.

Bibliography Andersson, Hilary. 1992. Mozambique: A War against a People. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Print. Bachelard, Gaston. 1964. The Poetics of Space. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press. Print. Butler, Judith, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek. 2000. Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. New York: Verso. Print. Chabal, Patrick. 2002. A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa. Bloomington: Indiana UP. Print. Dangelo, Biagio. 2013. “Como recuperar o tempo perdido? A busca romanesca da prosa contemporanea de lingua portuguesa (Mia Couto, Lobo Antunes, e Chico Buarque).” Todas as letras U. 194-204. Print. Dillon, Martin. C. 1988. Merleau-Ponty’s Ontology. Bloomington: Indiana UP. Print. Foucault, Michel. 1982. “Different Spaces,” in Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology. Ed. James D. Faubion. New York: New Press. 175-85. Print. . 1997. “Technologies of the Self,” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: New Press. 223-52. Print. Geisler, Gisela. 2004. Women and the Remaking of Politics in Southern Africa: Negotiating Autonomy, Incorporation and Representation. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Print. Hughes, Arthur. 2015. “Absence and Presence: The Here and There of Identity in Mia Couto’s Sleepwalking Land.” Luso-Brazilian Review. 52.2. 138-52. Print.

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Lefebvre, Henri. 2001. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Print. Lovett, Margot. 1989. “Gender Relations, Class Formation, and the Colonial State in Africa.” In Women and the State in Africa edited by Parpart, Jane L. and Katheleen A. Staudt. Boulder, CO:Lynne Rienner Publishers. 23-46. Print. MacGonagle, Elizabeth. 2007. Crafting Identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Rochester, NY: U of Rochester P. Print. Newitt, Malyn. 1995. A History of Mozambique. Indianapolis: Indiana UP. Print Quayson, Ato. 2009. “Magical Realism and the African Novel.” Ed. Abiola Irele, F. The Cambridge Companion to the African Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.159-76. Print. Rothwell, Phillip. 2007. “Between Politics and Truth: Time to Think through the Other in Couto’s Pensatempos.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 84. 453-61. Print. Serra, Pedro. “Aesthetics and Ideology in Queiros’ A Cidade e as Serras” (http://docs. Lib.purdue.edu.clcweb/vol11/iss3/2) Sheldon, Kathleen. 2002. Pounders of Grain: A History of Women, Work, and Politics in Mozambique. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Print. Soja, Edward W. 2003. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. New York: Verso,. Print. Williams, Claire. 2007.“Blood Will Have Blood: Trauma, Transition, and Retribution In Mia Couto’s Vinte e cinco.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 84. 463-73. Print. Woodward, Wendy. 2003. “Postcolonial Ecologies and the Gaze of Animals: Reading Some Contemporary Southern African Narratives.” Journal of Literary Studies 19: 3/4. 290-315. Print.

CHAPTER TWO DEBUNKING RACIAL, ETHNIC AND CULTURAL ESSENTIALISMS: MISCEGENATION/S AND THE CALL TOWARD GLOBAL AND COSMIC CITIZENSHIP IN MIA COUTO’S THE OTHER FOOT OF THE MERMAID1 IRENE MARQUES

Abstract Couto’s novel O Outro Pé da Sereia [The Other Foot of the Mermaid] deals with transcultural circulation, mixed and unfixed identity by juxtaposing multiple narratives: those of the colonizing missionaries and their alliances to the Portuguese Crown and those of the Africans who endure colonization and slavery. Through parallel stories that go back and forth in time—one taking place in the early colonial times of the 16th Century and the other in contemporary Mozambique—Couto debunks simplistic and essentialist dichotomous categories relating to racial identity, colonizer and colonized as well as enslaved and enslaver. The novel is a rewriting or a revision of history, bringing to the forefront multiple voices and versions of events and allowing for a more balanced account of history. O Outro Pé da Sereia also presents another very important aspect of human nature: human beings yearn for expansion outside of themselves and outside of confined “geographies.” They want to become global and cosmic citizens, no longer bound to a single ethnicity, culture, race or physical location. In that sense, the novel has a powerful spiritual message that illustrates the (desired) boundlessness and vacuity of our identity.

1

All the translations of this novel, published in the original Portuguese as O outro pé da sereia, are my own.

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Chapter Two A viagem não começa quando se percorrem distâncias, mas quando se atravessam as nossas fronteiras interiores. A viagem acontece quando acordamos fora do corpo, longe do último lugar onde podemos ter casa. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 77) [The voyage does not start when we travel distances, but when we cross our internal frontiers. The voyage takes place when we wake up outside of our body, far from the last place where we could have house]. Quem acha doce a terra natal ainda é um tenro principiante; aquele para quem toda terra é natal já é forte; mas é perfeito aquele para quem o mundo inteiro é um lugar estrangeiro. A alma tenra fixou seu amor num único ponto do mundo; a pessoa forte estendeu seu amor a todos os lugares; o homem perfeito extinguiu o seu. (Hugo de St. Victor, monge saxão do século XII, citado por Edward Said. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 59) [The one who finds his birthplace sweet is still a tender beginner; the one for whom every place is his birthplace is already strong; but perfect is the one for whom the entire world is a foreign place. The tender soul has fixed his love on one single point of the world; the strong person has extended his love to all the places; the perfect man has extinguished his own place. (Hugo of St. Victor, XII century Saxon monk, cited by Edward Said].

Described as “a postmodern nationalist”2 by Phillip Rothwell, the Mozambican writer Mia Couto defies monocultural paradigms or single grand narratives. His writing is inundated with stories and histories of the many ethnic groups that make up the Mozambican nation: the different groups of Blacks, Portuguese, Indians, Arabs and other newcomers including countless NGOs and multinational corporations who “invade” the country in the early 90s with their agendas of development, democratization and modernization. In his multifaceted fictional universe in which he projects Mozambique as a nation in search of itself, truth and identity are not only questioned and questionable but are also ambivalent, unfixed and constantly changing. In “The Internet is Afropolitan,” Achille Mbembe posits that Africa has been a highly transcultural, mobile and changing continent for many centuries, long before Arab and European colonization: [W]hen you study the cultural history of the continent carefully, a number of things come to the fore in terms of how African societies have constituted themselves and how they operated. First, they constituted 2

See P. Rothwell, A Postmodern Nationalist: Truth, Orality, and Gender in the Work of Mia Couto.

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themselves through circulation and mobility. When you look at African myths of origin, migration occupies a central role in all of them. There is not one single ethnic group in Africa that can seriously claim to have never moved. Their histories are always histories of migration, meaning people going from one place to the other, and in the process amalgamating many other people. So, circulation and amalgamation, you compile the gods, you conquer one ethnic group, you defeat them militarily, and you take their gods as yours, or you take their women as your wives, and therefore they become your parents.3 (“The Internet is Afropolitan”)

Couto echoes Mbembe’s view of Afropolitanism in his essay, “A Sea of Exchange, An Ocean of Myths,” where he criticizes those who continue to believe in Africa’s and Africans’ cultural and genetic purity, that of the world at large, and still more specifically, that of Mozambique. He writes: Adepts of genetic and/or cultural purity, don’t delude yourselves: identities today are the results of ancient hybridities, so old and complex that we can’t always trace them. This mixture of mixtures is, of course, common to all humanity. Around the Indian Ocean, however, where a dense web of exchanges began seven centuries ago, this mosaic is absolutely unique. The coast of Mozambique bears witness to these navigations. In specific localities, specific memories are preserved: the departure of slaves, the presence of traders, the establishment of a military presence. To these territories endless processions of ships and sailors arrived. Chinese, Indonesians, Arabs, Indians, Europeans all passed through here. It was through the coast of Mozambique that the coconut and the banana tree penetrated the entire continent… More than bringing products, the visitors from distant places left an ability to establish trading conditions and negotiate relations. And it wasn’t just clothes, ships, seeds and fruits that the “others” brought (items which we nowadays simply 3

For a good overview of how African myths of creation frequently reveal this idea of movement, migration, circulation and amalgamation, cultural syncretism and even violent occupation of the land, all of which debunk essentialist paradigms, see Jacob K. Olupona’s “Worldview, Cosmology, and Myths of Migration.” Myths of creation also reveal a connection between humans and the divine, a deep relationship between the world of the living and the world of the dead, between body and spirit. In other words, a general animist and holistic ethos where all things are interrelated, while also constantly putting forward the idea (and importance) of transformation and mutation: from human to animal/nature, from animal/nature to human, from human to non-human (transcendental/divine), from body to spirit. This transformation and mutation in itself is a form of mobility—an indication that human and non-human entities are all intertwined, part of one another, forming a grander/holistic self.

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believe to be ours in origin). What we were left with was a capacity for cultural hybridity, to create identities for ourselves that function like import-export enterprises. It was also an undoing of identity that we ceded to others who became less other. (183-84) Couto’s 2006 novel O outro pé da sereia [The Other Foot of the Mermaid] underscores this transculturalism, circulation, mobility as well as mixed and unfixed identity—it is afropolitanism at its best. The novel juxtaposes multiple narratives: those of the colonizing Jesuit missionaries and their alliances with the Portuguese Crown and those of Africans and Indians who endure and also practice (or are complicit in) forms of colonization and slavery. Additionally, the novel brings together the Indian and Atlantic corridors, presenting them as commercial and cultural spaces that played a paramount role in building European colonial empires and in linking economically the peoples of Africa, Asia, and the Americas and culturally through interracial mixing, thus initiating modern global mercantilism.4 Resorting to parallel stories that go back and forth in time, one taking place in the early colonial times of the 16th Century and the other in contemporary Mozambique, Couto debunks simplistic and essentialist dichotomous categories relating to racial and ethnic identity, colonizer and colonized as well as enslaved and enslaver. He shows us a Mozambique that has had long and established historical, ethnic and interracial miscegenation/s and collaborations. Literature emerges as the site that revises history and brings stories and histories together. In this endeavour, literature refutes single grand historical narratives and allows for relativity and ambivalence in the depiction of “truth.” The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, through the two parallel narratives that underpin The Other Foot of the Mermaid, I intend to show how Couto goes well beyond the simplistic depiction of Africa as a mere victim and Europe as the sole victimizing agent. I argue that the author presents complex, dynamic, and historically-immersed persons who straddle identities and positionalities as a result of the pressures of their 4 For a discussion on Couto’s display of this commercial and cultural corridor, this birth of globalism, see David Brookshaw, “Indianos e o Índico: o pós-colonialismo transoceânico e internacional em O outro pé da sereia.” See also Adebayo Oyebade and Stephen Berendt for an account of how the maritime voyages and the commercial enterprises of the Portuguese during the 15th and 16th centuries gave rise to global mercantilism. These voyages constituted the first instance of modern globalism, with the first successful Atlantic/Indian round sea voyage to India in 1498 that linked Asia, Europe and the Americas commercially and culturally. What is more, these mercantile events also underscored the role of the Portuguese in initiating the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

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times and the cultural and racial assimilation that often occurs in multicultural and multiracial contexts where different cultures, races and ethnicities intersect, mix and transact. In these kinds of situations, one no longer only has blacks, whites, Indians, oppressors and oppressed, violators and violated. Rather, one encounters multidimensional people who perform a multitude of roles and identities. Furthermore, I assert that, within this context, the debunking of essentialist paradigms is of vital importance, since it allows for historical revision and the construction of more nuanced colonial and post-colonial narratives of nationhood and greatness in relation to colonizers and colonized alike. This revisionism in turn provides a space for forgiveness and reconciliation between the different parties involved in the painful events of colonization and slavery. I conclude by contending that, ontologically speaking, human beings yearn for expansion outside of themselves and outside of confined geographies. They want to become global and cosmic citizens, no longer bound to a single ethnicity, culture, race or physical location. They are more interested in finding a symbolic spiritual home anywhere and with anyone or “anything.” The narrative relating to the 16th Century, which can be referred to as the first narrative (even though the novel does not open with it), occurs between January and March 1560. A fictionalized historical account of events that actually took place, the narrative begins with the ship, Nossa Senhora da Ajuda (Our Lady of Help), leaving Goa, India, to go to Mozambique. The purpose of the trip is to christianize Emperor Monomotapa and to convert locals to Christianity in an interior region of modern-day Mozambique. In this endeavour are Dom Gonçalo da Silveira, the head of the Jesuit mission in India, and Manuel Antunes, a lower-level Jesuit and a court clerk, who has been charged with the responsibility of writing a diary relaying the details of the voyage and the expedition to Mozambique. The ship also carries merchandise, slaves and Dona Filipa, the wife of the Portuguese merchant settler, Fernando Caiado, who has already established himself in the Monomotapa kingdom. Dona Filipa had spent years in Goa to receive treatment for an illness described as “febres propicais” (70) [tropical fevers]. Very importantly, the ship also carries the statue of the Virgin Mary. At the beginning of the narrative, one quickly notices Dom Gonçalo da Silveira’s and Manuel Antunes’s Eurocentric, universalized and arrogant ideologies, typical of the colonial mind. Africans are presented as savages without religion. They live in sin and debauchery and are in need of salvation through Christianity. Above all, they need to be civilized and uplifted by European ideals:

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Chapter Two O propósito da viagem é realizar a primeira incursão católica na corte do Império do Monomotapa. Gonçalo da Silveira prometeu a Lisboa que baptizaria esse imperador negro cujos domínios se estendiam até ao Reino de Prestes João. Por fim, África inteira emergiria das trevas eos africanos caminhariam iluminados pela luz cristã. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 61) [The purpose of the voyage was to undertake the first Catholic expedition to the court of the Monomotapa Empire. Gonçalo da Silveira has promised Lisbon that he would baptize this black emperor, whose territories extended as far as the Kingdom of Prester John. At last, the whole of Africa would emerge from the darkness and the Africans would walk illuminated by Christian light].

The official writings underscore the colonial dichotomous tropes of civilized versus non-civilized, Europe versus Africa, North versus South, light versus darkness, mind versus body: Padre Antunes] foi lendo as oficiais escrituras e dando conta dos nomes da viagem e do seu destino. Chamavam de Torna-Viagem a este percurso da Índia para Portugal. E chamavam de Contra-Costa ao Oriente de África. Tudo fora nomeado como se o mundo fosse uma lua: de um só lado visível, de uma só face reconhecível. E os habitantes do mundo oculto nem o original nome de «gentios» mantinham. Designavam-se, agora, de «cafres». A palavra fora roubada aos árabes. Era assim que estes chamavam aos africanos. Os cafres eram os infiéis. Não porque tivessem outra fé. Mas porque se acreditava não terem nenhuma. Um inesperado balanço fez verter o tinteiro. Para salvar os manuscritos o padre Antunes atirouse sobre a mesa e o tampo cedeu, fazendo com que a lamparina tombasse no chão e o óleo ardente se espalhasse sobre o pavimento. Aflito, o sacerdote lançou o conteúdo do tinteiro sobre a pequena e, no entanto, ameaçadora fogueira. A tinta era pouca, mas suficiente para apagar o fogo. Antunes repôs a ordem no agasalho e saiu para o convés para recuperar do susto. Foi então que reparou que as mãos estavam sujas de tinta. Com as mãos negras, ele reentrou no seu camarote. E com as mãos negras, ele se abandonou no rio do sonho. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 72) [As Father Antunes read the official writings, he realized the names of the voyage and its destiny. They called this route from India to Portugal Torna-Viagem [Return-Voyage]. And they called Contra-Costa the Orient of Africa. Everything had been named as if the world were a moon: only visible from one side, with only one knowable face. And the inhabitants of the world did not even keep their original name of “pagans.” Now they were called “kaffirs.” The word had been stolen from the Arabs—as that was the designation they gave to the Africans. The kaffirs are the infidels. Not because they followed another faith but because it was believed they had none. An unexpected movement made the inkstand spill. To save the

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manuscripts father Antunes threw himself over the table and the top gave in, what caused the lamp to fall on the floor, its fiery oil spreading on the pavement. Afflicted, the clergyman tossed the inkstand content into the small but threatening fire. There was not much ink, though it was sufficient to put down the fire. Antunes put order into the disorder and went to the deck to recover from the scare. It was then that he noticed that his hands were dirty with ink. He returned to his cabin with black hands. And with black hands, he abandoned himself to the river of dream].

Although in this excerpt—the perennial clear-cut dichotomies of self and other—Africa and Europe are present, one notices how Antunes begins to question and to debunk these dichotomies. A moving away from the “single story” about Africa and Africans—to use Chimamanda Adichie’s term—becomes evident as Antunes, in spite of himself, realizes the danger inherent in single stories, their inaccuracy in telling the “totality” of a people, of a place and of a culture. Indeed, the very act of writing and naming can be fraught with danger and distrust. Whereas the naming and the writing of their world and religion are framed positively, the Portuguese colonizers identify Africa and Africans with negative traits: lack of religion, darkness, mystery and danger. This framing, then, provides the justification for imperial aspirations and cultural imposition. The moon metaphor encapsulates well the idea that the world to the North is a known and civilized entity, whereas the one to the South is barbaric and scary. The fire caused by the movement of the ship threatens the very existence of the written word, the documents. It symbolizes the difficulty, or even impossibility of knowing the other, the African. The colonizer’s text—his writing—is nothing but a system, ink on a blank white paper. It is nothing but a story of the imagination created by a specific group about another unknown (or fully knowable) group. Yet, as the above excerpt demonstrates, this “knowing,” this apparent certitude that is embedded in writing, is fundamental to conquering the other. It is for this reason that the priest does all he can to save the official documents. The ink, the writing, succeeds in putting out the fire and ends up saving the “knowledge.” Ironically, however, the ink is also black, a blackness that sticks to the priest’s hands. It is a black substance that writes on white paper, the black symbolizing the white man, the colonizer’s technology, and the white, the unknown world of Africa, the black African. The inversion of the colour scheme is instructive: white is black and black is white. The black ink supposedly brings knowledge, the ability to know the other. Yet, at the same time, that knowledge is threatened by the very “other,” the African, who will contest this narrative, as manifested by the fire that attempts to consume the written word,

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rendering full knowledge of the other, incomplete and problematic. Indeed, the black ink that sticks to the priest’s hands literally makes him black and “com as mãos negras, ele se abandonou no rio do sonho” (72) [with black hands, he abandons himself to the river of dream]. He enters a world of miscegenation as he travels to Africa, a miscegenation that he will never be able to abandon. His “authenticity” and “whiteness” are perpetually infiltrated by a black “otherness.” It is an unknown world that he enters and the “other” that lives there will come into him just as he will himself come into the “other.” It is only through the other that one finds or recovers one’s self. The self is (naturally) relational and absorbs aspects of the other into itself. Relational ontology, which is part of the African classical view of personhood as well as many other non-African philosophical and religious paradigms, is not lost to Couto when he notes in a poem titled “Identidade” [Identity] that, “preciso ser um outro/para ser eu mesmo” (13) [I need to be another/to be myself.]5 Moreover, the “rio do sonho” [river of dream] metaphor in this passage conjures the idea that we do not know the other in real terms and all we can do is to dream (imagine) the other. Still, it is this dreaming, this imagining, that is dubious and erroneous, since it creates stereotypical views of others, as was indeed the case with the views Europeans forged about Africans in “fantastic” books and in documents written from Eurocentric, universalist and racist perspectives.6 I want to argue, however, that one cannot simply read Couto using well-worn post-colonial approaches. For Couto, our non-rational intelligences including dreams and the unconscious are better suited to knowing and to apprehending the other, since they do not claim full possession of that other. They only envisage that other, leaving him/her outside of the rationalistic and reductive prism of rationality that tends to annihilate the other by claiming full comprehension of that same other in the realm of what can be termed as the “bearably known.” Such a posture, the opportunity for the other to be him/herself outside of the Same, is a noncannibalistic and ethical posture of respect that is similar to Emmanuel 5

In my previous critical analyses of Couto’s work, I explore at length this Mozambican (African) relational ontology and draw parallels between it and the philosophy of self and other/otherness as put forward by Emmanuel Lévinas, Luce Irigaray and Buddhist philosophies. See “The Way/s of ‘Poetry’: The Contracting and Expanding Self in the Writing of Mia Couto,” “Spaces of Magic: Couto’s Relational Practices” and Transcultural Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity. 6 See Curtis Keim’s “The Origin of Darkest Africa” and Jan N. Pieterse’s White on Black: Images of Africans and Blacks in Western Popular Culture.

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Lévinas’s concept of “face,” which contrasts the idea of “gaze.”7 By abandoning himself to the “rio do sonho com as mãos negras” [river of dream with black hands] Antunes is no longer guided by the rational reductive lens that names, categorizes, dichotomizes and hierarchizes. That “abandonment” signifies an entrance into cultural miscegenation, into Blackness. It is also one of cognitive humility, since the rational eye, guided by Eurocentric writing and paradigm of Same, is no longer in command and claiming to know the other fully. There are no Sames or Others in this case. It is only beings who are into contact with one another as they try to apprehend one another in order to find their self via the other. Antunes is not the only one who undergoes this metamorphosis. Dom Gonçalo da Silveira, head of the Jesuit mission, also experiences a similar process of doubt about his own truth, his epistemological paradigm and selfhood. Although he is initially convinced and sure of his own superiority and the right to civilize and Christianize Africans, the reality unfolding before his eyes forces him to take stock of the stories that he had believed about Africa and Africans and the supposedly clear-cut differences between Europeans and Africans. Now immersed in the African sociocultural reality and witnessing his Portuguese compatriots committing all kinds of atrocities, the clergyman concludes that, perhaps, Africans and Portuguese, Christians and non-Christians, are equally predisposed to moral slips, are equally imperfect and equally capable of committing treacherous acts. He is forced to acknowledge that his people can be just as greedy and amoral as he had imagined the Africans to be: A estadia na ilha não fora benéfica para D. Gonçalo. Vezes sem conta ele se tinha confrontado com as autoridades portuguesas e as acusara de serem cúmplices da devassidão moral que reinava naquelas paragens. Toda a sua vida imaginara que os demónios moravam no outro lado do mundo: em 7

In Totality and Infinity, Lévinas speaks of the concept of “gaze” and “face”: “The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me, the idea existing to my own measure and to the measure of its ideatum—the adequate idea. […] To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught. The relation with the Other, or Conversation, is a non-allergic relation, an ethical relation; but inasmuch as it is welcomed this conversation is a teaching [enseignement]. Teaching is not reducible to maieutics; it comes from the exterior and brings me more than I contain. In its non-violent transitivity, the very epiphany of the face is produced” (51).

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Chapter Two outra raça, em outra geografia. Durante anos ele se preparara para levar a palavra redentora a essa gente tão diversa. Nos últimos dias Silveira confirmara que o Diabo fazia ninho entre os seus, os da sua origem, raça e condição. [...] Aos poucos, o missionário se converteu num homem amargo e exaltado, seu coração indo de extremo à extremidade. Esse sobressalto esteve presente durante todo o percurso pelo sertão. Nas diversas povoações lhe chegavam novas de portugueses que se ocupavam de negócios muito sujos, aproveitando-se do facto de os gentios os tomarem por deuses e lhes pedirem água e sol, chuva e paz. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 297-98) [All his life he had imagined that the demons lived on the other side of the wold: in another race, another geography. For years, he had prepared himself to take the word of deliverance to those different people. In the last years, Silveira came to realize that the Devil made nest among his own, people of his origin, race and condition. […] Little by little, the missionary became a bitter and tormented man, his heart going from the extreme to extreme. He felt this way during the entire voyage to the interior. In the many villages that he passed by, he would hear news of Portuguese involved in dirty business, taking advantage of the fact that the pagans thought them to be gods, asking them to bring water and sun, rain and peace].

Silveira’s internal crisis reminds one of the “meditation on the interruption of the Other in the European consciousness” (20) that Valentin Mudimbe, building on Paul Ricoeur’s ideas relating to Self and Other, History and Truth as explored in Histoire et Vérité, underscores in his seminal work, The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge. In other words, when confronted with the “other,” with the non-European world, the European who fancies occupying the apex of civilization and the model to be emulated, may face a dilemma when he realizes that he is, in fact, just another among many others. It suddenly dawns on him that not only are his truths relative, his morals imperfect and contingent upon circumstances, but also that his world is merely a construction contrived out of “nothingness” by the specific powers of a particular body politic that believes itself independent of an a priori force (basic universal epistemology) that is supposed to be immutable and, thus, possesses an unquestionable truth. As Paul Ricoeur affirms, When we discover that there are several cultures instead of just one and consequently at the time when we acknowledge the end of a sort of cultural monopoly, be it illusory or real, we are threatened with destruction by our own discovery. Suddenly it becomes possible that there are just others, that we ourselves are an “other” among others. All meaning and every goal

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having disappeared, it becomes possible to wander through civilizations as if through vestiges and ruins. The whole of mankind becomes a kind of imaginary museum: where shall we go this week-end—visit the Angkor ruins or take a stroll in the Tivoli of Copenhagen? (Ricoeur, qtd. in Mudimbe 20-21)

Of the two Portuguese missionaries, Manuel Antunes is the most disappointed with the mission. As his disappointment amplifies with every passage of the voyage, he begins to question openly the morality and ethics of the Portuguese empire and his right to christianise the locals. He confronts Silveira and disagrees with him on these matters. Eventually, he abandons priesthood and decides to stay in Africa and becomes a “nyanga,” a traditional healer, or more accurately, a hybrid religious figure who incorporates African religious practices into his own Christian views. Antunes finds himself becoming Black more and more, taking on the local ways of life and making true the saying that “we are where we live.” As he himself points out, “Ser negro não é uma raça. É um modo de viver” (301) [To be black is not a race. It is a way of living]. Antunes’s realization is clearly a stepping away from essentialist ideologies that associated race with behaviour, a belief system that was rooted in pseudo-scientific racist theories that reached their climax in the 19th Century and were used to justify empire and slavery, placing Blacks at the bottom of the human pyramid.8 Indeed, Antunes rejects all colonial stories about Africa and Africans and burns his own diaries: “ele acabara de deitar para o fogareiro o caderno de viagem. As anotações da travessia, o registo diário dos acontecimentos e descobertas, e mesmo os testamentos dos falecidos, tudo isso se consumia entre labaredas” (185-86) [he had just thrown into the fire the voyage diary. The annotations of the crossing, the daily register of the events and findings, and even the testaments of the dead, all of that was being consumed in flames.] Antunes realizes that his writing and his framing of Africans are nothing but a fabrication, a product of a colonial ethnocentric and Eurocentric mind. The act of burning the diaries is a rejection, a questioning of the colonial library and of history as told by only one side. It also represents his awareness and rejection of the extreme violence perpetrated by the Portuguese empire, a violence led by greed. Antunes thought that by burning the diaries he would erase the memories embedded in the dairies. Yet, he finds that the destruction of the diaries is not enough. Consequently, he decides to change his way of life:

8

For a discussion on the origins of scientific racism, see Curtis Keim “The Origin of Darkest Africa.”

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Chapter Two Ao princípio, acreditara que, lançando o diário de bordo nas chamas, ele se livraria desse passado. Aconteceu o inverso: o peso das vivências tinha-se tornado insuportável. Só há um modo de enfrentar as más lembranças: é mudar radicalmente de viver, decepar raízes e fazer as pontes desabarem” (302) [At first, he believed that by throwing the diary into the flames, he would get rid of the past. The opposite happened: the weight of his experiences had become unbearable. There is only one way of facing the painful memories: it is to change radically one’s way of life, cut the roots and make the bridges collapse].

On some level, this admission of guilt on the part of the colonial entity is a positive one that could potentially pave the way for change and possible forgiveness. In order for that to happen, however, the past must be dealt with rather than forgotten or avoided. In other words, one must realize one’s errors and then try to live in a more upright and ethical manner. The story of the black slave from the Congo, Nimi Nsundi, and the Indian slave, Dia Kumari, also reveal some aspects of the biological and cultural hybridity that is part of Mozambique, and to some extent, of Africa in general. Both slaves speak Portuguese and seem to accept some Christian religious principles, even though they have not forgotten their own languages and religions. They also seem to be aware that they have been oppressed by the colonial system that favours Eurocentric culture that that has been forced upon them. They mourn their loss of culture and regret having been taken away from their nations. They become romantically involved and Kumari becomes pregnant. Nsundi, however, commits suicide when he is about to be punished for cutting one of the feet of the stature of the Virgin Mary that is being carried on board. He seems to mistake the Virgin Mary with Mammy Water, the African water divinity commonly found in western, central, southern Africa and African diasporic religions, and known as Nzuzu in Mozambique. The act of equating Nzuzu with the Virgin Mary underscores the religious syncretism in which Christian religious statues become africanized. It is plausible that Nsundi always saw the Virgin Mary as the African divinity and never really converted to Christianity. His attempt to cut the foot of the statue of the Virgin Mary suggests that he intends to make the divinity African. Mammy Water is often described as resembling a mermaid with the lower part of her body in the shape of a fish or serpent. It is conceivable that, for Nsundi, cutting the foot of the Virgin’s statue is a way of restoring its

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Africanness, making her look like Nzuzu.9 Nsundi’s conflation of the Virgin and Nzuzu is further noted when he rescues the statue from the muddy shores of the river Mandovi as the ship leaves the Indian coast to go to the African coast. He bathes the saint in the water and says to Father Manuel: “Eu não estou a lavar a Santa. É ao contrário: a Santa é que está lavando a água, lavando o rio inteiro” (62) [I am not washing the Saint. It’s the other way around: it is the Saint that is washing the water, washing the entire river.] For Nsundi, just like Nzuzu, the Virgin Mary is also a goddess of the seas and has great powers over it. Mwadia’s decision at the end of the novel to return the saint to the river because she could not find a chapel in which to put her, is certainly based on the fact that, for her, the statue no longer symbolizes the Virgin Mary but something else: “[E]la dirigiu o concho para a margem e foi subindo a ravina, carregando com ela a Santa. Junto ao tronco, ela depositou a Virgem, se ajoelhou e disse— Você já foi Santa. Agora é sereia. Agora é nzuzu” (379-80) [S]he moved the canoe toward the shore and went up the ravine, carrying the Saint with her. She deposited the Virgin by the tree trunk, knelt down and said—You were a Saint before. Now, you are a mermaid. Now, you are Nzuzu.] The Virgin Mary has thus become another divinity, underscoring the adaptability of religion, of culture, the performativity of identity and the syncretic nature of culture. This interpretation also stresses the idea that things and people become many things throughout life, adapting to the environment, taking in what is “other” and becoming something and someone else. This change, this allowing of the “other” into ourselves is healthy, it is a way to grow, to learn and to expand our consciousness. It is a way of love, a way of loving, a “poetic of world” a “broad-mindedness” as Mbembe would put it (“Afropolitanism” 28, 29). To want to remain stubbornly in one’s own ways and in one’s own territory, disallowing the “other” to enter us, is to go against our need to connect, to form collectivity, to exit the lonely ego, the solitude that living is. It is also what creates conflict, wars and resentment. It is to give in to what Mbembe calls the “nativistic reflex” (“Afropolitanism” 28) and the claim to purity of race, ethnicity, and nationality, all of which reflect essentialist thinking. They are nothing but myths that become truths created out of the fear of the other and the need to control the other for the sake of power. The personal story of Nimi Nsundi also points to another aspect of African history that often is not discussed or is avoided: the involvement of Africans in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. His story debunks essentialisms 9

For information on the several manifestations of Mammy Water, see Solimar Otero and Toyin Falola, Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity in the Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas.

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and questions clear-cut categories of victim and victimized. Nsundi was sold to the Portuguese by Mbemba Nzinga, also known as Afonso I, king of Congo, who had converted to Catholicism in the late 1400s: [Nsundi] tinha sido capturado no Reino do Congo e enviado para Lisboa em troca de mercadorias que o Rei Afonso I, aliás Mbemba Nzinga, mandara vir de Portugal. Nsundi era um «trocado», uma moeda de carne. O homem custara uma espingarda, cem espoletas, cinquenta balas de chumbo, um barril de pólvora e uma pipa de cachaça. Em Lisboa, ele trabalhou arduamente, mas cedo revelou inaceitável rebeldia. Como medida correctiva enviaram-no para a Índia Portuguesa. Já em Goa, cumprira serviços domésticos, enquanto apurava os conhecimentos de português para servir de intérprete nas costas de África. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 63-64)10 [Nsundi] had been captured in the Congo Kingdom and sent to Lisbon in exchange for some merchandise that Nbemba Nzinga, or rather Afonso I, had asked to be brought from Portugal. Nsundi was an “exchanged person,” a coin of meat. The man had cost a gun, one hundred fuses, fifty lead bullets, a barrel of gunpowder and a barrel of cachaça. In Lisbon, he had worked very hard, although he had early on shown an unacceptable rebelliousness. As a corrective measure, they sent him to Portuguese India. In Goa, he worked as a domestic servant while perfecting his Portuguese language skills so that he could serve as an interpreter on the African coasts].

Although many scholars have written about the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, there are disagreements regarding whether Africans voluntarily took part in it or were directly and indirectly pushed into it. The question as to whether they also benefited from it on any substantial level is open to discussion. Many argue that the slave trade not only benefited Europe and the Americas, but also that it severely damaged Africa’s economy as well as its familial and social structures. The effects of that, they contend, are still present on the continent today. As David Northrup points out, Popular accounts of the Atlantic slave trade most commonly present Africans as victims and little else. Even African slave traders are usually cast in the role of victims, not eager participants: persons easily duped and 10 See David Northrup’s article, “Commerce and Culture,” and Adebayo Oyebade’s “Euro-African Relations to 1885” for relevant discussions on EuroAfrican commercial and cultural relations, including the Trans-Atlantic slave trade from, at least, the 15th Century to the late 19th Century and the important role of interpreters, cultural brokers and inter-racial marriages in commercial transactions.

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deceived by European slavers, naive persons caught up in the vicious machinery of a larger economy they could not begin to comprehend. From this perspective, only Ayuba's tragic enslavement is worthy of regard, not his role as a slave trader. The theme of Africans’ deception is even emphasized by as sophisticated a historian of Africa as the late Walter Rodney, who could not resist the cheap shot of insisting that “the majority of the imports were of the worst quality as consumer goods-cheap gin, cheap gunpowder, pots and kettles full of holes, beads, and other assorted rubbish.” A widely used textbook by the late Ghanaian historian Adu Boahen presents a rather more accurate tally of the goods Africans received “guns, gunpowder, calico, rum, beads, and iron and copper bars,” but still declares categorically, “The slave trade did not confer benefits of any kind on West Africa.” (55)

He continues, Nevertheless, most modern historians who have examined the mechanics of Africa's Atlantic exchanges agree that African traders and rulers expected to benefit from these transactions and worked hard to ensure they did. Deceit and trickery were rife on both sides, but Africans who sold slaves were no less successful than their European counterparts in getting exactly what they wanted at an acceptable price. Experienced European traders harbored no doubts about the trading skills of the Africans with whom they dealt. Indeed, they regularly complained about the prices they had to pay for each slave or other item, prices that rose more rapidly in Africa than they did in the Americas. It is possible to argue that Europeans got the better of these exchanges—but only in the long timeframes used by historians. It is much harder to make a convincing case that either Africans or Europeans believed they had the upper hand in these exchanges in the shorter timeframe of individual lives. (55)

While the goal in this case is not to settle this dispute, it appears as though both Mia Couto and David Northrup want to question clear-cut dichotomies of victim and victimized. While they may agree that most Africans were victims of this ugly trade, they point to the fact that African elites may have had much more agency and may have benefited much more from it than is generally acknowledged. Most of the second part of the novel’s narrative revolves around the arrival of the Afro-American couple, Benjamin Southman, and his supposed wife, Rosie Southman, who is originally from Brazil. A historian, Southman is involved with Save Africa Fund, a non-profit organization interested in investigating the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and understanding how it deeply affected Mozambique to the extent that it continues to be at the root of the country’s many problems. Southman comes equipped with specific

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questions to ask the locals. This set-up already illustrates a priori assumptions about Mozambique and the real reasons that the African continent continues to be in such a bad shape. Southman’s naiveté and lack of understanding are apparent. He does not, for example, know that slavery was practiced in Mozambique, as in many other parts of Africa, prior to the arrival of the Europeans. He seems to think that the TransAtlantic slavery practiced by the Portuguese was the only one that had affected the region. As Matambira tells Southman, however, the Vangunis did practice slavery and were, in fact, quite violent toward other groups of the region that they conquered and enslaved:11 11

The Vangunis are part of the general Nguni group (part of the Zulu group) of southern Eastern Africa who, in the early 19th Century, expanded their territories and conquered many groups living in Southern Mozambique (and other areas of what is now Zimbabwe and other countries of the area). The Nguni are known for being violent and oppressive toward the groups they conquered and enslaved. As was common in many parts of Africa, slavery was practiced either through traffic with other groups or by taking in the vanquished as slaves during wars and conflicts. The Vangunis came to southern Mozambique around 1830 conquering and controlling a large part of the country and terrorizing local populations (see “Pergunta sobre o romance O outro pé da sereia”). At the end of the 19th Century, the Portuguese were trying to secure their control over the colony of Mozambique as stipulated by the Berlin conference and for that reason were in conflicts with the British and Ngungunyane, the last powerful Nguni leader of the region who was defeated by the Portuguese colonial army led by Mouzinho de Albuquerque in 1895. It seems that Matambira is referring, in this case, to this battle and to the fact that local ethnic groups, including his own, worked alongside with the Portuguese to defeat Ngungunyane. For information on the formation of the Nguni empire in Mozambique, see Malyn Newitt, “The Time of Troubles: Droughts, the Slave Trade and the Nguni Invasions.” For details on the conflicts between Britain and Portugal about the control of parts of Mozambique, see Newitt, “Mozambique and the Scramble for Africa, 1879-1891.” The Chikunda are another group referred to in the novel as being involved in different types of slave trade in Mozambique and as having benefited from it. The Chikunda are a military group composed of many ethnic groups who were the slave military for the Portuguese but also ascended eventually to power and practiced forms of slavery. For more on the history of the Chikunda, see Allen, F. Isaacman and Barbara S. Isaacman, Slavery and Beyond: The Making of Men and Chikunda Identities in the Unstable World of SouthCentral Africa, 1750-1920. For information about the different types of slavery that existed in many parts of Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans, see Dirk Bezemer et al., “Indigenous Slavery in Africa’s History: Conditions and Consequences”; Rondal Segal, Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora; and Akosua Adoma Perbi, A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana from the 15th to the 19th Century.

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— Queríamos que nos dissessem tudo sobre a escravatura, desses tempos de sofrimento... — Ah, sim, sofremos muito com esses vangunis, disse Matambira. [...] — E diga-me: há lembrança do nome dos barcos que eles usavam? — Barcos? Eles não vinham de barco, vinham a pé. — Como a pé? Como é que transportavam a carga humana lá para a terra deles? — A terra deles era aqui, eles nunca saíram daqui. Nós somos filhos deles. […] — Diga-me, meu amigo, você está a falar dos portugueses? — Portugueses? Naquele tempo, nós éramos todos portugueses... — Está a falar dos brancos? — Estou a falar de pretos. Desculpe, de negros. — Mas fale desses negros, desses vangunis ... — Esses negros vieram do Sul e nos escravizaram, nos capturaram e venderam e mataram. Os portugueses, numa certa altura, até nos ajudaram a lutar contra eles... (O Outro Pé da Sereia 173-74) [—We wanted you to tell us everything about slavery, those times of suffering. . . —Oh, yes, we suffered a lot with the vangunis, said Matambira. —And tell me, is there a recollection of the types of boats they used? —Boats? They did not use boats, they came by foot. —What do you mean? How did they transport the human cargo to their own country? —Their country was here, they never left this place. We are their sons [. . .] —Tell me, my friend, are you speaking about the Portuguese? —The Portuguese? At the time, we were all Portuguese . . . —Are you speaking about whites? —I am speaking about the blacks. I am sorry, the negroes —Tell me, then, about those blacks, those vangunis… —Those blacks came from the South and they turned us into slaves, they captured us, sold us and killed —us. At a certain time, the Portuguese even helped us to fight against them . . .]

In this exchange, Matambira goes against Southman’s pre-set agenda and leaves him confused about the history of the region. Matambira himself does not have the memory or the prerequisite knowledge of the Trans-Atlantic slavery because he is not sufficiently informed about the continent’s history and also because of the time lapse between the present and the past. Both seem confused about the business of slavery and are unaware of the many types of slavery. Neither are they aware that slavery has been practiced in all parts of the world by all kinds of people. Of

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course, it is crucial to point out that Trans-Atlantic slavery was unique in its dehumanization of blacks, thanks to all the pseudo-scientific beliefs that were constructed to deem black peoples as inferior.12 In the abovecited exchange, one also notices that Matambira sees himself as a descendant of the Vangunis who were African slave traders. To that extent, he considers himself guilty or complicit in the exploitation of his own black people. His assertion regarding Portuguese help in the fight against the oppression of the Vangunis underscores the intricacies of history and the alliances between the two races, even if, as one would suspect, the Portuguese had their own interests in mind. As pointed out in note 11 above, they were likely aligning themselves with locals to get rid of the powerful Nguni leader in order to assert their monopoly over the Mozambican colony. Southman comes to Mozambique with a personal agenda. As an AfroAmerican, he suffers from the wounds of racial oppression in the United States and sees Africa as his true motherland, a land that had been taken away from him unfairly and forcefully with the advent of the TransAtlantic slave trade. He believes that he can find himself and feel truly at home in Africa: O avião fazia-se à pista e o americano agitava-se na cadeira: aquele era o momento há muito esperado. África, a sua África, ia ganhando desenho, um contorno próximo e real. Por fim, ele chegava à terra de onde há séculos os seus antepassados tinham sido arrancados pela violência da escravatura. Era preciso esse regresso para que Benjamin Southman, historiador afro-americano, se reconstituísse, ele que se sentia como um rio a quem houvessem arrancado a outra margem. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 161) [The plane approached the runway and the American moved in his seat: that was a long-awaited moment. Africa, his Africa, was beginning to gain shape: a close-up and real contour. At last, he was arriving at the place, from where, centuries ago, his ancestors had been forcefully uprooted through the violence of slavery. This return was necessary for Benjamin Southman, the Afro-American historian to feel complete, for he was a man who felt like a river whose other bank had been stolen]. 12

See Curtis Keim for a discussion on the emergence of scientific racism and its use to justify Trans-Atlantic slavery and European colonialism. It would be fair to say that the type of slavery practiced in Africa was more human and allowed for some freedom and sometimes even a way out of slavery or an incorporation into the extended family. See Akosua Adoma Perbi, A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana from the 15th to the 19th Century and Dirk Bezemer et al., “Indigenous Slavery in Africa’s History: Conditions and Consequences” for a discussion on forms of African indigenous slavery.

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Southman is quite unlike Father Manuel Antunes. While Antunes comes to understand that “to be black is not a race [but rather] a way of living” (301), that “race” is really “culture” and that biological differences are not responsible for behaviours, Southman is stuck in the essentialist biological, racialized paradigm. Using Mbembe’s words, Southman is presented as a prisoner of a form of “bio-racism (autochthons versus the non-natives)” (“Afropolitanism” 28). As Luís Madureira notes in his study of Mia Couto’s O outro pé da sereia, The pan-Africanist discourse of identity that Southman reproduces uncritically is, as Paul Gilroy remarks, peculiar to the history of the struggle over race and racisms in the United States. For Gilroy, “this U.S.centric discourse is animated not by a confrontation with racism(s) or even racialized hierarchy but its extreme attachments to a reified notion of race. Race becomes above all an experiential and therapeutic question that identifies a zone of feeling and being that is considered to be emphatically prior to all merely political considerations” (Postcolonial 145). In Couto's more pointed terms, to ally oneself to another because one “belongs to the same race is not only mistaken but historically unproductive” (Pensatempos 87). (215)13

Through several orchestrated scenes, Chico Casuarino, one of the most important characters in the novel, tries to recreate the authentic Africa that Southman had imagined existed. Mwadia, Jesustino, Constança, Matambira and other inhabitants of Vila Longe become the actors, who, under the instructions of Casuarino, act out this imagined Africa. Like a theater unfolding before our eyes, the Africa that Southman wanted to see and experience is revealed and recreated by Couto with highly sardonic undertones. In this performance, dreams that carry messages from the ancestors, spirit possessions sessions, invented and recollected stories of 13

Of course, we must not forget that Southman’s way of seeing himself as a racialized person is tied to his own milieu in which he has had to affirm a difference, an otherness, that should be as valid as the Sameness (whiteness) that has declared itself as superior and dehumanized him. Therefore, race does matter in this context, since Southman has been constructed by a white majority as an “Other” who is less than the Same (the white). See W. E. B. Du Bois, The Soul of Black Folk, and Cheryl Sterling, “Race Matters: Cosmopolitanism, Afropolitanism and PanAfricanism via Edward Wilmot Blyden.” Thus, it may be that, while one should strive for a non-biologized way of seeing oneself, one’s context may continue to impede that endeavor, making one prisoner of one’s racialized body and victim of all the corresponding consequences. The current U.S. police-shooting of black males and the Black Lives Matter movement are indications of the still highly— biologized—world we live in.

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slavery, traditional healers and oral storytelling, are all carefully staged for the Americans. —Nós vamos contar uma história aos americanos. Vamos vender-lhes uma grande história. E Casuarino mandou o seguinte: eles que se preparassem para escavar nos antigamentes e retirar de lá um antepassado agrilhoado, um tetravô arrancado da terra e embarcado para além do Atlântico. O vizinho Matambira, inocente, ainda resistiu: burlar alguém com os vivos ainda ia que não ia. Mas fazer uso dos falecidos? (O Outro Pé da Sereia 154) [—We are going to tell the Americans a story. We are going to sell a great story. And Casuarino ordered the following: that they prepare themselves to search into the past and dig from there a story about an ancestor shackled, a great-great-grandfather torn from the land and shipped to the other side

of the Atlantic. The neighbour Matambira naïvely tried to resist: to cheat someone using those who are alive could be more or less acceptable. But to use the ancestors?] Through this sardonic representation of an invented Africa, Couto calls attention to the problem of believing in a tradition that is supposedly static and claims to tell the authenticity of a people. Elena Brugioni highlights this misrepresentation when she remarks that “o interesse, ou melhor, a originalidade da proposta coutiana detecta-se, especialmente, nas dinâmicas de subversão de uma visão dicotómica entre uma África pré-colonial, estática e tradicional, e uma outra, moderna e dinâmica, moldada, ou melhor, inventada pelo colonialismo, neste caso, português.” (50) [the interest, or better yet, the originality of the Coutian proposition can be seen especially in the dynamics of the subversion of the dichotomous vision between a pre-colonial Africa, traditional and static, and another one, modern and dynamic, molded, or better yet, invented by colonialism, in this case Portuguese colonialism].

It is worthwhile to remember that the construction, creation, and invention of a monolithic African tradition were a colonial ploy designed to control the African people and to create clear binaries of the existence between Africa and Europe. This strategy, which was convenient to the success of the colonial enterprise, reinforced the idea that Africa was stuck in

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tradition and was, therefore, ahistorical and needed to be brought into history, into civilization by the colonial saving agents.14 In his 2002 speech on African authenticity and non-authenticity in Cape Town, South Africa, Couto voiced his aversion to the idea of a static tradition or a clear separation between modernity and tradition: The defenders of African purity redouble their efforts to find essence. Some set off to prospect in the deep past. Others seek to situate African authenticity in the rural tradition, as if the modernity that Africans are inventing in the urban areas weren’t itself similarly African. This restricted and restrictive vision of what is genuine may well be one of the main reasons why literature in Africa is viewed with suspicion. Literature goes hand in hand with modernity. And we lose our “identity” if we cross the frontier out of traditionalism: that’s what the preconceived notions of the hunters of ethnic and racial virginity tell us. The opposition between the traditional—seen as the pure, uncontaminated side of African culture—and the modern is a false contradiction, for the rural cosmovision is equally the product of exchanges between different cultural worlds. The vast majority of young people from the rural culture of my country dream of being Michael Jackson or Eddie Murphy. In a word, they dream of being black Americans.15 (Pensativities 24-25)

Indeed, this recreation of tradition, as amply done by Casuarino and his performers, is nothing but the production of a commodity created for the satisfaction of the West. It signals how in the neo-liberal global era Mozambicans find new ways of generating business by tapping into a globalized market and its demands. Among such demands are not only Western fantasies of what is considered to be African but also what Africa needs. Entrepreneurs such as Casuarino benefit from NGO businesses that now proliferate in Africa. The sometimes not-for-profit business conducted by NGOs constitutes what some have labelled a new neocolonialism engendered by a plethora of Western agencies coming to “save” Africa and Africans and to impose Western-driven agendas of developmentalism. Nevertheless, the hollowness of these agendas is not 14

For more information about the invention of tradition by colonial authorities and the supposed a-historicity of Africa, see Achille Mbembe, “The Long Dogmatic Sleep,” and Terence Ranger, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa.” 15 The Nigerian writer Chimamanda N. Adichie has voiced similar positions in her Ted Talk “The Danger of a Single Story.” She recalls a Western Professor telling her that one of her stories was not African (authentic), for it did not depict poverty and other typical African stereotypical tropes that the West tends to associate with an authentic Africa. The Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina also discusses similar issues in his satirical piece, “How to Write About Africa.”

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lost to savvy businessmen such as Casuarino: “— Sim, e você, meu caro barbeiro [...], você podia criar uma ONG para apoio às comunidades, isso é coisa que está a dar.” (153) [—Yes, and you, my dear barber, you are going to create an NGO to support the communities, that is something that is now quite rentable.] Casuarino’s remarks highlight a fairly widespread phenomenon in Africa: the existence of briefcase NGOs, established by people who pretend they are actually doing work in the community but use the received funds for their own benefit.16 Casuarino has no intention of using the money he received from the Americans to help the community. He plans to pocket it and give some to the people involved in the staging of Africanness for the Afro-American couple. It is important to mention that it is not only astute individuals such as Casuarino who exploit the present by adapting the past traditions to the times and staging an African tradition. Lázaro Vivo, the traditional healer, a remnant of the professed traditional society, also adapts to the times. His change goes to underscore the evolution of tradition and the historicity of Mozambique: O compadre Lázaro refugiara-se no monte Camuendje desde que a Revolução perseguira os Curandeiros. [. . .] Recordava-se bem de Lázaro Vivo, o adivinho. O homem se convertera numa figura mítica desde que, aquando do enchimento da albufeira de Cahora Bassa, ele se recusara a abandonar a sua velha casa. — Fico a fazer companhia aos mortos, teimara. [. . .] A mulher se espantou: o adivinho mudara de aparência dos pés à cabeça. As tranças deram lugar a um cabelo curto e penteado de risca, a túnica fora substituída por uma blusa desportiva. Debaixo do braço trazia uma tabuleta... [onde se lia]: “Lázaro Vivo, notável das comunidades locais, curandeiro e elemento de contacto para ONGs”. (O Outro Pé da Sereia 2728) [Comrade Lázaro took refuge in mount Camuendje at the time when the revolution started to persecute the medicine men [. . .] [Mwadia] remembers Lázaro Vivo, the traditional healer very well… The man had

16

There is a wide range of evidence pointing to the fact that the work of NGOs in Africa has not benefited the people who most need help. This situation can be attributed to a number of factors: the agendas of these NGOs are driven by Western values and do not sufficiently take into account local contexts, needs and solutions, and the institutional local mechanisms to prevent misuse of NGO funds are often not in place and so these funds end up on the hands of government officials or other middlemen who use them for their own benefit, etc. See Robert Pinkney, NGOs, Africa and the Global Order; John Hearn, “African NGOs: The New Compradors?”; and Eugenia Lee, “Donor Funding and Briefcase NGOs.”

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become a mythical figure ever since the Cahora Bassa dam had filled; he had refused to leave his old house. I am staying to keep company to the dead, he stubbornly said. [. . .] The woman was stunned: the appearance of the healer had changed from head to toe. The braids had given place to a short and striped hairstyle, the tunic had been substituted by a sporty shirt. Underneath his arm he carried a signboard… [that read] “Lázaro Vivo, notable individual of the local communities, healer and contact person for NGOs].

During the orchestrated scenes of Africanness displayed for the AfroAmericans, Lázaro Vivo appears once more transformed, looking like in the old days before the revolution. It should be noted that Frelimo, Mozambique’s Liberation Front and the party that took power at independence from Portugal in 1975, combated Mozambican cultural elements that were deemed obscurantist, traditionalist and tribalist. These attributes were deemed problematic and contrary to the modernist and rational ideals of the “new man” and “new nation,” a new kind of Mozambicanness. It is for this reason that Lázaro Vivo had to hide in mount Camuendje.17 In this sense, Vivo’s hideout is a resistance to the modernism and technological development that the Marxist revolutionary leaders represent and, perhaps, also a resistance to colonial powers since the Cahora Bassa started to be built in 1965 thought it only began to be filled after independence agreement had been signed in 1974.18 The performative changes of the “nyanga’” signify the dynamism of tradition-the rejection of the idea that tradition is static--and the insertion of Mozambique and, for that matter, Africa into the normal historical process. Resorting to Bhabha’s notion of negotiated identities, Elena Brugioni notes: [E]ste romance coutiano configura-se, mais uma vez, como uma prática de desmistificação dos que poderão ser definidos como os mitos da tradição e da autenticidade, colocando num aspecto social e cultural tal como é o da 17

For a discussion on how the Frelimo framed the new post-colonial nation and its rhetoric of modernism, see Lee Skjon and Christopher Stroud. Frelimo’s ideology could be considered as a new type of colonialism, since it was based on Marxist exogenic paradigms that discarded cultural differences and literally constructed a new nation that paid little or no attention to local socio-political paradigms and ways of life. 18 On this affirmation, see also Elena Brugioni. For more on the construction of the dam, its controversies and how it affected the lives and cultivation of land by local people, see Allen Isaacmann and Chris Sneddon, “Portuguese Colonial Intervention, Regional Conflict and Post-Colonial Amnesia: Cahora Bassa Dam, Mozambique 1965–2002.”

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It can be argued that Lázaro Vivo, the person, and his name, which literally means “Living Lazarus,” symbolize a renascence, a transformation or adaptation of old cultural practices and powers into the new world order. He is a Lazarus Vivo: the one who brings to life old and dead practices. He is the person whose identity constantly refashions itself. Like the biblical Lazarus, he rises from the dead continually, refusing a permanent death, showing resilience and individual agency. Mia Couto has stated that one of the main objectives in this novel is to question single grand-narratives, be they the narratives of the colonizer or those of the postcolonial elites that often are also interested in foregoing nuances and ambivalence and present simple and dichotomous accounts of history, of losers and winners, victims and victimizers. Literature, as presented within the context of The Other Foot of The Mermaid, becomes a site that contests historical accounts and the truthfulness of all nationalistic historical narratives. History, as is often the case, is manipulated by the different elites in power in order to obscure the complexity of the political processes and to hand over power and legitimacy to a specific group of people or nation. In the worst case scenario, it is to construct a nationalistic postcolonial narrative of greatness. In Couto’s own words:19 19

For a discussion on how post-colonial African elites and African nationalist historiographers “searched for, invented, and celebrated African heroes” (241), see Toyin Falola in Nationalism and African Intellectuals. This topic of historical revision, historical fabrication by postcolonial elites and the questioning of clear-cut dichotomies as pertaining to victim and victimizer via the use of literature is a common trope and preoccupation in Couto’s writing. See, for example, the short

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Uma das ideias que está subjacente a este livro [O outro pé da sereia] é a de revisitar a história com um outro olhar; um olhar que interroga e que coloca em causa aquilo que são as construções ou as mistificações que se fizeram da nossa própria história e a nossa é uma história perigosamente mistificada. Eu sei que os mitos fundadores das nações têm que estar lá e a gente não pode interrogá-los de um ponto de vista do rigor histórico mas estes nossos servem, por um lado, para a construção da nação mas, ao mesmo tempo, servem de lugar para uma certa elite que depois quer apagar o espírito crítico. No fundo esta elite de hoje está prolongando o que foi o papel de outras elites anteriores e estas elites anteriores foram cúmplices de muita coisa e hoje se coloca esta posição imaculada de que os africanos todos foram vítimas, nenhum teve culpa e isto é uma coisa que nos imobiliza e paralisa. (Couto, qtd in Brugioni 51) [One of the ideas that run through this book [The Other Foot of the Mermaid] is that we must revisit history from another perspective, one that interrogates and questions the constructions and mystifications that we have made about our own history because our history is a dangerously mystified one. I know that the founding myths of nations have to be there and we cannot interrogate them from a rigorous historical prism, but those myths of ours serve to, on one hand, construct the nation, and at the same time are being used by a certain elite that wants to erase the critical spirit. Deep down, that elite of today is prolonging what had been the role of preceding elites and those elites were accomplices in many things although today there is this idea that Africans were all victims, that none were guilty and that is something that immobilizes and paralyses us].

What is at stake, then, is to deploy literature as a tool to question all historical narratives. Literary accounts offer a multiplicity of voices and question single narratives as they display many points of view while highlighting the complicity of all groups involved in the framing of historical events. It is through such a process that one begins to understand true knowledge and its possible attainment. “Stories” are important, perhaps, even more so than “History.” They represent the variety of versions, the relativity of truth and, by so doing, give voice to those who are often excluded from conventional historical accounts. stories, “A derradeira morte da estátua de Mouzinho” and “As medalhas trocadas.” Moreover, as Couto himself has indicated, his last book, Mulheres de Cinza, deals precisely with the issue of historical veracity and the “histories” put forward by the colonial powers about the so-called mightiness of Mouzinho de Albuquerque and also the subsequent narratives about Ngungunyane’s heroism by the post-colonial national elites and historians. See “Mia Couto: Mulheres de Cinza” and “Mia Couto, Fnac Chiado, 20/10/2015. Apresentação do seu novo livro, Mulheres de Cinza.”

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O outro pé da sereia shows clearly the power of the literary narrative to add to historical truth or to correct historical accounts. In a scene where Mwadia and her mother Constança read the historical documents and the books about the history of Vila Longe and their families, one notices that both mother and daughter seem to add their own stories to those historical accounts. Their own interpretations and understanding of what the texts they read and hear mean, and what they remember being told about the events, amplify the overall understanding of that history. Constança may have been illiterate towards papers, but she knew of things so deep that she could not even understand them well. She knew, for example, that there is no knowing without remembering. But knowledge is something that fools you. And remembrance is a lie. Constança knew all of this when she asked her daughter the following: — Agora, leia para mim. Eu também quero ir nessa viagem... E foi assim que, mãe e filha, passaram a ocultar-se no bafiento sótão por tempos tão compridos que só seriam suportáveis se, naquele obscuro nicho, elas estivessem criando um outro tempo, só delas as duas. Em voz alta, Mwadia lia trechos inteiros sobre a história de Vila Longe, lia relatórios de contas da administração colonial, lia cópias de despachos dos governadores, correspondência oficial e anotações de viagens. A mãe, por vezes, adormecia. Se a filha, contudo, interrompesse a leitura, ela despertava e, com voz arrastada, encorajava: — Prossiga. Por que é que parou? (O Outro Pé da Sereia 279) [—Now, read for me, my daughter. I also want to take that voyage… And like this, mother and daughter spent days hiding out in the musty attic and they would not have been able to spend so much time in that obscure nest unless they were creating another time, a time belonging only to both of them. In a loud voice, Mwadia would read whole excerpts about the history of Vila Longe, she would read colonial administration financial reports, governors’ copies of dispatches, official correspondence and annotations of voyages. The mother would sometimes fall asleep. However, if the daughter interrupted the reading, she would wake up and in a dragged voice, would encourage her: — Continue. Why did you stop?].

Constança is cognizant of the fact that both oral and written historical narratives could be suspect. So are memory, knowledge and truth. Constança, who cannot read or write, is interested in knowing history as it was written down. Yet, she knows she cannot trust fully what has been written. Neither can she trust her own memory and the stories that she has heard all her life about truth and history in the oral tradition. She intuits that what is truth is affected by our capacity to remember via memory,

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what could be misleading and create realities that never existed. She seems aware of that penchant to practice what Ali Mazrui refers to as “positive preservation of memory” or “amnesia”—the tendency that a nation or a person has to remember only certain things and to obliterate others.20 Indeed, the revisiting of history by mother and daughter is a recreation of history. It is a history that intermingles stories designed to combat the single, grand and accurate narrative that History purports to be. Mia Couto is not kind to the Portuguese colonizers in The Other Foot of the Mermaid. He depicts their violence towards the slaves, their greed for power and wealth, and their Eurocentric deluded civilizing and Christianizing mission ideals. Yet, at the same time, the author questions clear-cut dichotomies. He presents us with multifaceted truths. He revisits and rewrites history, depicting and confronting the visions and stories of different people. Through this representation, he underscores the fact that historical grievances between Africa, Europe and America and the forging of healthier race-relations require a revisiting of the past. They involve the acceptance of guilt by the many parties involved. It is only then that one can move on to a future that does not forget the past but is capable of creating a present that is not perpetually stuck in the past—a future not bound to a single story of oppression and suffering related to European colonization and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Most importantly, it is a recognition that European colonialism is not the only factor that has affected the continent’s trajectory. African people can escape the tentacles of colonialism and forge a new and positive history that demonstrates agency. Hegel’s misguided assertion that Africa “is no historical part of the World” and that “it has no movement or development to exhibit” (Hegel, qtd in Pelczynski 187) is undermined by the fact that Africans are and .

20 Ali Mazrui has suggested that, in order to get “our history right” or at least “less wrong,” it is important to step away from nation-building projects that are founded on a historical myopic and reductive lens that seeks to preserve only positive memory and eliminate the rest. He affirms:

[I]n the broader and historical context of the encounters between Africans and Europeans – the role of collective memory [has] four functions of preservation, selection, elimination and invention. [P]ositive preservation of memory can become a form of nostalgia and negative selection by memory can lead to elimination and amnesia. [B]oth nostalgia and amnesia can be forms of “getting one’s history wrong” in order to get one’s national identity right. [Moreover] historical invention can be consolidated into a false memory—placing something in the past which was never there before. (13)

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have always been fully inserted in history. They have always had and made their own history despite the devastating long-lasting effects of European colonization. To a large extent, Couto seems to be combating the Afro-pessimism that was prevalent in the late 80s and 90s. It was a pessimism that saw Africa as a place riddled with problems without hope for change. Undoubtedly, the author does not believe that the solution to Mozambique’s and, by extension, Africa’s problems, lies in the hands of outsiders. Mozambique, and Africa in general, have always been places of movement, of cultural and biological miscegenation, an “afropolitan” cosmos, to use Mbembe’s term. Mbembe: [I]t is not simply that a part of African history lies elsewhere, outside Africa. It is also that a history of the rest of the world, of which we are inevitably the actors and guardians, is present on the continent. Our way of belonging to the world, of being in the world and inhabiting it, has always been marked by, if not cultural mixing, then at least the interweaving of worlds, in a slow and sometimes incoherent dance with forms and signs which we have not been able to choose freely, but which we have succeeded, as best we can, in domesticating and putting at our disposal. (“Afropolitanism” 28)

The novel’s title speaks to the many sides or versions of history: the fact that historical events are always more complex and more nuanced than they may appear, that dualities of complete victim and victimizer, good and bad, civilized and uncivilized, traditional and modern, African and European, are inadequate. They never tell the full story. Consequently, they need to be deconstructed and revised. The two citations at the beginning of this study accentuate the need for the self to cross boundaries. The self needs to find “home” everywhere in the world without necessarily attaching itself to a single physical place. In part, this is the message that Couto may have been passing on to characters such as Southman, Mwadia and others in the novel: battles of “autochthony” that are tied to essentialist thinking of all sorts abound and continue to be the source of much destruction and death. For Couto, the self does not have to be affiliated with a single cultural, ethnic, racial or national paradigm. The self needs to be attached to a place and detached from it at the same time. Put differently, claiming sole possession of a place is foreign to our ontological call that seeks connection, sharing, relationality and mobility. That ontological call requires that the self conceive of itself as part of the other. Accomplishing this requirement may be a way to find peace, solace and “home” outside of this bloody world, this house that divides, reduces and tries to annihilate our complexity and ontological longing to become global, mobile, fluid, transitional, cosmic

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dwelling citizens. With the advent of the likes of Donald Trump who seem to be invading our world and polluting it with their divisive ethnic, racialized and nationalistic paradigms, more than ever, this is the time to defend and to advocate unbound citizenship.

Bibliography Adichie, Chimamanda. 2009. “The Dangers of a Single Story.” TED. London. You Tube. Web. 19 Nov. 2016. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg. Berendt, Stephen. 1999. “Transatlantic Slave Trade.” Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, edited by Henry Louis Gates and Anthony Appiah. New York: Basic Civitas Books. 1865-1877. Print. Bezemer, Dirk, Jutta Bolt and Robert Lensink. Accessed 18 Nov. 2016. “Indigenous Slavery in Africa’s History: Conditions and Consequences http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.410.6047&r ep=rep1&type=pdf Brookshaw, David. “Indianos e o Índico: o pós-colonialismo transoceânico em O Outro Pé da Sereia.” Moçambique: das palavras escritas. Orgs. Margarida Calafate Ribeiro e Maria Paula Meneses. Porto: Edições Afrontamento. 129-39. Print. Brugioni, Elena. 2012. “O outro pé da sereia: História[s] na póscolonialidade.” Luso-Brazilian Review. 49.1. 46-62. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/lbr.2012.0003. Accessed 12 Nov. 2016. Couto, Mia. 2001. “A derradeira morte da estátua de Mouzinho.” Cronicando. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho.161-163. Print. —. 2015. “A Sea of Exchange, an Ocean of Myths.” Pensativities: Essays and Provocations.Translated by David Brookshaw. Biblioasis: Windsor, ON. 183-86. Print. —. 2016. “As medalhas trocadas.” Cronicando. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho. 97-100. Print. —. 2000. “Identidade.” Raíz de Orvalho e Outros Poemas. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho.13. Print. —. 2016. “Mia Couto, Fnac Chiado, 20/10/2015. Apresentação do seu novo livro Mulheres de Cinza.” Out 10 You Tube. Accessed 11 Nov. 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNqFz2aZnGQ —. 2016. “Mia Couto: Mulheres de Cinza.” You Tube. Accessed 10 Nov. 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcgOjEjLHsI. —. 2006. “Pergunta sobre o romance O outro pé da sereia.” Received by Irene Marques, 20 July, 2006.

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—. 2015. “What Africa Does the African Writer Write About?” Pensativities: Essays and Provocations. Trans David Brookshaw. Biblioasis: Windsor, ON. 23-27. Print. —. 2016. Mulheres de Cinza. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho. Print. —. 2006. O outro pé da sereia. Lisboa: Editorial Caminho. Print. —. 2015. Pensativities: Essays and Provocations. Trans David Brookshaw. Biblioasis: Windsor, ON. Print. Du Bois, W. E. B. 1994. The Soul of Black Folk. New York: Dover Publications Inc. Print. Falola, Toyin. 2001. Nationalism and African Intellectuals. Rochester, N.Y: University of Rochester P. Print. Edward Wilmot Blyden. 2016. Accessed 18 Nov. 2016. https://www.academia.edu/12694620/Race_Matters_Cosmopolitanism _Afropolitanism_and_Pan-Africanism_via_Edward_Wilmot_Blyden Hearn, Julie. November 2007. “African NGOs: The New Compradors?” Development and Change 38. 6. 1095-110. Print. Isaacman, Allen and Barbara S. 2004. Isaacman. Slavery and Beyond: The Making of Men and Chikunda Identities in the Unstable World of South-Central Africa, 1750-1920. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Print. Isaacman, Allen and Chris Sneddon. 2003. “Portuguese Colonial Intervention, Regional Conflict and Post-Colonial Amnesia: Cahora Bassa Dam, Mozambique 1965– 2002.” Portuguese Studies Review 11. 1. 207–36. Print. Keim, A. Curtis. 2009. “The Origin of Darkest Africa.” Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind. Boulder, CO; Westview Press. 35-48. Print. Lee, Eugenia. 29 January 2014. “Donor Funding and Briefcase NGOs.” Insight on Conflict. Accessed 10 Nov. 2016. https://www.insightonconflict.org/blog/2014/01/donor-fundingbriefcasengos/ Lévinas, Emmanuel. 1969. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh, PA.: Duquesne UP. Print. Madureira, Luís. 2008. “Nation, Identity and Loss of Footing: Mia Couto’s O Outro Pé da Sereia and the Question of Lusophone Postcolonialism.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction. 41. 2/3 Print. Marques, Irene. 2016. “Spaces of Magic: Couto’s Relational Practices.” A Companion to Mia Couto. Eds. Grant Hamilton and David Huddart. Suffolk: James Currey. 64-85. Print. —. Summer/Fall 2015 “The Way/s of ‘Poetry’: The Contracting and Expanding Self in the Writing of Mia Couto.” JALA: Journal of the African Literature Association. 9. 2. 75-111. Print.

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—. 2011. Transcultural Discourses on Class, Gender, and Cultural Identity. West Lafayette: Purdue UP. Print. Marzui A. Ali. 2013. “Cultural Amnesia, Cultural Nostalgia and False Memory: Africa’s Identity Crisis Revisited.” African and Asian Studies. 12.1-2. 13-19. Print. Mbembe, Achille. 2005. “Afropolitanism.” Trans. Laurent Chauvet. Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. Ed. Njami Simon and Lucy Durán. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz. 26–30. Print. —. 2015 and 2016. “The Internet is Afropolitan.” Chimurenga Chronicle. 17 March 2015. Web12 Nov 2016. http://chimurengachronic.co.za/theinternet-is-afropolitan —. 2001.“The Long Dogmatic Sleep.” On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press. 3-9. Print. Mudimbe, Y. Valentin. 1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana UP. Print. Newitt, Malyn. 1995. “Mozambique and the Scramble for Africa, 18791891.” London: Hurst & Company. 317-55. Print. —. 1995. “The Time of Troubles: Droughts, the Slave Trade and the Nguni Invasions.” London: Hurst & Company. 243-97. Print. Northrup, David. 2002. “Commerce and Culture.” Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1450 – 1850. New York: Oxford UP. 54-81. Print. Olupona, K. Jacob. 2014. “Worldview, Cosmology, and Myths of Migration.: African Religions: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford UP. 1-19. Print. Otero, Solimar and Toyian Falola (eds). 2013.Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity in the Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas. Albany: SUNY Press. Print. Oyebade, Adebayo. 1971. “Euro-African Relations to 1885.” Africa, Volume 1: Africana History Before 1885. Ed. Toyan Falola. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. 413-31. Print. Pelczynski, Z. A. (Ed). Hegel's Political Philosophy: Problems and Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Print. Perbi. A. Akosua. 2004. A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana from the 15th to the 19th Century. Legon, Accra, Ghana: Sub-Saharan Publishers. Print. Pietrse, N. Jan. 1995.White on Black: Images of Africans and Blacks in Western Popular Culture. New Haven: Yale UP. Print. Pinkney, Robert. 2009. NGOs. Africa and the Global Order. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print. Ranger, Terence. 2012. “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa.” The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 211-60. Print.

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Ricoeur, Paul. 1955. Histoire et Vérité. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Print. Rothwell, Phillip. 2004. A Postmodern Nationalist: Truth, Orality, and Gender in the Work of Mia Couto. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP. Print. Segal, Segal. 2001. Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Print. Skjon, Lee. 2002. “The Vanguardist Imperative, Statement of Nation, and the Language Question in Mozambique’s Sociedade Nova, 1975-85.” Paper presented at the Semiotics Workshops, University of Chicago, January 10th, 2002. Permission to quote and cite obtained from the author. http://cas.uchicago.edu/workshops/semiotics/E.%20Lee%20Skjon%20 Semiotics%20Paper%20on%20Mozambique-01-10-02.doc. Sterling, Cheryl. 2015. “Race Matters: Cosmopolitanism, Afropolitanism and Pan-Africanism Via Edward Wilmot Blyden” in The Journal of Pan-African Studies, Vol. 8.1 June. Stroud, Christopher. 1999. “Portuguese as Ideology and Politics in Mozambique: Semiotic (Re)construction of a Postcolony.” Language Ideological Debates. Ed. Jan Blommaert. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 443-80. Print. Wainaina, Binyavanga. 2006. “How to Write About Africa.” Granta 92. Jan 19 Jan. Web 11 Nov 2016 https://granta.com/how-to-write-aboutafrica/

CHAPTER THREE RACIAL IDENTITY IN THE 1930S URBAN LANDSCAPE IN THE NOVELS OF JORGE AMADO, JOSÉ LINS DO REGO AND LÚCIO CARDOSO STEVEN SLOAN

Abstract This paper discusses the symbolic role of the city and the underlying racial implications in two Brazilian novels published in 1935: José Lins do Rego’s O Moleque Ricardo and Lúcio Cardoso’s Salgueiro. Despite the miserable and dangerous conditions in which the protagonists of both novels live they are compelled to stay in their respective slums rather than venture below into the city. Critics tend to see Lins do Rego and Cardoso as examples of two opposing literary trends in which the former represents a literary regionalism with politically leftist implications and the latter representing more conservative values through his psychological novels. Both novels are concerned with urban issues, racial consciousness and personal salvation.

Brazilian writers, whether black, white or mulatto, have faced great difficulties in breaking out of the usual stereotypes regarding race and race relations. By the end of the First Republic (1889-1930), Brazil had in its repertoire of literary tradition a variety of movements that highlighted racial relations, including Indianism, Naturalism and Modernism. Indeed, Brazilian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries assumed the role of mediators in the creation and evolution of a national identity (Silva and Carvalho 250). In assuming this role, writers mitigated the stereotypical portrayal of marginalized groups such as indigenous peoples and AfroBrazilians while, often inadvertently, reinforcing the very stereotypes they sought to eliminate. As a national identity slowly took shape, AfroBrazilian characters in works of fiction continued to be portrayed as

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exotic, erotic and immoral. Even when they were portrayed in a positive light, they tended to fit squarely into existing stereotypes. Such was the case of Cruz e Sousa, the nineteenth-century Afro-Brazilian poet, who defended blacks but, ultimately, understood white as advantageous both socially and esthetically. The same can be said about Jorge de Lima, the light mulatto poet of the 1920s and 1930s, who emphasized physical sexuality in his writing in a way that, in the end, caricatured black Brazilians. Indeed, while Brazilian Modernists of the 1920s engaged in a well-intentioned primitivism based on black and indigenous people, their works were, nevertheless, reminiscent of the Indianists of Brazilian Romanticism of the nineteenth century who had created the myth of the Indian as the “noble savage.” It must be recalled that the Indianists had sought to create a national consciousness based on a romanticized ideal of an autochthonous substratum without denying the superiority of European culture. For such writers as José de Alencar, the Indians were not marginalized members of society but rather primitivist material from which writers could develop their notion of national consciousness. Although in contrast to the Indianists, Brazilian Modernists largely rejected European cultural values, they, nonetheless, shared similar sentiments like the Indianists and saw in the Indian and in the Negro an exotic “embodiment of the counterculture” (Brookshaw 91). In works such as Oswald de Andrade’s “Manifesto Antropófago,” for instance, the Negro is projected as desiring freedom from restraint of social values. According to David Brookshaw, de Andrade’s study did not demonstrate an “interest in the revindication of the Negro, but a questioning of ‘white’ Christian morality and a fascination for the ‘black’ forces of the subconscious which led to the new use of what was fundamentally an old stereotype. The Negro became a type of physical embodiment of our subconscious desires” (86). With the advent of the New Republic and the emergence of urban literature of the 1930s, key novelists, including Jorge Amado, José Lins do Rego and Lúcio Cardoso, adopted different strategies in regards to their depiction of racial relations in their works. In the early years of the New Republic that was characterized by intense urbanization and industrialization, Getúlio Vargas—President of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 until his death in 1954—sought to appease social tensions through populist measures designed to consolidate a national culture and to avoid disintegration into a class-based conflict and civil war.1 He used radio, 1

The first period can be divided into three parts, as Vargas served as interim president from 1930 to 1934, President from 1934 to 1937 and dictator from 1937 to 1945. He was ushered into power by way of a coup d’état, commonly referred to

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music and soccer, among other technological and cultural phenomena, to promote brasilidade (Brazilianness). Antonio Candido argues that the year Vargas came to power—1930—was a catalyst because it generated a movement of cultural unification by projecting, on a national level, things that were previously understood to be regional concerns (219). The creation of a national unity was already a priority of many artists and intellectuals of the Modernist movement of the 1920s. During the Vargas regime, it became an explicit objective of the government to promote this unity. Many intellectuals were co-opted by the State in order to disseminate political propaganda and to educate the masses according to the State’s interpretation of national unity. Vargas created the Departamento Oficial de Propaganda (DOP) [Official Department of Propaganda] in 1931, which was substituted by the Departamento de Propaganda e Difusão Cultural (DPDC) [Department of Propaganda and Cultural Diffusion] in 1934. Both departments were subject to bureaucratic procedures that limited their effectiveness, leading Vargas to substitute the DPDC with the Departamento de Imprensa e Propaganda (DIP) [the Press and Propaganda Department] in 1939 in order to disseminate the ideals of the New State and streamline censorship in an increasingly authoritarian fashion. The image of national identity that Vargas wanted to disseminate underlined the legacy of European racial and cultural contributions far more than that of indigenous and African peoples. Notwithstanding these efforts, urban literature of the 1930s reflected a wide variety of perspectives of racial relations that did not necessarily align with Vargas’s vision. Silva and Carvalho explain this important role that literature played during this time: No movimento de constituição da nacionalidade brasileira a literatura teve um papel fundamental. As obras literárias deste período apresentam elementos que realçam a nacionalidade, como por exemplo: a língua, a mestiçagem, o jeito de ser brasileiro. As produções intelectuais do século XX apresentam diferentes discursos sobre a identidade nacional e sobre seu processo de formação partindo de vários pressupostos, isso caracteriza

as the Revolution of 1930 and, similarly, he was ousted from power in 1945 by another coup d’état. In 1937, under the false pretense of a communist plot to overthrow the government, Vargas decreed a state of emergency and abolished the 1934 Constitution, according to which his four-year term as President would expire in 1938. In place of the 1934 Constitution, Vargas announced a new, authoritarian Constitution and proclaimed the establishment of the “Estado Novo” (New State), which was overtly inspired by Mussolini’s Italy.

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Chapter Three as tensões e debates da primeira metade do século XX a respeito da construção da identidade e memória do Brasil. (250) [During the movement of the formation of Brazilian nationality, literature played a fundamental role. Literary works of this period exhibit elements that stressed nationality, such as language, miscegenation and the Brazilian way of doing things. The intellectual output of the twentieth century shows different discourses on national identity and on its process of formation on the basis of various assumptions that characterize the tensions and debates of the first half of the twentieth century with respect to the construction of identity and memory in Brazil].2

The purpose of this study is to examine the symbolic role of the city and the underlying racial implications in three urban novels in order to illustrate the diverse forms of criticism of marginalization within the nationalistic project. The 1935 publications of Jubiabá by Jorge Amado, O Moleque Ricardo by José Lins do Rego, and Salgueiro by Lúcio Cardoso, offer unique perspectives on race relations through their Afro-Brazilian characters in Recife, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador da Bahia. Although Lins do Rego and Cardoso were white and were not particularly well known for their contributions to the debate on racial relations in Brazil, their novels, nevertheless, depict characters of African descent in surprisingly progressive ways compared to their predecessors and contemporaries who, despite their best intentions, fell into the usual stereotypes and myths they sought to challenge. Such is the case of Amado, who although was also white, exalted Afro-Brazilians and their contributions to Brazilian culture. Yet, he caricatures them and reinforces certain racial stereotypes. While Amado’s novel is arguably more problematic than the other two, it is also bolder in its attempt to depict Afro-Brazilians as agents of social change. Each of the three novels in this study positively contributed to a nuanced national debate on race relations that was far more complex than the image of cultural unity that Vargas sought to promote in the years leading up to the promulgation of the new Estado Novo Constitution in 1937, in which he dissolved political parties and concentrated executive power in the hands of the president. Amado addresses the issues of race and urban marginalization head-on by envisioning a historical trajectory in which black Bahian culture merges with class-based collectivism. Amado was born in 1912 in Itabuna, Bahia, but he spent his youth in Ilhéus before attending high school in Salvador and law school in Rio de Janeiro. He published his first novel, O 2

All translations from Portuguese to English in this study are my own.

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País do Carnaval [The Carnival Country], in 1931. He attained a great deal of fame and notoriety by celebrating and promoting black and mestiço [mulatto] culture in Brazil while openly sympathizing with leftist movements. His leftist activities led to his arrest in 1935 and his books being publicly burned in 1937. Describing the politics of cultural production under Vargas within which Amado wrote, Daryle Williams observes that, [T]he Revolution of 1930 opened possibilities to reconfigure the state’s role in the arts and entertainment, mass communication, and civic life. Nationalists allied with the Provisional Government urged the central government to assert the supremacy of a unified Brazilian nation over fractious regional cultures and unassimilated ethnic enclaves.

Amado’s fourth novel, Jubiabá, was a bildungsroman that openly challenged the official vision of national unity. In the bildungsroman genre, the protagonist typically experiences an intense loss that sets off a series of events that make it necessary for him (or, rarely, her) to flee. The protagonist’s life is immediately disrupted, and the resulting journey is both a psychological and a physical one. The loss either causes the protagonist’s social marginalization or aggravates a previously existing marginalization. The protagonist then passes through a series of trials that serve as life lessons. As he takes steps towards personal integration, he simultaneously makes progress in finding his way in society. In short, he overcomes his alienation and becomes a competent and integrated member of society. Mikhail Bakhtin notes that, in a bildungsroman, the protagonist’s “individual emergence is inseparably linked to historical emergence. He emerges along with the world and he reflects the historical emergence of the world itself” (23). Amado’s Jubiabá works within the bildungsroman framework, but it challenges this most basic characteristic of individual development coupled with historical emergence because the historical emergence has yet to come. The novel is a call-to-arms, a revolutionary invitation to entice readers into becoming agents of social change. It projects a utopian vision of society that is at odds with everyday reality. Despite the title, which is the name of a pai-de-santo (a male priest of Afro-Brazilian religions traditions such as macumba) and friend of the protagonist, the novel is mostly about António Balduíno, a marginalized black man from the outskirts of Salvador da Bahia. Balduíno’s marginalization is intense and multi-layered. He is black, poor, uneducated, and does not have a stable home. Orphaned by his parents, his mentally unstable aunt raises him until she is no longer able to do so. He is

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ultimately entrusted to a white, wealthy family. While he is not forced to work in slave-like conditions, it is nonetheless symbolic that he finds himself as a poor Black at the mercy of a commanding officer named Pereira, who happens to live on a street called Travessa Zumbi dos Palmares.3 For Balduíno, this is a mixed blessing. Although he loses what little home structure he had with the demise of his aunt, he does not suffer any overarching loss that sets him off on a road of suffering and redemption. Rather, he goes through a series of losses, beginning with the loss of his parents, his aunt and the corresponding loss of home structure when he is kicked out of the Pereira household and is forced to live on the streets. This is the loss that affects him the most, not because he finds himself living on the streets but because of a broken heart. Balduíno developed a close friendship with Pereira’s daughter, Lindinalva, while living in the Pereira household. For this decision, he had to endure numerous verbal attacks by Amélia, the racist Portuguese housekeeper who would commonly spout out slurs such as “Negro é raça ruim”; “Negro não é gente,” (54) [Blacks are degenerates; Blacks are not people], culminating in the accusation that Balduíno was improperly admiring the young Lindinalva. As a result, Balduíno is expelled from the household, and Lindinalva refuses to speak to him. This would haunt him for years to come. Despite having intimate relations with numerous women, he never gets Lindinalva out of his mind. “Dormisse com quem dormisse, era com Lindinalva que ele dormia” (244) [No matter whom he slept with, in his mind he was always with Lindinalva]. Balduíno’s expulsion from the Pereira household offers him a sense of freedom as a street urchin. Although he occasionally visited the big city of Salvador while still living with his aunt, he always felt like an outsider looking in. Suddenly, finding himself part of a gang of street kids with no one to answer to, he feels like the king of the city. Balduíno appreciates his freedom and does not feel compelled to conform to any social norms although there are a couple of persons he looks up to: Zé Camarão, a worker from the docks, and a musician who sings about standing up to injustice. “Zé Camarão tinha duas grandes virtudes para António Balduíno: era valente e cantava ao violão histórias de cangaceiros célebres.” (21) [Zé Camarão had two great virtues for António Balduíno: he was brave and he played guitar while singing about famous bandits of 3

Zumbi dos Palmares [Zumbi of Palmares], of African descent, was born free in 1655 in Brazil. He was enslaved as a child but escaped slavery as an adolescent. He then became a military strategist and the last king of the Quilombo dos Palmares, a settlement of runaway slaves in the present-day state of Alagoas, Brazil. He died in 1695 but is still revered as one of the great historic leaders of Brazil.

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the Brazilian Northeast]. Another role model is Jubiabá, the pai-de-santo [male priest] who gives him advice and teaches him about the African diaspora when he introduces him to the world of the Afro-Brazilian religious cult macumba. As the years go by, Balduíno experiences a number of trials and tribulations: his rise and fall as a boxer and his integration into a circus until that dissolves for financial reasons, and his involvement in a general strike through which he gains an appreciation for labour unions and class struggle. Throughout the novel, the narrator makes it painfully clear that Balduíno is a creature of instinct with limited intellect. However, his utter lack of sophistication is coupled with a personal conviction that he will not bow down to anyone. He is present when Zé Camarão addresses a group of co-workers and explains that slavery is still very much alive and that all poor people, whether black, white or mulatto, are essentially slaves. Balduíno is determined to find a way out of that predicament. “Os negros, os mulatos, os brancos, baixaram a cabeça. Só António Balduíno ficou com a cabeça erguida. Ele não ia ser escravo.” (39) [The blacks, the mulattoes, and the whites all bowed their heads. António Balduíno was the only one who held his head high, as he refused to be a slave]. At this point, an underlying task of the novel emerges: how to harness Balduíno’s wild rebelliousness and direct it towards a collective struggle to remedy social injustices directly related to the legacy of the African diaspora. Yet, he is handicapped. Balduíno is not capable of abstract thought, nor is he articulate. He is slow to acquire any points of reference that are not immediately tied to his surroundings. For many years, this state of being limits his thoughts and desires to just a few areas such as malandragem [trickery], boxing, mulatas [black or mulatto females], and music where he excels personally and socially. Paradoxically, these areas in which Balduíno shines correspond to common stereotypes of Afro-Brazilians. There are both positive and negative stereotypes of black malandros [rogues], just as there are both positive and negative stereotypes that purport a heightened sexual prowess of blacks. Mostly positive stereotypes of black athleticism and musicality abound as well. Nevertheless, the novel struggles with the next frontier for Afro-Brazilians: How can they move beyond these stereotypes? How can a poor black Bahian become a catalyst for social change? Before Balduíno can gain a sense of class consciousness, he must come to understand the plight of black Brazilians as a collective identity. He does this through a combination of instinct and initiation into religious syncretism. Having befriended Jubiabá, he has some insight into the world of macumba, but it is through the religious music that he is able to tap into

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something deeper. When he hears the drums from the terreiros (the places in which macumba rituals are held) he suddenly understands his personal struggle as part of an ongoing struggle of blacks on both sides of the Atlantic: “Era como que uma mensagem a todos os negros, negros que na África ainda combatiam e caçavam ou negros que gemiam sob o chicote do branco.” (113) [It was like a message to all blacks, those that were still being hunted in Africa and those that continued to wail under the white man’s whip]. In the bildungsroman model, the protagonist is expected to progress socially and intellectually through a series of life lessons. Accordingly, Balduíno gains an awareness of racial injustices and collective African identity from his priest friend Jubiabá during the macumba rituals. Still, that can only take him so far in terms of political awareness. It is only later on when he becomes involved in the general strike that he is able to attain an awareness for class struggle. Most of his life experiences strengthen and confirm his pre-existing biases, and he makes little effort to control his impulses of self-gratification. It is within this context that Amado falls into the trap of caricaturing and reinforcing racial stereotypes. A few examples will suffice. Walking one day with his friend Joaquim, Balduíno sees an unknown young couple and immediately stakes his claim on the young woman. Joaquim states the obvious, which is that she is already with someone. But Balduíno is already putting his diabolical plan into action. He pushes the young woman down in the street and proceeds to berate her viciously. The man with whom she was is surprised to see what he now believes to be the girl’s boyfriend, and he apologizes to Balduíno before running off. Once Balduíno and Joaquim get a good look at the young woman, they see she has teeth missing and is unattractive, but they have sex with her anyway, as if out of boredom. “Uma mulata desdentada bem clara, que nem valera a pena tanto esforço. Mas como não havia mesmo outra mulher, o jeito que tiveram foi levar a desdentada para o areal. António Balduíno foi primeiro, depois foi Joaquim.” (96) [A light mulatto girl with missing teeth, hardly worth the effort. But since there weren’t any other females around, they decided to take the girl with missing teeth to the beach. António Balduíno went first, then Joaquim]. The adolescent Balduíno is like an animal: “Andava pelos dezoito anos, mas parecia ter vinte e cinco. Era forte e alto como uma árvore, livre como um animal e possuía a gargalhada mais clara da cidade.” (99) [He was approximately eighteen years old, although he appeared to be twentyfive. He was strong and tall as a tree, free as an animal, and he laughed louder than anyone in the city]. Throughout the novel, he comes across as

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a caricature due to his animal-like behaviour and demeanour. He is unable to distinguish clearly between past and present, between dreams and lived experiences and between spirits and living people. Disturbed by a dream he had and confusing it with something Jubiabá is telling him, he says to Jubiabá, “. . .gemendo, pai, gemendo. . .aquele negro chicoteado nas costas . . . Eu vi no sonho . . . Estava horroroso. Eu tenho vontade de bater naqueles marinheiros…” (119) [. . . moaning and wailing. . . that black man getting whipped . . . I saw it in a dream... It was horrific. I feel like beating up those sailors . . .] Jubiabá replies that, “Aconteceu há muito tempo, Baldo . . .” (119) [That was a long time ago, Baldo. . .] “O quê?” [What?] asks Balduíno. “A história que eu estou contando.” (119) [The story that I’m telling you], explains Jubiabá. His inability to discern between realities is accentuated in a scene when a woman referred to as Sinhá Laura (Ms. Laura) dies. Balduíno and several other workers on a tobacco plantation go to Laura’s home, where her body is present, in order to pay their respects. Sinhá Laura’s twelveyear-old daughter Arminda is also present, and Balduíno finds her attractive. However, he is sure that her deceased mother is looking disapprovingly at him from across the room. “António Balduíno levantou os olhos e espiou Arminda. Ela chorava no outro lado da sala. Mas o rosto inchado da defunta impede que ele a veja direito.” (148) [António Balduíno raised his eyes to peek at Arminda, who was crying on the other side of the living room. But the swollen face of the deceased woman obstructs his view of her]. This scenario goes on for a while. Balduíno is attracted to the girl, but he knows he should not be. He imagines what the girl’s breasts look like under her dress, but he is constantly interrupted by what he perceives as the meddling of the girl’s mother. “A velha Laura deixou seu lugar em cima da mesa e se meteu entre eles. Ela está tomando conta da filha. Os mortos sabem tudo e ela sabia o que António Balduíno pretendia fazer.” (151) [That old Laura abandoned her place on the table in order to meddle in their affairs. She is watching over her daughter. The deceased know everything, and she knew what António Balduíno’s intentions were]. Balduíno is further irritated by another tobacco field worker named Filomeno, who also has his eyes on the girl. Balduíno is annoyed because he believes that Filomeno is unjustifiably free from the watchful eye of the deceased mother. Not able to distinguish between this hallucination and objective reality, Balduíno blurts out to his fellow plantation worker Gordo, “Você não disse que ela é uma menina de doze anos? Cadê? Cadê a morta que não fez nada?” (152) [Didn’t you say that the girl is just twelve years old? Where? Where is the deceased mother who turned a blind eye to this?]. Another field worker, Zequinha, replies

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that Balduíno must be drunk and moves toward him in a threatening way. A skirmish ensues in which Balduíno ends up stabbing Zequinha in the back with a knife. After fleeing the scene, Balduíno turns the events over in his mind and tries to justify to himself that if he was lustfully staring at the twelve-year-old girl, it was because she was a woman despite her age. After all that, however, he wonders if it was worthwhile, because, with Zequinha lying face down in the dirt and Balduíno on the run, surely the situation left Filomeno free to take advantage of the girl! Era uma menina de doze anos, o Gordo sempre disse. Uma menina de doze anos. O Gordo queria dizer que ela não era mulher ainda, que fazer aquilo com ela era uma malvadez. Mas Zequinha fez, bem que merecia a punhalada... É verdade que se ele não fizesse o negro Filomeno faria, ou mesmo António Balduíno. Sim, ele sabe que não foi por isso que cravou o punhal nas costas de Zequinha. Ela era uma menina de doze anos... Mas ele matou o capataz foi porque ele ficou como ela quando o negro a queria no seu girau. Ela tinha doze anos, mas já era mulher... Já seria mesmo? E se o Gordo tivesse razão? Se ela ainda fosse uma menina e aquilo uma malvadez? Então Zequinha não faria mais, porque estava estendido no barro com um punhal nas costas. Porém de que valeu? Agora o negro Filomeno já a levou para casa, com certeza. Essa é a lei das plantações de fumo. (155) [She was just twelve years old, according to Gordo. A twelve-year-old girl. Gordo meant that she was not yet a woman, and that to do that with her was wrong. Yet, Zequinha was guilty and so he deserved to get stabbed... It’s true that, had he not made any advances on the girl, Filomeno would have, or even António Balduíno. Yes, he knows that that wasn’t why he stabbed Zequinha in the back. She was just twelve years old... But he killed the foreman who got with her because he wanted her for himself. She was twelve years old, but she was a woman... Was she really a woman? What if Gordo was right? If she was still a girl and to do that with her was wicked? In that case, Zequinha would never do that to her again because he was stretched out on the ground with a knife in his back. But what was the point? Surely Filomeno had already taken her home with him by now. That’s the law of the tobacco plantations].

As Balduíno goes in and out of different realities, the reader is left to ponder whether or not the protagonist is capable of doing anything other than acting on his base instincts. Indeed, even when Balduíno eventually attains a certain degree of enlightenment, it is derived from a combination of pre-existing beliefs, feelings and outside stimuli. While he never stops being a hedonistic and misogynistic brute, he has just enough intellectual capacity to associate his own poverty and social status with the historical

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injustices that are part of the legacy of slavery in Brazil. In this regard, the novel is problematic, because it reinforces stereotypes of black Brazilians. The narrator emphasizes Balduíno’s beastlike nature while gradually and awkwardly moving him towards collective action that will benefit his race and country. If Amado’s task is that of turning a traditional brute into an enlightened one, he attempts to do so first by alluding to Balduíno’s sense of connectedness to supernatural phenomena, such as spirits, and to the African diaspora. Secondly, he suggests that Balduíno has just enough intellectual capacity, just barely enough, to engage in political activism. This reality comes into play when Balduíno gets involved with the workers’ strike. The workers’ syndicate makes him a member of the commission that will vote on whether or not to strike. Balduíno votes to strike, and it is decided by one vote that they will strike. At that point, Balduíno recognizes the importance of his participation and is convinced that he is part of a collective movement that is working to improve the conditions of the working class. Still, he remains more interested in participating in a social disturbance than in serving as a labour organizer. “António Balduíno fazia parte desta comissão e ia alegre porque ia brigar, entrar em barulho, gritar, fazer todas as coisas de que ele gostava.” (253) [António Balduíno was part of this commission, and he was happy because he was going to fight, participate in a disturbance, yell and do all the things that he liked to do]. Balduíno quickly becomes bored with “tanto discurso” (254) [more talk than action], but he likes feeling important. “Ele tinha a impressão de que naquele momento eram donos da cidade.” (254) [He was under the impression that, in that moment, they owned the city]. The past and the present are brought together in this moment as in many other moments in the novel. Back when Balduíno was living in the street as a kid, he had a similar impression of being part of a group that ruled the city: “Eram unidos, sim. Quando um brigava, todos brigavam. E tudo que ganhavam era fraternalmente dividido entre todos.” (70-71) [They were united, yes indeed. When one fought, they all fought. Everything they earned was divided equally amongst them]. The protagonist must overlook a series of inconvenient facts in order to remember that perfect time long ago when everything was great. He remembers parts of his past fondly while striving for a better future. “António Balduíno bate palmas. Tudo aquilo é novo para ele e o que estão dizendo é certo. Ele nunca o soube, porém sempre o sentiu.” (256) [António Balduíno claps his hands. All that stuff is new to him, and what they are saying is true. He never knew that before, and yet he always felt it]. Likewise, the novel itself alludes to a golden era, a utopian society to

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which the post-colonial society strives to get back: “. . . no morro onde morava tanto negro, tanto mulato, havia a tradição da escravidão ao senhor branco e rico. E essa era a única tradição. Porque a da liberdade nas florestas da África já a haviam esquecido e raros a recordavam, e esses raros eram exterminados ou perseguidos.” (32) [. . . in the slum where so many blacks and mulattoes lived, there was the rich white man’s tradition of slavery. And that was the only tradition because very few people remembered the freedom they had had in the jungles of Africa, and those who did remember were killed or persecuted]. If national integration was a general goal and an essential part of Vargas’s discourse, Amado’s novel offers an interesting counterpoint: rather than integration, the path forward is revolution. After all, the novel is explained in terms of conflict and resistance. If national integration is possible, it will be by way of class struggle. The need for revolution is ever-present, but one does not need to be a polished statesman to make it happen. On the contrary, the downtrodden and marginalized people must work together to bring about change. The narrator emphasizes this fact by directly addressing the reader: “António Balduíno fala. Ele não está fazendo discurso, gente. Está é contando o que viu na sua vida de malandro.” (257) [António Balduíno speaks. People, he isn’t just giving a speech. He’s telling us what he saw during his life as a rogue]. Vargas’s social policies of the 1930s were based on law and order, and his vision of national culture was based on requiring marginalized groups to conform. The concept of national integration held by the intelligentsia in the 1930s no longer involved a backlash against colonial Brazil, but rather a reappraisal of colonial society and an emphasis on its positive aspects, namely a certain ordered, corporate, paternalistic stability, which had somehow been overthrown by the preceding generation of the Old Republic. (Brookshaw 111)

In contrast, Jubiabá’s Balduíno is not condemned for his rowdy rebelliousness. He is praised for his fighting spirit. When he finally comes to appreciate collective action, it is not in the context of conforming to a national culture; rather, it is a clear act of defiance against the fascist tendencies of the Vargas regime. Although José Lins do Rego shared many of the leftist social views that Amado supported, he adopted a far subtler strategy of promoting Afro-Brazilian culture through his writing. Rego was born in 1901 on the Engenho Corredor in Paraíba and was the grandson of a senhor de engenho [owner of a sugar cane mill], and thus he was intimately linked to

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the rural Northeast and its patriarchal ways. He published his first book, Menino de engenho [Plantation Boy], in 1932, marking the beginning of his famous five-novel series known as the “Sugar Cane Cycle,” of which O Moleque Ricardo [Black Boy Richard] was the fourth. In O Moleque Ricardo, the harsh reality of the northeast is portrayed in the character Ricardo, who decides to abandon the Santa Rosa sugar mill and try his luck in the big city of Recife. Ultimately, by his own initiatives and the circumstances around him, he transforms himself from a plantation worker into an urban proletariat over the course of a few years. The larger picture is the story of the disintegration of an entire economic structure. According to Earl Fitz, this is the first instance in Brazilian literature in which a black man “is fully portrayed as a normal human being and not as an exotic embellishment to some other story” (113). By not having Ricardo blame his misfortunes primarily on his skin colour, the author avoids the pitfall of oversimplifying the period of intense social change that Brazil was experiencing. The issue of race is ever-present, but Ricardo’s identity and his struggles are not limited to his racial identity. “Ricardo fugiu” [Ricardo fled], explains the narrator in the opening sentences of the novel (71). At sixteen years of age, Ricardo flees the Santa Rosa sugar plantation, where he was born and raised and where his family continued to live, and heads for Recife. The verb fugir [to flee] immediately conjures up images of slaves trying to escape from the plantations. When the narrator explains how Zé Paulino, the plantation owner, would miss his “negro fiel” (77) [faithful negro], he seems to align Ricardo with a well-known stereotype. But Ricardo flees the stereotype just as he flees the plantation. He does not want to assume the role of the Faithful Negro. Rather, he wants to be part of the city by finding a job and therefore “empregar” rather than “alugar” [work as opposed to be hired out]: Empregar—como essa palavra era diferente de alugar! No engenho os trabalhadores eram alugados . . . Joana mesmo frisava a palavra para ofender a todos eles que eram como escravos, sem dia de serviço pago, trabalhando pelo que comiam, pelo que vestiam. Alugar, trabalhador alugado! Não, ele ia se empregar. (78) [To work—how different that sounded than being hired out! On the sugar plantation, the workers were hired hands.... Even Joana emphasized that phrase in order to offend everyone that worked like slaves, working without pay, working in exchange for food and the clothes on their backs. A hired hand! No, he was going to work].

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Only in the space of the city can Ricardo hope to step outside of his otherwise racially-determined position in society. Ricardo has moments of painful recognition of the limitations his skin colour grants him: “Nascera para ser menor que os outros” (85) [He was born to be inferior to others], he laments when he recalls fond memories of playing with Carlinhos, the white grandson of the plantation owner. They were childhood friends, but Ricardo grew up knowing that his social status was stagnant on the plantation while Carlinhos was destined to become the owner of the plantation. Fleeing to the city could be a way out of his predicament: “Ali em Recife pelo menos um dia poderia ser alguma cousa” (85) [In Recife at least some day he could make something of himself]. In Recife, Ricardo comes to hate Seu Alexandre [Mr. Alexandre], the Portuguese baker for whom he works. He does not care that Seu Alexandre is white, nor does he hate him just for being his boss. He sees Seu Alexandre as miserly, and he disapproves of the relationship that he maintains with a woman outside of his marriage. Everyone else seems to have an axe to grind against their employers or against certain political groups. Ricardo, on the other hand, is far more concerned with his personal problems: “Não se inflamava de ódio contra os donos, os senhores. A verdade é que Seu Alexandre fazia raiva a qualquer um. Mas era Seu Alexandre . . . Havia nas palavras dos companheiros ódio aos ricos, aos brancos.” (244) [He didn’t feel resentment and hate towards the plantation owners. The truth is that Seu Alexandre enraged everyone. But that was just Seu Alexandre . . . The other field workers spoke words of hate when referring to rich people or to white folks]. Ricardo, surrounded by union workers, is sympathetic to the proletarian movement but remains aloof to political parties and union activity. Even so, he is eventually swept up in a raid to crack down on strikers and sent off to jail. Thus concludes the novel, although Ricardo would reappear in Lins do Rego's next novel, Usina, in 1937. Although O Moleque Ricardo ends on a bad note for Ricardo, up until the moment he is arrested, things had gone relatively well for him in the city. The city is not portrayed as entirely good nor entirely bad but rather as a neutral place in which people and groups of people were left to their own devices, unlike the engenho where time seemed static and social positions were rigidly defined by a patriarchal system based on the latifundia. While Lins do Rego documents the decline of the sugar aristocracy and the rise of the urban proletariat in the Northeast, Lúcio Cardoso explores a different side of urbanization in Brazil: the favela [slum]. Cardoso was born in 1912 in Curvelo, Minas Gerais, to a prominent family that had lost

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its wealth. He would later establish himself as a writer in Rio de Janeiro. Salgueiro was his second novel and marks somewhat of a transition from the regionalist to the psychological novel. Although far more pessimistic than Jubiabá and O Moleque Ricardo, Salgueiro explores some of the same themes such as anguish and the desire to flee to the city. Like O Moleque Ricardo, the issue of race is ever present, but it is not necessarily the most important factor. The main characters are mulattoes except for Rosa, who is described as negra. Nearly all the secondary characters are black or mulatto as well. But race is not the determining factor for the main characters who struggle with existential problems. They are morally ambiguous characters living in a cruel environment, and race is but one of many factors that lead them to ponder the meaning of life. This novel tells the story of a family in the favela Salgueiro in Rio de Janeiro. The members of the family, as well as the other characters, all of who are residents of the same Salgueiro, live in abject poverty. The lack of basic material goods, combined with their limited possibilities of ever escaping their poverty, cause the characters such anguish that they wish ill on one another. Rather than work together to overcome life's obstacles, the characters are at best indifferent to those around them and at worst they are distrustful, envious, and potentially violent. The morro [slum] is perceived by its inhabitants as a space completely separate from the city, as the narrator reminds us on numerous occasions: “O sopro que vinha da cidade era gelado e triste.” (91). [The breeze that came from the city was cold and sad]. Up until the very end of the novel only two of the characters actually leave the morro for the city. The grandfather Seu Manuel, dying of tuberculosis, is forced to leave and go to the Santa Casa da Misericôrdia hospital in the city. One month after checking into the Santa Casa, Seu Manuel’s wife, Genoveva, goes to visit him, along with their daughter, Marta. This is a strange experience for the two women, not so much because Seu Manuel is on his deathbed but rather because the women have to leave the morro and enter the city. They feel out of place when they leave the Salgueiro. Genoveva notes the cleanliness of the hospital and considers everything “muito belo, muito limpo.” (75) [very beautiful, very clean]. But Seu Manuel’s daughter, Marta, knows that the beauty and cleanliness are ultimately out of reach for the likes of her, and for this reason, “muito pouco lhe interessava a felicidade alheia.” (76) [other people’s happiness was of very little interest to her]. For the inhabitants of Salgueiro, the city of Rio, once again perceived as separate from the morro, is rarely more than a place where one goes to die. Marta has a slightly different relationship with the city, in

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that she figuratively dies before going “lá embaixo” [down below, to the city], degrading herself by becoming a prostitute and abandoning her family. Whether one leaves the morro and enters the city only to die or one figuratively dies before entering the city, death is intimately linked to the city for the inhabitants of the morro. Despite the conviction that they are doomed to a life of suffering in Salgueiro, the characters often fantasize about fleeing to the city. In Jubiabá, António Balduíno found a sense of freedom in the city. In Rego’s novel, Ricardo simply picked up and moved to the city. Nonetheless, the characters of Salgueiro, despite living in close proximity to the city, are too demoralized to take their chances. They feel bound to the favela, and yet they despise it. This is certainly the case of Seu Manuel’s grandson, Geraldo, who, like the rest of the characters, feels physically bound and yet spiritually unconnected to his family and neighbours: “Todos o chamavam de idiota, desprezavam-no como um objeto sem utilidade do morro.” (40). [Everyone called him an idiot, looking down on him like a useless object from the slum]. He feels rejected by the morro just as the morro itself is rejected by Rio. But Geraldo longs to flee both the despair and the morro: “Mas um dia fugirá, deixará essa gente toda, entregar-se-á à grande cidade que ruge e se estende como um gigante adormecido.” (41). [But some day he will run away. He will leave all those people behind and try his luck in the big city that bellows and sprawls out like a sleeping giant]. Throughout the novel, Geraldo struggles with feelings of fear and doubt, wanting to leave but unable to take the step of actually leaving. Geraldo hates everyone, especially his father's girlfriend, Rosa: “E só uma coisa se apresentava realmente como motivo, como razão de tudo aquilo . . . era Rosa. Sem dúvida, era um ódio trazido do mais fundo de si mesmo, um ódio que herdara da família, mas profundo, grande e indomável.” (128). [And there was but one thing that could be called a motive, a reason for all of that . . . it was Rosa. Without a doubt, it was a hate from deep within him, a hate that he had inherited from his family, a profound, huge, unconquerable hate]. As much as he wants to blame Rosa for everything, the underlying reasons for Geraldo’s hatred are difficult for him to articulate. Similar to Rego’s Ricardo, Geraldo struggles to discover the true motives for his anger. Unlike Ricardo, however, Geraldo tries to place the blame somewhere; first on his family and then on the morro itself: “Salgueiro se erguia à parte de tudo, sozinho no seu silêncio e no seu abandono como uma determinada espécie de inferno. Os que ali viviam eram seres exiliados, culpados de algum tremendo crime, e que jamais sairiam de seus sombrios limites.” (181). [Salgueiro rose up, apart

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from everything, alone in its silence and in its abandon like some determined infernal species. Its inhabitants were exiled beings, guilty of some tremendous crime, and who would never escape its dreary bounds]. The morro, far more so than family, is what keeps everyone physically close. Within the Regionalist context, critics often talk of a basic division between the writers of the “romance do Nordeste,” including Amado and Rego, considered leftist writers, and the Rio-based Catholic writers, including Cardoso, often labeled as right-wing. This categorization puts these writers in seemingly opposing camps. However, by emphasizing differences, one runs the risk of overlooking important grounds of unity. Despite the proletarian class element of O Moleque Ricardo, neither this novel nor Salgueiro follows an entirely coherent political ideology. In O Moleque Ricardo, the protagonist flirts with socialism without accepting or rejecting it. In Salgueiro, the main characters’ social marginalization denies them any sort of political consciousness. The political ideologies in both novels remain ambiguous. In contrast, the unabashed leftist undertones in Jubiabá are already present in the beginning of the novel and intensify towards the end. Furthermore, the existential and psychological elements of Salgueiro are similar to those of O Moleque Ricardo, whereas in Jubiabá racial stereotypes abound, leaving little room for any sort of existential or psychological analysis of the characters. Amado portrays black Bahians as a distinct, racially-based community whose best chance at cultural integration is through a multi-racial proletarian revolution. Rego and Cardoso, on the other hand, portray AfroBrazilians of limited resources as regular poor people struggling to overcome their marginality in relation to a national identity that was becoming increasingly urban in nature. Through their fiction, the writers analyzed in this study pondered the conclusions of many sociological essays in vogue at the time such as those written by Oliveira Viana and Freyre.4 Rego, in particular, was influenced 4

Francisco José de Oliveira Viana's widely read Evolução do povo brasileiro (1923) [The Evolution of the Brazilian People] was one of many influential books that purported racial hierarchies by claiming that some races were superior to others, with the “white” race on top. Most social scientists and other intellectuals in post-abolition Brazil believed in one version of White superiority or another. They clearly had the ear of government officials, who based policies on pseudoscientific racial studies such as those supported in Oliveira Viana’s book. Meanwhile, in 1933, Gilberto Freyre published his highly influential Casa grande e senzala [The Masters and the Slaves], articulating what would become the Brazilian myth of racial democracy. This book challenged different notions of race rela-

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by Freyre’s work. In Cardoso’s novel, we can perhaps sense some degree of nationalistic paternalism, and yet he still tends more toward Freyre than towards Oliveira Viana. Amado, too, seems to have been influenced by Freyre, although his protagonist Balduíno “corresponds exactly to the stereotyped Negro of primitivist fashion and it is in this respect that Amado’s prejudice manifests itself” (Brookshaw 156). Both Rego and Cardoso avoid the primitivist ethic that limited the Modernists’ quest to elevate the status of Afro-Brazilians in the collective identity of Brazil. While Rego’s and Cardoso’s missions with regard to racial representation appear on the surface to be far less ambitious than that of the Modernists, their subtlety paradoxically makes them more progressive: by downplaying the importance of race in the main characters’ identities, these characters come alive as dynamic individuals not limited to any specific racial identity discourse. They perceive their skin colour as potentially disadvantageous but not inferior, thereby subtly rebuking not only the racial theories in vogue at the time that purported White superiority, but also the notion that Brazil was a true racial democracy. Amado, in contrast, brazenly incorporated racial stereotypes not to denigrate AfroBrazilians but rather to celebrate a caricatured vision of them while focusing on a politically subversive call-to-arms that, if brought to fruition, could feasibly break down racial barriers by bringing marginalized groups into an organic national culture, as opposed to the top-down model of the Vargas administration that called for conformity. Rather than insist on the traditionally imagined dichotomy between the Regionalist writers of the Northeast and the Rio-based Catholic writers in the 1930s, one might be better served by thinking in terms of strategies of resistance. Amado, Rego and Cardoso had, at least in 1935, a common goal of recognizing the important contributions of Afro-Brazilians in an increasing urbanized Brazilian culture under Vargas. They each adopted their own strategies for doing so, but if there is one overarching point of contrast between any of them, it is not a regional difference but rather a degree of subtlety.

Bibliography tions in Brazil and was well-received by the Brazilian elite because it offered a favourable conclusion to the national dilemma of race mixing. Widespread miscegenation was already a reality in Brazil, and the Brazilian elite found this troubling because they believed that the inevitable result would be (or already was) an inferior race of Brazilians. Freyre’s optimistic conclusion that miscegenation did not necessarily result in an inferior race was conveniently convincing to those looking for ways to overcome the national shame that was the legacy of slavery.

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Amado, Jorge. 1977. Jubiabá. 4th ed. Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores. Print. —. O País do Carnaval. 1955. 4th ed. São Paulo: Livraria Martins. Print. Andrade, Oswald de. 1928. “Manifesto Antropófago.” Revista de Antropofagia, Print. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1986. “The Bildungsroman and its Significance in the History of Realism (Toward a Historical Typology of the Novel).” Ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: U of Texas P. 10-59. Print. Brookshaw, David. 1986. Race and Color in Brazilian Literature. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Print. Candido, Antonio. 2006. “A Revolução de 1930 e a Cultura.” A Educação pela Noite. 5th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Ouro sobre Azul. 219-40. Print. Cardoso, Lúcio. 2007. Salgueiro. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira. Print. Fitz, Earl E. 1978. “The Brazilian Novel as Sociology: O Moleque Ricardo.” Studies in Afro-Hispanic Literature 2-3. 106-17. Print. Freyre, Gilberto. 1954. Casa Grande & Senzala. 8th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria J. Olympio. Print. Oliveira Viana, Francisco José de. 1938. Evolução do povo brasileiro. 3rd ed. São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional. Print. Rego, José Lins do. 1984. O Moleque Ricardo. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. Print. —. 1967. Usina, 6th ed. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria J. Olympio. Print. Silva, Kelen Katia Prates and Carlos Eduardo Souza de Carvalho. 2016. “A construção da identidade nacional durante a era Vargas: os políticos, os intelectuais e o futebol”. Revista Outras Fronteiras, vol. 3, no. 1, 2016, pp. 246-54. Print. Williams, Daryle. 2016. “The Politics of Cultural Production during the Vargas Era, 1930-1945.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Oxford UP.

CHAPTER FOUR TOWARDS A POETICS OF FRANCISCO FÉLIX DE SOUZA PAULA GÂNDARA

Abstract Family memoirs, historical documents and historical fiction as sources of memory project the grandeur as well as the ignominy of Francisco Félix de Souza, a known historical figure of the 1800s who started his life in slavery only to end up as a millionaire slave dealer. Archival sources on de Souza and their analysis portray him as an allegory, an interpretative subject. Whereas an exploration of de Souza’s historical vision is of critical importance in view of his recent reimagination and re-incarnation, the ultimate goal of this study is to examine his history within the framework of Michel Foucault’s “devenir,” a process continuously in the making through a dynamic and ever-changing awareness of itself as an artistic creation or as a reassignment of new meanings based upon the imaginary of the watching/reading subject. Lastly, more recently, when the researches of psychoanalysis, linguistics, and ethnology have decentered the subject in relation to the laws of his desire, the forms of his language, the rules of his action, or the games of his mythical or fabulous discourse, when it became clear that man himself, questioned as to what he was, could not account for his sexuality and his unconscious, the systematic forms of his language, or the regularities of his fictions, the theme of a continuity of history has been reactivated once again; a history that would be not division, but development (devenir); not an interplay of relations, but an internal dynamic; not a system, but the hard work of freedom; not form, but the unceasing effort of a consciousness turned upon itself, trying to grasp itself in its deepest conditions: a history that would be both an act of long, uninterrupted patience and the vivacity of a movement, which, in the end, breaks all bounds.” (Foucault 13)

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This study focuses on the existence of a known figure of the 1800s who went by the name of Francisco Félix de Souza and was considered a Brazilian, African or Portuguese citizen, depending on the whims of the subject or the sources of the different documentation on him. De Souza has been the subject of a series of studies as manifested in David Ross’s “The First Chacha of Whydah, Francisco Félix de Souza” (1969), Alberto da Costa e Silva’s Francisco Félix de Souza, Mercador de Escravos (2004), Robin Law’s “A carreira de Francisco Félix de Souza na África Ocidental (1800-1849)” (2001) and Ana Lúcia Araújo’s “Forgetting and Remembering the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Legacy of Brazilian Slave Merchant Francisco Félix de Souza” (2010). Of all these studies, however, Ana Lúcia Araújo’s is of particular interest because it focuses on the historical dynamics involved in the rehabilitation of slavery’s memory in Benin through the polemic figure of de Souza. Although I intend to account for a historical vision of de Souza, my ultimate goal is to analyze his history within Foucault’s proposition as stated above: as a “devenir,” a process continuously in the making by means of a dynamic and everchanging awareness of itself. The title of this study also brings into focus Foucault’s notion of “consciousness” that is “turned upon itself,” since the subject under discussion epitomizes myriad interpretations of artistic creation and the reassignment of new meanings based upon the imaginary of not only the watching but also the reading subject. Rather than unearthing unknown documentation on de Souza, this study reflects on the nature of the archival sources and what role they play in the construction of the subject’s quasi-mythological status in present-day Benin. Through the example of Francisco Félix de Souza and the different types of historical awareness designed to understand a supposedly fixed sequence of events in the past, the reader should be able to explore how the different modes of textually or visually archived data allow for an understanding and reconstruction of that past, making the reader an integral part of the creative process of a poetics of history. For the purposes of this study, I contacted Martine de Souza, a descendant of Francisco Félix de Souza. The exchanges between us were revealing, because her words, or the lack thereof, provide us with a perfect example of how our present intrusions or disturbances of the past manifest themselves in particular ways in which historical viewpoints may have been created. In my attempts to reach Martine de Souza in search of information on her great-great-grandfather, what I encountered was silence. I pursued the emails and phone calls to the museum in Benin,

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where she works to no avail. Eventually, in a PBS documentary, I found a video transcript of her words: Yeah, yeah. But he was very important in the slave trade. I am not proud of him because you know the slave trade was terrible and that stands from, out from Africa a lot of descendants, you know. So, it's evil business, I don't like it at all. I wish I were a descendant of slaves. That would make me feel better. And you know, I always feel guilty when I meet, you know, African-Americans and, you know, because my position is delicate, you know. I am part of the history and at the same time I will be telling this story, the history, you know, it makes me all the time feel bad, yeah.

Martine de Souza’s words made me wonder. It did not seem fair that she would feel guilty or be made to feel guilty because of current generalized views on slavery. It seemed as though she was paying a double price for the sins of her relative. She is guilty because Francisco Félix de Souza had engaged in the slave trade and made himself a millionaire out of it. Above all, however, she feels guilty because she is African and was not shipped as cargo over the ocean. Undoubtedly, she suffers from something akin to a survivor’s guilt, as she is faced with crying African-Americans who embody a nostalgia for what might have been had their descendants not been trafficked. The result, in either case, is unfortunate and, arguably, useless, unless one considers the possibility of reassigning a different semantics to the past. Nonetheless, such an endeavor is bound to be plagued with pitfalls precisely because of the shifting positions that de Souza occupies as well as the apparent contradictory archival documents that attempt to frame him. What might be useful in an effort to create a poetics of de Souza, however, is to contextualize him historically while recognizing that this effort is in contraposition to his own prescribed position in the world that he inhabited. Portugal’s first contact with Dahomey came about as a result of the failure of the Portuguese to extend Catholicism to North Africa. In his bid to spread Catholic faith during the first half of the 15th Century, King D. João II sent explorers to discover the mythical Christian kingdom of Preste João that the Portuguese monarch thought could become an important ally. This imaginary kingdom, initially thought to be located in Asia, was considered at that time as part of the African continent. João Afonso de Aveiro, who was sent on this mission, found Dahomey and promptly sent an ambassador to Portugal. Although he had not found the kingdom of Preste João, the kingdom of Dahomey became a vital and long-term business partner with both Portugal and Brazil, especially since the

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Brazilian agrarian economy in the 1800s was dependent upon slave labour that the Portuguese supported. This state of affairs would continue for centuries until both Portugal and Brazil had to succumb to international pressure to abolish slavery. In 1815, Britain and Portugal signed a treaty in Vienna in which Portugal agreed to abandon slave trading everywhere north of the equator. This agreement meant that slave trafficking from Dahomey to Bahia, Brazil, would cease. The treaty was, however, unenforceable and allowed Portuguese trafficking of slaves to continue unabated. It is within this historical context that de Souza emerges. He was born in Salvador da Bahia in 1754 to an African slave mother and a Portuguese father, although questions remain about his father’s identity.1 Whatever the case, sometime between 1788 and 1800, de Souza, a freed slave, a political exile, or perhaps a wealthy businessman, arrived in Dahomey at the height of the slave trade. The ambiguity and uncertainty about his identity should probably be understood as the first part of our poetics of de Souza, whereby he is not only one but several subjects. Indeed, depending on the chosen biography, de Souza is perceived as a different individual motivated by different reasons that propel him to action. This situation, in itself, constitutes an artistic re-creation of the figure. The complexity further increases as one finds out that not only is the reader/researcher compelled to participate in the construction of this poetics by assigning importance to these myriad sources, but also that de Souza himself took an active part in the construction of the poetics as evidenced historiographically. During de Souza’s stay in Dahomey, King Adandozan controlled the supply of slaves. Despite warnings from the British, King Adandozan sent emissaries to Lisbon and Bahia in 1795 informing them of his willingness to be the exclusive source of slaves. In the correspondence between the King of Dahomey and the Prince Regent D. João during the reign of D. Maria I, King Adandozan made clear his intention to keep peace with Portugal and to become its sole slave supplier. With this arrangement, King Adandozan acquired the slaves through warfare with neighbouring tribes. De Souza emerged as an intermediary between the king and the Europeans. In this position, he rose to power quickly but soon fell into disfavour with King Adandozan who felt his power threatened by de Souza. The tension between him and the king eventually led to de Souza’s 1

Ana Lúcia Araújo notes that the conflict between historical written sources and family oral tradition begins at this juncture. De Souza’s family suggests that his father is Portuguese and his mother Amazonian. He is also presented as the descendant of a wealthy family that consisted of military officials and crown administrators (87). Other sources refer to him as Cuban (Law: 13).

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imprisonment. While in prison, he befriended Gapê, the king’s son, who offered him freedom for his loyalty. Their relationship resulted in the permanent removal of King Adandozan from power (c.1818) and the ascendancy of a profitable partnership between Francisco Félix de Souza and Gapê, royally named Guezo. Accounts of de Souza’s partnership with Guezo and his own comportment are murky. He is described as a greedy and unscrupulous figure. In part, this stigma could explain Martine de Souza’s embarrassment in being associated with her ancestor. Still, can one be sure? What if de Souza’s behaviour was an indirect reaction to how King Adandozan had treated him? There is an anecdote that, in order to have de Souza’s skin grow darker, Adandozan had had him submerged and bathed in a vat of indigo. There are two possible ways to interpret this anecdote. First, that it is simply an anecdote and, therefore, should not constitute a serious historical account. Second, that the anecdote underscored racial tensions in which King Adandozan believed that de Souza’s rebelliousness and arrogance towards him were a result of the latter’s lighter skin tone. The persistence of the anecdote provides a dialectical interpretation of de Souza’s singularity in the world he came to inhabit. De Souza’s Brazilianness and his racial mixture are signs of an inbetween world in which he is stuck. King Adandozan’s act—his attempt to transform de Souza’s body—may suggest a negative association with that body. If that is the case, then it is plausible to assert that de Souza needed to transform that body into a space that empowers him. He would achieve this transformation by cultivating doubt and mystery about his different nationalities. Although the anecdote lacks any archival sources, it can be argued that it is closer to a poetics of being that has been constructed within the realm of an imaginative space designed to be used in de Souza’s favour. Put differently, his colour would offer him the possibility of trascending different worlds. It would also be an act of rebellion against the king who decided to make him a spectacle of humiliation. Archival sources and resources that could help elucidate Francisco Félix de Souza’s mythological creation or recreation have been hampered by historical reality. Portuguese, French and English military forts in Dahomey were supposed to have been repositories for the documentation of 18 th and 19th Century slave trade. Although the French fort is the only one that has been studied in detail, it is, however, in the English fort that one finds the best-preserved records about the human trade.2 These English records, which deal with the suppression of slave trafficking, 2

See Simone Berbain.

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include accounts that were kept in the English vice-consulate in Dahomey from 1849 to 1852, those found in the consulate of the French government from the years of 1850 to 1863 and those by English and French Christian missions. Other accounts in the form of travelers’ texts by John Duncan (1845), Frederick Forbes (1849-1850), and Richard Burton (1863-1864) are considered among the most informative texts of the times.3 Significantly, no Portuguese documents are available, since they were all destroyed by fire in 1892 when the French invaded territories previously occupied by the Portuguese.4 Despite the availability of the above-named documents, those left by the Brazilian community that was established in Dahomey in the 19th Century, as well as the private letters kept by the most prominent families in Dahomey, are yet to be subjected to rigorous study.5 These documents were written in Portuguese, the only foreign language that the King of Dahomey allowed. Indeed, Portuguese remained in use until the beginning of the 20th Century when the French definitively prohibited its use. What this means, therefore, is that any attempt at a poetics of this historical figure must grapple with the question of language. On the one hand, one is confronted with the void surrounding the studies of whatever documentation existed or may still exist in Portuguese and, on the other, with the fact that Portuguese is de Souza’s first language. The speaking of multiple languages and its impact on the personality of the speaker are a subject of study both in the domain of linguistics and psychology. In a study, Ramiréz-Esparsa suggests that bilinguals are bicultural and that “[o]ne potential explanation for language-dependent changes observed in bilinguals’ personalities is that these individuals undergo a cultural frame switch when they change from one language to another” (100.) To a large extent, one can argue that the position that Félix de Souza occupied as a lançados, a middleman with bilingual capabilities, enhanced his ability, at the very least, to shift his personalities/identities as he underwent cultural accommodation throughout his long lifespan.6 In the 3

See John Duncan. Robin Law’s, Ouidah, the Social History of a West African Slaving ‘Port’ 17271892, is the most detailed study of the history of the Portuguese port, especially during the years of 1727 to 1892. 5 Aside from Ana Lúcia de Araújo’s important work in this area, no other studies have discussed these documents. 6 It must be recalled that lançados, or tangomaos, were settlers and adventurers of Portuguese origin in Senegambia, the Cape Verde Islands, and other areas of West Africa. Many were Jews escaping persecution from the Portuguese Inquisition, and most married Africans. Although they were not many, they were crucial interme4

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construction of a poetics of de Souza, therefore, it is important to add that his duality in different cultural and language frames provides for an opportunity to look at him from different perspectives in the past and to make projections towards his future endeavours. In other words, the Afro-Portuguese-Brazilian Francisco Félix de Souza reconciles literally different modes of knowing as he shifts into different worlds. A de Souza poetics is ingrained in his movement between cultures that leaves him in two antithetical positions as power broker: a middleman and also a nonentity, since he is never truly part of the world in which he finds himself. He dwells in a world in which he looks to becoming someone other than who he really is. His transition from one language and its world view to another is blinding. As he moves and assumes different nationalities, de Souza finds his sense of self shaken; so is his knowedge of an inner landscape that is as restless as the world surrounding him. De Souza had apparently established himself in Dahomey in 1820 although it is not clear that he had come to stay, since a passport in his name was found registered and dated 1821, suggesting the possibility that he would be allowed to go back to Brazil. His contradictory position is amplified when one considers British reports from 1821 through1850 that imply that he had been banished from Brazil and also that King Guezo of Dahomey had prevented him from leaving.7 Theophilus Conneau, an exslave, indicates that de Souza had been involved in the nationalist army for Brazil’s independence and that he had later deserted. This account, however, seems implausible as he was already in Africa in 1821 before the independence movement in 1822-1823. The confusion may have arisen because it was the same date that the Portuguese abandoned the fort in Dahomey. Robin Law contends that the abandonment of the fort might have happened because of its illegal position regarding the slave commerce. A more possible explanation would be that internal fights between the Portuguese and Brazilians as a result of the quest for independence may have precipitated the closure. Yet R. J. Hammond believes that the fort stayed under Brazilian control after 1825. Carlos Eugenio Correo da Silva postulates that Francisco Félix de Souza had offered the fort to the Brazilians but had never gotten an answer. Thus, the

diaries between the Portuguese state and native African tribes. The term lançados, derived from the Portuguese verb “to throw out” [lançar], is related to their outcast or fugitive role in Luso-African coastal commerce. While the history of lançados is not a subject of this study, it is noteworthy that de Souza occupies an invaluable and complicated position as middleman for the Portuguese and African trade. 7 See Frederick Forbes and Henry Huntley.

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reason that Francisco Félix de Souza left Brazil and why he stayed in Dahomey remain unanswered. Despite these apparent confusing accounts, documents in the National Archives in Portugal point to the fact that the fort had, in reality, been abandoned by the Portuguese and that Francisco Félix de Souza seemed to have taken care of it on his own accord. Jacinto José de Souza, brother of Francisco Félix and the last official governor of the fort from Brazil, died in 1804 shortly after his arrival. According to Pierre Verger, command of the fort passed on to Francisco Félix de Souza with no formal decision being taken in Brazil about the fort’s maintenance. With no documentation, it is impossible to ascertain the fort’s real status during the period that followed until 1815. Further complicating matters is the apparent issuance of a Portuguese passport to Francisco Félix de Souza by Brazilian authorities in 1821. Pierre Verger believes that the issuance of the passport was accompanied by an official recognition for his services in the fort (299-300). Yet there are sources that suggest that, when de Souza returned to Ouidah in 1820, he did not stay in the fort during the following five years.8 These historical facts, which are mostly ambiguous and contradictory, play well within what one could envisage to be de Souza, the man, the character. This pendular nature, in which he is but he is not, is constitutive of a man who appears to be in limbo, at once static and yet slippery. There is seemingly little and, at the same time, enough information about him within the span of one year to construct an image of him within and beyond archival contexts. We know where he was not, yet we know why he decided to stay. Yet, he is at the same an imperceptible figure that metaphorically escaped the prison in which King Adandozan wanted him to stay. For the reader or researcher, the challenge of situating de Souza becomes a disturbing poetic rhythm that does not provide definitive answers to past history. The question then becomes one of attempting to locate him in the next stage of this rhythmic anxiety of where he is not. After 1822, de Souza continued to claim himself as Portuguese. While one might consider this simply as an emotional attachment between himself and Lisbon, practical reasons related to slave commerce seem to offer a more pragmatic explanation. We know for a fact that his older son was sent to study in Brazil, and that his younger son was sent to Portugal. Since de Souza never returned to Brazil and, most likely, never set foot in Portugal—he barely left Dahomey until his death—does that make him African, Portuguese or Brazilian? Most sources suggest that de Souza was 8

See Commander Clapperton’s Journal.

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not only a slave dealer but also an official member of King Guezo’s crown. Does that make him an African, then? De Souza was also known as the Chacha of Ouidah, a nickname that became a title to be used until recently. The eighth Chacha of Dahomey, in the blood line of de Souza, met with the Brazilian President Lula in Benin in February of 2006 in an attempt to find ways to strengthen relations between Brazil and Benin. The current quarters of the Brazilian neighbourhood in Ouidah are the product of de Souza’s stay there. Although Ana Lúcia Araújo examines his Brazilian identity, she concedes that he “became a perfect African chief” reminding us of how even his funeral went according to the tradition reserved for a Dahomean chief (92-95). It appears as if the Atlantic cultural triangle is perpetuated in de Souza’s own flexible identity: he was buried as an African and lived as a Brazilian whose ships went from Benin to Brazil with his slaves bought and sold on the same route. Yet none of these facts deny his Portuguese identity. Indeed, de Souza’s position is instructive; rather than a nationality, he inhabits a mood that allows for an awareness of the world around him that otherwise would not have been the case. The complexity of his past—his pendulumlike nationality—extends into the 21st Century. The instability creates a resonating confluence that re-awakens the rhythmic movement between peoples and cultures and languages. The past is not suspended or still. Neither is it indicative of a reflective mood into the present and future. The past, as it is revealed in all its dimensions and its “disturbances” through de Souza’s legacy, forced Benin and Brazil to construct a neighbourhood of “Brazilians” in Ouidah where the limits of memory and sensory stimuli, including music and folklore, are still growing and expanding into new horizons. De Souza’s subjective shadow—or his poetics—has created an unfolding alternative world. Indeed, his biography or lack thereof, had already been a place of creativity where it was difficult to distinguish between historical facts and fiction. Such is the case of Bruce Chatwin’s novel, The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980), and its 1987 movie adaptation Cobra Verde, directed by Werner Herzog. De Souza’s title, “Chacha,” which seems to have stemmed from Portuguese “Já Já”—“fast, fast”—as well as his Viceroyal title gained much currency following the publication of Chatwin’s novel in 1980. Chatwin relied on Lieutenant Reginals Levine’s testimony to a British Parliament committee in 1842 in which the latter indicated that de Souza was a Viceroy and had power of life and death. The reality, however, was that he was not a Viceroy. The Viceroy at that time was Dagba.

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Despite the historical gaps regarding de Souza’s life, it is important to go back to the initial context within which this essay has been framed: Martine de Souza’s shame and the ethical question of slavery. De Souza’s direct involvement in the trade is indisputable. As was the case of all the other slave dealers, he had troops under his command even though his commercial prowess appears to have been exaggerated by fiction. He profited from the trade beyond Benin. Indeed, he claimed to represent the Portuguese government as evidenced by his 1821 passport that allowed him to bring the slaves he owned in Benin to Brazil. As indicated in a report by London’s Public Record Office in December 27, 1821, de Souza wrote documents and gave licenses to slave dealers in the name of the Portuguese government.9 A British report in 1823 asserts that, with permission from the Portuguese government, de Souza did business as he found appropriate. Henry Huntley notes that, as late as 1830, he still referred to himself as Governor of the Portuguese fort when he found it convenient to do so (114). This position was critical for de Souza because, until 1839, it offered partial immunity for the ships he owned should he be confronted by the British navy. Correo da Silva observes that, when that immunity ceased to exist, he tried to claim that, since the kingdom of Ouidah was a Portuguese possession, British ships had no right to apprehend any merchandise on its coast (179). With the arrival of the new Portuguese governor in 1844, however, de Souza no longer claimed his privileges and rights as governor. Given his penchant to profit from all kinds of circumstances, it is conceivable that, for him, Portuguese as a mark of cultural and linguistic identity, was nothing more than a vehicle to attain the reality of his stated goals. De Souza’s complexity is breathtaking, especially as one attempts to insert him within the framework of what Foucault refers to as the “unconscious” and “historicity.” That is, in order to place or (dis)place de Souza within the unstable historical accounts that have been highlighted so far, one would have to locate him within the unconscious interstices of a past history of which he would have been well aware. As his readers, we are forced to look for him, cognizant of the fact that, in the future of the past, he existed and was furthermore understood and read within a linear frame of mind where he does not belong. Foucault’s Archeology of Knowledge has already postulated the importance of the future in the reading of past history. Consequently, the claim being made here is nothing new. What is being ventured, however, is a different outlook 9

See “Report,” 27 December 1821, Public Record Office, London, FO84/19 Collier.

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regarding de Souza, especially within the context of his current status. In order to do so, it is important to contextualize de Souza’s significance and the quasi-mythological position he occupies in present-day Benin, especially in regard to the honours that have been conferred on him in the past and also in the present. De Souza was awarded the Ordem de Cristo [The Order of Christ], one of the highest distinctions of the Portuguese Crown, for the services he rendered not only in keeping the Portuguese fort in 1847 but also for helping to build a new church in the fort. Signed by Queen D. Maria and archived in the Portuguese National Archives of the Torre do Tombo, the award indicates that de Souza’s singular efforts made it possible for the Queen to nominate a Chaplain Governor to the fort of S. João Baptista de Ajudá, Dahomey, which had hitherto been abandoned for many years. The document notes that the Chaplain was greeted by de Souza upon his arrival at the fort. The honours suggest that his engagement with the fort had not been accidental and that not only had enslavement not been considered evil, but also that the Portuguese found de Souza’s services to be of utmost interest to the country. Consequently, it can be said that de Souza assumed his Portuguese status and identity to the end, although he also worked for Brazil as an independent country. De Souza’s honourific position today prompts one to ask a series of questions. Why and how did de Souza become a symbol of the exchange between Bahia and the Bight of Benin? How did his identity become mythologized as a founder and reference point for the Afro-Luso-Brazilian community in Benin? How can collective memory and family memory reconcile his dual role as a slave merchant and philanthropist? To some extent, Ana Lúcia Araújo poses similar questions. She explains how the transition to democracy in Benin, along with international attention, allowed for the creation and investment in a memorialization of slavery that, today, has led to the development of historical monuments, increased tourism and heightened awareness of de Souza’s legacy, whether material or spiritual. His descendants and the monument that celebrates him have allowed for the creation of a religious dimension in which de Souza stands not only as a healer but also as a link between Benin and Brazil, thus projecting his sphere of influence into a hopeful political, economic, social and religious future. (Araújo 92) The memorialization of de Souza has, however, led to the opening of old wounds and tensions between descendants of slave merchants such as de Souza and those African-American tourists whose ancestors bore the brunt of the slave trade. Martine de Souza is particularly aware of this conundrum. The historical reconstruction of slavery, along with its own

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views of the phenomenon of enslavement in Benin, allowed for the creation and maintenance of a world in which victims became the perpetrators and the perpetrators turned into some sort of saviours. De Souza is the perfect example of this dynamic being celebrated: the one who bought slaves back and allowed for region’s economic development. The lens through which one researches family memoirs, historical documents (or historical fiction) could influence how the past is conceived. De Souza’s grandeur or ignominy emerges depending upon the lens through which he is viewed. Still, how does all this fit within the framework of a de Souza poetics? Perhaps, recourse to Jacques Lacan would be in order; I am referring to Lacan’s view of trauma as an “encounter” that could be “missed” (55) a notion that could help one grasp the undercurrent complexities as one contemplates de Souza’s position in the context of what could be characterized as the “real.” Considering the myriad sources that have sought to frame him (as well as the (im)possible bridges between past and present), it is not far-fetched to consider the “picture” of de Souza as an emblematic trauma. The same applies to the archival sources themselves, all of which could easily be understood as trauma in the sense that none of them represents the past itself but rather, stand for the past. Moreover, the different versions of the past can be understood within the framework of Lacan’s assertion that “trauma emerge[s] repeatedly” (1977: 55). Oral tradition and written sources fall into the same category—trauma—and gain the same idiosyncratic value of undoing historical distance by reanimating the historical subject. Notwithstanding the archival sources and their analysis that project de Souza as an allegory, an interpretative subject, it is his mausoleum that takes his reanimation beyond the confines of the page, of the words he said or may not have said according to the interpretation of whoever faces yet another document that can virtually change the historical configuration of our subject. His mausoleum reduces the (im)possibilities of his own existence: the spectacle of his bedroom beside his tomb that any passerby can visit—in contrast with the visit of the occasional researcher or historian—trancends the power of the word. The monument transforms his dubious existence into reality. One no longer deals with the preoccupation of de Souza’s ideologies as they are revealed or concealed in archival sources. The bedroom-tomb, turned into a monolith-stage, becomes an archaeological find, an exposure. Its physicality elevates de Souza beyond historical archives and historical imagination and takes him off the world of methods of analysis. His objects, his bed, his mortal remains—all determine his impossible denial in time. The monolith exposes not a monument to de Souza, to the authority of the subject but

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rather to the secluded space of the subject, the space of his intimacy. In that space, one does not wonder about the ethical principles of slavery or the denunciation of the enslaver versus the enslaved. Rather, one is closest to the self of the subject shrouded in the familiarity of bed sheets and the tenderness of his existence among a familial entourage. His physical remains amidst his bedroom highlight a hyper-real de Souza that truly inhabited (and continues to inhabit) that space. Indeed, the bedroom represents the most intimate of spaces, whether with oneself or with another. It is in the bedroom that the body of any subject finds its resting place at the end of the day. It is in the space that the body finds the secrecy of dreams, the pleasures of the flesh, procreation, birth and death. Dreams and sexuality, the epicenter of the split of any subject, are there, as if by accident, constituting not only the phenomenology of the visible but also “symbolic of what we find in the horizon, as the thrust of our experience” (Lacan 72-73). It is ironical that this space—the bedroom-tomb, the locus of the fragmented self—has been transformed into an historical spectacle destined to efface any and all doubts about the existence of the individual. After all, the visitor is staring at the essential split between the eye and the gaze. In front of such (im)materiality, the historical discourse and its gaps lose all discontinuity. Those discontinuities are no longer relevant, since they are easily sacrificed by the not-so-very objective gaze into his everlasting presence, hovering permanently from his revealing absenceresting place. The visitor to de Souza’s mausoleum, be it African or African-American, Portuguese or Brazilian, is overtaken by the physical traces of the past. This space offers a scenic illusion that constitutes the perception of the subject itself. In a historiographical “reality,” then, the bedroom becomes an unbiased, realistic truth whereas the historical discourse—as constituted in Robin Law’s work—becomes (im)possible recreations of time. Visual evidence overtakes archival research and eliminates readers and interpreters of the past drama. It inserts material artifacts into a dialogue with the shifting gaze of the tourist who is now part of the scenario, unable to distinguish himself/herself from the “real past” inscribed by his/her own manipulated sense of self in de Souza’s bedroom. It is little wonder, therefore, that some visitors cry since there is no indifferent gaze. Everyone can re-create his/her own past, his/her own trauma through the bedroom’s traumatic realism. The mausoleum invites each visitor’s dynamic reflection on an ideal past that still lives. On the one hand, it is staged and under perfect control. On the other, it is alienated from the de Souza who has lost its authorship. Within the frame of the bedroom and the tourist’s eye, mediated by light,

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sound, decorative arrangement and self-perception, what emerges is the poetics of a personal dialogic. Cultural heritage becomes an active process of understanding instead of a stable memory that is based on the preservation of the word and the impact of language. The narrative of the alphabet and the linearity of documents are now replaced by individualized points of view over the dramatic stage of the past. With our own perception circumscribed by a set of other contingencies over which we have little conscious control, de Souza’s image is now at the mercy of what we might call the traumatic repetition of our nature as individualized beings. In its intrinsic desire to erase ephemerality, the mausoleum does not create a fixed memory nor does it contribute to efface any sort of doubts concerning the role of de Souza amidst the development of the socalled Atlantic cultural triangle. Rather, it continues its development in the recreation of subjective and repetitive traumas.

Bibliography Araújo, Ana Lúcia. 2011. “Forgetting and Remembering the Atlantic Slave Trade: The Legacy of Brazilian Slave Merchant Francisco Félix de Souza.” In Crossing Memories: Slavery and African Diaspora. Eds. Ana Lucia Araujo, Mariana Pinho Cândido and Paul Lovejoy. 79–103. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press. 79-103. Print. Berbain, Simone. 1942. Le Comptoir Français de Juda au XVIIIe siécle. Larose: Paris. Print. Burton, Richard. 1864. A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahomey. London: Tylston and Edwards. Print. Chatwin, Bruce. 1980. The Viceroy of Ouidah. New York: Summit Books. Print. Clapperton, Commander. November 26, 1825-26.“Journal of Commander Clapperton.” Public Record Office, London, Admiralty Record, ADM 55/11. Print. Conneau, Theophilus. 1976. A Slaver's Log Book: Or 20 Years’ Residence in Africa: The Original Manuscript. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall. Print. Correo da Silva, Carlos Eugenio. 1866. Uma Viagem ao Estabelecimento de S. João Baptista de Ajudá. Lisboa. Impresa Nacional. Print. De Souza, Martine. “Martine de Souza, Descendant of Slave Trader.” http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi3/3_retel3.htm. Der, Benedict G. 1998. The Slave Trade of Northern Ghana. Accra: Woeli Publishing Services. Print.

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Duncan. John. 1847. Travels in Western Africa. London: Richard Bentley. Print. Forbes, Frederick. 1966. Dahomey and the Dahomans. London: Frank Cass. Print. Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. New York: Pantheon Books. Print. Freyre, Gilberto. 1993. Casa Grande & Senzala (The Masters and the Slaves). Rio de Janeiro: Global Editora. Print. Hammond, R.J. 1966. Portugal and Africa 1815-1910, A Study Uneconomic Imperialism. Stanford: Stanford UP. Print. Huntley, Sir Henry. 1850. 7 Years of Service on the Slave Coast of Western Africa. London: T.C. Newby. Print. Lacan, Jacques. 1977. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. London: The Hogarth Press, Print. Law, Robin. 2004. Ouidah, the Social History of a West African Slaving ‘Port’ 1727-1892. Athens: Ohio UP. Print. —. 2001. “A carreira de Francisco Félix de Souza na África Ocidental (1800-1849).” Topoi, March. 9-39. Print. Ramiréz-Esparsa, Nairán, et al. 2006. “Do Bilinguals Have Two Personalities? A Special Case of Cultural Frame Switching.” Journal of Research in Personality 40: 99–120. Print. Ross, David. 1969. “The First Chacha of Whydah, Francisco Félix de Souza.” Odu 2: 19-28. Print. Silva, Alberto da Costa. 2004. Francisco Félix de Souza, Mercador de Escravos. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. Print. Verger, Pierre. 1968. Flux et Refluxe de la Traite de Négres Entre les Golfes de Benin et Baía de Todos os Santos du XVII e au XIXe Siécle. Paris: La Haye, Mouton. Print.

CHAPTER FIVE DISPLACEMENT AND ALIENATION: THE CHALLENGES OF SUCCESSFUL INTEGRATION INTO THE EUROCENTRIC IDEAL IN NELSON ESTUPIÑÁN BASS’S EL ÚLTIMO RÍO SAMUEL MATE-KOJO

Abstract Nelson Estupiñán Bass’s El último río [Last River] is the story of José Antonio Pastraña, an Afro-Ecuadoran who embodies the figure of the self-made man. After fighting and clawing his way to a comfortable economic situation, Pastraña undertakes to educate himself and transforms himself into the epitome of culture and refinement. In order to ensure his position in a high society dominated by descendants of the conquistadores, he makes a series of decisions that involve a rejection of his own African roots. The novel is a tale of his descent into denial, alienation and isolation as the racialist ideology of culture and progress that he has so wholeheartedly embraced rejects him and his achievements and organizes itself to destroy him and his legacy. This essay exposes the process of change in José Antonio Pastraña as he builds up the economic and cultural resources that culminate in his ascension to political power as governor of his state. In this reading, the novel is presented as metaphor for uncritical acculturation and its power to alienate and estrange individuals.

Nelson Estupiñán Bass’s El último río recounts the story of José Antonio Pastraña, an extraordinary Afro-Ecuadoran who embodies the figure of the self-made man. It tells the story of his rise from low-buying agent to owner of a large export agency and finally to the governorship of Esmeraldas province. He almost destroys his legacy because he is persuaded that, to ensure his position and influence among his wealthy peers, he needs to make a series of decisions that involve a rejection of his

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identity as a black man. In this essay, I intend to explore the process of change in José Antonio Pastraña within the context of the racialized systems of thought of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and to read the novel as a metaphor for uncritical acculturation and its power to alienate and estrange individuals. I contend that the identity complexities and social challenges with which Pastraña has had to grapple are a literary representation of the post-independence politics of Ecuador. Race influences the life of José Antonio Pastraña, the protagonist of El último río. Indeed, his whole existential project is determined by his struggle to transcend the imposed limits of a race-based socio-economic and cultural system. Pastraña’s story and the history of post-independence Ecuador are closely intertwined ideologically, just as they interlace with the objective materiality of the chain of events in which his life is wrapped. To this effect, Estupiñán Bass uses Pastraña, the black man, to represent the world view of the national bourgeoisie of Ecuador. The conservative party of Ecuador that held power since the country’s independence from Spain in 1822 had done little to change the colonial systems of production and power after independence. Indeed, the racial politics of the post-independence national state remained either the same or even accentuated. Cognizant of this condition, the 1895 liberal revolution led by Eloy Alfaro proposed changes and advocated a more socially progressive and inclusive system. For most of the Ecuadoran Blacks, the liberal political program signaled a welcome change. Consequently, they were some of the liberal party’s strongest defenders in the battles of the war that finally broke the conservative hold on national power. Pastraña is one of such Ecuadoran Blacks who participated in the radical liberal revolution of 1895 that enabled the radical liberal party to rise to power. He, however, eventually becomes disappointed by the new order that the party introduces in national life. Although the liberals carried out important reforms in education and other areas, they did little to change the socio-economic conditions associated with being black in Ecuador. In short, the aspirations of the forgotten and ignored black and indigenous peoples of the nation were not fulfilled as liberal politicians and their allies occupied the positions that they had wrestled from the conservatives. Pastraña believes in the liberal ideal of 1895, but when he concludes that the leadership betrayed this ideal, he decides to fight for his own share of the country’s wealth on his own terms. In a daring and risky plan, he decides to defraud his employers in order to acquire the necessary capital to invest in his dreams. He simulates a robbery and hides the stolen money with his brother. In spite of being tortured, Pastraña demonstrates great strength of character and sticks to his plan. When he is released from

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custody for lack of evidence against him, he begins a relationship with Zoila, his landlady, and waits patiently for the noise and attention surrounding the robbery to die down before he attempts to use any of the stolen money. Pastraña reveals, in short order, his talents as an astute businessman. He takes calculated risks before others and makes a series of judicious investments in the export sector that increase his wealth. An aggressive competitor in the marketplace, he recognizes and takes advantage of opportunities ahead of his competitors. Such is the case with his decision to add tobacco and tagua nuts as export products from the Ecuadoran hinterland. In a nutshell, he kept his business one step ahead of his competitors and emerges as an experienced, self-confident, and skillful businessman with great knowledge of the people and the resources available in Esmeraldas province for export to external markets. With little patience or respect for both local and international businessmen who operate in the marketplace, he quickly dominates the commercial landscape of his province by the sheer power of his will and his work ethic. His ultimate goal is to become independently wealthy and to enjoy the fruits that the 1895 revolutionary movement had promised. Pastraña is, undoubtedly, aware that his success in business and the accumulation of wealth and power would inevitably free him and his family from the social determinism that seemed to condemn Blacks in his society to poverty, discrimination and humiliation. Wealth, Pastraña believes, would also enable him to have his revenge on those who had belittled and humiliated him when he was a poor veteran of the revolutionary war. As a self-made man on the rise, his penchant for business success provides him with the space to display his natural talents, unhampered by the constraints that others would place on him because of his “race.” Pastraña initially demonstrates his solidarity with the other Blacks of Esmeraldas by his generosity as well as his care and understanding of their plight. He gives alms to the indigent and helps some poor Blacks pay off their debts. He also funds scholarships for the young people of Esmeraldas for them to go and continue their studies in Guayaquil. As one follows Pastraña’s story, however, one soon discovers that he quickly buys into the dominant ideological constructs of his time and abandons his community. The important element of his story in the first part of the novel is the systematic change of his world view. As he gains wealth and acceptance into the circles that control the economic and social life of Esmeraldas, Pastrañas’s language and his attitudes also metamorphose. Spanish colonies under the colonial regime were strictly hierarchical, segregated and formal, with Europeans occupying the highest social and

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economic echelons. Race, as a category, permeated all social, economic and political interactions within the territories. It is within this environment that Pastraña acquires his wealth. By virtue of his economic status, he succeeds in joining the oligarchy despite the exclusions, limitations and other difficulties that are imposed on him because of his complexion. Paradoxically, the desire for a more privileged life is also accompanied, at first, by vengeful feelings towards whites and white society: he wants revenge for all the deprivations and humiliations that he has suffered because of the colour of his skin. His brother, Eleuterio, reminds him: “¡Acuérdate de nuestras humillaciones! ¡Nos vengaremos de todos los que nos han avergonzado! Tenemos que humillar a los blancos, a la mujer de este Cristóbal Vélez que te está haciendo azotar, a todas las que te han despreciado.” (64) [Remember our humiliations! We will have our revenge on all those who shamed us! We have to humiliate the whites, the wife of that Cristóbal Vélez who had them whip you, all those who looked down on you]. Pastraña wants success and wealth in order to avenge old wrongs, settle scores and get back at those who have humiliated him and prove them wrong. He particularly wants to chasten Vélez, the police officer, who had been in charge of his torture when he was arrested and investigated for misappropriation of his employers’ money. All these sentiments change when Pastraña, who elevated himself by dint of hard work and good decision-making, is finally accepted into elite society. The success that he enjoys is now accompanied by an almost obsessive desire to have children who could be considered white socially. That is, despite his successes, he recognizes that the race-based social and economic structures of Esmeraldas would be much easier to navigate successfully for his children if they were white. To facilitate his plan, he acquiesces and goes along with the politics of blanqueamiento [whitening] in his society. Although one might want to condemn him, it is important to remember that it is justifiably the desire of a putative parent that his children have an easier and more comfortable life than the one s/he has had to endure. Pastraña tells Sofía, his girlfriend: Me gusta la mujer blanca, como tú, Sofía, porque quiero tener hijos que no sean de mi color…Quiero que tengan un color como el tuyo… ¡Sí carajo quiero hijos blancos! ¿Acaso es un delito? No quiero que a mis hijos los desprecien porque sean como yo. La plata, sí, la plata hace hasta cierto punto blanco al negro, pero si es pobre, entonces está jodido como yo. (54) [I like white women like you, Sophia, because I want to have children who are not the same colour as me. I want them to have a colour like yours.

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Yes, damn it, I want white children! Is that a crime? I don’t want my children to be scorned because they are like me. Money, yes, money makes a black man white up to a point, but if he is poor, then he is screwed like me].

Whereas Pastraña acknowledges that wealth could provide a black person access to white society, he wants his children to be able to enjoy the associated privileges of being white and thus avoid the discrimination that those identified as black have had to endure. Later, when he wonders about the child that he might have with Teresa, the woman he finally marries, he again repeats the same desire: Porque lo que deseaba que naciera de Teresa, hecho por él, era un niño blanco, que no fuera como él, para que rozara con los niños blancos y ricos, y conociéndolos, pudiera dominarlos fácilmente, sin que ellos le enrostraran su color. Comenzaba a ser preso del delirio del dominio; quería sojuzgar a todos, a negros, a blancos, a los ricos y a los pobres. (124) [Because what he wanted Teresa to have (made by him) was a white child who would not be like him, someone who would be able to mix with the white and rich children, and by knowing them dominate them easily, with no fear of rejection because of his colour. He was beginning to be overcome by the delusion of domination: he wanted to subjugate all of them, Blacks, Whites, wealthy and poor people].

In short, in Esmeraldas as in other parts of Ecuador, wealth is associated with white skin and Pastraña wants his child to be not only white but also be able to dominate his contemporaries without giving them the opportunity to throw his colour in his face. Later, he makes it quite clear that white is also associated with authority and suggests that those considered non-whites would have a problem with imposing their authority on others if the group included whites. Pastraña’s dream for his “white” son was also a dream for Esmeraldas, his home province. His son would prove to the rest of Ecuador that Esmeraldas could be at the same level of civilization as the rest of the country. His ambition is that his son would be the first president of Ecuador from Esmeraldas and would gain respect for Esmeraldas and dispel any remaining demeaning association with Africa. He thinks to himself, “No sería un presidente negro…sino el primer Presidente que daría Esmeraldas, con la ventaja de ser blanco. Así la gente no continuaría creyendo que la provincia suya era solamente tierra de negros, una sucursal de África” (125-26). [He would not be a black president but rather the first president from Esmeraldas with the added advantage of being white. This way, people would stop thinking that his

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province was only a land of Blacks, a branch office or subsidiary of Africa]. As this passage demonstrates, in one fell swoop, the desired future for his white child would validate Esmeraldas’s conformity to the Europecentered norm or model for development and, at the same time, strike a blow against the association of Esmeraldas with Africa or blackness. He is not the only one in Esmeraldas with a desire for dissociation from blackness and Africa. The quest for lighter skin tone permeates the whole society of Esmeraldas. For example, while Pastraña pursues Sofía in his desire for melanin reduction regarding his children, Sofía herself has her eyes set on Jorge Mino, the book keeper who works with Pastraña for the same reason: he is of lighter hue and therefore a more desirable match. She rejects Pastraña because of his darker skin. Later, Jorge’s family rejects her and treats her abusively for the same reason. Finally, they prevail upon Jorge to abandon her in Guayaquil. Pastraña’s success as a business man, his acceptance into the circles of power and influence and the adulations of White society quickly draw him away from any feelings of solidarity and sympathy towards other black Esmeraldans. When colour prejudice becomes, in his mind, a serious obstacle to his full acceptance into “society,” he begins a process of dissociation from his black consciousness. Once he is accepted into white society, Pastraña takes on and adopts the politics of that society, contrary to what he had done and believed in before. In other words, when he is surrounded by the sycophancy of his white counterparts, he fails to see the incongruity of his positions, because his desire to conform to the Eurocentric norm demands the total rejection of who he is as a person. He is aware at all times that, even though he has overcome some of the difficulties that stood in the way of the economic and social advancement of Blacks, his own blackness would place other impediments upon his full acceptance into upper-class white society. Pastraña questions history and the oppression of blacks by whites and wonders why the reverse was not also true, that is, oppression of whites by blacks. From his experiences as a soldier, he knows that blacks are more resilient and resourceful. The false rationalization based on racialist ideas closes the loop and his line of reasoning ends up by asserting that perhaps blacks are limited to physical strength in a repetition of the prevailing racialist thought in science and history of the day. Despite all the evidence to the contrary and his own lived experiences first as a former soldier and then as a businessman who got his start by beating the system, Pastraña seems to doubt the evidence of his own objective experience. He is frustrated, impatient and angry at his own pigmentation, but, instead of blaming the discriminatory social practices of his times, he blames blacks for their lack of social and

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economic advancement and the poor opinion that whites have of them. If, in the past, he had compared himself to the white businessmen who competed with him in the export sector and found them wanting, he now compares himself to other blacks and finds them lacking. In this process, he fully comes to believe himself to be truly exceptional. Indeed, it seems that the exceptionalism of his person is the only way to resolve the contradiction between popular beliefs about black intellect and capacity for work and his own success as a businessman. In Pastraña’s mind, “[n]o era ya, se decía constantemente un negro cualquiera, sino un hombre de gran porvenir, que empezaba a mirar con cierto fastidio a su propia raza” (103). [He said to himself constantly that he was no longer just any black man but rather a man with a great future who was beginning to look upon his own race with a certain annoyance]. In fact, he does not consider himself an ordinary black man at all but one with a great future who is ready and willing to look down on other blacks whom he rejects as part of his identity. The other impulse to decry and denounce his association with the lower, darker class initially has to do with his business. To begin with, he buys into the pragmatics and politics of the entrepreneur class of Esmeraldas. When the demands of the working classes threaten to bring about social unrest and disrupt production, Pastraña decries the demands of the workers and defends the need for a peaceful and stable climate for business. His ambitious pursuit of wealth, power and acceptance into the ruling class means that everything must be subordinated to business interests. According to him, [h]ay que defender la paz a todo trance, porque es necesario para los negocios, para el desarrollo de la riqueza. Sí continuáramos en guerra, seguiría siendo el mismo pobre de antes. Si hubiera levantamiento, yo no iría, y no solo que no iría, sino que me alistaría contra él porque la paz es necesaria. (141) [Peace has to be defended at all costs because it is necessary for business and the development of wealth. If we were to continue to be at war, I would remain the same poor fellow as I was before. If there was a rebellion I would not go, and not only that, I would sign up to fight against it because peace is necessary].

One could posit that Pastraña’s wealth and, above all, his acceptance into the social circles of the ruling class of Esmeraldas give him a completely new way of looking at society and the world as he begins to identify more closely with the interests of the business class. That is, the completely classist focus on business also makes it possible for Pastraña to think of himself differently in comparison to other Blacks and to separate

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himself from that community. We know he has completed his transformation when, soon afterwards, he is honoured by the government for his civic spirit and philanthropy and is later named governor of the province. The governorship is offered to Pastraña in recognition of his success as a businessman, his civic spirit and his public service. It gives him the opportunity to play a central role in provincial politics as a leader among the local elites and his dream of having white children is projected onto the province that he now governs. Pastraña wants to transform the predominantly black province into a white one. For a while, Pastraña seems to be lost in the labyrinths of anti-black Eurocentric logic, but he is shocked back to his senses by overwhelming psychological tensions in his private life. This transformation occurs when he is under high emotional stress due to the death of the desired white child that his wife Teresa is carrying. The child’s death sinks him into the depths of despair. In a hallucinatory conversation with his dead child, he considers all the achievements that would have been possible for the child. It is at this juncture that he mentions, for the first time, the eugenic belief about improving the genetic stock of Esmeraldas: displacing blacks and replacing them with hardworking Germans, Englishmen, Italians and French in order to improve the race and to civilize Esmeraldas and Ecuador. Pastraña’s wholesale acceptance of this eugenic mindset is the next stage in the process of his dissociation in which whiteness is not only defined by skin tone but also by its connection with desirable attributes such as education, hard work and civilization. In this paradigm, the imported bloodlines would produce children for the new Esmeraldas and the province would instantly become modern and civilized and lose its demeaning reminder of Africa and backwardness. Pastraña’s full conversion occurs at a time when his acceptance into Esmeraldas high society is at its peak. Indeed, his viewpoint is so racialized at this point that he now regards his brother Eleuterio, who had been crucial in his accumulation of wealth and power, with suspicion: his association with Eleuterio becomes a source of disgrace. Patraña has a constant and almost pathological need to remind and assure himself that he is not like other blacks. This stance helps him to rationalize his positions regarding his change in attitude towards his blackness. Thus he thinks: Yo soy negro, sí, soy negro, pero soy de otra clase no como ellos. Yo soy igual a los blancos, solamente que soy negro ¿Y qué? Soy negro por fuera, pero soy blanco por dentro; soy inteligente como ellos, soy rico como los blancos inteligentes. Y estoy a la cabeza de todos los blancos por mi inteligencia y mi trabajo. (148)

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[I am black, yes, I am black, but of a different stock unlike them. I am like the Whites, except that I am black. And so what? I am black on the outside, but I am white on the inside. I am as intelligent as they are, I am wealthy like the Whites and I am better that all these Whites because of my intelligence and hard work].

Pastraña justifies his new ideological position and argues that his class, character, intelligence, wealth and position in society make him truly exceptional and different from other Blacks. He fails, however, to realize that the attributes he uses to distance himself from Blacks also make him very different from the vast majority of Whites, mulattoes and mestizos in his province. Things come to a head after he takes up the position of governor and decides to remove all that is black from the office of the governor. All black employees are summarily dismissed as he reorganizes the office in accordance with his acquired racialized value system. He goes as far as repainting all the walls and furniture white. For Pastraña, the need to whiten his administration follows the trends of his times when most American societies pushed their black and indigenous populations to the periphery as they sought to promote immigration from Europe. Whether whitening involved displacement, removal or elimination of non-European populations, it also meant the transfer to the Americas of a European settler population together with European modes of production and cultural norms. It is important to note that, while the whitewashing of his office and furniture borders on the bizarre, it represents a material expression of the racialist thinking about history, economics, civilization and culture that was so pervasive in the nineteenth century. George Reid Andrews has indicated that whitening involved not only race and ethnicity but also esthetics and culture: “Immigration was only the first step in whitening and Europeanizing Latin American societies, however. Not only did these societies have to be whitened racially and demographically; they had to be whitened culturally and aesthetically” (119). This argument may explain the symbolic elevation of whiteness in Pastraña’s mind and, consequently, the transfer of this value to inanimate objects. In this regard, Pastraña’s action may be viewed not only as a response to “race” and its attendant complexities of skin colour but also to the whole Eurocentric cultural complex and systems of values that include esthetics and its translation into the colour of the walls and of the furniture. In this sense, the whitewash is, in itself, a metaphor for a serious social phenomenon that is collective, public and personal. The other need that Pastraña expresses to the police commissioner is within the ideological paradigm of the local politics of Ecuadorian life. The underlying motive in this case is to imbue his administration with

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prestige and respect. He says to the commissioner, “Fuera de aquí creen que Esmeraldas es solo una aldea de negros… Debemos tratar de que los hombres de otras provincias se enteren de que estamos combatiendo al negro como causante de nuestro atraso y de nuestro descrédito” (154). [Away from here they think that Esmeraldas is a mere black village. We have to try and make people of other provinces know that we are fighting blacks as the cause of our backwardness and poor reputation.] This passage underscores two issues. First, Pastraña accepts the prevailing view that blacks are an active impediment to development and progress. Second, he wants others to perceive and consider him an active combatant of the ‘black problem’ in Esmeraldas. As part of the sweeping changes he undertakes, Pastraña replaces the stevedores at the port with white workers. There are, however, not enough whites to fill all the positions. Consequently, he is forced to employ some mestizos towards whom he displays the same contempt that he has shown towards blacks. He upholds a twisted belief about his class and his times and insists on those racist beliefs about hybridization: “Mientras revisaba algunas comunicaciones pensó: Estos son casi lo mismo que los negros. Son brutos, son media pinta, no tienen firmeza. El blanco es blanco, y el negro; pero estos ¿qué son? No son nada, no son ni negros ni blancos” (157). [While he was reviewing some letters, he thought: These ones are almost the same as the blacks. They are half pints. They don’t measure up. Whites are white and blacks are black; but these, what are they? They are nothing, neither black nor white.] Pastraña is also influenced by overt forms of racist thinking in his business decisions. From someone who trades fairly with the black smallholders of the interior, he is transformed into a businessman who takes advantage of them and exploits their ignorance for his profit. Pastraña’s control of the market for their produce forces them to sell to him at rock-bottom prices. He also displaces the blacks near his country estate in order to control more land. Considering them as impediments to the progress and development of his business, Pastraña forcibly removes some of the blacks by taking official titles to lands that he knows they have occupied for generations. He resorts to the conventional wisdom of the times that blacks are an obstacle to progress and modernization. The change in Pastraña is not lost upon his fellow blacks: he has betrayed all the things that they held in common, including his own history and character: Los que vivían al día, sin otro horizonte que el de sus hombros abrumados comprendieron que no era solamente una ridícula manía la que estaba sufriendo José Antonio sino que se había operado en él un radical cambio

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de filas: se había colocado abiertamente al lado de los poderosos y los blancos; ya no era Alfarista, sino un acaudalado ambicioso resuelto a enriquecerse más y más pasando si fuese necesario, por sobre toda su raza. (182) [Those who live day to day with no other possibilities other than the work of their exhausted shoulders understood that what Jose Antonio was going through wasn’t just a ridiculous caprice but rather a radical change of ideas: he had openly taken sides with the powerful and the whites; he was no longer Alfarista, but rather an ambitious wealthy person resolved to get richer and richer, whenever necessary, by running over all of his race].

The peasants and lower-class blacks understand that Pastraña’s interest in improving the race is not just a silly obsession. They see the deeper significance and the extent of his betrayal of their common experience: he has switched sides and thrown in his lot with those who oppress them. A possible explanation for Pastraña’s new attitude may be found in his own self-justification in which he repeats the ideas echoed by the oligarchs of Esmeraldas. These include the disrepute that the black stevedores of the port were bringing to the country, the Ecuadoran government’s policy regarding Europe and European immigration as motors for development, the need to remove blacks from key processes at the port in order to make work more efficient and, finally, a response to the complaints of ships’ captains who were fed up with dealing with uneducated and stubborn blacks at the port. Pastraña’s attitude and actions reflect what was taking place in many post-independence Spanish-American and other American societies. Assertions about black capacity for work and competence militated against the creation of an inclusive citizenship for blacks. In an essay in which he examines the construction of modernity, Vlad Godzich argues that, from the outset, the fundamental role that Blacks played in the course of modernity was excluded from official discourses: Africa is placed outside any historical trajectory whatsoever. It is outside of time, and will enter historical time exclusively on European modernity’s terms. It is in this sense that Africa has been modernity’s absolute other. Nothing more than a reserve for modernity which could reach within it and pull out whatever it needed for itself [including] slaves and other natural resources, without ever having to consider the contemporization of Africa within modernity. (171)

As other to Europe, Africa is a negative value in the sense that, if Europe represents modernity and innovation, then Africa represents the direct opposite—backwardness and staganation. Following Godzich’s analysis, it

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is fair to affirm that the celebration of industry, technology and material progress during modernity was couched in a language that both explicitly and implicitly looked to Europe and Europeans to define and represent it rather than analyzing non-European systems of knowledge, organization, education or investment as possible measures of material progress and civilization. George Reid Andrews (2004) contends that Latin American racialist thinking was grounded in globalization. Andrews believes that Spanish American attitudes on race and modernity took the forms that they did, not only because of intellectual contacts and access to the works of Darwin, Gobineau, Spencer, Taine and others, but also because of the expanding trade and commercial ties with the United States. In Andrews’s view, this relationship offered Latin American nations a practical example of a particular kind of racist development model and its attendant political thought and practice: At a time when the bourgeoning export trade was tying Latin America ever more closely to Europe and the United States, these international currents of racist thought and practice could not fail to have a powerful influence on the region. Scientific racism was immediately embraced by turn of the century elites confronting the challenge of how to transform their backward, underdeveloped nations into modern civilized republics. Such a transformation, they concluded, would have to be more than just political or economic; it would have to be racial as well. In order to become civilized Latin America would have to be white. (118)

In this respect, Pastraña’s idea of importing European males to improve the productive and intellectual potential of Esmeraldas was neither radical nor new on the American continent. Mexico, Argentina and notably Brazil all had immigration policies that favoured, helped and encouraged European immigration as part of the impetus to transform their countries into modern industrial states. In a lengthy examination of black and white interactions and relations starting with the first English settlement at Jamestown, Winthrop D. Jordan indicates that Simon Bolivar’s dilemma about manumission and the place of the negro in the new American world of independence was akin to the concerns that Thomas Jefferson and other leading political minds in the United States had regarding the place of blacks in the new republic. According to Jordan, abolitionists and nonabolitionists alike realized that the institution of slavery could not be long continued without endangering the viability of white ethnic identity in the colonies. Consequently, they came up with various schemes to ensure the preservation of white power and privilege in a post-slavery United States.

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In the period after independence, one such scheme would have expelled blacks from Virginia and replaced them with immigrants from Europe (567). In this sense, Pastraña’s proposal is quite tame in comparison, because he only wanted to replace public servants and dock workers. Another point of difference between the politics of race in the United States and Latin America is the reliance on miscegenation and hybridity as part of the construction of national civilization and identity in Latin America. In the United States, national identity was strictly Eurocentric. In Ecuador and elsewhere in Spanish America, however, national identity formation narratives insisted on a mestizo or hybrid identity, but there was still a strict colourist hierarchy based on hue with the European phenotype firmly ensconced at the apex. Clearly privileged over all others, Pastraña is not the only non-white to put these belief systems based on colour and ethnicity to work in his life. The whole society of Esmeraldas operates on a rigidly hierarchized system based on skin colour. So much so that some of the blacks in Esmeraldas are even quite keen to see the promised German breeding stock that Pastraña proposes indeed come into the country to improve the genetic make-up of Esmeraldas and to bring the province fully into modern civilized life. The lower-class sectors of the population are also cognizant that admission to the ranks of the middle class, even if for the most minimal opportunities, require that they lose their blackness. Thus, for them, Pastraña’s seemingly absurd proposal offered the possibility of access to the opportunities and privileges of whiteness: “…todos los ecuatorianos estaban de acuerdo con la necesidad de blanquear el puerto como lugar de contacto con el mundo exterior” (175). [All Ecuadorans were in agreement on the need to whiten the port as a place of contact with the outside world.] Aside from desiring white descendants for themselves, Esmeraldans are also convinced that the prestige and reputation of their province would be beneficial in a world where all positive value is vested in and reserved for that which is white. In this regard, then, even the mestizo and mulato oligarchs of Esmeraldas high society are ready to participate in the experiment to “improve the race.” Some, within this class, were willing to have their daughters and nieces participate in the grand eugenics project to the extent that they chose not to take into account the moral implications of such an action. For the group that constituted the wealthy masters of the province, whiteness would not only legitimize their power but also establish and strengthen their historical identity as descendants of the white ‘fathers’ of the nation. In other words, the mestizo or mixed upper classes also bought into the self-denying ideology of whitening despite their privileged position and wealth:

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. For black women especially, whitening is an even more practical solution for discrimination and rejection in the strictly hierarchized society in which they live. Whitening was an opportunity both for themselves and their offspring to escape the economic and social restrictions imposed on them because of their skin colour. The only one who publicly opposes the idea of whitening the population of Esmeraldas is Tinker, the German trader. He is vocally against the rule to dismiss black workers and to employ white ones not because he genuinely believes in justice and equity but because this stance could possibly ruin his commercial competitor’s political agenda. For him, the question of shade or hue is irrelevant and redundant in a country that he perceives as essentially non-white. Indeed, he challenges the ‘white’ credentials of Honorato Medina, the Ecuadoran representative of a British company. Tinker partially achieves his objectives because his opposition holds up Pastraña, his commercial rival, to public ridicule among the elites who are all amused by the fact that a black man would take the same position as them. Pastraña’s decisions and actions provoke anger, frustration and active opposition that drive some of the blacks in Esmeraldas to become allies of the German trader. It is an emotional and psychological crisis in Pastraña’s private life that forces him to rethink his positions. He had rejected his wife Teresa in frustration after the child that she bore him died and had taken up with a much younger white mistress, Gulnara. When he is informed that the hospitalized Teresa died in Guayaquil, his feelings of guilt and remorse are compounded by Gulnara’s behaviour. The jealous, demanding, loud, and angry Gulnara is upset at Pastraña for not divorcing Teresa in order to dedicate himself fully to her. In her anger, Gulnara insults him and reminds him of his race. The argument quickly escalates into violence and ends when Pastraña storms out of the house. Gulnara’s insults, which his fellow oligarchs would never have voiced out, combined with his emotionally vulnerable and unstable mental condition, force him to rethink his life and his recent positions:

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Caviló más; se ahondaba la noche, y él descendía hasta sus escalones últimos; lacerábase escarbando en sus propios secretos, y tanto, que, a ratos, sollozaba. Sintióse un negro puro, verdadero, orgulloso de ser negro. ¿Cómo había podido antes renegar de su propio color, abominar a su gente, llamar desdeñosamente africanos a sus congéneres? Y él ¿qué era? sintióse igual a ellos, hijo de padres negros, con la única diferencia de que era acaudalado, y que los demás, los otros eran pobres y se debatían en la miseria, ganaban la vida alquilando sus manos y sus hombros. (195) [He thought more deeply, the night was deepening and he descended the last steps. He hurt himself by digging into his own secrets so much that he often wept. He felt himself to be pure and true, proud to be black. How could he have rejected his colour before, hate his own people and disdainfully call his fellow African. And what was he? He felt the same as them, a child of black parents, with the single difference that he was wealthy and the others were poor and struggling in their misery. They earned a living by hiring out their arms and shoulders].

Pastraña begins to come to terms with the fact that the only difference between him and the other blacks is his wealth. He is surprised at himself about how he had gotten to where he is in his thinking. Based on his real life’s experiences of working with blacks and whites alike, Pastraña comes to the conclusion that whites could be just as inept and miserable as blacks. At the end of his meditation, he concludes thus: ¡Qué gran error había padecido! ¡Cómo pudo equivocarse, creerlos modelos, pensar que los cien gringos debían injertar a las mujeres de color, para el advenimiento del habitante soñado! Los blancos eran tan ineptos y ruines como los negros. (195) [What a great mistake he had made! How could he be so wrong, believe that they were models and think that the hundred gringos should inseminate the coloured women for the advent of the ideal population. Whites were just as inept and despicable as Blacks].

In the end, it is his own knowledge derived from his experiences that finally enables him to transcend the falsehoods and mythologies about race that the cultural system had erected in order to preserve and to defend its Europe-centered model of progress and modernity. As a consequence of the history of unequal relations, those identified as non-white have had to fight against the identities imposed upon them by the racialized power structures. These identities were often codified in legislation and reified in traditions and social mores. In colonial societies those identified as non-white had little chance for free self-identification

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outside of the imposed identity that was normalized by the preconceived attitudes of colonial relations. Any effort made towards a self-generated identity could only be achieved against the pre-existing framework of the racial ideas that sought to control and circumscribe them within the prevalent racial categories and hierarchies of power. In other words, any effort that they made towards a self-generated identity could only be achieved against the background of the racial categories that sought to control and define them within the prevailing racial ideology, limiting their autonomy of thought and action. For blacks such as Pastraña, the problem of self-consciousness and identity are compounded by the fact that, since colonial times, they have been constructed and defined by the hegemonic discourses of the white communities in which they reside. Such construction did not project them as subject but rather as object to which, and on which, the colonial European subject was written and edited. This peculiar situation of Blacks in America is what W.E.B. Du Bois described as double consciousness in The Souls of Black Folk (2003) where he affirms: “The negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second sight in this American world—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world” (9). For Du Bois, there is a tension between the two parts of the Black psyche: the part that assumes its blackness and the other that recognizes its very existence only in the terms defined outside its own consciousness within the cultural and discursive confines of white society. Consequently, blacks in America live a split consciousness in which their self-concept and identities depend not only on how they see themselves but also on how they are seen by whites. For Du Bois, this dualistic tension is important, because it is out of that dialectic that a new subject of history will emerge to construct a new paradigm for society that incorporates the best elements of all its constitutive parts (9). Du Bois contends that the awareness of this condition on the part of the individual triggers two reactions: on the one hand, acts of rebellion and opposition that may take different forms and, on the other, active compliance and conformity. Du Bois reflects the first of these triggers when he describes the manner in which he worked hard to outperform his white classmates in school on tests, thus actively rejecting the stereotype that the New England white society had constructed about black intellect. Pastraña initially challenges the status quo through his achievements in business. When he becomes wealthy, he originally models acts of solidarity and empathy in the black community. Later, as the white elites in his society adopt and elevate him, he chooses to espouse

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white models and white ideology. His behaviour towards the blacks of his city changes and he justifies his lack of solidarity and arrogance with the same arguments and language used by the elites of Esmeraldas. It is a conscious choice that Pastraña makes, driven by the need to conform to the normative behaviours of his chosen community through his use of language. In Peau noire masques blancs (1952), Franz Fanon points out the dualism in the social interactions of blacks as a result of double consciousness. Fanon believes that, in their interpersonal interactions, blacks’ experiences with whites are both psychological and social. In his study of Caribbean immigrants in France, Fanon noticed a correlation in the social and power dynamics between the metropolis and colony (and urban versus rural) in the behaviours of colonial subjects in France. That is, the same structural laws that define vertical hierarchy are prevalent. Fanon discovered that, akin to Du Bois’s findings, Caribbean immigrants in France experience double consciousness as a need to prove oneself in contraposition to the others’ consciousness. To buttress his point, Fanon uses the responses of two colonial subjects who react strongly against the stereotype. The first chooses to be a medical officer in the army not because of vocational drive but because of the need to reverse the racialized master-subaltern dynamic. The other individual that Fanon cites as an example of role reversal works as a customs officer who treats everyone harshly and rudely because he does not want to be taken for an idiot (49). In his essay, “The Problem of the Colonized” in Toward the African Revolution (1967), Fanon analyses the relations between North African immigrants in France and the French. He gives examples of how true knowledge of the North African and real communication with him/her is almost impossible because of the colonized-colonizer paradigm. The French see the North African through a veil or a filter of preconceived ideas while the immigrant can never truly show or be him/herself because of the ubiquity of the pre-existing frame of ideas about who s/he is and what s/he is about (7). Fanon’s analysis of the peculiar situation of the subaltern colonial subject in Peau noire masques blancs focuses on the use of language because, according to him, it supports the symbolic structures on which a civilization, its culture, history and system of values are built (13). Colonialist historiography places Europe at the centre of its universe and seeks adherence of non-Europeans in this Eurocentric belief. This Eurocentric imperative is forcefully suggested through civil, economic and political systems. Pastraña’s success as a business leader and a pillar of society unambiguously contradicts the belief systems around race.

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Unfortunately, however, rather than stressing his success as positive proof of the fallacy of such beliefs, Pastraña quite literally buys into this system of beliefs. In so doing, he has no choice but to reject his own experience as the source of his knowledge and turn on his own people. Pastraña’s situation underscores the dynamics of group identification that include choice of language. It also demonstrates the fact that, once a language is chosen, it determines powerfully other facets of the individual’s relations and interactions with the world. When Pastraña opts to adopt the language and belief systems of the Eurocentric elites, he betrays not only his people but also his own values and his own person. Pastranãs’s behaviour makes sense within the parameters of Andrews’s explanation of the politics of race in Latin America: In societies that regarded race as a biological fact, their skin, their hair, their facial features signified a direct ancestral link to an African-based culture. In order to meet the requirements for admission into civilized society and the national middle class, their rejection of that culture had to be even more emphatic than that of their white counterparts. (125)

From Andrews’s viewpoint, therefore, any black who desired to belong to the privileged class had no choice but to reject any association with black society, culture and Africa. If Pastraña chooses to be fully integrated into the social, economic and political elite of Esmeraldas, it is only logical that he adopt the belief systems and normative behaviours that serve as identity markers for them. In buying into the argument of regarding black life as devoid of history, Pastraña is forced to embrace the idea of history, progress and modernity as exclusively European in nature. His choices resonate with Fanon’s examples in which blacks suffer a complete paradigm shift when they travel to France because of the need for the colonized subject to change radically in order to be worthy enough to inhabit his or her new space. Still, this kind of paradigm shift is not devoid of cost. For Pastraña, it is a displacement of his feelings of frustration and anger from the real objective and historical causes and the transference of these feelings onto his fellow blacks. In the context of colonial relations, deep-seated inferiority complex generated among colonial subjects by the dynamics of the relationship of master-subaltern, metropolis-periphery or civilizationbarbarianism includes emotional states that may lead to resentment, guilt, self-hatred and pathologies of the self (Fanon, 48). As The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Media Studies tells us, displacement of aggression “. . . refers to a redirection of harm doing behavior from a primary to a secondary target or victim” (451). It occurs when an individual

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chooses an alternative focus for the expression of his/her feelings and emotions because s/he is unable to express them towards the primary target. Individuals may be unable to express their frustrations towards the real cause of their distress for several reasons: the cause may be unavailable, unknown or it may be too powerful to be challenged. Furthermore, fear may also lead to avoidance behaviours and, quite often, there may be other material and psychological incentives for not confronting the source of negative emotions. We may not act because we are afraid or we may choose not to act because of the advantages we may gain for doing nothing. In El último río, the source of Pastraña’s pent-up frustrations is the whole social, political and economic system that excludes people not because of their lack of capacity, education, industry or will but rather denies opportunity based merely on the colour of their skin. He cannot fight the tides of history, culture and the traditions of his country and he cannot rail against the sea because he has no clear target for his frustration. Moreover, in Pastraña’s situation, there are psychological and material incentives that encourage avoidance behaviour and the displacement of his pent-up anger. He is impelled by his ambition and the desire to be recognized, accepted and held in high esteem by the oligarchs of Esmeraldas as well as by his need to belong and claim the group identity that his wealth affords him. Pastraña knows the origin and cause of the lowly status of Blacks in his society, but once he has joined the ranks of the oligarchy, even if only in economic terms, he adopts the language of the group and inverts his own value system. Accordingly, his new language redirects his anger at this state of affairs onto his fellow blacks. The new Pastraña lays the blame squarely on blacks for the lack of economic progress in their province. He also blames them for the lack of respect that Esmeraldas province suffers in both national and international forums. The paradox of integration into the Euro-centered ideal for blacks is that, within its own dynamic, there are two opposing forces that create an antithetical relation for blacks between what one is and what one is made to think him/herself to be. His acceptance of the stereotypes and the adoption of the modes of speech and thought of the elites are a direct contradiction of the story of his life and the things that were important for the formation of his identity as a man. What Pastraña is and what he knows from his experiences directly contradict the foundational beliefs of his new-found social class about black intellect and capacity for work. He is forced to resolve the contradiction by creating the paradoxical figure of a man who is both black and white; black on the outside and white on the inside. His adoption of the Eurocentric world view and the language of

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race hierarchy put him in a position where he is alienated from fellow blacks and, more importantly, estranged in existential terms from his own self. In keeping with her focus on the protagonist of the novel, Millicent Ann Bolden (1989) refers to this contradiction between who he really is and what he comes to think he is as the social psychosis of Pastraña. Her thesis affirms that the principal thematic emphases of El último río are racism, self-hatred and self-affirmation. She also thinks that the novel is a satire on the folly of the myth of White supremacy and the jocularity of those non-Europeans who buy into its belief systems (279). In the introduction to the novel, Fernando Tinajero Villamar indicates that this work transcends both the realist novel and the sociological novel because it is a novel of passion. Although this affirmation supposes a privileging of Pastraña’s relationships and the role they play in his story, Tinajero Villamar admits that the novel is more than that because it is a means to an end. He compares Pastraña’s story to the story of the failure of the liberal revolution in Ecuador at the end of the nineteenth- and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. According to him, the novel illustrates the failure of liberal politics because the reforms that they envisioned did not go far enough and did not deal with the fundamental issues that were holding Ecuador back from a truly liberal political and economic system. He notes: Lo que, en definitiva, viene a decirnos el negro Pastraña es que la revolución liberal fracasó por no haber puesto en tela de juicio los valores que imperaban antes de su advenimiento y que hicieron posible la explotación del hombre por el hombre. Lo mismo que la independencia, la revolución liberal se proclamó defensora y reivindicadora de la libertad del hombre; pero lo hizo sacrificando otros bienes acaso más valiosos que la mera libertad política. Hombres que padecieron –como todos- las congojas de la alienación, los conductores de la revolución se dejaron fácilmente seducir por un teoricismo que se avenía mal con la estructura fáctica de la sociedad. (11) [What the black man Pastraña tells us definitively is that the liberal revolution failed because it did not critically evaluate the value systems in place before its arrival that made man’s exploitation by man possible. Just like independence, the liberal revolution proclaimed itself a defender and vindicator of man’s freedom, but it did so by sacrificing other values that were perhaps more valuable than mere political freedom. The leaders of the revolution, like other men, also suffered, the anguish of alienation because they allowed themselves to be easily seduced by a theory that hardly matched the real structure of society].

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Tinajero Villamar draws parallels between two key periods of the history of Ecuador, the fight for independence and the liberal revolution of the late nineteenth Century. The politicians of both periods failed according to him because they were hindered or incapacitated by the racial interpretation of history that made them limit themselves to an idealist discourse. This discourse could never reflect the objective and material history of their country and, consequently, both sets of politicians fail to deal with the underlying endemic causes for exploitation, injustice and exclusion of large sectors of their population. For Tinajero Villamar, the failure of the liberal movement, as illustrated amply in El último río, is the failure to transcend the inherited racial politics of the times. He fails to recognize, however, that the space of the intersection of Pastraña’s passions or his private life and that of the history of Ecuador is much deeper than liberal politics. It is true that José Antonio Pastraña’s life, as told in El último río, mirrors the life of the country in which the triumphant liberals come to power and were promptly converted into the very thing that they had fought against. Jose Antonio Pastraña, the liberal revolutionary, becomes the thing against which he had taken up arms, a conservative and power-hungry businessman who is ready to adopt the politics of the conquistador descendants and their Eurocentric ideas. Beyond liberal politics, however, I believe that this portion of Pastraña’s biography reflects the post-independence political and economic projects of most American nations. The fact is that both sets of politicians— conservatives and liberals—subscribed to the same basic race-based ideology of (pseudo) scientific racism. According to this belief system, modernity and cultural progress, development and economic prosperity, as well as social justice, were all equated with Europe and Europeans. The individuals who fought for the political emancipation of the territories took pains to define themselves as Americans, as opposed to the bureaucrats, soldiers and landlords from the colonial power. Nevertheless, they shared the same racialized value system. When they were faced with the challenges of transforming their countries, they fell back to what was a familiar ideological construct ready for application. Andrews believes it was easy to adapt quickly the scientific racism of the nineteenth Century to justify what had been the practice since colonial times: Scientific racism was immediately embraced by turn of the century elites confronting the challenge of how to transform their backward, underdeveloped nations into modern civilized republics. Such a transformation, they concluded, would have to be more than just political or economic; it would have to be racial as well. In order to become civilized, Latin America would have to be white. (118)

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This is the context that wraps the decisions that Pastraña and the elites of Esmeraldas made. Eurocentrism and the racialized histories that it proposed were a direct consequence and function of centuries of chattel slavery. It organized all narrative, causal structures, systems of cognition and memory and compressed it all into a vertical paradigm with Europe firmly ensconced at the top. Armed with their liberal political ideas, they fought for the independence of the territories, but when it came to forge a new identity and a new autonomous history for the newly liberated territories, the new rulers maintained the caste system in which they had grown up. The system had legitimized slavery of the African, genocide for the indigenous populations and now it legitimized the prevailing forms of production and privilege in the new nations. In Race and Nation in Latin America, Thomas C. Holt underscores how this ideological construct influenced the psyche of the newly independent Latin American states. For Holt, national identities have been constructed in racial terms to the extent that definitions of race have been shaped by processes of nation-building (9). Holt believes that this is possible because the question of nation and race are inherently unstable and prone to different pragmatic pressures within the diverse historical contexts of the Americas. Citing Simón Bolívar as an example of a liberator who thought that the presence of blacks and indigenous people within the new republics would slow the march towards modernity and democracy (4), Holt argues that, in post-independence Latin America, the notions of development, progress and civilization were all bound up in a racialist interpretation of history. Holt also points to José Sarmiento who believed that civilization had a right to eliminate those non-European elements that could potentially mitigate its advancement (5). In the nineteenth Century across all the Americas, barriers were erected to curb, control and, in some instances, ban immigration from non-white areas of the world while, at the same time, enabling with subsidies and preferential treatment in housing and jobs, those immigrants from desirable places. It is within this system of values that Pastraña finds himself coerced and incentivized to sever himself from his experiences, beliefs and community and displace and transfer his frustrations with that same system away from the real cause of all his feelings of rejection and onto the group that had given his life meaning until then. The source of our knowledge about the world is the result of our passive and active experiences, in the same way our sense of who and why we are is the product of the very process of organizing our experiences into a cogent and coherent narrative. It can be said that individual identity is generated from the particular narrative that we create for ourselves that

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organizes our multiple and disparate experiences into a particular discursive formulation. Double consciousness means that black selves are forced to deal with elements of identity that are imposed upon them by hegemonic discourses. They, the blacks, are caught in the tensions and contradictions created between the endogenic self, generated from personal experiences in time and space, and the exogenic definitions constructed by society. José Antonio Pastraña is, however, not a mere peon. On the one hand, he is caught in a system of social institutions and norms that invite him at every turn to reject the value of his experiences, and, on the other, his own ambition drives him to self-denial. In Search for Significance, Donald Lombardi describes how perception and knowledge are influenced by external frames of reference that are culturally determined and which, sometimes, even contradict personal subjective experiences. For Lombardi, subjective perception is seeing things from one’s own point of view and frame of reference. He further believes, however, that there is a difference between physical and psychological realities and that they exist in a state of tension influenced by external historical cultural frames of reference. The Eurocentric construct and its assertion of cultural privilege and preeminence notwithstanding, José Antonio Pastraña finds himself embroiled in the contradictions that are inherent to this consideration of history. He has to define himself in a space where individual identity is defined not as the consequence of specific individual capacity and opportunity, but rather as predetermined by race. In Pastraña’s case, the selective perception associated with his adoption of the Eurocentric explanation of history is challenged by his own objective experiences and at the moment of crisis in his personal life. As these tensions reach a breaking point, there is a reversal and he recuperates his subjective frame of reference: a realization that he cannot ever avoid the issue of his “race.” This recognition prompts him to give up all the honours and social rewards bestowed upon him when he abandoned his subjective reality. He finally understands that, in his acceptance of the Eurocentric paradigm, he not only betrays the blacks of Esmeraldas but also his own deeper self. He is, after all, a self-made man who does not need legitimation from any source whatsoever in order to know who he is and what his value is as a person.

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Bibliography Andrews, George Reid. 2004. Afro-Latin America 1800-2000. New York: Oxford UP. Print. Appelbaum, Nancy et al. 2003. Race and Nation in Modern Latin America. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P. Print Bolden, Millicent Ann. 1989. “Focalization and Social Vision in the Early Novels of Nelson Estupiñán Bass”. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A. 49, 12 June 1989. 3741A. Print. Craighead, Edward W. and Nemeroff Charles. 2001. The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. New York: Wiley and Sons. Print. Du Bois, W. E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. 2003. New York: Barnes and Noble Classics. Print. Estupiñán Bass, Nelson. 1966. El último río. Quito: Casa de la cultura ecuatoriana. Print. Fanon, Franz. 1952. Peau noire, masques blancs. Paris: Editions Seuil. Print —. Toward the African Revolution. 1967.Trans. Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove Press. Print. Godzich, Vlad. 1999. “The Spanish Black Atlantic: Further Complications in the History of Modernity.” In Breaking Borders: African-Hispanic Encounters, edited by Gustavo Mejía, Gustavo. New Orleans: UP of the South. Print. Jordan, Winthrop D. 1968. White over Black. American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812. Baltimore: Penguin Books. Print. Pappenheim, Fitz. 1954. The Alienation of Modern Man. New York & London: Modern Reader Paperbacks. Print Whitten, Norman E. and Arlene Torres, Eds. 1998. Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana UP.

CHAPTER SIX BRANDING SPAIN: MARCA ESPAÑA, CASA ÁFRICA AND SPAIN’S AFRICAN OVERTURES DIEUDONNÉ AFATSAWO

Abstract A few years ago, Spain’s Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación inaugurated Casa África to signal a strong diplomatic push toward the African continent with the clear mission to brand herself as a global entity for the new millennium. In furtherance of this mission, seven African artists were invited to visit various cities in Spain and to present their visions of their host country at the end of their stay. The resulting travelling exhibits known as “7 Miradas africanas sobre España” [Seven African Gazes Upon Spain] appeared in the Círculos de Bellas Artes, among others. This essay discusses Casa África’s role and the visit within the framework of Marca España and suggests that the outcomes of these strategic branding overtures toward Africa are mixed at best.

In 2006, Casa África was inaugurated to signal the Spanish government’s strong diplomatic push toward the African continent in terms of economic, political, social and cultural relations. Since then, numerous cultural activities have taken place under its aegis, including the invitation of seven African artists to visit Spain and to present later their view of their host country through photographs taken in the cities they were assigned.1 The photographic exhibition under the caption “7 Miradas africanas sobre España” [7 African Gazes upon Spain]2 visited the Círculo de Bellas Artes 1

Mamadou Gomis (Senegal, Bilbao); Patrick Wokmeni (Cameroon, Seville); Nii Obodai (Ghana, Villadolid); Arturo Bibang (Equatorial Guinea, Valencia); Emeka Okereke (Nigeria, Madrid); Zanele Muholi (only female, South Africa, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria); Mohammed Konaté (Mali, Barcelona). 2 All translations into English are mine, unless otherwise stated.

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in Madrid as well as other Spanish cities. Free to work on subjects of their choice according to their artistic sensibilities and creativity, the photographers revealed aspects of life in the cities they were assigned that are rarely seen by Africans back home. To some extent, one could argue that these images may be cautionary tales for those who might be contemplating joining waves of illegal immigration to Europe through Spain. This essay takes the position that, in discussing Casa Africa’s role and the visit within the framework of Marca España as integral parts of branding Spain for the new millennium, it is imperative that both Spanish authorities and their African audience understand that the African overtures may just be heard at two different tempos.3 The effort to project a new image for Spain for the new millennium has been in over-drive since the new century began, thanks to the influence of a concept that emanates from the business world: Marca España.4 The concept derives from what Simon Anholt calls “nation branding,” which, in turn, came from a simple observation: “the reputations of countries are rather like the brand images of companies and products, and equally [as] important” (x). In his later work, Competitive Identity: The New Brand Management for Nations, Cities and Regions, Anholt reframes his approach and calls it “Competitive Identity,” since “[nation brand] has 3

I am greatly indebted to Agawu-Kakraba for his essay “Symptoms of Spanish Fantasies: Africa as the Sign of the Other in Angel Ganivet’s Idearium español and La Conquista del reino de Maya.” In this brilliant essay, the author argues that the embedded contradiction in the two works belies the discourses and rhetorical paraphernalia that are deployed to defend the notion of territorial integrity, serves, in effect, to nullify the African outside that territory. The representation of the African subject in Spanish literature since the Golden Age leaves no doubt as to the nullification referred to earlier. (For historical contexts, see Baltasar Fra Molinero’s “La visión de África y los africanos en España” in “Introducción II” of his La imagen de los negros en el teatro del siglo de oro (p. 5-9). In this sense, one could ascribe a subliminal intention by the Spanish authorities to the visit of the seven African artists to Spain. I will, however, be drawing a parallel later on in this essay between the visit and Cadalso’s Cartas Marruecas, to suggest that the representation of the Spanish subject by these seven Africans constitutes, in my opinion, a long-awaited narrative reversal. As I will explain, this reversal, although still harbouring lingering hegemonic sentiments as of old, is one being imposed by forces external to Spain to which she must succumb in order to be relevant in this millennium, just as was the case in the Eighteenth Century with the European Enlightenment. 4 See William Chislett, Spain: Going Places. Economic, Political and Social Progress 1975-2008 (Madrid: Telefonica, 2008, p. 205-09) and Mauro Guillén, The Rise of Spanish Multinationals: European Business in the Global Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005 p. 169-97).

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more to do with national identity and the politics and economics of competitiveness than with branding as it is usually understood.” (x) Thus, even though brand theory may have begun as buying and selling and promoting consumer goods, Anholt contends that, in reality, it covers some of the hardest philosophical questions one can tackle: the nature of perception and reality, the relationship between objects and their representation, the phenomena of mass psychology, the mysteries of national identity, leadership, culture and social cohesion and much more. Anholt emphasizes that ten years ago the concept was theoretical, but today, “the talk is far more urgent and practical, and it is with ministers, ambassadors, city mayors and regional administrations, international organizations and donor agencies, heads of government and heads of state” (xi). In Anholt’s view, a brand is a product or service or organization, considered in combination with its name, its identity and its reputation. Branding is the process of designing, planning and communicating the name and the identity in order to build or manage the reputation (4). Anholt’s taxonomy identifies four different aspects of the brand itself: brand identity—what is in front of us: a logo, slogan, packaging, design of the product; brand image—the perception of the brand that exists in the mind of the consumer or audience, translated into feelings (behaviour) people might have about a product, service, organization or nation; brand purpose—the shared internal goals or corporate culture; and brand equity—the asset value based on goodwill borne out of loyalty toward the organization. In sum: core meaning (brand identity), reputation (brand image), the asset value of reputation (brand equity) and the power of shared goals (brand purpose) (7). For his part, Douglas Holt conceives of a brand as a collection of personalized stories fused into a conventional whole with meaning that holds true in everyday life. He contends that a brand emerges when these collective understandings become firmly established (2-3).5 In 1999, the Foro de Marcas Renombradas Españolas was created as the “impulsor, junto con las administraciones públicas, de la Marca España a todos los niveles como una marca que aporte valor a las empresas e instituciones españolas en el extranjero.”6 [engine that, in conjunction with public entities, holistically conceives of the Marca España as a brand that 5

I am granting that individual experiences with brands are more complicated as they routinely overlay the public understanding of the brand with their own personalized stories, images and associations. 6 It must be noted that it was the Spanish sociologist Amando de Miguel who first referred to the “national character” of Spain in the 1970s in terms of a brand, in his collection of essays, España, marca registrada.

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brings value to Spanish businesses and institutions abroad]. Its founding members were a group of Spanish companies and governmental entities, including the Ministries of Industry, Tourism and Trade, Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade and the Office of Patents and Trade Marks. Through its Embajadores Honorarios de la Marca España [Honorary Ambassadors of Brand Spain] program, honorary ambassadors were culled from varied fields, including Business, Social Action, Communications, Culture, Sports, Science and Innovation. These ambassadors were identified as “personas o instituciones que han contribuido, a lo largo de su trayectoria profesional, al fortalecimiento de la imagen de España en el exterior.” [individuals or institutions whose contributions throughout their professional life have enhanced Spain’s image abroad]. Notable ambassadors have included Rafael Nadal, Gasol, Amancio Ortega, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, the Spanish National Team, Real Madrid, Ferrán Adrià and Almodóvar.7 In 2001, the Foro de Marcas Renombradas Españolas, together with the Instituto de Comercio (ICEX ), the Ministry of Economic Affairs and its Exterior Section, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Association of Communication Directors (DIRCOM) and the Real Instituto El Cano formed the Marca España whose mission was, as Javier Noya puts it, “avanzar de forma coordinada en la construcción de una imagen de España que responda a la nueva realidad económica, social y cultural del país.”8 [to advance, in a coordinated fashion, the construction of the image of a Spain that meets the country’s new economic, social and cultural realities]. In 2012, the High Commission for the Marca España—a ministerial-level portfolio—was created.9 While the Marca España strives to project an image of Spain based on the six sides of the branding hexagon that Anholt discusses (namely, tourism, exports, government, investments and immigration, culture and society) and on the popular consensus embedded in expressions such as “hacer país,” “dar buena imagen,” “vender imagen” o “cuidar la reputación” [build the country], [project a positive image], [sell the image] or [protect the reputation], this branding effort also underscores some of the pitfalls of nation-brands that critics have warned against:

7

See http://www.marcasrenombradas.com/info/foro. See Javier Noya (2004), “La nueva etapa de la marca España.” Boletín Elcano 37. 5.2003). See also Javier Noya and Fernando Prado, “¿Cuánto ha empeorado la imagen de España?” ARI (Instituto Elcano) (December 29, 2011) 9 See http://marcaespana.es/. 8

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1. Used as an instrument tied to the economic hegemony of late capitalism as we know it today, branding ideologizes “commercial nationalism” (Volcic & Andrejevic).10 2. Far from correcting stereotypes, the concept of branding reinforces them (Wilder, 148)11 as it tends toward oversimplification and, thereby, eschewing plurality and diversity. The concept, therefore, reduces the foreigner’s observations to those of a mere tourist. 3. The connection between “national brand” and the “fundamentalism of the market” of the neoliberal stripe can only be understood within globalization. In the same way as globalization is the hallmark of the new order and turns the world into a brand, national brand only mythologizes the new order.12 4. Finally, as instrument of power, a national brand can become a propaganda tool in the hands of the powerful.13

Under the Arte inVisible project—funded by various Spanish governmental agencies, including the AECID (Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional al Desarrollo) through its Departamento de Cooperación y Promoción Cultural de la Dirección de Relaciones Culturales y Científicas—the África.Es initiative organized the visit by the seven African artists. This initiative aims at supporting the visual arts in Africa through education, production and promotion of talented artists for a global audience. To understand, however, the larger context within which the visit occurred, one has to begin by analyzing why Casa África was created in the first place. Casa África’s creation signaled the consolidated and unified attempt at a forceful diplomatic overture by Spain into Africa in the new millennium. Seen outside of this context, therefore, the visit and photographs of the African artists are an intriguing occurrence to the casual observer of Hispano-African relations. Still, it becomes very clear when one considers that such a rapprochement is a function of a diplomatic strategy known as Marca España whose mission is the promotion of Spain as a nation-brand. Consequently, Spain’s overtures toward Africa through Casa África and the visit are only applications of said strategy. Why Spanish authorities, 10

Volcic and Andrejevic, “Nation Branding in the Era of Commercial Nationalism.” 11 See Wilder, J, “Nation branding: With Pride against Prejudice.” In Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 3.2 (2007):144-50. 12 See Jansen, S.C. “Designer Nations: Neo-liberal Nation Branding. Brand Estonia.” Social Identities 14.1 (2008): 121-42. 13 Kaneva, Julia, “Nation Branding: Toward an Agenda for Critical Research.” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 117-42.

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working mainly through Casa África, the AECID and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would give free artistic rein to a group of Sub-Saharan African artists to capture and transfer onto canvas or through the camera lens their views on the essentialities of being Spanish in a global world, begs the question. It begs the question precisely because, in the charged anti-immigrant climate of a post-housing bubble Spain, it is hard from a public relations standpoint to justify the utility and resonance that such a project could have for the Spanish people, on the one hand, and the African target audience, on the other. “Utility” and “resonance,”—two lexicons that reflect the ideological underpinnings of the visit—may not be obvious to the general public. However, they point to the long-term strategy of branding Spain in order to bring it closer to Africa. What Casa África, the AECID and Marca España were clear-eyed about was the new geopolitical realignment being played out on the African continent and whose compass points north to Beijing. Consequently, bringing Spain closer to Africa—after all, the slogan for the Casa is “España y África, cada vez más cerca” [Spain and Africa, Drawing Closer]—in consonance with similar projects in other regions of the world, is in Spain’s best interest in the millennium. Why is this the case? It is so because current scholarship underscores the fact that Spain’s place on today’s world stage is, by any measure, off-center, non-consequential, almost peripheral with much of the current state of affairs attributable to her failure to capitalize on her historical influence on many cultures, loci and populations around the globe: upon today’s Spain “el sol sí se pone” [the sun surely sets].14 While some of the scholarship seems to suggest that Spain is just fulfilling the historical curse of empires—all empires must fall—, other writings by the ilustrados15 [Enlightenment thinkers] (Pablo Fornier and 14

Every Spanish student of a certain age has learned this in school about the Spanish Empire at its height: “En España, el sol nunca se pone.” [The sun never sets upon Spain]. There is some truth to this assertion, since the geopolitical and cultural influences of Spain were felt as far north as Europe to Tierra del Fuego in the south, from the Philippines and surrounding Islands in the East to the lands of the west, stretching from the Canary Islands to the Americas. 15 See Morvilliers, “Que devons-nous à l’Espagne? Qu’a-t-elle fait pour l’Europe depuis deux siecles? Qu’a-t-elle depuis mille ans?” [What do we owe Spain? What has she contributed to Europe over the last two centuries? Over a thousand years?] Of course, the answer, according to Morvilliers, is “Rien” [Nothing]. Fornier’s reply to Morvilliers, “¿Qué se debe a España?” [What is Spain owed?] is contained in his “Oración apologética” [Apologia…].” In this work, Fornier argues—in true Enlightenment fashion—that the very notion of Europe is predicated on Spain’s ardent defense of Christianity and its values while preserving its multicultural essence. Thinkers such as Maimonides, Averroes and writers such as Cervantes are

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Masson de Morvilliers’ debate comes to mind) and later by the regeneracionistas16 [late 19th-Century conservative Spanish intellectuals] believe in a predestined Spain that is not “cursed” but has only briefly lost her way. Yet, Spain only needs to “re-define” and “re-position” herself in order to reclaim her rightful historical place in world affairs. In the words of José Colmeiro: En estos últimos años España ha venido atravesando un complejo momento de cambio y transformación, que ha abocado en una profunda crisis, que no solo es económica, sino también política e institucional, cultural, educativa e identitaria, y que afecta a la propia idea de España. (12)17 [In recent years, Spain has been going through a complex moment of change and transformation that has created a deep crisis, one that is not only economic but also political and institutional, cultural, educational and of identity, a crisis that affects the very idea of Spain].

One would agree with Manuel Castells,18 therefore, that, at this point in her history, Spain’s idea of a Nation-State is being undermined by factors, both internal and external, to the notion of nation-state: the onslaught of globalization, ever increasing porous borders—despite Fortress Europe— especially with capital and ideas, the advent and aggressive use of new technologies and the agency of super-state (the European Union) and substate organizations (the regional independent movements). In these varying contexts, in whatever forms Spain defines and repositions herself, she must imbibe a “glocal” identity, that is, she must be branded nationally but must also have a global consumption appeal. Casa África’s web site clearly states the following: but a few of Spain’s contributions to Europe. Hence Spain, he asserts, is predestined to be great again. 16 See the “La Generación del 98 y el problema de España” by Pedro Luis Entralgo. “Regeneracionista” is a culturally-specific concept that defies an exact rendering into English. “Regeneracismo,” to which members of the “Generación del 98” were committed, is an ideological movement of the late 19th-Century Spain produced by the feeling of decadence of Spain and the loss of her colonies. The “regeneracionista” defended the renewal of Spain’s politics and society by returning to the moral and social values that once made Spain great: Unamuno, Valle-Inclán, Azorín and Maeztu are notable “regeneracionistas.” 17 This monograph came out of an international conference held at the University of Auckland in 2012 that was partly funded by the University of Auckland, the Fundación Vista Linda and the Spanish Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand. 18 See Manuel Castells, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture.

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Chapter Six 1. Casa África's activity forms part of the Government's foreign policy as a public and economic diplomacy tool. 2. In the public diplomacy field, Casa África works with the aim of promoting good understanding and trust between Spain and Africa of and strengthening Hispano-African relations through dissemination, educational and cultural activities. 3. In the economic diplomacy area, Casa África acts as part of the strategy for Brand Spain, making known the opportunities that the African continent offers Spanish professionals, companies and investors. To fulfil this mission, Casa África supports internationalization, mainly in the political-strategic area of Spanish companies that already act or are interested in acting in Africa, and strengthens the collaboration between public and private agents. 4. With their headquarters in Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Casa África also strengthens the role of the Canary Islands as a political, economic and logistical platform to Africa, offering a place for meetings, thoughts and reflection on African issues. 5. It also promotes the creation of new policies and the consolidation of Hispano-African relations in the international agenda, in study and research centres and in the media. 6. Since its foundation, one of Casa África's main objectives has been to promote the rapprochement of Spain and Africa through awareness, creation of strategic partnerships and the promotion of long-term bilateral and multi-lateral relationships. 7. Incorporated as a public Consortium on 26th June 2006, Casa África currently comprises the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Government of the Canary Islands, the Spanish Agency of International Development Cooperation and the Town Council of Las Palmas of Gran Canarias

From what can be culled from its web site, one wonders if the seven Africans who were brought to Spain learned anything that would be beneficial to them as well as to the host country.19 Perhaps, Cadalso’s Cartas Marruecas could provide us with some insights. Like its famous predecessors—Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes and Goldsmith’s A Citizen of the World and, to a lesser extent, Paolo Marana’s Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy--Cadalso’s work consists of letters purporting to be written by an intelligent Moor diplomat, Gazel, who decides to stay, after his official visit had ended, ostensibly for the love of knowledge, to see for himself Spain outside of officialdom. In his correspondence, he relates the striking 19

See youtube videos: “Exposición ‘Africa.es’” in Casa África; and “Exposición África.” Also see http://www.europapress.es/madrid/noticia-artistas-africanosexponen-circulo-bellas-artes-vision-siete-ciudades-espanolas20110215122602.html

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differences in manners and institutions he observes between Spain (and Europe) and his native Morocco (Africa) to his old and wise mentor, Ben Beley, back in Morocco. He is aided in his observations by a wellinformed Spaniard, Nuño Nuñez, whom he consults to fill in the gaps with relevant information and explanations. Clearly, Nuño’s explanations of what Gazel had observed in Spain—her society, politics, religion, past times—, leave Gazel with the lasting lesson that what the visitor sees is usually not all that there is about a society. In his very first letter, Carta 1, to Ben-Beley, Gazel spells out in very clear Enlightenment terms what his reasons for staying on after the official visit are: He logrado quedarme en España después del regreso de nuestro embajador, como lo deseaba muchos días ha, y te lo escribí varias veces durante su mansión en Madrid. Mi ánimo era viajar con utilidad, y este objeto no puede siempre lograrse en la comitiva de los grandes señores, particularmente asiáticos y africanos. Éstos no ven, digámoslo así, sino la superficie de la tierra por donde pasan; su fausto, los ningunos antecedentes por dónde indagar las cosas dignas de conocerse, el número de sus criados, la ignorancia de las lenguas, lo sospechosos que deben ser en los países por donde caminan, y otros motivos, les impiden muchos medios que se ofrecen al particular que viaja con menos nota. Me hallo vestido como estos cristianos, introducido en muchas de sus casas, poseyendo su idioma, y en amistad muy estrecha con un cristiano llamado Nuño Núñez […] En su compañía se me pasan con gusto las horas, porque procura instruirme en todo lo que pregunto; y lo hace con tanta sinceridad, que algunas veces me dice: de eso no entiendo; por otras: de eso no quiero entender. Con estas proporciones hago ánimo de examinar no sólo la corte, sino todas las provincias de la península. Observaré las costumbres de este pueblo, notando las que le son comunes con las de otros países de Europa, y las que le son peculiares. Procuraré despojarme de muchas preocupaciones que tenemos los moros contra los cristianos, y particularmente contra los españoles. Notaré todo lo que me sorprenda, para tratar de ello con Nuño y después participártelo con el juicio que sobre ello haya formado. (83-84) [As I had wanted to do for several days now, and had mentioned to you in several letters I wrote from his mansion in Madrid, I was able to stay behind in Spain after the return of our ambassador. My intention was to travel with a purpose, what cannot always be achieved if you are in a retinue of dignitaries, especially, of Asians and Africans. These people who, for lack of a better term, only see the ground on which they walk; their own splendour, they know not what is worth investigating, and knowing the number of their servants, their inability to speak other languages, how suspicious they must appear to the people in the countries they visit, and other reasons—they are not able to take advantage of the

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Chapter Six many opportunities available to one who is less conspicuous in his travels. I dress like the Christians, am invited into many homes, because I speak their language, and made a very good friend in a Christian named Nuño Núñez. […] In his good company, time flies, as he tries to answer all my questions; and so sincerely that sometimes he tells me: I understand that; other times, he says: I don’t want to talk about that. I intend, therefore, to study not only the Court, but the entire country of Spain. I will observe the customs of its people, taking note of differences with other European countries, and those peculiar to them. I will endeavour to rid myself of the many grievances we, the Moors, have against Christians, and against Spaniards, in particular. I will note anything that I may find striking, in order to discuss it with Nuño, and then communicate it to you, including my own opinion on the matter].

With the purpose and method that will inform Gazel in his understanding of Spain spelt out in Carta I, his second letter to Ben-Beley begins, as is to be expected, by pointing out the diversity of Spain: its people, customs and customes: Aun dentro de la [nación] española, hay variedad increíble en el carácter de sus provincias. Un andaluz en nada se parece a un vizcaíno; un catalán es totalmente distinto de un gallego; y lo mismo sucede entre un valenciano y un montañés. Esta península, dividida tantos siglos en diferentes reinos, ha tenido siempre variedad de trajes, leyes, idiomas y moneda. [85] [Even within the Spanish nation, there is an incredible diversity in the character of its provinces. An Andalusian has nothing in common with a Vizcaya native; a Catalan is completely different from a Galician; same between a man from Valencia and another from the mountain regions. This Peninsula, divided over so many centuries into different kingdoms, has always been diverse in customes, laws, languages and currency].

In this diversity, there is, however, one mark of being Spanish, in Gazel’s informed opinion, a point on which all the inhabitants of the Peninsula seem to agree: its vanity, understood as national pride. In Carta XXXVIII, Gazel tells Ben-Beley that this pride “. . . crece según disminuye el carácter del sujeto, parecido en algo a lo que los físicos dicen haber hallado en el descenso de los graves hacia el centro: tendencia que crece mientras más baja el cuerpo que la contiene” (177). [. . . increases as the respectability of the individual diminishes; resembling in this respect the gravitational pull of matter to the center according to physicists: a tendency to increase in weight more than it contains]. In no social class is this inverse proportionality between class and respectability more striking than in that of the mendicants: “Piden limosna: si se les niega con alguna aspereza,

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insultan al mismo a quien poco ha suplicaban. Hay un proverbio por acá que dice: “El aleman pide limosna cantando, el francés llorando y el español reganando” (178). [If alms are refused them with any rudeness, they insult the man they had just asked. We have a saying here that goes like this: “The German asks for alms with a song, the Frenchman with tears, and the Spaniards with a nag”]. Through Gazel, Nuño and Ben-Beley, Cadalso succeeds in giving visibility to Spain’s “defects” by relying on the narrative tensions in these three voices that mirror ideological positions in 18th-Century Spanish Enlightenment: the dilemma of the “hombre de bien” [virtuous man] confronted with social evils: virtue, moderation, human misery and truth, as well as Spain’s industrial progress, economic stability, educational system and social and political reforms. From the preceding analysis, I contend that the best way to read the visual “narratives” of the seven African artists’ “gaze” upon Spain is in their parallels with Gazel’s own “gaze” despite the over two-century divide. Like Gazel, what the seven artists saw, heard and learned in their interactions with Spaniards helps to confront their own views of their societies, on one hand, and on the other, as outsiders in Spain. Consequently, the overall picture that emerges from the works by the seven African artists is meant to show that Spain has its own set of issues: old age and loneliness, poverty and shanty towns, all against the backdrop of the joie de vivre seen in the scene on the beach and in bars (with the Andalusian colours). The lesson here for Spain’s brand managers is this: Marca España and Casa África are selling a brand that may not yet be crystal-clear in the African collective imaginary—especially as young Africans still see in the southernmost Spain a step into the European El Dorado.

Bibliography Agawu-Kakraba, Yaw. 2006. “Symptoms of Spanish Fantasies: Africa as the Sign of the Other in Angel Ganivet’s Idearium español and La Conquista del reino de Maya.” Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature 30.1. 148-169. Print. Anholt, Simon. 2007. Competitive Identity. The New Brand Management. New York: MacMillan. Print. Cadalso, José. 1987. Cartas Marruecas y Noches lúgubres. Ed. Joaquín Arce. Madrid: Cátedra.

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Castells, Manuel. 1997. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Vol. 1. The Rise of The Network Society. Vol. 2. The Power of Identity. Vol. 3. Oxford: Blackwell. Print —. End of Millennium. Oxford: Blackwell. Print. Chislett, William. 2008. Spain: Going Places. Economic, Political and Social Progress 1975-2008. Madrid: Telefónica. Print. Colmeiro, José. 2015. Encrucijadas globales: Redefinir España en el siglo XXI. Frankfurt: Iberoamericana Vervuet. Print. Forner y Segara, Juan Pablo. 1786. Oración apologética por la España y su mérito literario […]. Madrid: Imprenta Real. Print. Fra Molinero, Baltasar. 1995. La imagen de los negros en el teatro del Siglo de Oro. Madrid: Siglo XXI de Espana Editores. Print. Guillén, Mauro. 2005. The Rise of Spanish Multinationals: European Business in the Global Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Print. Holt, Douglas B. 2004. How Brands Become Icons. The Principles of Cultural Branding. Brighton Watertown, Massachussets: Harvard Business School Press. Print. Jansen, S.C. 2008. “Designer Nations: Neo-liberal Nation Branding. Brand Estonia.” Social Identities 14.1. 121-42. Print. Kaneva, Julia. 2011. “Nation Branding: Toward an Agenda for Critical Research.” International Journal of Communication 5.117-42. Print. Lain Entralgo, Pedro. “La Generación del 98 y el problema de España.” Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes. www.cervantesvirtual.com Miguel, Amando de. 1972. España, marca registrada. Madrid: Editorial Kairós. Print. Noya, Javier. 2004. “La nueva etapa de la marca España.” Boletín Elcano 37. 5. Print. Prado, Fernando and Javier Noya, 2011. “¿Cuánto ha empeorado la imagen de España? ARI (Instituto Elcano) 18. Volcic Zala and Mark Andrejevic. 2011. “Nation Branding in the Era of Commercial Nationalism.”International Journal of Communication. 598-618. Print. Wilder, J. 2007. “Nation Branding: With Pride against Prejudice.” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 3.2. 144-50. Print.

CHAPTER SEVEN “THEY LOOK AT YOU AND NOBODY CARES WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU DO:” WRITINGS OF STRANGERHOOD1 INMACULADA DÍAZ NARBONA

Abstract A number of works have emerged in Spain since the beginning of the 21st Century that do not necessarily intend to insert themselves within the confines of Spain’s well-established literary history or canon. The ultimate goals of these recent works on the Peninsular is to highlight the lives of the so-called anonymous people who have entered Spain and have established themselves in the Spanish society. These works narrate the travel cycle of recently arrived immigrants who discuss where they came from, why and how they came, the accompanying challenges of their journey, and how they conceive of the Eldorado that they dreamed about.

Unlike other European colonial powers that took an active interest in the literary production that emerged in their colonies, it was only recently that Spain made a tentative effort to explore the literatures and cultures of its past colonies. Writing in La novela colonial hispanoafricana. Las colonias africanas de España a través de la historia de la novela [The Colonial Hispano-African Novel: Spain’s African Colonies through History and the Novel], Antonio M. Carrasco notes that Spanish writers hardly showed any strong interest in the nation’s two African colonies: Equatorial Guinea and the Spanish Saharan Territories. Spanish writers, Carrasco observes, “had no interest in the colonial situation” (9-11). Shunned by most writers, texts written about these colonial territories, otherwise considered as illustrative and regionalist literature, was left in 1

This paper forms part of a research project entitled, “Spanish, A Mediating Language for New Identities” under the auspices of the Spanish State Investigation, Development and Innovation Program.

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the hands of so-called “nonprofessional” authors. These narratives read more like travel books reminiscent of memoirs related to colonization2. In this respect, these works have one thing in common with novels of other colonizing countries: an enthusiasm for the civilising mission and the exoticism provided by remote territories. The only exception, Carrasco points out, was Morocco. He believes this was because of the July 22, 1921 Battle of Annual, a combat in which the Spanish army suffered a major military defeat at the hands of Berber fighters during the Rif War. The result was a divided Spain: those who favoured the war and those who were against it. The political and moral questions that the Battle of Annual raised, Carrasco notes, was reflected in the literature of the day.3 Indeed, while other colonial powers in Africa did encourage and “supervised” the collection of bodies of works that would ultimately form the basis of a future African literature, this was not the case in Spain.4 It was only with the emergence of Equatorial Guinean literature in the middle of the Twentieth century that Spaniards began to create a place in their imaginary for a literary production that they had always considered as alien and distant. This unique kind of literature that began to take shape during the latter part of the last century was enriched by what the late Spanish writer, Juan Goytisolo, refers to as wog literature. It is a literature that coincides with the inflow of migrants, who upon their arrival, have to deal not only with the complex and challenging problems of settling in their new communities but are also forced to tell their stories, to explain themselves. This narrative stance has two variants: a means to escape from the exotic interpretation to which they have been condemned, or to proudly reinforce 2

See Carrasco (223). The social and political reaction to this expansionist conflict in northern Morocco was tense, opening a chasm in a Spanish society that was already in turmoil. The military’s expansion and its so-called civilizing campaigns clashed with a large anti-war segment of the Spanish population. For those in favour of the war, they saw in Morocco an opportunity to promote a lifestyle that was radically different from the adversities of living in the metropolis. Many of the war protestors, especially anti-war intellectuals, considered the occupation an aberration by an illiterate and corrupt army that did not only understand its place in the world as whole, but also the part of the world that they sought to dominate. For many protestors, the Annual disaster was evidence of a catastrophic policy. See Díaz Narbona & Lécrivain (2008). 4 Bernard Mouralis discusses the existence of early African texts that were published in the mid-eighteenth century. Mostly autobiographical, these works aim at denouncing slavery and its consequences. 3

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that interpretation. What has emerged both in Spain and in other European countries is the advent of what one might consider a subliminal corpus of “another” kind of African literature written in European languages such as Castilian, Catalan, or Galician, with divergent standards both in quality and genre. To some extent, it is precisely because of this that Spanish publishers have opted to engage these writings.5 For Selena Nobile, these literatures, Contribuyen a la elaboración de un modelo crítico más dinámico, poroso, intersticial que se desliza del centro a la periferia, de la identidad a la alteridad, y que, por tanto, se sitúa en un espacio fronterizo y de contaminación recíproca donde no hay una relación unidireccional sino osmótica y paritaria. (134) [Contribute to the elaboration of a more dynamic, porous, and interstitial critical model that runs from the centre to the periphery, from identity to otherness and, which, therefore, is situated in a frontier and reciprocally contaminating space where there is no uni-directional relationship but one that is osmotic and between peers].

Whereas attention is being focused on recent immigration in Spain and the literary works that they have spawned, it is important to note that Spain also has traditionally been an exporter of emigrants. Indeed, after World War II, continental Europe, especially France, West Germany, and Switzerland replaced Latin America as a favourite destination for Spanish emigrants. Almost two million Spaniards, mainly from Andalusia and Galicia went to other European countries. It is equally important to point out that between the early 1970s and mid-1990s, almost ten million Spaniards relocated from one province to another. This internal emigration was precipitated by the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War as well the economic imbalance between the rural south, from which these emigrants originated, and the larger cities in the north including Madrid and Barcelona. Instead of identifying Spain’s internal emigration within the framework of economic disequilibrium between one part of the country and another, the so-called Charnegos6,—Andalusians, Murcians, and 5

It must be mentioned that there are equally a large number of Spanish novels whose action is located in former colonial territories. Such is the case of Entre costuras and Palmeras en la nieve that ended up becoming a television series. It is also equally important to note that writers including Gustau Nerín and Antonio Lozano explored the colonial past in their works. One wonders if an attempt to recuperate Spain’s colonial past is on the rise. 6 Pejorative name in Catalonia for immigrants.

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many more—were identified as “others.” Years later, this same otherness would be applied to the African emigrant. It is an otherness that for Kunz, is grounded on racial elements, gregarious behaviour, and cultural differences with the sole purpose of excluding and marginalizing (10). Undoubtedly, the perception of that internal otherness has a distinct and differentiating sign.7 Considered as “Charnegos,” “Moors” and Wogs, these recent immigrants are not only invisible but also exist in a vacuous no man’s land. Consequently, they are excluded from both central and peripheral power, away from what Kunz refers to as (metoikos), a common home that classifies them as people from nowhere (19-32).8 Indeed, the perception of these recent immigrants a “Other” is nothing more than converting them into what Olga Sabido classifies as “strangers” constructed within the framework of subjective experiences (29). Strangerhood, as Sabido conceptualizes it, is conceived as a broad and, at the same time, restrictive classification through which those who are from “within” are only able to perceive those “from outside” as something neither familiar nor their own. On the basis of the constituent elements that define each of the “host” societies, the features that strangerhood (marginality) embody, go beyond the concept of aliens. For Sabido, these elements “are varied and correspond to analytical levels.” Indeed, while the “foreigner” is defined legally by a “categorical difference” as someone who is not a citizen, the outsider [stranger] is not defined by his/her difference but rather by a gradual logic” (32). The end of the last century saw the emergence of an exclusive globalized world in which western countries closed their frontiers while promoting, at the same time, an Eldorado image of the western world. This image, amplified through the communication revolution that made its consumption possible for those outside of these developed countries, prompted an influx of “undesirables” “outsiders” into these countries. The 7 The term “diversity,” as defined by UNESCO in 2001, is preferable because it is not based on a hierarchical evaluation. In that respect, it does not carry the idea of exclusion that the word “difference” denotes when used by someone who considers himself/herself within the confines of the right hegemonic model. 8 It is worth mentioning that the North/South inequality in Spain still exists. In an article published in Expansión on 15 October 2016 by Marga Castilla, he analyzes data collected by Spain’s Statistical Office, the BBVA Foundation, and the Valencian Institute of Economic Studies and observes that territorial inequality has been aggravated by the crisis of recent years. To that extent, one’s place of residence, especially southern territories including Andalusia, Extremadura and Castilla La Mancha marks the poverty threshold. The traditional “neglect” suffered by southern territories, the data concludes, is still very apparent: the more south the worse.

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political and social problems engendered by this phenomenon, precipitated the creation of regulations, inter-state agreements, and strategies, especially during the upsurge of the economic crisis that worsened the plight of some of the western democracies during the first part of the 21st Century. Despite these regulations, controls, and restrictions, many of the so-called “undesirables” find ways to settle illegally in the countries to which they emigrate and become part of the social and economic life of their adopted countries. It is within this context that one notes the emergence of a literary corpus in Spain at the beginning of the 21st Century that is not necessarily eager to insert itself in Spain’s well-established literary history or canon. Rather, it is mainly concerned with the real life of the so-called anonymous people who have entered and established themselves in the Spanish society. It is a literature that depicts a more sociological than a literary trend. Authors such as Víctor Omgbá, Michel Ohan, and others who engage in this kind of literary production, write about themselves and claim their place in the country where they arrived and now live.9 Two fundamental questions seem to undergird the writings of these authors who construct and experience issues of “strangerhood”: who am I and why am I here? Indeed, their writings and, for that matter, their “eccentricity”

9

The same cannot, however, be saide about the works of Agnès Agboton. Born in Porto Novo in 1960, the year of independence of Dahomey, which became the Republic of Benin, Agboton settled in Barcelona in 1978. A Gun and descendant of a family closely linked to the founding of Porto-Novo, she moved to the Ivory Coast in 1974 to continue her studies. In 1978, she left the Ivory Coast for Spain, where she currently resides with her husband. Unquestionably, Agboton is a point of reference for African literature in the Spanish and Catalan languages. Her works underscore her intention to expose her ethnic origin to her current and “other” European readers. Author of three cookbooks, La cuina africana (Columna 1989), Àfrica des dels fogons (Columna 2001), Las cocinas del mundo (RBA, 2002), her real vocation, however, is to tell traditional Beninois stories adapted for Spanish and Catalan audiences. Among some of her collection of stories are Contes d’arreu del món (Columna, 1996); Na Mitón. La mujer en los cuentos y leyendas africanos (RBA, 2004); Abenyonhú (Llibres a Mida/Caritas Española, 2004); Eté Utú (cuentos de tradición oral). De porqué en África las cosas son lo que son (José J. de Olañeta, ed. 2009) and Zemi Kede. Eros en las narraciones africanas de tradición oral (José J. de Olañeta, ed. 2011). Agboton has also written poetry. Of special interest are Canciones del poblado y del exilio (Viena Edicions, 2006) which won the Town of Martorell's poetry prize. Other collections include Voz de las dos orillas (Provincial Council of Malaga, 2009). Her autobiography, Más allá del mar de arena, came out in 2005.

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transform their lived experiences into the subject and object of a selfaffirmative narrative. Although it is challenging not only to identify the exact number of writers engaged in what is being classified as “strangerhood” writing but also to locate their very works, there are, nevertheless, numerous elements that underpin their writings. The first deals with first person testimonials. The authorship of these texts is striking because whereas their writers do not come from territories that were once colonized by Spain they, nonetheless, write in either Castilian, Catalan, or Galician. These are writers who have lived or are currently living in Spain or have simply done their studies in the country. In all, they have adopted languages of the Spanish State for their literary creation and to express their personal trajectory in the host country. Another common thread in these texts is one that can be characterized as an orbital trek in which the authors reflect on where they came from, what precipitated their decision to embark on their journeys, the vicissitudes they encountered, and their perception of the so-called Eldorado that constituted the essence of their dreams. This is particularly so in the case of Víctor Omgbá’s novel, Calella sen saída, from which the title of this essay was culled. In his narrative, Omgba addresses Spaniards, who contemplate immigrants without any clue about who they are, what they do and, above all, the fear and pain they endured during that ignominious crossing into Spain. Omgba offers in his novel, fragmented pieces/stories of these immigrants, these “strangers” whose lives have been shaped not only by their cruel odyssey but also by a most profound and complex conundrum that underpins current migrations. As is the case of other writers, Ombga’s goal is to highlight the alienation, disillusionment, and nostalgia that these “strangers” encounter once they have reached that elusive Eldorado.10

10

Victor Mboudou Omgbá was born in Yaoundé and moved to Spain in 1995 to continue his studies after graduating with a law degree from that city’s university. Faced with administrative obstacles, he abandoned his studies and was forced to live in deplorable conditions like many immigrants. After spending some time in Madrid, he settled permanently in La Corunna. He recounts the story of his journey in his novel, Calella sen saída (2001). He currently holds an MA in Journalism from the University of La Corunna and has worked in La Voz de Galicia, a daily newspaper, and in other media. Politically and socially committed, he founded in 2011 an NGO, “Equus Zebra,” to help with the integration of immigrants into their respective communities. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/biblioteca_africana/biografias/#bio31

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Although the available works and testimonials of these writers may not constitute or conform to what one might consider “academic” autobiography, what emerges in this literary output are the testimonial elements that define them. Such is the case of En ruta hacia una nueva esclavitud (2004) by the Nigerian author, Michel Ohan.11 Narrated in the first person, his work describes the “real cases” of some of the most complicated migrations that start in Nigeria. Alternating between Rhoda and her boyfriend, Nosa, the narrative does not conform to the typical autobiographical first person. What is apparent, however, is a testimonial genre which, considered from a postcolonial perspective, takes on a global biography. Perhaps, what makes writings of “strangerhood” interesting is the absence of a one size fit all narrative. Let us take the case of a text such as Modou, authored only by the name Rafa C. The novel’s theme is a radical departure from those that have been published so far. With an erotic content, the story’s protagonist, Modou, is a young homosexual, who prostitutes himself and must flee his country because he is being pursued by the “holy men.” The novel’s jacket contains a statement that suggests that the work is based on a true story. Indeed, even if Rafa C’s marks a thematic departure, the question of journey, as a trope, is still pervasive in the novel. In the case of Patrick Lambal for example, journey implies a temporary displacement, driven by the need to build a future and the dream to be able to accomplish that. In his reflexions at the Fuerteventura Immigration Detention Centre, which he mistakenly thinks is a prison, he states: En el fons jo no volia quedar-me a Espanya tota la vida. El meu projecte era estar-m’hi uns anys, fins que pogués estalviar uns diners. […] De fet, volia guanyar uns 600,000 o 700.000 CFA, que és el que val una piragua. I així podria tornar a casa, ser pescador i vendre el peix. Ser amo de mi mateix. (133)

11 Born in Ewohimi, Edo State (Nigeria), and from a traditional family (his father was a famous voodoo priest and traditional doctor), Michael Ohan found himself divided between two worlds. He completed his formal education, studying first at the University of Benin's department of education, at the Universities of Stockholm, Sweden, and at the Atlantic International University of Hawaii in the USA. Aside from essays published in English, he has also published two books in Spanish: En ruta hacia una nueva esclavitud: el trágico y mortal viaje de africanos a Europa a través del Sahara y del Mediterráneo (Mundo Negro 2004) and Poder negro: la práctica de la medicina y del vudú en África (Mundo Negro 2005). http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/biblioteca_africana.

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Despite his clear objectives, the crossing leaves an indelible aftermath: Així passàvem els dies. A poc a poc, tornàvem a assemblar-nos a com érem abans. N’hi havia que recuperaven el somriure, N’hi havia que no havien obert la boca des del primer dia. Tot el que havien passat era traumàtic. I no s’oblida. No s’oblida mai. […] També recordes els moments durs del viatge, en el fred, el vent, en les nits fosques a alta mar, envoltat només d’aigua, recordes els que van anar morint per aquelles granets, els ghanesos... Tot això no e pot esborrar de la memòria. (133) [So the days passed. Little by little, we started to become what we were before. Some recovered their smile. Many have not opened their mouths since the first day. We all went through a traumatic experience. And you don’t forget. You never forget. [...] You also remember the hard times of the journey, the cold, the wind, the dark nights on the high seas, surrounded only by water and you remember those who were dying because of those spots, the Ghanaians . . .You cannot erase all of this from your mind].

Kalilu Jammeh from the Gambia, summarizes the traumatic nature of his journey: “I would have preferred to die before witnessing so much inhumanity” (Jammeh, 2009: 44). If the odyssey of the journey parallels the narrative, the horrid discovery of the reality of the desired Eldorado is, undoubtedly, the culmination of the journey’s cruelty, akin to one of life’s macabre jokes. The Paralympic athlete, Abderrahman Ait Khamouch, puts it well when he says, Pude recoger un par de cajas de cartón, las partí, puse una en el suelo y la otra encima de mí. Eran las dos de la madrugada y casi no pude dormir, hacía mucho frío aquella primera noche en Barcelona. Acabar tirado al lado de un banco de hierro en la Plaza Catalunya no era lo que imaginaba cuando, en mitad del desierto, nos hablaban de que viajábamos a la Tierra Prometida (101)12 12

Abderrahman Ait Khamouch was born in Mellab, a village in the desert. After losing an arm when he was only 8, Abderrahman Ait Khamouch decided, at the age of 15, to put himself in the hands of the illegal emigration mafias to make his dream of getting to Spain come true. Eventually, after going through a lot of fear and pain, he reached Fuerteventura, the third leg of his journey. His only dream

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[I was able to find a couple of cardboard boxes, tore them up and put one on the ground and the other on top of me. It was two in the morning and I could hardly sleep. It was so cold during that first night in Barcelona. To end up lying beside an iron bench in the Plaza Catalunya was not what I imagined when, in the middle of the desert, they told us that we were going to the Promised Land].

As is the case of Abderrahman Ait Khamouch and many others, these immigrants wake up from the dream as soon as they arrive. The Promised Land does not exist and in the everyday life, legal, administrative and labour complications only aggravate a situation that seems to have no limits. In addition to the perception of their own alien status and strangerhood, these immigrants feel the structural violence of the Other’s look—the one who is not displaced and who, therefore, is at the centre of the dynamics of power. Consider Mamadou Dia’s words:13 Pasaba los días buscando comida tirada en los contenedores, bebiendo agua no potable en las fuentes. Me sentía olvidado, marginado, alejado de las demás personas con las que me cruzaba por las calles. Llevaba más de veinte días con la misma ropa, casi sin ducharme, durmiendo en las calles, bancos o plazas, mientras había casa y pisos vacíos y cerrados. […] Nadie me hablaba ni me miraba; tantas personas con las que me cruzaba cada

was to run, to be an athlete. He went from Fuerteventura to Las Palmas, and from there, to Madrid and then to Barcelona, where, by chance, he finally fulfilled his dream. He was admitted to the High-Performance Centre in Barcelona and later, to Sant Cugat. A member of the Spanish Paralympic team, he won a silver and bronze medal in Peking in 2008, and a bronze medal in London in 2012. His story, told in the first person, was written on his behalf by Manuel Franco, a well-known sports journalist and writer, who succeeds in making readers feel the doubts, fears, and the satisfaction that Abderrahman Ait Khamouch finally achieved without losing the genuine style of speech used by Abderrahman Ait Khamouch. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/biblioteca_africana/biografias/#bio3 13 Born in Gandiol, Senegal, in 1983, Mamadou Dia studied Business Management in his home country. In 2006, he left Senegal and sailed on a small boat for eight long days covering the 3,052km distance that separates Dakar from Murcia, where he currently resides. In 2012, he published 3052. Persiguiendo un sueño [3052. Following a Dream], fulfilling a promise he had made to himself to write in order not to forget and also to inform others of how difficult his journey was and the harshness that the so-called host country inflicts. His voice is a critical one that does not look kindly at Spaniards. Neither is his description of his hosts. Perhaps, and maybe because of it, Mamadou Dia’s work has been considered as a clear indicator of the testimonial literature that is currently emerging in Spain.

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Chapter Seven hora, cada día, cada semana… ni se daban cuenta de mi existencia. Era como si yo fuese invisible. (77) [I spent days looking for food thrown away into the containers and drinking non-potable water from the fountains. I felt forgotten, marginalized, apart from the other people I crossed on the streets. I had been wearing the same clothes for more than twenty days, had scarcely ever been able to have a shower, sleeping on the streets, benches or squares, while there were empty, closed houses and flats. [...] Nobody spoke or looked at me; all those people who crossed my path each hour, each day, each week... none of them was aware of my existence. It was as if I was invisible].

The invisibility that these immigrants have to contend with is not fortuitous: the prevailing system itself has been designed to exclude them and to make their status as irregular as possible. They are undocumented and have no legal identity. In La tierra prometida. Diario de un emigrante [The Promised Land. Diary of an Immigrant] Pathé Cissé notes:14 El juez de Arona nos dijo: “Habéis entrado en territorio español de manera irregular; os vamos a conducir a un centro para una estancia de cuarenta días, intentaremos repatriaros. Si en cuarenta días no lo hemos conseguido, vosotros seréis liberados pero en calidad de ‘sin papeles’. (54) [The judge from Arona told us: “You have unlawfully entered Spanish territory; we are going to take you to an alien’s centre for forty days during which we shall try to repatriate you. If, after that period of forty days we have not been able to do so, you will be free to go but as an undocumented person].

In Construcción. ¿trabajo o esclavitud? [Construction. Work or Slavery] Jordão Manuel Quizembe also recounts similar experiences as an “illegal” worker.15 In the prologue, he indicates that his illegal status, along with 14

Pathé Cissé was born in a small suburb of Dakar. As the eldest son of a large family, he assumed responsibility for his ten siblings after his parents divorced. Despite his mother’s objection, he embarked on an uncertain and “illegal” journey in 2006. His dream was to help his family out of its economic difficulties. His La tierra prometida. Diario de un emigrante, tells the story of the painful and inhumane experience of the journey and his arrival in the “host” country. Pathé Cissé currently lives in San Fernando (Cadiz). 15 Jordão Manuel Quizembe was born in Quicumba, Cuanza Norte Province (Angola), in 1968. After completing his teacher training studies, he worked as a primary school and geography and history teacher. He later studied at the National Petroleum Institute. Quizembe has lived in Tenerife since 2000. His book, Construc-

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that of many immigrants who work in the construction sector, has nothing to do with being alien. It is nothing but pure racism: La única ventaja de tener los papeles en regla es solamente poder reclamar ante la autoridad lo que por derecho le corresponde a uno, pues el empresario es como un saco roto: no perdona, ni teme a nadie” (8) [The only advantage of having your papers in order is to be able to claim before the authorities what you are rightly entitled to, because whatever you say to the boss is like talking to the wall: he doesn’t forgive, neither does he fear anyone.]

A constitutive element that one notices in all the works we have seen so far is loneliness interwoven with strangerhood. Boniface Ofogo puts it well when he states that “Mis primeros años de universidad fueron marcados por la terrible soledad […] Era tal la necesidad de relacionarme […] que al cabo de un año acabé en las garras de un grupo de carácter religioso ultraconservador” (59). [My first years at the university were marked by a terrible feeling of loneliness [...] My need to relate was so great [...] that at the end of one year, I ended up in the claws of an ultraconservative religious group].16 For Antolín-Elá Elá, the fact that he came to Spain legally to study makes no difference when it comes to being objectified as an artefact, a stranger, and the attendant loneliness that accompanies such designation:

ción, ¿trabajo o esclavitud? published by Anubis in 2011, expresses his four-year experience as a construction worker during the period when the Spanish housing "bubble" showed no respect whatsoever for both national and foreign workers. He also published: NGO. La última tribulación, África, nuestra identidad and Caníbales, secuelas de una guerra. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/biblioteca_africana/biografias/#bio34. 16 Boniface Ofogo was born in 1966 in Bogondo, a village in the interior of Cameroon. After studying Hispanic Philology in Yaoundé, he moved to Spain in 1988 to continue his studies. In 2003, he obtained a PhD from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, with a thesis on the Peruvian novel of the 1950s. He has worked as a cultural facilitator for the town of Mostoles since 1992, a job that enabled him to hone in his story telling skills. In 2005, he resigned from his position and has since dedicated himself exclusively to storytelling. His interest in Diasporan traditions has led him to travel to countries like Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica and Argentina where he has had the opportunity to delve into oral literary genres of Afro-descendants. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/biblioteca_africana/biografias/#bio31

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Chapter Seven En mi aula de clase, siempre que me levanto para hacer una pregunta la gente guarda un silencio sepulcral […]. Pero mis compañeros no prestan atención sólo por respeto y para escuchar, sino para saber qué opina y cómo se expresa uno que les resulta extraño, para burlarse. En los pasillos y en la cafetería me quedo solo, o casi solo. De vez en cuando se acerca uno “de caritas”, me dirige dos palabras (siempre preguntas: ¿qué lengua hablas en tu país? ¿los platos típicos? ¿hay mosquitos? ¿y los monos…?) y mañana me mira de reojo. El día que vuelve a aproximarse me hace las mismas preguntas. (32) [Every time I get up in my classroom to ask a question there is dead silence [...]. But my colleagues do not pay attention out of respect. They listen to find out how someone who they find strange, expresses his opinion and himself in order to make fun of him. In the corridors and the cafeteria, I find myself alone, or almost alone. From time to time someone from Caritas, a Catholic charity, approaches me and speaks briefly to me. It is more of an interrogation than a conversation: What languages do you speak in your country? What are the typical dishes? Are there mosquitoes? And the monkeys...? The next day, he looks at me out of the corner of his eye. When he approaches me on another day, he asks me the same questions].

With the myriad experiences that these immigrants have faced and continue to face, it is little wonder that “integration” has become a challenge. Indeed, the dominant cultural characteristics of their host country such as the concept of family, human relationships, the role of religion, and others, stand in stark contrast with their own concept of life that constitute the essence of part of their own identity. This reality is compounded not only by legal and economic difficulties but also by the impression (and reality) that they are stuck in the ghetto where they only encounter people of their national origin with whom they share similar beliefs. Recounting the experiences of an immigrant in Modou Modou. El emigrante senegalés, Seydi Ababacar notes, “[. . .] parece que baja a otro planeta y que lo que separa de los hombres europeos no es solamente el color, sino también su forma de pensar, sus costumbres y sensibilidad.” [. . . it’s as if he had come from another planet and what separates him from the Europeans is not only colour, but also their way of thinking, our customs and sensibilities.] He continues: “Sufre un shock enorme y siente su ser herido. Esa sensación le hará vivir desorientado durante mucho tiempo antes de sentirse ‘integrado’” (48). [He suffers an enormous shock and feels wounded in his very being. This feeling will cause him to be disorientated during a long time before he feels “integrated”]. As a term, integration, has become controversial because of its “political” implications. In its current deployment, integration ends up being a trap. It seems to

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imply conforming to all the precepts of the host society. This is all too apparent to Agnès Agboton who has lived in Catalonia for almost forty years: Estoy integrada porque recibo y porque doy; porque acepto y, muchas veces, comparto los valores que prevalecen en la sociedad donde vivo; pero estoy integrada, también, porque mis propios valores, los de mi cultura de nacimiento, pueden ser aceptados y compartidos, pueden ser conocidos, al menos, por la gente a la que amo y por la sociedad en la que vivo. De no ser así, no sería “integración” sino “asimilación”. Y no es lo mismo, no es lo mismo… (97) [I am integrated because I receive and give, because I accept, and frequently, I share the values that prevail in the society in which I live. But, I am also integrated because my own values, those of my own culture, can be accepted and shared, and known, at least by the people that I love and by the society in which I live. Otherwise, it would not be “integration” but “assimilation”. And it's not the same thing; it’s not the same. . .]

Although most of the texts discussed so far explore the question of “strangerhood,” it is important to note that several of the circumstances that precipitated the quest to “journey,” to explore the Eldora are still firmly in place. Among these factors are violence triggered by wars, dictatorships, economic conditions, and escape from personal situations in which the protagonists lived. Ironically, the arrival of these protagonists in Spain and other European countries is similarly met with violence, sometimes, physical in nature. What is remarkable in the accounts of these protagonists, however, is the fact that, whereas they discuss in detail their dangerous journeys and, specifically, their grim conditions in that elusive Eldorado, there is no trace of rancour or denigration of Spain, their host country. Their goal is “to tell their story.” It is not fiction. There is no literary pretension. What is evident, however, is a desire to celebrate one’s life but, at the same time, to denounce a situation for which they hold responsible all the parties involved. It must be mentioned, nevertheless, that some of the texts highlight what could be characterized as an “initial generosity,” that is, structural—rescue from dangerous waters—and individual citizens who help these protagonists to establish themselves by offering them help in their everyday lives. In most cases, it is these private individuals who help protagonists to give the most appropriate testimony. One wonders whether this kind of writing that is in its incipient stages with a clear bidirectional political objective— could be an antidote to the social complexity in which its protagonists live. It is conceivable that, perhaps, this might be its main objective of these writers. Their

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willingness to recount their experiences seems to be the key to their “creative” genius. It is also conceivable that those who support and encourage these writers to express themselves have both political and ideological agendas. Whatever the case, there are many unresolved questions.. Are we dealing with emergency writings? Or, are we facing the beginning of a literary corpus well developed and honoured in other western countries? It is still impossible for us to decide which may be the case in the present situation.

Bibliography Agboton, Agnès. 2005. Más allá del mar de arena. Barcelona: Lumen. Print. Ait Khamouch, Abderrahman. 2009. El ángel del ala partida. Barcelona: Ara Llibres. Print. Carrasco González, Antonio. 2000. La novela colonial hispanoafricana. las colonias africanas de españa a través de la historia de la novela, Nadrid: Sial. Print. Castillo, Marga. 2016. “El mapa de la desigualdad: españa rica y españa pobre” http://www.expansion.com/economia/2016/10/15/57fcae3fca4741fe1c 8b45ee.html Cissé, Pathé. 2008. La tierra prometida. Diario de un emigrante. Cádiz: Diputación Provincial. Edición Bilingüe. Print. Dia, Mamadou. 2012. 3052. Persiguiendo un sueño. Sevilla: Editorial Punto Rojo. Print. Díaz Narbona, Inmaculada. 2010. “Agnès Agboton, ‘a una y otra ribera del mar de arena’” in De guinea ecuatorial a las literaturas hispanoafricanas, edited by Landry-Wilfrid Miampika and Patricia Arroyo Madrid: Verbum, 239-252. Print. Diaz Narbona, Inmaculada and Claudine Lécrivain. 2008. Eds. “Relatos de guerra.” In Miradas cruzadas: España/marruecos. regards croisés: maroc/espagne. Cádiz: Diputación Provincial de Cádiz/Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional. 65-109. Print. Elá Asama, Antolín-Elá. 2006. Viaje en patera. Ida y vuelta. Madrid. Print. Jammeh, Kalilu. 2009. El viaje de Kalilu. Cuando llegar al paraíso es un infierno. De Gambia a España: 17.345 km en 18 meses. Barcelona: Plataforma Editorial. Print. Kunz, Marco. 2003. Juan Goytisolo: Metáforas de la migración, Madrid: Verbum. Print.

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Lambal, Patrick and Jordi Tomàs. 2013. El pescador que volia anar als país dels blancs. Barcelona: Pòrtic. Print. Mbaye, Seydi Ababacar. 2005. Modou Modou. El emigrante senegalés. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Anroart Ediciones. Print. Mouralis, Bernard. 1997. “Autobiographies et récits de vie dans la littérature africaine. De Bakary Diallo à Mudimbe”, Cahiers de littérature orale. 42. 105-121. Print. Nobile, Selena. 2011. “La lengua castellana en las literaturas hispanoafricanas: el caso de Marruecos.” Hispanitas 3. 133-147. Print. Ofogo Nkama, Boniface. 2006. Una vida de cuento. Madrid: Cide/Creade. Print. Ohan, Michael. 2004. En ruta hacia una nueva esclavitud. El trágico y mortal viaje de africanos a Europa a través del Sáhara y del mediterráneo. Madrid: Mundo Negro. Print. Omgbá, Víctor. 2001. Calella sen saída. Vigo: Editorial Galaxia. Print. Quizembe, Jordão Manuel. 2011. Construcción, ¿trabajo o esclavitud? Almería: Editorial Anubis. Print. Rafa C. 2013. Modou. Madrid: Líbido Ediciones. Print. Sabido, Olga. 2009. “El extraño.” In Los rostros del Otro. Reconocimiento, invención y borramiento de la alteridad, edited by Emma León. Barcelona: Anthropos. 25-57. Print. Sani, Fatima Djarra and Gorka Moreno. 2015. Indomable. de la mutilación a la vida. Barcelona: Eds. Península. Print.

CHAPTER EIGHT HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. AND LÉOPOLD SÉDAR SENGHOR: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BLACK AESTHETICS CHARLES DÉSIRÉ N’DRE

Abstract This study proposes to build upon previous critical perspectives on what could be termed Black aesthetics. Central to the analysis will be an attempt to underline what constitutes the common basis of those studies in Africa as well as in the Americas. It becomes clear that there is no separation between Black aesthetics and the way in which Blacks generally comprehend the world. From the Dogon of Mali to the Lucumí of Cuba and the Yoruba of Nigeria, one cannot escape the functional and collective role of art in society nor is it hard to see that art always emerges from an ontology that is essentially unitary and existential. The conclusions drawn in this critical reflection are largely made on the basis of the intellectual contributions of Léopold Sédar Senghor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and, to some extent, Fernando Ortiz.

In an important way, the end of World War I marked the regeneration of Black consciousness, whose beginnings go back to W. E. B. Du Bois with the publication of Souls of Black Folk (1903). Many Blacks were recruited into the war without being granted the equality of access to opportunities that they had been promised. In Cuba, that historical phase corresponds with what is referred to as the avant-garde, successor to antibourgeois and anti-imperialist Modernism. But then a World War II broke out in Europe, at the same time that the elite of French overseas colonies were developing in Paris a track of race consciousness. The emergence of the surrealist movement and the publicity platform of various magazines

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of the Black world promoted contact among young intellectuals from all over the world. Young black-African intellectuals—mainly composed of students—in the metropolis would become leaders of a broad-based cultural and intellectual movement. They made a resolution to register a collective resonance of the voice of the “new negro” that had already begun to take hold in the Americas. These young intellectuals set as their primary objective, the reappraisal and rebuilding of African cultures. In this atmosphere of “Black fashion,” African oral tradition became the object of a focus of several studies, coupled with the controversies that would emerge over terminologies. While some talked about “primitive” societies, others made references to societies “with no written texts”.1 However, contemporary Africanists— mostly recent graduates of metropolitan universities opposed to Western scientific discourse since the latter half of the 19th Century, preferred instead to refer to these societies simply as “oral societies.” Bernard Mouralis’s makes the point clearer: Una importante actividad de investigación sobre África se desarrolla a finales del siglo XIX en Inglaterra y Francia. […] Así se fundó en 1926 el Instituto Internacional de Lenguas y Civilizaciones Africanas (en inglés IIALC) para situar África en el marco general de la Antropología social […] En cambio, la creación en 1930 de la Sociedad de los Africanistas, responde a una voluntad de producir una ciencia sobre las sociedades indígenas, una "etnología colonial" como dirá Labouret. […] la entrada de África como productor en el campo científico se elaboró a través de una reacción a unos textos europeos previos: Ch. Anta Diop contradice toda una tradición de egiptología, Hampâte Ba a Griaule, Fanon a Mannoni, Houtondji y Mudimbe a Tempels. (Mouralis, 2007: 209- 11) [A series of research activities focused on Africa were undertaken toward the end of the Nineteenth Century in England and France […] Thus, the International Institute of African Languages and Civilizations (in French IILCA) was created in 1926, with the purpose ofinserting Africa within the domain of social anthropology […]. However, the creationin 1930 of the Society of Africanists was aimed at developing a science about indigenoussocieties, a sort of “colonial ethnology,” as Labouret called it. […] Africa’s entry as producer into the scientific field proceeded by means of a reaction to certain previous European texts: Ch. Anta Diop contradicts an entire tradition of Egyptology tradition. Hampâte Ba questions Griaule, Fanon attacks Mannoni, and Houtondji and Mudimbe disagree with Tempels].

1

For a detailed study of primitive cultures, see Claude Lévi-Strauss (1962, 1975).

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This wave of protests against the West’s monopoly over discourse on other civilizations marked the beginning of a long and difficult process of decolonization that was initiated some years after the end of the Second World War. The present essay deals with one specific aspect of the so-called cultures “with no written texts,” namely, the dynamics of culture and ontology as basis for the production of an aesthetic among the black peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa and its American Diaspora. What are the foundations of this aesthetic and what are its resources? What should be retained from all the debate surrounding a Black aesthetic? My primary objective is to examine the status of the issue and, on the basis of the reflections of Léopold. S. Senghor and of the African American critic Henry Louis Gates Jr., underline the common thread that binds these studies together. What can be affirmed is that, in Africa as well as in the Americas, no separation exists between this aesthetic and Blacks’ vision of the world. From the Dogon of Mali to the Lucumí of Cuba and the Yoruba of Nigeria, one cannot escape the functional and collective role of art in society nor is it hard to see that art always emerges from an ontology that is essentially unitary and existential. Let us proceed first by examining the foundations of Senghor’s theories on Black aesthetics and rhetoric and juxtapose them to those developed by Gates on African American literary criticism. For African cultures, the word is much more an instrument of thought and action than a means of expression. There is no thought or emotion without words, what Senghor refers to as verbal imagery: “La parole parlée, le Verbe, est l’expression par excellence de la Force vitale, de l’être dans sa plénitude” (1964, 209). [The spoken word, the Verb, is the perfect expression of the vital force of nature, of the human being in his or her plenitude]. For Senghor, music is connected with the word (especially poetry) and with dance in terms of rhythm, and among Blacks, poetry is sung much more than it is recited. Thus, he discovers features of the verse and rhythms of the black African in the poems sung by the female poets of his African milieu: “[. . .] le vers, qu’il fut wolof, poular, ou sérère, eut rarement plus de douze syllabes. Simplement la parole y était rhapsodique et retentissant de répétition, mais concise dans sa morphologie, encore plus dans sa syntaxe” (Senghor 1973, 8). [. . ] the verse, be it Wolof, Poular, or Sérère, rarely had more than twelve syllables. For the word is rhapsody and it is full of repetition yet concise in its morphology and much more so in its syntax]. Senghor presents Black aesthetics as a channel to knowledge in blackAfrican civilizations, that is, the aesthetic guiding principles serve as an

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access tool to the Black person’s feelings and way of life, what the German philosopher Heidegger calls “Da-sein,” the Black “being” or essence in the world. According to Senghor’s theory, the Black person has developed a mode of knowledge by intuition, sympathy, or—better still—by communion. In other words, the Black person is involved in the knowledge of the object. Black aesthetics, then, relates to a functional cosmology and ontology whose principle is founded on “L’être EST force”; “El ser ES fuerza,” o sea, el ser es todo aquel que posee “la fuerza” especialmente entre los bantúes.” (Tempels, 1949: 35). [Being IS equivalent to forces of nature,” that is, being IS, especially among the Bantus, all that contains the ‘force’ of nature.] So, for example, aesthetically, African religious thought is expressed through the songpoem, sculpture, dance, tales, and, ontologically or philosophically, as a hierarchy of “vital forces,” from God to the seed of fonio—a kind of millet with nutty flavor—and from human beings to their ancestors, as the Dogon have abundantly demonstrated. Functional and collective, the significance of Black aesthetics goes beyond what it represents, as objects are often perceived as symbols with emblematic values. In a comparative study, Senghor underlines the principal characteristics of this aesthetic: La première similitude que j’ai notée entre la parole de Claudel et celle des Négro-africains est que toutes les deux procèdent d’une vision totale du monde, d’une weltanschauung, qui est, essentiellement, une ontologie, et elles l’expriment. [...] Une ontologie, c'est-à-dire une science de l’être, un ensemble cohérent de principe et d’idées, qui explique, par-delà la nature des êtres, la structure du monde et des relations entre les êtres, voire entre leurs éléments, comme la matière et l’esprit. (1973, 10) [The first similarity I have noticed between Claudel’s conception of the word and that advanced by black Africans is that both proceed from a total vision of the world, from a weltanschauung, that is essentially an ontology […]. An ontology, that is, a science of being, a coherent set of principles and ideas that explains, beyond the nature of human beings, the structure of the world and of the relationships among humans, even among its elements, such as the material and the spirit].

In Senghor’s view, all manifestations of black-African aesthetics— music, song, dance, poetry, sculpture, painting, etc.—actively participate in the reinforcement of vital forces, with the human being occupying the pivotal position of the pyramid of these vital forces. The human being must feed all that surrounds and nurtures him or her:

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Le rôle primordial de la musique, en Afrique noir, n’est pas d’être un concert, enchantement des oreilles, mais d’accompagner le poème ou la danse, cette sculpture dynamique. J’ai vu danser le Génie-Soleil-Bélier, l’autre année en Côte d’Ivoire. Le danseur exprimait, par ses pas, la fureur sacrée du Bélier, et l’orchestre aussi par ses phrases musicales. Jusqu’au récit —mythe, légende, conte ou fable—, jusqu’au proverbe et à la devinette. (209) [The primary role of music in black Africa is not that of being a concert, a pleasure to the ears, but rather that of being a companion for the poem or the dance, this dynamic sculpture. I saw the Genie-Soleil-Belier dance recently in Cote d’Ivoire. Through his choreography the dancer expressed the sacred rage of the ram, just like the orchestra through its lyrics. Including the narrative—myth, legend, story or fable—even the proverb and the riddle].

On the part of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one finds most valuable (for the purposes of the present study) the rhetorical principles that he develops on the basis of the sacred texts of Yoruba mythology. Following the musical traditions of African American folklore—as expressed in spirituals, blues, and jazz—Gates considers the linguistic process that takes place in Yoruba mythology as foundation for a Black literary theory in the United States. As will be seen, although Gates’s formulations proceed from a different angle, his findings do not contradict Senghor’s theory of black-African aesthetics. Gates takes as his point of departure a primeval myth, the signifying monkey, and he completes his representation engaging the mischievous character Esu-Elegbara, which derives from Yoruba mythology. Besides Nigeria, Esu- Elegbara appears, in differing representations, in other mythologies, including that of the Fon of Benin, the Lucumí of Cuba, in Haiti, and in New Orleans. Gates’s familiarity with the EsuElegbara myth came through his reading of Frobenius’s works, and his interactions with Wole Soyinka helped him to deepen his grasp of Yoruba language and culture (Gates, 1988: 32). As Ayodele Ogundipe affirms, “the conceptualization of Esu’s presence as a dynamic principle and his representation as the principle of chance or uncertainty have endured in both the Old and New Worlds” (1978: 207). Still, the concept of the signifying monkey also has its roots in the African American literary tradition. It was Houston A. Baker Jr. who first developed a theory of African American literary criticism, which served as inspiration for Gates’s own formulations. In his development of African American literary criticism, Houston Baker underscores the pivotal role of music—particularly blues and spirituals—in the evolution of Black

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folklore in the United States.2 Thus, blues and the signifying monkey both become important foundations for conceptualizing African American literary criticism; the former from the musical field and the latter from linguistic and rhetorical principles. It is mainly Gates’s second book of the trilogy that profoundly analyses the relationship between the traditions of vernacular language and literary language of African Americans.3 In Yoruba mythology, Esu-Elegbara is a malicious character, messenger of the gods. The signifying monkey itself is a perfidious doublevoiced character portrayed as a sculpture with two mouths. Gates sees these two characters as possessing the same characteristics. To establish better the relationship between Esu and the monkey Gates explores the Afro-Cuban mythology of the Güije and arrives at the conclusion that there is a clear relationship between Esu, the monkey, and the Güije. Gates also relies on works by Fernando Ortiz about the presence of Yoruba pantheon in the culture of the Fon. According to Ortiz, EsuElegbara exists as the great and last important mythical figure among the Yoruba and the Afro-Cuban people as well as almost all the societies that dot the perimeter of the Gulf of Guinea. In his inquiry into the ritual of the Signifying Monkey, Gates refers to many myths about Esu that still exist among the Yoruba of Nigeria, the Fons of Benin, the Nago of Brazil, and the Lucumí of Cuba,4 and he has systematically laid out the abundant literature that became the object of numerous studies (Cf. Frobenius 1913, Cabrera 1954, Idowu 1962, Herskovits 1967, Ogundipe 1978). In every version of the myth, Esu is the only messenger of the gods (Iranse in Yoruba language) who interprets the will of the gods to humans and the needs of humans to the gods. Esu is master of style, the phallic 2

See Blues, Ideology and Afro-American Literature: A Vernacular Theory and Afro-American Poetics: Revision of Harlem and Black Aesthetics. 3 Unlike Figure in Black words, Signs and the “Racial” Self (1987) and the Signifying Monkey: a Theory of the Afro-American Literature Criticism (1988), which examine the rhetorical techniques of the black aesthetic, Black Letters in the Enlightenment: One Race, Writing and Difference (1985) is a reflection upon the criticism of the first black authors’ reception. 4 Lucumí is the ritual language of the Regla de Ocha or Santería, a syncretic religion of Catholicism and of Yoruba voodoo still practiced by many Cubans in the island and abroad, especially in Miami. It is a principal Afro-Cuban language. David Olmsted’s study, “Notes comparatives sur le Yoruba et le Lucumi” (1953) was the first comparative study done on the Lucumí and the Yoruba. In his doctoral dissertation, “La tradición ewe-fon en Cuba” (1998), Brice Sogbossi studies the Fon legacy in Cuban culture, particularly as expressed in folklore. In Cuba, Fon is employed as a ritualistic and esoteric language whereas in Benin, it is employed as a common language.

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god of reproduction and fertility and mediator between the divine and the profane. His attributes can be found in many sources, such as Oriki Esu, a Yoruba set of prayers that look like a poem or Esu’s panegyrics. There is also the Odu Ifa or the verses of Ifa’s riddles, composed of the lyrics of the “Songs to Esu” and the traditional tales that contain myths about the origin of the universe, about the gods as well as the relationship between humans and deities and their place in the metaphysical and cosmic order. To this effect, it is necessary to attempt a comparative analysis in which a parallel is drawn between the prayer-poems used by Gates and the pastoral poetry of the nomadic Fulah people. In this analysis, one must keep in mind Leopold Senghor’s association with the song-poems of the female poets of his village, on the one hand, and, on the other, Louis Gates’s use of the prayer-poems in Oriki Esu. On the basis of a corpus of collected songs by Fulah pastors of FoutaDjalon in Guinea, Abdoul Sy Savané (1987) lays out the Fulah people’s vision of the world. These poems are sung but, at the same time, serve as prayers employed by pastors to drive away evil spirits against their herd. That is, in Fulah pastoral poetry, one finds the song-poems of the Sérère, to which Senghor alludes, as well as the prayer-poems of the Yoruba that Gates underscores. In this sense, the pastoral poem of the Fulah can be referred to as a song-poem-prayer. Indeed, in SySavané’s view, the Fulah belief system is organized around the cow and its milk: their existence, their way of life, their traditions are all related to the practice of cow breeding; the cow that must be fed all day long and whose pastor is always busy looking for green pasture. These pastoral poems contain a series of enchantments and what SySavané refers to as “pratiques magiques qui s’expriment à travers des rites” (1987, 32) [magical practices that express themselves through rites]. The Fulahs’ vision of the world, their conception of life, and their passion for pastoral activities are all expressed in these spoken and acted poems. The Fulah rancher firmly believes in virtue and in the power of words. He also believes that he or she can tame malevolent forces through symbols, rituals, and magical powers. As Tempels puts it, “le monde des forces se tient comme une toile d’araignée dont on ne peut faire vibrer un seul fil sans ébranler toutes les mailles” (1949, 41) [the world of forces is like a spider web from which no single thread can be shaken without unsettling all the other loops]. Functional and collective, this aesthetic appears in perfect consonance with a unitary and existential ontology that guides the life of the black African.5 5

As Thomas and others (1995: 101), have indicated, in black-African myths, symbolism and its correspondence is linked to the modes of production and their rela-

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Among the Fon of Benin, Legba (Esu) is a polyglot, the divine linguist who speaks all the languages of the gods and who interprets the alphabet of Mawu (God) for human beings and other deities. Yoruba sculptures of Esu are always associated with calabashes that Esu himself holds in his hands. In these calabashes one always finds the ase, the power with which Olodumare—the supreme deity of the Yoruba—has created the universe. In this case, the Yoruba word ase could be viewed as logos, that is, power, strength, and action at the same time. This reality probably explains why Esu’s mouth is represented twice on each face of his sculpture. Esu’s speech is metaphorically a double voice and it displays mastery of the ase, what bestows upon him immense power, as evidenced in the prayer-poems or Oriki Esu (Cf. Ogundipe, 1978: 135).6 In Gates’s view, the counterpart of Esu in Western (Greco-Roman) mythology could be Hermès. Following the role of Hermès as messenger and interpreter for the Gods—hence the origin of the word Hermeneutics— Gates invented the Yoruba word Esu-‘tufunaalo, literally “the one who unties the knots,” in his quest to develop a study of the methodological principles for the interpretation of the Black text. For the purpose of literary criticism, Gates sees Esu’s role as metaphor for the dialect of Blacks and he sees Esu-‘tufunaalo as metaphor for the study of the methodological principles of interpretation in itself. Esu—‘tufunaalo is the secular analogy of the deity Ifa and he represents the lyrical wealth as well as the significance of the system of interpretation of sacred texts that Yoruba people have been consulting for years. For the Yoruba, Esu represents the path to Ifa, and this image often appears on the upper surface of Ifa’s divination board, which contains not only sacred texts but also their commentaries. Esu holds a high position in Yoruba hermeneutics, hence his close association with Ifa. Yoruba myth regarding the origin of interpretation refers to the character of Esu and it can help us comprehend the presence of the monkey in the LatinAmerican version of this original myth. Among the Fon, Legba has transformed two of the four original beings into monkeys, the ones from which all other monkeys descend.7 tionship to people and nature. This is especially true of the role that fonio plays for the Dioula people. 6 In Dogon mythology, Nommo plays a role similar to that of Esu. Both characters are masters of the word. For further details on this topic, see Dominique Zahan (1963), Marcel Griaule (1948/1975) and Géneviève Calame-Griaule (1965). 7 The Esu character served as inspiration for several writers. For example, in Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest (1969), which is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, he replaces the characters of Shakespeare by the gods of Yoruba pantheon in

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For Gates, it is the presence of the monkey in Yoruba mythology—also manifested in Afro-Cuban versions—that formed the basis of Esu’s presence in the Afro-American myth.8 In Kikongo language, nganga refers to “one expert in medicine or magic, a doctor of various sorts, in other words” (Gates 1988: 18), (Cf. Sosa Rodriguez 1980: 403). The sacred texts of Ifa’s divination are composed of thousands of lyric poems, presented like cryptograms, that Yoruba people consult to control their fates. Since they are codified, hence metaphoric and enigmatic, the nganga must read and interpret them. In effect, for Gates, the Guije is the monkey and the monkey is Esu; both are the same, that is, they belong to the same realm of hermeneutics and rhetoric. Thus, concludes Gates, if one is to develop a theory of literary criticism for the interpretation of Black sacred texts, one must pay attention to the relationship between these characters and their myths. In effect, if Esu-Elegbara represents the key character in the Ifa system of interpretation, his equivalent is the signifying monkey that Gates presents as the rhetorical principle underlying Afro-American vernacular speech. Besides Fulah pastoral poetry, another significant source of illustration regarding Black aesthetics is the rituals of the initiation ceremonies practiced by the ñáñigos of the Abakuá secret society in Cuba. In these ritualistic ceremonies one can observe a true collective display whereby the Santería faithful mime, dance, and sing. During the moments of entrancement (“crisis de posesión”), as studied by Jacques Roumain in Le Sacrifice du Tambour Assobtor (1943), a god of the black pantheon possesses one of the believers, who becomes entranced. During these religious rites in honour of Yoruba deities, the melody is resounding and slow, in contrast to the dynamism of the drums. The faithful sing in unison or in octaves. All the cult hymns follow the antiphonal form with a soloist, a chorus, or two halves of a chorus, the second half leading the first in the repetition of this refrain: “En los cantos religiosos Yoruba el solista antifonero inicia o levanta el canto a la comodidad de la garganta, y el coro, denominado ankori le responde en el mismo tono de aquél” which Eshu (Esu), appears as the ‘‘god-devil nigger.’’ Other representations of the character of Esu are found in Eshu Elegbara by Walé Ogunyemi (1970) and Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka (1975). 8 According to Henry Louis Gates, the Afro-Cuban myth of Guije is the Latinized variant or the equivalent of Yoruba’s Esu-Elegbara myth. Ferdinand Ortiz informs us that the word “Guije” or “Jigue” probably came from “jiwe,” in Efik-Ejagham language, a word that means “monkey” (1923 / 1974: 305). On the basis of the signifying monkey, then, Gates is able to establish a link with the Afro-Cuban myth of Guije or Jigue.

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(Ortiz, quoted by Carpentier 1980, 295). [In Yoruba religious songs, the antiphonal soloist initiates or raises the song to the throat’s comfort level, and the chorus, which is called ankori, responds with the same tone as the soloist Indeed, the theoretical formulations of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Léopold Sédar Senghor go hand in hand in as much as they both arrive at the conclusion that Black art and aesthetics “originate from a total vision of the world, a Weltanschauung, which is essentially, an ontology” (Senghor, 1973, 10). From a larger perspective, black-African oral tradition—which encompasses, among other things, myths, legends, tales, poetry as well as philosophy, music, song, and painting—offers a remarkably fertile ground for the study of Black aesthetics.9 An in-depth analysis of the song-poems of the Sérère, the prayer-poems of the Fulah, the panegyric poems of OrikiEsu, and the magico-ritual songs of the Lucumí reveals various characteristics of oral speech and secure grounds for their literary aestheticization. It is clear that oral speech meets the same aesthetic or literary standards that the written text has. That is, oral text should not be seen as inferior to the written text. This unique blackAfrican dimension to literary aesthetics constitutes one of the key contributions that Black cultures have made to advance knowledge in the world. Indeed, it is precisely those cultures, long regarded as primitive and savage, that would be reviewed by Africanists of the 20th Century to prove that, from the interstices of their cultures (symbolism, literature, art, ritual, etc.), these peoples have always participated in, and built upon, knowledge of the world (Memel Foté, 1969).

Bibliography Baker, Houston.1984. Blues, Ideology and Afro-American literature: A Vernacular Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago P. Print. Bueno, Salvador. 1978. “El güije de la bajada.” Leyendas cubanas. La Habana: Editorial Arte y Literatura. 257-61. Print. Cabrera, Lydia.1954. El Monte: Igbo Fina Ewe Orisha, Vititinfinda. La Habana: Ediciones C.R. Print.

9

See Inmaculada Diaz Narbona, Los cuentos de Birago Diop: entre la tradición africana y la escritura (1989), an engaging study on the tales of Birago Diop in which this Spanish critic provides a reflection on black-African oral societies, that is, those that have not adopted the system of writing as a means of communication and of transmitting knowledge.

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Calame-Griaule, Géneviève. 1965. Ethnologie et Langage. La Parole chez les Dogon. Paris: Gallimard. Print. Carpentier, Alejo. 1980. La Música en Cuba. México: Colección Popular. Print. Díaz Narbona, Inmaculada. 1989. Los cuentos de Birago Diop: entre la tradición africana y la escritura. Cádiz: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Cádiz. Print. Frobenius, Leo. 1913. The Voice of Africa. New York: Benjamin Blom. Print. Griaule, Marcel .1975. Dieu d’Eau, entretien avec Ogotemmêli. Paris: Fayard. Print. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1985. Black Letters in the Enlightenment: One Race, Writing and Difference. New York: Oxford UP. Print. —. 1987. Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the “Racial” Self. New York: Oxford UP. Print. —. 1988. The Signifying Monkey, A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford UP. Print. Herskovits, Melville.1967. Dahomey, an Ancient West Africa Kingdom, 2 vols. Evanston: Northwestern UP. Print. Idowu, E. Bolaji. 1962. Olodumare: God in Yoruba Belief. London: Longman. Print. Levi-strauss, Claude. 1962. La pensée sauvage. Paris: Plon. Print. —. 1975. La voie des Masques. Genève: Éditions Albert Skira. Print. Memel Foté, Haris. 1969. L’Idée de Monde dans les Cultures Négroafricaines. Centre d’Étude et de Recherche pour la Paix in Abidjan: Abidjan. Print. Megenney, William W. “Supervivencias del Bantú en la lengua Mayombe de Cuba.” http//www.angelfire.com) Accessed February 22, 2013. Mouralis, Bernard. 2007. L’Illusion de l’altérité. Études de littératures africaines. Paris: Honoré Champion. Print. Olmsted, David. 1953. “Notes comparatives sur le Yoruba et le Lucumi.” Language 29, 2. Print. Ortiz, Fernando. 1923/1974. Nuevo Catauro de Cubanismo. La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales. Ogundipe, Oyodole. 1978. Esu Elegbara, the Yoruba God of Chance and Uncertainty: A Study inYoruba Mythology. 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation. Indiana University. Print. Roumain, Jacques. 1943. Le Sacrifice du Tambour Assobtor. Port-auPrince: Imprimerie de l'État. Print.

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Ramos, Facundo. 1980. “El mito del güije cubano.” Trans. José Piedra. In Samuel Feijoo (ed.), El negro en la literatura folklórica cubana. La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas: 322-59. Print. Sosa Rodríguez, Enrique. 1980. Los Ñáñigos. La Habana: Casa de las Américas. Print. Senghor, Léopold Sédar. 1964. Liberté I. Négritude et humanisme. Paris: Seuil. Print. —. 1973. La Parole chez Paul Claudel et les Négro-africains. DakarAbidjan-Lomé: Nouvelles Editions Africaines. Print. Sogbossi, Brice Hippolyte. 1998. La Tradición Ewe-Fon en Cuba. Fundación Fernando Ortiz y la Cátedra Unesco de la Universidad de Alcalá. Doctoral dissertation. Print. Sy Savane, Abdoul. 1987. “La poésie pastorale peuhle au Fouta-Djalon.” Notre Librairie: 88-89. Print. Thomas, Louis-Vincent and René Luneau. 1995. Les Religions d’Afrique Noire: Textes et traditions sacrées. Paris: Fayard/Denoë. Print. Tempels, Placide. 1949. La Philosophie Bantou. Paris: Présence Africaine. Print. Thorpe, Edward. 1990. Black Dance. New York: The Overlook Press. Print. Zahan, Dominique.1963. La dialectique du verbe chez les Bambara. Paris: Édition Mouton et Compagnie. Print.

CONTRIBUTORS

Dieudonné K. Afatsawo is Associate Professor of Spanish at HampdenSydney College, Virginia. His areas of scholarly interests and publications include Peninsular Literature(s) and Culture(s), Exile Literature, Writers and Artists in Spain of African Descent, Spanish-African Relations, and Spanish Youth Movements. His most recent article “African, Immigrant and Writer: Literary Immigration into the Spanish Language” on the African Diaspora in Spain was published in the Selected Proceedings of the European Studies Conference, University of Nebraska, Omaha. Inmaculada Díaz Narbona is Emeritus Professor of the University of Cadiz, Spain. Her main areas of research and interest are postcolonial and gender studies. Her book publications include Los cuentos de Birago Diop: entre la tradición africana y la escritura (1989), Al Sur del Sáhara (1999), Las africanas cuentan (2002), Otras mujeres, otras literaturas (2005), L’autobiographie dans l’espace francophone. II. L’Afrique (2006), Literaturas del África subsahariana y del Océano Índico (2007), Un nuevo modelo de mujeres africanas. El proyecto educativo colonial en el África Occidental Francesa (2007), Miradas cruzadas: España/Marruecos. Regards croisés: Maroc/Espagne (2008), Literaturas hispanoagricanas. Realidades y contextos (2015), Donato Ndongo: Olvidos. Poemas (2016), and Donato Ndongo. El sueño y otros relatos (2017). Several of her articles and book chapters have also appeared in different national and international outlets. Paula Gândara is Professor of Lusophone Studies at Miami University, Oxford, OH since 2003. She is an international author of twenty articles and two books, Construindo Germano Almeida: A Consciência da (Des)construção and Horas de Língua; Co-editor of Tudo Isto que Rodeia Jorge de Sena; “Para Emergir Nascemos”: Em Rememoração de Jorge de Sena; and Metamorfoses do Amor: Estudos sobre a ficção breve de Jorge de Sena. She has presented her work in multiple venues both in the US and abroad. She's also an awarded poet who innovatively combines historical research, creative writing and videographic criticism.

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Arthur Hughes is Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages at Ohio University, where he focuses on literary and cultural studies of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, with an emphasis on the African element in their cultural representations. His studies examine film, music, literature, and popular culture in Portuguese and Spanish, with the aim of signaling common themes and major differences. Dr. Hughes has published over 15 articles and book chapters which have appeared in journals such as Latin American Research Review, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, LusoBrazilian Review, and Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispanicos. Irene Marques is a bilingual writer (English and Portuguese) and scholar who is currently a sessional faculty member at the University of Toronto and Ryerson University (Toronto, Canada). She holds a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Toronto. Her academic publications include Transnational Discourses on Class, Gender and Cultural Identity (Purdue University Press, 2011). Her articles have appered in several international academic journals including, Research in African Literatures, African Identities: Journal of Economics, Culture and Society, Journal of the African Literature Association (JALA), African Studies, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, InterDISCIPLINARY: Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies and A Companion to Mia Couto. She is the author of three poetry collections, Wearing Glasses of Water (2007, Mawenzi House), The Perfect Unravelling of the Spirit (2012, Mawenzi House) and The Circular Incantation: An Exercise in Loss and Findings (2013, Guernica Editions), the story collection Habitando na Metáfora do Tempo: Crónicas Desejadas (2009, Edium Editores) and the novel My House is a Mansion (2015, Leaping Lion Books/York University). Samuel Edwin Mate-Kodjo is Associate Professor of Spanish at Central College in Pella, Iowa, where he has been teaching as a generalist since 1995. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in French and Spanish from the University of Ghana. He did his graduate studies at the Universidad Complutense and the Escuela diplomática in Madrid and obtained his Ph.D. at The Ohio State University. His area of specialization is the postwar novel of Spain. Other research interests include Post-colonialism as intellectual practice and the problems of formal representation in texts. His current area of interest is the Afro-Hispanic novel and how it expresses the black experience in the Americas.

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Charles Désiré N’dre holds a doctorate from the University of Cádiz, Spain. He is currently a Research Fellow in the Department of Spanish at the Alassane Ouattara University in the Ivory Coast where he teaches courses on African literatures written in Spanish. His research areas include Comparative Literature and Postcolonial studies. He has published in several academic journals and has presented his work at various international conferences. Steven Sloan is Associate Professor of Spanish and Chair of the Department of Spanish and Hispanic Studies at Texas Christian University. His research focuses on the cultural production from Brazil and Argentina from a pan-Latin American perspective that looks beyond the Spanish / Portuguese linguistic divide. His articles have appeared in journals including A Contracorriente: A Journal on Social History and Literature in Latin America, Lucero: A Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies. Bulletin of Spanish Studies: Hispanic Studies and Researches on Spain, Portugal, and Latin America.