pynchon-l-digest V2 #1330

[Christina L. Svendsen]

it bothers me that pre-colonial african history is so unknown (often 
thought nonexistant) in the US so i wrote a longish response. feel 
warned...

> Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 19:05:46 +1000
> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> Subject: Re: pynchon-l-digest V2 #1327
> 
> - ----------
> >From: "Christina L. Svendsen" <cls4r at unix.mail.virginia.edu>
> 
> > if you looked more closely in history books you would, however, see many
> > cases of black people enslaving other black people of different
> > ethnicities before many white traders showed up on African shores,
> 
> A minor quibble, but Western historiography requiring primary source data
> and documentation and all, how reliable can this claim be?

a.the historical records of africans (some kept records!)  
b. the primary accounts of many Islamic invaders, traders, etc. who were
in contact with these cultures
c. the primary source data from travelers & explorers
d. the primary source data from portuguese traders
e. the oral history through griots etc. which is handed down through
generations

pre-colonial african history is well-documented!
this is not a "claim" i am making!

it's important not to think africa is a-historical before the colonizers
rolled in. 
 
> > and
> > then later selling black people of other ethnicities to these very same
> > white traders in exchange for things like gunpowder and alcohol.
> 
> The fact that gunpowder and alcohol are involved indicates to me that white
> imperialism rather than traditional African cultural practices are
> motivating factors here.

not really. 

1. slaves were often used to do agricultural work, such as on the royal
plantations of the king of Dahomey, who was a rare example of an absolute
monarch in africa. Dahomey has a welldocumented history from the 1600s.

2. portuguese traders (later dutch too) traded with west africans for a
long time. they did not dare leave the coast and venture inland for
several centuries. (inland there were established civilizations, possibly
hostile, and disease.)

3.the ashanti, for example, used the sale of slaves to the british in the
18th c. to finance the expansion of THEIR OWN EMPIRE. it's called the
ashanti empire...it mounted a fierce but ultimately unsuccessful
resistance to a british conquest in the 19th c.  

much trading and slavery went on between different african kingdoms as
well...the kingdom of ancient ghana, kingdom of ancient mali (different
from the modern-day states, who took their names from them), nubia, etc.
etc. africa was a place of merchants, slavery, the whole lot before "white
imperialism".

> It's not an area of particular expertise for me and I'm happy to be
> corrected. I'm not so naive to believe that violence and cruelty were and
> are not inherent in black African cultures also.

"inherent," i don't know. "existed in complex forms," ja okay.
 
> > the fact that black people are just as morally capable as white ones
> 
> By whose system of morality are you making this comparison?

would you feel better if i just said "were capable"?
 
> > the fact that black people are just as morally capable as white ones of
> > engaging in slavery, genocide, etc. etc. is yet another measure of their
> > "equality" "averageness" "humanity." a darker measure of it in fact.
> >
> > if you look in history books about intra- and inter- national african
> > history you will find yet more sad stories of racial problems among black
> > people of different races.
> 
> It would seem to me that "intra-national" oppression is simply a round-about
> way of describing the social hierarchy within a particular tribal group. By
> that definition the working class in a capitalist society can be described
> as wage-slaves. Certainly the terrible inter-tribal pogroms of the last few
> decades (eg Mozambique, Rwanda) are due in large part to the legacy of white
> colonialism. In other instances (eg Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe) the renegade
> tribes merely adopt the weaponry, uniforms and militaristic mentality of the
> white imperialists. (cf the Schwarzkommando in GR)

well no. as i was saying, certain powerful african tribes formed empires,
i.e. conquered other peoples. so intra-national would include what you're
saying but not be limited to it.
 
> > indeed, all black people are not of one single
> > race!
> 
> The notion that the human *race* is made up of a whole bunch of different
> *races* is one of those convenient lapses in logic of Western languages.
> It's a linguistic anomaly which is used to cover a multitude of sins.

on the other hand, distasteful a subject as it is, scientists do feel
able to say that the human species is made up of different races. and
along those lines i was saying that "black ppl" is not a race; ppl think
this in america only because of the terrible history in which ethnic etc. 
differences were obliterated. there are numerous, genetically very
different "races" of black ppl...not homogeneous...
 
> > i would suggest that you don't find many cases of blacks enslaving whites
> > simply because of historical economic & technological differences.
> 
> There's still an enormous difference between the perception of a human
> opponent and of a human as a piece of livestock.

not necessarily. aristotle says something along the lines of: "you can
only become a slave if you have a slave-like nature." meaning you're only
a slave if you allow yourself to be conquered (instead of being killed.) i
don't know how many members of ancient African kingdoms would agree with
him, but it's definitely possible to a. dehumanize your opponent or b.
have contempt for your opponent once he behaves in a way that you consider
dishonorable. so at least theoretically i can disagree with that
statement.
 
> > but other groups, such as the ashanti in what is now ghana, had no problem
> > with it.
> 
> Not familiar with this tribe. The Ghanaian Fante people, however, were
> apparently very pacifistic and welcoming to others.

well sort of. the fante were middlemen. the fanti confederacy (which had
an executive council, a judiciary, taxes, and an army) used to be
intermediaries in the exchange of Ashanti debased gold for firearms. (they
controlled trade routes to the coast - the Ashanti weren't a coastal
empire.)

interestingly enough the fanti actually out-traded the dutch until all
discouraged dutch traders left for other areas...they did very well until
the british came along & exploited rivalries to break the fanti
confederacy & get better deals on trade (that was in 1873.) 
 
> > what i'm saying seems to be that you are creating an
> > o v e r s i m p l i f i c a t i o n.
> 
> As you also are with the inference that Australian Aborigines are a discrete
> tribal group. It isn't a treatise; it's a few quick-scrawled paragraphs.
> Deal with the issues.

but i wasn't assuming that at all. there are a number of different tribes
of australian aborigines. interestingly enough however certain major
cultural characteristics hold true for all major groups of them! such as
the one i mentioned...

however i didn't think my point would be as clear if i said the mara, the
x, the y group...most americans not having huge familiarity with
aboriginal culture.

stating that there is an oversimplification *is* dealing with the issues.

> > i don't like your dismissive tone. ("apparently intelligent ppl..." is
> > not good argumentation.)
> 
> Actually, this was a compliment. 

okay, if you say so. 
 
> I think you've misread this part of the exchange. I was addressing Jody's
> assertion. Perhaps I telegraphed my point, but it was that *even if*
> students are "prey" to the biases and foibles of English professors and
> teachers, Pynchon's texts will (hopefully) speak for themselves.

sorry that i haven't followed exchanges here very meticulously.
however: are the biases & foibles of english professors so much worse,
large, whatever, than other readers of pynchon? to think so seems too
knee-jerk to me...

-c.