Published 28 October 2024 in News
The Helsinki Notebooks
An African Animist Take on Fascism
By Moshumee Dewoo
The Helsinki Notebooks - Global Dispatches Against Fascism and the Far Right
The University of Helsinki - Faculty of Social Sciences - Academic Disciplines - Political History
Posted 15 October 2024
Animism, particularly within African traditions, affirms the existence of metaphysical beings as they were the co-animating force, if not the very life-force, of and behind all those things that ever were and ever will be, sort of silent entities that drive tangible realities, ghostly authorities that determine the course of the universe, spirits behind physical life, ours included. It traces the movements of these spirits within the rhythms of our kind back to the recesses of ancient caves, where their shadows whispered, against the first fires, that our survival was intertwined with them.
Among these spirits are the gentle guardians of balance and abundance who quietly steer the flow of the natural cycles of life as they bring rain to the crops and guide our hunts, requiring nothing but reverence in return. Others, however, exist for the ruination of our kind, unleashing storms of conflict and despair that ravage our societies, one of the most corrosive being fascism – a snake, a leviathan draped in the familiar comforts of patriotism, tradition, and protection that slithers between the cracks of our vulnerabilities, hissing promises of restored glory as this rested upon the sacrifice of the dignity and humanness of those it assures a real existential threat to the purity of an ‘Us’, promising the revitalisation thereof through the consumption of the blood and bones of an ‘Other’. It so replaces trust with suspicion, empathy with cruelty, and cooperation with domination, draining societies of cultural diversity and eroding the richness of their collective existence.
Yet, fascism does not go unopposed. It never did. It never could.
For, another spirit exists that rises to meet it each time it rears its head, wherever it may attempt to take hold. This is the spirit of optimism, which transcends disparate geographies and historical boundaries, rippling through poems, protests, prayers, walls, lecture halls, art, coups, reverie, songs, and cyberspace to carry the hope of a global network of anti-fascists – a contagion of defiant optimists counting revolutionaries, philosophers, freedom fighters, artists, and ordinary citizens infecting one another with the vision for an inclusive world along a reclamation of humanness, a declaration of shared dignity, the affirmation an undeniable ‘Us’ without an ‘Other’.
We see this network manifest in India, for example, in the manner of Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha or ideal of nonviolent resistance as moral force against the British Raj inspiring Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign in the U.S. civil rights movement toward a “beloved community” raised through the nonviolent defiance of systemic racism. King’s campaign, in turn, moved Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) to fight against the apartheid regime and unite a fractured South African nation toward Desmond Tutu’s “rainbow nation”. Gandhi’s influence extended to Mauritius, where Seewoosagur Ramgoolam drew upon satyagraha to lead the island nation to independence from colonial control.
Notwithstanding the controversies around its leadership and tactics, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement continues to stand against systemic racism in the U.S., in echo of King’s vision for a society grounded in justice and equality. The movement also highlights the importance of intersectionality between race, sexism, and homophobia, drawing inspiration from pioneers of queer activism like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera who recognised that oppression manifests in multiple layers, so affirming that the struggle for racial justice cannot be separated from the rights of Black LGBTQ+ individuals. This is exemplified by the Black Trans Lives Matter (BTLM) movement, which confronts the unique challenges faced by Black LGBTQ+ individuals amid both racial and gender-based violence.
The BLM and BTLM movements are also rooted in feminist thought, particularly the work of Simone de Beauvoir, who critiqued the historical subjugation of women and posited that gender equality was essential for a just society, as well as Audre Lorde, who emphasised the importance of acknowledging the intersections of race, sexuality, and gender in the fight for justice. This feminist lineage extends to a diverse array of activists around the world, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who engages with de Beauvoir’s ideas in her advocacy for gender equality and social justice in post-colonial Nigeria. Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists continues the conversation initiated by de Beauvoir in her The Second Sex. And so on, and so forth, and back and forth.
As so goes the spirit of optimism, along an unbroken network of resistance, a chain stretching from ancient caves through the annals of time, each link a living connection pulsating with the energy of a common vision for an inclusive world. It is the same spirit that compels me, as it does so many others, to breathe life into the stories that fascism once silenced – stories like that of Mauritian slave revolutionist Louis van Mauritius, whose defiance reverberated through generations to influence South African activist Zainunissa ‘Cissie’ Gool in her fight against apartheid; stories imbued with wisdom and courage, serving as repositories of information that offer invaluable lessons and strategies for resistance that should illuminate pathways for contemporary activists around the world as they confront the rising tide of authoritarianism and systemic oppression threatening to fracture their communities. Another link in the anti-fascist chain…
Moshumee Dewoo
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