Hexbear’s latest struggle session is in: should Latin America be considered western or not? I decided to write up some thoughts about it.
The discussion on comrade’s @autismdragon 's post centered around a comrade from Palestine living in Honduras (or born in Honduras with Palestinian ascent) and others from neighboring countries claiming that Honduras (and other neighboring countries) is a western country, as it is populated by christian protestants, speaks a romance language, and has been subject to continuous economical, cultural, and imperialist influence by the United States. Others have pointed out that western should be understood in its most exclusive sense as pertaining only to western europe & the USA, and that racist white people in such countries would never consider a latin american person to be western and therefore it must be true they are not western.
I think this argument fails to capture the way the concept of “western” has been utilized in Latin American countries to further the position of certain groups. So while I do agree that there are fundamental differences between Latin America and Europe or the US (the basis on which I believe they should be understood to be described below), adopting the most radical exclusionary concept of westerness does not allow us to understand the totality of social relations in Latin America, which are very much infused with notions of westerness and white supremacy.
To make an analogy with phenomena within “western in the strict sense” places, it is known that US WASPs did not consider italians or poles or sometimes even germans to be white. Or we can imagine an italian who moves to Sweden and is not reeeealy considered white, over there. Does that mean only the most exclusionary concept of whiteness is true?
Or, rather, should one look into it as a fundamentally relational concept with changing significates? That same italian from the example above can move into Africa or South America and be very much considered white: Brazil for example welcomed several italian migrants during the 19th/20th century as part of a state policy of whitening society. A polish descendant in the US, some generations removed, might very well be considered a white westerner. And our european comrades such as @egon would not BELIEVE what passes for white on, say, northeastern Brazil.
The fact is that such concepts of western institutions and thought, and whiteness, are woven into societies born out of colonization and used even by the mestizo descendants of the colonizers of yesterday. I’m perfectly aware that several argentinian people who consider themselves very white would not be considered white by a racist northern european (or even a mildly progressive one). That does not change the fact that their white and european heritage has a material effect on their social relations within argentinian society.
The fact is also that whiteness and westerness exist insofar as certain parts of latin american society hold the power of defining non-whiteness within their own societies (by e.g. murdering a black or indigenous person). This might be the alchemy of racism in Latin America: nobody is white yet it is clear and defined who is black.
I think disregarding such mechanisms as delusions of a comprador elite, as has been proposed by one of our comrades in the thread, does not allow us to capture the issue in its totality. It also leaves out that although latin american countries generally do not have a nationalistic bourgeoisie as combative as, say, Osama Bin Laden or some russian capitalists, it is also not completely devoid of a certain degree of autonomy and interests that clash with those of imperial/external capital. An internal bourgeoisie, if we go by Poulantzian concepts.
I also think that telling our latin american comrades to shed the concept of westerness because a northern european would not consider a latin american western, while having interesting rethorical effect and shock value, is not as necessary as some comrades in the thread made it out to be. Rather, an european who reminds our latin american comrades that they are very much not western and “to be honest we don’t even consider the czechians western” is merely exercising once again the power to define who is or isn’t [ingroup] that is characteristic of whiteness and westerness. Again, possible rethorical effect but to me it does not seem to further our comprehension of material reality, merely recreating its mechanisms with inverted signifiers.
What would then be a more interesting way of looking into it?
I’m by no means an expert but I also wanted to end this effort post with a more propositional tone. So here is what I think to be more useful to us in a marxist forum.
It is true that Latin America has several cultural ties to the west-in-its-strictest-meaning (e.g. romance languages, christianism); that it has institutional ties to the west-in-its-strictest-meaning (e.g. a lot of state building in Brazil happened when the Portuguese king was in exile following defeat to Napoleon, to the point where some liberal scholars will consider ours a Portuguese-state-in-exile); and that it might as well share some customs (e.g. santa claus dresses in heavy red clothes while christmas is in summer goddamnit) or ideologies (with a seemingly unending propensity to import the latest fads in european economic science). On the other hand, a proper marxist understanding should stress that material conditions are central to the social phenomena observed. A shared cultural heritage (which exists and accounts for comrade’s @CatrachoPalestino considering Honduras western) does not supersede the class relations of indigenous displacement and genocide, black slavery, superexploitation, and having part of our surplus value directed to the central capitalist countries. It is those relations that should be seen as the defining features of our material reality rather that a cultural heritage - which does not exclude looking into how such cultural heritage might be utilized to very material effects.
Final notes: musical notes
I will not translate two song’s lyrics as of right now but I feel two songs are thematically relevant to our discussion which I will leave linked below because I like them. Mapping them out within western or non western musical traditions will be left as an exercise to the reader.
Hey I’ll just say that I’ve lived in a lot of places, including latam. Ive got family in these places as well. (I have a big family that has a tendency to fall in love and then move to where their lover lives lol). I get that “white” is just perception and that people everywhere have different gradients for what white is. I would BELIEVE what passes for white in latam, which is specifically why I answered to that and explained what passed as white in “Europe”.
I was trying to explain to the user that their idea that “enlightened Europeans” totally consider them western, is wrong. They mentioned croatia, and I meant to explain how Croatia, while being perceived as a “white” country most certainly is not perceived as western. Polish people, Czech people, Croatians, these people are not treated as equals when they come into “western” European countries. There is immense racism against them. You should hear how people speak of old “east block” countries.
Hearing someone from Honduras say “our brethren in Europe consider us as equals” breaks my heart, because it’s just not true. People here don’t care about latam for anything other than a breaking bad prequel and maybe a trip abroad to do some skeevy shit. People here think of latam more or less the same way they think of Thailand, just with more crime and danger. Western" is a meaningless descriptor created by racist imperialists to hide what they really mean. If you wanna call yourself western, I don’t give a shit, but I do care that you understand that the people you think of as allies under that classification do not share the same opinion of you or your country.
I also take issue with the paraphrasing of saying I said “we don’t consider Czechians western”. I think it was pretty clear that I presented how Czechians were perceived in the broad culture, not my personal opinion, and presenting it as such is disingenuous.
I tried to use this to explain how, if western (by any fair standard) countries like these do not qualify as “western” then latam definitely doesn’t. It’s not about Christianity or culture or even really money. It’s not even really all about skin colour.
The argument that a lot of Italians went to Brazil, and so the place is “white” is funny to me too. Italians were still treated like an exotic “other” up to the late 90’s lol.
I gotta say though that I think it’s cringe to tell a Latam person to “throw off the yoke of whiteness” or whatever, as some people did. Reeks of white saviour bs.
Fair point on my paraphrase. But I dont think anyone was saying that europeans would consider hondurans their brethren. Merely that the concept of western should be understood in a broader sense, as it is commonly understood within Latam - where the view that Latam is western is commonplace. Being mindful of that distinction in the extent of the concept is useful, at the very least when talking tô someone from Latam.
But you’re asking why people in the west aren’t considering Hondurans western, despite Hondurans themselves thinking so. The discussion wasn’t one of allowing a people the right for themselves to determine what to call them, but why the rest of that community do not consider them members.
People aren’t saying “Hondurans can’t call themselves western”. They’re saying “other westerners do no consider Hondurans western” and it is from there the disagreement comes and the subsequent discussion.
In that sense it is a question of brotherhood - membership of the same community.
I’m not personally asking it, much the same as you pointed out that there is a difference between your personal opinions and broadly held ones. But ive been met with puzzled stares enough times when casting doubt on The notion that we maybe arent fully considered western, by people with whom I was talking / debating irl, to understand that a different approach to this discourse is more effective in Latam.