An Excerpt from R. Jose Faur's "In the Shadow of History"
Apologies, previous link to this was not to an article or excerpt as I thought, but to the Amazon site where it is available. This excerpt below is from the same portion of the introduction as is available to be read on Amazon here
A basic concern of this book is the position of the "other" in Western tradition. At once, the "other" is the target of persecution. Anti-Semitism or racism are mere semiological indices designed to identify the "other". It could be the carrier of some exotic disease, like leprosy; different looks or mannerisms; or someone holding a distinctive set of values. Viewed from this perspective, anti-Semitism concerns the position of the "other" in Western society. The "other" is the creation of nonpluralistic societies (ecclesiastical or secular) and authoritarian regimes. As such, this phenomenon touches upon the collective psychology of a people, transcending religion, as well as political and economic principles. Historians have explained the persecution of Iberian Jews in religious, political and economic terms. Yet the same people who persecuted the Jews, persecuted the Natives of the New World with brutal sadism and infinitely more cruelty. It took only fifty years to reduce the original population of America from 80 million to 10 million. Of the 25 million natives inhabiting Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest, only 1 million survived by the year 1600. Todorov, who studied this phenomenon better than anyone else, remarked "that this is a record, not only in relative terms (a destruction in the order of 90 percent or more), but also in absolute terms, since we are talking about the demise of 70 million human beings". -5
A few voices were raised in indignation, but they were not old Christians. Bartolemé de Las Casas (1474 - 1566), the great champion of the rights of the native Americans, was a converso. -6 Alone, he dared denounce the Spanish atrocities and greed. He tells us how, upon entering the villages, they "would not leave a child, an old man, a pregnant or nursing woman without opening the bellies and cutting them into pieces". These Spaniards would wage bets among themselves as to who could "slash the head with one strike or open the guts" of the natives with a single stab. They would "take the infants by the legs from the breasts of the mothers and smash them on the rocks." The usual manner of killing native leaders was to burn them slowly in groups of thirteen - in honour of Jesus and the twelve apostles. Las Casas witnessed how on one occasion, because the screams of the wretched victims disturbed the sleep of a captain, the executioner, making sure that the victims would not suffocate, inserted sticks in their mouth to prevent them from screaming. Dogs were specially trained to "tear at sight an Indian into pieces as if he were a pig." -7 For exposing these atrocities and greed, Las Casas was branded "the enemy of Spain." The other great champion of native Americans was the brilliant writer Antonio de Guevara (ca. 1480 - 1545). He used his literary skills to bring to light the plight of the native Americans. He, too, came from a converso background. -8
None of the reasons advanced by historians explaining the persecution of Jews in Spain could "explain" the genocide of the American Indian. As Todorov had shown, native Americans were docile and willing to accept the Christian religion. The did not pose a political threat and they were an enormous economic asset. Within the boundaries of sanity, the Spanish atrocities transcend explanation: they point of the dark side of the persecuting society.
Faur is a fascinating writer, with a breadth of knowledge. As he goes on to describe the situation, and the parallel but different treatment of the two "others", the Jews and the Native Americans, he points out the ways in which clannishness was taken to extremes. Unfortunately, he puts forth the notion that this was normative for the ancient world, to treat one who was not kin with contempt and as a de facto enemy when in fact it was the rise of large Empires and the inability to cope with trying to govern many separate people as one that led here, a fact that Karen Armstrong explains very well in "The Battle for God". Though people certainly fought each other historically, history can also point to many very different peoples who have lived next to or among each other for centuries without either needing to dominate the other.
However, he is spot on about the essentialism that devoloped; essentialism being the notion that race or clan/tribe membership is something that you are born with (a part of your essence) and that an outsider can never have. By contrast, virtually every remaining tribal society, or with the remaining vestiges of traditional peoples, has mechanisms that allow the "other" to become "one of us". While birth into the group, family and lineage remain important factors the primary factor is adherence to the group's "Way". Someone born into the group who disrespects the ancestral ways can be shunned and even cut off permenantly, while an outsider who shows due respect can be adopted in, whether as an honourary member or a full member of the tribe. Not all tribal people have this, and they vary widely in practice of course, but it appears that essentialism in the sense of ethnic or blood ties is not part of most of their mindsets.
It's key today in dealing with our current societies of the West to see the way that this essentialism remains in place. It is not merely to be found in the "pureza de sangre" (purity of blood) laws that kept anyone with any Jewish blood from holding church or public offices in medieval Spain, or in the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany. It remains today, not only in its easily recognized form in the rise of Far Right parties across Europe, but also features prominently in the thinking of the Left. Identity Politics is quintessentially essentialist, and in it's strong links with "race" tends toward becoming rascist. Left wing racism tends to look different because it is not the classic form of a majority or powerful majority oppressing a minority or powerless population....in that sense it is less immediately worrisome in some ways. Instead it is the revenge racism of a group that is or has been powerless and oppressed.
To that extent it is understandable and normative within that group and usually subsides as their position equalizes and the psychological outlet it provides is no longer necessary. What marks the current situation as different is that this normal and temporary reaction has been philosophized into a permanently desirable state via the Identity Politics movements of the 1960s. Victim status, once something groups were ashamed of and sought to rid themselves of as soon as possible...unfortunately often by leaving their distinctive practices behind and assimilating, rather than merely acculturating....has now become the coveted prize that various groups fight over. A part of establishing one's "right" to this coveted status is by disavowing the having of any dominant culture traits, and denying the true extent of the power and influence that the group does actually wield.
For example, the French Canadians, who position themselves as a beset minority at the mercy of English Canada. In reality, they possess a very strong culture which is under no more siege from "English" than is any other language, and they control a very large territory, several times larger than most European countries, running their own political and educational institutions. Yet they insist they need special protections and privileges from the "Dominant Society" (ie English dominates them). At the same time, the French, in their own country of origin, as well as in Canada, are a hundred times worse, and deliberately so, to the minorities in their own midst, to whom they give no protections, and indeed they speak of being infiltrated and overwhelmed by them until they sound like Pharoah talking about the hordes of Hebrews taking over. French culture, though in no danger, apparently needs protecting from everyone. It is a classic "Priviliged Minority". One would think, being mainly a linguistic issue, the problem would not exist with already French speaking Jews and Muslims, but there is something wrong with them too....they just don't have that je ne sait quoi, that ESSENTIAL quality of being "French" that native French mysteriously have. This is what tells us that it is an Essentialist, and therefore racialist argument...and therefore ultimately dangerous and not to be tolerated in a civil society.
Remember....nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
