Today with us we have Rodrigo Bueno Lacy.
Rodigo has done his phd in Nijmegen at Radboud university (the Netherlads)
in the field of political geography
He particularly studied european identity seen through cartography
Hi rodrigo, well, hello ali
Would you please introduce yourself briefly, and then tell us what is your research about
yeah so my name is and Rodrigo Bueno Lacy
or Lacy it is the same, depending on where you are, you pronounce it differently
I am mexican, I am from mexico city
I studied political science and international relations in mexico city
and then I came to the Netherlands
10 years ago to do a master's
in human geography
and I stayed to do research, doctoral research
in political geography
particularly in what you mentioned
how european identity is constructed through cartography
how can you see the construction of european identity
through cartography throughout history
and how depending on each historical context
european identity changes
not only on maps but also in its meaning
in its deeper meaning, and how this is expressed
both in maps and in other cultural artifacts
in i don't know europe
but also in countries that reflect the idea that europe has of itself
so in a way it is the study of images
to understand political identity
in my very specific case to understand the meaning of political identity in europe
so basically using maps as some sort of representation
the humans understanding of the world
yeah, so my that is the basis of my research
the basis of my research is semiotics
and semiotics is both a discipline and a methodology
that understands the meaning of reality
as constituted by a collection of signs
so reality is not one thing
reality is a collection of signs
and each sign is associated to a certain idea or object
not only that but also these signs are edited
so these signs are representations
a sign, can be anything
a sign can be a language
or a system a numerical system
a sign can be of course
a painting or a symbol
or a gesture or an intonation
or what is called a phenotype
an arrangement of physical features
together with the adornments that people put on themselves
and the traditional features of a community
now and then, the construction of these
signs gives you an idea of reality
so the idea is that reality is cognoscible
so it's knowable only through representations
and that is important because that means
that you need to focus on the addition
of these representations
and the channels through which they are
transmitted
which means basically who makes them
how are they diffused
who is the audience, and
how this audience is perceiving these images
and these representations
to make an interpretation of the world
but that's a great point
so, that's how we understand the word
through these presentations that we receive
and these representations are mediated
they are controlled
for instance given a map
that's what you're focusing on
and try to understand
how this information is encapsulated
or reframed and provided to the public
to form basically
the identity of the public
or the wish or the will of the public
can you elaborate on that
what was your conclusions in your studies
how did you see the current
contemporary or the last century
maps of europeans has affected
the european identity
yeah, i mean it is not the kind of science
that you can come to
very strict conclusions about
because of the very nature of the object of study
the object of study are images
what i have is an interpretation
what i do is iconology
that is also a part of semiotics
that is the main method that i use
so i study what images mean in themselves
in this case a map
but also what it means in connection
to the society in which it is anchored
to the society that produces it
so how this image reflects for example
the interests of the authors. The authors
are of course not only the map makers
but also the people that finance them
and more than the people
that finance them, many times were
for example in the renaissance
people that financed merchants
are many times stockholders
for example, that is the begining
and that is related to the dutch empire
and to imperial european imperialism
in general but in the case of
the dutch empire it is related to the
emergence of finance so you buy a stock
in the west indies company
and the profit they make
by bringing pepper from the molokan islands
or musket nuts actually from the molokan islands
or pepper from the south of india
or whatever spices
that are located in southeast asia
once they arrive to europe
they sell them to 10000 times the profits
and then that profit
that promised profit is what you get
as an investor from buying stock
so this is the beginning of finance
these kind of things
so you if you look at the beginning of
i don't know, contemporary european cartography
it is related to the imperial enterprises
of the dutch of the spanish of the portuguese
maps were crucial
not only were maps crucial
for navigation, but they were also crucial for identity
and that is something that for example is very important
when people talk about colonization
I think many people talk about
european imperialism and european colonization
as something that was done from
an entity that is well bordered
and that is homogeneous that is called europe
to the rest of the world
and when you study maps for example
you're going to study many other artifacts
you realize that colonization also happened within europe
so europe is a creation of the renaissance
in the same way as the colonies
in america or in africa or in indonesia
or in southeast asia or wherever, are
the construction of identities happened
both in the colonies but also in the european continent
because the idea of europe is an imperial idea
and it was an idea that emerged for example with the habsburg dynasty
in spain, they were the big rulers of europe
it was a dynasty that as the legend had it
possessed so much of the world
that the sun never set on their dominions
because they had possessions in both
europe and america and also philipines
Spanish, they still say that Yeah
British also said that afterwards
yeah i think so the British had an even more expanded empire
so european expansionism is the beginning of globalization
but also the beginning of the expansion of a very specific political technology
the state
this is this is great, this is very interesting
so if i if i understand it correctly
we as humans we understand the word around us as representations yeah
these representations are modified and controlled
by the sources of power
we are looking at a specific region: Europe in this case
and looking at one of these representations: maps
and then now we become closer to the to the era of imperialism
and how these representations were controlled and modified
by the imperialist power, for certain purposes
you can see two angles
I mean one angel is about the identity of the citizens of europe
how did these representations affected them and why
and the other factor would be
how these representations would affect the rest of the world
of course can you alaborate on that
you can see it on maps
so the idea, the construction of european identity
is very representational
so it's very much based on representations
and these representations takes place
in many artifacts; in books, in literature, in painting
but i think the most conspicuous and the most elaborate and the most defining
depictions that you see of europeans take place on maps
you see on the renaissance map
so you see the backgrounds or you see the margins
that are adorned with representations
of both european people and the colonized people
and this is something that you see for example in
taxonomic treaties, like the taxonomical treaties of Carl Linnaeus
the swedish scientist and taxonomist that created the universal system of scientific classification
and what you see is a transition of representation, in the beginning when they conquer for example
when they colonize the american continent
the first depictions that come to europe are fantastic
in the sense of incredible stories of incredible beings
for example jewish communities in europe
when they heard that there were natives
distinct to any other native in europe
or the known world in the americas
they thought they were the 11 i think (i don't know the exact number)
the 11 lost tribes of israel of which the bible talked about
and they said these are our brothers
and people had different claims
because there was nothing that could explain that
it is so exotic that there was no scripture
or text in europe or the middle east or any of the people
that the europeans had an interaction with
that could explain who they were
the spaniards took for example translators that were known
for speaking dozens, at least a dozen or two dozens of european languages or world languages
but they could not understand what these people were talking
of course, because they had never been detected
so these people said (not to lose their pride) when asked what these natives were talking
they said they just don't talk
they don't speak they are animals they emit sounds
and then this is interesting because it is in the confrontation of these two civilizations
if you want to call them that, you see how a hierarchy starts being established
as a consequence of power
so in the first maps, if we restrict these to maps
in the first maps you see descriptions
you see images that have very little civilizational value associated to them
so you see the brazilians, the mexicas, the different indian groups
that they detected, and of which they had an account
which they decided to depict on the maps
you see them without any connotation of inferiority
they have exoticism
is suggested in their image, they are naked, or they are cooking weird stuff
they are cooking weird dishes that are unknown
in europe, in spain or in the netherlands or in whatever country where these maps were being made
and then you have the europeans that are differently dressed
they eat different, they have other musical artifacts, they have other books whatever
so in the beginning you see that it is this very innocent
exchange of difference or this very innocent remark upon difference
i mean you have to understand the discovery of america was the closest thing you can have
to people on earth meeting martians, meeting extraterrestrials
for both of them it was inconceivable that this existed that this could happen
because it was entirely different
they were not only entirely different cultures
but also there was not a common language in which they could communicate
which already makes all sorts of communication very different
than anything that europeans had experienced so far
all there was always a translator
in this case they meet a world that they don't know nothing about
and there is no translator
so what they start to do is represent this
novels, it's super exotic everybody talks about it
scientists, conquistadores, explorers, everybody
and they send books to europe of statistics of demographics of how people look, representations
with time of course, the conquest
the conquest of the spaniards, the british, the french
all these different empires start to add power to these images
excotic by itself, it is nothing harmful
no it's just different
exactly, but it's when it attracts the interest of people in power
to pursue a certain agenda that it might be diluted
i would say two things
that it is not only the interest of people in power
of course there are many people that are interested in representing these people as inferior
for example the natives
but it's also a consequence of the development of power itself
so for the europeans that conquered for example
let's say the mexica empire or the inca empire
this is a country the size of nothing: Spain
that back then in the 15th century was the most excluded place
one of the most excluded places in europe from everything that was considered progressive
the renaissance did not take place in spain
at the same time that it took place in italy or in flanders
it was in many ways one of the most medieval places in europe
in the sense of for example religious fanaticism
when they discovered america they had just expelled all the muslims
they had just expelled all the jews
which in european history, in spanish history, is known as the reconquista
that they celebrate as their biggest party of national independence
one of their parties one of their celebrations of national pride and independence
we kicked the shit out of the muslims and we kick them out of this country
but this amounts to the biggest ethnic
not only the biggest, one of the most momentous
one of the most significant and one of the most atrocious ethnic cleansings in the history of europe
not only because the entire muslim and jewish populations from andalusia were expelled
but because they were expelled by religious fanatics that destroyed one of the richest civilizations in the middle ages
the civilization of andalusia is where the ideas of
the primitive idea of humanism, as a conception of humanity
not as a group of different nations, but as a group in itself that shares a common ground
regardless of all the differences
the idea of human rights, the idea of universal rights
that everybody shares, all these humanist ideas
the idea of confidencia which is basically we can have jews muslims christians living together
with a hierarchy of course, but without killing each other
we can live in peace
which was an idea that for example did not exist in the kingdom of castilla, in castile
which was the one that eventually conquered the entire spanish peninsula
and that is also the thing, the state, the element of the european state
and you can claim that the oldest european state is the spanish state
is the beginning of colonization
so the development of the state, the spanish state, the french state, the dutch state
uses the same ideology and the same technologies
as that of the colonization and imperialism
that these very countries later apply in for example america or their african colonies
so the state is a political technology that is based on a certain amount of tools
both material material and ideological
material tools are for example the need the constant need to survey
and to measure and to read space and people
now for this they use simplistic models
simplistic spatial and mathematical models
and you see this for example in the way they develop cities
by the way they develop forests especially in prussia in the 18th century
they erase forests and they plant trees in lines
so as to make rows and columns in order to be able to multiply them
and know exactly how many trees there are in large extensions of forest
so that they can manage the forest
they can say okay we can cut this amount of forest sell the wood
the state can make all this money without depleting the forest
because we can we know, so science becomes very important
also a very specific science, in the case of the forest
everything related to, i don't know, forestry the health of trees know how to cultivate them how to prevent them from dying
not because of the knowledge in itself, but because the science is useful for the development of the state
and the same happens although with very different technologies
but very similar develope in the colonies
the main one is cartography
because you have kings, and you have royal administrations in spain and in portugal
that have dominions across the ocean 10-15 000 kilometers away
and they need to manage them without not only the natives revolting
but without the elites, the spanish elites revolting
which is something that they feared
you appoint a viceroy, lieutenant of the king in the colonies
together with an enormous amount of the spanish or the portuguese aristocracy
they get lands, they get titles, they get positions, they get wealth and they get an enormous amount of power
over the life of death of entire continents
and then how do you manage them
how do you prevent the thought of the king is too far away
maybe instead of taking the place of the king
I can be the king myself
which happened sometimes in the history as well, but what was the common approach to it?
well, the cartography and statistics
so they started to develop and favor sciences disciplines and technologies
that allowed them to have the feeling or the illusion that they could actually control
territories that were very far away at a distance
for this maps were crucial, maps told you what you needed to know if you were a king
and that's why you see in for example maps from the renaissance
or the age of globalization the age of european discovery
european exploration of the world
you see that the first maps they have, the names are around the coasts
that is what matters to european empires that didn't know anything about the territory
except for the ports and the literals, the delineated literals of the continent
where they were able to disembark or found cities
many of the first cities, many of the capitals of latin american countries are ports first founded
by the spaniards or some of the age most ancient cities
like veracruz is the most ancient city i think in mexico city
i mean the most ancient spanish city
because it was the first city that was founded by the conquistadors that came from Cuba
mexico (city) was the ancient capital of the aztec empire
so sao paulo i think, it was sao paulo or brasilia i don't remember which one
was also one of the first ports that the portuguese settled
so in this way their colonization starts to import into
in this case no let's talk about for example the case of america
it starts to import the very prejudices that europeans have about americans
so they start to construct a reality that is more in their heads about what they are
than what they really are
and this reality is not only constructed as a matter of agency
it's not only that the kings or the aristocrats in europe say we are better than them
it's also a consequence of power
you conquer them, you conquer them and all of them look different
and this is very racial
all the indians look different
so it is very different than the conquest of a country in which people don't look that different
or at least they are white for example
it's not that easy to conquer them of course not
but the power
what is crucial is that this power starts to create very very visible and very obvious differences
the conquered dressed in a poorer way
their professions are related to servitude because they are slaves they are servants
the women get raped the men get enslaved
and it's clear who has the power, but it's not only clear who has the power
in terms of better dress, better food, less suffering, less abuse it's also clear in the outer skin
these people have deep very different physical features
they have a very different color of skin
they have a language that is entirely unrelated to anything that we can associate to the place where the conquerors come from
they have divinities that also for which there is as far as the europeans know nothing relatable in their own cultures
so the power itself and especially the interaction between the colonizer and the colonized starts to create the natural idea of hierarchy
people start to assume, not only are we different but we are also better
our books are better, our music is better, because look at them, they are filthy
look how they live, look how what they know
and this you start to see on maps
for example something that is very typical about renaissance maps is the representation of the four continents
in each one of the corners, europe is usually at the top and on the left
so it is already a position of prominence
then to the top and right you have asia
now which makes sense because asia since ancient times also in cartography was represented as the wealthiest place
not only because christianity was assumed to come from there
which was very important for the first map makers
that were monks and basically the catholic church
but also because in asia you had the greatest empires from which what was known as wealth and luxury came
the persian empire, the mongol empire, the chinese empire
europe did not have anything equivalent
until the renaissance the roman empire
for example was never european
in any sense that can be considered modern
even though many europeans can consider it as its past
for the roman and greek empires of antiquity the germans were as foreign and as barbaric
as the sub-saharan africans
what they consider to be a civilization
that match theirs in terms of wealth, luxury and sophistication
where i don't know eastern empires
with which they had very little contact
maybe the persians maybe the chinese
i'm not an expert in roman history but my only point is that
for example in the roman empire in roman and greek antiquity
you can see that the representations that we have today
about europeanness are representations that do not coincide with this past
many people would assume immediately greco-roman antiquity is no the cradle of european civilization today
whereas if you had a time machine and went back then
and you told them, you gave them a map of europe and told them so this is europe
first of all they would never recognize it
because this kind of cartography did not exist back then
i mean most of northern europe most of scandinavia was discovered in the 15th century
the same as the american continent
they had no idea how it looked cartographically
for them the germans spoke a language that was not only incomprehensible but was barbaric
not only the language was barbaric, the entire set of costumes they had was barbaric
so much that the romans were used to enslave
large groups of goths and germanic tribes
since they were children they use them as house slaves sexual slaves
cheap labor and exploitable humans
so the idea that these people would recognize the europe of today
as european makes no sense today
this is a representation for example that has life as a representation only
not as a historical reality
so basically is this the correct conclusion if I summerize what you said
that you mean the current identity of the europeans
the one that they understand, the representation that they that resides with them
is coming mainly from the imperialistic europe
well a nutshell, yeah, you could say that
it is a bit more complex than that, but, yeah, you could say that the modern idea of europe we have
comes from the from globalization and the technologies that developed through globalization
one of these main technologies was
cartography, statistics, navigation, all the military technologies that were useful for their conquest, of course trade and finance
and it's a very specific specific period of time in history
it's a period that europeans have this imperialistic endeavor towards the entire universe
and also they they start colonizing a lot of other countries
what (how) do you think these images, this understanding of the world has affected a white european of today
not the one who has immigrated and has seen a different background
but the one who recognized himself as a white european
so i think what you asked is how can we see for example in cartographic artifacts so in maps
the evolution of european identity and particularly the idea of whiteness in european identity
since the exploration of the world
as a consequence of the clash between european imperialism and the people that they colonized
the glory of white as well, not only that it is white, it is white an glourious
yeah of course, so the idea of white superiority
i think this is a very complex question because of two things
first, it is important to understand that the idea of what whiteness develops very differently
in different empires, each empire should be conceived as a political technology
that is different than the other
spanish imperialism, portuguese imperialism, french imperialism, british imperialism are different technologies
not every european empire practices empire and colonization and conquest in the same way
the structures of power that that they put in place including their idea of white superiority or european superiority is very specific
and this is related to the way in which they were the places that they conquered
so for example the spaniards and the portuguese sent lonely men, they sent ex-convicts, prisoners, people that did not want to be on a transatlantic trip
when they arrived after months of a horrible trip in which the sailors were attacked by all sorts of diseases
there was a great deal of suffering, death, malnutrition and other physical disgraces
they arrived to america and it's a little bit of a relief
but not only a little bit of a relief they are on the other side of the world
enormous amounts of lonely men
so they created families, the amount of sexual interaction between colonizers and the indians is enormous
this creates not only a different society, a different colonial society
that is still radically different, the colonial societies and their heritage
that you see now in latin american countries
are radically different from the colonial experiences of other people
so this is something at the level of what you call transculturation
the mix of people, genes, cultures, traditions, families is enormous
and it's comprehensive
it goes so deep that it creates entirely new cultures
that are not fusions, but are the fusion of many different cultures
but they create something entirely different
and this you can see expressed in cuisine, in literature, etc
whatever, the idea of whiteness is very much related to how successful this is
so the spaniards for example if you compare them to the british
tried something very similar to put whiteness at the top
now this is the idea of whiteness as conceived by the spaniards
which is a very different idea than whiteness as conceived by the british
they don't see themselves can you explain
yeah, i mean first of all the kind of populations in the iberian peninsula are different now than the populations in the british islands
one could say the spaniards are not blonde for example
the spaniards have the moment they colonized america already a thousand years of interaction with the moors
which created also an entire mix of peoples in andalusia
and that is why you see a very smooth transition of in terms of demographics
when you go from spain and andalusia and then to morocco
people just look similar physically similar
because spain has existed less without moorish influence than with moorish influence
the moors were there for about a thousand years since the 700 somthing, 11
i don't remember exactly until the reconquista in 1492 when they expelled the muslims
in the 1494 they expelled the jews
now this idea of whiteness for example in what now is mexico
in the spanish colonies was very much related to very detailed and specific racial categories
spaniards born in spain had access to the best positions of government
and trade and whatever other social positions were the best
then you had the second the criollos, the creoles were spanish families, sorry were the children of spanish families
but they were born in the colonies so that made them a little bit less
their parents were spanish but they were not peninsulares
they were not born in the iberian peninsula they were born in the colonies
and that already in the eyes of this racial classification made them a little bit less desirable
then you have the mestizos the mestizos are the combination of the indian and the spaniard
and following this hierarchical racial system
you go all the way to i don't know the what they conceived as the most strafillarian the most exotic mixes
and they expressed this in something that is called retablos
a retablo is an enormous piece usually of wood
that is divided in a grid
it is segmented through a grid
and each of these spaces each of these cartouches
these spaces iconographic spaces in the grid
depicts a combination: two parents, the color, the race of each parent and the child
with the race of the child and the name of the specific racial configuration
but it has more than this it is not only the parents, it is also the background
it is also the dress, it is also the wealth and the sophistication
the art, the culture, and the intellect
so they they start to construct as a result of power
as a result of who is the vanquisher and who is the colonized
which is of course a vicissitude an accident of history
so who is the colonizer and who is the colonized
this is an accident of history
but they start to construct the differences, the consequences of this
so the colonized as poor and the colonizer as wealthier and better
not as the result of a historical accident but as the result of nature
because it is so pervasive
everybody that looks like that is more or less poorer, malnourished, they don't get the best jobs
their children of course inherit whatever traits are associated to poverty
now we know much all of this better today
how poverty is replicated from generation to generation
if nothing is done, if there is no intervention from society or from the state
but back then of course, there was not even an idea of race
the sciences that we now associate to the racial studies
that allowed for example the nazis or the americans or any other country
that ever played with racial categories to create them
which were established as a matter of academic tradition
and what we know as scientific racism, that was a very well established discipline
in american and european universities throughout the 19th and 20th century
this did not exist, this formalization of racism did not exist, and that is crucial
racism had existed, right? it goes back to slavery, and slaves would come from a certain race.
no, there were ideas. that is very interesting
the idea of racism did not exist, there were always notions of difference
but the notions of difference were related to very different formal systems of knowledge
so for example the ancient greeks had the idea a cartographic idea of the world
from which their idea of the peoples of the world arrived
but their idea of the world as a matter of cartography was wrong
as consequence their idea of racism was also wrong
of course, the races, the civilizations, the nations of the world
also all their medical knowledge was in comparison to what we have today or what they had in the 15th century very primitive
what the greeks used was more logic observation
they came to a hypothesis but they did not have anything close to scientific method
or even the technological means for scientific corroboration
they thought everybody inhabiting the mediterranean
which was very conveniently where they were
where the civilized people, the greeks particularly the greeks
and the people influenced by the greeks, the hellenic civilization
then these were people that were cooked right
because the semen, the seed of both the man and the woman that created people in the mediterranean region
was cooked at perfection because of the temperature
now this is entirely ethnocentric
but this kind of ethnocentrism is something that you find in every single civilization
that has represented itself in comparison to others
now they thought that the germanic people were very melancholic
a little bit prone to depression and being serious and having little passion
because of the cold, the semen with which all these nations
they thought about nations
were created was too cold, so the people were baked at the wrong temperature
and therefore were not as virtuous as the greeks in the temperate regions
the same with sub-saharan africans they were overcooked
now but this is not racism in the way we understand it today
because there was no notion of genetics
there was not notion of medicine
and that is the thing, racism is an entire system of thought
racism is not saying the black are worse and the white are better
racism is not even related to being white or being black
i mean not essentially, of course there is a relation
but you of course can have black people that belong to a population that is oppressed
that are white, that want to be white
that preserve the system of knowledge on which white superiority or white supremacy is based
this is something that you see in the us today for example
this is something that all the black writers that have meant something for the civil rights movement
or the emancipation of black people in the us have always remarked
this is something that malcolm x and james baldwin always stressed for example
that whiteness is not, when they talk about whiteness in a racial context
you're not talking necessarily about the skin
what is white
i mean today we know from biological sciences and genetic sciences
that there is no such thing as a race when you talk about humans
there is the human race
and beyond that, yeah of course, there are phenotypes
there are different colors of skin
but i mean nothing that is genetically relevant as far as we know
and that is the basis of humanism
all the cultures are different, but at the bottom, in the essence of what makes us human
we're all the same
now this humanist discourse has been preserved today
very much by the people that have spoken
by the intellectuals of the post-colonial movements
the people that represent those who by the color of their skin
or by what their features mean in their representations of european hegemony
have always been oppressed and suppressed
brown and black writers and philosophers from all around the world
if you listen to james baldwin or malcolm x for example
they always talked about whiteness as an aspiration
of how you should dress, how you should talk, how you should raise your children
it is a culture yes
and this culture is not only a matter of your behavior
this is also a matter of where you learn your behavior
there are entire systems of thoughts
entire libraries dedicated to the study of dutch history
the study of western thought
the study of efficient and entrepreneurial management
efficient planning of cities, beautiful architecture
so what is the best of the best in every single field of human production
both material and intellectual
this is of course related to the centers of power
who creates these enormous systems of knowledge
that we learn through university, through political propaganda
that determine the spatial way in which we live in
which we dress
that determine emotions like pride, that you feel pride
because you look like something, or you fee shame because you look like something
and so who determine this is for the most part
countries in which the majority of the population are white
this is what whiteness means
it is an idea of what is the good life, what are the good morals
and this is a difference that is necessarily constructed in the reflection of the colonized
so the colonized represents what the europeans are not
and it is by comparison to them that europeans learn to recognize them
this is something that you see in cartography
the more power they acquire the more arrogant their representations get
and then you have every continent represented with a woman
the woman that represents europe is always clean and beautiful, blonde, white, feminine, voluptuous and attractive
the dresses seem expensive
the cut of the dresses, the design of the dresses, matches with which at the time of the creation of this map was considered
the highest most expensive most elegant and desirable fashion
she has a crown, she has a scepter
which in the tradition of european iconography represents the power of the state
she also has a bible which means the power of the church
so you have both, you have the power of the secular matters represented with the scepter
and the power of religious and spiritual matters represented with the bible
you also see pheasants, exotic animals related to both: a symbol of royalty and as an expensive food
eaten only by the aristocracy and the nobility
you also see musical instruments, you see harps, flutes, violins
associated with a cultural refinement, of high culture
you see enormous bounded books
which today means nothing, but back then were expensive artifacts
not everybody had a book
having a book of mathematics if you read it
allowed you to claim you were a mathematician
having a book of engineering allowed you to claim you had studied engineering
it was not like today, these were important artifacts
to claim knowledge and power
in comparison to europe, you see africa for example
that is usually a naked woman without any artifacts
representing any culture, any refinement, any sophistication
there are lions or cheetahs or tigers
there is this exoticism, but for the rest is a naked woman
you're getting getting close to for instance edward said idea of orientalism, right?
so edward said it is very interesting because he talks about how the representations of the arab muslim world
are what europeans, not the people, not the populations even, but the state itself
the european states have taken as the basis to shape and reshape the arab muslim world
particularly through violence
what he says is (to put his argument very roughly): what they have made is a caricature of us
of the muslims, they create the caricature of the muslims
but it is important to understand that it is not a caricature that is made entirely out of predatory desires
it's also a caricature that is made by serious scholars
people who really want to understand this world and who are fascinated by
arabic as a language, persian as a language, the mosques of cairo, and the architecture of baghdad and damascus
well-intentioned people have created a caricature
and they have created a caricature because they have been allowed
to be academics, to be scientists, to be politicians, to be surveyors, cartographers
within a system that profits from oppressing precisely these people
so it is acceptable to create these caricatures
and not only is it acceptable it is promoted
to create a more accurate representation would be less tolerable
than to create a caricature, because the point is not to offend the point is to dominate
the point is to establish the naturality with which you are superior
and not only that, but also la mission civilisatrice: the civilizing mission
you are not a barbarian as a european
that's the way they look at themselves
and this is very interesting psychologically
because you see that they are aware of the problem of the colonization
when they colonize the americas
they justify it as a matter of evangelization
we are going not there to exploit and enslave the indians, and capture their territories, and exploit the resources and enrich ourselves
we are going there to expand the word of christ, and the dominion of christ
the same when they go to the middle east
then they develop a more secular version of the same ideology: we go there because they are inferior
they can use us, we are more modern, we are more advanced, we know better
we are taking this burden upon our shoulders
i think it was Kipling that called the white man's burden
and it was a serious matter, they really believed this
we are going into these colonial and imperial enterprises
because we are good and this ideology of course is ridiculous
for the people that actually hold power
i think they are very aware
that this is just a way of twisting the representation of a certain portion of the world
to convince other people that they are not rapists, that they are not criminals
that they are not plunderers, and that they are not despicable people
but that they are good people
that when they go to the congo, like the belgians did, and massacre entire populations
to exploit some rubber, diamonds or whatever other minerals, trees or precious woods the belgians exploited
when they go there and chop off the hands, the noses, the lips, and the legs of all the black people that they rule over
because they don't bring enough of the resources that they ask them to bring
they don't do it because they're psychopathic criminals but because they are better
and these black people need to civilize themselves, they need to learn
so in a way it is a very interesting process; a very interesting psychological process
for entire populations, what happens to the populations in europe
and this is something for example that the the black poet james baldwin always said
is in a way much worse than what happens to the enslaved
because the enslaved they get dehumanized against their will
in their bodies, in their own bodies they get mutilated
the suffering is unimaginable for most of them and it remains so
these traditions of violence you see them
you see them well in a life in africa today
in the parts that were dominated by the belgians, like the democratic republic of congo
but what people like james baldwin also said is: what happens to the white people that does that is perhaps perhaps even worse
because it doesn't happen to one individual it happens to everybody
it's entire societies that learn the naturalization
that learn how to naturalize the dehumanization of people that are their own children in many cases
this happened in the south of the us
you have the white slave owner raping many of the black women that he buys
because this is just simply one of the natural abuses that happened among all enslaved populations
but then you have the contradiction when the baby is born
you have the white baby, or the whiter baby, and the black, or the blacker baby
and depending on the specific criterion on the of the plantation owner back then
that baby is white or black
if the baby is white, he or she get to live in the house and raised as part of the lords
the plantation owners family, they get to be racist, powerful, aristocrats, with comfortable easy lifes
but if they are too black to the criterion of the community or of the person
then they are slaves, these are their own children
of their own children these people learn
to what i think for most of the rest of the world that is not part of this system of white supremacy
what would be a monstrous choice
can i profit from my own child then i will enslave them
and submit them to every single savagery that i know slaves in my plantation are the victims of
or will i let them live in the house and have a nice life
maybe this thought is not that much accessible to the person in a conscious manner as well
so maybe the person does not think: i can profit from this child so i put it as a slave
maybe it's just the system of the entire culture that came with whiteness at that time
that made actually this decision to somehow unaccessible to his conscious thoughts
yeah, this is crucial something that people today don't understand
on many sides of the ideological spectrum
and this is a point that if clarified i think would make much of the debate on racism much easier
because it is not a matter of conscious racism
i think especially with the kind of thing we are concerned today
what concerns the people that try to oppose and to deconstruct and to eradicate racism today is really institutional and systemic racism
that is very different than individual racism
and this is proven for example in political science that people that hold really racist convictions
and the people that get their blood boiling if they see somebody black or somebody browner
they're not that many
the ones that are convinced about the supremacy of the aryan race or the white race, they are a few
it is a marginal group in terms of any demographics
even among the demographics that are voting for white supremacist parties like in the netherlands
these people are not racist in that sense
they are not the racists with a whip that would castigate any black body at the very site of it
it is institutional and systemic racism
it is sophisticated in the sense that it turns people that might believe even themselves to be not racist at all
to behave in very racist ways
this is a matter of expectations
they see for example somebody that looks like what they associate with a muslim in the netherlands
or with a middle eastern in the netherlands
and they feel a little bit nervous
because they have learned as a matter of representation in the textbooks that they got in school
in the entire system of representations that has gone through television
entertainment programs, news, talk shows, all sorts of entertainment that they see through
not only traditional but also social media
they have learned the prejudices that are traditional to these geographies
which is the muslims are threatening
this idea of the muslim as a threatening person
the muslim, the arab, the oriental, the persian, moor as a threatening figure
the ones that rape our women, the ones that plunder our wealth, the ones that want to impose their religion upon us
this goes as far back as the crusades maybe even farther back
no this goes to the very beginning of the emergence of christianity and islam for example
so we looked at the matter from the angle of the accused
maybe the white european who is accused as the racist
and we looked at the situation what could be the root causes of this way of understanding the world
why/how a white person has been provided with all these representations
and that formed his understanding of the world
it would be interesting to also look from the eyes of the oppressed
how he accepts this
and you made actually a really interesting point
saying that for the slaves it was a bit different because they could feel it with the bones and the skin
that they are being crueled up on
however when you look at for instance the colonies
there is a different dynamics also working there
for instance in the middle east they have this notion, this discourse of westoxcification
that some group of people have been let's say dissolved in west
have been so much maybe suppressed maybe in love
that they see europeans and they feel europeans are superior
so whatever comes from west
whether it's being the way of ruling
whether it's being the music
whether it's being how you dress
whetherit's being the language
whether it's being what cosmetics do you use
how do you dance, how do you behave in society
they see that as the superior way
and they see the growth or the the ultimate of their society
to be as similar as possible to what west has
how do you think about that?
how does this interaction forms the dynamics between the two groups?
i think it entirely determines them
this has been both studied and conceptualized by a very interesting writer called anival kijano
a peruvian philosopher, that has been concerned with coloniality of power
a concept that he calls coloniality of power
and i think it matches what in the civil rights movement in the united states is considered to be whiteness
whiteness as a way of thinking
what i told you james baldwin, malcolm x and martin luther king constantly talked about
this idea of thinking and acting not because you're white but because also you want to be white
and this coloniality of power
i think this determines all the relations, you see it today
it is for people that come from colonial countries to study for example or to live in europe
for many of them
especially i've noticed because i'm in this particular field the ones that get acquainted with postcolonial and the colonial theory
a great source of anguish
the label that is associated to their nationality and their civilization and their identity
for example i have a very good friend
that was very afraid of saying he was turk when he came to the netherlands
because he felt ashamed because he assumed everything that was being turk
everything that meant being turk, was simply inferior
beginning by the race by the way you look
and this is something entirely embedded in a system of colonialist thought, science, representation
that is not confined to the boundaries of european countries and the european continent
but that is also very much promoted in the colonies
this is something that in mexico we know very well
in mexico we even say that when somebody acquires money or power
they try to whiten themselves, by acting white
by acting more like what the white elites in mexico and in latin america act like
by eating european foods, by trying to buy european cuisines
which is interesting in the case of mexico
because mexico has a fantastic, one of the richest cuisines in the world
and yet when people acquire more wealth
they start to eat more italian, more french, more spanish
they start to buy imported products
it has a lot to do with trade
and this is crucial, whiteness has to do with wealth, with globalized wealth, which very much comes from trade
from moving one thing from one place to another
and telling the people in the other place you really need this
it has to do with advertising and marketing
so that is the thing about whiteness and racism
you cannot deconstruct it by focusing purely on the color of the skin
this is very superficial, you need to focus on the reverberations that whiteness exerts
on marketing, on advertising, on trade
on the very representation that we are used to see on airport magazine
on all of our advertisements, on the political propaganda
on the representations that children at school get from what the mexicans look, like what the africans look like
which still coincide with very racist representations for example
now this is crucial because the world is enormously vast
and we cannot know, not even the most seasoned traveler can by any means know
every single part, every single people, culture of the world
and even if they could, they could not understand all of them
they cannot speak all the languages, they cannot understand all the cultural nuances
so what we know, what all of us knows about the world
is very much, for a great part of it, based on representations that we have seen
in a collection of items, movies, films, books, narratives, propaganda, our families, our friends
which is also determined of course by the neighborhood in which we live
the socio-economic status that is associated with that neighborhood for example
the possibilities that we have to go to certain schools
and to socialize within certainplaces, certain malls, certain cinemas, certain theaters, certain artistic communities
the languages we speak
an immigrant growing up in the netherlands whose parents speak only arabic
will miss a great deal of dutch culture that his peers are learning while they're same age
and these difference will be expressed in primary school to his disadvantage
so this actually brings us to a very good point
what would be the solution, because it's very simplified way of thinking to just decrease the problem to the color of skin
as you mentioned it's the entire system of culture, of ideologies, of inheritance, that the person is brought to
its entire ecosystem of marketing of the economy that works in favor of one group
and advertises or promotes one group versus the other
and maybe that's not necessarily aimed at suppressing one skin color versus the other
but the outcome is what's happening today
yeah, i don't know that is a difficult question
how to solve it, or how to start solving it
i think the problem with this is: it really depends who you are
for example, i am the victim of racism sometimes
or what i think in any case is racism
but i'm by far not the victim of the same kind of racism than a black african
a black african refugee is in the netherlands
i can deal with it in a very different way
in a much more successful way than they can
i am much better off than most arabs and muslim immigrants here
because mexicans are associated with a lot of violence that is for the most part contained or confined to the country
and for the rest, it is i think a national stereotype that is very caricaturesque and very friendly
it is tequila, el sombreros, party and pinatas
things like this, people do not see me as a threat necessarily
but i notice my muslim and my arabic friends
they notice this when they go talk to a girl
they assume, that they are some sort of players and womanizers
that are going to treat them disrespectfully
and they're very surprised that they don't do it
when i see my syrian friends going to clubs
you see all sorts of shady white dutch guys going in like they are the children of the bouncers
and you see any given syrian guy regardless of how poor or wealthy he looks getting checked twice or three times
so i think it really depends on the resources that you have
the skin that you have also matters
i can hide a little bit
a black person cannot hide even if they were born in the netherlands and even if they speak flawless dutch
they will be the target of enormous consistent sustained life-long racism
and they know this, and they are very aware about how they look, and how people perceive them
all the time they are very aware
and i think that here is the solution
i think the solution is in being more aware of the experiences of people that have been traditionally discriminated and traditionally oppressed
because you find not that there is something essentially better in them
but there is certainly something they know that we don't know
if you read black writers, for me at least it has come as a great revelation
to be aware of the sophistication of the perception that they have about how others perceive them
they are playing a perceptual game of chess that is much more complicated than many other people
because they are forced into it
black people living not only in white populations, but particularly black people living in america
that has arguably one of the most violent and abusive and corrosive racist systems in europe and in the u.s
what we call the west
that is also a category that i oppose
i think opposing these essentializing categories is very much where the solution lies
none of these exist essentially, there is a humanity
there is a global history, which is a point stressed over and over by historians
there is no such thing as a dutch or a french or a spanish history
these are constructions for the benefit of power in every state
but as a matter of scientific integrity, you can never speak about a dutch history
about dutch style of painting about an italian architecture
because the beauty of culture is that it is ceaselessly appropriated and reappropriated
and the moment you show something to somebody else
they might copy it, it improve it, change it or modify it
but if they like it in any way they will take it
and even if they don't like it they might reproduce it
and then it's not yours anymore, then it's theirs
but at the same time it's from everybody
and i think much of the solution lies in being aware of how people perceive us
being aware of how people perceive not only the good things we do but also the bad things we might do
which is i think something that black writers
not even black writers that are concerned with the issues of race like james baldwin for example
but also writers that write about any other kind of thing
they are very aware, their characters are black
and you see how they play these chess of perception all the time
when they flirt, when they go for a job interview
when they are waiter in a restaurant and they serve somebody
when they're walking down the street late at night and they see a white person terrified coming at them
all these things
and this is something that i think black people in the south of the us
or black people in many european countries, share with women for example
there is a a very an excellent theory of how women have been taught throughout history to survey themselves
because very much as many other oppressed minorities
well the women are not a minority
many other oppressed minorities or many other oppressed groups of society
they have learned to survey themselves for the pleasure of men
so that they are pleasurable to men
and that's why women are very aware of how they look, how they smell, how they their hair is arranged
how they behave in certain contexts, what is the proper way to do certain things
because they are very aware that the perception that men have of them
has a great impact on their faith in every single social setting
the same, but i think to a much more heightened degree for black slaves or black people in the us
you cannot hide, you can never hide
your race, when you're of a different color of different features within a society
that is remarkably visually very strikingly different
makes it impossible for you to hide
and if this way in which you look is associated to bad threatening evil undesirable traits
you are in a position of enormous disadvantage
this is a position of enormous disadvantage that you notice very easily when you live in a mostly white northern country like the Netherlands
people don't have at all
they can say all sorts of things that are denigrating and demeaning and vulgar and ordinary
as in what they consider to be very unthreatening ways
they want to play, they want to make a joke
but they can say the most racist things if you will
about muslims, about arabs, or latin americans, about asians, about africans, black people anybody
and you see these people take it and smile or smirk
because they don't want the confrontation, and because they have heard that too many times they are used to this
many of them they even know what to reply because many of these racial slurs are very common
so they are used to it, their skin is very thick already
but then you see what happens when you criticize their culture
you say something about dutch food, you say something about the dutch anthem
say something about dutch morality, go deep and say something about dutch history and their heroes and their slavery
make jokes about it
and they lose their minds many of them
many of them feel their pride touched for the first time and they cannot deal with it
and this is what you see in all these alt-right or neo-fascist parties which are nothing but the same fascist as always
and that's what you see in the kind of heroes, the kind of history, which is essential for any form of political identity
you see that in this history they try to defend the slave traders the colonizers
without any nuance with the races with their imperial and slave related enterprises
because they cannot deal with the complexity that the people that are used to exploitation and denigration are already used to
they are already used to deal with the complexity because they have been forced they have been thrown into a corner
and given all this massive amount of abuse
and at the same time a gift, the gift of reflecting on themselves endlessly
and they are very aware that there is much wrong and much right with them
and their history, and their ancestors, and their culture
which is something that goes entirely missing for many people in white countries
whose national history is related to exploitation, slavery and colonialism
they are not used to a black person making fun of them
telling them you might be funny too
to your food is actually terrible
your morality is disastrous
you're not as good as you think you are
and i think the solution lies much in this
in people in these countries developing a thicker skin
while the people on the other side, that are the ones that could force them to develop a thicker skin
also are very wary to criticize while not taking the pride out of them
you cannot take the pride out of any kind of people without them reacting in some way
and that is something for example about the left that i don't like
when they say all white people are bad
i mean this is a caricature
but when they make a statement that gives you the impression
that the meaning is that all white people do this bad thing
i think this is very as a matter of rhetoric and as a matter of history and genetics you know very poor
you also have to give them pride
it is necessary to say okay, the history that is also not history
it's the national history, the one that you have been taught by the people in power in your country
this history is wrong, but there is pride, there is certainly pride in many things that people that look like you
and that people that you think that you come from have done
but it's certainly not slavery, and it's certainly not the west indian companies, none of them
it's not the military adventures that have been oriented towards the exploitation of entire nations
and the enslavement of their children
it's other things
So in this case then this is a very progressive movement that we have these days
with the black lives matters for instance
that is happening not only in the united states but across the other european countries as well
it could actually contribute to the discourse that you are explaining here
i think so, i don't know, i never expected it
what is happening in the netherlands now is very unique
i've never seen it, i've been here 10 which is not that long
but i never expected to see it
the netherlands has for example
a sense of humor that i find it very similar to the sense of humor that you can find among the ku klux klan members
in the u.s sometimes not always
they also have a very refined humor
but there is a certain kind of popular humor that is very distressing to hear
because they make jokes, very very vulgar jokes
about the very physical way in which people that are not white look
jokes that involve rape, or torture, or killing nazi jokes, ku klux klan jokes
and when you hear that you think, aaah
and yet unlike the us, the dutch do not consider themselves racist
but post races they are above that
and i think many of them think precisely because we are above that we can be racist
because god knows we are not at heart
but what is happening now is that you see for the first time
that in every single newspaper in the netherlands
the dyke that used to contain that kind of reflection about their own racism has broken
and the newspapers and society has been flooded with narratives in history and reflections and remarks articles everywhere
about police brutality against minorities and especially against black, brown, muslim minorities
you see all the dutch people with an immigration background that comes from one of the former colonized countries
suriname, Curaçao, indonesia speaking out
talking about how in spite of them being dutch they have been systematically discriminated all their lives, and how this matters
for the first time you hear an enormous amount of white dutch people making reflections about their white privilege
in a way this is a discourse imported from america
and in that sense it should be contextualized because i don't think the netherlands has the same problems as the u.s of course
but in no way the netherlands has got ridden of its racism
or of its white supremacy
so much not so that today the only european country with an openly white supremacist party
that might win a substantive power if not the prime ministership in the next elections
is a white supremacist party of an ideology that to my knowledge is very novel in the european continent
it is not the classical neo-nazi fascist playing party
it is a white supremacist party that reproduces the strategies
the representational, the discursive strategies strategies of the south racists of the us
and in that way it is important but in another way it's not
because of course the racism in the us in the end came from europe
yeah, thank you very much
is there anything else you would like to add to the discussion we had today
that you see we left untouched
i don't know, there is much i think we left in touch
but i think what we touched was good enough i think for start
to start a little reflection perhaps
thank you very much Rodrigo, it was a pleasure to have you
it was my pleasure
thanks