Author Archives: Syndicated User

Insurrection

I found this text to be one of the most interesting that we have read so far, in regards to both revolutionary aspects but on the critique on the current status of our society in some aspects. The two aspects of it which struck me the most is the aspect of “I” and the concept of real world relationships and communities and their cyberization. The concept of the “I” and the constant need for an individual to identify themselves has become more of a marketing scheme than an actual social necessity or movement. The whole concept that society has created the need for each person to be unique only furthers a capitalist agenda by attributing an “I” state to things like wearing clothes as if they were one of the defining factors in originality. This necessity for each person to feel as though they are individual is needed as it drives for unique ideas and concepts into society, but the current societal trend is one that is putting commercial values on the value of self which defeats the purpose for one to search for an “I” state. This combined with the trend that society has slowly shifted into viewing social interactions as though they were directly connected to the internet. The changing of how social interactions and the concept of “I” have been so heavily influenced by society, a society that itself is heavily influenced by capitalism.

So what can one do to combat a society that has become so heavily influenced by capitalism and other influences that seek to directly profit from your cooperation. In my opinion and somewhat ironically is to have the ability to create your own “I” self which is one that is disconnected from society. One does not need any sort of social validation for one to be happy, as Insurrection states, “‘depression’ is not a state, but a passage” it is okay to be discontent with society and the way that it represents you in its structure. Without this discontent or disconnection that one feels towards society then they can never be free from its influence, an influence that tries to push you into conforming in order to benefit from you. I’m not saying that one should leave society and become a hermit in the mountains or something, but to break away from the mainstream of society to distance oneself from the overly capitalistic state which we find ourselves in everyday of our lives. By doing so and creating your own identity one which is separate from society, and if enough people do that then they might be able to confront and change the way that society currently functions.

Insurrection

I found this text to be one of the most interesting that we have read so far, in regards to both revolutionary aspects but on the critique on the current status of our society in some aspects. The two aspects of it which struck me the most is the aspect of “I” and the concept of real world relationships and communities and their cyberization. The concept of the “I” and the constant need for an individual to identify themselves has become more of a marketing scheme than an actual social necessity or movement. The whole concept that society has created the need for each person to be unique only furthers a capitalist agenda by attributing an “I” state to things like wearing clothes as if they were one of the defining factors in originality. This necessity for each person to feel as though they are individual is needed as it drives for unique ideas and concepts into society, but the current societal trend is one that is putting commercial values on the value of self which defeats the purpose for one to search for an “I” state. This combined with the trend that society has slowly shifted into viewing social interactions as though they were directly connected to the internet. The changing of how social interactions and the concept of “I” have been so heavily influenced by society, a society that itself is heavily influenced by capitalism.

So what can one do to combat a society that has become so heavily influenced by capitalism and other influences that seek to directly profit from your cooperation. In my opinion and somewhat ironically is to have the ability to create your own “I” self which is one that is disconnected from society. One does not need any sort of social validation for one to be happy, as Insurrection states, “‘depression’ is not a state, but a passage” it is okay to be discontent with society and the way that it represents you in its structure. Without this discontent or disconnection that one feels towards society then they can never be free from its influence, an influence that tries to push you into conforming in order to benefit from you. I’m not saying that one should leave society and become a hermit in the mountains or something, but to break away from the mainstream of society to distance oneself from the overly capitalistic state which we find ourselves in everyday of our lives. By doing so and creating your own identity one which is separate from society, and if enough people do that then they might be able to confront and change the way that society currently functions.

Reflections and Lesson Plan for Week 11

Span 280 Week 11

What is Canada and The Colonialism of the Present

Dacyn Holinda and Jose Torres-Torija Cubillas

What is Canada?

 

  • Is Capitalism sustainable (i.e. is capitalism “good” or is it “bad”)?
  • How is Canada’s class structure altered due to the fact that it is a settler-colonialist nation?
  • Is Canadian imperialism different, better, less harmful etc. than U.S. Imperialism?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArOIdwcj2w8 -Oka Crisis in 5 minutes

 

  • Was the violence surrounding the Oka Crisis justifiable?

 

“I can tell you — from my own experience — that the indigenous social movements in Bolivia, which ended up bringing an indigenous person to the presidency, were also inspired by the Oka events” – Marcelo Saavedra-Vargas

 

  • What in particular about the Oka Crisis was so inspiring to other Indigenous groups around the world?
  • How can the working class and other Indigenous groups organize successfully in Canada?

 

Colonialism of the Present

-Recognition of First Nation? Does recognition equal respect?

-Do we think that the Canadian government is actively colonizing the First Nation communities and or land?

“Through commissions, courts, and councils, the Canadian state began acknowledging certain cultural rights, limited forms of political sovereignty, and some claims to land — but only so long as they didn’t interfere with the accumulation of capital or the extraction of resources.”

“Over time, however, indigenous peoples will begin to see that the forms of recognition given to us by the state for what they truly are: colonial distractions.”

-Do we see any similarities between the First Nation struggle to those in Latin America?

-Is armed resistance inevitable?

-Canada’s involvement in Latin America

Reflections:

I really enjoyed this past week’s discussion. I thought everyone was quite engaged and seemed to quite like both the texts. I thought the class was great in that we spent most of the time talking about struggles, particularly Indigenous ones, that are unique or rather central to Canada. It was interesting how everyone seemed to connect with the notion that the view of Canada portrayed to the world is very different to the actual reality of Canada. I also found the discussions on capitalism to be very enlightening. Everyone (for the most part) all agreed that capitalism was not sustainable and was a system that could not persist if we are to advance as a global society. All in all I was very happy with the debate and found that focusing on Canada was a refreshing change from our usual topic of Latin America. But at the same time was happy to see that we were able to make connections between the Oka Crisis and its effects on Indigenous movements in Latin America (specifically in Bolivia).

Invisible ???

I’m going to write about Invisible because it seems like no one else is but also because I think it’s very cool. I didn’t read the whole thing but just went through it stopping at different points and reflecting on them. I probably will read it all once term is over and I have the time if I can still access it by then. I obviously loved that it’s in three languages. Obviously many texts exist in multiple languages but very few, to my knowledge, exist all at once, in three languages. When I tried to find out more about the project I had a lot of difficulty  so I wasn’t able to contextualize it or learn about it to the degree that I wanted to. I am still unsure exactly what the text was trying to accomplish specifically, but I actually love that. The foreword reads, “here, there is neither praise nor triumph, nor cynicism or sarcasm, but rather a sincere love for human beings in their entirety, flaws and limitations included. This is a book about us, the people, excessive, possessive, sluggish, shaky.” For this reason, I think this texts lack of clarity (in an academic sense) is deliberate and telling. It is not trying to give us just one perspective or opinion.

Honestly, this sort of reminded me of my two favourite texts of the semester, combines. It’s composed of what may seem like excerpts or vignettes, like Cartucho but the voice is often really effusive, like Omar Cabezas’.
I love the language in diction in the sections. Like in one entitled, “The Social Mask,” the ending reads, “the masquerade will last until we return home; there, we will find, deep in ourselves, the lucid being that we were ceaselessly trying to conceal. slightly disgusted, we will simply fall asleep, in our insignificance.” I like how this connects our internal life to the way we may feel we do or do not fit into revolutionary action/movements. To be clear, this except doesn’t necessarily show that, but to have it amidst other excerpts that are referring to political individuals does that for me as a reader.

While reading this I am reminded of poetry and also a little of Kurt Vonnegut, especially of his books that include pictures. He is always writing with a lot of exclamation mark and he is often saying things that feel similar to or related to the content of these sections. I hope that when we talk about this book in class we are able to make more sense of the connections in this book. I am often failing to see how these things are connecting and interacting, and I’m unsure whether everything would become clear if I read the whole thing or if the whole piece is like this. A portrait of Gandhi is followed by a section in which the narrator speaks about walking around in the rain and body falls from a window and impales itself on the narrator’s umbrella. What’s up with that?

The Coming Insurrection

The Coming Insurrection

“The sphere of political representation has come to a close,” announce the Invisible Committee early on in their short book The Coming Insurrection. All we can expect from the political parties is empty posturing, lifeless formulae of statistical correlation. “From left to right it’s the same nothingness striking the pose of an emperor or savior, the same sales assistants adjusting their discourse according to the findings of the latest surveys” (23). Against such empty theatrics, the book argues instead for the virtues of obscurity and opacity, for “turning the anonymity to which we’ve been relegated to our advantage” (113). “Sabotage every representative authority,” the book advises, not least also “the unions and the entire micro-bureaucracy whose job it is to control the struggle” (121). Against the politics of recognition (“from whom do we seek recognition?” it asks [113]), The Coming Insurrection promotes the “joy” of “being nobody” (114).

No doubt this is why its authors choose to remain invisible, though the French domestic security services have alleged that they are in some way connected to the so-called “Tarnac Nine.” Vice Magazine’s ”Vive Le Tarnac Nine” is a good account both of the tiny village of Tarnac in Central France, and of the small group that briefly made it famous: “young people with a history as squatters and anarchist activists who had left the bustling Parisian metropolis to go and live in a forsaken village in mountains that had been, historically, a site of guerrilla warfare.” When, in late 2008, police discovered an attempt to interfere with the high-speed railway lines that pass nearby, nine of these dissidents (who also happened to run the village shop and bar) were rounded up and put on trial for supposed terrorist offences. The Coming Insurrection was presented in court as exhibit A for the prosecution. All of which ensured, of course, that these nobodies became more like somebodies while the book itself was soon more visible than ever.

The notion that this is some kind of terrorist handbook, however, is frankly silly. It’s much more interesting–and serious–than that. It’s unabashedly Communist (“All power to the communes!” it ends [133]), but not conventionally Marxist, though it does endeavour to revive the concept of political economy. Its critique of capitalism has less to do with any concept of exploitation that with the forms of subjectivity that the labour relation engenders. For production today is not so much a matter of the creation of commodities for the market, than it is concerned with the construction of the self, as both producer and consumer: “Producing oneself is becoming the dominant occupation of a society where production no longer has an object” (49). What we sell is “oneself rather than one’s labor power, to be remunerated not for what one does but for what one is, for our exquisite mastery of social codes” (50). This is the truth of “human capital,” the outcome of a never-ending manufacturing process, which occupies our so-called leisure time as much as our work time, in which “you are yourself a little business, your own boss, your own product” (51). In short, the problem of representation is not merely a question of political theatre, but also of everyday life as we are endlessly enjoined to polish our CVs, our social media profiles, and make ourselves adaptable, employable. We are being consumed, or rather emptied out, by our own self-representations. Those who can’t make it–or, more precisely, those who cannot make themselves–are left on the scrapheap. This is capitalism’s own mechanism of terror, by which “on the one hand, ghosts are brought to life, and on the other, the living are left to die. This is the properly political function of the contemporary production apparatus” (51).

What then is to be done? Form communes, of course. “Communes come into being when people find each other, get on with each other, and decide on a common path” (101). This also involves an exodus from the regime of the individualized self, but what counts is ultimately what they affirm rather than what they might (somewhat incidentally) negate. What matters and what defines a commune is “the density of the ties at [its] core” (102). And this in turn is what the book, perhaps surprisingly, describes in terms of a form of truth, for “there’s a truth beneath every gesture, every practice, every relationship, and every situation. [. . .] An isolated being who holds fast to a truth will inevitably meet others like her. In fact, every insurrectional process starts from a truth that we refuse to give up” (97-98). In contrast, then, to a revolutionary tradition that tends to stress sacrifice, here it is tenacity that is the ultimate virtue. And while both sacrifice and tenacity may be forms of selflessness, here that is because what is refused is the imposition of a self (or an injunction to self-fashioning) that takes us away from a truth that is always impersonal, shared, held in common.

This discourse of truth may seem strangely staid, perhaps even quasi-religious (fundamentalist?). It’s not what we usually expect of contemporary French philosophy–and interestingly, The Coming Insurrection also features a short but sharp critique of “postmodernist thinkers” for promoting a “total absence of certitude.” “Western imperialism,” we’re told, “is the imperialism of relativism, of the ‘It all depends on your point of view’” (92). At which point the danger is that the Invisible Committee, like denizens of hippie communes in the 1960s, fall into the celebration of an exotic and largely imaginary version of non-Western certitudes, perhaps centered around a localist relation to the Earth or Nature. But the truths affirmed here are always relationships rather than essences, and however much the book argues for blocking the flows that define the capitalist metropolis (hence allegedly the link between this book and the sabotage of the French railway network) it has little time for “local slowness and rootedness” (109). A commune is not a withdrawal or retreat (a “return to the land,” say); it involves taking up arms, if silently and invisibly, such that “the expansive movement of commune formation should surreptitiously overtake the movement of the metropolis” (109).

The Invisible Committee’s subsequent publication, To Our Friends, opens with the declaration that “The insurrections have come, finally.” And indeed it’s true that the years following the 2007 appearance of The Coming Insurrection have seen not only the Arab Spring but also the rise of movements such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. But are these constituted by communes as envisaged here? Too often–not unlike Corbyn in the UK, as well as Sanders and even Trump in the USA–what they claim is in fact to reinvigorate political representation, to make hegemony fit for purpose once more. As such, we are still some way from this book’s “dream of an age that is equal to our passions” (84).

The Coming Insurrection – Week 12

So, this book I would argue is probably the most interesting of all that we have read. To some degree it is sort of on par with Che’s Guerrilla Warfare in the sense that there is this sense to rise up. However, the tone of it is slightly different and maybe because in Guerrilla Warfare the context was rising up as guerrilla soldiers and fighting to topple down the government. In this book, there is a sense of an insurrection, but one of younger students who won’t necessarily topple down the government, but rather use their words and ideas to fight back. In this regard, both texts do give us this revolutionary sense but just slightly different. To begin, the book gives us a very negative perspective of the system. They have no faith or trust in the system anymore, and the tone of the author is rather mocking I find. What I found interesting reading this book was yes it’s a very critical piece of work, but to the point that I felt as if there was this sense of duty being evoked by the author and asked upon us. Nevertheless, at the same time it is all very anonymous. I don’t really know who is speaking. These are just the general literary aspects of the book I got and found interesting. However, I would now like to move onto some quotes which merit further discussion.

The first chapter is titled, “I am what I am”. The author dislikes this quote because it is simplistic, unproductive and selfish. It’s all about the me. It also does not really tell much. I like the quote however, because yes everything the author suggests is true, but also because it is a very unique question that inherently  makes people want to ask, “well who I am then?” to which the response would be, “well you are you”. Well what does that mean exactly? What I mean is, the question makes you think critically about yourself and the situation around you which I think is very important for revolution. Further along, the author also mentions this system of power dynamics. He illustrates this by referring to the idea that many of us are being pressured and asked to be someone, and that instead we should be the ones to make that choice, and as he says, we should “liberate ourselves”. All this power dynamics creates a space where war can happen.

Another chapter I found very interesting was that in regards to the environment. It struck me, and I liked very much how the author said, “maybe it doesn’t concern us because it doesn’t touch us…. and that is the catastrophe itself” (28). This quote is very true. We don’t care about the environment because we are not directly affected. We also cannot see the first impact it makes because climate change is a gradual process. If we cannot see it, or if we’re not affected, we don’t care. This is why this quote is great, and yes is the catastrophe itself. However, even talking about solutions to environmental degradation is something that the author looks at in a negative way. This quote really does a great job at expressing his stance and reasoning, “The present paradox of ecology is that on the pretext of saving the Earth, it is merely saving the foundations of what desolated it” (31). He is referring to the fact that the problems we’ve created;  business, corporations, capitalists in a sense are now becoming aware and trying to fix this. Yet, the author is being very critical and arguably cynical as he finds it ironic that we are as he says, “and stupid as we are, we’re ready to leap into the arms of the very same people that presided over causing the devastation, expecting them to get us out of it”. Basically, the author thinks it’s a farce and is very against it.

Finally, I would like to address two powerful quotes that to a certain extent are common. The first quote is, “We have to critique in order to save this civilization” (38). What this suggests therefore is that knowledge, thinking, being critical, reasoning, this is man’s greatest weapon. Would I agree? I could say yes, but I would need more time to reflect. Though the idea makes sense. And lastly, there is this quote, “the circulation of knowledge annuls hierarchy” (55). This is somewhat similar to the first, in that knowledge is not just (the most) powerful tool, but it can “annul this hierarchy”. Basically, what these quotes are therefore saying, is that the greatest weapons are ourselves. Not guns, or tear gas, or tanks. But ourselves. We have the power to think and challenge the system. We have this “cognitive” capacity that is unique to humans. Let us use it therefore.

Overall, a very interesting read.  Unfortunately I don’t have time to say more, for example this quote where the author says, “there is no such thing as peaceful insurrection”. But looking forward to this week’s discussion.

Declaration

Hardt and Negri, Declaration

Slavoj Zizek famously said of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire that it was “the Communist Manifesto for the twenty-first century.” With Declaration, Hardt and Negri apparently repudiate Zizek’s praise, as they argue that manifestos are “obsolete” in that they “provide a glimpse of the world to come and also call into being the subject, who although now only a specter must materialize to become the agent of change.” But that subject is with us here and now, they claim: “Agents of change have already descended into the streets and occupied city squares, not only threatening and toppling rulers but also conjuring visions of a new world” (1). So it is not a manifesto that we need, but an updated Declaration of Independence, and Hardt and Negri unabashedly take the US Declaration as their model when they write that:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are equal, that they have acquired through political struggle certain inalienable rights, that among these are not only life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness but also free access to the common, equality in the distribution of wealth, and the sustainability of the common. (51)

On this basis, they call then for a new constitution, and begin to outline some of its possible features (again) on the lines of the US model, examining in turn the requirements of an executive, legislature, and judiciary in a federal structure that would “constitute the procedural horizon of a participatory democracy of the common” (84).

But not so fast. Who are these “agents of change” who are already among us? It turns out that they are in the first instance the multitudes who participated in the wave of protests, encampments, and rebellions of 2011: from Tunisia and the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street or the Spanish indignados. Declaration, published in 2012, is written in the heady aftermath of these movements. Five years on, however, in each case disillusion and even disaster are the order of the day: the Arab Spring has left us with new forms of authoritarianism or bloodshed in Egypt, Libya, and Syria; there may be something of the spirit of Occupy in Bernie Sanders’s insurgent campaign in the primaries, but the US is likely to end up with Clintonian business as usual or, worse, Donald Trump; and in Spain (as in Greece) the initial radicalism of the indignados has devolved into the tepid compromises with a dominant political order negotiated by Podemos (and Syriza). The subject of any Declaration of Independence is once again more spectre than actuality: it refuses to go away, but it is not exactly fully here. There may still be room for a manifesto or two. The Revolution is almost as distant as ever, and that is not simply because the structures of power remain as resilient as ever, but also because the revolutionary subjectivities that would overthrow them are perhaps somewhat less tangible than Hardt and Negri would here have us believe.

In fact, in practice Declaration recognizes this dilemma. The best parts of the book are not so much its re-imaginings of specific constitutional arrangements (which become increasingly vague and repetitive) as its analyses of the ways in which multitudinous subjectivity is (still) captured, mystified, and folded in upon itself in contemporary neoliberalism. Hardt and Negri thus offer a typopology of neoliberal subject positions, all of which we collectively inhabit to one degree or another: the indebted, the mediatized, the securitized, and the represented. Debt prevails as “rent, not profit” increasingly drives the capitalist economy (12); unlike traditional wage exploitation, it produces subjects whose productivity is obscured as they see themselves only as consumers. The media, meanwhile, shape subjectivities that are not so much alienated as co-opted, “constantly absorbed in attention” (16); here it is their affective capacities that are hidden and betrayed. Surveillance society generalizes fear but also makes us all would-be vigilantes; we find ourselves “deprived of every possibility of associative, just, and loving social exchange” (29). Finally, representation “gathers together the figures of the indebted, the mediatized, and the securitized and, at the same time, epitomizes the end result of their subordination and corruption” (25); here it is political action that is proclaimed to be forever inaccessible to ordinary folk.

Each of these four mystifications, however, is equally an index of powers of the multitude that can no longer be simply repressed or ignored: the powers of productivity, affect, association, and constitution. In brief, just as Hardt and Negri (somewhat heretically) overturn the Marxist Labour Theory of Value, because it is no longer simply labour that produces value for capital, so they aim to expand our sense of the powers that can be put to the building of a new society. So instead of the “lament” to which the Left always tends (as left-wing parties “lament the destruction of the welfare state, the imperial military adventures, [. . .] the overwhelming power of finance” and so on [87-8]), Hardt and Negri ask us to prepare for the event that will “completely reshuffle the decks of political powers and possibility” (102). Ultimately this is how they see “the cycle of struggles of 2011,” as “preparing ground for an event they cannot foresee or predict” (103). They tell us that history is full of such unforeseen events and assure us that “you don’t have to be a millenarian to believe that [. . . they] will come again” (102). Maybe not. But it sure helps if you are.

teaching

I wasn’t sure how class would go but I actually feel like it went really well. I think we were able to connect the movie and the article well and that they, combined, lead to a good discussion. I also felt like people really did read the article and that they found it, at least to some degree, stimulating. Thanks everyone, for that. By the end I felt that we were potentially going in circles a bit, but that we were still agreeing with each other in the process. I felt our discussion hit a bit of a brick wall in that I felt my only options were to suggest that we all drop out of school right away, and then to do so. Obviously I didn’t do that but I still don’t feel optimistic about my time here, as the university is a site of violence and began as a colonial instrument (to teach Indians to be more Western/British in their thinking) Maybe, if I had been payed to go to Cambridge I’d be thinking about this differently, but as it stands right now, that isn’t the case and never will be.

Sorry everyone, I’m very sad this morning reflecting on these conversations, and also I’m sad because Jian Ghomehi just got acquitted of all five crimes.

Here is a rough lesson plan:

I thought we would discuss:

Times when we have felt ourselves hitting a proverbial “brick wall” and brainstorm as a class ways to potentially avoid those experiences in the future?

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”  – Audre Lorde
What does this quote mean for us/the university/us, at the university?

Do we ever personally see ourselves as “embodying diversity”?

What are some concrete examples of radical action, coming from below, in the university?

The Country Under My Skin – Lesson Plan and Reflections

Thursday Class 3/17/2016

 

The Country Under My Skin

 

Before discussion:

A brief historical view of pre-revolutionary Nicaragua, the video explains a bit about the involvement of the United States and how its intervention in Nicaragua eventually lead to the formation of the Sandinistas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuBNV3lpdZY 2:25 – 9:25

 

Discussion Topics:

Do we, as a class, think that The Country Under My Skin is a revolutionary text?

First we must define what a revolutionary text is

pro vs against  

-Her looking back on her experiences in the revolution and her moving to the United States, P.367: “I realize that for me the Revolution….”

– Lack of belief that the FSLN would win the election after the revolution, P.353: “I wasn’t as sure as my companeros that the public would vote overwhelmingly in favor of the FSLN.”

 

How does being alienated from the decision-making process of the revolution affect her dedication to the cause?

-She is always sandinista, but more skeptical of planning, people, ways of handling things:  P.156: “Of all the Sandinista leaders I had met, Humberto Ortega was the first who really troubled me.”

P.165: “I was upset. I didn’t understand why, at the last minute, they had decided to use me. It seemed like a lack of foresight, a troubling symptom of their tendency to improvise.”

-However, this can go both ways, as she often describes how other Sandinistas might regard her with suspicion:

P.257:”Sandinistas who came from upper-class backgrounds felt too intimidated to point out this policy of exclusion, at the expense of agreements that had been made during the struggle. We were afraid to be eyed with suspicion.”

 

Is Belli disillusioned in regards to the revolution? If so how does the reality of the revolution counteract her ideals for it?

-Her reflection on the structure of the revolution in regards to other revolutions, P.276: “We wanted a new kind of revolution that would be original and open, the product of a tropical, irreverent left-wing movement.”

-Her ideals for the true goals of the revolution, P.178: “The revolution sought not only to bring about political change, but also to instill ethical values.”

Does the conflict between her ideals and reality cause Belli to distance herself from the movement? Or does it lead her to fight more to be part of it?

 

What do we think that Belli’s role was within the Sandinistas? Was this role influenced by her class or gender in any way?

– Modesto’s opinion of Belli, P.197: “But Modesto felt I was the best person to deliver money, messages, and sensitive documents between Costa Rica, Honduras, and Panama, because he thought my upper-class looks would protect me from the usual scrutiny at airports.”

 

Does having a female narrator offer us a different understanding of the revolution compared to the male narrators?

  • “ if iconic figures such as Che Guevara have imagined the revolution as something that takes place far away from home, the women of Latin America in particular have claimed a place for themselves on the battlefield as well as in bed. Their insistence that the revolution begins at home is familiar turf for feminists, as are their effort to continue the revolutionary process in the public sphere.” – Gregory Stephens in “Gioconda Belli on Women in Love and War: Unfinished Revolutions in the Revolutionary Process”
  • “Who really cared about Che’s love life? History didn’t linger over such details” – Gioconda Belli in The Inhabited Woman

 

How does Belli’s drive for fulfillment affects her relationships with everyone around her?

-Does Modesto’s approval of her work have an affect on their relationship, P.200 “Sergio was always criticizing what I did, while Modesto praised me and made me feel valued.”

-overwhelmingness of the her fulfillment, recognized for more than just gender

 

How do relationships with other women and their shared experiences within the revolution affect Belli?

-Concerning her relationship with Charlie Castaldi:

“Would I be a woman in love or a revolutionary? Would I let my emotions rule or choose to be a “new person”, that utopian, Che Guevarista paradigm, ready to renounce everything for the love of country?” P.321

, 340-341
Do we see any interesting similarities/differences between this book and Cartucho?

 

Reflections:

José: Overall I think that our class presentation went pretty well overall, I think that as a class we were able to go through Simon and mines lesson plan very well. The discussion that took place on the different aspects of the book were ones that created new ideas that I feel were not discussed in class on Tuesday. The concept of whether a revolution is successful or not was brought up, also, the idea of what a revolution truly means to an individual was brought up. I do think that we got a bit sidetracked a couple of times which limited our ability to talk about other questions that we had prepared for class. Even still though I thought that the degree of conversation that we were able to have was very positive. If there was more time I think I would have liked to talk about how our knowledge of Belli’s personal life affects our relationship with her as a guerilla, a revolutionary, and as a narrator. Although we discussed her revolutionary lifestyle in depth I feel like that we somewhat grazed over her personal life a bit, even though her personal life may not seem as relevant to the topic of revolutions, I think it would have been a good discussion to have.

Simon: I completely agree with Jose that this class discussion went very well, and I think that we as a class managed to make some very interesting points on both The Country Under My Skin and revolution in general. Before presenting I was concerned that Belli’s memoir was perhaps too different from what we had seen before, or too potentially contentious to easily bring about an insightful discussion, but in the end I think that it was actually thanks to these things that the discussion ended up being so interesting. I also think that relying a more on free discussion than some of the previous classes also helped really explore the questions we had. Debates and going around the class can definitely lead to some thought-provoking comments, but they also lose in spontaneity. As Jose also mentions, I do think we got a little side-tracked on some of the questions, which I suppose is the inevitable flip side of allowing free-flowing discussion. I do think it’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t get to cover all of the questions we had planned, especially the one on Belli’s importance as a female narrator of the revolution. However, we did cover all of the other main topics we had prepared, including social class which I found particularly engaging.

Week 11

I found all the readings assigned for this week very interesting, but I was most struck by “The Colonialism of the Present”, and his framing of the ongoing settler colonialism in Canada. I was relatively unfamiliar with the current struggles of indigenous peoples in Canada, although I assumed they would be relatively similar to what Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians – to only cite a few – have been facing. There were indeed parallels to be drawn in the shocking instances of oppression committed by each settler state upon their indigenous population, such as between Canadian residential schools and the Australian “Stolen Generations”. This makes tackling such issues all the more important, as questions of colonial oppression and recognition are still relevant in many countries across the globe in spite of the supposedly post-colonial era we now live in.

I wasn’t at all familiar with Glenn Coulthard before reading this interview – even though he actually teaches here – but now that I have found out about him I am definitely going to try to read more of his work. His insistence that “indigenous land-based direct action is positioned in a very crucial and important place for radical social change” is very good to see in a context where indigenous struggles are often minimised, and much effort is put into removing them from any political context. Coulthard’s emphasis on using Marx’s analysis of the violence inherent in primitive accumulation is particularly interesting, and helps reinstate the importance of such struggles. His call to the political Left to consider present cases of colonial violence more seriously is also an important step that needs to be taken in order to achieve meaningful social change, and instances such as the PCR-RCP’s stance on the indigenous struggle in Canada are essential in that regard.

Coulthard’s use of Fanon’s theory of colonial misrecognition is also very insightful, although it’s pretty saddening that this concept has lost such little relevance nowadays, over 60 years later. Using Fanon as background, Stephen Harper’s official apology to the indigenous peoples of Canada certainly comes across as rather pathetic, and doesn’t even come close to addressing the full scope of the matter. It also makes Coulthard’s call for politically directed outrage and anger towards the state committing colonial violence seem like the only viable option left for indigenous peoples. Also, his argument that anger is too often “seen in a negative light, as being debilitating and pacifying and self-destructive” can definitely be linked with what Sara Ahmed writes in “Embodying diversity: problems and paradoxes for Black feminists”, as can the Canadian state’s inadequate apology with Ahmed ‘s description of neoliberal pacification. The way in which both texts describe the radical potential of anger is very insightful, and I’m hoping we’ll get to talk about it more in this week’s classes.