<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<div id="container" class="container font-size5 content-width3">
<div id="reader-header" class="header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a id="reader-domain" class="domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/29/fanons-knife-and-puerto-rico/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/29/fanons-knife-and-puerto-rico/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Fanon’s Knife and Puerto Rico</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/meq3nawa/"
rel="nofollow">José Tirado</a> - September 29, 2017<br>
</span></div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="content">
<div id="moz-reader-content" class="line-height4" dir="ltr"
style="display: block;">
<div id="readability-page-1" class="page">
<div class="post_content" itemprop="articleBody">
<blockquote>
<p>Colonialism only loosens its hold when the knife is
at its throat.</p>
<p>–Frantz Fanon</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are many reasons to oppose colonialism. And there
are many images which seer into the mind the utterly
destructive nature of colonialism. My own favorite
example is a horrific picture from the “Belgian” Congo
of a despondent Congolese man on the sunny porch of some
Euro-style home looking with total forlornness at the
severed hands and feet of his children. As was policy at
the time, they probably did not work hard enough for the
rapacious chocolatiers and paid the price with their
limbs. Only one word emerged from my lips the first time
I saw that picture: revolution. This is what the word
was meant for. No human relationship that so devalues a
child’s life (and by extension, their parents’ and their
entire culture) deserves to stand. It must be destroyed
forever. Fanon’s knife needs to be drawn on occasion.</p>
<p>Some might say the recent Puerto Rico crisis is nowhere
near the alarming brutality of those times. Regularly
counseled patience and indoctrinated to believe the US
ultimately has its interests at heart, too many
Puertoricans have abandoned their own dignity to
apologize for the relationships´ many failures. There
are now more Puertoricans on the mainland (4.9 million)
than living on the island (3.5) and PR has more people
than 21 US states. So one would think the news of
Hurricane Maria would be regular, the media coverage
vigorous, and the convoys of aid immediate. No such
luck. 1.5 million people now lack potable water. Since
last week. The pictures of devastation are sobering. And
as of last night (the 26<sup>th</sup>), the first
reported deaths due to generators failing (there still
is no electricity) have been relayed. This is an
enormous crisis. There are many who suspect that there
is no surprise here. That the slow starvation of
Puertoricans out of their homes, over to the US where
they will then “assilmilate” and call themselves
“Americans” proudly while the vultures buy and chop up
the island into manageable pieces for their rich
cronies, has been the goal for years and is de facto the
plan. There will be plenty of quislings to help them,
too. If we needed any more proof (we really don´t) of
the US attitude and intentions to PR, it´s here today.</p>
<p>But what are the options? A bit of historical context
might illuminate the problem a bit.</p>
<p>When the US took over Puerto Rico in 1898, Puertoricans
fed themselves. Their economy was primarily
agricultural. Around 40% of the land was given over to
coffee, 32% for growing food for local consumption, 15%
to sugar and 1% for tobacco. Over 90% of the farms and
agricultural resources were owned by local Puertoricans.
Within a few years, US tariffs required that Puertorican
coffee had to be sent to the US before it could be sold
in Europe. The 1899 hurricane and the adoption of US
currency on the island was the death knell of
Puertorican coffee production. US companies then began
buying up land and soon sugar became the dominant crop,
production increasing by an incredible 1200% by 1929
with 80% owned by US sugar companies. In the years
between 1899-1929, unemployment went from 17% – 36% with
¼ to a third of workers unemployed most of the year.
Eventually local food production collapsed and export
dominated agricultural production became the norm. By
1940, 80% “of all farmland was owned by large
corporations or landlords with 500 acres or more.”
(Perez, 1976, pp. 6-7). Thus, during the Great
Depression and up to the Second World War, Puertoricans
were dirt poor, dependent upon the largess of the US for
food and other resources amid a remarkable set of
political machinations which mandated English, actually
banned Spanish, and in open correspondence its overlords
regarded locals as “mongrels” and “cannibals” whose
“race mixing” as unsettling.</p>
<p>Growing during this time were a class of “pitiyanquis”
(little Yankees), the “quislings” of PR who managed to
ingratiate themselves to the US and benefit as minor
officials in the local government, whose positions were
always at the mercy of their obsequisness to their
colonial masters. They morphed into the pro-statehood
and pro-commonwealth parties who couldn´t imagine living
without their connection to the US and whose descendants
remain dominant in PR politics to this day. It is a
classic colonial mindset Fanon would have recognized.
And deplored.</p>
<p>But once upon a time there was resistance. The first
was the independence strand within the Puerto Rico Union
Party which also had statehood and local autonomy trends
within it. After the 1917 Jones Act was passed, the
Union Party broke into factions of which the Nationalist
Party (formed in 1922) took the banner of full
independence. The Socialist Party had left and right
wing trends which eventually also ended up splitting
into a Liberal Party (the left trend, fully in favor of
independence) and a SP which joined forces with the
Republican Party (founded in 1899 and assimilationist).
It was the charismatic Pedro Albizu Campos who led the
Nationalist Party into challenging the corrupt alliance
of the SP and the Republicans and forcefully advocating
for independence. However, years of suppression by the
dominant US-backed local government leading to
massacres, imprisonment, repression of Nationalist
speakers, and finally COINTELPRO disruption of ANY
independent movement all led to a conclusion many
Puertoricans quickly absorbed: advocating for
independence can lead to brutal suppression or even
death. Joining up with the US, keeping one´s head low
and subserviently accepting US domination of all aspects
of life can lead to safety within the confines of a
colonial relationship. To this day, this sentiment
prevails, with emotional support for independentistas
high but practical political support always going to the
deferred parties of the status quo. No matter how many
referenda are held, Puertoricans back down, fearing
being cast adrift without help. Just like they are now.</p>
<p>As of this week, 80% of Puerto Rico´s agricultural
sector has been destroyed. It´s electric grid is dead.
Potable water is scarce and, already laboring under the
crushing neo-liberal regime of debt repayment (aka
squeezing blood from a plantain) with a US-appointed
fiscal control board fully committed to the
Greecification of PR, prospects for the average
Puertorican look awful. As if it wasn´t bad enough.
Schools have closed, unemployment is already 12%, there
is a 46% poverty rate and, with a median income of less
than $20,000, Puertoricans have an income rate LOWER
than the poorest US state, Mississippi. Puerto Rico is a
broken colony, with a broken people whose imaginations
seem to have died. Statehooders will cry and beg their
masters asserting that liberation is “too risky” and
they´ll continue to drink off the rapidly drying teat of
colonial milk cows who will be buying up more land and
pushing out more people, year after year. But this is
unsustainable.</p>
<p>So, is the US just waiting for all the people in Puerto
Rico to just leave or die so they can buy up all the
land for rich people to play in their newly concrete
fortified hotels 9 months a year? I don´t know, but it
sure appears that way from where I and many other
Puertoricans I have spoken with stand. And remember, the
hurricane season is not over, and the storms are getting
bigger. If this doesn´t wake us up, what will?</p>
<p>Nevertheless, for the immediate future some things are
changing, even as I write this (perhaps this
Administration is getting beaned over the head enough to
finally respond): apparently Sen. McCain has said a
repeal of the Jones Act is long overdue and the USNS
Comfort has just been sent.</p>
<p>But the long-term future of Puerto Rico looks bleak, in
fact, very bleak unless Puertoricans unite to claim
their unique identity and reclaim their island. It is
time that a vibrant, revolutionary movement arise to
demand what was stolen years ago: our independence and
with it, our self-respect. We cannot continue to be
beggars in our own land crying for help when disaster
strikes while the land is bought from under our feet and
the resources privatized.</p>
<p>Time to end the colonial relationship once and for all.
<em>¡Viva Puerto Rico libre!</em></p>
<p><em>. </em></p>
</div>
<p class="author_description"> <em><strong>José M. Tirado</strong> is
a Puertorican poet, Buddhist priest and political writer
living in Hafnarfjorður, Iceland, known for its elves,
“hidden people” and lava fields. His articles and poetry
have been featured in CounterPunch, Cyrano´s Journal,
The Galway Review, Dissident Voice, La Respuesta, Op-Ed
News, among others. He can be reached at <a
href="mailto:tirado.jm@gmail.com">tirado.jm@gmail.com</a>.</em>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>