From Patmos to the Barrio: Subverting Imperial Myths

by David A. Sanchez (Editor)

Snchez's subject is the power of imperial myths - and thesubversive power unleashed when resistance movements takeover those myths for their own purposes. Moving from Johnof Patmos's inversion of Roman imperial mythology in Revelation12 to the indigenous appropriation of Spanish symbolism andmythology, in seventeenth-century Mexico, Snchez thenexplores the continuing power of the Virgin of Guadalupe(La Guadalupana) to inspire movements for a better societyin our own day. From Patmos to the Barrio reveals new insights into the biblical Apocalypse of John, and the enduring power of its legacy down to the present day, and includes contemporary translations of two important 17th century documents concerning La Luis Laso de la Vega's Huei tlamahuioltica and Miguel Snchez's Imagen de la Virgen Maria. Also included are images of La Guadalupana in the murals of East Los Angeles.

Genres: Religion

222 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

Reviews

[JC]

This book was supplementary reading during the time I was attending a bible study at a local United Church on the book of Revelation. It is mostly a postcolonial reading of Revelation 12, the text on which the Virgin of Guadalupe’s iconography is largely based upon. The book opens with an explanation of James Scott’s notion of ‘hidden transcript’. I’m fascinated by James Scott, because he has been one of the most interesting Southeast Asianists in the academy over the past few decades. The notion of “hidden transcript” is elaborated on in Scott’s book “Weapons of the Weak” — a study of a community in Kedah, Malaysia. I discovered Scott by way of David Graeber’s goodreads profile, and have been really interested in the way he interprets Southeast Asian communities living in remote mountainous terrain as embodying a type of anarchist politics that actively resists and attempts to allude state power. Funny story: the way I discovered David Graeber's goodreads profile was after reading his history on debt, I noticed Graeber had given his own book a five-star review, which he does for all his books, haha.

I have seen James Scott’s notion of ‘hidden transcript’ as a lens by which to read the infamous passage in Romans 13 (used by the Nazis to summon obeisance from the church). It is maybe a too convenient an interpretation of Romans 13, but one whose implications i wouldn’t at all mind, if a plausible enough case could be made for it. Paul recommends Christians to obey the authorities (the main point of contestation that the application of Scott’s ‘hidden transcript’ would seek to attack), but also makes claims that all the concentrated power, along with its imperial pretensions, will be brought to nothing (this sort of rhetoric is especially evident in his Corinthian epistles). The applicability of Scott’s ‘hidden transcript’ to Romans 13, would really depend on the degree to which Paul’s rhetoric is eschatologically reliant on Divine action as opposed to human agency. In other words, the degree and in what manner it is prescriptive for other early Jewish and Christian comrades to participate in the demise of that imperial power. There are other ways of dealing with Romans 13 that are less demanding though, so it might not be worth all the trouble.

Whatever is the case, I do think that the concept is undoubtedly applicable for the book of Revelation as a whole. Different parts of the Christian canon capitulate to Roman power to different degrees. I suspect the extent to which they do is maybe some indication of the persecution Christians faced in particular decades and in the particular regional contexts in which they were trying to live. A lot of the anti-Semitism (both those texts conducive to extrinsic projection of anti-Semitism, and also those whose anti-Semitism is intrinsic to them) are to some degree a capitulation to Roman power. A marginal Jewish sect that thought Jesus to be the Messiah, would be less subject to Roman suspicions of insurrection if this sect reassured Rome that Rome was not to blame for the murder of their Messiah, but rather their own Jewish authorities were at fault. Of course it would take later decades for the blurred distinctions between ‘Christian’ and ‘Jew’ to become more clarified, and the anti-Semitism of the Gospel of John to take shape as it exists now.

Reading Elaine Pagels book on Revelation (which was quite a while ago for me), she argues that John of Patmos is far more aligned with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, assumedly under the charge of James (Jesus’ brother), than the renegade theology of the jet-setting Apostle Paul, who travelled frequently among the Gentiles (and never met the 'historical Jesus', as such). If I recall correctly, Pagels highlights a number of contentious issues in which the two rival groups would have disagreed on — among the most important ones being circumcision and dietary restrictions, both converging on the status of Gentiles within these ‘early church’ communities. Revelation is careful not to mention Rome by name (calling it Babylon or a harlot of the beast), and that is where one might read it by way of James Scott’s ‘hidden transcript’. But I don’t think it ever goes as far as Paul as to suggest one should always obey the imperial authorities. In fact, it has a chilling passage describing the total decimation of Rome that more resembles nuclear annihilation than anything else I’ve seen in the bible. It also calls for the birds of the air to feast off the flesh of kings lol. I don’t want to belabour this distinction between the Jerusalem Christians under James, and the ones with closer affinities to Paul. I do think it's worth mentioning that in one of Dale Martin's Yale lectures, he mentions the Greek grammar in Revelation is likely the worst in the entire Christian Testament canon. This suggests Greek was not John's native language. If Spivak asks if the subaltern can speak, one might find an ambiguous answer in Revelation, a text that is revolutionary, yet also too easily appropriated by reactionaries. As a counterpoint to the James vs Paul distinction: if Paul was really so busy obeying the authorities all the time, he possibly would’ve not spent so much time in prison.

Now after that roundabout tangent, I’d like to return to the book at hand and touch on some highlights that I particularly found interesting. Firstly, Sanchez starts early on with a historical theory by Adela Yarbro Collins (a divinity professor at Yale) who argues that the Dragon Slayer myth (a Greek, then Roman myth associated with Apollo and Python) was not directly appropriated into the Christian tradition, but was actually first subverted by an earlier Jewish writer, and only by way of this Jewish source, did the text of Revelation 12 find its way into a Christian subversion of the Roman myth. I actually find Yarbro Collins’ proposed Jewish redactions (and consequent interpretations) a lot more fascinating than the spiritualized Christian appropriation that ends up in Revelation 12. There is also some fascinating discussion about messianic theology and to what extent different Jewish and Christian factions read it through the lens of revolutionary politics.

Secondly, the connection Sanchez makes between Spanish wars with Muslim military forces, and the connections it has with the colonial ideology that the Spanish brought to its colonies, was a very fascinating observation that had never occurred to me before. I actually was not aware that there was a Muslim occupation of the Iberian peninsula from 711 to 1492 — at least not in all these details. My friend (who grew up Muslim, although I’m not sure he still identifies as such) recently visited Spain, and talked to me about the ‘conversos’ who Sanchez mentioned in this book. Under the Spanish Inquisition there were Jews and Muslims who were required to convert to Christianity in Spain, and even afterwards, were treated as second-class citizens. The anti-Muslim rhetoric in Spain was tightly coupled with the anti-indigenous language deployed in the Americas. Also, as an aside, my friend mentioned seeing the cathedral in Seville where the Grand Inquisitor scene would have taken place in the Brothers Karamazov — a book that we have enjoyed talking about over the past couple years. I think the Grand Inquisitor passage is well-suited to anti-imperialist interpretations.

Thirdly, the Creole rebellions mentioned in this book are one of the important keys to Benedict Anderson’s theory of nationalism explored in “Imagined Communities”, and I think that’s an interesting angle on modern history that I was not aware of before reading Anderson’s book. It’s neat to see how Sanchez ties it in with Revelation. Benedict Anderson is the other Southeast Asianist I’m very fond of.

Fourthly, my favourite parts of the book involved the way Chicana/o communities drew on the Virgin of Guadalupe tradition in their activism. I just want to share a really interesting excerpt on Ceasar Chavez and the UFW, and the interpretation Sanchez puts forward for Chavez’s deployment of the Virgin of Guadalupe tradition:

“…the UFW and Chavez brought national and worldwide exposure to the civil-rights demands of Chicanas/os in the United States… Chavez also generated much attention to the plight of Mexican and Chicana/o farm workers with his well-publicized hunger strike of 1968. Later in 1968, Chavez, along with thousands of supporters, marched from the heart of California farm country to the steps of the state capitol in Sacramento. The rallying cry o the marchers and the farm workers movement in general was “Justicia para los campesinos y viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!” (Justice for the farm workers and viva the Virgin of Guadalupe). The Virgin of Guadalupe’s banner was flown at the front of the caravan and carried by many of the marchers.

…Chavez, a devout Catholic, no doubt employed Guadalupe to demonstrate that his movement was embedded in Catholic doctrines of social justice and was not at all related to the various Marxist movements in Latin America of that day. Commentators such as Goldman and Ybarra-Frausto emphasize this point. Are there any other reasons why Chavez and the UFW would use Guadalupe as one of two basic symbols for the farm workers movement…? Is it possible that Chavez — like Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla, arguably the founder of modern-day Mexico— employed the Virgin in a much more politically subversive way?

Miguel Hidalgo y Castilla, a Creole priest and theologian, on the morning of September 16, 1810, rang the church bells in the Mexican city of Dolores and exclaimed the transcendent grits de Dolores (shout of Dolores) of the revolution against Spanish occupation: “Death to the Spaniards! Long live the Virgin of Guadalupe!” With this cry and the support of thousands of peasants, Hidalgo began the struggle to expel Spain from Mexico after almost three hundred years of occupation. It was in its purest form an example of overt postcolonial revolution.”

“It can therefore be argued that the subversive symbolism of the Virgin was embedded in the collective unconscious of Chicanas/os and Mexicans, including Chavez, especially at critical junctures in our history. The 1960s and 1970s were no doubt one such critical moment for the UFW. Chavez was well aware of the history of Emiliano Zapata’s employment of the Virgin in his battle over land rights with the Mexican government in the early twentieth century. Chavez’s grandfather fought with the Zapata’s revolutionary forces, a significant detail in his story.”

Miguel Hidalgo is fascinating because he was both a Catholic priest and a Mexican insurrectionist who led a revolution against Spanish and Criollo elites. Zapata, the leader of the Mexican Revolution, also drew n the Virgin of Guadalupe tradition, with respect to land issues, leading on down to Chicana/o movements such as the Brown Berets (which I only recently learned about in Assata Shakur’s autobiography). This is an excerpt from Griswold del Castillo that Sanchez includes in the book:

“a particular interpretation of the meaning of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo influenced the Brown Berets’ decision to stage a symbolic occupation of Santa Catalina Island… The Brown Berets did not seriously believe that they could regain Catalina for Mexico. The real purpose of the occupation was to provide a forum for discussion of the problems confronting Mexican Americans arising from their colonized status… The Santa Catalina occupation demonstrated the degree to which some were willing to take militant action based on the historical violations of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.”

This is not mentioned in the book but even the Zapatistas (who see themselves as carrying on the revolution of Zapata) carried iconography of the Virgin of Guadalupe into anti-globalization protests against NAFTA in the 1990s.

One last thing I want to mention is Diego Rivera. He gets a mention as one of the main Mexican muralists involved in Mexico’s social art movements that became formative for the mural artists of Los Angeles that Sanchez focuses on in the book — especially murals showcasing the prevalence of the Virgin of Guadalupe in LA. Rivera was famously the husband of Frida Kahlo, and friend of Trotsky (at least for some time, up until around the time Rivera found out Trotsky was romantically involved with Kahlo). Surrealist/Trotskyist drama is always fun to talk about, lol. Anyway, Diego Rivera, was about as atheist as you can get, and his art is seen as antithetical to the Virgin of Guadalupe murals to many people today. I think looking at the Zapatistas and revolutionaries like Zapata and Miguel Hidalgo, we get a more complicated angle on the intersection of religion and radical politics. That is what I appreciated so much about this book.

It was only after reading this book that I learnt David Sanchez had just passed away earlier this year. Really sad to hear. This was a very insightful excursion through some Latinx postcolonial theology, and was much appreciated. I’m glad it’s on my bookshelf.

[Linden Leman]

This is a delightfully insightful text that bridges the Biblical world with the contemporary to speak to issues of neocolonialism with authority.