Paradise Lost: Social Unrest in Guadeloupe & Martinique

Social Unrest in Guadeloupe, AFP images

My partner missed a call on Sunday from a dear friend of hers who lives in Guadeloupe, one of the Francophone islands southeast of Puerto Rico. Her friend left a voicemail describing the heightening political-economic crisis on the island, which we later learned was also happening in Martinique, another Francophone island south of Dominica. Folks on both islands have staged a general strike for the past four weeks protesting the rising cost of living, which outstrips the meager wages they are paid, and to denounce the ongoing racial stratification of wealth and resources between black Guadeloupians/Martiniquans, and the 1% of the population that controls the wealth, businesses and resources on the islands.

While there is nonstop media coverage of “the worst economic crisis” since the Great Depression from the perspective of people in the global north, it is rare that we hear about the impact of this economic meltdown on those situated on the margins of global capitalism. For instance, many news sources covered the social unrest in France proper, where somewhere between 1 million and 2.5 million people protested the deteriorating state of French infrastructure on January 29. Yet, little was said about the concurrent protests going on in the French territories, which are, by any sane account, infinitely worse off than people living in the industrialized center.

Martiniquans listen to Union leaders negotiate lower grocery prices. Fort-de-France, Martinique, Feb 10 2009

Life on the island is one of dependence: 80% of Guadeloupe’s food is imported, making the island deeply vulnerable to price fluctuations in the global market. When the French economy flutters, stutters, and then takes a nose dive, the French islands go along with it. Such is the nature of neocolonial entanglement.

But, one might ask, if neocolonial populations are so marginal to the global economy, why does France continue to hold on to the territories at all? What’s in it for them? Why not let the remaining territories go the way of Haiti, (but without the bloody revolution) if they are marginal and insignificant?

Good question.

The first thing I’d say is that unlike our colloquial use of the word, “marginal,” in this context it doesn’t quite equal insignificance – more on this below. Secondly, there’s good reason for France to be in the (neo)colonial racket. Traditionally, colonies had two important functions: first, early colonies were overflowing with slave laborers, whose descendants became low wage laborers working the land to extract raw materials and crops that were exported to European countries. Secondly, the colonies provided much needed markets for the circulation of the processed and manufactured goods produced in the metropole from the raw materials harvested in the colony.

Sugar cane cultivators in Guadeloupe

So, the circular economic logic goes like this: the cost of production is kept low because labor and land are exploited. The profit margin is ridiculously high because the manufactured goods are sold in a consumer market that is virtually closed to other products, particularly products grown locally. Despite the “end of colonialism” such political-economic relations persist between France and its “territories” because it is economically advantageous for France. (Nevermind all that “civilizing mission” crap. The crass money incentive is clear to everyone by now.)  Given that colonial administration of the land meant the land was parceled out to French companies, little land was available for the cultivation of crops grown by black Guadeloupians, and meant to circulate in local markets. This continues to be the case. As such, the development of a market for local, fresh, hopefully non-GMO, whole foods that would nourish our friend and her family far better than any of the processed foods could, is highly unlikely without a radical redistribution of land and wealth on the island as well as the safeguarding of farmer’s rights, wages and the integrity of their seeds in the face of monster companies like Monsanto. (There’s a hyperlink there in case you want to know who/what Monsanto is.)

(By the way, the issue of sustainable farming also has implications for the preservation of local biodiversity, which impacts climate change. Furthermore, it has implications for the reduction of food-related chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension, which are often outcomes of a diet high in processed foods and low in whole foods. Thus, in this ostensibly isolated issue of worker’s rights, we see environmental and health issues unfold as well. This is yet another lesson in the basic interconnectedness of our shared problems.)

So, returning to my use of the word “marginal,” I hope it is clear that Afro-diasporic peoples in the West, be they in Anglophone nations like my own, or Francophone territories like our friend, are not marginal to global-capitalism as such. Quite the contrary is true. Without the exploitation of low, or no-wage, black laborers, and the expropriation of Caribbean lands, its agriculture, and other natural resources, capitalism as we know it in the West would not exist. So in this sense, our friend and the people on her island are absolutely central to global capitalism. Yet, they are marginal insofar as they do not reap the benefits of the system. They work daily, typically under union loathing French business-owners, and are paid measly wages in return; wages that are insufficiently calibrated toward meeting the exorbitant costs of living in the contemporary world.

The idea of economic sovereignty, that is, cultivating local economies in Martinique and Guadeloupe that actually sustain the people living on the islands, and in the region more broadly, would send a big “Fuck You” message to the French government. France would be cut out of the equation, thereby losing a market for their goods, which would adversely impact its national economy. Seems like a good reason for the French to hold on to their territories, right? (I’m assuming it is the market incentive and the nasty habit of racist paternalism that renders relinquishing the territories unthinkable.)

Haitians wade through a flooded town in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, September 2008

Going the route of Haiti, that is, seeking independence from France, would require an enormous regional alliance between other Caribbean islands, Latin American countries, and friendly countries in the global north (if such a thing exists). We should remember that Haiti was the first black republic in the West, and continues to be one of a kind. Historical hindsight allows us to see that such an anomaly was not taken lightly, as the United States and Britain did everything they could, from the early nineteenth century onward, to cripple the new republic and effectively cut it off from the global economy. (Cuba’s situation is another example.) The longstanding effects of internaitonal isolation, foreign infiltration, weapons trafficking, and internal political instability has rendered Haiti the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, and led to unspeakable human suffering. We need only look to the food crisis in 2008 and the impact of Hurricane Ike to get a glimpse of Haiti’s struggle.

I typically try to tie up my posts with some insight into the possibility of cultivating loving-kindness and compassion in the face of such suffering. But today, I’m so in the pain that it’s difficult to say something hopeful. I pray that our friends in Guadeloupe fight for their right to exist and flourish, just as much as I pray, think, and argue for a way out of the international juggernaut of suffering wrought by our current way of life. By now it is painfully clear that the social order brought into being by the expansion of European capitalism into all areas of the world is woefully unsustainable. As I have said elsewhere, bailing out this system is not the answer. It may be a temporary pain reliever akin to popping an Advil for a headache born of dehydration, but the painkiller won’t hydrate the areas of the body that need water the most.

*UPDATE

As of February 19, the French government has conceded to demands that they increase wages 200 euros a month. See the BBC article, “France Meets Guadeloupe Demands” for a few more details.

Firefighting on MLK Day

1. King’s Prescience

We lost Dr. King in Tennessee. He was in Memphis to lead a protest on behalf of sanitation workers who suffered from unconscionably poor working conditions and equally disturbing wages. Many MLK academic historians note the significant emphasis King began to place on economic justice in the years before his untimely death. However, few popular accounts of King’s contributions include this important detail about his life and work. The effect of this elision is that the general public receives a watered-down picture of MLK; one that is routinely harnessed to the liberal multicultural politics that helped elect Barack Obama, and now aids the misleading notion that “we” have “overcome” our collective ailments.

In his reflections on working toward peace, actor and peace activist Harry Belafonte recounted a conversation he had with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., shortly before King was assassinated. King told Belafonte he was disturbed by a realization he had about the long, hard fight for integration: “We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know that we will win,” King said. “But I’ve come to believe we’re integrating into a burning house.”*

Belafonte was “taken aback,” by King’s admission and visible discontent. The project of integration did not, King argued, fully address the need to remedy the injustice of economic exploitation – an injustice intrinsic to capitalism and dispersed across racial and ethnic groups. “I’m afraid that even as we integrate,” King said, “we are walking into a place that does not understand that this nation needs to be deeply concerned with the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. Until we commit ourselves to ensuring that the underclass is given justice and opportunity, we will continue to perpetuate the anger and violence that tears at the soul of this nation.”

Though Belafonte agrees with King’s insight, though we face the greatest economic crisis in recent history, and though we continue to witness social unrest and egregious acts of violence against the poor, the disenfranchised, the stateless, and the homeless, Belafonte remains optimistic about the possibility of change.

He writes: “Deep in my soul, I know there are more Rosa Parks, more Dr. Kings, and more Ella Bakers ready to emerge. Perhaps we are the firefighters who can save the burning house. Martin would have embraced such a thought.”

2. On Inauguration Eve

Belafonte’s optimism and belief in the possibility of change is similar to, but not identical with, the brand of hope and change articulated by the Obama team. Contrary to popular opinion, the election of Barack Obama does not fully realize Dr. King’s dream. Though we bear witness to a most miraculous event tomorrow, when considering the “change” Obama’s election signifies, we’d all do well to see it as a symptomatic shift, rather than an eradication of the root illness Dr. King sought to address by the end of his career.

Here’s why:

Obama’s presidency can, and should, be regarded as the apotheosis of integration/multicultural politics in the United States. And for the majority of Americans, reaching this multicultural consensus is a very good thing.** Yet, we must be aware that adding more people of color and women to positions of power, both in the U.S. and abroad, does not rewrite the foundational assumptions and beliefs informing the global socio-political and institutional matrix that determines the quality of our lives. Even with a bright and dashing new president before us, it is fair to say that the house is still on fire.

Yes, tomorrow’s inauguration of the first African-American president certainly marks a shift in U.S. racial politics, but it does not mark the end, nor does it herald a substantive change, in the way racism is entangled with capitalist exploitation. Racism, which, I should add, is a deeply gendered affair, continues to aid capitalism in the creation of exploitable labor groups and usurpable, instrumentalized land.***

While I suspect Obama knows the house is still on fire, I’m less convinced that his method of dealing with the flaming house (which should be seen as the entire world, not just the U.S.) will move us in the direction of taming the blaze. To be frank, integration doesn’t change the world if it means we now have a black guy injecting massive amounts of capital into a gendered and racialized economic system instead of a white guy. Such a response to the implosion of an ethically vacuous (think Madoff, Dreier, Enron, et al.) and systemically unfair mode of organizing and distributing resources deals with symptoms, not root causes. It allows us to hobble on a bit longer on an ultimately unsustainable path. They’ve change the players instead of the game.

Consider this: one of the distinctive characteristics of our economic system is its demand that we all “compete” on the market to secure and accumulate the most basic of human needs. (I’m resisting the urge to address the absurdity of individual ownership as such, i.e.: private property.) Now, one might say that competition is the province of sellers, not consumers like you and I, but Marx reminds us that the consumer/worker is also for sale, perhaps now more so than ever. Each day we sell our labor in exchange for cash and “benefits,” benefits that are better understood as withheld birthrights erroneously routed through the workplace. As company after company lays off more and more workers (my job just sent 6 home last week) the buyers of labor can drive down wages because we are all competing for work. Meanwhile, Washington prepares for phase three of its “bailout” plan in order to keep this system running, so some of us may return to the market for further exploitation at a later date – should we last that long.

The competition-accumulation dyad is simply a bad combination that brings out the worst in people while actively devaluing the qualities we ought to be cultivating: mutuality, compassion, generosity, kindness, forgiveness and patience, in short, LOVE. In my first blog post, “Say When,” I had this to say about capitalist ideology:

As I sail through my entrepreneurship for dummies class, I’m learning that improving my bottom line is the goal, with a dash of social responsibility thrown in for good measure. But, I can’t help thinking we might wanna adjust the profit-accumulation model that leads businesses to desire ever-expanding coffers. Can we learn to have a wealth accumulation cap? You know, like when a friend pours you a glass of wine and says, “tell me when,” and you wait, watch the glass fill up with your favorite vino, all the while knowing that filling up to the brim is in bad form because others wanna taste too, so at the half way mark you say, “when!” Can we learn to say “when” before buying that second house, before buying that third car, before the mind-boggling vacation in the Maldives Islands? Can we learn to associate bling-bling excess with “bad form”? Surely it’s in bad taste to dine out for 200 bucks while others massage a grumbling belly and the family down the street is kicked out of their foreclosed on house, right?

As we celebrate the alleged demise of racism, capitalist ideology continues to propose an “individual” who is independent of everyone with whom he or she interacts. Such individuals are thought to have discreet and substantial identities that are mutually exclusive, rather than interdependent and contingent upon the actions of others. This conceptual paradigm lands us in the arena of individual rights, rather than collective responsibility, such that one can argue that their “right” to liberty enables them to accumulate capital irrespective of the human and environmental cost of such accumulation. (It’s a free country, right? WTF?) It is such a worldview that enables the “It’s not personal, it’s just business” saying to make any damn sense. Collective responsibility on the other hand, recognizes that what I do here has implications not only for other people near and far, but also for the unborn millions in generations to come. Yet, this idea of the self-interested, individuated human sits at the core (as in it’s one of the roots) of the contemporary global economic system/crisis everyone is struggling to save/solve. Only when we begin to see the interconnectedness between self and other, when we see that “my interest” is ultimately the same as “your interest,” will we begin to move toward collective responsibility, toward the liberating power of love, and indeed toward putting out the fire ravaging our home.

3. We, the Firefighters of Planet Earth

I say all of this not to detract or denigrate Obama’s brilliance or the blessed journey that is his life. Rather I make, what I suspect is a somewhat unpopular argument, in the spirit of King’s great insight about the nature of our contemporary illness, and to point out where the easy line drawn between King and Obama actually breaks down. It seems to me that paying homage to Dr. King necessitates maintaining fidelity to his legacy. The kind of quick and dirty historiography for which popular culture is notorious offers us a version of King that serves the interests of the status quo, and lends itself well to the celebration of Obama’s presidency. This is all fine and good if you don’t mind living among embers and billowing smoke that often erupts into scorching flames. If however, you prefer a less volatile life, then we ought to insist upon popularizing the version of Dr. King who was a peaceful radical, implicitly calling forth the firefighters of the next generation.

Notes

*Many thanks to my friend Bea for passing on the Belafonte passage. We truly are “we” – there is no I, no Self. The insights articulated in this blog are impossible without the input of others. If you’re interested in reading the rest of Belafonte’s notes, you can find them here: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/architects-of-peace/Belafonte/essay.html

**I find it difficult to communicate both the relief I feel over the decreasing occurrence of egregious  and monstrous acts of racially motivated violence, and the impatience I feel with broad based acceptance of the idea that multiculturalism in the U.S. solves the problem of race. Yes, we rarely see folks hanging from trees these days, but systemic and institutionalized violence persist in, perhaps, more atrocious ways: rampant poverty and mass negligence, deliberate under-education, incarceration, etc.

***By “racism” I refer to the bigotry, physical and epistemic violence accompanying the hierarchical distribution of the idea of “racial difference.” When I say “racism is a deeply gendered affair,” I mean that the metaphorics of racial difference map “gender differences” onto the idea of race. It would take too long to explain how this works, but it is very important for understanding why we’re not in the era of radical change. This blog requires an understanding of “racial difference” as a historical idea, rather than an objective Truth. My theory of race draws upon the work of philosopher Sylvia Wynter and Marxist historian Cedric Robinson, among others, and it theorizes Race as a bio-economic idea of human being, which was the idea of difference subtending the expansion of European monarchies-cum-nation-states in the early modern period. As a bio-economic theory of what it means to be human, racial thinking by the nineteenth century conceived of the Human as a pan-optic, evolving organism in various phases of evolution. The most evolved human was presumed to be capable of seeing its earlier incarnations in “primitive” others (hence, “pan-optic”), and simultaneously responsible for “helping” such groups “develop,” and enter the “modern, civilized” world. And, insofar as the human could reason, the human was imagined to be a self-possessing entity. The discourse of rationality therefore served to draw boundaries around the coveted space of self-possesion, and the “inalienable rights” that came along with ownership of the self. “Primitive accumulation” of capital thus turns on the fabrication of some groups of people as irrational, unable to tend to their own affairs, and so on. Of course, the only normal, rational humans were conveniently, also the authorial subjects of the discourse on human being and racial difference. This model of human being thus operated by a princple of inclusion within the “human family,” while exploiting people according to where one fell along the evolutionary line. Solving racism then, cannot to be solved by way of multiculturalism, which relies upon the “make-believe” racial categories of yore and demands being regarded as a human LIKE the one who initially oppressed and excluded. Rather, our way out of our contemporary morrass comes by decolonizing what it means to be human as such.

Say When

Unfinished and Under-researched Musings on the Economy & Politics

Small businesses seem to be at the heart of economic growth. According to the US census, small businesses outpace large companies in job generation and they employ over 40% of the workforce. Yet, the recent toppling of Wall Street financiers, the tightening credit market, and subsequent political maneuvering meant to “fix” the financial problem, all seem more concerned with returning the money gamblers to their stead, rather than helping small businesses maintain their vitality. Are small businesses supposed to wait until their big brothers are healthy again and are able to can kick down a few dollars? What are small businesses to do in the meantime while growing anemic? Should they shorten their hours and downsize their workforce? Should they seek funding from other sources with outrageously high interest rates?

But, then there’s this question about the credit markets. If the lenders lent too much to too many people and businesses (including those ‘risky’ types like myself), and then compensated themselves for their “altruistic” risk taking, then who should shoulder the blame for the credit collapse, payback defaults and general fiscal catastrophe? Are the borrowers who defaulted on their loans at fault? No one told them to ask for money, right? Or, are the lenders who created onerous terms at fault for hooking “risky” lendees into loan terms that are not favorable in the least? Or, is it a bigger problem of ideological proportions, where desire for wealth, comfort or, in some cases, basic necessities, lead people to seek out funding from institutions with the resources to meet their (er, my) needs? And, what conditions made paying off those loans impossible anyhow? Why were people suddenly unable to meet their mortgage and credit card payments? One way to proceed through this financial, social and cultural quagmire is to disentangle personal debt issues from those of businesses. Granted, businesses are run by people, but the legal and tax identities of people are not the same as those of corporations. (The particulars of business entity formation notwithstanding – we could talk about the pass-trough taxation models of S-corps and sole props, but for brevity’s sake, let’s not.)

Who is this bailout going to help in the immediate future? Let’s not talk trickle-down models. People need cash now. Who has a cash-flow problem? Everyone from Lehman to myself. Should the government favor the big company over the individual person? Would helping the financial sector amount to protecting the national economy while helping me would be social welfare? God forbid we slide into socialism, or worst, blazing red communism! Oh, no! Surely, rampant poverty and unchecked wealth accumulation is better.

And what is the role of the legislator vis a vis the free market anyway? Has not the role of Washington been to regulate capitalism? Or, has government made doing business easier? But easier for whom? Easier for those who deliver goods and services, rather than those who buy? And if so, what’s wrong with that? On it’s face, nothing really. As a service provider, I’d like to work in a market environment that encourages the distribution of my service. Yet, as a consumer, I also want to be protected from predatory lending, and abuses of power and information that enables companies to sell higher volumes of goods. For instance, if I can tell my clients that we use green cleaning products, but there’s no oversight of my industry or individual business operations, such that we could theoretically use whatever the hell we want and simply advertise as green to increase sales, we’d be acting unethically. (Or, better yet, we could buy “green/natural” products from our vendors, but if there is no regulation regarding what gets to count as “green,” then our dependence on the manufacturing sector means we may pass on toxicity to our clients unwittingly.) But as we’ve seen, there is regulation here and there, but not everywhere, and sometimes not where we need it most. It should be the role of legislators to prevent this kind of abuse of the consumer from happening. So why does it happen?

Well, some might say the incompetence and dizzy bureaucracy of Washington that’s too blame. Others may say its the corruption of government officials by lobbying bodies that is at fault. But these are epiphenomenal problems. I say it happens because we are taught to lie prone before the almighty bottom line. As I sail through my entrepreneurship for dummies class, I’m learning that improving my bottom line is the goal, with a dash of social responsibility thrown in for good measure. But keeping the profit coming in is what really matters. So, perhaps we need to adjust the profit-accumulation model that leads people and businesses to desire ever-expanding coffers. Can we learn to have a wealth accumulation cap? You know, like when a friend pours you a glass of wine and says, “tell me when,” and you wait, watch the glass fill up with your favorite vino, all the while knowing that filling up to the brim is in bad form because others wanna taste too, so at the half way mark you say, “when!” Can the wealthy (and upwardly mobile) learn to say “when” before buying that second house, before buying that third car, before the mind-boggling vacation in the Maldives Islands? Can the wealthy learn to associate bling-bling excess with “bad form”? Surely it’s in bad taste to dine out for 200 bucks while Haitians and Zimbabweans starve to death and the family down the block is kicked out of their foreclosed on house, and hurricane survivors try to find a new place to live, right? Or, would asking people to cultivate such “frugality” constitute an assault on their individual freedom? I guess the real question is this: is unbridled, wanton and ongoing accumulation a real right? Should people have the right, under the auspices of individual liberty, to accumulate at the expense of others, at the expense of the common good?

I suppose this is my assumption: that such accumulation does happen at the expense of everyone else, or at least such has been the case for a few centuries now; ever since modern capitalism leaked out of Europe and infested the rest of the world. While there may not be total scarcity of all things on the planet, I surely accumulate all of my junk at the expense of others, because after all, we do live with some finitude, some scarcity, and some things that are not renewable, at least not in our lifetimes.

It seems that our worldview is upside down, inside out, a bit backwards, as it were. Why compete for the things we need, and then hoard the things we get, when we could share, with some deference for equity, and all survive? (Maybe because that model presumes we have some responsibility for the livelihood of others??) But it seems just “surviving” isn’t the objective. At least, not where I live. People want to flourish, but they understand that desire, or at least they see it through commodity lenses. Things are the metric for flourishing, not peace of mind, not the health of the public, not the well being of the planet. Ain’t that awesome! And for those of us who question this thing-based abacus, we sit in this weird interstice, theorizing a different world but being compelled to act in this one. It’s as if our thinking is building a bridge to nowhere. I wonder which politician would vote to fund it…

-unfinished-