2. Contents
Flocel SABATÉ
Identities on the move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Felicitas SCHMIEDER
Travelling in the Orbis Christianus and beyond
(Thirteenth–Fifteenth Century): What makes the difference? . . . 41
Lesley TWOMEY
De aquestes raons de la Senyora, los apòstols e Magdalena
e les altres dones prengueren molta consolació:
Establishing Female Identity through the Virgin’s words
in the Vita Christi of Sor Isabel de Villena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Gérard NAHON
Les juifs portugais à Recife 1630-1654. Un modèle évanescent? . . 75
Kaspars KLAVINS
Le tracé de l’identité européenne de l’Espagne
aux Pays Baltes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Juan Sisinio PÉREZ
The construction of Spanish national identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Paul AUBERT
Spain/France: Reciprocal Images during the
Restoration Period (1875–1931) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Caroline BARRERA
Identities on the Move, Foreign and Colonial Students
in France (XIX century–1960s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Joaquim CAPDEVILA, Teresa SERÉS and Sònia RUBIÓ
Literature and Shows of Modern Customs in Catalan.
Ethnotypism and the creation of some modern imaginary
of popular catalanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
3. 6
Montserrat ROSER
Questions of artistic and personal identity
in the interwar poetry of J.V. Foix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Josep M. FIGUERES
Exile in Mexico and Catalan identity. Catalonia
in the imaginarium of first generation exiles in Mexico
(1939-2005) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Maria Carme FIGUEROLA
Malika Mokeddem or the Recreation of a New Mestization . . . . 303
Pere SOLÀ
“In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong”
by Amin Maalouf; a reflection on the notion of identity . . . . . . . . 317
Joan JULIÀ-MUNÉ
Will Major Languages Ruin Minor Languages?
English and Chinese vs. Catalan and Occitan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
M. Carme JUNYENT
Languages, links and identities in a society on the move . . . . . . . 355
Teresa SALA, Lluís SAMPER and Xavier BURRIAL
Changing rural identity. Discourses on rurality
in catalan schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Roberta MAIERHOFER
Aging as Continuity and Change: Age as Personal
and Social Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Jorge WAGENSBERG
Individuals in front of individualities: an identities’ conflict . . . . 403
Hugh O’DONNELL
Talking the talk? Language and Identity
in the European Soap Opera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Daniel-Henri PAGEAUX
L’imagologie face à la question de l’identité . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Contents
4. 7
Thibault COURCELLE
Quelle identité européenne?
Sentiments d’appartenance et représentations de l’Europe
en mouvement dans la construction européenne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Maria SAUR
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism. The ‘Colours’
of the Presidents Obama and Khama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
Michel WIEVIORKA
Les mutations du racisme contemporain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Contents
5. Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
The ‘Colours’ of the Presidents Obama and Khama
Maria SAUR
University of London
Shortly after I arrived in Kachikau a small town called “a village” in
Northern Botswana/Southern Africa, I was “put in charge” of all chil-
dren considered to be of so-called mixed heritage “because they were
white like me” so I was told. I smiled then, the “I know better”, arro-
gant smile. Today I know they were right – these children were just as
white as President Obama is black.
The USA pride themselves in having their first black President –
although he is just as white as he is black given his ancestry and herit-
age. In short why is Obama black? Why does he mostly describe him-
self as such? Why does the non-silent majority agree with him?
Although President Obama himself and most of his compatriots
perceive him to be their first black President I will show that this is not
the case everywhere. He is seen as white in many – less vocal – parts of
the world; white as all people having his skin tone and of mixed origin
are perceived there. The President of Botswana Ian Khama for exam-
ple, who like President Obama has an Anglo-Saxon mother and an Afri-
can father, is seen by many Batswana (the people of Botswana) to be
the “first white African President” of their black African country. Some
therefore fear he might be destroying their culture.
The question I am trying to address is: What informs our perception,
our colour vision or perhaps colour blindness in this so called multi-
cultural world?
Is it perhaps just a multi-coloured world informed by shades of
skin tone and degrees of pigmentation? Why is so much cultural, so-
cial and even psychological meaning given to the variation of shades?
Why is the focus on the perceived otherness, which constitutes the
difference from the mainstream, the one in vogue, and the one in
power? Why do we not perceive President Obama as a white man with
6. 488
an olive skin tone and President Khama as a rather light skinned black
man?
Even if we were to acknowledge the fact that both Presidents,
Obama and Khama, are just as white as they are black, my data shows
that an almost insurmountable reluctance remains to even try to see
them in that way. Most individuals in the USA literally can’t perceive
their President as a white person, few in Botswana can perceive their
President as a black person even if they try.
During my research the majority of my interviewees from Europe
and North America reacted in various degrees rather aggressively at
times when I asked if they could perhaps just try to imagine the above.
“Because he is black!” referring to Obama, was the sometimes rather
irritated answer I mostly received. As if this was a priory fact.
There was often great reluctance/resistance to join me in my ex-
ploration of why we put a person of a clearly mixed background cat-
egorically in one box and feel it almost impossible to see him or her in
any different way. As I once did in Kachikau.
What are the reasons for this? One could argue that the one-drop
rule seems to be still ruling our minds? This rule stated that if you have
one drop of African blood in you, you are black – as applied in the era
of segregation and institutionalised discrimination, and varied differ-
ent forms of racism.1
At times Barack Obama presented his heritage as “just as white as
you and me from Kansas” in a lot of his speeches during the election
campaign in certain states where that was deemed helpful – “I have all
what you have in me through my grandparents and my mother”2. But
1 A little joke: ‘A South American President is asked by a former visiting president
from the USA: “How high is the percentage of white people in your country?” “99%”
replies the President from the southern country. “That’s impossible” the visiting US
President replies. “Would you please tell me then how do you define black in your
country” requests the South-American President. “We apply the one drop rule” says
the US President. “Well, so do we” replies the South American one’. Author un-
known, contributes to the discussion at the IRIS conference “Identities on the Move”
24, 25, 26 November 2010 in Lleida, Catalunya, 2010.
2 Noir parmi les Noirs quand il est dans le Sud, Obama redevient le fils du Kansas
lorsqu’il retourne dans le Middle West. ….. En juillet 2008, dans un spot publicitaire
diffusé dans des États républicains – la Géorgie et la Caroline du Nord –, Obama
insiste exclusivement sur son héritage blanc, illustrant son histoire de photos de
famille où on le voit aux cortès de sa mère blanche et de ses grands-parents blancs.
Maria Saur
7. 489
the reaction to him presenting himself like that was at best – well he is
black, with a white enough upbringing to be one of us, to be elect able.3
Just as my fellow village citizens in Kachikau/Botswana would per-
ceive their mixed relatives as white. We will come back to explore the
reasons for that.
Let us first look at both Presidents’ backgrounds.
President Ian Khama is currently the 4th President of the Republic
of Botswana, situated in the southern part of Africa, roughly the size of
France, peaceful, prosperous and with a variety of regional differences
– just like everywhere else. The President is also the Kgosi (Monarch)
or so called ‘Paramount Chief’ (a term introduced by the British colonial
rulers) of the Bagmanwato. His parents were Ruth Williams Khama from
London/England and Seretse Khama then the Kgosi/Monarch – in wait-
ing of the Bagmanwato who were accepting Ruth as his wife. They were
living under British Rule in the country that was then named Bechuana-
land Protectorate by the British colonial administration – now Botswana.
When Ian Khama’s parents got engaged in London in 1948 where
they had met, there was an international diplomatic frenzy urging the
British Labour Government to prevent the couple from marrying – ini-
tiated by the neighbouring South African and Southern Rhodesian gov-
ernments who were strictly opposing mixed marriages, forbidding them
in their respective countries.
Britain obliged, not only under economic and political pressure but
also its own Zeitgeist/ideologies, trying forcibly, yet in vain, to stop the
marriage going ahead. The married couple relocated to live in Bechuana-
land/Botswana, were Seretse Khama had become Kgosi/Monarch elected
Obama veut ainsi prouver à chaque section de l’électorat qu’il partage ses valeurs
es ses codes culturels. Etre identifié par chaque communauté comme étant l’un des
siens est plus payant électoralement que se positionner au-delà des identités. François
Durpaire, Olivier Richomme, L’Amérique de Barack Obama (Paris: Demopolis,
2007), pp. 205–206.
3 “Still, Barack Obama was able to overcome the dilemma of race and misconcep-
tions. He was able to convince 53 percent of the American people that he wasn’t too
Black to be our president, or too white to understand the quagmire, inner city youth
find themselves in… […] America was transformed forever and Dr King could
finally rest in peace – we as a people had made it to promised land”. Senator Rickey
Hendon, Black enough / White enough: the Obama dilemma (Chicago: Third World
Press, 2009), pp. 194–195.
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
8. 490
by his people. He was not recognised by the British Colonial rulers and
he and his wife were forced by the British Government and administra-
tion to leave. From 1950 they were forced to live a life in exile, in
Britain! A unique measure and hard to imagine that it happened during
the childhood of the now ruling President Ian Khama, the son of the
then exiled couple.
Fenner Brockway then MP of Eaton and Slough summed up the
injustice in a pamphlet4 opposing the labour government:
It is intolerable that an alien administration (the British Labour Government MS)
should banish a man for life from his country and his people on the ground only that
he married a white woman.
Yet that is exactly what had happened to Ian Khama’s father Seretse
Khama at the hand of the British colonial power. Seretse Khama was
banned from his own country and forced to live in Britain because he
was married to a white British woman. Contrary to Ruth Khama’s hopes,
the incoming Conservative Government upheld the decision also bow-
ing to South African and Rhodesian demands, and banned him for life
from his own country.
Therefore their son Ian Khama was born in England. He and his
parents were only allowed to go home to Botswana five years later,
when, after massive public protests in England the ban was fiercly ques-
tioned. Their next son was named Tony after Tony Benn MP who to-
gether with Clement Freud MP had strongly supported their fight against
this forced unjust exile.
Back home Seretse Khama founded the first political party in his
home country and became the first Prime Minister of the Bechuanaland
Protectorate and later the first President of the Republic of Botswana as
the country was renamed after Independence in 1966. Ian Khama his
son born in exile, became President in 2008.
In contrast President Barack Obama was a US citizen from day
one and elected as its 44th President also in 2008.
He was born in Hawaii to a mother from Kansas/USA and a father
from Kenya/Africa. He grew up in the US and other countries as his
mother was a social anthropologist.
4 Fenner Brockway, Pamphlet, London 1954.
Maria Saur
9. 491
So, both these Presidents have Anglo-Saxon mothers and African
fathers and were raised in several different countries. In their time they
were both confronted with varying degrees and forms of discrimina-
tion. Sometimes, for not being white enough or not being black enough
for being one or the other, for not being clearly categorised.
Ian Khama’s parents suffered oppression, by being exiled and pun-
ished for having entered a “multi-cultural/mixed heritage marriage”.
Barack Obama’s parents did not manage to remain married due to a
multitude of factors.
At the time of both weddings multi-ethnic marriages were still ille-
gal in many states of the USA and some colonies in Southern Africa.
President Obama was largely raised in a white middle class setting
in North America with spells in Indonesia, but never in Africa. Yet he is
predominantly seen as a black African-American by his people – and
also portrays himself as such, but not always. Describing his struggle
with his identity he writes: ‘I tried to become a black male’.5
President Ian Khama, largely raised in a black upper class context
in Southern Africa after his birth in exile, is seen as white by many of
his people and black by others, accepted by all as their President and by
the Bagmanwato also as their Kgosi/Monarch.6
1. Cultural comprehension
I will be arguing that the reasons for this form of cultural comprehension
and interpretation of the ethnicity of these two presidents are to an extent
determined by the fact that das Sein bestimmt das Bewusstsein (social
being determines consciousnesses) – Messers Marx and Engels tried to
prove. To put it in simple terms if you are a black Batswana and nearly
everybody around you is black you will see the person who is less black
than you, and those around you as not black but white. If you are a
5 Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father (NewYork: Kodansha International, 1996).
6 Though some accuse him for destroying theirAfrican culture by trying to implement
American culture (please note thatAmerica and England are often not clearly distin-
guishable by the people in many Southern countries like Botswana).
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
10. 492
white North American and most people around you are white, as you
are, you will perceive anyone with a slightly darker skin tone than the
ones around you as socially black. Hence to an extend the social being
determines consciousness.
An example illustrating the above is that in Botswana and South-
ern Africa Indians and Asians are mostly seen as white people, no dif-
ference from Europeans is perceived – whereas that is quite different
on the European Continent and in North America, as we all well know.
When I went with colleagues fromAsia for our village-stay to study
and practise Setswana the language of Botswana, everybody took me
as also being Asian. When I protested the difference they laughed at
me, they could literally not see it.
But to try and understand why people are often not able, let alone
willing to equally classify president Obama as white, one has to ex-
plore deeper levels of the human psyche and furthermore explore the
historical and political context. We have to confront the question – why
is it that a person of mixed heritage in North America is almost “auto-
matically” classified as belonging to the group that is less powerful in
society, that has a lesser standing and a lesser social prestige, not to
speak of lower income. Furthermore they are classified as belonging to
a section of society the so called whites feel themselves superior to.
The one drop rule still rules the heads – and hearts perhaps?
How hurtful that can be is clearly shown in President Obama’s
own account in just one example of many. When describing, that on a
regular basis he was given their car key by white couples in front of
restaurants as he himself was waiting for his car to be brought up from
the garage by an employee. This shows that any person of perceived
mixed heritage is put “automatically” into the “chauffeur’s category”
and not the “lawyer’s” – mostly by white people but not only so.7
Like an American business man whom I interviewed, who went to
the prestigious Ritz Hotel in London for tea having booked in advance,
was the only person questioned on the way in – he was also the only
person of mixed heritage there. He and Barack Obama are/were also
regularly followed by security guards in any shopping centre.
7 Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father…; François Durpaire, Olivier Richomme,
L’Amérique de Barack Obama…, pp. 196.
Maria Saur
11. 493
Obama describes his outrage, his hurt and bewilderment regarding
this kind of treatment yet continues:
I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions
in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as
imperfect as my own.8
Despite these insults he has managed to become the person everyone
can identify with, if they wish to do so. Yet those who don’t can still
abuse him in similar ways as described above, as the political opposi-
tion of his own country permanently try to as well as fellow statesmen
like then Berlusconi from Italy for example, constantly remarking on
his skin tone.
They can’t ask him to get their car from the garage anymore but
they can force him to present a birth certificate – a procedure no other
President had to go through anywhere ever.
On the other side of the spectrum people worldwide see him as one
of theirs and point out the far reaching positive impact this has for
them.
Mme Christiane Taubira, then in the French Assembly9 explains
why Obama is so popular, why everybody can find a part of their iden-
tity in him. She calls him the “Icon of Globalisation” and says that he
incarnates, for the millions of citizens with transnational identities, “the
end of mutual exclusive identities”.
In her words:
On trouve en lui un part de leur identité – ‘icône de mondialité’pour les millions de
citoyens des identités transnationales il incarne la fin des identités mutuellement
exclusive.
8 Speech: “A more perfect union” 2008. Speech delivered by Senator Barack Obama
on March 18, 2008 in the course of the contest for the 2008 Democratic Party presi-
dential nomination.
9 Débute de la Guyane et première femme noire á avoir brigue en France la présidence
de la République en 2002 ne veut pas idéaliser Obama mais elle estime que sa per-
formance mérite d’être saluée parce qu’elle a pulvérise des clichés”. (François
Durpaire, Olivier Richomme, L’Amérique de Barack Obama…). “Representative
(MP) from Guyana and the first black woman who has run for president of the
republic in 2002 does not want to idealise Obama but she thinks that his perform-
ance should be saluted because it has pulverised the clichés” (Trans. by Maria Saur).
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
12. 494
Bien au delà des Etas Unis et des nos combats immédiates elle éclaire le monde
d’une relation nouvelle, moins chargée d’agressivité moins marquée de défiance
[…] nous pouvons et nous devons prolonger les batailles livrées par Obama pour
les arrimer a nos propres luttes et contribuer a insuffler au monde plus de lucidité,
de paix et de fraternité.
Far beyond the United State and our own immediate struggles it enlightens the world
with a new relationship less charged with aggressiveness less marked by defiance
[…] we can and we must continue with the battles delivered by Obama to make
them part of our own struggles and to contribute to infuse into the world more clar-
ity, peace and fellowship.10
The dilemma and poignancy of creating ones own form out of these
multiple not exclusive identities is very well described by what I have
quoted above, that he was trying to raise himself “to be a black man in
America”, “and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me
seemed to know exactly what that meant”.
This quote shows that he himself could also not imagine then that
his very own appearance could be perceived as white and is seen as
white in some places on this globe.
2. Multi-culturalism or Many-Colours-ism?
Identitiés Transnationales or Mixed Heritages?
The term and concept of multiculturalism is currently undergoing yet
another substantial transformation from meaning anything and every-
thing to everybody and anybody with a positive connotation, to mean-
ing anything and everything in a negative way – one could say. Never
ever clearly defined it was mostly used to describe the more or less
tolerant way in which people in the North share a common predomi-
nantly urban space.11
10 François Durpaire, Olivier Richomme, L’Amérique de Barack Obama…, pp. 200–
211 (Trans. by Maria Saur).
11 There was recently a scandal about a TV producer in England who would refuse to
put a character with visibly mixed heritage in a crime series about life in a British
village. He said it would not be authentic to do that since there is no multicultural
community there – he lost his job although the fact is correct since the visible multi-
Maria Saur
13. 495
Multi-culturalism was used to describe different cultural approaches
to all aspects of life under the flag of one nation state. Different reli-
gions, world views, etc. would have come under that definition in any
country. Nonetheless it was mainly used to describe the effects of re-
cent migrant movements and settlement patterns in the so called West-
ern World or Northern Hemisphere. No one really speaks of multi-
culturalism referring to the state of South Africa. It had a positive
connotation in the form that a tolerant living-side-by-side of people
with different world views and ideologies was described.
Recently the concept has been attacked by ruling governments who
used to pride themselves on it, giving way to rather right leaning and
fundamentalist ideologies. Ministerpräsidentin Angela Merkel of Ger-
many as well as David Cameron PM of the UK have recently declared
in their speeches: ‘Multi-culturalism is dead’. Cameron did not do it at
home but in Munich. Lets hope there is no foreboding in that. They
both claimed it had never worked, blaming the immigrants themselves
for not having tried harder to adapt to the countries they pay tax in.
One could almost laugh at the clichéd kind of reaction to a crisis by
both heads of state, as if taken straight out of Marx’s or Brecht’s “text-
books” or plays respectively. – “In times of crisis blame a scapegoat
and divert the anger towards it, away from the governments and ruling
classes who created it and burden the poor with the effects.” One won-
ders if Frau Merkel former ‘Genossin/Comrade’ Merkel might well have
taken note of the analysis of the heroes of her childhood and in doing so
meets PM Cameroon coming from the other end of the spectrum on the
way. They attack something that means to everybody whatever they
want to see in it – but are trying to direct the anger and frustration and
blame clearly and unashamedly towards the so called ‘outsider’ who-
ever that might be – whoever is made to be it. It can be immigrants and
fundamentalists today, the unhappy demonstrating youth tomorrow and
culturalism seems to end at the bigger city’s borders –. Some even say London and
Birmingham for example are different countries.Acaricature in the Guardian news-
paper showed a road sign saying “Chingford” and below “end of multi-culturalism”.
Chingford is ca. 10 km NE of London in Epping Forest, the latter given by a Queen
to the people of East London for their recreation. One rarely sees one of the many
“mixed heritage” East Londoners there.
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
14. 496
the whole political opposition one day perhaps. Hence cementing their
power and rendering it unquestionable.
When I started to work on this paper I just wanted to show that
multi-culturalism has been watered down to multi-colourism in many
ways. The advertisements for the clothing firm Benetton have dem-
onstrate that vividly for years. Trying to have a representative of every
skin tone and hair structure present in their adverts – saying we all
look good in Benetton’s clothes, so what’s the problem? Just love each
other and love living together. – As if the defining factor of culture
was the skin tone and as if a common taste in fashion would bring us
together. If you scrutinise their adverts you will find that they just re-
inforce the stereotypes and categories of coolness attributed to the re-
spective type.
I guess I do not have to explain the over simplification in that ap-
proach, given that they mostly operate in Europe where people from
different cultural backgrounds have killed each other for centuries de-
spite liking and wearing the same sartorial style or fashion – jeans re-
cently.
Idealistically and naively multi-culturalism would be the antidote
to racism and nationalism but to the contrary side steps the roots of
racism and nationalism. However the concept of multi-culturalism has
been around for some time. Nietzsche had already envisaged it 133 years
ago calling it “the age of comparison”. In 1878 he wrote: “Who, in-
deed, is subject to any strict compulsion at all to tie him- or herself or
their offspring to one particular place [culture, religion world view]?”
Just as all the different styles of art are used side by side, so with all
levels and kinds of moralities, customs, and cultures. – Such an era
receives its importance from the fact that all different world-views,
customs, cultures can be compared and lived with side by side …. This
is the age of comparison! – Let us understand the task of our age in as
positive a way as we can: then future generations will thank us – future
generations who will have gone both beyond the mutually separate origi-
nal folk cultures and beyond the culture of comparison”.12
12 Friedrich Nietzsche‚ Menschliches allzu Menschliches (Leipzig: C.G. Naumann,
1873); The Multicultural Riddle Rethinking National, Ethnic, and Religious Identi-
ties, Gerd Bauman, trans. (New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 8.
Maria Saur
15. 497
Shortly after he had proclaimed this optimistic insight and vision
for the future (and we all know Nietzsche was not an optimist!) the
worst conflicts and atrocities were committed, more intolerant and less
prepared to embrace an age of comparison than ever before. In con-
trary, as if to prevent the dawning of an age of comparison and a paral-
lel of cultures – an attempt was made to cast cultural pre-determination
and racism in stone. All variety had to be banned, persecuted and de-
stroyed during Fascism in Europe.
Colonialism acted in a more measured way yet at its roots was
informed by a similarly chauvinistic ideology.
One could wonder with hindsight, if the sheer prospect of the dawn
of an ‘age of comparison’ might have evoked such ferocity in those
who felt threatened by it. As if the possibility of a side by side exist-
ence, let alone a chance to go beyond, ‘the mutually separate original
folk cultures’ and even ‘beyond the age of comparison’ (Nietzsche 1878)
had evoked such fear as to clutch at deterministic, chauvinistic ways of
thinking, and enforce them.
The assumption that similar deterministic and destructive forces
are currently emerging could be seen in that light. Fear of loss of power
and the feeling of superiority, fear of diversity, fear of a not clearly
defined standpoint to hold on to – literally.
Before I try to investigate the forces and mechanisms within hu-
man beings, that can hinder a person to value difference in general, and
different identities in the same way as ones own, I feel it is important to
see how the concept and ideology of race and racism came into being
and what purpose it served politically.
3. The Invention of Race
Perhaps it is best to look at the origins of the concept of race and racism
first.
This will provide us with some understanding of the historical and
political context and might even explain why there is so little true ef-
fort being made to eradicate it and to enlighten and empower people in
that respect.
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
16. 498
The following brilliant and succinct analysis by Mario Erdheim, a
Social Anthropologist and Ethno-Psychoanalyst is worth a long quote:
The conceptualisation of racism developed as a response to the French Revolution.
The idea of a biologically superior race was developed by Count Gobineau as a
reaction to the postulates of Liberté Egalité Fraternité (Freedom Equality Brother-
hood)13. The French Revolution in particular was a time of dramatic change that
changed the rigid concepts of the feudal society (Staendegesellschaft) and Divine
Kingdom of God (Gottesgnadentum). This development was accelerated by the
emergence of capitalism. I consider it characteristic that it was at that particular time
that the concept of racism came into being.At a time when everything was in motion
the individual’s body became the yardstick: What is in one’s own body can’t be
changed. You belong to a race or you don’t. One is either ruled over because one is
inferior, or one belongs to those who rule – and that is something stable/fixed. […].
The definition of different races originates in pure ideological thinking. To distin-
guish between people with big ears and small ears blond and brunettes – the criteria
was completely arbitrary. These ideologies had impact till the 20th century. It is
important to comprehend that racism is a kind of twin brother to national-socialism/
fascism and that both have a similar potential to mobilise. Both concepts have the
same roots. I define these with the concept of ethnicity. Ethnicity means to belong to
a certain culture, to a defined religion, to a defined history, to a defined region.
Ethnicity is a very important part of defining ones identity. The transformations
caused and brought on by the French Revolution ‘blew up’the concept of ethnicity.
That had a pre-history. The centralisation of the state by the absolutism had all eth-
nicity sub-ordinated to the powers of the state. Along this line developed national-
ism and racism. The core of the problem though is the ethnic identity under threat –
for which nationalism and racism offer substitutes.14
So the concept of racism was invented and implemented in an attempt
to keep a hierarchical world order in place and to avoid the spread of
‘revolutionary’ ideas like equality brotherhood, and freedom. It is in-
teresting that in the nineteenth century this was seen as a ‘revolutionary
concept’ but nowadays it is subscribed to by every political colour, in
their manifestos on paper, and in speeches. Yet how can it be that so
little has been achieved with regard to implementing these principles in
societies? These once revolutionary, nowadays mundane, principles are
even used to justify the bombardments and invasions of certain coun-
tries who do not subscribe to them. Is this not also what Napoleon pur-
sued after the French revolution – take the freedom and spread these
13 The cradle of Human Rights.
14 Mario Erdheim, “Fremdenangst kennt jede Kultur”, NZZ Folio, 6 (1992).
Maria Saur
17. 499
principles by force, by first centralising the French state then declaring
war all over Europe. (I could never help myself but see in Blair a kind
of wannabe British Napoleon the man ‘from the people’ going to war to
spread freedom; supposedly.)
Nowadays the gap between rich and poor here in Britain is bigger
than it was 100 years ago. Likewise its upwards mobility has decreased
in the last century. No equality, no freedom, let alone brotherhood here,
let alone ‘Fellowship is the meaning of life’ as William Morris, a na-
tional hero, has expressed it also more than 100 years ago.
It is interesting that by using the revolutionary liberation concepts
from the nineteenth century as a theory as well as concepts invented as
their antidote at the same time society is kept static, the class and wealth
divisions impermeable.
It now seems that Multi-culturalism was an ideal tool to combine
the two. Let the co-existence of different cultures and invented races in
one society be acknowledged and therefore undermine social mobility
and flexibility.
Coming back to Presidents Obama and Khama, who are often seen
as symbolically representing freedom of possibilities and change, they
are none the less, always defined by the so called ‘race ideology’.
We have now seen the political concepts that support this re-action
namely the belief that there must be hierarchy for any society to func-
tion – it keeps the status quo and avoids flexibility and mobility.
If clear cut divisive feudal structures have become obsolete we
have to invent and implement biological ones.
4. The ethno-psychoanalytical discours
There are yet also psychological elements at work. Fear of the unknown,
the other, the stranger is an element of every culture and instinctive in
children. Every culture/society is “ethno centric”. There is always am-
bivalence, fascination and fear towards the stranger. The question is
whether the ambivalence can be endured. It depends on the socialisation
of the individual person whether fascination or fear will prevail; whether
integration or polarisation will occur. Erdheim wrote that culture per se
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
18. 500
is the product of a constructive engagement Auseinandersetzung with
the unknown.15
So following this argument one could say that multi-culturalism
idealised the other cultures instead of engaging with them to create
something new (perhaps the fear of the unknown wanted to avoid just
that).
Now, our two Presidents, clearly the outcome of two foreign sides
engaging with each other to create something new, are not allowed to
be seen as that – something new. They have to attribute themselves to
one or the other of their heritages – and are mostly forced to one par-
ticular side. They cannot possibly be perceived as white in the northern
hemisphere for example.
The difficulty of the individual to acknowledge one approach just
as valid as the other one is remarkable. The reason may lie in what is
called the “narcissistic insult”16 which occurs when a person has to
recognise that any one person can only be one not also the other or even
both17. This is hard to accept and not easy to endure. Therefore one
tends to deny the fact and idealises one’s own part in the duality and
regards it as superior. The same might apply for black and white. If I
see President Obama just as another protestant white person18 who am
I then? Lost!
Yet he and his colleague President Khama from Botswana are just
as white as I am so I was taught in Kachikau, Botswana/Africa; – thanks
dear neighbours, colleagues and friends there!.
In that sense I would like to end with some recent linguistic inven-
tion – language being the mother of all culture perhaps. Culture created
by the engagement with the foreign. A new word as seen in graffiti and
on stickers in Spanish speaking USA, North and South America:
“¡Obámanos! ”
For the few non-Spanish speakers: this is a combination of Obama ob-
viously and vamos meaning “we go” or vámonos – let’s go. In Spanish,
15 “Fremdenangst kennt jede Kultur” Mario Erdheim.
16 “Narzisstische Kraenkung” Sigmund Freud.
17 Children still believe they can and act accordingly.
18 Paul C. Mocombe, The liberal black protestant heterosexual bourgeois male (Chi-
cago: University Press of Michigan, 2010), p. 6.
Maria Saur
19. 501
exclamation marks are also put in front of the sentence – in reversed
form – so you know what’s coming.
I leave to your fantasy and imagination the magnitude of meanings
here-in.
Notes
This paper presents is a glimpse into research in progress. I would like to thank with all
my heart, all my interview/dialogue partners who prefer to remain anonymous as well as
CemAngeli, Ken Carter, Gerd Baumann, Gina Borbas,AF, Jane Gibson, Barbara Koester,
Thomas Kuppler, Poppy Lloyd, Zita Lloyd, Nametso Mothoka, CR, Hannah Thompson,
Christine Williams and Elisabeth Zimmermann for their invaluable contributions. They
were the best interlocutors there could possibly be.
Multi-culturalism or Many-colours-ism
