By: Emma van Meyeren 10003182
University of Amsterdam RMa Literary Studies 2016-2017
Supervisor: Dr. Emiel Martens Advisor: Dr. Isabel Hoving On Political Newspaper Vitó
(1966-1971) and Curaçaoan Resistance against Dutch Colonialism
“Kwantu dia mas prome
ku un revolusjon?”
Dedication
Dedicated first and foremost
to Yiu Di Kòrsou.
To everyday resistance and
critique.
To my own community of
resistance: the University
of Colour.
And to the two professors
who pushed me beyond my
assumptions while recognizing
the fire in me:
dr. Emiel Martens and
dr. Isabel Hoving.
“The simple question:
“What should the Antilles aim for?”
and “With what goal do we raise and educate?” is first and foremost the affair of the Antillean.” — Vitó, 1.4
“When the colonized intellectual writing for his people uses the past he must do so with the intention of opening up the future, of spurring them into action and fostering hope.”
Table of Content
Introduction
7
Chapter 1:
Method and Theoretical Framework:
Resistance and Transformation
14
Chapter 2:
Alternative Media and its Counter-
Hegemonic Function
25
Chapter 3:
The Cultural Hegemony and the
Organization of Resistance
37
Chapter 4.
Conclusion:
Resistance and Transformation
48
Works Cited
53
Introduction
From the newly added introduction to Amador Nita’s 1952 essay Cambionan
Social cu un Yiu di Tera ta Sonja Cune den e Partinan Igual di e Reinado Nobo
[The Social Wishes of a Child from the Earth in the Equal Parts of the New
Kingdom] comes this gripping reflection on the Trinta di Mei [30th of May]
revolt. Reprinted in 1969, the same year as the revolt, the introduction is signed by Nita, together with union leader and politician Wilson Godett and editor-in-chief of political newspaper Vitó, Stanley Brown. As Nita’s text shows, the revolt holds an ambiguous status in the hearts of Curaçaoans. It reverberates both as a day of incredible significance and an act of violence that could have been prevented if the social conditions of Curaçaoans were taken seriously. In this sense Nita speaks of a certain neglect, a failure to acknowledge the significance and urgency of the social wishes of Curaçaoans. This neglect is where Nita traces the cause of the violence of 30 May.
Other writers share Nita’s criticism of the ignorance that existed about the causes and conditions leading to the revolt. Dutch writer Miep Diekmann engaged with these conditions through a collection of essays titled Een doekje
voor het bloeden [A cloth for the bleeding] in 1970. She showed an
interpreta-tion much like Nita’s, characterizing the negligence and ignorance regarding to what lead to the revolt as following: “It is the unexpected aspect of the eruption of 30 May 1969 that frustrates people. And still, they do not wish to see that the ‘unexpected’ aspect only exists in their imagination. (…) the Dutch say: “I was
Seventeen years have passed and a lot has changed in our society. The warnings that were presented in this book were ignored and the voice of the author lingered like a scream in the desert. His predictions became reality, let it be known! Two deaths, many injured, millions of damage to burned
businesses and buildings; the noble appearance of Willemstad is deeply violated. Deep from the heart of every citizen, wherever they may be in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, after reading this book will well the conclusion:“With a little more under-standing and respect for the legitimate social wishes of the people, the disaster of 30 May 1969 could have been prevented. ”
just having some fun, and now you bring in all those scary things such as Black Power. Now I have to start thinking!” “There’s a first time for everything,” I said consolatory” (8). In the same year the famous Curaçaoan writer Frank Martinus Arion used his platform Ruku to publish a public copy of the official report that was written about the day titled De meidagen van Curaçao
[The Maydays of Curaçao]. Two American scholars, William A. Anderson and
Russell R. Dynes, approached the day from the perspective of social movement theories in 1975, and published their results as Social Movements, Violence
and Change: the May Movement in Curaçao. Dutch scholar Gert Oostindie
compiled two volumes of essays and interviews in 1999, looking back on the revolt 30 years after its happening.1
These studies offer distinct yet largely similar treatments of the day. They consider the strike at the Shell refinery to have been the onset of the disruption, and the violence that followed to have been an accumulation of wider social dissatisfactions and the failed negotiations between the unions and the Shell. Largely absent in such analyses however is a comprehensive take on the role that colonialism played in the formation of the conflict and its develop-ment into a revolt. This is striking, not just because the social structures of the country are very much shaped by this history, but also because the origins of the revolt in the labor dispute took place at a site that is so very symbolical of the neocolonial influences on the island: the refinery of The Royal Dutch Shell. The official report for instance recognized seven societal issues that were foundational to the revolt: the government, the political structure, the economy, the unions, the labor laws, social laws and societal care facilities. A gaping absence in this analysis is the role of race and racism in all such aspects. Before they start their analysis of these issues the commission recognizes a “racial line of division in the Curaçaoan society [which makes it] difficult to isolate social inequalities of racial inequalities and vice versa” (68). They then conclude that “despite racial problems, which are a clear aspect of this Caribbean society, race did not have a dominating role in the revolt of 30 May” (68).
1 An overview of shorter
aca-demic studies such as papers and book chapters was compiled by Jo Derx (Dromen 339), literary and musical reactions are assembled by Wim Rutgers in his Beneden en boven de
The approach seems paradoxical: on the one hand, the intrinsic ties of racism to social inequalities in the Caribbean context is acknowledged. On the other hand, the decision is made not to make this a prominent aspect of the following
analysis of the social inequalities that were the foundation to the revolt. Because 30 May could actually reveal something about the ways in which Curaçaoans have resisted such inequalities and the wider structures of (neo) colonialism, I will revisit these sources on the largest and most violent disruption in the Dutch Caribbean during the 20th century.
The colonization of Curaçao by the Dutch can be traced back to 1634 (Römer 24), when the island became the site of three centuries of Dutch trade in enslaved African peoples (Groenewoud 18). After emancipation in 1863, a complex society developed, which Rose Mary Allen developed in depth in her Di Ki Manera? Central to her argument is the specific character of imperial domination in the Curaçaoan context, which distinguished itself as a transit port of enslaved people, as opposed to the plantation societies that developed on other Caribbean islands (258). Official independence of the Netherlands would follow after eight years of negotiations in 1954 (Groenewoud 159), when the Statuut brought Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, St. Martin, Saba and Statia together as the independent country ‘the Netherlands Antilles’. While the 1954 Statuut, much like the 1863 emancipation, were independence and freedom legislations on paper, the structures of the society were not much changed by such decisions (Römer 66, Groenewoud 23). The development of a colonial society to a neocolonial society can be traced along different societal continuities and changes. Groenewoud, in her Nou koest, nou kalm traces the influence of the church before and after emancipation as a continuation of Dutch domination. Other analyses have centralized the arrival of the Royal Dutch Shell in the modern and industrializing Curaçaoan society and its influence on the continuation of race and class differences (Römer 100). A crucial point of interest in that modern, post-emancipation history is the disaster of 30 May 1969.
The subordinate position of colonialism in aforementioned research of 30 May begs the question what aspects of the revolt have not yet been studied.
One recurring aspect of all these studies that cannot be overlooked is the role that was ascribed to a newspaper called Vitó. All of the analyses mention the influence of the paper and its charismatic editor-in-chief: Stanley Brown. In Oostindie’s volume of interviews he is introduced as following: “Stanley was held responsible for the revolt of 30 May in his capacity as the publisher of Vitó. He served four months in prison (12).” Brown, who considers himself the “Voltaire” of the revolt in this interview, refers to Vitó as a “movement that deliberately headed towards 30 May” (13). Yet, a critical reading of this news-paper has not been a part of any of the research that was done to this day.
It seems, from what is written about Vitó, that the imperial connections between Dutch capital, political interests, segregation, working conditions and impoverishment were at the heart of the paper. And so to understand that context a study that places Vitó at the center of attention is extremely helpful. Moreover, a renewed attention to 30 May’s resistance makes sense in the current political climate. This thesis is written in the time Black Lives Matter knows chapters around the world, the Women’s March is held in cities on every continent and students protest from Cape Town to Amsterdam for the decoloni-zation of our curricula. This thesis is also written in the Trump-era, the time of emergent visibility of right-wing parties in Europe and at the time the Global South is noticing the disastrous effects of the West’s greediness for natural resources. Black people, Indigenous peoples, Feminists, Environmentalists and all its intersections want to know: how do we change the tide? When institutions are structured to uphold the status quo, when institutions are occupied to keep power in place, the most revealing and important work is happening at the margins: “unlike elected officials who preoccupy themselves with policies considered practical and attainable within the political climate of the moment, social movements change the political weather” (Engler). Now more than ever it is important to revisit the history of resistance in order to understand current struggles for social change. Therefore, the research question of this thesis is: how does Curaçaoan newspaper Vitó (1966-1971) resist Dutch colonialism?
I am not the first person to be curious about Vitó’s resistance. In 1989, N.M.F.P. Jesurun wrote his master thesis titled ‘Vitó = 30 Mei???’. I imagine he had many of the same questions I have, but a limited access to sources (including Vitó itself) made his reading descriptive, rather than critical. I will continue where he left of in his quest to understand the position of Vitó. In Anderson & Dynes study, the role of Vitó is described as following:
There are two presumptions here that remain ambiguous throughout all writing on 30 May. First: Vitó is characterized as a movement, and the paper (which had the same name) as its means of expression. Such a description leaves a lot of the tensions between these two definitions of Vitó uncomplicated. It presumes that the newspaper worked as a message channel for a group of actors, and obscures a discussion about the interactions between the message and the actors. Another ambiguous relation in this description is between the Democratic party, industries on the island and Dutch neocolonial interests. While Anderson and Dynes recognize Vitó’s focus on “the forces identified responsible for the political and economic exploitation of the masses”, these forces are not central to their understanding of the eruption of 30 May.
Such tensions are crucial to the analysis of Vitó’s practices of resistance against Dutch colonialism. They require a fundamentally critical view of the position of a text such as Vitó in a system of domination like (neo)colonialism. 2 The characterization of
Stanley Brown as white is not com-pletely accurate. Stanley described his own ethnicity in conversation with Oostindie as: “I was born out of a mixed marriage: negro and white (…) we lived in the black ghetto in Groot-Kwartier, and I was a “red ne-gro”. I was the only boy who was not Black, my mother tongue was English, not Papiamentu (…) being mixed I saw both sides of the story.” (13)
A radical movement that operated outside established politics was also organized by returning students and young intellectuals with the aim of disseminating ideas on the need for radical change in Curaçao. The movement published a paper for this purpose called Vitó, and the movement became known by that name. The paper took to task those forces in Curaçao identified responsible for the political and economic exploitation of the masses. Especially singled out was the Democratic Party and leading industries on the island. Such groups were viewed by the Vitó movement as allied with Dutch neocolonial interests. Participants in the Vitó movement included schoolteachers and government workers. They were led by a young, white,2 former
schoolteacher. Stanley Brown, who headed the volunteer staff that published Vitó (63).
Because the intricacies of Vitó’s resistance lay somewhere between its status as newspaper and its status as social movement, theories from both (alternative) media scholarship and social (movement) scholarship will be used to create an interdisciplinary understanding of its position. This interdisciplinary approach is the subject of the first chapter, together with an introduction of the disciplinary theories that will be used. Respectively the counter-hegemonic function of alternative media will be explored along the lines of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, and the framing practices of social movements will be explored along the lines of Erving Goffman’s theory of the organization of experience.
The following chapters, chapters 2 and 3, will focus on the analysis of Vitó. In these chapters the theories of both disciplines will be combined and critically examined against each other in order to analyze Vitó’s negotiation of colonial hegemony. The second chapter, focusing on the period leading up to 30 May 1969, will focus on Vitó’s interpretation of the mainstream media in Curaçao. By analyzing its hegemonic function in a post-colonial context this chapter will examine Vitó’s resistance as an alternative media outlet. The third chapter, focusing on the period after 30 May 1969, will analyze Vitó’s interpre-tation of the revolt. The central role of the Papiamentu language in the cultural hegemony of the former colonizer will be used as an example to show how Vitó organized resistance against this hegemony.
Together, such theories allow a view of Vitó that positions it as an active agent in a hegemonic system that is historically marked by (neo)colonialism. This entails that Vitó is read in the context of liberation struggles with all the paradoxes that an analysis along the lines of the colonizer/colonized binary entail. As Frantz Fanon’s pivotal work The Wretched of the Earth shows: the struggle for liberation is bound up in the complexity of this binary, and in the way this binary can be (re-)enforced in post-liberation nations. In the spirit of his work, the analysis of such complexities in Vitó has the goal of understanding its politics within the material struggle for decolonization. Or, as Benita Parry describes it, the analysis asks “what the politics of projects which dissolve the binary opposition colonial self/colonized other are, when they are encoded in
colonialist language as a dichotomy necessary to domination, but also different-ly inscribed in the discourse of liberation as a dialectic of conflict and a call to arms” (15). Vitó, in the context of the 30 May revolt, requires an analysis that places it between its emancipatory discourse and its role in the mobilization of 30 May.
Chapter
1:
Method and Theoretical Framework:
Resistance and Transformation
In the introduction to her interdisciplinary case study on Mekhtoub, pioneer of Cultural Analysis Prof. Mieke Bal asserts: “objects are made by people for people and this gives them a historical position as well as a social function. The need to understand that position and that function is a fourth reason why research in the humanities tends to exceed the disciplinary frameworks designed to understand these objects” (Bal 91). As a means of resistance and as an intervention in a hegemonic system, the analysis of Vitó requires such an interdisciplinary approach: one that focuses on its position and function in a social and historical context. Ball’s case study was published in Allen F. Repko’s
Case Studies in Interdisciplinary Research, a book that illustrates a method he
developed in Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory. This chapter will use his method to outline the interdisciplinary3 framework along which Vitó
will be analyzed.
Next to introducing this method, this chapter will also serve as an introduction to the theories of the disciplinary insights. As a newspaper, Vitó’s resistance can be placed in the tradition of alternative media theories. In this frame, media practices that diverge from mainstream or mass media are ana-lyzed along the lines of their counter-hegemonic function. The definitions of John Downing (Radical Media, 2001) and Chris Atton (Alternative Media, 2002) will be used to introduce the field of alternative media scholarship. Their work draws from Marxist cultural theories of which the impact of Gramsci’s theory on Hegemony is central. As a movement, Vitó’s resistance can be placed in the tradition of social movement theories. In this frame, the practices of social movements are analyzed in the societal structures of
discontent and insurgency. Scholars such as James M. Jasper and Jeff Goodwin
3 I have italicized the ‘inter’
of interdisciplinary to emphasize that my approach should not be mistaken with a multidisciplinary analysis. The goal is not to place two insights side by side but to integrate the insights in order to create a more comprehensive understanding (Repko 16).
(Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion, 2003) are on the forefront of the cultural approach in social movement theories, focusing on cultural aspects of movements such as the roles of identity, emotions and discourse and its cultural artifacts like songs, artworks and media. Their work draws from sociologists such as Erving Goffman and Alberto Melucci, using framing analysis as a way to understand the position of cultural objects. After the interdisciplinary method is put forward, these theories will be introduced.
1.1 Interdisciplinarity
In his Interdisciplinary Research: Process and Theory Allen F. Repko discerned five steps in the process of interdisciplinary research. First, an interdisciplinary approach should be used for a complex problem, one that cannot sufficiently be analyzed through one discipline (76) (arguably this counts for any problem). Second, the researcher should identify and justify the use of several disciplinary insights (84). Third, adequacy in the relevant disciplinary fields needs to be acquired (96). Fourth, such insights must be integrated through a critical analysis of its conflicts and its common ground (261). And fifth, the goal of the interdisciplinary project is the creation of a “more comprehensive understanding” or, a conclusion that is based on the integration of several disciplinary insights that could not have been made based on any separate disciplinary insights (382). The complexity of Vitó’s resistance has already been introduced, as have the most evident disciplinary frameworks. However, the second step requires more than the identification of several disciplines, it also requires a reflection on this choice.
As Bal introduced, the analysis of an object requires an understanding of its functioning and position. Vitó, as an object of resistance against Dutch colonial-ism, therefore should be analyzed both for its content and for its position in this system of domination. Because it is characterized as a newspaper and as a social movement, disciplinary insights that consider these domains are used. Such disciplines, however, have different approaches to the object. Traditionally, the focus of cultural scholars such as media scholars on the cultural object and
the focus of sociologists on societal structures have its influences on the ways they approach the analysis of resistance. Without creating an unnecessary dichotomy between the two approaches it must be recognized that alternative media scholars often rely on (close) readings of objects of resistance such as newspapers, radio shows, zines, online communities or graffiti, while sociologists’ understanding of resistance often focuses on the societal (both political and personal) structures that create or hold back resistance.
Of course the reality of the scholarship in both disciplines is more nuanced, and it is this very friction between the objects we can read or observe and the environments they operate in that has struck the attention of scholars in both disciplines. This makes their views suitable for the interdisciplinary technique Allen F. Repko coined as “transformation” (343). While departing from different presumptions, both disciplines argue along very similar lines. By situating their insights on a continuum, they can be placed in dialogue so we can understand how they can be used together to create a more comprehensive understanding. The necessity of such a dialogue was asserted by alternative media expert John Downing in 2008, in his overview article “Social Movement Theories and Alternative Media: An Evaluation and Critique.” In this article he argues that a “typical divorce persists unabated between media studies research and theory and research by sociologists” (41). He critiques such a divorce for the way in which it obstructs the conceptual development of alternative media and social movements. As he poignantly describes this lacuna: “Very often, media are defined simply as technological message channels rather than as the complex sociotechnical institutions they actually are” (41). Downing critiques sociologists of a limited view of the way media interact with the world. Interestingly, a similar critique is uttered by sociologists such as social movement expert James M. Jasper. As he states in his book Protest:
A Cultural Introduction to Social Movements, scholars tend to focus on the
The emphasis on both disciplinary sides is on a view of media and culture as an active agent in the world, not a static channel of ideas. Both disciplines have formulated their own ways to analyze this dynamic. Therefore, a combination of these two disciplinary insights is used to analyze Vitó. In line with the third step of Repko, I will now shortly introduce the methods from both disciplines in the context of their theoretical backgrounds.
1.2 Counter-Information
Alternative media theories offer a way to engage with the influences of mass media and its dominant narrative in the enforcement of societal structures. Scholars such as John Downing and Chris Atton depart from the Gramscian notion of the cultural hegemony to explain how a system of thought attains a dominant position in society. Alternative media is understood as a way to disrupt and subvert this hegemony, and is thus coined as ‘counter-hegemonic’. I will first introduce the Gramscian roots of this method and the specifics of its usage in a colonial context, which will then lead to an introduction of the counter-information model as an interpretive method of Vitó and a discussion of the role of the intellectual in this process.
1.2.A Gramsci and Hegemony
Gramsci’s theory of hegemony is a Marxist theory that explains the dominance of certain ideologies in society through a combination of the “spontaneous consent of the masses of the people” and the “coercion of the state” (Gramsci 1007). It discusses how the mere force of a state is insufficient in the practice and enforcement of a dominant system, and especially sees the role of the consent of the masses as a pivotal aspect of the continuation of domination:
because they are easy to detach from action, to list in a table, to iden-tify by reading brochures and transcripts of speeches. But in taking them out of context like this, we risk losing sight of how people ex-perience these ideas, how they use them to persuade others, how they are motivated by them. People don’t carry their ideas in their heads like books on a library shelf; they live them out through their actions (38).
“the effort to win consent—an effort that is ongoing and never entirely success-ful—is the attempt to gain hegemony, the dominant position in a given society” (Leitch 1000). Gramsci’s theory of hegemony shows that dominance is a dynamic process in which a constant negotiation over the creation and giving of consent plays a central role.
The interpretation of hegemony in Vitó’s context is characterized by its situation in the post-independence4 years of a previously colonized island.
The coercion of the state and the consent of the masses are distinguished by this context, a context that was explored in-depth by Frantz Fanon in his
The Wretched of the Earth. Central to his argument is the power gap that is
created by the departure of the former colonizer, and the trouble of a new, local elite or bourgeoisie that is ready to take its place. Fanon is critical of this process and argues that “the national bourgeoisie steps into the shoes of the former European settlement” (122), in this way reinforcing the structures of colonial domination, whereby “the mother country practices indirect government, both by the bourgeoisie that it upholds and also by the national army led by experts” (Fanon 140). Hegemony in that case is reinforced on two levels: both internationally by the influences of the former colonizer and locally through the reinforcement of a national elite.
1.2.B Counter-Hegemony and Counter-Information
Although the term ‘counter-hegemony’ does not originate with Gramsci, it makes sense that his thoughts on hegemony gave way to thinking about the means of resistance that can subvert or change a hegemonic system. Cultural scholars such as media scholars have used these ideas to consider the ways their objects of study interact with or against hegemonic structures. The aforemen-tioned Downing and Atton for instance have used these theories to consider how alternative (or radical)5 media perform this function. In their analyses they
emphasize alternative media’s function to counter the dominant (hegemonic) narratives of mainstream media.
5 As opposed to Chris Atton
and other alternative media scholars Downing prefers the term radical media because he finds the term alternative media too vague. Following Downing “everything, at some point, is alternative to something else” (ix). Nonetheless, it becomes clear through the writings of both writers that they actually mean the same with the two terms. The distinction between what is alternative or radical and what is not is based on the hegemonic power structures of a society. Both writers in-terpret the alternative/radical media in this way and find their definition in the different forms of resistance against the hegemony of mass media.
4 It is important here to
recognize the trouble of characterizing 60s Curaçao as a post-independence nation. To speak of independence after colonialism is always troubled because of the ongoing influences of the former colonizer and the lasting effects of the devastation of colonialism. In the Curaçaoan context this is further prob-lematized by its independent status within ‘the Kingdom of the Nether-lands’, artificially becoming a country together with Aruba, Bonaire, Statia, Saba and St. Maarten. While the later three islands are not even geograph-ically close to Curaçao, the ‘Dutch Antilles’ as a recently independent country did not just have to grapple with its new relation to the mother country, but also had to figure out its relations to each other, now that they had a shared responsibility
of their future. The Statuut did how-ever put responsibility over national affairs in hands of the islands, a change that is constitutionally labeled as independence.
Alternative media “disrupts the silence, to counter the lies, to provide the truth” (Downing 16). Downing coins this as the “counter-information model” to explain how the informative function of alternative media intervenes in the dominant stories of the mass media. This is then understood both through an engagement with the lies or inaccuracies in mainstream news and through the “construction of their own news, based on alternative values and frame-works of news-gathering and access” (Atton 10). Both Downing and Atton understand the counter-hegemonic function of alternative media through the information they provide, whether this is with regards to the mainstream narra-tive or focused on the creation of another, alternanarra-tive narranarra-tive. The differences between mainstream and alternative news also emphasizes the differences in access. It questions who has access to the narrative of the mainstream media and who does not. The informative function of the counter-information model thus runs from production (its means, accessibility, structure) to the message (the accuracy, popularity and angles that are used) to the ways these aspects influence the consumption and impact of the media.
1.2.C Counter-Information and the Organic Intellectual
The counter-information model assigns agency to individuals to successfully engage with the battle of consent that hegemony relies on. The difference between the interpretative work that reinforces and the interpretative work that subverts hegemonic structures is central to Gramsci’s distinction between the traditional and the organic intellectual (Eagleton 119). While the work of the traditional intellectual reinforces hegemonic structures because of its disconnected, paternalistic view of the masses, the organic intellectual departs from the masses and is therefore aware of- and in touch with its needs.
As the introduction to his work in the Norton Anthology states: “Gramsci wants to consider how the intellectual can be effective, especially in moving the people to action” (1000). This is the role he assigns to the organic intellectual.
As Neelam Srivastava explores in depth in her “The Travels of the Organic Intellectual”, Gramsci’s interpretation of the organic intellectual is very
similar to the role Fanon assigns to the intellectual in his The Wretched of the
Earth. In his critique of the emergence of a national bourgeoisie in
post-inde-pendence nations, the task of the intellectual is to spread consciousness of the illegitimacy of this new elite (140). As Fanon argues: “Everything depends on the education of the masses, on the raising of the level of thought, and on what we are too quick to call ‘political teaching6’” (159). Successful resistance is
dependent upon such education, and in this context the counter-information model can be viewed as an example of the type of education that can liberate the masses.
1.3 Framing
The counter-hegemonic effects of the counter-information model and the organic intellectual create an interesting discussion of the ideas and narratives that intervene in hegemonic structures. But, as Jasper asserted: ideas are not like books on library shelves. They come from somewhere. They are created somehow. And in the context of resistance, they intend to effect change. It is in new social movement theories that we can find a tradition that grapples with the analysis of the emergence and success of collective action. I will first introduce Melucci’s rethinking of meaning in collective action, which will then lead to an introduction of frame analysis as a way to position Vitó and a discussion of the role of consciousness in such analyses in a postcolonial context.
1.3.A Melucci and Meaning
Alberto Melucci, in his contribution to the Social Movements and Culture volume, describes the development of the sociological approach to understanding the mechanisms of resistance along cultural lines. Thinking about the ways resistance and protest are given shape in a social movement, Melucci emphasizes that sociologists for too long have created a “dualism between structure and meaning” (42). The emphasis of earlier social movement theories on the political opportunity structures disproportionally emphasized the importance of political opportunities and threats in the insurgency of social protest.7
7 For an overview of this
paradigm change see James M. Jasper “Social Movement Theory Today: Toward a Theory of Action?”
6 As Fanon famously stated:
“To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a po-litical speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their re-sponsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people” (159). This distinction carries many similarities to Gramsci’s distinction between the traditional and organic intellectual, focusing on the true connection with the needs of the masses.
Instead, what should be central in our understanding of how resistance comes to take place is the “production of meaning in collective action” (42).
Melucci understood the interpretative work of movement actors as central to the initiation and success of resistance. By breaking open what was until then considered as two separate approaches, Melucci showed the importance of the
process of meaning-making that goes to the heart of a movement.
The central role of culture in the process of collective action has long been recognized by scholars in the postcolonial field. Fanon, for instance, described national culture as “the collective thought process of a people to describe, justify, and extol the actions whereby they have joined forces and remained strong.” (168) I have emphasized action here, as I believe many of the critiques in his analysis in “On National Culture” come back to the importance of action in liberation struggles. Like Melucci, Fanon dialectically interprets resistance between cultural meanings and collective action, asserting that the successful interpretation of either is dependent on both. At the same time Fanon’s situation in a postcolonial nation offers some critical nodes that Melucci (and other social movement theorists)8 often miss. A national culture
in the postcolonial context is not a straightforward concept, but precisely the space where colonial ideologies intervene. The paradox of the national culture in postcolonial nations then is between the struggles against the colonial
division created by race (which Fanon analyzed in his Black Skin, White Masks) and the essentialism of a totalizing national culture. Fanon therefore emphasizes the need for a heterogeneous interpretation of culture that is neither a totalizing pre-colonial fixture nor a continuation of colonial domination.
1.3.B Goffman and Framing
The emphasis on an approach to collective action that centralized the produc-tion of meaning renewed an interest in Erving Goffman’s Frame Analysis:
An Essay on the Organization of Experience. His own definition of frame
analysis as “the examination of the organization of experience” (11) pinpoints his understanding of the process of meaning making as a deliberate or strategic 8 The bias of social movement
theories for stable western societies has been asserted by many experts such as John Downing (25) and James Jasper (966). I cannot possibly correct this bias in this thesis, but I do hope to use the theories in a critical way that fits in the context I am using them for.
action that is based in the (personal) experiences of the interpreter. The emphasis on the interpretive, constructionist and persuasive work that goes on in the framing of a narrative or “counter-information model” is useful for an analysis that aims to understand the interactions between the narrative and the ideological world it lives in, struggles against, and aims to subvert. Frames are “schemata of interpretation” that enable individuals to “locate, perceive, identify and label” occurrences (Goffman 21). Goal-oriented resistance departs from and contributes to such efforts, as it is constantly trying to negotiate the terms of the conditions that it is fighting against.
Social Movement theorists have continued to use Goffman’s frame analysis through a method titled ‘Framing’,9 which “denotes an active,
processual phenomenon that implies agency and contention on the level of reality construction” (Snow 614). The interpretation of reality is used to analyze how individuals come to share certain goals, and convert such goals to collective action. Frames are the interpretive strategies that are “intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support and to demobilize antagonists” (Snow 614). While this method gave way to a significant body of analysis, it is not uncontested within the field. A useful overview of critiques was written by Robert Benford, titled “An Insider’s Critique of the Social Movement Framing Perspective.” In short, his critique emphasizes the dynamic and collective aspects of frames, warning against the tendency to see frames as things (415), confuse individual experience for collective action (420) and to take various experiences into account to ward against an elite bias (421). With these critiques in mind, Benford sees framing as a useful approach to analyze the work of social movements and the intricacies of collective action. 1.3.C Framing and Consciousness
As James M. Jasper describes in his “Social Movement Theory Today: Toward a Theory of Action?” the paradigm shift to cultural aspects of movements, of which Framing is an example, recentralized the (potential) movement participant. Framing offers a way to theorize their action: it focuses on how action is created.
9 Framing in Social
Move-ment Theories has a different (but related) meaning to framing in for in-stance communication theories or psy-chology. In communication research framing is focused on the question how specific forms of communication (such as mass media) use frames to assign a certain message to facts. A good overview of this approach can be found in Dietram A. Scheufele’s article “Framing as a Theory of Media Effects.” In psychology, the focus of framing research is on the individual processes of decision making, an overview of this work can be found in A. Tversky and D. Kahneman’s “The Framing of De-cisions and the Psychology of Choice”. In social movement theories a similar understanding of framing is used for a different goal: to assess and analyze the emergence of collective action.
In his overview of this paradigm change Jasper argues that social
movement theories have finally “admitted that opportunities (and threats) must be recognized as such by insurgents, rather than being objective structural conditions” (967). This is no small aspect of movement actions in a post-colonial context. The recognition of opportunities and threats speaks to a consciousness of the very conditions colonial systems actively try to hide. The subtle ways in which especially neocolonialism shapes a national culture intervenes in the recognition of opportunities by insurgents.
The roots of this intervention are explored by Fanon in his Black Skin,
White Masks, where he analyses the internalization of the systems of inequality
that were created by the colonizer. He describes such internalization as the “self division by colonialist subjugation” (Black Skin 8) in the first chapter titled “The Negro and Language.” He further assigns a “basic importance to the phenomenon of language” (Black Skin 4) in the process of this self-division, which instills racial divisions in the minds of the colonized. This, and other theories of the importance of national languages in the process of decolonization such as Thiong’o’s Decolonizing the Mind, shows that Vitó’s cultural work in the process of collective action, as will be analyzed through its framing, works on several levels. Resistance against colonialism cannot merely be analyzed through the actions against colonial structures instilled by the former colonizer, it must also take into account the ways in which such structures are internalized on an individual and group level.
1.4 Conclusion
While both the counter-information approach and framing analysis try to account for a vision of subversive narratives that emphasize the relational and dynamic aspects of narratives in the social world, their points of departure differ. The counter-information model departs from the content of the text or object and tries to make sense of its function through an analysis that centers the exclusionary practices of the mainstream media and the revealing of such practices. The frame analysis departs from the process of meaning making and
tries to make sense of the narrative’s function through its strategic position on the level of contention, pushing towards collective action. By using both approaches I hope to create a dialectical reading of Vitó that departs from both the text and its function towards the heart of the struggle for social change.
Reading a text for its emancipatory functions is not a new approach in itself. Indeed, it is a classic Marxist approach in the sense that I look at “human societies and the practices of transforming them. And what that means, rather more concretely, is that the narrative Marxism has to deliver is the story of the struggles of men and women to free themselves from certain forms of exploitation and oppression” (Eagleton ix). This is the tradition in which I continue, reading towards the ways transformation is given shape to- and shapes the text. I do however hope that my experiment with two disciplinary insights opens this tradition up to critical thinking about the presumptions and limits of disciplinary methods of reading in the context of social change. It is in keeping with the inherent dynamics of both hegemonic systems and resistance against those systems that this combination becomes productive.
It might seem, from both these approaches, that the work of Vitó’s editors and writers is easily over-estimated. They are not just assigned the agency of interpretation and information, they are placed in the spotlight of counter-hege-monic efforts as intellectuals and innovators. In this sense it is important to keep in mind Hannah Arendt’s suggestion that “the author of social action may be the initiator of its unique meaning, but as agent he or she cannot control its outcome” (Bhabha 13). What happened with and after Vitó’s interventions cannot be linked to Vitó in a one-on-one manner. But what we can and will assign to their practices is the “understanding of human action and the social world as a moment when something is beyond control, but it’s not beyond accommodation” (Bhabha 12). The structures of resistance are far too messy to control, let alone to trace it back 50 years after the fact. But it does have its modes of accommodation that can be critically analyzed for its ideas and prefigurations. Regardless of the social changes that Vitó can and cannot be credited for, it accommodated new views and inno-vative thinking, and it is this function that the rest of the analysis will focus on.
Chapter 2:
Alternative Media and
its
Counter-Hegemonic
Function
This chapter critically examines Vitó as alternative media and social movement to consider how its counter-information model and framing challenged the colonial hegemony. Through themes such as consent and consciousness it will be shown how Vitó engaged with and resisted the colonial structures of the Curaçaoan society.
2.1 Introducing Vitó
Preliminary, a few aspects of Vitó can be set up to begin to work from. It was published from 1966 to 1971, with 11 editions in its first year, 8 in its second, 14 in its third, 38 in its forth, 48 in its fifth and 20 in its sixth year, making a total of 139 editions.10 At its inception the editor-in-chief was writer and lawyer
Erich Zielinksi. His resignation is announced in the sixth edition of the second year, when Stanley Brown is announced as his successor. In these issues Vitó refers to itself as a foundation, but this label disappears in later editions. The first editions are published by publisher ‘Ediciones Populares’. At the eighth edition this changes to ‘Curacaose Courant N.V.’. At this time, the paper is sold at the bookstores mentioned on the front page. At the eight edition of the third year the publisher changes again, this time to ‘Drukkerij Zalm’, who continues to be the publisher till the last edition.
In all editions there is both content created by Vitó and submitted content. Whereas some content would include a writer’s name or initials in earlier editions, this almost never happens after 1968. In the first year, the third edition included the names of the editorial board: Erich Zielinski, Freddy Antersyn, Rudy Lourents, Meagles Lasten and Frank Christiaan. In later editions it becomes impossible to say how many people were writing for the paper and to whom certain pieces can be ascribed. In Oostindie’s interview with Stanly Brown however the following is said by Brown: “I started Vitó, which became 10 These conclusions are
based on extensive archival research at the collections of the University of Amsterdam, Leiden University and the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, and a cross-reference of their collections with the collection of the Mongui Maduro Library in Cura-cao and the library of the University of Curaçao.
a periodical and a movement. It was a small and select group, very
hierarchical. It revolved mostly around me, Angel Salsbach, Yellie Alkema and Emmy Henriquez. We had about 85 sellers, of which about twenty were very ideologically and military schooled. They were equipped with Vitó-scooters and received a Vitó-income that was higher than those of the regular worker. This was our army.” (Dromen 14) This shows that Vitó—at least in the eyes of its editor-in-chief—was deliberately working with certain tactics towards an ideology or goal. In this chapter this position will be analyzed in relation to the hegemonic function of mainstream media. After an introduction of the main-stream media in the context of Dutch colonialism, this chapter will analyze how Vitó countered this hegemony as a newspaper and a movement.
2.2 Hegemony
It’s 1966 and in Vitó’s second issue a poem is published on the first page titled ‘The Didactor’s Dictatorship”:
Amigoe is the oldest contemporary Dutch language newspaper, founded in 1883
as a weekly newspaper and going daily in 1941. It remains one of the most read newspapers in Curaçao (Lent 212). An interesting play with the words ‘didact(or)’ ‘dictat(e)(or)’ and ‘direct(or)’ comments on the dynamics of news production and power/domination. Slipping from the acts of direction and dictation into the mechanisms of dictatorship, Vitó surreptitiously critiques the ways in which Amigoe creates and dominates a narrative. Amigoe’s ties to the Catholic Church (Lent 214) are mentioned as ‘constantly-stuck to
11 All citations from Vitó
are used in English translation. The original texts in Dutch and Papiamentu are attached in the appendix. During translations I have aspired to balance language choices that make sense in English without loosing too much of the particularities of Papiamentu. I ask a reader to take literal translations at face value as I believe they are of in-fluence on Vitó’s style and strategy and should not be erased in translation, even if this makes the use of English awkward at times.
The Didactor of the Amigoe, Dictates and didacts
the editor and his comments.
The director-in-chief directs and edits The editor-in-chief constantly
stuck to the altar And so the editor earns his earnings
when he edits the Director his tone.11
the altar’, thereby commenting on the institutional ties of the newspaper. This critique is the first in line of many critiques of mainstream media that will follow in the next years of Vitó’s existence. It is also one of the subtlest critiques. The poetic style and play with words gradually gives way to a more direct and straightforward style. Nonetheless the poem sets the tone for an interesting critique: how are practices in the mainstream media in Curaçao related to institutions such as the church, and what is the influence of this relation on the functions of the media?
In the succeeding issues it isn’t so much Amigoe but two other newspa-pers that become the center of this critique, namely La Prensa and Beurs &
Nieuwsberichten.12 Vitó attributes cases of censorship and misinformation to
three different networks of influence: (1) political interests (2) capital and (3) family ties. In the article “La Prensa I” (2.2 page 2) Vitó reacts to accusations published in La Prensa where it was said that the “Vitó-movement”, more specifically its editor-in-chief, would want to join the N.V.P. (National People’s Party). Vitó denies such claims: “Vitó will remain critical without the prejudices of any party”. In this way Vitó places itself in direct opposition to La Prensa, who they believe to act according to the interests of the D.P. (Democratic Party). They continue this argument in a second article, “La Prensa II” (2.2 page 2):
Vitó’s reflection on the mainstream media in Curaçao reveals how La Prensa and Beurs & Nieuwsberichten operate in a network of political interests, big capital and personal ties. This reflection draws attention to two important 12 See articles such as
“independent newspaper” (1.10 page 2), “La Prensa I” and “La Prensa II” (2.2 page 2), “La Prensa is Right” (11.01.1969 page 3), “Portrait of the Beurs” (18.01.1969 page 1), “Why does La Prensa Hide Information for the People about the Case of Governor A. Hernandes?” (29.03.1969 page 1) and “Prensa’s Censorship” (17.10.1970 page 2)
It must be objectionable to the free democrats of the democratic party that party papers such as La Prensa and Beurs, just as its press, are owned by a “white protestant” minority, represented by A.D. Jonck-heer (from the compensations for cigarettes, the taxed-rum, etc.) Suspicious Curaçaoans frown their brows when they hear that A.D. Jonckheer, owner of La Prensa, gives the magazine to A.A. Jonckheer (editor-in-chief), R. Irausquin (director) and H. Irausquin. All family, writing about E. Jonckheer: NEWS!
It may be a historical coincidence that the family is living together, yet we cannot shake the impression that we are dealing with a family stronghold with a lot of capital behind them.
aspects of what both Atton and Downing consider to be alternative or radical media: an understanding of the way social structures and power are upheld in mainstream media (Downing x) and a positioning of its own production as alternative or opposite to this practice (Atton 5). By writing about this network, Vitó formulates a critique: they oppose the idea that real news could be
produced in such a network.
This network of power relations and the dominant narrative it creates through mainstream media is attributed to the white protestant minority. The imperial ties of this minority are understood to have a strong influence on the production of media, and in turn on the structures of Curaçaoan society. The ownership of not one but two of the most read newspapers in the hands of one family shows a significant indication of the type of cultural control that Gramsci described to result in the consent that is necessary that hegemonic structures rely on. Because the family is historically tied to the white elite that dominated the structures of Curaçaoan society in colonial times, Vitó questions how their ongoing cultural power keeps such colonial structures in place. Its resistance against this hegemony will now be further explored through Vitó’s counter-informative function.
2.3 Counter-Information Model and Consent
Vitó’s counter-information functions as an intervention in the hegemony of the mainstream media. Such interventions can be found for instance in one of the recurrent columns titled ‘Black Panthers’. ‘Black panthers’ starts in November 1968 and runs until the end of 1969 as a recurrent column in Vitó. In 1970 a similar column comes back as ‘Black Power’. These columns can (at least in part) be ascribed to Benjamin Fox.13 On 25 January 1969 this column has the
title “An Honest Story and Having Courage”. The writer of the column reacts to an article that was published in de Beurs on 20 January 1969 about apartheid in South Africa. It starts with a made-up dialogue between ‘the Black Panthers’ and ‘de Beurs’, that the writer uses to contest the arguments that were made by
de Beurs. In the original article de Beurs had called apartheid a ‘compromise’
13 More information about
Fox’ involvement with Vitó can be found in an interview with Miep Diekmann in her Een doekje voor het
bloeden (1970) and Gert Oostindie’s
“Black Power, Popular Revolt, and Decolonization in the Dutch Caribbean” (2014).
that benefits all parties in South African society. Vitó says apartheid is actually a system of white domination, of which black people do not benefit. Through the dialogue Vitó engages directly with the arguments that were made by de Beurs and counter-informs its readers on the inaccuracy of its statements. After they refute the claim that black people accept and approve of the apartheid system, Vitó publishes information about the South African society that shows how apartheid disadvantages black people. Unequal access to work, health care and education are mentioned as the “legalized discrimination” that is systemic to the apartheid system. Because such inequalities are also often the topic of Vitó’s articles about the Curaçaoan society the intercontinental colonial connection cannot be ignored. In both the South African and the Curaçaoan context Dutch colonialism continues to hold a hegemonic position. As an “autonomously developed account of experience, critique, information and knowledge” (Atton 156) Vitó’s account resists the narrative of the mainstream media.
This is a very evident and direct example of the way the mainstream media manufactures consent to the inequalities of a colonial hegemony.
By describing apartheid as a compromise the mainstream media leaves no room for questions and critiques of this system, and tells its readers that such systems are consensual practices instead of the fields of power that create systems of domination and inequality. Following Gramsci, the hegemony relies on such consent. The counter-information model thus should primarily be understood as a way to trouble this consent. Vitó offers counter-information in the form of the revealing of de Beurs’ ideas, but they also offer their own narrative through the dialogue. They speak about subjects that influence the vast majority of
Curaçaoan people, and create their own “alternative values and frameworks of news-gathering and access” (Atton 10).
Their ideas about this alternative narrative and how to attain it are often formulated in a very direct, almost manifesto-like style. Towards the end of the article they demand from de Beurs, the democratic party and rich families such as Jonckheer to “stop publishing such articles. One day, enough will be enough and there will be no one who can stop the revenge of the black people.”
Posing resistance as a threat, Vitó seems willing to take action beyond the publishing of critical articles. Published five months before the revolt, the threat foresees in certain boiling dissatisfactions and a growing wish to substantiate claims to dissent. Consent then is troubled in and through the pages but also beyond the pages of Vitó. Much like how Downing interpreted radical media’s mission to “not only provide facts to a public denied them but to explore fresh ways of developing a questioning perspective on the hegemonic process and increasing the public’s sense of confidence in its power to construct change” (16), Vitó’s counter-information model works as a tactical exchange with the people they think will be able to make a change.
The counter-informative function of Vitó can thus be found in its counter- hegemonic content but also in its engagement with a specific reading public. Some of the changes in its production are telling of this approach, such as its decision to start publishing more often yet shorter issues, to lower the price of an issue, to sell the paper on the streets14 and to change the language from
Dutch to Papiamentu. Atton describes this function of alternative media “not simply as an informational but as a social process” (24), to illustrate how alternative media can mobilize people, create networks and incite action. Such functions are at the core of social movement research, where framing analysis examines the breeding ground and emergence of collective action.
2.4 Framing and Consciousness
The strategic success of counter-information is dependent upon its resonance with the masses on whose consent the hegemony relies. The counter-information model is an important way to inform such masses of the existence of a hegemony, but the facts do not change the minds and hearts of people on its own, nor does it move them to participate in collective action. They need a persuasive power, a context and a mode of interpretation that is assigned to those facts. Indeed, the facts need to be framed in a way that shows its significance to the masses. This process of meaning making can be analyzed by frame analysis, examining the “organization of experience” (Goffman 11) to understand how counter-
14 The Amigoe of 17-04-1969
describes this practice in an article titled “onsmakelijk”.
information goes from facts to impact. As has just been described, the main-stream media was understood to operate in a colonial hegemonic field, in which it manufactured the consent of the masses for this hegemony. By centralizing Vitó’s framing of the relations between social conditions and the narrative of the mainstream media I will consider its function as an instigator of social change.
Discussions about labor-inequalities, unequal wealth distribution and its causes run through Vitó like a red thread. During Christmas of 1968 Vitó published a special, English edition of the paper. This edition, which was handed out to tourists coming from cruise ships and beach resorts, was filled with critical articles about the tourism industry and the imperial history of Curaçao. It starts “Hello Yankee, you set foot on the only island-country in the Caribbean and Latin-America where you are really welcome.” What follows are several critical articles that juxtapose the fun sights for tourists to the social inequalities in the Curaçaoan society. The wide range of stores the tourists can choose to shop from is countered by stories about underpaid shop workers. The beauty of the old-town streets and squares is countered with information about the lacking sewage system, which creates dirty and smelly conditions just outside of the streets that are designated for tourism. The special edition ends with a page long short story titled ‘Curaçao’s Black God’ about a white man who killed a black man.
Such stories cannot only be read for the social critiques they make on the level of content. Low wages and smelly streets are not unknown or hidden realities to the Curaçaoan community, what matters here is how these experiences are, in the words of Goffman “organized”. By juxtaposing the experiences of the tourists to the experiences of the local communities,
Vitó assigns meaning to the differences and questions its legitimacy. Moreover, by linking the comings and goings of foreign tourists, who consume the island in whatever way they please, to the history of imperial exploitation and consumption, Vitó frames the tourism industry as a continuation of colonial xploitation. As Mimi Sheller analyzes in her Consuming the Caribbean, we can trace 20th century consumption of ‘the Caribbean’, through its food, its beaches,
its culture and its products, back to a history of modernity and exploitation that has its origins in 17th century imperialism: “Tourism depends on the circulation
of a desired image of the Caribbean as untouched yet within reach” (30), and it is this image Vitó intervenes in through the circulation of a special issue in English. The desired image is countered by the reality of poverty, and the reach or ownership of the tourist is questioned.
While the intended reading public might be the tourist, the effects of a special issue also reverberate within the local community, who surely are also addressed through the articles. A tension between those two addresses reveals itself on the level of critique based on the absence of visible mass resistance against the unequal positions of tourists and locals. It was already foreshadowed in the first sentence, when Vitó ironically welcomed American tourists to the only country in the area they were “really welcome”. They continue:
“In Curaçao you will find no slogans on the wall; we will not tell you to go home. Neither will you be attacked by tomato throwing youths or beggars.” Through its framing of social inequalities in relation to the tourism industry, Vitó strategically identifies its local readers with the responsibility for social change. Framing becomes a way to raise the (political) consciousness of the people who welcome and serve the tourists. It is, in the words of Fanon a way to “uplift the people, develop their brains, fill them with ideas, change them and make them into human beings” (Wretched 159). But raising the consciousness of the masses and moving them to collective action is not an unambiguous process. Different people have different stakes in the process, which needs to be considered before collective action can take shape.
Those differences are addressed most vividly in the short story at the end of the edition. The characters in this story represent different aspects of the development of self-consciousness in the postcolonial society. It paints the picture of a black woman who hurriedly moves out of her seat for a white man, apologetically saying “si meneer, si meneer” [yes sir, yes sir], but it also presents the position of the “Curaçaoan-white”15 who describes the situation after the
murder of a black man as following: “This was our fight. We the new negro,
15 Curaçaoan-white is used to
describe the light black skin color that is considered Black in most places in the West but white in the Caribbean: “the result of a lot of free and forceful fucking by white men and their black slaves. My grand-mother and her mother.” Vitó 15-12-1968, page 4.
who had studied in Holland. We the young revolutionaries who no longer believed in the African rituals, but in the white mans democracy and justice”. Self-ascribing a certain responsibility for the future of the society, such statements show that an important role was ascribed to Curaçaoans who had gone to the Netherlands to study and returned. Their role as intellectuals can be interpreted as counter-hegemonic, in the context of Gramsci’s theory, only if they are ‘organic’ intellectuals. The story questions this position.
The story continues with the mother of the killed man going through a spiritual ritual to get rid of her demons, and coming out of this ritual pointing the finger at the “Curaçaoan-white”saying: “you killed him (…) you went home, fetched your gun and shot him in cold blood white man, you killed him, white man.” The writer both addresses the consent and willingness to comply by some citizens (si meneer, si meneer), the revolutionary role that is laid out for the new intellectuals (the ‘new negro’) and the potential disastrous impact such intellectuals can have when they internalize and reinforce the rules of the west. The intellectual then seems more in line with the traditional intellectual of Gramsci’s theory, detached from its society and the needs of the masses. Ultimately, the figure of the “Curaçaoan-white” here functions as a warning for the detachment of the masses that European education can instill. It calls for the prioritization of the needs of the masses and the unification along those lines.
Vitó further frames the content of this special edition after La Prensa critiqued it for its negative impact on the tourism industry. In this way, Vitó’s framing practices come back to their interpretation of mass media. The main-stream media’s criticism is used by Vitó to continue their explanation of the inequalities of the tourism industry and for its critique of the institutional, political and capital ties of La Prensa. On 11 January 1969 they publish the longer article titled “La Prensa is Right?”
Here, as in many other articles, Vitó is explicit about its tactics. They place the narrative of the mainstream media in the context of its hegemonic position in society. Jonckheer, the owner of La Prensa and Beurs en Nieuwsberichten also has his money in the businesses that thrive on the tourism industry. The sparse trickle down effect of this industry is framed by Vitó as a conscious effort on the hand of the owners of big businesses, who keep all the money the tourists bring in to themselves. Vitó assigns significance to the hypocrisies of a bon bini smile, when impoverished people have very little to smile about. In articles such as these Vitó also makes evident references to the changes they wish to see in society. The ‘one-for-all and all-for-one’ mentality in the middle part speaks to the power of the masses to collectively change these conditions. As Snow described such framing activities: “collective action frames are action-oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate the activities and cam-paigns of a social movement organization” (614). The ties of labor inequalities
We want La Prensa to explain how much of the f. 40.0000.00016
went to Spritzer & Luhrmann, how much went to the drug stores of Jonckheer in Hotel Curaçao, Hilton, Flamboyant. We want La Prensa and Jonkcheer and Gomez Casseres and Rigaud to know we are done with the Bullshit of the Bon Bini smile.17 Shitting in the bushes
we cannot keep the Bon Bini smile on our faces, because we need to watch out so that the cacti won’t sting us. Up until now there are 10.000 people who have to use the bushes as toilets. We want Jonckheer to know that the ideology of waiting and smiling on an empty stomach, without a future, while Jonckheer and his children are drinking champagne and eating steak, is done.
(…)
The new ideology:
We all eat and drink, or no one eats and drinks.
We all have a house to live in, or no one has a house to live in. We all have water, electricity and a toilet or no one has water, electricity and a toilet.
We all have a future or no one has a future. (…)
Therefore, Vitó continues to share information to tourists and the people of Curaçao about the situation Jonckheer created. Without any respect for others, political parties, the church, no government de-serves our respect. The only people we owe something to is the entire population of Curaçao and especially the Curaçaoan youth.
17 The Bon Bini smile
(literally: the ‘welcome’ smile) is a term used in tourism that encourag-es Curaçaoans to be welcoming to tourists.
16 This number is mentioned
earlier in the article as the total spend-ings of tourists in Curaçao.
and unequal wealth distribution to tourism and big corporations, and in turn the ties of tourism and big corporations to the mainstream media and the white protestant minority, are the frames upon which the legitimacy of action are constructed. As an inspiration and a legitimation those frames offer the resonance and significance with the masses and its road to (political) consciousness.
2.5 Conclusion
This chapter analyzed Vitó’s counter-hegemonic efforts in the context of the mainstream media. It considered Vitó’s interventions in this hegemony through the counter-information model and frame analysis. Vitó’s counter-informative function intervenes in the mainstream narrative and its manufacturing of consent. By providing information that counters this consent, alternative media such as Vitó question the accuracy of the narrative that is created by the main-stream media and offers its own, alternative narrative. It was shown how such alternative narratives in turn also cause reactions with the mainstream media, such as La Prensa’s reaction to Vitó’s special English edition. Vitó’s alternative narrative assigns meaning and significance to inequalities in society. It frames such inequalities in the context of colonial domination and addresses the people they consider capable of subverting this domination.
These ways of reading offer substantial reasons to consider Vitó as an active agent in the transformation of society. Vitó’s resistance takes shape through counter-information and framing, methods that deliberately aim to encourage and legitimize collective action against the hegemony. While the threats for the moment “enough will be enough” in the article about apartheid still included the words “despite everything, we do not wish to start a bloody revolution” such a revolution did take place four months later, and was predicted by Vitó on the 24th of May in an article titled “How many more days before the
revolution begins?” [Kwantu dia mas prome ku un revolusjon?]. An article that would later be used as evidence that Stanley Brown was the instigator of the revolt. In an open letter published in Vitó after the revolution, directed to La Prensa, the “white protestants, capitalists, the democratic party” the
