African roots of Argentina Alicia Dujovne Ortiz THE NATION For
Monday August 16 2010 Many agree patriotic call. The party scene was the House of Gardel, watching us from his portrait, squinting under the brim. A party with surprises, organized by the young anthropologist and musicologist Pablo Cirio, a passionate researcher and, therefore, intolerant, always ready to fight in defense of its sole and exclusive passion blacks in Argentina. I played once again participate in the presentation of a book from my late uncle, Nestor Ortiz Oderigo,
African Latitudes tango , written in 1988 and published by the University of Tres de Febrero, which since 2007 has been involved with the publication of the posthumous work of that other passionate Africanist anthropologist who was the brother of my mother. Although having attended Nestor and suffered racist tantrums tantrums allowed me to understand Paul, all of the same nature, fear kept some unconscious why gaffe again put in the dock, such as occurred when, during the presentation of the second of these books in the Book Fair, cheerfully announced the arrival of African drums and Paul glared me a "non-Africans, Alicia, are Afro-Argentines. If someone came to play music, "announced a German music?".
Luckily, the night of 21 spent in peace and in the company. After the words of Professor Dina Picotti to which is owed the idea to publish this work vegetated unpublished in a drawer, and Pablo Cirio, which Oderigo Ortiz referred to as a visionary who "taught us to think of three", ie to consider white backgrounds, black and Aboriginal culture of Argentina-and, for that matter, had to face the incomprehension of his time, returned to tell the story of my uncle. A very simple story: Nestor became interested in the black music when he was 14 years and wrote tirelessly on the issue until 85, when he died. The middle one is the saddest thing: after publishing a vast work, received with respect in Argentina and the world, finally agreed to oblivion relegated to the home, with its own intellectuals often not very tender, and retreating into her home, surrounded by his personal museum of sizes and drums from Africa, stopped worrying about publishing, but not to write till his last breath.
When, after his death, I entered his modest apartment on Gold, I found several boxes full of manuscripts prepared for a utopian neatly printed, with index, notes and bibliography. Now, utopia has been made, and Pablo Cirio has been able to bring this rich material to a critical review and update, which sets the record straight with the prickly little tone that usual, but in which the student who presents secretly, I quote, "we left this message:" To our pride blancoeuropeo, the tango black ancestry is a thorn in the side. Argentina was not and is the country blancoeuropeo imagined by our grandparents, but part and parcel of Afro-America. We do not differ from the rest of the continent by not having black people, but not assume it as part of our identity. As in other countries of America, for our thirst for power enrichment and were complicit in the slave trade. Do not see why we should now be different from what happened and still happening in those countries. "
The patriotic character of the meeting in the house of two counts Abasto. On the one hand, congratulated me such as Argentina, that the University, to comply strictly with the rhythm of publications (And three books are published and prepared the room), was correcting the unfair "ninguneo" he was subjected in the country Ortiz Oderigo. And secondly, Pablo Cirio added his own to the celebration, projecting the photographs of legendary musicians, all of African descent: Carlos Posadas, Gabino Ezeiza, Gregorio "Soti" Rivero, Enrique Maciel, Leopold Rupert Thomson, dubbed the "African" , and Ricardo Justo Thomson.
As he was showing the pictures, the anthropologist transmuted into a theater director called his name a few ladies and ladies who occupied the front rows. Three of them were black. The other, at first glance, no. But they all claimed proudly as Afro-descendants. They were the daughters, granddaughters or nieces of those creators of tango black, or, as Paul said, "creators of tango, to dry, do all tango is not black?".
After the ceremony, tears and hugs abounded, Leticia Montero, the only one among them whose skin is visibly dark, told me: "Ever since school, I have asked where I am. And I have always answered the same: I'm more in Argentina that most of you. The ship is where my ancestors came well before the ship where the immigrants came. We're here for five generations. "
The conversation started in a separate, followed properly, with a pizza, less ancient, but no less representative of our own. Perhaps to clarify the questions and answers, Leticia Montero has decided to become a psychologist, not a singer like her aunt, the famous Rita Montero, or music as his mother, Orfilia del Carmen Rivero, the daughter of Soti, both present and both belong there an old and prominent family who had formed a jazz group, The Black Diamonds. A conversation that served to further Leticia developing the theme that the wounds from her childhood in Argentina foreignized black, as black and Argentina were irreconcilable.
A force to hold on being asked where he comes, she has developed an educational response in three parts: "The school did not teach you that May 25 was selling cakes black ? "" Do you think that I speak with an accent? "and, finally," Why should I be elsewhere? ". As this third part of the questionnaire-answer a question with a typically Jewish, I thought, Leticia told me laughingly that her husband is a Hungarian Jew, blond hair and blue eyes, but added: "The racism is typical of all tell me that I was very lucky to marry him, but no one would ever think that he also had it."
Argentine Racism Leticia alluded to is not aggressive and open like so many other countries, but hidden and soft. She, however, sees it. That racism is manifested in what she calls "jumped" a slight shock that makes you see the surprise, when a new patient comes to see, or when she has to aspire to a position (the first university of their successful family). Different from racism common in countries where the black presence is undeniable, it is surprising that originated in a negation always assured us that in Argentina there are no blacks, psychologists alone. I have heard since my childhood and the Indians disappeared without trace during the Desert Campaign, blacks were evaporated as if by magic during epidemics of cholera and yellow fever.
The persistence of these two illusions is such that it overlaps with what a glance would be enough to discern in the history books (Sarmiento and Rivadavia not precisely Vikings descended) or simply in the street. "Blacks are still there," said Dina Picotti, "have been mixed, have been merged, but still there." "We think a thing of the past," said Paul, and limit its influence to the support that we have left is to reproduce colonial mechanisms based on the utility. What really matters is not what brought us, but what they are. "
questions burned my tongue and encouraging me to be rebuked by the earnest anthropologist, I dared to ask the question: "Well, but how many blacks or descendants of blacks are in Argentina?" "Why measure?" He said. The census is not the only tool. There are small ethnic groups in the numbers, but symbolically important. The real way to measure this variable is the question: "Do you consider yourself African descent?".
"But the fundamental reality is that Argentines are all mestizos. The failure of African thought is similar to the error of European thought [I remembered my own fault with the drums, but not African Afro-Argentines, and me bailing on my site]. "You," he added, turning to Leticia, should be explanatory and dismantling mechanisms of invisibility. "" It's difficult, "she murmured.
The slave ships continued to arrive in Buenos Aires until 1861. Although freedom of bellies was enacted in 1813, and although the Constitution of 1853 finally abolished slavery, the truth was different. Among the latest litters of black slaves, are counted in 1850 brought the Admiral Brown, who, after his retirement as a seaman, was devoted to the slave trade.
In view of the calm, let me ask if the slaves among us, had been "well treated" as he always said. "This is another of our myths," said Paul. Historians have white told the story as they wanted. It is true that blacks in Buenos Aires had service, but is treated well boot someone from your country and do work for free? That, not counting the sugar cane plantations in Tucumán, where lashes unabated as in Cuba or Brazil. "" The Montero and there were Lamadrid-slipped Leticia, and with a casual tone, as he no want the thing, we plunged into the very heart of the story, she said. I know a lady whose great grandmother came to Brown. Many know the names of the ships in which our ancestors traveled. With regard to abuse, my aunt Rita worked in a movie,
The sacred cry , where did the black cook and received his good spanking. What is meant by "treated" right? If you sang or danced, they were two hundred lashes. Ditto for our gods to worship or speak our language. And Rose, who loved us so much? Stretched out his hand suddenly without warning, and if black who stood behind not quickly made him a mate, sent him a spanking. This is not any book I got at home was counted. "I was right about the antiquity of their lineage: in many houses of Argentines are known in detail the behavior of Don Juan Manuel?
Oderigo Ortiz begins his book by speaking of "phantom ships" which, full of "men with owner" through the door from the Congo, Angola, Mozambique and Benin, bringing up our two cultures: Bantu the Sudan. In 1730, he says, the "Big City had fifty thousand inhabitants, of which twenty thousand were black. But considering that all this belongs to our prehistory is so denier and not seen in our face Argentina in the footsteps of those people who left us, besides the tango (and the samba or chacarera), his own blood. Among the splendid celebrations of the Bicentennial, we see an immigrant ship that sailed the avenue 9 July with its fantastic surf. The good intentions of the organizers, no doubt convinced that the slave was well before 1810, not allowed in the parade include the ancestors of Gabino Ezeiza slaves or "African" Thomson.
In that sense, very modestly, the little party reminder of the House of Gardel (whose guitarist, Ricardo black, tried unsuccessfully to teach for free and play guitar in the Paris of the 60) sought to rectify an oversight inexcusable. Is a forgetting that our country must repair, not for being the only one guilty of an unworthy trade (a power as France slave trade was considerably more, and no longer hesitate to admit beating their chest), but to recognize itself once and for all. In remembrance of our first 200 years, the presence of a boat that chained men down would have meant, finally, acceptance of who we are. © THE NATION
0 comments:
Post a Comment