Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 376

We’re Moving Servers

We’re moving servers so we don’t go down anymore. (That’s been a frustrating experience for about a year now). It’s like moving down the street or countries. We may have a redesign, but we’re not promising anything and there may be glitches, but hang with us. So we’re not posting anything till Monday. Enjoy the break Bono, Bob Geldof, Humanitarians, artists who make Ray Ban sculptures, Zwarte Piet apologists, etcetera, you know who you are. See you next week.

* The artwork is from Larissa Sansour’s project, “A Space Exodus,” and is another attempt by us to get you read our first ebook, “Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy.”

Brazilian Elections 2014, Between Polarization and a Country in Transition

In October, Brazil went through its closest presidential elections since 1989–51.6% to 48.4%. The winner was the incumbent President, Dilma Rousseff, who earned her reelection as a candidate from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Party of the Workers), or PT. From 2003, the PT has ruled the country, with Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva also having served two terms. The loser in the election was Aécio Neves, the candidate of the Partido Social da Democracia Brasileira (Social Party of the Brazilian Democracy), or PSDB.

After the results were announced, Folha, a newspaper from São Paulo, published a map that showed a divided Brazil. Northeastern states (as well as Maranhão and Bahia) were red, the color of the PT. The Southern states (including São Paulo) were blue, the color of the PSDB. A separatist wave became obvious in Brazilian media. Some conservative commentators argued that “poors don’t know how to vote” or that the Northeastern states were victims of the “government’s populism and charity”.

But, of course, we are not so far away from each other. Another map, devised and published by Thomas Conti, disproves that wrongful, binary, overgeneralizing vision:

 

 

Yet, this panorama created an atmosphere of conflict between two sides, which led to protests and marches, which haven’t stopped since August, expressing hatred and the desire of each side to be as separated as possible from the other.

Indeed, the profiles and the political careers of the two candidates that represent both polarities have been different. Though both are economists, Rousseff has a technical profile, while Neves (who comes from one of the most politically prominent families in the country), has held political positions.

The candidate from the PSDB defends the continuity of the political Project of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who ruled the country between 1995 and 2003. FHC, as he is also known, focused in lowering inflation and relied in neoliberal politics, such as privatizing a series of national companies, and looking to strengthen the economy, freeing it from a strong state control. During her first term Rousseff boosted national public banks, supported unemployment control, the growth of the internal market, and the State became a bigger part in the development of the social structure.

Politics on debt and foreign relationships, especially with the United States, are also a big difference between the politics of the PT and the PSDB. Cardoso’s government made various agreements with the IMF to handle the country’s external debt. But Rousseff looked to pay off the external debt by drawing from the country’s internal debt. She also looked away from the United States, who had been a valuable partner of Cardoso, and looked to create “South-South” agreements, creating pacts with Bolivia, Venezuela and Uruguay. She also promoted the creation of a common fund of the emerging “BRICS” nations, joining Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Nonetheless, the fact that such a polarization between neoliberal and left-wing politics appeared in the electoral contest doesn’t mean that this division runs through the whole country, or that every Brazilian is on one side or the other. The stage is much more complex and its reflected in a series of social changes. Maybe they are recent, as recent as the World Cup, or maybe they come from the protests in 2013 that started in a few big cities, but spread throughout the country. Or they might have begun in the last, crucial, ten years, when Brazil started to be perceived as an economical power, when the level of poverty was reduced, the middle class grew, and some confusing, disorganized developments started to move our country.

The protests from 2013 were too complex to fit just one analysis. Thousands of people took the streets, from all over the country, and from every socio-economical background. Different ideological groups were on the streets and for very different reasons. But one thing was clear: if on the one hand these mobilizations represented the will to recover public space, the right of participation and a feeling of collective power; they also represented extremist and even violent reactionary actions which weren’t striving to open debates, but to take politics “on its own hands.” If part of the population was demonstrating to fight for more rights, other part was out to push a conservative agenda of social, racial and regional discrimination.

As the World Cup (and the elections) came closer, the multiple (and sometimes contradictory) criticisms grew bigger, At the beginning they seemed to be directed towards Fifa and the resources wasted by the cup, which many felt could be better invested on health and education. But it deformed into a confused criticism of the national government. I believe this was made worse by the country’s partial and antiquated news media, which has lost its critical, investigative role, and instead has been very partial in its coverage.

Traditional news outlets always talked down the actual number of people out on the streets, but they were quick to use the protests against the national government, trying to pin on it every complaint the people had. New media, such as blog and online periodicals reflected the environment in which they came to be: a polarization in which each of the extremes reads only the source that fits with its worldview, diminishing the chances of any kind of dialogue.

The gap grew bigger, stronger and more violent. The marketing strategies from both candidates, seeing how polarized the elections had become, turned to personal violence. The main purpose was to throw accusations at the other, not to propose solutions. Furthermore, Marina Silva, the third candidate in the first round of elections, had tried to turn the debate into a depoliticized discourse, simplifying her policy between “good” and “bad”.

In the streets, on Facebook, in daily life, the division was clear. According to philosopher Paulo Eduardo Arantes (close to the PT), the Brazilian right is similar to the U.S. right in the sense that it is “not interested in creating majorities in government. It is interested in impeding other governments, They don’t need votes because they are directly financed by big corporations. (…) That is why they can afford the luxury to have very clear, non-negotiable positions. So they attack, making impossible any change to the status quo. [Meanwhile,] the left can’t do that because it has to govern, to create majorities, to compromise.” There can be no middle ground there.

Yet, for me, it is clear that Brazil, even if it’s still struggling with its enormous poverty and social inequality, has managed to improve tremendously. It has been the direct responsibility of certain PT politics, such as Bolsa Familia and Minha Casa Minha Vida, but also of a great number of scholarships from the ProUni program, of the technical school from Pronatec, the new Federal Universities and of Ciencias Sem Fronteras. It’s the result of the control of the minimum wage, the formalization of domestic employment, the position in favor of diversity and the fight for criminalization of the discrimination towards homosexuals. I think it’s the right path. Nevertheless, a portion of the population is not willing to abandon a series of hereditary privileges, which is necessary to achieve this progress. They find it admissible to pay 6% of IOF (tax on abroad operations), as they find it impossible to leave behind an already settled ideological view, which is blind to this progress.

The political reform proposed by Rousseff (which would happen via popular vote) was denied by Congress barely a week after her electoral victory. Dialogue and the construction of new policies still seem distant. But polarization is inevitable; it is linked to our political and economical model. Diversity of views and creative dialogue can’t come from the reductionist differences between red and blue states, it should be determined by serious and thorough research and by information that actually relates to the problems and the projects that guide our country.

Brazilian Elections 2014: Between Polarization and a Country in Transition

In October, Brazil went through its closest presidential elections since 1989–51.6% to 48.4%. The winner was the incumbent President, Dilma Rousseff, who earned her reelection as a candidate from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Party of the Workers), or PT. From 2003, the PT has ruled the country, with Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva also having served two terms. The loser in the election was Aécio Neves, the candidate of the Partido Social da Democracia Brasileira (Social Party of the Brazilian Democracy), or PSDB.

After the results were announced, Folha, a newspaper from São Paulo, published a map that showed a divided Brazil. Northeastern states (as well as Maranhão and Bahia) were red, the color of the PT. The Southern states (including São Paulo) were blue, the color of the PSDB. A separatist wave became obvious in Brazilian media. Some conservative commentators argued that “poors don’t know how to vote” or that the Northeastern states were victims of the “government’s populism and charity”.

But, of course, we are not so far away from each other. Another map, devised and published by Thomas Conti, disproves that wrongful, binary, overgeneralizing vision:

 

 

Yet, this panorama created an atmosphere of conflict between two sides, which led to protests and marches, which haven’t stopped since August, expressing hatred and the desire of each side to be as separated as possible from the other.

Indeed, the profiles and the political careers of the two candidates that represent both polarities have been different. Though both are economists, Rousseff has a technical profile, while Neves (who comes from one of the most politically prominent families in the country), has held political positions.

The candidate from the PSDB defends the continuity of the political Project of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who ruled the country between 1995 and 2003. FHC, as he is also known, focused in lowering inflation and relied in neoliberal politics, such as privatizing a series of national companies, and looking to strengthen the economy, freeing it from a strong state control. During her first term Rousseff boosted national public banks, supported unemployment control, the growth of the internal market, and the State became a bigger part in the development of the social structure.

Politics on debt and foreign relationships, especially with the United States, are also a big difference between the politics of the PT and the PSDB. Cardoso’s government made various agreements with the IMF to handle the country’s external debt. But Rousseff looked to pay off the external debt by drawing from the country’s internal debt. She also looked away from the United States, who had been a valuable partner of Cardoso, and looked to create “South-South” agreements, creating pacts with Bolivia, Venezuela and Uruguay. She also promoted the creation of a common fund of the emerging “BRICS” nations, joining Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Nonetheless, the fact that such a polarization between neoliberal and left-wing politics appeared in the electoral contest doesn’t mean that this division runs through the whole country, or that every Brazilian is on one side or the other. The stage is much more complex and its reflected in a series of social changes. Maybe they are recent, as recent as the World Cup, or maybe they come from the protests in 2013 that started in a few big cities, but spread throughout the country. Or they might have begun in the last, crucial, ten years, when Brazil started to be perceived as an economical power, when the level of poverty was reduced, the middle class grew, and some confusing, disorganized developments started to move our country.

The protests from 2013 were too complex to fit just one analysis. Thousands of people took the streets, from all over the country, and from every socio-economical background. Different ideological groups were on the streets and for very different reasons. But one thing was clear: if on the one hand these mobilizations represented the will to recover public space, the right of participation and a feeling of collective power; they also represented extremist and even violent reactionary actions which weren’t striving to open debates, but to take politics “on its own hands.” If part of the population was demonstrating to fight for more rights, other part was out to push a conservative agenda of social, racial and regional discrimination.

As the World Cup (and the elections) came closer, the multiple (and sometimes contradictory) criticisms grew bigger, At the beginning they seemed to be directed towards Fifa and the resources wasted by the cup, which many felt could be better invested on health and education. But it deformed into a confused criticism of the national government. I believe this was made worse by the country’s partial and antiquated news media, which has lost its critical, investigative role, and instead has been very partial in its coverage.

Traditional news outlets always talked down the actual number of people out on the streets, but they were quick to use the protests against the national government, trying to pin on it every complaint the people had. New media, such as blog and online periodicals reflected the environment in which they came to be: a polarization in which each of the extremes reads only the source that fits with its worldview, diminishing the chances of any kind of dialogue.

The gap grew bigger, stronger and more violent. The marketing strategies from both candidates, seeing how polarized the elections had become, turned to personal violence. The main purpose was to throw accusations at the other, not to propose solutions. Furthermore, Marina Silva, the third candidate in the first round of elections, had tried to turn the debate into a depoliticized discourse, simplifying her policy between “good” and “bad”.

In the streets, on Facebook, in daily life, the division was clear. According to philosopher Paulo Eduardo Arantes (close to the PT), the Brazilian right is similar to the U.S. right in the sense that it is “not interested in creating majorities in government. It is interested in impeding other governments, They don’t need votes because they are directly financed by big corporations. (…) That is why they can afford the luxury to have very clear, non-negotiable positions. So they attack, making impossible any change to the status quo. [Meanwhile,] the left can’t do that because it has to govern, to create majorities, to compromise.” There can be no middle ground there.

Yet, for me, it is clear that Brazil, even if it’s still struggling with its enormous poverty and social inequality, has managed to improve tremendously. It has been the direct responsibility of certain PT politics, such as Bolsa Familia and Minha Casa Minha Vida, but also of a great number of scholarships from the ProUni program, of the technical school from Pronatec, the new Federal Universities and of Ciencias Sem Fronteras. It’s the result of the control of the minimum wage, the formalization of domestic employment, the position in favor of diversity and the fight for criminalization of the discrimination towards homosexuals. I think it’s the right path. Nevertheless, a portion of the population is not willing to abandon a series of hereditary privileges, which is necessary to achieve this progress. They find it admissible to pay 6% of IOF (tax on abroad operations), as they find it impossible to leave behind an already settled ideological view, which is blind to this progress.

The political reform proposed by Rousseff (which would happen via popular vote) was denied by Congress barely a week after her electoral victory. Dialogue and the construction of new policies still seem distant. But polarization is inevitable; it is linked to our political and economical model. Diversity of views and creative dialogue can’t come from the reductionist differences between red and blue states, it should be determined by serious and thorough research and by information that actually relates to the problems and the projects that guide our country.

Mexico Rises: From Tlatelolco, 1968, to Ayotzinapa, 2014

“It would be necessary not only to wash the floor: the memory

it would demand to remove sight to all we saw,

to murder the the bereaved as well,

no one cry, no more witnesses to be.

But blood roots

and grows as a tree on time.

The blood on concrete, on the walls,

it creeps: hits us

it wets us with shame, shame, shame”

–Jaime Sabines, Tlatelolco 68.

Mexico’s current situation is no secret. News have spread fast as protests continue to grow and inconformity pushes demonstrators to make visible, in any way possible, the causes of their indignation. Thus, the 43 students from Iguala have become an open wound for the nation. They were, on September 26th, detained for protesting, and were, allegedly, given by the mayor José Luis Abarca to local narcos known as Guerreros Unidos. Despite recent testimonies regarding their possible murder and the obscurity surrounding the whole ordeal (with questions about their possible incineration), families of the students as well as their supporters refuse to accept their death. People demand a response from the Government and they still wait for the students’ return, or for a definitive proof of the impossibility of such a thing.

But this is not the first time that Mexico goes through something like this. In 1968, with the Olympics to be held in the country’s capital coming closer, youth groups which were part of the student movement organized various demonstrations criticizing the way in which the country was hiding its social and political situation. The government sought to present a friendlier, distorted image to foreign visitors, so locals took the streets. The official position was to try to silence every dissatisfied voice that protested for a true change and against the setting up of this façade.

Mexican author Elena Poniatowska gathers, in her book La noche de Tlatelolco (The Night of Tlatelolco), various testimonies about the atmosphere before and after the repression against the ‘68 protests. Poniatowska opens her book with a literary description of the mood just before the events that would take place on Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Square of the Three Cultures). She describes the enthusiasm of the students who were crying for change and taking advantage of a moment they saw fit to ask for it: “They are many. They come down Melchor Ocampo, Reforma, Juárez, Cinco de Mayo, laughing, boys and girls, students walking arm in arm, in as festive a mood as if they were going to a street fair; carefree boys and girls who do not know that tomorrow, and the day after, their dead bodies will be lying swollen in the rain, after a fair where the guns in the shooting gallery are aimed at them, children-targets, wonderstruck-children”.

Poniatowska includes, besides fragments of some of those who participated in the protests, chants from the demonstrations, transcriptions of signs, bits of what newspapers published right after the shooting at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. Protesters reached there on October 2nd and a combat against the army ensued. The events that triggered that reaction are still pretty unclear (and the body count goes anywhere from 30 to 300), though the non-official version goes that it was the Government’s fault, that it ordered to open fire on the people gathered in Tlatelolco.

The testimonies in Poniatowska’s book are a historical echo of the current protests of the student community in Mexico. Many have come together to protest against violence, a kind of violence of which Iguala is just another example. The response to what happened to the Ayotzinapa students, as well as the protests that ended up becoming the night of Tlatelolco, are the result of the dissatisfaction of the country with its government. The protesters demand explanations about the “future of the country” and about the repression they faced for demonstrating (which became another catalyst for the uneasiness).

In one of the testimonies of the book, Margarita Isabel, an actress, says: “I think the strength and the importance of the student movement came from its repression. More than a political discourse, repression was what politicized people and managed to get a majority involved actively in the assemblies”. That is the same repression that local media, such as Televisa, have exercised. It is not a mystery that media is controlled by the Mexican government. Mexicans talk openly about how the State filters TV news and it is a common notion that entertainment should be produced to distract the population from the crude circumstances of the country. President Enrique Peña Nieto’s success in the latest elections had to do with just that. The image that was built of him was modeled on soap opera’s romances, the kind appreciated by Mexican housewives. The return of Peña Nieto’s party, PRI, to power, secured many votes with this media strategy. But the President has struggled to keep his fabricated charm as inconformity grows.

News about what happened to the Ayotzinapa students, though, have thrived online. Internet is the prefered medium to communicate what is going on and to make it visible outside of Mexico. The hashtags #YaMeCansé (#IAmTired), for example, or #AyotzinapaSomosTodos (#WeAreAllAyotzinapa) have become staples when discussing the protest. Furthermore, protesters have filmed and documented the manifestations caused by the events surrounding the Ayotzinapa 43. This is how citizens from all over the country have responded to the premise “el dolor nos iguala” (“pain makes us equal”, a pun in Spanish referring to the city where the students were abducted), by protesting.

Just like the protests from ‘68, this time people all over Mexico (and students in particular) have identified with the demonstrations. But this has triggered negative reactions from the Government. In the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), students have gathered in assemblies to discuss how can they contribute. They have done so peacefully. Yet, last week four individuals went into UNAM’s campus (known as “Ciudad Universitaria”, or “CU”) and followed a few students. Shots were fired into the air and some students were injured. About this and about the fear now instilled in the school’s population, Hugo Márquez, a student from the English Literature department, said to me: “I felt I was intouchable inside of CU, because of what October 2nd [of 1968] had brought forth, but this is not the case anymore”.

The memory of Tlatelolco should suffice to ensure that such atrocities won’t ever happen again. But Tlatelolco is currently a warning of what is happening right now, of what already happened and of what might happen in the future. In an interview, Elena Poniatowska put it like this: “after the killings of Tlatelolco I was convinced that there wouldn’t be another massacre, but of course it is very easy in my country, because death is always nearby”. She also compared Ayotzinapa with Auschwitz: “It reminds us of World War II, of the elimination of human beings. (…) The fact that 43 young people were murdered like that, not just murdered, but burnt in a dump, like trash, like they were shit, is a big embarrassment, personally, and for the country. How can our country face the world after this?”.

That final question rubs salt in a wound that has never truly healed. It might be valid also to ask how is the country going to face itself, how is it going to face the repetition of its past, so this time there is not as much pain or spilled blood, so this time there is not oblivion.

The Rise of Grace Mugabe of Zimbabwe

Anybody watching political developments in Zimbabwe can’t miss First Lady Grace Mugabe’s entry into national politics as a presidential candidate.

It is not uncommon that First Lady’s are part of the political process, in fact engagement in politics is part of the First Lady’s job description. It is required that the wife of the president should travel around the country convincing voters to select her husband for the highest post in the land. Until recently, the conversation about Grace Mugabe had revolved around her spending habits, her beauty, the fact that she married the president while his wife, the much beloved Sally Mugabe was lying on her death bed.

Grace Mugabe until just a few months ago had been a shadow behind her husband giving the general First-Lady-Like-Speeches, the ones where she praised her husband’s accomplishments, often reminded Zimbabweans of his role in the struggle and like most First Ladies worked on non-controversial issues such as her children’s home. Fast forward to August 2014; Grace Mugabe made headlines when she was capped along with other Doctoral Graduates at the university of Zimbabwe. The media went crazy; there have been questions regarding the authenticity of her degree, the quality of her thesis etc. At the time those of us unaware of extent of the internal strife in the revolutionary party did not pick up on the irony of the graduation day-Grace Mugabe was capped the same day as Joyce Mujuru the current Vice President.

With the exception of Hillary Clinton’s attempt at entering politics during Bill Clinton’s first term as president there hasn’t been a more contentious First Lady. I am not the first analysis to take a cut at the implications of Grace’s entry into politics. Much of the independent commentary has portrayed Grace as divisive, and others have gone as far as calling her a useful fool. I think any analysis that attempts to provide a full picture of who political Grace is and what she means for Zimbabwe is premature. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with Amai Mugabe entering politics, it is perfectly ok, and welcome in a political environment that has for the last three decades been dominated by men. Mrs. Mugabe knows a lot about politics and perhaps as much as any of the other candidates who are likely to step up for office. Those concerned about Grace Mugabe’s viability as a candidate have every right to speak up but she should not be dismissed simply because of her gender or the fact that she is a First Lady.

Perhaps a more legitimate concern is the fact that the voice of the other woman who has been central to this political drama has been largely muted. The First Lady has leveled serious allegations against Vice President Joyce Mujuru, including that she is corrupt, has engaged in real vote buying –dollar exchange for a vote- , intimidation and that she has attempted to displace the President. The First Lady has repeatedly argued that the constitution is the basis of the Mugabe regime, it is in that same vein that she should allow for Mai Mujuru to have her day in court. Thus far it has been a kangaroo court and in some ways the First Lady has acted like a selfish spoiled child. Her behavior sets a terrible precedent for the engagement of women in politics. Often women are portrayed as catty, shallow, unambitious and weak. If the First Lady’s arguments against the VPs were based on policy considerations, her successes and or failures as a leader then you would not be hearing from me or other young women who grew up yearning for the day when Zimbabwe gets a feisty-ready-to-go female leader. Instead, Amai Mugabe has gone as far as picking on Amai Mujuru’s weight. That is possibly the lowest attack that a woman can level against another woman, and coming from a woman who continues to remind us that she is the mother of the nation it is saddening.

A democratic Zimbabwe requires that every political actor and player get a fair chance to speak their mind, and to defend their position. The claim by ZANU PF that Grace Mugabe’s rallies were not official campaign rallies is simply not true. It is clear that the First Lady is on the campaign trail, it is obvious that she is complaining for the position of Head of the Women’s League, but, her speech at the meeting with war veterans suggests that she has aspirations beyond the Women’s League, and that she is possibly aiming for the presidency. As Zimbabwe transitions into a post liberal-struggle-leadership era there is a need to also clean up the quality of politics. If Grace Mugabe is earnest about bringing infusing new blood into Zimbabwean politics then she must be willing to also do the hard work and lead by example, she must lead from the top. The future of Zimbabwe depends on Joyce Mujuru getting an opportunity to defend herself against these very serious allegations.

Image Credit: Twitter

Lost in Frustration: Teaching about Latin America in the U.S.

The challenge has always been there. To study Latin America in the U.S. Why? How? What for? Each year Spanish, Hispanic Studies and Latin American Studies departments throughout the U.S. welcome students from Latin America into their doctoral programs. And, according to the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), there are more than 5000 active professionals studying Latin America in the U.S.

I am one of them. Every time I arrive at a U.S. airport, customs officials ask me the same question: Why, if you are from Colombia, do you study Latin American literature in the U.S? And even though I have trained myself to give a straightforward and almost cynical answer–“U.S. universities have resources that we do not. It’s always about the money, right?”–once I leave the airport and rejoin academic life in Philadelphia, where I live, this question haunts me on a daily basis.

I can’t help but seek answers from our “predecessors”–the intellectuals that paved the way for today’s Latin American scholars working in the U.S. They are responsible for the debates and definitions surrounding Latin America; it was they who asked if Latin America, a diverse conglomerate of commonalities and differences, existed as a single region. And because their work emerged in distant classrooms throughout the U.S., their questions carried the imprint of a longing that was both material and intellectual. A longing that lingers in today’s classrooms and that, in different ways, comes across as frustration.

The first person that comes to mind is Pedro Henríquez Ureña (1884-1946). Born into a family of Dominican intellectuals and politicians in Santo Domingo, Henríquez Ureña became a central figure in the debates of the first half of the 20th century. He taught in the United States on a number of occasions, as well as in Mexico and Argentina. His approach to Latin America privileged a view of the region as an autonomous aesthetic and cultural site, conditioned by the tensions between its Hispanic roots and the novelty of an Americanist approach awakening in several Latin American nations through cultural movements like indigenismo, the problematic recognition of indigenous communities by intellectual circles and the state-sponsored projects that gained strength during the 1940s after the First Interamerican Indigenist Congress held in Mexico.

Henríquez Ureña’s main concerns shaped the debates regarding the region: is there a unique Latin American expression? Is Latin America always defined by foreign influences? Is there an alternative to the oscillation between dogmatic nationalisms and the adoption of European or U.S. political and cultural models?

The debate changed radically during the second half of the 20th century. The Cuban revolution, the international relevance of authors from the Latin American boom–Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Carlos Fuentes, among others–and the dictatorships in the Southern Cone transformed the questions regarding what Latin America was and who was “qualified” to talk about it.

Ángel Rama (1926-1983), an exiled Uruguayan writer and cultural critic, was central to this rhetorical and political shift. Rama taught in Latin America and in the U.S. academy. He brought Jean Paul Sartre’s model of the “committed intellectual” to the fore in Latin American discussions. This meant asking what is the role of scholars and intellectuals in the material and political realities of Latin American nations. Asking this from U.S. classrooms represented a particular challenge, one that intensified the frustration that endures to this day.

If literature and artistic expressions are now understood as part of an ideological practice extended throughout the region–often times denouncing the impact of U.S. intervention in Latin America–, how can Latin American scholars in the U.S. mediate the inherent contradictions that arise between their political filiations and their institutional commitments? For Rama, his fight against the U.S. migration service heightened this dilemma, after authorities denied him a visa to continue teaching at the University of Maryland. This remains a common problem faced by Latin American scholars working in the U.S. today.

Fast-forwarding to the present, the frustration derived by the distance between the U.S. classroom and the issues lived and discussed in Latin America is felt more intensely. Frustration has become the most common, if not the only, response to the rapid corporatization of the university.

Spanish and Latin American Studies departments demand more language instructors than critical thinkers or “committed intellectuals.” And each year doctoral programs throughout the country launch shiny new professionals into the entrails of a ruthless job market and encourage them to make endless contributions to hyper-specialized publications that fill library shelves and digital databases. But how much of that work actually reaches Latin American audiences? And how much of the work done in Latin America reaches the U.S. classroom?

For the scholar coming from Latin America, like myself, this reality seems quite duplicitous. It seems that any attempts to create material links to the debates and events taking place south of the border are energized not by a coherent and prolonged critical concern for the region’s present and future, but by a succession of rhetorical and professionalizing trends that begin and end in the U.S. classroom.

What are we risking when we can go from one semester to another talking about the Chilean student’s movement, the Colombian peace treaty, or, today, the disappearance of the 43 Mexican students from the rural school in Ayotzinapa, as if they are just a succession of texts to be deconstructed?

I am aware that I may be offering an oversimplified view of the field and our practices, but it is true that our work now responds less to the changes and dialogues coming from Latin America, and more to mediatic culture and the demands from the U.S. university and its publishing conglomerates.

Looking back at figures like Henríquez Ureña and Rama can redirect our work towards effective links between the production of knowledge in the U.S. classroom and the discussions and actions taking place in Latin America. This is especially important when we realize that, even if it occurs through language instruction, we are in charge of the way Latin America is seen by U.S. college students throughout the country. This is no minor issue for a country that hosts 53 million Latinos coming from Central or South America.

Can we teach about Latin America not exploiting its shock-value or as a ready-to-consume entity?

Lost in Frustration: the Latin American Scholar in the U.S. Classroom

The challenge has always been there. To study Latin America in the U.S. Why? How? What for? Each year Spanish, Hispanic Studies and Latin American Studies departments throughout the U.S. welcome students from Latin America into their doctoral programs. And, according to the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), there are more than 5000 active professionals studying Latin America in the U.S.

I am one of them. Every time I arrive at a U.S. airport, customs officials ask me the same question: Why, if you are from Colombia, do you study Latin American literature in the U.S? And even though I have trained myself to give a straightforward and almost cynical answer–“U.S. universities have resources that we do not. It’s always about the money, right?”–once I leave the airport and rejoin academic life in Philadelphia, where I live, this question haunts me on a daily basis.

I can’t help but seek answers from our “predecessors”–the intellectuals that paved the way for today’s Latin American scholars working in the U.S. They are responsible for the debates and definitions surrounding Latin America; it was they who asked if Latin America, a diverse conglomerate of commonalities and differences, existed as a single region. And because their work emerged in distant classrooms throughout the U.S., their questions carried the imprint of a longing that was both material and intellectual. A longing that lingers in today’s classrooms and that, in different ways, comes across as frustration.

The first person that comes to mind is Pedro Henríquez Ureña (1884-1946). Born into a family of Dominican intellectuals and politicians in Santo Domingo, Henríquez Ureña became a central figure in the debates of the first half of the 20th century. He taught in the United States on a number of occasions, as well as in Mexico and Argentina. His approach to Latin America privileged a view of the region as an autonomous aesthetic and cultural site, conditioned by the tensions between its Hispanic roots and the novelty of an Americanist approach awakening in several Latin American nations through cultural movements like indigenismo, the problematic recognition of indigenous communities by intellectual circles and the state-sponsored projects that gained strength during the 1940s after the First Interamerican Indigenist Congress held in Mexico.

Henríquez Ureña’s main concerns shaped the debates regarding the region: is there a unique Latin American expression? Is Latin America always defined by foreign influences? Is there an alternative to the oscillation between dogmatic nationalisms and the adoption of European or U.S. political and cultural models?

The debate changed radically during the second half of the 20th century. The Cuban revolution, the international relevance of authors from the Latin American boom–Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Carlos Fuentes, among others–and the dictatorships in the Southern Cone transformed the questions regarding what Latin America was and who was “qualified” to talk about it.

Ángel Rama (1926-1983), an exiled Uruguayan writer and cultural critic, was central to this rhetorical and political shift. Rama taught in Latin America and in the U.S. academy. He brought Jean Paul Sartre’s model of the “committed intellectual” to the fore in Latin American discussions. This meant asking what is the role of scholars and intellectuals in the material and political realities of Latin American nations. Asking this from U.S. classrooms represented a particular challenge, one that intensified the frustration that endures to this day.

If literature and artistic expressions are now understood as part of an ideological practice extended throughout the region–often times denouncing the impact of U.S. intervention in Latin America–, how can Latin American scholars in the U.S. mediate the inherent contradictions that arise between their political filiations and their institutional commitments? For Rama, his fight against the U.S. migration service heightened this dilemma, after authorities denied him a visa to continue teaching at the University of Maryland. This remains a common problem faced by Latin American scholars working in the U.S. today.

Fast-forwarding to the present, the frustration derived by the distance between the U.S. classroom and the issues lived and discussed in Latin America is felt more intensely. Frustration has become the most common, if not the only, response to the rapid corporatization of the university.

Spanish and Latin American Studies departments demand more language instructors than critical thinkers or “committed intellectuals.” And each year doctoral programs throughout the country launch shiny new professionals into the entrails of a ruthless job market and encourage them to make endless contributions to hyper-specialized publications that fill library shelves and digital databases. But how much of that work actually reaches Latin American audiences? And how much of the work done in Latin America reaches the U.S. classroom?

For the scholar coming from Latin America, like myself, this reality seems quite duplicitous. It seems that any attempts to create material links to the debates and events taking place south of the border are energized not by a coherent and prolonged critical concern for the region’s present and future, but by a succession of rhetorical and professionalizing trends that begin and end in the U.S. classroom.

What are we risking when we can go from one semester to another talking about the Chilean student’s movement, the Colombian peace treaty, or, today, the disappearance of the 43 Mexican students from the rural school in Ayotzinapa, as if they are just a succession of texts to be deconstructed?

I am aware that I may be offering an oversimplified view of the field and our practices, but it is true that our work now responds less to the changes and dialogues coming from Latin America, and more to mediatic culture and the demands from the U.S. university and its publishing conglomerates.

Looking back at figures like Henríquez Ureña and Rama can redirect our work towards effective links between the production of knowledge in the U.S. classroom and the discussions and actions taking place in Latin America. This is especially important when we realize that, even if it occurs through language instruction, we are in charge of the way Latin America is seen by U.S. college students throughout the country. This is no minor issue for a country that hosts 53 million Latinos coming from Central or South America.

Can we teach about Latin America not exploiting its shock-value or as a ready-to-consume entity?

Weekend Special, No 1002

A bunch of us went to the African Studies Association’s annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. This is the world’s largest gathering of Africanists. Much transpired. The problems with conferences this large is you can’t cover everything. We made notes and hopefully we’ve found new contributors. For a general sense of what transpired, the tweets of AIAC’s Oumar Ba (graduate student at University of Florida)  is a good barometer for the mood of the conference. (See also the hashtag #ASA2014). Ba, though, missed Canadian historian Martin Klein’s bizarre claim as he was introducing veteran Senegalese Boubacar Barry for the association’s “Distinguished Africanist Award” that “… when I went to Senegal When I first visited Senegal in 1963 there were no historians of Senegal.” Some people moved in their seats. Sitting next to me, an African scholar shouted back: “… in America.” Barry acted like he didn’t hear it and emphasized that he spent much of his career at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar. You know who that university is named for, right?

* AIAC also held its first “conference party.” About twenty people turned up at a bar in downtown Indianapolis, including a whole bunch of AIAC writers and/or editors–Jill Kelley, Liz Timbs, Yael Even Or, Daniel Magaziner, Oumar Ba, Neelika Jayawardane, Marissa Moorman–and a whole bunch of supporters and friends. Next year, San Diego.

* Enough academia. The big news is that we published our first ebook, “Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy.” It was edited by historian Jon Soske and AIAC Life President Sean Jacobs. The ebook has a stellar cast of contributors–mostly academics (them again) and researchers working on and from South Africa–that include Achille Mbembe, Robin DG Kelley, Marissa Moorman, Bill Freund and Andy Clarno, among others, asking whether the analogy is helpful. Go on, read it.

* #BandAid30 rolled on with Bob Geldof now having the number one tune on a number of platforms. It is still unclear whether Africans asked him to do this (some African musicans, stars like Salif Keita and Amadou and Mariam among them, made a song already) or where all this money is going. We leave you with this #BandAid30 simulacrum (HT Angela Subulwa, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh):

And, here’s a video of the artist intellectual Cameroonian Goddy Leye (1965-2011), lying in a bed of bananas and watermelons, singing “We are the World”:

* The white South African artist behind the Mandela Ray Ban sculpture (now remixed by Tokoloshe Stencils) compared the negative reaction to his bollocks to the “mob hysteria,” “lynch mobs with burning crosses” (the Klan?) and the Rwandan Genocide. Yes, he did. Cape Talk, the radio station where he made these claims is a subject for another day.

* Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a Dutch filmmaker, who made a film about blackface, the side-eye.

Here’s why.

We’re not sure who gets the Stuff White People Do Award for last week. The Ray Ban Mandela artist? Zwarte Piet’s defenders? Bob Geldof? You decide.

* Part of our Football is a Country offshoot, Sean Jacobs and Pablo Medina Uribe, work and study respectively, at The New School. That’s where they hosted the writer and broadcaster David Goldblatt last Wednesday. David has been described as the best football historian of our time, so this was a treat. Once The New School posts the video, we’ll put it up here.

* Finally, there’s this:

Post by African Muzik Magazine.

Africa is a Country has published its first ebook, “Apart...

Africa is a Country has published its first ebook, “Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy.” The ebook was edited by Jon Soske and Sean Jacobs. The contributors to the ebook are Achille Mbembe, Salim Vally, Andy Clarno, Arianna Lissoni, T.J. Tallie, Bill Freund, Marissa Moorman, Shireen Hassim, Robin D.G. Kelley, Heidi Grunebaum, and Melissa Levin. You can read the ebook here. Design and layout by Sam Clemence) This is the introduction:

We invited eleven scholars of Africa and its diaspora to reflect on the analogy between apartheid South Africa and contemporary Israel. The American Studies Association’s decision in February 2014 to endorse the academic boycott of Israel, followed by the state violence directed against the inhabitants of Gaza this past July, has intensified the debate over Israel/Palestine in universities across North America. The international, nonviolent campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is gaining momentum by the day.

Most of the contributions to this forum underline the obvious similarities between apartheid South Africa and Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. As Robin D.G. Kelley writes: “That Israel and its colonial occupation meet the UN’s definition of an apartheid state is beyond dispute.” Both apartheid South Africa and the Israeli state originated through a process of conquest and settlement largely justified on the grounds of religion and ethnic nationalism. Both pursued a legalized, large-scale program of displacing the earlier inhabitants from their land. Both instituted a variety of discriminatory laws based on racial or ethnic grounds. Outside of a tiny group of pro-Zionist organizations, the analogy is so widely accepted in South Africa that it draws little controversy. Indeed, leading members of the anti-apartheid struggle, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jewish struggle veterans like Ronnie Kasrils, have repeatedly stated that the conditions in the West Bank and Gaza are “worse than apartheid.”

At the same time, no historical analogy is ever exact. Comparisons necessarily reveal differences even as they underline similarities. Defenders of Israel’s record sometimes use this fact to chip away at the allegation of apartheid by underlining, for example, the civil rights enjoyed by Palestinian citizens of Israel. (Although many observers argue that these rights have always been limited and are being eroded at an alarming pace.) Such differences are important and unarguable. But generally, this mode of debate strives to deflect attention away from the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the ongoing construction of settlements on Palestinian land, the indiscriminate bombing and shelling directed at Palestinian civilians, and the mass detention and torture of Palestinian activists. Far from exonerating the policies and practices of the Israeli state, the divergences between the two cases—as Melissa Levin so powerfully shows—more often than not speak to the incredible desperation of the Palestinian situation.

As these essays demonstrate, the work of comparison requires an attentiveness to the ethical and political singularity of each space even as it attempts to generate dialogues across multiple histories of oppression and struggle. Rather than “adding up” similarities and differences, the authors explore various aspects of the apartheid/Israel analogy, ranging from the parallels between post-apartheid neoliberalism and the post-Oslo occupied territories to the role of Israel in southern Africa more broadly. As Salim Vally emphasizes, there are a number of lessons that today’s activists can draw from the global anti-apartheid movement regarding the importance of patience, the practical work of building international solidarity, and the dangers of sectarianism. Yet as other contributors argue, most notably Bill Freund in a rather sober commentary, it is far from clear that the South African transition—itself imperfect and highly contested—can provide clear guidance for a peaceful resolution in Israel/Palestine beyond generalities. In pursuing the comparison, there may be as much to learn from the questions of liberation that the South African struggle failed to answer fully.

These essays should help refute, once and for all, the assertion that the apartheid/Israel comparison is “anti-Semitic” because it seeks to “de-legitimize” the state of Israel. If anything, this analogy reflects the principled rejection of anti-Semitism by the vast majority of pro-Palestinian activists. At the ideological heart of apartheid was the program of building an (ultimately impossible) “white South Africa” based on an ethno-nationalist appeal to self-determination. Apartheid’s forced removals, the creation of the Bantustans, and the stripping of Africans’ citizenship rights were all directed to this end. It is therefore telling that so many defenders of Israel’s practices assert the right to a “Jewish state” at the expense of Palestinian claims for justice. Whatever its considerable limitations, the defeat of apartheid represented the historic triumph of an inclusive vision of South Africa over a racially exclusive conception of nation. By drawing a parallel to the South Africa freedom struggle, the analogy targets Israel’s colonial practices, not any one group or people.

We have published this forum to coincide with the African Studies Association meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. In South Africa, many of our colleagues have been at the forefront of mobilizing civil society against Israeli apartheid. Until recently, however, North American Africanists have largely been absent from a public debate that hinges, in part, on the historical significance of colonialism, apartheid, and the southern African liberation struggles. The African Literature Association’s endorsement of the BDS Movement was a major turning point in this regard. Among some of our colleagues, this reticence reflects a sincere unease over the way that discussions about Israel/Palestine often mobilize South African history in a highly instrumentalist and reductive fashion. We hope that these essays show that one can think comparatively while remaining attentive to the complexity of (still ongoing) South African struggles.

Other colleagues have invoked an area studies vocabulary to argue that we have enough to worry about in “our own” backyard. South Africa has long boasted an oversized position in African studies. With everything that the continent faces, why return to debates about apartheid once again?  When protestors in Ferguson faced militarized police agencies that had received training from Israeli security forces, they were quick to draw the connection between state racism in the United States and Israel. Moreover, the firing of academic Steven Salaita from the University of Illinois illuminated the way that the orchestrated campaign of intimidation against pro-Palestinian academics has become linked to a broader erosion of shared university governance and academic freedom. As scholars based in North America, it is only possible to see Israel/Palestine as “outside our field of expertise” if we divorce the concerns of African studies from the forms of militarism, racism, and censorship that operate in our own society.

The global anti-apartheid movement was one of the largest international civil society mobilizations of the late 20th century. For all of its mistakes and internal divisions, it succeeded because it managed to connect diverse, localized struggles to a campaign against international support for the South African regime. The BDS movement is today developing a similar dynamic. We hope that this forum will encourage collaborations with colleagues in Middle East Studies (and other fields), the organization of conferences and special journal issues, and the difficult work of teaching about contemporary forms of apartheid in our courses. The editors believe that the African Studies Association should move toward endorsing the academic boycott of Israeli universities. We offer these essays as a launching point and invite our colleagues to join us in this discussion.

You can read the ebook here.

Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy

Africa is a Country has published its first ebook, “Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy.” The ebook was edited by Jon Soske and Sean Jacobs. The contributors to the ebook are Achille Mbembe, Salim Vally, Andy Clarno, Arianna Lissoni, T.J. Tallie, Bill Freund, Marissa Moorman, Shireen Hassim, Robin D.G. Kelley, Heidi Grunebaum, and Melissa Levin. You can read the ebook here. Design and layout by Sam Clemence) This is the introduction:

We invited eleven scholars of Africa and its diaspora to reflect on the analogy between apartheid South Africa and contemporary Israel. The American Studies Association’s decision in February 2014 to endorse the academic boycott of Israel, followed by the state violence directed against the inhabitants of Gaza this past July, has intensified the debate over Israel/Palestine in universities across North America. The international, nonviolent campaign for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel is gaining momentum by the day.

Most of the contributions to this forum underline the obvious similarities between apartheid South Africa and Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. As Robin D.G. Kelley writes: “That Israel and its colonial occupation meet the UN’s definition of an apartheid state is beyond dispute.” Both apartheid South Africa and the Israeli state originated through a process of conquest and settlement largely justified on the grounds of religion and ethnic nationalism. Both pursued a legalized, large-scale program of displacing the earlier inhabitants from their land. Both instituted a variety of discriminatory laws based on racial or ethnic grounds. Outside of a tiny group of pro-Zionist organizations, the analogy is so widely accepted in South Africa that it draws little controversy. Indeed, leading members of the anti-apartheid struggle, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jewish struggle veterans like Ronnie Kasrils, have repeatedly stated that the conditions in the West Bank and Gaza are “worse than apartheid.”

At the same time, no historical analogy is ever exact. Comparisons necessarily reveal differences even as they underline similarities. Defenders of Israel’s record sometimes use this fact to chip away at the allegation of apartheid by underlining, for example, the civil rights enjoyed by Palestinian citizens of Israel. (Although many observers argue that these rights have always been limited and are being eroded at an alarming pace.) Such differences are important and unarguable. But generally, this mode of debate strives to deflect attention away from the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the ongoing construction of settlements on Palestinian land, the indiscriminate bombing and shelling directed at Palestinian civilians, and the mass detention and torture of Palestinian activists. Far from exonerating the policies and practices of the Israeli state, the divergences between the two cases—as Melissa Levin so powerfully shows—more often than not speak to the incredible desperation of the Palestinian situation.

As these essays demonstrate, the work of comparison requires an attentiveness to the ethical and political singularity of each space even as it attempts to generate dialogues across multiple histories of oppression and struggle. Rather than “adding up” similarities and differences, the authors explore various aspects of the apartheid/Israel analogy, ranging from the parallels between post-apartheid neoliberalism and the post-Oslo occupied territories to the role of Israel in southern Africa more broadly. As Salim Vally emphasizes, there are a number of lessons that today’s activists can draw from the global anti-apartheid movement regarding the importance of patience, the practical work of building international solidarity, and the dangers of sectarianism. Yet as other contributors argue, most notably Bill Freund in a rather sober commentary, it is far from clear that the South African transition—itself imperfect and highly contested—can provide clear guidance for a peaceful resolution in Israel/Palestine beyond generalities. In pursuing the comparison, there may be as much to learn from the questions of liberation that the South African struggle failed to answer fully.

These essays should help refute, once and for all, the assertion that the apartheid/Israel comparison is “anti-Semitic” because it seeks to “de-legitimize” the state of Israel. If anything, this analogy reflects the principled rejection of anti-Semitism by the vast majority of pro-Palestinian activists. At the ideological heart of apartheid was the program of building an (ultimately impossible) “white South Africa” based on an ethno-nationalist appeal to self-determination. Apartheid’s forced removals, the creation of the Bantustans, and the stripping of Africans’ citizenship rights were all directed to this end. It is therefore telling that so many defenders of Israel’s practices assert the right to a “Jewish state” at the expense of Palestinian claims for justice. Whatever its considerable limitations, the defeat of apartheid represented the historic triumph of an inclusive vision of South Africa over a racially exclusive conception of nation. By drawing a parallel to the South Africa freedom struggle, the analogy targets Israel’s colonial practices, not any one group or people.

We have published this forum to coincide with the African Studies Association meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. In South Africa, many of our colleagues have been at the forefront of mobilizing civil society against Israeli apartheid. Until recently, however, North American Africanists have largely been absent from a public debate that hinges, in part, on the historical significance of colonialism, apartheid, and the southern African liberation struggles. The African Literature Association’s endorsement of the BDS Movement was a major turning point in this regard. Among some of our colleagues, this reticence reflects a sincere unease over the way that discussions about Israel/Palestine often mobilize South African history in a highly instrumentalist and reductive fashion. We hope that these essays show that one can think comparatively while remaining attentive to the complexity of (still ongoing) South African struggles.

Other colleagues have invoked an area studies vocabulary to argue that we have enough to worry about in “our own” backyard. South Africa has long boasted an oversized position in African studies. With everything that the continent faces, why return to debates about apartheid once again?  When protestors in Ferguson faced militarized police agencies that had received training from Israeli security forces, they were quick to draw the connection between state racism in the United States and Israel. Moreover, the firing of academic Steven Salaita from the University of Illinois illuminated the way that the orchestrated campaign of intimidation against pro-Palestinian academics has become linked to a broader erosion of shared university governance and academic freedom. As scholars based in North America, it is only possible to see Israel/Palestine as “outside our field of expertise” if we divorce the concerns of African studies from the forms of militarism, racism, and censorship that operate in our own society.

The global anti-apartheid movement was one of the largest international civil society mobilizations of the late 20th century. For all of its mistakes and internal divisions, it succeeded because it managed to connect diverse, localized struggles to a campaign against international support for the South African regime. The BDS movement is today developing a similar dynamic. We hope that this forum will encourage collaborations with colleagues in Middle East Studies (and other fields), the organization of conferences and special journal issues, and the difficult work of teaching about contemporary forms of apartheid in our courses. The editors believe that the African Studies Association should move toward endorsing the academic boycott of Israeli universities. We offer these essays as a launching point and invite our colleagues to join us in this discussion.

You can read the ebook here.