RE: [Marxism] Forwarded from Victor R.

[Joaquín <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Victor writes:

A related phenomena I see is how Puerto Ricans in the States are no longer
reclaiming a national "Puerto Rican" identity; PRs are abandoning support
for Puerto Rican independence.  Gradually, we are identifying with
"transnational" or "transcultural" indentities such as "Latino", abandoning
"national liberation" politics for more trendy, often consumerist, labels
and identity politics.  Hardt-Negri would be so happy.

*  *  *

The national question among Latin Americans is exceedingly complex, for in
addition to the national question of the different Latin American nations,
you also have national-type questions WITHIN these nations, the national
question of Latin America *as a whole* (una sola debe ser la patria de los
latinoamericanos, I think is Nestor's posting tag line); and then the
rapidly evolving realities facing Latinos from different Latin American
nations in the U.S. as well as their descendants. 

I believe it is a mistake to think that the situation you describe among
Puerto Ricans is a "natural" evolution; it is the result of the ideological,
social, political and cultural domination of the bourgeoisie, which at the
same time tries to destroy the national culture but refuses to assimilate
Puerto Ricans as a whole into its nation.

But Puerto Rico is not just Puerto Rico; it is part of the great Latin
American nation that even now is striving to be born. There is not just
pressure from imperialism, but also pressure from the other side, from the
struggle against imperialism.

I believe the evolution of these multiple "national questions" will depend
above all on political factors. Even the barest beginnings of a state
expression of Latin America as a whole would have a tremendous gravitational
force for Puerto Ricans both on the island and on the mainland. Ditto the
new upsurge of independence sentiment that would undoubtedly accompany it.

"National" identities can be, not exclusive, but cumulative. The case of
Cuba shows that. Cubans are an afro-Caribbean people with an extreme degree
of their own patriotic sentiment as well as an unshakeable identity as a
Latin American people, a Caribbean people, and an African people. And a
profoundly internationalist people. It is not an accident that precisely in
Cuba there is a monument to John Lennon, and, as far as I know, nowhere else
is there such a monument. And the nexus of these varied identities, what
integrates them all into a single, multifaceted identity, is political: the
struggle against imperialism.

And we should recognize also that there is the "other" Cuba, "la Cuba de
ayer," yesterday's Cuba, which did not exist in reality as it is
pseudo-remembered, but most definitely does exist in Miami and most of all
as a political project. It is a Cuba that is Afro-Caribbean and Latin
American only in the most superficial, decorative, folkloric sense. A Cuba
that is pitiyanqui, to use that delicious word I first learned on a visit to
Puerto Rico decades ago.

And just as there is that "other Cuba," there is also the "other Puerto
Rico" and the "other Venezuela" and the "other Bolivia." The "other Bolivia"
is Gonzi, with his English-accented Spanish. The "other Venezuela" is in the
movie "The Revolution will not be televised," you can see and feel the
difference between the two. The other Puerto Rico is in La Fortaleza; it is
dominant for now but it is not, I don't believe, inherent among these
younger U.S.-born or raised people who are perceived as having abandoned a
specifically Puerto Rican for a generically Latino identity. 

And there is, of course, the other Latin America, but it also is not the
generic Latino identity but something else, most of all an imperialist
political project, with its headquarters in Washington, its supra-national
institution, the OAS, and the characterization it will never be able to
escape because it is true: ministerio de colonias yanqui, the U.S. ministry
of colonies.

The real history of the various peoples of Latin America and the people of
Latin America as a whole has yet to be written because it has not yet
happened. It hasn't happened because it can only be written by the people,
and in most of our countries the people have yet to come onto the stage of
history as protagonists of this drama. But our day will come.

Joaquín



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