De Sousa Santos Boaventura in “Renewing Critical Theory and Reinventing Social Emancipation,” establishes, in my opinion, two main problems, the first is that of silence, which is produced, as he explains, by the action of Western culture and modernity, which over time have suppressed possible expressions of protest, of rebellion, that is, they have eliminated them from language directly. This means that the oppressed do not express themselves, not because they do not want to, but because they do not have the elements to do so. They have silenced entire cultures by colonizing them.
The other problem raised by the author is “difference“. It refers to the translation of concepts, but not only to that, but to the impossibility of understanding some Western concepts in other cultures. He gives as an example Descartes’ famous cogito “I think, therefore I am,” about which the African philosopher K. Wiredu has expressed himself saying that in his culture “to think” means to measure something, and “I am.” It is impossible to translate it, since they are always present, “being there.” Here we can see how the problem becomes more complex. It is no longer about finding a space for dialogue between cultures, there is an abyss between them, and that space for dialogue cannot be in the colonizing language, otherwise we will never understand what happens to them and what they want to tell us, what they feel and what they need.
De Sousa assures: “we need to build emancipation based on a new relationship between respect for equality and the principle of recognition of difference. However, it finds two systems that must be fought, and they are the systems of inequality, where there is a part that is always subordinated but within the system, and the other is the system of exclusion, where not even people are exploited anymore. no one, but it is simply discarded, due to lack of usefulness to the predominant system.
Today, according to Byung-Chul Han, neoliberalism has led the individual to become master and slave of himself. The lack of individual success now generates guilt and shame, the architects of our success and our failure are ourselves. The neoliberal demand, through virtuality, has become more important today than the real one. Getting a lot of likes and approval from strangers on our posts (which don’t always express our reality) can be more rewarding than those achieved in real life due to real (and perhaps not as exciting) actions.
Because of this, the North Korean philosopher affirms that revolution is no longer possible, since the system has convinced individuals that they are free, and this exploitation of (apparent) freedom does not generate resistance.
It’s like a monster that is eating its creators. These Societies, which were created to satisfy the needs and requirements of the individuals who formed them, (we can appeal to Locke’s “Leviathan,” or Rosseau’s “The Social Contract”), and we will see that in modernity They were shaping today’s societies, but with other objectives. The monster now has a life of its own, and no longer looks out for the interests of its creators, but for its own self-survival, at the expense of its members. Andrés Roig questions that our “cultural heritage,” the famous legacy, composed of “religion, language, cultural practice, customs, races, land,” are part of “spiritual culture.” For the author, more than a legacy, it is a mandate received, in the style of an “unavoidable and indisputable cultural imperative.” You may be right.
To generate change, we need to accept our reality, which includes a language that is not typical of these lands, but that has been here for 500 years, a religion that is not typical of our culture, but that has been established worldwide for more than 500 years. of 15 centuries, an economic system that will not be the most fair and equitable, but that is the prevailing one in most of the world today.
The abundance of knowledge from the past is not assimilable and digestible, and this causes the interior and exterior to not correspond, meaning that the excess of consciousness and historical knowledge is the cause of the inability to produce new forms, and Nietzsche does so. called “historicizing eclecticism.”
Without a doubt, we must “rethink” the universalist question of Western concepts, and I fully adhere to what De Sousa proposes, but I add that it is not enough. Abby Warburg tells us, for these “durable forms” to transform, express and communicate, there must be a cultural decision to explore the past, and to discover the new enigmas, which are there, waiting to be discovered, “the historian uncovers that which had remained hidden.
Is it time to accept us? Our blood is mestizo, our land is stained with it, our children deserve the truth, but they also deserve an opportunity. Has the time come to respond with the same weapons with which they once conquered us? Through the same language that they instilled in us, through the same dogmas that they taught us? We should no longer beg for the return of a piece of land, but for the return of an entire country, the return to good, honest and fair people who want a future for all, and not for some, and we are all in that fight. good men, not just the original ones.
It is time for international demand. We must stand in front of all the powerful, colonizing countries, and demand historical reparation for the massacre of the native peoples, for the calamities against humanity carried out on said journey, and for the usurpation and theft of our wealth, a reparation that will put an end to the claims, although in memory, the atrocities remain alive.
The historical reparation must be the total and one-time forgiveness of the public external debt of each affected country, and it will be the usurping and conquering countries who must face said payments to the international credit organizations. Savings in interest and debt payments will allow countries to face a new reality, where they must look inward, and make their own reparations and their own internal demands, to also reach a point in history, where they can look Going back only serves to enrich us with our history, but not to remain anchored in time, with anger and resentment.
It’s time to wake up and take off once and for all.
Benjamin Lavaque
by CEDOC
