Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

BBC – SHERLOCK – SERIES 1-3

This series is essential to understand what is happening to any cultural product with time. Nothing is eternal, nothing is ever understood the same, nothing can outlast time itself. To say tat sounds like a common place statement, and yet so many people are still speaking of Shakespeare as being eternal, though he did not exist before his first play was performed. Not to speak of the Bible, the Quran, the Dhammapada, etc. All these books were written on one particular date and occasion, and this writing was a long process, at times a whole collection of various writings, with the exclusion of many others though similar and from the same people or source.

Conan Doyle is eternal, isn’t he? Sherlock Holmes is eternal isn’t he? John Watson is eternal, isn’t he? And yet the BBC is doing with this fictional character what it did a long time ago, though quite more moderately in this latter case, that of Shakespeare’s full production of all his plays, as recognized in the 1980s. And they do it brilliantly.

It is brilliant to set the various stories within the present modern context. Afghanistan is more interesting than the South African war. Modern taxis and automobiles are more interesting than horse-drawn vehicles or the old primitive taxis of the 1920s. It is also more interesting to have modern smart phones and tablets and portable computers than pigeons and owls. The stories speak to us directly because they are positioned in our very world.

The second element is the psychological aspect of the characters. Sherlock Holmes is described with a lot more realism in his morphine addiction or in his crooked and twisted sex life, not to speak of his infancy, childhood and parents. He is even provided with a brother who is a top civil servant of the government. Sherlock Holmes has a real personal and social density. He is at the crossroads between criminals, official police, secret services, the top and often invisible civil service and politicians. We really are in a world we know and not a world of the old days, a world that does not exist any more. Does it give more density to Sherlock Holmes? I believe so, even if at times he is a show-off and particularly redundant at that.

They also manage to give to strange events a dimension that makes them imaginable, maybe not feasible and believable but more believable than in the original stories. His death and resurrection is funny like hell and there are so many versions provided to us on the screen that we are just wondering if he really died and really resurrected or if he did not die and did not resurrect? We are just confronted to some kind of electronic game with life and death. It is funny. But on the other side he does not play on his underground jobs so much, his art of disguising himself into anything and anyone. But we can survive this loss.

The stories are also dealing with a reality we know very well. Anyone who knows about the famous plot theories about the world and all political events will be at ease in this approach which is a real marvel as for plotting the end of the enemy, of the challenger, of the shadow cast on you, of anyone and anything that is making you small and insignificant when you are world leader of anything, even drugs and crime. Of course it is in many ways absurd, but Ukraine is there to show that these politics of plotting may be quite effective at times.

Don’t expect a classical series with forty-five minute episodes. The episodes are quite longer than that, even more than one hour and a half, or close to it. But they are very dynamic and you won’t go to sleep on them.

The main pleasure remains that these characters are marvelously revived, recreated, adapted to our own psyche and we can maybe not fall in love with them but really appreciate their finesse, and their very perverse English humor, one of the best humors in the world. The best example is John Watson’s best man’s now famous speech that is just everything but a best man’s speech, but really funny it is. Indeed. Just like the switch on the counter of a mega bomb.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

YOUNG FATHERS – DEAD – WWW.YOUNG6FATHERS.COM – 2014

They are beyond the limits of the reclusion of music in genres. They are of no genre at all because they are their own everything fighting against the world that is trying to catch them and to laminate them into flotsam and jetsam on the ocean of rejection and in the sky of exploitation, under the rollercoaster and the bulldozer of superpostmodernistic-expialidocious magic poison that will put some potion in your engine and a tiger in your pants. Front or back depends on your desire to enjoy or to suffer, to climax or to be climaxed into and filled to the brim.

That surrounding warlike world is everywhere superb and frightening like a noise that makes you deaf, like a noise that makes you dead, like a noise that makes you a recluse in some kind of rat’s hole at the bottom of a cave at the end of a dead-end impasse and blind alley all three in one. And you pretend to see, you pretend to be seen ! ! ! You are nothing but an invisible blind monster in a coal cellar illuminated by the lightning of their warlike cataclysm, à la Ralph Ellison.

So then what can I do?

Nothing brother, nothing father, nothing mother, nothing sister. You are fucked up and you can’t even fuck anyone up or down because they have stolen your family jewels, they have cut them clean and neat at stomach level. Nothing left of anything that could have been a tool to inflict any vengeful despicable hatred. You have lost your sword because they cut it off your groin and it is dangling now from their belt next to the scalps of all their victims.

In this world there is nothing left and you try in all possible ways to capture and dominate that crowd of a noise that is overpowering your very heart rhythm into some cardiac arrest but your words are useless and powerless and impotent. You cry and cry, you repeat and repeat, you yell and yell, you shout and shout, but nothing will come out of your brain, out of your mind, out of your mouth even, even so or nevertheless, except barborygmi from the deepest vegetative intestines of your body in the process of dying that have taken over your skull and filled up your cranium.

So you try to reinvent what used to be so strong in your imagination. You try to still dream yourself as the catalyst of a revolution, daydream yourself as an AK47 shitting and spitting its bullets in a never-ending succession of death blows and lethal bullets. But all that is passé, finished and in fact you have no past and no future because you have no present and your hand is impotent as for even making your body hurt, let alone have an orgasm of pleasure or even of pain. You cannot start because you do not know how to begin.

That final song, chant, dirge that is falling from the lips of the nearly dead Jesus on his cross that you collect as if it were the most sacred blood of the most precious god is in fact your testament to this world that has to change as fast as possible if you do not want to just hand yourself two feet over the ground. And if you do not do it yourself there will always be someone who will do it for you; there is always a little courageous hangman among your neighbors who love you so that they will provide the rope free and they will pull on your feet when you are hanging to speed up your final urination. Mother fucker or is it father fucker?

Beyond rock of any type, beyond rap of any flavor, beyond slam of any suburban self-declaring slam poet. You are beyond any sacred book, be it the Bible or the Quran, not to mention the Dhammapada or any other Thorah of sorts or of some sort or other. You do not need a wall of wailing in any sacred city because you are the only wall of wailing you can ever consider and that wall you are is wailing all right, day and night. That’s the most powerful part of this music: it is self-flagellating itself with its own notes and words and yet it demands more, it requires more, it longs for more and we are swallowed up in that personal sadistic masochism of an Auto-de-Fe that roasts your body, our flesh under the sad eyes of your mind, our mind because you have no soul, we have no soul and your mind, our mind is trapped in your brain, our brain that will eventually sizzle on the grill of purification.

In other words I fell for that raping music that made my senses rage and my passions desire diving into it and let it purely torture me to death, knowing that death will bring some painful resurrection like the pain one feels after a successful orgasm when it stops.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

POLITICALLY CORRECT VERSION

They are beyond the limits of the reclusion of music in genres. They are of no genre at all because they are their own everything fighting against the world that is trying to catch them and to laminate them into flotsam and jetsam on the ocean of rejection and in the sky of exploitation, under the rollercoaster and the bulldozer of superpostmodernistic-expialidocious magic poison that will put some potion in your engine and a tiger in your pants. Front or back depends on your desire to enjoy or to suffer, to climax or to be climaxed into and filled to the brim.

That surrounding warlike world is everywhere superb and frightening like a noise that makes you deaf, like a noise that makes you dead, like a noise that makes you a recluse in some kind of rat’s hole at the bottom of a cave at the end of a dead-end impasse and blind alley all three in one. And you pretend to see, you pretend to be seen ! ! ! You are nothing but an invisible blind monster in a coal cellar illuminated by the lightning of their warlike cataclysm, à la Ralph Ellison.

So then what can I do?

Nothing brother, nothing father, nothing mother, nothing sister. You are f***ed up and you can’t even f*** anyone up or down because they have stolen your family jewels, they have cut them clean and neat at stomach level. Nothing left of anything that could have been a tool to inflict any vengeful despicable hatred. You have lost your sword because they cut it off your groin and it is dangling now from their belt next to the scalps of all their victims.

In this world there is nothing left and you try in all possible ways to capture and dominate that crowd of a noise that is overpowering your very heart rhythm into some cardiac arrest but your words are useless and powerless and impotent. You cry and cry, you repeat and repeat, you yell and yell, you shout and shout, but nothing will come out of your brain, out of your mind, out of your mouth even, even so or nevertheless, except barborygmi from the deepest vegetative intestines of your body in the process of dying that have taken over your skull and filled up your cranium.

So you try to reinvent what used to be so strong in your imagination. You try to still dream yourself as the catalyst of a revolution, daydream yourself as an AK47 shitting and spitting its bullets in a never-ending succession of death blows and lethal bullets. But all that is passé, finished and in fact you have no past and no future because you have no present and your hand is impotent as for even making your body hurt, let alone have an orgasm of pleasure or even of pain. You cannot start because you do not know how to begin.

That final song, chant, dirge that is falling from the lips of the nearly dead Jesus on his cross that you collect as if it were the most sacred blood of the most precious god is in fact your testament to this world that has to change as fast as possible if you do not want to just hand yourself two feet over the ground. And if you do not do it yourself there will always be someone who will do it for you; there is always a little courageous hangman among your neighbors who love you so that they will provide the rope free and they will pull on your feet when you are hanging to speed up your final urination. Mother f***er or is it father f***er?

Beyond rock of any type, beyond rap of any flavor, beyond slam of any suburban self-declaring slam poet. You are beyond any sacred book, be it the Bible or the Quran, not to mention the Dhammapada or any other Thorah of sorts or of some sort or other. You do not need a wall of wailing in any sacred city because you are the only wall of wailing you can ever consider and that wall you are is wailing all right, day and night. That’s the most powerful part of this music: it is self-flagellating itself with its own notes and words and yet it demands more, it requires more, it longs for more and we are swallowed up in that personal sadistic masochism of an Auto-de-Fe that roasts your body, our flesh under the sad eyes of your mind, our mind because you have no soul, we have no soul and your mind, our mind is trapped in your brain, our brain that will eventually sizzle on the grill of purification.

In other words I fell for that raping music that made my senses rage and my passions desire diving into it and let it purely torture me to death, knowing that death will bring some painful resurrection like the pain one feels after a successful orgasm when it stops.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

AMAZON.COM refuses the censored version whereas AMAZON.CO.UK has already put it on line and AMAZON.FR has so far done nothing but they had the original version so I just provided the censored one.

PAUL GREEN - IN ABRAHAM’S BOSOM – 1926

This is a short play but essential and early in history, just after the fall of Marcus Garvey, that in a way marks the beginning of the real movement that will bring final liberation, even if it is not yet entirely fulifilled.

Abraham at the beginning is like Marcus Garvey who is dreaming to capture knowledge in order to become the leader of his race. But at the same time and when you look at the whole play this Abraham is also a negative embodiment of Booker T. Washington who had had the chance of studying some and then had worked like a normal simple black person in poverty and toil for some boss in mines. And yet he got the chance again of being supported by someone into creating a school that will be of note.

Paul Green follows a very dark line. His character is full of anger against the world he sees as his limit, his limitation, his prison in which he is locked up and unable to step out. He wants to learn and then to teach, but he does not know that one is good at one subject, learning or teaching, if one is also good at all other material subjects and activities you as yourself and you as a member of a community need to survive, hence to live, hence to be creative and become more creative with the rising of your mind from these simple material activities and subjects. I pity in a way – if I have time and energy to do so – someone who is only able to intellectualize life into mental ranting and raving based on no real work, experience, life in the dirt, dust, garbage and even manure of real everyday survival.

He wants to be before becoming. He wants to have before getting. If he is not becoming and if he is not getting he accuses others, and particularly whites, even the whites who are his benefactors, to be his enemies, those who prevent him from rising. His life is thus a long sequence of failures. The first child of his who survives is indeed the third one. The others die early or are not born alive. After that one child he does not get anything at all as if his fertility had gone. He was a hot rabbit before but once he has one little cub he stops playing the hot rabbit at all.

He gets the chance of being able to teach, from the white man who is his father, who has  raped, more or less, his mother, but in a way he, spits in the hand of his own father and he tries to have some fight with his own white brother. And he will beat a child under his responsibility in his first school so hard, so bad he will be expelled from his first school and his place of birth. Since he suffered he will make sure everyone suffers as much as him from his own hellish derangement.

Then he roams from one place of work to another and he is always mixed up in some violence, often at the initiative of it, calling for that violence, causing strikes, riots, and so on and being expelled from one place to the next to be expelled again.

His son is destroyed by this lack of love and trust in life and the world. His father will beat him too often and will in the end kick him out and away. That will cause his final downfall into drugs, alcoholism, etc, though he has a musical talent that his father refuses to see. This will be developed at length by James Baldwin later. Music is the future for that young man and his own father destroys that future. I will say that music is the future if not the essence of Black people in the USA, and this Abraham does not even see it. He refuses that future because he is unable to grasp the idea that the future is what you make it with your own hands and your own talents, not with the demanded and forced help from others who owe you nothing, or so little anyway, at least in their minds.

It sounds absurd but that is the position of that Abraham: everything is supposed to be given to him because he wants it and considers he deserves it, because the world and everyone in this world owes him not one but at least a dozen. That attitude leads him to his final devilish and criminal act: he kills his white half-brother. He is a new Cain. He is cursed and doomed, just as he was from the very start. Is it because he was a mixed blood, hence the product of the mixing of white and black blood? The play seems to imply that and we must not forget that Marcus Garvey in the same period met with the grand leader of the Ku Klux Klan to share his racial purity theory with him since for Marcus Garvey racial mixing was a crime against the race and the guarantee of failure of the race’s rising.

What is strange is that Booker T. Washington was exactly like this Abraham, the son of a black woman more or less taken if not raped by some white man who could have been anyone. Then this totally failing under-human impersonation of Booker T. Washington seems to imply there is no future and the leader is nothing but necessarily a martyr like Markus Garvey.

The vision is bleak, black, dark, sinister, etc. There is no end in that line of despair.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

HERMAN L. BENNETT – AFRICANS IN COLONIAL MEXICO, ABSOLUTISM, CHRISTIANITY, AND AFRO-CREOLE CONSCIOUSNESS, 1570-1640 – INDIANA UNIVESITY PRESS – 2003

This book is fundamental. Everyone would say that Blacks are not part of the ethnic landscape of Mexico. So it is very important to explore the real presence of Blacks in Mexico as soon as New Spain, since that was its name then, was established in the 16^th century, in Cortez’s times. This book is full of real data about the arrival of Blacks and their importance for the future of Mexico.

Slave trade stopped in 1640, as for Mexico, when new arrivals of slaves were banned in Spanish America. But what was the situation before?

Let’s start with the situation in 1646. There were then a total of 151,618 Africans and descendants of Africans, in other words Blacks in all possible shades. 116,520 were free and only 35,098 were slaves, hence only 23% of the total black population. But this domination of free Blacks was already reached at the end of the 16^th century, but what’s more, at this time Africans and their descendants were more numerous than Spaniards in many cities, particularly Mexico. That’s one original fact about Africans in New Spain. The slaves arrived first of all along with the Spaniards from Spain where they had lived for many years. These slaves were called ladinos, they could speak Spanish and knew all he intricacies of the Spanish system and institutions. These black servants, slaves or non-slaves later on, where an element of social status for the masters who paraded these slaves or non-slaves in all occasions. That leads to the simple fact that New Spain had the second largest population of enslaved Africans and the greatest number of free blacks in the Americas at the end of the 16^th century onward for quite a while.

They were brought into Mexico as servants of any sort of the Spanish elite, then as slaves this time from Africa to work in the mines, along with Indians, especially silver and gold mines, and finally to work on the sugar plantations (Cortez started the first sugar mill in Mexico and his fourth sugar mill was water-powered, meaning that in his mind slave labor was not the essential not final solution) and the tobacco plantations that the book totally ignores. Spain will have the monopoly of tobacco in Europe up to 1616 when John Rolfs and Princess Pocahontas, aka Rebecca Rolfe, brought to the English court the first batch of good Virginian tobacco produced by them on their Virginian plantation (note Black slaves will only arrive in Virginia in 1619 brought by some Dutch slave-dealer).

The question here is where are these Black people, what have these Black people become? The answer is simple: they got genetically integrated but then the question is how since this fact is unique in the Americas, except for what we call Black Indians in the USA, though no complete study and counting has so far been done.

The general procedure is simple to understand. Slaves arriving from Spain with Spaniards (Ladinos) or imported from Africa (Bozals) are supposed to respect some rules edicted by Charles V and Philip II, the essential Spanish kings of that period, and of course the tradition of the Catholic Church, its various councils and what is called Canon Law. Three logics have to be identified and there is a contradiction within these three logics.

For the slave owners, the slaves are nothing but chattel, property, a possession of some sort that he thinks is and wants to be under his absolute authority. That’s the logic of slavery later on in English colonies in the USA, both Anglican and Puritan of any affiliation. It will produce the famous one-drop-of-blood theory that produced in its turn the racial purity approach so dear to both the Ku Klux Klan and Marcus Garvey.

In New Spain the Spanish Crown imposes royal absolutism which implies any human being is a subject of the King and as such is a man of reason, or vice versa, since the Blacks are men of reason they are subjects of the king. That implies they are under the jurisdiction of royal courts and first of all the Royal Inquisition that is installed in New Spain, in Mexico City in 1571 with the Edict of Faith and the two auto de Fes of February 28, 1574 and then March 6, 1575. For the king the blacks represent some possible or potential disruption, hence they have to be controlled, and Charles V edicted that this control has to be done through marriage, the Grand Remedy. But marriage is a Christian sacrament. Note here the natives, the Indians are not considered as men of reason, hence are not concerned by the Inquisition. They are beyond royal justice. They are only controlled through violence. They are in no way royal subjects.

But this insistence on marriage comes from canon law that states a man and a woman have to be married to be full Christians. In fact a Christian is supposed to go through five sacraments: baptism, confirmation, yearly confession, marriage and last rites. Note burying is not one of these rites, hence the way the body of a dead Christian is dealt with does not concern the Church. The king had imposed the rule that all Africans brought to America have to be Christians when stepping down from the ships. Hence they must have been baptized before landing. Then to be proper Christians they have to come to marriage. Extra-marital sex is unholy and sex can only be holy if it is within matrimony that has to be monogamous and faithful. This matrimony and the sacrament of marriage have to be entered freely by both future spouses and under no duress from anyone. Christians are persons with souls and all baptized people, hence all Africans arriving from Africa, are such persons with souls with all Christian obligations. These rights and obligations are listed in the Spanish Sieta Partidas (that was reasserted in 1571 in the Edict of Faith read from the pulpit within Sunday mass in 1971 when the Inquisition was installed) and the French Code Noir.

Note the Indians are considered as pagans and as such are considered as being “Extra Ecclesiam” that tolerates these pagan or infidel populations but on the margin of the Christians themselves. This concept goes back a long time before the colonization of the Americas, was already active during the Crusades and even before. Those people cannot know the “state of grace” that only Christianity can bring, but this concept clearly states that there cannot be any forced conversion. Note in Spain when the Christian Kings expelled the Jews, they were given the choice between leaving or converting and that should have been considered as some kind of duress. Note the enormous massacres of Indians in New Spain were done in the name of Christianity and could have been seen as a situation of duress for them to convert, though the Catholic Church did not insist – at least too much – on that.

The contradiction here is between the simple property or possession a slave was for the slave-owner on one hand and the fact that the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church provided these  slaves with the status of royal subjects (people of reason) and Christians (people with souls). This has tremendous consequences.

Before entering the consequences – mostly concerning marriage – we have to understand the slaves and non slaves, from Spain or from Africa, and their descendants are in a situation of total cultural immersion and that they are keen and able to go through it to their own advantage. The first thing they learn is Spanish. As soon as they know Spanish they can integrate the institutions and particularly the church that speaks Spanish on a day to day basis for non ritualistic activities (these are performed in Latin of course) and the various courts, both royal and clerical, that are controlling them all the time. They learn all these procedures and they take from them what can serve their interest and their interest is to become free. This desire to be free is so strong that their cultural immersion and integration is achieved in a few years. Recent African slaves (Bozals) can navigate in the juridical and institutional channels within years because of the other aspects of this integrative procedure.

They are living within a geographical – and social – community. They have to provide witnesses in order to be married and that forces them to define themselves as part of such a geographical community that works, from the records we have from various court proceedings, across and over the other elements of this integration: ethnic status, social status, social stratification and racial hierarchy. Free white people can witness the marriage of one black slave and one Christianized Indian woman and the witnesses are supposed to be chosen by each future spouse, at least two witnesses each.  This integration defines the social status of each member with all the rights and duties of each status. Note to be a Christian is part of this social status. It has rights and obligations as we have seen and will develop later.

Social stratification comes then and there is a great difference between the countryside and the cities, Mexico City first of all. In the countryside, within the encomiendas system (haciendas and farms given to the Spaniards for their services in the Conquest), the stratification is:

1-       The Spanish elite at the beginning, and then these move back to the cities and leave behind distant relatives, illegitimate offspring and impoverished Spaniards to take care of the business;

2-       Free people of color, if any;

3-       Enslaved Africans of any shade or ethnic definition;

4-       Indians (who are mostly non-persons).

In the cities the stratification is slightly different.

1-       The Spanish elite;

2-       The Spanish non-elite: distant relatives, illegitimate children, impoverished Spaniards (soldiers, crafts people, servants of any sort);

3-       Free people of color;

4-       Enslaved Africans with a hierarchy  between Ladinos (Slaves from Africa but having lived in Spain before), Criollos (Africans slaves born in New Spain) and Bozals (African slaves just arrived, hence born in Africa);

5-       Indians (who are mostly non-persons).

This sense of community creates an ethnic or racial hierarchy within the Blacks. On top and over them are the whites. Then you have the pure black people: Ladinos, Creoles, and Bozals. Then you have what the Spaniards call the people of Mestizage, the mixing of blood that is called métissage in the French tradition. The list is long and the book does not always define them all: Coyote (African + Indian), Mestizo (Spaniard + Indian), Mulatto (African + Spaniard), Afromestizo (African + Indian), Castizo (Spaniard + Mestizo), Lobo (not defined), Pardo (African + Indian). This is capital to understand what we are trying to explore: why have Blacks more or less disappeared in Mexico? And again outside and beyond, if not under, two ethnic groups: indio/a and chino/a (the latter, natives from the Philippines).

The point is here that Mexico is the locale of a metamorphosis of race into culture because of the creoles, the people of color born in Mexico, from the very start and after the end of slave imports from Africa to Mexico as soon as 1640.

From 1570 to 1646 the Creole population multiplied by fifty from 2,437 to 116,529. Most of them are mulattos says the book, in fact we can state they probably are mixed blood people from various types of mixing, not only mulattos, the term being easily used to cover the diversity. What I say here comes from a set of facts that are essential. The sexual ratio within the African population and their descendants is 3 men for 1 woman at the end of the 16^th century and is 1 to 1 only in the last part of the 17^th century. Still around 1650 it is only “nearly” balanced. The enormous increase of people of color born in New Spain (Creoles) has to be explained by the fact that African men procreate these Creoles with available women (and keep in mind the rules of marriage: no polygamy of any type, stable and faithful unions, etc.) and these women cannot be, except very very marginally Spanish women, hence they have to be Indians. When there is one African woman for there African men, two of these African men have to get married to Indian women. This aspect is not studied in this book. Two thirds of the people of color born in New Spain are Coyotes, Afromestizos or Pardos. Three words for one type of union. That shows the range of the phenomenon and the embarrassment of Spanish authorities in front of it, especially since the kings have repeatedly asked the various vice-regal authorities to discourage it. That would explain the use of the word Mulatto instead to cover what is not supposed to be seen.

This produces a simple fact: in the 18^th century the core of the labor force is mulattos (of any type) and indigenous people, and that will continue the mestizage. This goes along, always because of marriage, with the fast increase of free people of color who manage to benefit from any manumission (note the word and concept are not used in this book, but it is essential in Siete Partidas and Code Noir, both being essential to understand the Catholic Church that does not try to terminate slavery, but to control people of color and to integrate them in the church, in Christianity via baptism and marriage. The next consequence is that two thirds of Black males having to marry with Indian women, it creates a vast movement of integration of Indians in the Church via baptism, matrimony and child birth.

But this marriage seen as the Grand Remedy by Charles V has tremendous consequences that I have hinted at but not specified.

The two future spouses have to apply for a license from the Church and have to bring two witnesses on each side. The procedure has to be based on free will. The very ceremony is based on each one of the two future spouses having to publicly declare that it is his or her free choice and will. The witnesses are there to prove no duress has been imposed onto one or the other. If you are free then, why not in plain everyday life? The mental consequence for the enslaved people, and more generally the people of color in New Spain is that all Christians are equal, hence all Christians should be free.

But marriage imposes some duties on the couple: they have to perform by having some common marital life and by procreating. How is it possible for a couple who are working for two different masters? The church is clear: the couple has the right this time and not only the duty, to perform their marriage by being able to have a shared marital life and by being able to procreate children that remain under their control. The book examines some court cases in which the masters were forced, willy nilly and in spite of their grumbling or resisting, to provide the married couple with one day of reunion per week for one example of the obligations that befall the slave owners, and that negate of course their absolute property right, especially over the children who are the parents’ and not the parents’ master’s. What’s more the spouse of any Black person, slave or not, has to be respected as the married spouse of this Black person, and since two thirds of these spouses are Indian women, you can imagine the enormous dynamic created by this implementation of canon law concerning the sacrament (and I should say holy here) of marriage.

As such the book is essential. It has two shortcomings though.

1-       It only takes crown and clerical court sources into account and no DNA approach. Today such an approach is possible and has been used recently by researchers in Stanford and Miami: the genetic history of a person can be totally disentangled by the study of his or her genome and the comparison with “standard” genomes of reference populations. Here is one quotation about this new research from the Stanford School of Medicine: “The approach allowed the researchers to categorize regions of DNA as not just European, for example, but Iberian. Or not just African, but West African. They could also estimate when each mixing event occurred by assuming longer segments had been incorporated more recently than shorter segments. That’s because, over time, our chromosomes randomly swap regions during cell division, breaking apart and mixing up formerly long, contiguous stretches of DNA. The more time that passes, the greater the likelihood that any one piece will be disrupted by this recombination process.” They are dealing with the population of the West Indies. Imagine what could be done in Mexico. More at http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2013/november/caribbean.html.

2-       It only concerns court records, hence cases that have come to these courts. These courts do not recognize Indians who are Extra Ecclesiam, except when they one spouse of a married couple, or a witness of one of the two spouses or, in the case of slaves, of the masters. That’s what is valid for the Inquisition court, but for clerical courts every person concerned has to be a Christian. This creates a rich and powerful dynamic towards the Christianization of the people concerned. But what about the people who are not concerned, who do not come to courts?

That brings me to my conclusion. Mexico is a special case and a lot of work is needed still. The Black population originally the most important or second most important in the Americas in the 16^th and 17^th centuries seems to have disappeared. This is of course an illusion. Due to the early and then constant policy of both the Spanish Crown and the Spanish Catholic Church, the Black population was totally merged into essentially the Indian population; and that has had a direct result in the integration, of Indians into Mexican society. The merging is so advanced that it has become quasi invisible.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

PETER HANDKE – STANISLAS NORDEAY – PAR LES VILLAGES – COM2DIE DE SAINT ETIENNE – 19 FEVRIER 2014

Ils ont beau appeler cela un poème dramatique, il n’en reste pas moins que quand on le met en scène il faut qu’il devienne un drame poétique, et je dois dire d’emblée que ce n’est pas le cas. Il faut bien voir aussi que la première partie et la deuxième partie n’ont pas du tout la même logique discursive. On pourrait même croire que dans la deuxième partie on a fait attention ici et là à être dramatique. Mais nous y reviendrons ; Parlons d’abord de la première partie.

1- Chacun de ces personnages a beaucoup de choses à nous dire, mais ils n’ont aucune action à nous proposer. Ils parlent chacun de son point de vue sans se préoccuper de celui ou ceux des autres. On a donc au mieux un entrelacement de points de vue totalement étanches et incompatibles. On apprend plein de choses sur la famille dont on ne verra jamais les parents mais seulement les trois enfants qui se haïssent aigrement et allègrement parce que le frère aîné se prend la tête en croyant être un intellectuel et il part à la ville. Le frère cadet tombe, prétendument parce que son frère aîné a causé sa chute, du haut de l’escalier et il en reste convaincu qu’il sera ouvrier comme son papa, en d’autres termes il est maboule. La sœur est naïve et simpliste et elle est vendeuse dans un magasin quelconque. Le frère cadet a un fils. Voilà la famille. La ribambelle de contes/comptes personnels qu’ils se règlent par discours enfermés et interposés n’est qu’une espèce de patchwork de la vie, mais n’est pas la vie, car la vie est de l’action d’abord et avant tout et non du discours plus ou moins blafard.

2- Le retour du frère aîné cause un émoi et amène les bouches à se délier pour NOUS raconter leurs histoires mais jamais pour mettre en place une quelconque action, ou même confrontation. Il revient d’ailleurs pour céder  sur toute la longueur et donc partir à jamais en reniant son droit de regard sur l’héritage des parents que son frère cadet et sa sœur vont naturellement dilapider pour satisfaire des rêves anciens qu’ils sont de toutes façons trop vieux pour les réaliser. Pourquoi revient-il ? On ne peut pas l’expliquer. Pourquoi va-t-il céder ? On ne sait pas vraiment sinon qu’il a atteint l’âge de ne plus s’intéresser à son patrimoine familial, à ses racines anciennes. Il est devenu un citadin sans racines. Mais il n’y a en lui que très peu de réelle souffrance, regret, nostalgie, ou qui sait quoi. Il est devenu un blasé qui vient provoquer le frère, la sœur et la communauté de sa présence qui n’est là que pour les ennuyer. C’est mesquin. C’est bête. C’est méchant. Mais pas d’action, surtout pas.

3- Le frère cadet est un « goillot ». le mot n’est pas dans mon dictionnaire autrement que comme un nom de personne. J’ai peut-être mal entendu. Mais j’ai compris que cela voulait dire « un michel morin » de chantier. Il ne souhaite qu’arrêter de travailler un jour et laisser la vie partir et passer sans s’apercevoir qu’alors elle partira sans lui et lui partira avec elle, elle passera devant lui et lui restera planté là pendant que la vie continuera à vivre avant de l’emporter, lui, vers la fin de sa vie : on appelle cela mourir. L’homme n’est humain que quand il crée de la valeur ajoutée, base de toute valeur et il ne peut faire cela que par un travail, quel qu’il soit. S’il faut tomber d’un escalier pour être un ouvrier, il est sûr qu’il ne fera pas beaucoup d’autre chose que de travailler dans une usine pour un patron. La sœur a été vendeuse dans un magasin toute sa vie et elle veut être patronne d’un magasin dans le village. Un rêve si fréquent mais sans lendemain car le dit magasin sera en concurrence avec les grandes surfaces de la ville d’à coté à quelques minutes de voiture. Elle ne sera alors qu’un élément du décor mais pas de la vie du village. Les typiques rêves de ceux qui n’ont pas rêvé avant d’être vieux, qui ne se sont jamais donné les moyens de réaliser leurs rêves et qui viennent toujours avec l’idée que les rêves ne peuvent se réaliser que si on a de l’argent. Encore faut-il avoir des idées et choisir les idées qui sont réalisables avec les moyens que l’on a. Le frère aîné est prêt à leur laisser dilapider l’avoir des parents pour cela, et c’est le plus triste. Combien de parents se saignent des quatre veines pour laisser derrière eux un héritage que la génération suivante dilapide dès qu’ils le peuvent. Combien les parent seraient inspirés s’ils comprenaient que le patrimoine qu’ils accumulent est pour eux finir leur vie correctement et non pour le transmettre, surtout qu’eux on ne leur a transmis rien du tout. Les parents devraient veiller à transmettre à leurs enfants l’envie de faire mieux que leurs parents par leurs propres efforts. On est loin de cela.

4- Le frère aîné a-t-il raison de laisser partir le pécule, le pactole ? Oh que oui ! A-t-il raison de venir leur dire ce qu’il pense de leur dilapidation mais qu’il les laissera faire ? Oh que oui ! Cela  changera-t-il le monde et changera-t-il les frère et sœur concernés ? Oh que non ! Le frère aîné a-t-il raison de n’en avoir rien à cirer ? Oh que oui ! Mais n’attendez pas que je soutienne ou approuve, ne serait-ce que par un discours sur les éternels exploités, ces frère et sœur qui n’ont rien à léguer au monde de demain. Le discours misérabiliste de gauche de la misère des surexploités me laisse froid et même prêt à vomir si on en rajoute un peu beaucoup. Heureusement que dans cette première partie le spectacle est tellement éparpillé et décousu. Cela fait fouillis mais pas harcèlement idéologique et martellement politique. Pas de prêchi-prêcha mais simplement le type de discours facile que l’on entend partout, surtout sur les télés publiques et les radios publiques. Le discours langue de bois de la gauche qui considère que les questions économiques ne l’intéressent pas. Il n’y a que le social, et bien sûr ensuite on se lamente que l’économie ne va pas, pire, que les patrons ont mis l’économie en faillite.

Que reste-t-il à la fin de la première partie ? Une réalité aliénée, aliénante, où personne n’est lui-même, où tout le monde n’est qu’une illusion utile à un monde qui se construit sans vraie finalité. Il reste alors le rêve idéologique d’une prétendue nature qui serait ensevelie sous l’aliénation et qu’il s’agit de rêver plus que de la retrouver.

Cette nature n’existe pas car l’homme est un construit et rien d’autre et son aliénation est le processus de production de ce qu’il est et non le déguisement et le fourvoiement de ce qu’il aimerait être ou aurait pu être ou serait profondément. On ne devient que ce que l’on sait faire émerger par genèse personnelle circonstancielle contrôlée, guidée et menée à un terme toujours transitoire par soi-même. « Je suis tombé par terre c’est la faute à Voltaire, le nez dans le ruisseau c’est la faute à Rousseau. » Je vous assure que je suis tombé par terre l’autre jour et que c’est la faute au trou qu’il y avait dans le trottoir et à l’inaptitude qui fut la mienne de le voir. Le nez sur le  goudron et l’épaule disloquée, et ça c’est la faute à mon sac à dos lourdement chargé qui est retombé sur l’omoplate droite car ce sac n’était pas (et il ne le peut pas) être attaché à la ceinture. Voltaire et Rousseau n’ont rien à voir à cela, pas plus d’ailleurs que Rothschild ou Rockefeller, le bouclier rouge ou le tombeur de rochers.

En définitive à la fin de cette première partie le monde se coupe en deux catégories de gens, l’un comme l’autre parfaitement illusionnées.

·       D’abord ceux qui croient s’être découpé un morceau de ciel dans ce monde incohérent : les égoïstes égocentriques totalement autocentrés.

·       Ensuite ceux qui croient que la vie n’est que ce qu’ils sont et qu’ils ne sont que ce que la vie les a forcés à être : les aveugles daltoniens, astigmates et hypermétropes, on dirait aujourd’hui les Bipolaires ou les Obsessifs-Compulsifs, toujours victimes d’un Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (ou Syndrome) et de là à dire que c’est une vision d ‘esclave il n’y a besoin que d’un marxiste pour faire le pas.

Mais il y a la deuxième partie. Oh oui, heureusement qu’il y a la première moitié de la deuxième partie. On passera sur la vision idyllique d’une vie de village dans le temps ancien, avant la voiture, le supermarché et l’université pour « tous », sans parler du mariage pour tous qui est savamment évité par une camaraderie classe ouvrière qui ne saurait être autre chose qu’une empathie du labeur exploité.

On passera sur cette nostalgie et le rêve de faire revivre ce mythe en passant le pont et en prenant la bonne des trois routes. Le poète américain n’en avait que deux, la haute et la basse, la plus fréquentée et la moins fréquentée. Mais ici on en a trois pour faire plus vraiment démocratique j’imagine car dans les sondages on demande toujours Oui, ou NON, ou NS. Mise en espace suprastructurel et supraculturel, donc idéologique à la sauce post Deuxième Guerre Mondiale et postmoderne, et même post-post-moderne. C’est d’un triste de toujours réduire les choix à nécessairement prendre une de deux ou trois voies ! Pourquoi pas deux ou trois à la fois ? Parce qu’alors tout devient totalitaire, n’est-il-point, n’est-ce-pas ?

Mais cela permet de construire une structure bien plus intéressante, petit à petit. Le frère aîné est l’un de trois frères et sœur, triplette amplifiée à quatre par le fils du frère cadet. Le frère cadet est amplifié par une triplette d’ouvriers pour devenir quatre, tous habillés de la même façon. Enfin la sœur est elle aussi amplifiée par une triplette de trois femmes dans la pièce pour former encore une structure de quatre. Mais la clé de cette savante structure vient quand le metteur en scène aligne six personnages, dans l’ordre :

Frère aîné + ouvrier + ouvrier + frère cadet + ouvrier + sœur

Et cette structure est purement et simplement une étoile de David, symbole juif s’il en est et alors en cascade les trinités deviennent des quarterons qui sont tous des symboles de la crucifixion, la crucifixion du frère aîné (comme Jésus si on en croit certains) par le quarteron des ouvriers et du frère cadet, puis par le quarteron des femmes et de la sœur. Il en prend pour son grade. Cependant devant les six  il y a le fils du frère cadet qui va scander la scène de la crucifixion et le prêche de la femme qui est en arrière des six. Ces deux personnages sont le septième chrétien, pour la femme avec un long, long, interminable prêche sur l’amour et la paix universelle, merci Paul le prophète des gentils goyim, pour le fils une scansion répétée d’un bâton de Moïse et d’un tronc de mendiant pour je ne sais quelle guerre ou quels aveugles, merci Jean, le prophète de l’apocalypse.

On a là une structure signifiante à la Fritz Lang (Metropolis) Et si on ne prend que les trois triplettes on obtient neuf et c’est le diable, la damnation. Cette vision est puissante pour l’imaginaire, à condition d’avoir un peu d’éducation biblique, mais elle est tuée par le prêche interminable de cette prédicatrice qui se croit poétesse et nous assène un discours d’agit-prop déplacé et de toute façon on ne peut plus conventionnel.

J’attend            ais beaucoup mieux de toutes ces structures de théâtre public ou de théâtre subventionné, surtout du festival d’Avignon. Sinistre gaspillage pour un éditorial politique digne de Libération, qui est en  train d’en mourir de n’être qu’un journal d’agit-prop de gauche très caviar sur canapé de poireaux aspergés de scotch écossais au goût de goudron (tar whisky de ma culture ancienne).

Et ce ne sont pas les six masques finaux pour les six personnages de l’étoile de David qui sauvent le spectacle. Ils le ligotent dans six masques de types africains probablement qui imposent l’anonymat et l’uniformité aux six personnages, comme si tout ce spectacle n’était qu’une mascarade frivole et légère. J’en ai froid dans mes collants.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

JACQUES HEERS – LES NEGRIERS EN TERRE D’ISLAM, VII^ème-XVI^ème SIECLE– PERRIN 2003-2007

Le projet de ce livre est louable et nécessaire. En effet en France on réduit trop l’esclavage au seul esclavage du commerce triangulaire (qui n’était pas très triangulaire, soit dit en passant) de la France et de l’Angleterre. Il rappelle le rôle joué par le Portugal, mais il oublie de mentionner l’Espagne. L’Espagne et le Portugal par décision du Pape lui-même au 16^ème siècle reçurent respectivement l’ouest (le Nouveau Monde, sauf le Brésil par un accord subséquent qui le donna au Portugal) et l’est (l’Océan Indien). Mais il oublie aussi le rôle important des Pays Bas : les premiers esclaves noirs furent livrés aux Anglais de Virginie en 1619 par les Hollandais justement, et n’oublions pas quelques autres colonisateurs et esclavagistes annexes pour cette traite triangulaire.

Mais son objet principal est de refuser l’attribution de l’esclavage au seul monde chrétien, et à cette fin il étudie l’esclavage de l’Islam, Islam qui ne peut exister qu’à partir du 7^ème siècle bien sûr. Et ne considérer que cette alternative et que le créneau 7^ème-16^ème siècles fausse complètement le propos historique et le fait apparaître anti-islamique. Je tiens à faire quelques remarques non pas sur le fait que le monde islamique dans son ensemble, loin de se réduire bien sûr au monde arabe, a pratiqué la prise de prisonniers immédiatement transformés en esclaves, que ce soit après une guerre ou simplement par des razzias systématiques qui ne sont de toute façon que des actes de guerre, voire de guerre sainte.

Il déforme le discours historique possible sur le phénomène de l’esclavage et donc la possibilité de comprendre que c’est la naissance de l’agriculture quelques douze à dix mille ans avant notre ère, soit après la dernière glaciation et quand l’eau commence à remonter et donc que les Homo Sapiens peuvent remonter vers le nord pour s’y réinstaller et surtout qu’ils sont confrontés à un changement climatique et même géographique capital puisque l’eau va remonter de cent vingt mètres, recouvrant d’énormes zones qui avaient été découvertes pendant au bas mot dix mille ans, remettant tous les fleuves que nous connaissons aujourd’hui à flot bien que la plupart existaient avant la glaciation, même si leurs cours et vallée sont pu changer.

C’est dans ce creuset de l’invention de l’agriculture que deux choses se décantent fortement et rapidement : d’une part des religions non plus fondées sur le seul surnaturel monde des esprits des religions animistes, qui ont survécue cependant dans certains continents et en particulier en Afrique, mais fondée sur l’assertion d’un monde divin d’abord à plusieurs dieux puis progressivement à un seul dieu (principalement les trois religions d’origine sémitique, judaïsme, christianisme, islam, en ordre chronologique de développement) ainsi que le cas particulier du Bouddhisme qui nie l’existence d’un créateur de nature divine, et même le concept de création.

D’autre part la nécessité d’une nouvelle division du travail pour avoir les moyens humains de grande quantité de travail en fonction des besoins de cette agriculture. L’esclavage trouve sa logique dans cette nouvelle division du travail agricole. On notera que les esclaves sont la main d’œuvre nécessaire pour les travaux agricoles mais aussi pour la construction de tous les temples et autres bâtiments de grande taille servant pour protéger les récoltes et pour abriter les populations de personnels dédiés à l’administration et le commerce de ces récoltes et du travail humain les produisant, à l’exercice de la religion et des rites qui vont avec y compris funéraires, et au travail des champs et des entrepôts, sans oublier bien sûr les bâtisseurs. Beaucoup de ceux-là sont des esclaves. Pensons aux pyramides d’Egypte par exemple ou à Gobleki Tepe en Turquie qui date de neuf mille ans avant notre ère, soit très longtemps avant les pyramides d’Egypte.

Cette décision de ne rien considérer, ou presque, avant le 7^ème siècle lui permet ainsi de ne pas voir cette logique agricole de l’esclavage que la religion va systématiquement justifier.

Cela lui permet aussi de ne faire qu’une vague allusion à l’esclavage romain et d’oublier l’esclavage grec et surtout la pratique du sacrifice humain courante dans le monde antique (le célèbre Minotaure) qu’il soit d’origine indo-européenne (Grec en soi) ou turkique (la Colchide de Médée intégrée à la mythologie grecque). Le sacrifice humain est encore accepté dans la Bible puisqu’Abraham a bien failli sacrifier son propre fils (version judaïque, Isaac, comme version islamique, Ismaïl), sans parler de Jephté immortalisé par Carissimi et Haendel. Mais pire encore pour Jacques Heers, l’esclavage est absolument justifié dans l’Ancien testament. Dans le chapitre 9 de la Genèse par exemple où Noé impose une malédiction au fils Canaan de son fils cadet, en le vouant à être « l’esclave des esclaves de ses frères ». (Nouvelle Edition de Genève, 1979, Genèse 9 :25) Et que dire de la loi mosaïque dans l’Exode 21:1-11 que je me permets ici de citer en entier, et nous devons bien considérer qu’il s’agit uniquement de Juifs ou Hébreux, rien n’est dit sur les esclaves non-juifs, comme par exemple l’esclave d’Abraham qui lui donne le fils qui sera le géniteur même de l’Islam. Je ne commenterai pas, le texte se suffit à lui-même.

Et je ne dirai rien de la caste des Intouchables, ou Dalits, de l’hindouisme, esclaves internes à la société indo-aryenne elle-même par décision religieuse, héréditaire et à jamais sans aucun droit que ce soit, réduits à l’état le plus misérable et aux tâches les plus avilissantes et inhumaines, sans compter la ségrégation, y compris pour l’eau, et le fait que les Dalits peuvent être exploités, violés et tués à merci par les membres des autres castes. Et cela est en grande partie encore vrai. Ce n’est fondé ni sur la race, ni sur la couleur, ni sur l’ethnie, uniquement sur la naissance de parents Dalits, eux-mêmes Dalits parce que nés de parents Dalits et un parent suffit à rendre toute sa descendance à jamais Dalit. On a là la « théorie de la goutte de sang » si chère au Ku Klux Klan et à Marcus Garvey aux Etats-Unis poussée à un extrême incroyable puisqu’il n’y a  pas de rachat possible, malgré les évolutions des cinquante dernières années.

Cela aurait donné au discours de Jacques Heers une dimension infiniment plus forte. Il dit que le développement de la traite transatlantique est du au développement de l’agriculture de plantation et il ne cite que le sucre et réduit cela au 18^ème siècle.

Or Cortez lui-même au 16^ème siècle construit la première raffinerie de sucre du Mexique et la quatrième qu’il construira, de son vivant bien sûr, sera à énergie aquatique, donc fonctionnant avec un moulin à eau. Cela lui aurait alors permis de comprendre pourquoi les moulins à eau se sont multipliés à partir du 10^ème siècle en Europe : la réforme féodale donnait à tous le serfs 75 jours de non travail minimum dans l’année. Comme l’esclavage était interdit à partir de la réforme religieuse du 9^ème siècle, il fallut remplacer le travail humain par le travail mécanique, et ce fut les moulins à eau, cependant inventés par les Romains au premier siècle avant notre ère mais jamais vraiment développés par eux. Cortez introduit le même principe car dès la fin du 16^ème siècle dans la Nouvelle Espagne (Mexique) l’esclavage devient minoritaire et l’importation d’esclave au Mexique sera interdit à partir de 1622, si bien qu’alors la majorité des « hommes de couleur » sont libres ( et très nombreux du temps de Cortez lui-même) et surtout l’équilibre sexuel dans ces hommes de couleur, toutes teintes confondues, ne sera atteint qu’à la fin du 17^ème siècle, ce qui explique la disparition des noirs au Mexique par simple métissage (le mot espagnol est « mestizaje ») avec les Indiens, les autochtones qui ne sont pas ou peu mis en esclavage, qui sont hors juridiction de l’Inquisition royale (installée en 1571) et des tribunaux religieux car considérés comme « Extra Ecclesiam » (hors de l’église et tolérés en tant que tels).

Cela le fait dire en définitive des choses fausses sur l’église catholique, espagnole, française, ou simplement Romaine, qui n’a accepté l’esclavage qu’à condition que les esclaves soient christianisés et ainsi deviennent, en contradiction avec leur statut de « propriété servile » ou « bétail humain » (l’anglais a un mot spécifique, « chattel »), à la fois des sujets du roi espagnol ou français, et des Chrétiens avec tous les droits attribués à ces Chrétiens comme à tous les autres et en premier lieu le droit marital : le mariage est un sacrement qui doit être consenti librement par les deux parties en dehors de toute pression extérieures. Cela est inscrit très tôt dans les textes : « Siete Partidas » espagnol et « Code Noir » français. Ce qui est étrange c’est qu’il ne dit rien de tout cela alors que c’est la preuve que l’église catholique en tant que telle n’a pas laissé faire les esclavagistes comme ils l’entendaient. En fait sa vision des Chrétiens et de l’esclavage est l’attitude des protestants puritains ou anglicans d’Angleterre. Sa volonté de contrebalancer cette vision étroite de la chrétienté coupable de la mise en esclavage vue comme extrême systématiquement des noirs africains au Nouveau Monde par la simple référence aux pratiques de l’Islam est largement erronée.

L’esclavage au Mexique a été introduit pour le travail dans les mines (d’argent et d’or principalement, parallèlement à la main d’œuvre autochtone qui avait un statut d’esclaves non christianisés, bien que cela évolua très vite, ne serait-ce que pour sanctifier les « mariages » des esclaves africains avec les femmes indiennes, puisque tout rapport sexuel non marital est condamné, et pour le travail sur les plantations, et là le sucre vient en premier, bien que Jacques Heers oublie le tabac : l’Espagne aura le monopole du tabac en Europe jusqu’en 1616 et la première production de qualité de tabac en Virginie apporté à Londres par John Rolfe et la Princesse Pocahontas, épouse Rebecca Rolfe. Mais il oublie aussi que ces plantations se sont développées bien avant le 18^ème siècle, qu’elles ont concerné beaucoup d’autres produits en particulier le café, l’indigo, le coton bien sûr, etc., et que dès le 19^ème siècle l’énergie de la machine à vapeur va remplacer le travail humain comme l’eau l’avait fait avant elle. Sans prendre tout cela en considération il manque une immense efficacité de raisonnement.

Sans développer le point suivant, disons qu’il ne tient pas compte de l’esclavage comme enjeu entre les animistes et les musulmans dans les royaumes ou empires d’Afrique occidentale avant le 15^ème siècle. La Charte de Kurukan Fuga (1240) de Soundjata, Roi du Manding, correspond à la prise de contrôle de l’Afrique Occidentale par l’Islam et reconnaît l’esclavage, même si elle le codifie en adoucissement (Article 20) bien que le seul droit qui est reconnu à l’esclave est le contrôle de son « sac » qui ne doit en aucune façon être envahi par le maître : « Ne Maltraitez pas les esclaves. On est maître de l’esclave et non du sac qu’il porte. » On peut bien sûr imaginer des sens métaphoriques qui n’auront qu’une valeur métaphorique justement.

Ce livre cependant est important car il donne à lire une tranche de l’approche historique de l’esclavage qu’en Occident nous hésitons à aborder, parfois même censurons : la pratique de l’esclavage, des Noirs et autres populations soumises par le monde islamique qu’il soit arabe, turc, ottoman, perse ou autre. Cependant évitons de faire de l’Islam le centre d’une approche de l’esclavage dans l’humanité. Ce serait une erreur, qui plus est franchement raciste. Je ne dirai rien sur l’insistance sur le rôle de quelques Juifs dans ce livre concernant la pratique commerciale de l’esclavage. Il y eut des Juifs, comme il y eut aussi beaucoup d’autres personnes de toutes nationalités ou religions. Le fait que certains étaient juifs ne saurait être un argument contre les Juifs en général, ce qui relèverait de l’antisémitisme. Le livre n’est pas clair sur ce point.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU