The horror, the horror

Some crazy ass shit, white man’s preoccupations and the plight Africa underwent.

So here at the university of Stockholm English Institute one of their favorite texts is Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The idea is to dissect the text and look at it through the prism of many researchers eye and even to shed some light into what others think about it, now please, bear in mind that I am Mexican, worse yet, am a Xicano, so whatever argument dished these guys up and the interpretations they make out of it is like watching two kids fight it out in the street for the mere pleasure of standing there and see the fight, in other words, as Tina Turner would say it succinctly, what’s love got to do with it? Even more I believe they give this text out for the sole purpose of entertaining the swedes as the swedes are central to this text’s narrative.

The text in itself is really about some old geezers sunbathing in the Thames one late evening in August and really there is nothing more than the comparison of two empires at play here, one, the Roman Empire and the other the British Empire.

However, there is a sense, a dimension at play here that is akin to an apology, a justification of sorts, a catholic/anglican church mea culpa, a Pontious Pilatos washing of the hands.

This text has a bad rap and I can see how the Africans are enraged by the narrative of this text, regardless of the value of the tale, its sole purpose is to whitewash the sins of the fathers. In other words, this text is merely apologizing for crimes committed against the people of Africa, (Judge Garzon, where are you when you are really needed) worse, making the British people have a heart of sorts, furthermore, and most disturbing, and whence the governments claims innocence of the acts of their subjects, is that they can claim innocence and distraction of their duties and play the good cop routine.

A perpetuation of the empire by benign means is at play, in others words, while crimes were committed in the name of the crown, the crown can always and always has the option of disclaiming itself from those crimes by alluding that its good intentions were hijacked by bad elements, and this is the case with this text, Joseph Conrad is apologizing for the acts of his people to the African folk, atonement, in English manners.

Curiously enough most of the critics in this book we are made to read are and have germanic last names, whether they are white, or black I have no idea, but it doesn’t stop me, a Xicano from finding this aspect as curious. Even more interesting, there seems to be a belief amongst critics that so long as one has a valid criticism about the text it is valid in all its aspect regardless of race, never mind that those races happen to be, for the most part, of the caucasian persuation.