POE TI C S OF RELATION

,,

EDOUARD GLISSANT

Poetics of Relation

translated by Betsy Wing

Ann Arbor

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS

 Introduction and English translation
copyright© by the Un iversity of Michigan 1997
Originally published in French by Gallimard, I 990.
All rights reserved
Published in the United States of America by
The Un iversity of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
@Printed on acid-free paper

2010 7 6

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system , or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise,
without the written permission of the publisher.

A C!P catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Glissant, Edouard, 1928-
[Poetique de la relatio n . English]
Poetics of relation I E douard Glissant : translated by Betsy W ing.
p. cm .
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-472-09629-X (cloth: alk. paper). - ISBN 0-472-06629-3
(alk. paper)
1. Martinique--Civilization-20th century. 2. Language and
culture-Martinique. 3. Nationalism and literature-Martinique.
4. French language-Martinique. 5. Creole dialects, French­
Martinique. 6. Martinique-Dependency on France. 7. West
Indies, French-Relations-France. 8. France-Relatio ns-West
I ndies, French. I. W ing, Betsy. II. Title.
F2081.8.G5513 1997
972.98'2-dc21 97-6997
CIP

Translation of this volume was made possible

by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
under its Fellowship Program for College Teachers
and Independent Scholars.

ISBN 978-0-472-09629-9 (doth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-472-06629-2 (alk. paper)
 for Michael Smith, assassinated poet
for the archipelagos laden with palpable death
 Sea is History.
DEREK WALCOTT

The unity is sub-marine.

EDWARD KAMAU BRATHWAITE
 Contents

Translator's Introduction, Betsy Wing xi

Glossary XXI

Imaginary 1

A P P ROACHES
The Open Boat 5
Errantry, Exile 11
Poetics 23
A Rooted Errantry 37

ELEMENTS
Repetitions 45
Expanse and Filiati on 47
Closed Place, Open Word 63
Concerning a Baroque Abroad in the World 77
Concerning the Poem'sInformation 81

PATHS
Creolizations 89
Dictate, Decree 91
To Build the Tower 1 03
Transparency and Opacity 111
The Black Beach 1 21
 THEORIES
R.elation 131
The Relati ve and Chaos 133
Distan cing, Determining 141
That Th at 159
Rel inked, (Relayed) , Related 169

POETI C S
Generalization 183
That Those Beings Be Not Being 185
For Opacity 189
Open Circle, Lived Relation 195
The Burning Beach 205

Notes 211
References 225

x
 Translator's Introduction

Betsy Wing

'Je batis a roches mon Iangage."

(I build my language with rocks.)
-Glissan t, L'Intention poetique

The stumbling blocks of a translation frequently exist at its

most productive points. Their usual first effect is frustration
caused by obstinate resistance (on both sides), but, in their
ever-renewed demand for conjecture, these apparent obsta­
cles can allow us to escape the cramped, habitual postures of
our own thought. This is the hoped-for reward of transla­
tors-whose first work is to be attentive, even hopeful read­
ers-then, with as many premonitions of disaster as prospects
of opening possibilities within their own languages, they
must confront the task of making these new openings avail­
able to new readers.
All of Edouard Glissant's work, as a poet, novelist, play­
wright, or theoretician from the very beginning (Les Indes
and Soleil de la conscience [1956], La Uzarde [1 959] ) has been
concerned with exploring the possibilities of a language that
would be fully Antillean. Such a language would be capable
of writing the Antilles into history, generating a conception
of time, finding a past and founding a future. It would escape
the passivity associated with an imposed language of fixed
forms (French) as well as the folklore traps of a language that
is no longer one of material production, its vocabulary fixed
because stagnan t (Creole ) . Th is Antillean language would
provide the means for this place and i ts people to relate to
the world as one among equivalent entities. Carrying the
work of oth e r theorists of Caribbean self-fo rmation, such as
Fanon and Cesaire, into new dimensions, Glissan t sees imag­
ination as th e force that can change mentali ties; relation as
th e pro cess of this change ; and poe tics as a transformative
m ode of h istory.
In an early collection of essays, L1ntention jJoetique (1969) ,
Glissant made it clear that he h ad no i n terest in rej e cting the
language h e speaks (French ) ; his purpose would be better
served by actions within it, by interrogating i t. By the pas­
sionate intensity of h is way of being in this language , h e
would force t h e Other t o know h i s difference. He repeatedly
destabilizes "standard" French in order to de categorize
understandings and establish new relations, so that the con­
stan t transformation always at work in any living symbolic sys­
tem , passing into the particularity of Antillean experience ,
can form the vibrant grounds for a full and productive par­
ticipation among world cultures now and in the future.
Th rough out the body of his work Glissant has combined
the discipline of analyti cal thought wi th a determined refusal
to accept the logic of linear sequences as the only producti ve
logi c. For a country whose history is composed of ruptures, to
accept this linearity would imply a continued blindness to i ts
own crazed history, its temps eperdu, and acceptan ce of the
Western European epistemologi cal principles that claim this
history as its destiny. The structure of Poetics of Relation is
based more on associative principles than on any steady
progress toward irrefutable proof; it is an enactment of its
own poetics . Providing a sense of the new relations created in
i ts language as a whole-its transforming e cology-was the
greatest challenge for an American English version .
The first and most obvious difficulty i s presented b y par­
ticular inciden ts in which Glissant forces new word com­
plexes to put forward con cepts of maj or importan ce to his

Xll
theory. The new phrases in French, of course, are just as
likely to stop readers in their tracks as abruptly as they do in
English. Indeed, this is Glissant's intent-to provide sudden
contact with an unforeseen relation in language, not unlike
the collisions between cultures that he sees as productive of
Relation. The most acute need here is to provide the same
level of clues in an American English as those existing in the
first version-preferably a formula both elegant and con­
crete but undomesticated, not subject to common linguistic
usage, a mental image ready to create a new connection. Glis­
sant himself frequently sets the new term within its definition
(though not necessarily at its first occurrence), letting con­
text indicate the potential for expansion in its meaning. But
the slightly changing contexts and Glissant's insistence that a
single term serve in every instance created difficulties not
presented by words in current usage, in which local solutions
are usually best. An example of this is agents d 'eclat, which I
have consistently translated as flash agents (having rejected a
long list of candidates such as dazzlers, glamour mongers, etc., as
suiting only one or two occurrences). This phrase includes,
but is not limited to, our category The Media, with all the
implications of shallowness, dazzle, and hegemony that this
implies for us. But, as always in Poetics of Relation, activity in a
concrete world is important; physical notions of the dazzling,
explosive power of this agency cannot be left out. Think:
flash in the pan for shallowness, the strobing flash of momen­
tary glamour, the news flash in a sound byte from our
sources.
Glissant creates these metaphorical noun phrases to name
the reality he sees emerging in the world. From the point of
view of the Metropole (Real France), Martinique and the
other islands of the Antilles can seem to be "dust-specks on
the sea," as DeGaulle, looking down from a plane, is said to
have described them. To become other than dust, aggregat­
ing their scattered and lost histories into a concrete presence
in this world-this totality-world ( totalite-monde, henceforth
untranslated)-the Antilles must assert their dense, opaque,

xiii
rock-hard existence, as do the noun-phrases Glissant uses to
push at the limitati o ns of French. Part of c o ntrolling the sub­
s tance of o ne 's future would lie in c o ntrolling i ts nomencla­
ture.
Agents-d'eclat is a terse example of the merging of various
discourses in Glissant's work. Agents has resonance in every­
-

day language (agents de presse, etc.) but also carries overtones

of political agency. Eclat (and eclater; the verb) is frequently
repeated throughout Glissant's poetry and prose. Edat in the
case of agents d'edat has a somewhat prejorati ve sense. It is the
sort of dazzle that can cause a people to lose its footing. In
numerous o ther i ns tances, however, i t represents the sudden
movement, the explosion onto the contemporary scene of
"marginal" peoples, and the possible brilliance of their future.
Always it is metaphorical and poetic.
Another word complex, the verbal phrase: donner-avec,
relays the concept of understanding into the world of Rela­
tion, translating, c o ntesting, then rec o nstituting its elements
in a new order. The French word for u nderstanding, compren­
dre, like its English cognate, is formed on the basis of th e Lati n
word, c01nprehendere, " to seize, " which is formed from the roots :
con- (with ) and prendere (to take) . Glissant contrasts this form
of u nderstandi ng-appropriative, almost rapacious-wi th the
u nderstanding upon wh ich Relation must be based: donner­
avec. Donner (to give ) is meant as a generosity of perception.
(In French donner can mean " to look out toward. " ) There is
also the possible sense of yielding, as a tree might "give" in a
storm i n order to remain standing. Avec both reflects back o n
the corn- of comjJrendre and defines the underlying principle of
Relatio n. Gives-art-and-with is u nwieldy, but u nfamiliar tools
are ahvays awkward.
Balki ng at the task of translati o n is a questionable practice
for a translator, but, along with totalite-monde, certai n of Glis­
sant's coinages rem ain here in Frenc h . * In some cases, no

*Untranslated Fre n c h v,rords are further discussed in lhe notes to the

text or glossary.

XIV
matte r how they were rendered in English , short of writing a
complete sentence at each occurrence, a significant portion
of the sense was gone. The final j udgment came down to the
use value of the translated words , the use (not necessarily
usual) of the sign in question. While the best of translations
can impart new levels of meaning to common words, an addi­
tional layer of impenetrability is of little or no use . * Three
related images of the world set fo rth by Glissant: la totalite­
monde, les echos-monde, and le chaos-monde, have been l eft
untranslated here , therefore, not only because of the inher­
ent difficulty in translating them concisely but also because
they function as neologisms-no more instantly acceptable
in French than in American English; ( though , following the
same p rinciple, the translation includes many dutiful, if not
i nspired, neologisms-for example, flash agents, etc . ) . More
important, the p roblem lies in their structure, which cannot
be duplicated in English. The article clearly modifies the fi rs t
element (la totalite, les echos, le chaos)' b u t the second element
( monde) is not a mere modifier, as i t would appear to be if the
normal English reversal of terms took place (that is, world­
totality, world-echoes, world-chaos). In fact, in this third instance
all the implications of ordered c haos implicit in c haos theory
would slip away, leaving the banality of world disorder. Nor
are these guises of the world ( the world as totali ty, etc. ) ; they
are identities of the world. The world is totali ty ( concrete and
quantifiable ) , echoes (feedback) , and c haos (spiraling and
redundant traj e c tories) , all at once, depending on our many
ways of sensing and addressing it.
From the beginning of the text, in addition to these com­
poundings, there are idiosyncratic usages that e rupt and
remain, assertively subsisting through repetition . * * Errantry

*This is not entirely true. To a student of ideologies they surely mark

interesting moments when the languages, as perceived by a particular
translator, are mutually resistant beyond repair.
**Glissant's particular use of the words langue and langage as well as
imaginaire is discussed both in the notes and glossary.

xv
 ( erranre) wiII be the fi rs t of th ese. Here Glissan t s tresses over­
tones of sacred mission rather than aimless wandering;
errance, i ts ending linked for the contemporary reader with
deconstruc tion 's validation of differance, deflects the negative
associations between errer (to wander) and erreur (error) .
Directed by Relation, erran try follows nei ther an arrowlike
trajec tory nor one that is circular and repeti tive, nor is i t
mere wandering-idle roaming. Wandering, one might
become lost, but in erran try one knows at every moment
where one is-at every moment in relation to the other. This
is a word in which Glissan t's literary formation, his " high " cul­
ture voice, is particularly apparen t. A word out of the past, i t
i s retrieved for the use of a people weakened and oppressed
as much by imposed cultural interpretations as anything e lse;
so that it enters the spiraling, transformative mode of Rela­
tion, in which every voice can be heard and all can be said.
Brough t at the age of ten to Fort-de-France, Glissant re­
ceived the best of French colonial education at the Lycee
Schoelcher, where Aime Cesaire was the "prof" of modern
languages. Like o ther c hi ldren in the colonies depende n t
on France, he too had to learn about "nos anc etres les
gaulois"-those spurious ancestors who had somehow buried
the genetic ancestors in nonhistory. He also read the same
"classics" of Western li terature, probably encoun tering what
he describes as the great book of Mediterranean in telligence,
the Odyssey, at precisely the same momen t in his developmen t
as every French schoolboy in the Metropole. And, like other
i n tellectually promising youths in the 1940s, prepared to
become "more Frenc h than the French," his own odyssey, his
errantry, took him from Martinique to pursue education to
i ts farthest reaches-the level of the doctoral d'etat-in Paris.
Creole is Glissant's "mother" tongue but remains truly
that-a language of intimacy and friendship. French, the lan­
guage of empowerment in Martinique, is his "natural" ( that is,
cu lturally provided) literary language. But it is importan t to
Glissan t that he write a French different fro m the so-called
s tandard French of the Metropole: one made supple by Cre-

XVI
ole, one ready to incorporate all the aspects of its formation,
one cognizant of the history of the Antillean people and ready
to imagine for them both past and future. His analysis of the
problems in Martinique emphasizes the impact of wide­
spread, active repression of those parts of the not-quite-lost
history considered shameful (where the mulatto elite is still
more likely to hark back to some imagined Carib ancestor
than to its African heritage). But though the first rupture with
history occurred at the Middle Passage with the imposition of
slavery and the French language, retrieving the history it­
would-be-possible-to-know does not mean refusing the
imposed French-now unquestionably part of what is sought
in a quest for cultural self-definition. Utilization, ( outilization) ,
tooling of the past to serve the present, is Glissant's work.
The word errantry has archaic overtones in English that,
though not necessarily present in errance, do play an interest­
ing part elsewhere in Glissant's writing. French readers of
Glissant's work would have a very clear sense that his vocabu­
lary was not entirely that of mainland France, that it was
something particular, Antillean perhaps, and his use of
archaisms would be one of the clues.* The classical definition
listed in the dictionary is frequently the one that suits the
context-the usage example will be from Racine or
Corneille. This practice, while a mark of Glissant's classical
French education, also bears traces of the isolation of the cul­
ture of Martinique. There are words still in use on the islands
that have slipped from current usage elsewhere. They pro­
vide a certain formality of tone, which is frequently all I have
been able to salvage of their effect in French, but the transla­
tion contains a few lurking archaisms drawn in general from
the classics-burdened, educated U.S. South.
It is even more difficult to give any sense of the Creolisms

*A few examples of this are Glissant's use of the word heler; common
enough in Martinique for "to call out"; or roidissement, an old form of
raidissement, "stiffening"; or convoyer; meaning "to convey" more than "to
convoy. "

xvii
that are at work in Poetics of Relation. In the case of Creole
words, on ly when there was some American idiom that did
not trivialize Glissant's though t or lend it an air of the ridicu­
lous did I attempt to mark the term with any particular
effect. * Simply sprinkling his text with Creole words, how­
ever, would accomplish very little for Glissan t. It i s the struc­
tural e lemen ts of Creole that are most im portant to his pr�j­
ect of creating a language adequate to Antillean experience.
This Antillean French would not leave Creole to languish in
folklore or preciosity but would use some of i ts worki ng prin­
ciples.
In Creole, as in the African languages that formed i ts syn ­
tax, the limi ts between classes of words are less watertigh t
than in French . That is, a noun m ay work as a verb, or vice
versa, without calling undue attention to i tself. 1 O ther con­
temporary writers have employed this prac tice to escape
hypercoded language construc tions and to s tress the trans­
formative nature of their own wri ting. The demiurgic voice of
Glissan t's "prof," the firs t great Martinican poet, Aim e
Cesaire: " I who Krakatoa . . . who Zambezi . . . " comes to
mind. 2 Ano ther writer of cultural transformation, Helene
Cixous, part of whose poetic praxis depends on canceling
"fixed" barriers to empower women , also makes frequent use
of this device. 3 Such crossovers play a part in Glissan t's
attemp ts to render French more supple . They also work as
instances of metissage, a word whose primary use describes the
racial intermixing wi thin a colony and i ts contemporary
aftermath but which Glissant uses especially to affirm the
mu ltiplicity and diversity of beings in Relation. On a larger

*Exam p les h ere would be: d'un seul bnlrzn (PoP!ique, 218). Rn/an is Cre­
o l e for "soaring, flight, speed," e tc . , which the idiom "at one fell swoop"
translated we l l; and L'iri-lrl (Poetique, 204), which h as the sound of
m odernity we are accustomed to findi n g in F rench critical though t of
the late nve n tieth c e n tury, but m arked here by the dire ctn ess of cotm­
try speech: "this-here . " A few Creole words remain u n translated but
defined in the glossary. A'i Glissan t remarked , 'The English readers are
going to know m ore than the Frenc h . "

xviii
scale the inclusion of various sorts of writing-the familiar,
the poetic, the hortatory, the aphoristic, the exposi tory­
wi thout placing more value on one than another, works
toward a similar syn thesis.
Creole cultu re in Martinique still i n terrelates with the syn­
cretic and oppositional practices of Vodou, in which the
future may be influenced, among other ways, by Veves, fi gu res
traced on the ground. Glissan t is very atten tive to textual
geography: punctuation, markers, spacing. In all of his wri t­
ing, including Poetics of Relation, this graphic element is
important-much as one expects it to be in poetry. Vodou's
rites of transformation proj ec t the world as it should be; Glis­
sant proj e c ts language as it should be . Even his use of suffixes
and creation of compound words with their ritual dash plays
a part in this geographical writing.
Strategies of orali ty, presen t in Creole, continue to mark
spoken French in Martinique and lend an oracular tone to
Glissant's language. One word will unleash another through
association or some deeper, almost subconscious logic i n to
powerfull y rhythmic sentences. The discontinui ties in the
text, the melding of discursive syn tax with a language whose
beat is punctuated by repe ti tion and improvization ( La Cite
de Platon est pour Platon , la vision de Hegel pour Hegel, la
ville du griot pour la gri o t" [Poetique, 208] ) , provide almost
constant examples of this.
This oral tradi tion remains clearly presen t in the Creole
proverbs and sayings that constitu te the familiar wisdom of
Martinique. These formulations exemplify continuity but in
form are discontinuous. When this form is employed by a
philosopher, i t is referred to as "aphorism," and, when the
surroundings of these discontinuous s tatements are lost i n
history, w e think o f them a s "fragments." The section o f Poet­
ics of Relation enti tled "That Those Beings Be Not Being," a
sequence of oracular riddles, at firs t ( and finall y) leads to
comparisons with Heraclitus, but the suitability of their s truc ­
ture to Glissan t's proj ec t lies in i ts reproduction o f o n e o f
Creole's most enduring aspects: the proverb form-memo-

xix
rable because it is concise, repet1t1ous, rhythmic, and
opaque. Though Creole may be based on a "succession of
forgettings" (83) , its formal structures can be used to induce
memory.
Glissant's i n tent, finally, is to realize Relation in concrete
terms-i n which language is m ade of roc ks and words and in
which the future can be made to open for the Antilles by
beating a time other than the linear, sequential order of syn ­
tax. Verb, noun, subj ect, object, are n ot fixed in their places
because, in the words of Glissant, "in Relation every subject is
an objec t and every obj e c t a subj e c t. "

NOTES

1. Dictionnaire Creole Franr;:ais, by Ralph Ludwig, Daniele Mon tbrand,

Hector Pouil l e t , and Sylvi ane Te l c hid (Paris: Servedit/E ditions Jas­
sor, 1990), 12.
2. Aime Cesaire, "Lost Body," The Collected Pcietr)', trans. Clayton
Esh l eman and A n n e tte Smith (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1983), 243.
3. See Helen e Cixous, The Book of Promethm, trans. B e tsy Win g (Lin­
c o l n: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), xi, 9.

xx
 Glossary

"Glossary: for readers/ram elsewhere, who don't deal very

well with unknown words or who want to understand
everything. But, perhaps to establish for ourselves,
ourselves as well, the long list of words within us whose
sense escapes or, taking this farther, to fix the syntax of
this language we are babbling. The readers of here are
future."
-Edouard Glissant, Malemort, 231

(Words discussed m the introduction or notes are not

included here.)

antillanite: "A method and not a state of being," according to

Glissant. Contrast this with his idea of what creolite (creole­
ness) is about. Antillanite is grounded concretely in
affirmation of a place, the Antilles, and would link cultures
across language barriers. Dash translates this as
"Caribbeanness" in Caribbean Discourse.
bekes: Creole word used originally to designate the white
planters but now also any of their (white) descendants in
Martinique.
careme: The dry season. Martinique has only two seasons: the
rainy season, hivernage, and the dry, careme.
djobs, djobeurs: Odd jobs and those who do them. These
words, derived from the English word job, designate the
widespread, marginal economy dependent on the scraps
 and bits (of work and material) that no one in the more
affluent sector wan ts.
Gehenna: A hell, a p lace of fiery torment.
gommier: Tradi tional sai lboat still raced along the coast of
Martinique.
imaginary: Glissant 's sense differs fro m the commonsense
English usage of a conception that is a conscious mental
image. Furt hermore, the now widely accepted Lacanian
sense in which the Imaginary, the order of perception and
hallucination , is con trasted with the Symbolic (the order
of discursive and symbolic ac tion ) and the Real (not j ust
"reality" but what is absolute ly unrepresen table ) does not
apply. For Glissant the imaginary is all the ways a cu lture
has of perceiving and conceiving of the world. Hence,
every human culture will have i ts own particular imagi ­
nary.
laghia: A tradi tional dance that takes the form of a battle.
Lamentin: An industrial city in whose mangrove swamps Glis· · ·
sant and his friends played as children. The Lezarde River
flowed, now trickles through , and the backfilled swamps
are now developed into the airport of M artinique.
mabi: A drink made from bois magi ( Collubrina elliptica) and
the peel of mandarines.
madou: A sweet drink made with limes.
manchineel: A plant found growing side by side with the sea­
olive on the beaches of Martinique. When touched, the
frui t of the manchineel in flicts painful burns that the leaf
of the sea-olive can heal.
marronage, marrons: The marrons, "Maroons," are the fugi ­
tive slaves , and marmnage, originally the political act of
these s laves who escaped into the forested hi lls of Mar­
tinique, now designates a form of cultural opposition to
European-Ameri can c ulture. This resistan ce takes its
strength from a combination of geographical connected­
ness (essential to survival in the j ungle and absent in the
descendants of slaves-alienated from the land that could
neve r be theirs) , memory (retained in oral forms and

xxii
 vodou ritual), and all the canny detours, diversions, and
ruses required to deflect the repeated attempts to recu­
perate this cultural subversion.
mornes: The hills rising abruptly behind the Caribbean
beaches in Martinique. Deeply forested in places still, they
are the savage and life-preserving land in which the
Maroons took refuge.
Pitons: The high, jagged, volcanic mountains.
Quechua: Amerindians of South America known for their
obstinate silence.
yole: Traditional skiff used by Martinican fishermen.
zouc: Martinican dance music.

XXlll
P O E T I C S O F R E LAT I O N
 IMAGINARY
��

Thinking thought usually amounts to withdrawing into a

dimensionless place in which the idea of thought alone
persists. But thought in reality spaces itself out into the world.
It informs the imaginary of peoples, their varied poetics, which
it then transforms, meaning, in them its risk becomes realized.

Culture is the precaution of those who claim to think thought

but who steer clear of its chaotic journey. Evolving cultures
infer Relation, the overstepping that grounds their unity­
diversity.

Thought draws the imaginary of the past: a knowledge

becoming. One cannot stop it to assess it nor isolate it to
transmit it. It is sharing one can never not retain, nor ever, in
standing still, boast about.
 I

APPROACHES

One way ashore, a thousand channels

 The Open Boat

For the Africans who lived through the experience of depor­

tation to the Americas,* confronting the unknown with nei­
ther preparation nor challenge was no doubt petrifying.

The first dark shadow was cast by being wrenched from

their everyday, familiar land, away from protecting gods and
a tutelary community. But that is nothing yet. Exile can be
borne, even when it comes as a bolt from the blue. The sec­
ond dark of night fell as tortures and the deterioration of
person, the result of so many incredible Gehennas. Imagine
two hundred human beings crammed into a space barely
capable of containing a third of them. Imagine vomit, naked
flesh, swarming lice, the dead slumped, the dying crouched.
Imagine, if you can, the swirling red of mounting to the deck,
the ramp they climbed, the black sun on the horizon, vertigo,

*The Slave Trade came through the cramped doorway of the slave ship,
leaving a wake like that of crawling desert caravans. I t might be drawn
like this: � African countries to the East; the lands of America
to the West. This creature is i n the image of a fibril.
African languages became deterritorialized, thus contributing to
creolization in the West. This is the m ost completely known confronta­
tion between the powers of the written word and the i mpulses of oral­
ity. The only written thing on slave ships was the account book listin g
t h e exchange value of slaves. W i thin the ship's space t h e cry o f those
deported was stifled, as it would be in the realm of the Plantations. This
confrontation still reverberates to this day.
this dizzying sky plastered to the waves. Over the course of
m ore than two cen turies, twenty, thi rty million people
deported. Worn down, in a debasement more e ternal than
apocalypse. Bu t that is nothing yet.
What is terrifying partakes of the abyss, three times linked
to the unknown . First, the time you fell into the belly of the
boat. For, in your p oetic vision , a boat has no belly; a boat
does not swall ow up, does not devour; a boat is s teered by
open skies. Ye t, the belly of this boat dissolves you, precipi­
tates you into a n onworld from which you c ry out. This boat
is a womb, a womb abyss. It generates the clamor of your
protests ; i t also produces all the coming unanimity. Although
you are alone in this suffering, you share in the unknown
with others whom you have yet to know. This boat is you r
·womb, a matrix, a n d ye t it expels you. This boat: pregn an t
with as many dead as living under sentence of death .

The next abyss was the depths of the sea. Whenever a fleet of
ships gave chase to slave ships, it was easiestjust to lighten the
b oat by throwing cargo overboard , weighing it down with
balls and chains. These underwater signposts mark the
c ourse between the Gold Coast and the Leeward Islands.
Navigating the green splendor of the sea-whe ther in melan­
c h olic transatlan tic c rossings or gl orious regattas or tradi­
tional races of yoles and gommiers--s till brings to mind, c om­
ing to light like seaweed, these l owest depths, these deeps,
wi th their punctuation of scarcely c orroded balls and chains.
In ac tual fac t the abyss is a tautology: the enti re ocean , the
e n tire sea gen tly c ollapsing in the end into the pleasures of
sand, make one vas t beginning, but a beginning whose time
is marked by these balls and c hains gone green .

But for these shores to take shape, even before they c ould be
con templated, before they were yet visible, what sufferings
came from the unkn own ! Indeed, the most petrifying face of
the abyss lies far ahead of the slave ship's bow, a pale mur­
mur; you do n ot know if i t is a storm cloud, rain or drizzle , or

6
smoke from a c omforting fi re . The banks of the river have
vanished on both sides of the boat. What kind of river, then,
has n o middle? Is n othing there but straight ahead? Is this
boat sailing into e ternity toward the edges of a n onworld that
n o ancestor will hau n t?

Parallelin g this m ass of water, the third metamorphosis of the

abyss thus proj e c ts a reverse image of all that had been l eft
behind, n ot to be regained for generations except-more
and m ore threadbare-in the blue savannas of memory or
imaginati on .

T h e asc e ticism of crossing this way the l and-sea that,

unknown to you, is the planet Earth , feeling a language van­
ish, the word of the gods vanish , and the sealed image of even
the m os t everyday object, of even the mos t familiar animal ,
vanish . The evanesce n t taste of what you ate. T h e h ounded
scent of och re earth and savannas.

'Je te salue, vieil Ocean !" You s till preserve on your crests the
silen t boat of our births, your chasms are our own uncon­
scious, furrowed with fugitive memories. Then you lay out
these new shores, where we h ook our tar-streaked wounds,
our reddened m ou ths and s ti fled outcries.

Experience of the abyss lies inside and outside the abyss. The
torment of those who never escaped i t: straight from the belly
of the slave ship into the violet belly of the ocean depths they
went. But their ordeal did n ot die; it quickened in to this c on­
tinuous/ discontinuous thing: the panic of the new land, the
haunting of the former land, finally the alliance with the
imposed land, suffered and redeemed. The unconscious
memory of the abyss served as the alluvium for these m e ta­
m orph oses. The p opulati ons that then formed, despite hav­
ing forgotten the chasm, despi te being unable to imagine the
passion of those who foundered there, n onetheless wove this
sail (a veil) . They did n ot use i t to return to the Former Land

7
but rose up on this unexpected, dumbfounded land. They
met the firs t in habitants, who had also been deported by per­
manent havoc; or perhaps they only caught a whiff of th e rav­
aged trail of these people . The land-beyond turned into land­
in�i tsel f. And this undream t of sail , finally now spread, is
watered by th e whi te wind of th e abyss. Thus, th e absolute
unknown, projected by the abyss and bearing into eternity
the wom b abyss and the in fini te abyss, in the end became
knowledge .

N o t just a specific knowledge, appe ti te, suffering, and deligh t

of one parti cular people, not only that, but knowledge of the
Whole, greater fro m having been at the abyss and freeing
knowledge of Relation within the Whole .

Just a s the fi rst uprooting was n o t marked b y any defian ce, in

the same way the prescience and actual experience of Rela­
tion have nothing to do with vani ty. Peoples who have been
to the abyss do not brag of being chosen. They do not believe
they are giving birth to any modern force. They live Relation
and clear the way for it, to the extent that the oblivion of the
abyss comes to them and that, consequen tly, their memory
i n tensifies.

For though this experien ce made you, 01iginal victim fl oat­

ing toward the sea's abysses, an exception, it be came some­
thing shared and made us, the descendants, one people
among o thers . Peoples do not live on exception . Relation is
n o t made up of things that are foreign but of shared knowl ­
edge. This experience of the abyss can now be said to be the
best elemen t of exchange .

For us, and wi thout exception, and no matter how much dis­
tance we may keep, the abyss is also a proj e ction of and a per­
spective in to the unknown . Beyond its chasm we gamble on
the unknown. We take sides in this game of the world. We
hail a renewed Indies; we are for i t. And for this Relation

8
made of s torms and profound moments of peace in which we
may honor our boats.

This is why we s tay with poetry. And despite our consenting to

all the indisp u table tec hnologies; despite seeing the political
leap that m ust be managed, the horror of hunger and igno­
rance, torture and m assacre to be conquered, the full load of
knowledge to be tamed, the weigh t of every piece of machin­
ery that we shall fi nally control , and the exhausting flashes as
we pass from one era to another-from forest to city, from
s tory to computer-at the bow there is still something we
now s hare: this murmur, cloud or rain or peaceful smoke. We
know ourselves as part and as crowd, in an unknown that
does not terrify. We c ry our c ry of poetry. Our boats are open,
and we sail them for everyone.

g
 Errantry, Exile

Roots make the commonality of errantry1 and exile, for in

both instances roots are lacking. We must begin with that.2
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari criticized notions of the
root and, even perhaps, notions of being rooted. The root is
unique, a stock taking all upon itself and killing all around it.
In opposition to this they propose the rhizome, an enmeshed
root system, a network spreading either in the ground or in
the air, with no predatory rootstock taking over permanently.
The notion of the rhizome maintains, therefore, the idea of
rootedness but challenges that of a totalitarian root. Rhi­
zomatic thought is the principle behind whatI call the Poet­
ics of Relation, in which each and every identity is extended
through a relationship with the Other.
These authors extol nomadism, which supposedly liber­
ates Being, in contrast, perhaps, to a settled way of life, with
its law based upon the intolerant root. Already Kant, at the
beginning of Critique of Pure Reason, had seen similarities
between skeptics and nomads, remarking also that, from
time to time, "they break the social bond." He seems thus to
establish correlations between, on the one hand, a settled
way of life, truth, and society and, on the other, nomadism,
skepticism, and anarchy. This parallel with Kant suggests that
the rhizome concept appears interesting for its anticon­
formism, but one cannot infer from this that it is subversive
or that rhizomatic thought has the capacity to overturn the

11
order of the world-because, by so doing, one reverts to ide­
o logical c laims presumably challenged by this thought. 3
But is the nomad not overdetermined by the conditions of
his existence? Rather than the enj oyment of freedom, is
nomadism not a form of obedience to contingencies that are
restrictive? Take, for example, c ircular nomadism: each time
a portion of the territory is exhausted, the group moves
around. Its function is to ensure the survival of the group by
means of this circularity. This is the nornadism practiced by
populations that move from one part of the forest to another,
by the Arawak communities who navigated from island to
island in the Caribbean, by hired laborers in their pilgrimage
from farm to farm , by circus people in their peregrinations
from village to vil lage , al l of whom are driven by some
specific need to m ove, in which daring or aggression play no
part. Circu lar nomadism is a not-intolerant form of an impos­
sible settlement.
Contrast this with invading nomadisrn, that of the Huns,
for example , or the Conquistadors, whose goal was to con­
quer lands by exterminating their occupants. Neither pru­
den t nor circular nomadism, it spares no effect. It is an
absolute forward proj ec tion: an arrowlike nomadism . But the
descendan ts of the Huns, Vandals, or Visigo ths, as indeed
those of the Conquistadors, who established their clans, set­
tled down bit by bit, melting into their conquests . Arrowlike
nomadism is a devastating desire for settlement. *
Neither in arrowlike nomadisrn nor in circular nomadism
are roots valid. Before it is won through conquest, what
" holds" the invader is what lies ahead; moreover, one could
almost say that being compelled to lead a settled way of life

* The idea that this devastation can tum history around in a positive
manner (in relation to the decli n e of the Roman E m pire, for example)
and beget some fer tile n egative elem e n t does n o t concer n us here.
Gen erally speaking, what is meant is that arrowlike n o m adism gives
birth to n ew eras, whereas circular n o madism would be e ndoge nous
and without a future. T his is a pure a n d simple legitimation o f th e act
of conquest.

12
would constitute the real uprooting of a circular nomad.
There is, furthermore, no pain of exile bearing down, nor is
there the wanderlust of errantry growing keener. Relation to
the earth is too immediate or too plundering to be linked
with any preoccupation with identity-this claim to or con­
sciousness of a lineage inscribed in a territory. Identity will be
achieved when com munities attempt to legitimate their right
to possession of a territory through myth or the revealed
word. Such an assertion can predate i ts actual accomplish­
ment by quite some time. Thus, an often and long con tested
legitimacy will have m ultiple forms that later will delineate
the afflicted or soothing dimensions of exile or errantry.
In Western antiquity a man in exile does not feel he is
helpless or inferior, because he does not feel burdened with
deprivation-of a nation that for him does not yet exist. It
even seems, if one is to believe the biographies of numerous
Greek thinkers including Plato and Aristotle, that some expe­
rience of voyaging and exile is considered necessary for a
being's complete fulfillment. Plato was the first to attempt to
base l egitimacy not on community within territory (as i t was
before and would be later) but on the City in the rationality
of its laws. This at a time when his city, Athens, was already
threatened by a "final" deregulation.*
I n this period identification is with a c ulture ( conceived of
as civilization ) , not yet with a nation . * * The pre-Chris tian
West along with pre-Columbian America, Africa of the time
of the great conquerors, and the Asian kingdoms all shared
this mode of seeing and feeling.The relay of actions exerted
*Platonic Dialogues take over the function of the Myth . The latter
establishes the legitimacy of the possession of a territory based usually
on the uninterrupted rigors of filiation. The Dialogue establishes the
City's justice based on the revelation of a superior reason organizin g
rigorous successions o f a political order.
* *Through the entirely Western notion of civilization the experience of
a society is summed up, in order to project it immediately into an evo­
lution, most often an expansion as well. W hen one says civilization, the
immediate implication is a will to civilize. This idea is linked to the pas­
sion to impose civilization on the Other.

13
by arrowlike nomadism and the settled way of life were first
directed against generalization (the drive for an iden tifying
universal as practiced by t he Roman Empire ) . Thus , the par­
ticular resi s ts a generalizin g universal and soon begets
speci fic and local senses of identity, in concentric circles
(provinces then nations ) . The idea of civili1.ation, hit hy hit ,
helps hold toge ther opposi tes, whose only former identity
existed in their opposition to the O ther.
During this period of invading nomads the passion for
self-defin ition fi rst appears in the guise of personal adven­
ture. Along the route of their voyages conq uerors established
empires that co llapsed at their death. Their capitals wen t
where they wen t. "Rome i s n o longer in Rome, i t i s wherever
I am ." The roo t is not importan t. M ovemen t is. The idea of
erran try, still i n hibited in the face of this mad reali ty, this too­
functional nomadism, whose ends it could not know, does
not yet make an appearance. Cen ter and periphery are eq uiv­
alent. Conquerors are the moving, transien t roo t of their
people.
The \!\Test, therefore, is where this movem ent becomes
fixed and nations declare themselves in preparation for their
repercussions in the world. This fixing, this dec laration , this
expansion , all require that the idea of the root gradually take
on the in tolerant sense that Deleuze and Guattari, no doubt,
mean t to c hallenge . The reason for our return to this epi sode
in Western history is that i t spread throughout the world. The
model came in handy. Most of the nations that gained free­
dom from colonization have tended to form around an idea
of power·-the totalitarian drive of a sin gle, unique root­
rather than around a fundamen tal relationship with the
Other. Culture's se lf-con ce ption was dualistic, pitting citizen
against barbarian. Nothing has ever more solidly opposed
the thought of errantry than this period in human history
when Wes tern nations were established and then made their
impac t on the world.
At first this thought of errantry, bucking the current of
nationalist expansion , was disguised "within" very personal-

14
ized adven tures-just as the appearance of Western nations
had been preceded by the ventures of empire builders. The
errantry of a troubadour or that of Rimbaud is not yet a thor­
ough, thick (opaque) experience of the world, but it is
already an arrant, passionate desire to go against a root. The
reality of exile during this period is felt as a ( te mporary) lack
that primarily concerns, interestingly enough , language.
Western n ations were established on the basis of l inguistic
intransigence, and the exile readily admits that he suffers
most fro m the impossibility of communicating in his lan­
guage. The root is monolingual. For the troubadour and for
Rimbaud errantry is a vocation only told via detour. The call
of Relation is heard, but it is not yet a fully present experi­
ence.

However, and this is an immense paradox, the great found­

ing books of communities, the Old Testament, the Iliad, the
Odyssey, the Chansons de Geste, the Islandic Sagas, the Aeneid,
or the African epics, were all books about exile and ofte n
about errantry. This epic literature i s amazingly prophetic. I t
tells o f the community, but, through relating the commu­
nity's apparent fai lure or in any case i ts being surpassed, i t
tells o f errantry a s a temptation ( the desire t o g o against the
root) and, frequen tly, actually experienced. With in the col­
lective books concernin g the sacred and the notion of h istory
lies the germ of the exact opposite of what they so l oudly pro­
claim . When the very idea of territory becomes relative,
nuances appear in the legitimacy of territorial possession.
These are books about the birth of collective consciousness,
but they also introduce the unrest and suspense that allow
the individual to discover himself there, whenever he himself
becomes the issue . The Greek victory in the Iliad depends on
trickery; Ulysses returns from his Odyssey and is recognized
only by his dog; the Old Testament David bears the stain of
adultery and murder; the Chanson de Roland is the chronicle
of a defeat; the characters in the Sagas are branded by an
unstemmable fate, and so forth. These books are the begin-

15
ning of som ething entirely di fferen t from massi ve, dogmatic ,
and totalitarian certainty (despi te th e religious uses to which
they will be put) . These are books of errantry, goin g beyond
th e pursuits and triumphs of rootedness required by th e evo­
lution of history.
Some of these books are devoted entirely to th e suprem e
erran try, as in th e E gyptian Book of the Dead. The very book
whose fun c tion is to consecrate an in transigent cornmunity is
already a com promise, qualifying i ts triumph with revelatory
wanderin gs.*
In both L'Jntention jJoetique (Poetic Intention) and Le Discoms
antillais (Caribbean Discourse)-of which th e present work is a
reconsti tuted echo or a spiral retelling-I approached this
dimension of epic literature. I began wondering if we did not
still need such founding works today, ones th at would use a
simi lar dialec tics of reroutin g,4 assertin g, for exampl e, pol i ti­
cal strength but, simultaneously, th e rhizome of a multipl e
relationship with t h e Other and basing every community's
reasons for existence on a m odern form of th e sacred, which
would b e, all in all , a Poetics of Rel ation . * *

This movem ent, therefore ( on e among others, equally

important, in other parts of the world) , h as l ed from a pri­
mordial nomadism to th e settled way of life of Western
nations then to D iscovery and Conquest, which achi eved a
fi n al , alm ost mystical perfection in th e Voyage.
In th e course of this journey i d en ti ty, at l east as far as th e
Western peoples who made up the great m�jority of voyagers,
discoverers, and conquerors were concerned, consolidates
* Hegel , in book 3 of his Aesthetin, sh ows hmv the founding works o f
commu nities appear spo n taneously at the m o m e n t in which a sti l l naive
collective co nsciousness reassures itself abou t its own legitimacy, or, not
to mince words: abo u t its righ t to possess a land. I n this sense Epic
though t is close to that o f Myt h .
* * T h e necessary surpassing o f mythic and epic thoug h t took place i n
the political reason organizing the City. Epic expression i s obscure an d
u nfatho m able, o n e of the con ditio ns of n aivete. Political discourse is
obvious. Su rpassi n g can be con tradiction.

16
itself implici tly at first ( "my root is the strongest") and then is
explicitly exported as a valu e ( "a person 's worth is deter­
mined by his root") . * The c onquered or visited peoples are
thus forced into a l ong and painful quest after an identity
whose fi rst task will be opposition to the denaturing p rocess
introduced by the c onqueror. A tragic variation of a searc h
fo r identity. For m ore than two centu ries whole p opulations
have had to assert their identity in oppositi on to the
processes of identific ation br annihilation triggered by these
invaders . Whereas the Wes tern nation is fi rst of all an "oppo­
site , " * * fo r col onized peoples identity will be p rimarily
"opposed to"-that is, a limitation from the beginning.
Decol onizati on will h ave d one i ts real work when i t goes
beyond this limit.
The duality of self-perception ( one is citizen or foreigner)
has repercussions on one 's idea of the Other ( one is visitor or
visited; one goes or stays; one c onquers or is conquered) .
Thought of the O th e r cannot escape i ts own dualism until
the time when differences become acknowledged. From that
point on thought of the Other "com prehends"5 multiplicity,
but mechanically and still taking the subtle hierarchies of a
generalizing universal as i ts basis. Acknowledging diffe rences
does n ot c ompel one to be involved in the dialectics of their
totality. One c ould get away with: "I can acknowledge your
difference and c on tinue to think it is harmful to you. I can
think that my strength lies in the Voyage (I am making His­
tory) and that your diffe rence is m oti onless and silent."
Anothe r step remains to be taken before one really enters the
dialectic of totality. And, c ontrary to the mechanics of the
Voyage, this dialectic turns out to be driven by the thought of
e rrantry.

*That is, as we have said, essentially by his language.

**If the idea of civilization holds opposites together, a generalizing uni­
versal will be the principle of their action in the world, the principle
that will allow them to realize conflicts of interest in a finalist concep­
tion of History. The first colonist, Christopher Columbus, did not voy­
age in the name of a country but of an idea.

17
Let us suppose that the quest for totality, starting from a
nonuniversal context of histories of the West, has passed
through the followi ng stages:
-the thin king of terri tory and self (ontological , dual)
-the thinking of voyage and other ( mechanical ,
multipl e )
-the thinking of errantry a n d totali ty ( relational,
dialectical ) .
We will agree that this thi nking of errantry, this errant
thought, silently emerges from the destruc turing of compact
national entities that yesterday were still trium phan t and , at
the same time, from difficult, uncertain births of new forms
of identity that call to us.

In this context uprooting can work toward identi ty, and exile
can be seen as beneficial , when these are experienced as a
search for the O th er ( th ro ugh circular nomadism ) rather
than as an expansion of territory ( an arrowl ike nomadism ) .
Totality's imaginary allows the detours that lead away from
anything totalitarian.

E rrantry, therefore, does not proceed from renunciation nor

from frustration regarding a supposedly deteriorated (deter­
ritorialized) situation of origi n ; i t is not a resolute act of rej ec­
tion or an uncontrolled i m pulse of abandonm ent. Some­
times, by taking u p the prnblems of the Other, i t is possible to
find oneself. Con tem po rary history provides several s triking
examples of this, among them Frantz Fanon , whose path led
from Martin ique to Algeria. That is very much the image of
the rhizome, prom pting the knowledge that identity is no
longer completely wi th in the root but also in Relation.
Because the though t of erran try is also the though t of what is
relati ve , the thing relayed as well as the thing related. Th e
thought of erran try is a poe tics, which always infers that at
some m omen t it is told. The tale of errantry is the tale of
Relation .

18
In con trast to arrowlike nomadism (discovery or conquest ) ,
in contrast to the s ituation of exile, errantry gives-on-and­
with the negation of every pole and every metropolis,
whether connected or not to a conqueror's voyaging act. We
have repeatedly mentioned that the first thing exported by
the conqueror was h is language . Moreover, the great Wes tern
languages were supposedly veh icular languages, which often
took the place of an actual metropolis. Relation, in contrast,
is spoken multilingually. Going beyond the impositions of
economic forces and cultural pressures, Relation rightfully
opposes the totali tarianism of any monolingual intent.

At th is poin t we seem to be far removed from the sufferings

and preoccupations of those who must bear the world's inj us­
tice. Their errantry is, in effect, immobile. They have never
experienced the m elancholy and extroverted luxury of
uprooting. They do not travel . But one of the constants of
our world is that a knowledge of roots will be conveyed to
them from within intuitions of Relation from now on. Travel­
ing is no longer the locus of power but, rather, a pleasurable,
if privileged, t ime. The ontological obsession with knowledge
gives way here to the enj oyment of a relation; in its elemen­
tary and often caricatu ral form this is tourism . Those who
stay behin d thrill to this passion for the world shared by all.
Or, indeed, they may suffer the torments of internal exile.
I would not describe the physical situation of those who
suffer the oppression of an Other within their own country,
such as the blacks in South Africa, as internal exile . Because
the solution h ere is visible and th e outcome determ ined;
force alone can oppose this. Internal exile strikes individuals
living where solutions concerning the relationship of a com­
m unity to i ts surroundings are not, or at leas t not yet, con­
sented to by this c ommunity as a whole. These solutions, pre­
cariously outl ined as decisions, are still the prerogative of
only a few, who, as a result, are marginalized. Internal exile is
the voyage out of this enclosure. It is a motionless and exac-

19
erbated in troduction to the thought of errantry. Most often i t
is di verted into partial, pleasurable compensations i n wh ich
the individual is consumed. In ternal exile tends toward mate­
rial com fort, which cannot really distract from anguish .

Whereas exile may erode one's sense of identity, the thought

of erran try-the thought of that which relates-usually rein­
forces this sense of identi ty. It seems possible, at least to one
observer, that the persecuted erran try, the wandering of the
Jews, may have reinforced their sense of identity far more
than their prese n t settling in the land of Palestine. Being
exiled Jews turned i n to a vocation of erran try, their point of
reference an ideal land whose power may, in fact, have been
undermined by concrete land (a territory) , chosen and con­
quered. This, h owever, is m ere conj ec ture. Because, while
one can communicate through erran try's imaginary visio n ,
the experiences o f exiles are incommunicable .

The thought o f errantry is n o t apolitical n o r is i t inconsistent

with the will to iden ti ty, which is, after all , nothing other than
the search for a freedom withi n particular surroundi ngs. If i t
is at variance with territorial intoleran ce, o r the predatory
effects of the unique root (which makes processes of
identifi cation so difficul t today) , this is because , in the poet­
ics of Relation, one who is errant (who is no longer traveler,
discoverer, or conqueror) strives to know the totali ty of the
world yet already knows he will never accomplish this-and
knows that is precisely where the th reatened beauty of the
world resides.

Errant, he challenges and discards the universal-this gener­

ali zing edict that summarized the worl d as something obvi­
ous and transparent, claiming for i t one presupposed sense
an d one destiny. He plunges i n to th e opaci ties of that part of
the world to ·wh ich he has access . Generalization is totalitar­
ian: from the world i t chooses one side of the reports, one set
of ideas, which it sets apart from others and tries to impose by

20
exporting as a model . The thinking of errantry conceives of
totali ty but willingly renounces any claims to sum it up or to
possess i t.

The founding books have taught us that the sacred dimen ­

sion consists always of going deeper into the mystery of the
root, s haded with variations of errantry. In reality errant
thinking is the postulation of an unyielding and unfading
sacred. We remember that Plato, who understood the power
of Myth , had hoped to banish the poets, those who force
obscurity, far from the Republic. He distrusted the fathom­
less word. Are we n o t returning here, in the unforeseeable
meanders of Relation, to this abyssal word? Nowhere is it
stated that n ow, in this thought of errantry, humanity will not
succeed in transmuting Myth's opaci ties (which were for­
merly the occasion for setting roots) and the diffracted
insights of political p hilosophy, thereby reconciling Homer
and Plato, Hegel and the African griot.
But we need to figure out whether or not there are o ther
succulencies of Relation in other parts of the world (and
already at work in an underground manner) that will sud­
denly open up other avenues and soon help to correct what­
ever simplifying, ethnocentric exclusions may have arisen
from such a p erspec tive.

As far as literature is concerned (without my having to estab­

lish a pantheon, an isolation these works would refuse) , there
are two contemporary bodies of work, it seems to me, i n
which errantry a n d Relation are at play.
Faulkner's work, somehow theological . This wntmg is
about digging up roo ts i n the South-an obvious place to do
so in the United S tates. But the root begins to act like a rhi ­
zome ; there is no basis for certain ty; the relation is tragic .
Because o f this dispute over source, the sacred-but hence­
forth unspeakable-en igma of the root's location, Faulkner's

21
world represents one of the th rilling moments in the modern
poetics of Relation. At one time I regretted that such a world
h ad not gone farth er, spreading its vision into the Caribbean
and Latin Ameri c a. But, perh aps, this was a reaction of
unconscious frustration on the part of one who felt excluded.
And Sai n t:John Perse 's erratic work, in search of that
which moves, of th at which goes-in the absolute sense.6 A
work leading to to tali ty-·to the out-and-ou t exaltation of a
universal that becomes exhausted from being said too much .

22
 Poetics

In the nineteenth century, after the Spanish language had

expanded into South America and the Portuguese language
into Brazil, the French and English languages successfully
accompanied the widespread expansion of their own respec­
tive cultures around the world. Other Western languages,
German, Italian, or Russian, for example, despite some lim­
ited attempts at colonization, were not driven by this propen­
sity for self-exportation that nearly always generates a sort of
vocation for the universal. As for non-Western languages,
Quechua, Swahili, Hindi, or Chinese, they remain endoge­
nous and nonproliferating; their poetics do not yet hint at
involvement in the evolution of world histories.
Our aim her e is to advance the notion that, within the lim­
ited framework of one language-French-competing to dis­
cover the world and dominate it, literary production is partly
determined by this discovery, which also transforms numer­
ous aspects of its poetics; but that there persists, at least as far
as French is concerned, a stubborn resistance to any attempt
at clarifying the matter. Everything just goes along as if, at the
moment it entered into the poetics of worldwide Relation,
ready to replace the former h egemony, collective thought
working within the language chose to cover up its expressive
relationship with the other, rather than admit any participa­
tion that would not be one of preeminence.
With generally good results literary theoreticians have
been content to define the poetics deemed responsible for

23
 the en trance of French literature i n to modernity beginning
in the nineteenth century. A theory of depth, a practice of
language-i n-itself, and the problem atics of textual structure
were thus formulated. ( I simplify for effec t, to critical
extremes. ) They have pretended to forget that, in literature,
j ust like everywhere else in the world, one of the foll-senses 1
of modernity is provided henceforth by the ac tion of human
cultures' iden tifying one another for thei r mutual transfor­
mation.

Poetics of depth. Baudelaire explored the early realms of

this form of poetics. The vertiginous extension, not out i n to
the world but toward the abysses m an carries wi th in himself.
Western man essen tially, that is, who at that moment in time
governed the evol ution of mode rni ty and provided its
rhythm. Inner space is as i n finitely explorable as spaces of
the earth . At the same time as he discovered the numerous
varieties of the species man consti tuted, he felt that the
alleged stabili ty o f knowledge led nowhere and that all he
would ever know o f himself was what he made others know.
As a result, Baudelaire quashed romantic lyricism 's claim
that the poet was the introspec tive m aster o f his j oys or sor­
rows; and that i t was in his power to draw clear, plain lessons
from this that would benefi t everyone. This roman tic beati­
tude was swept away by the stenches inseparable from
Baudelairean carrion.
Poetics o f depth-like depth psychology-does not, how­
ever, renounce i ts ce rtainty that there is a universal model , a
sort of archetype of humanity, difficult to circumscribe o r
define, o f course , b u t one that would simul taneously ensure
o ur knowledge in the matter and be i ts ultimate aim . These
both tended, on the other hand, to displace the terrain of
this knowledge: first dispossessing it of the sovereign subject
( requiring the knowledge-the gaze, or the hearing-of
another) then surrendering it to this suqject (speaking "in"
the structures of any expressed knowledge ) .

24
A poetics of language-in-itself. It sanctions the moment when
language, as if satisfied with its perfection, ceases to take for
its object the recounting of its connection with particular sur­
roundings, to concentrate solely upon its fervor to exceed its
limits and reveal thoroughly the elements composing it­
solely upon its engineering skill with these. This practice does
not proceed without rambling, because rambling-as Mal­
larme well knew-is an absolute challenge to narrative.
Rather than discovering or telling about the world, it is a mat­
ter of producing an equivalent, which would be the Book, in
which everything would be said, without anything's being
reported.* Mallarme, who experienced, of course, the temp­
tations of elsewhere, spent his energy solely on producing this
totality of language. The world as book, the Book as world.
His heroism within confinement is a way of celebrating a
desired, dreamt-of totality within the absolute of the word .
The poetics of language-in-itself strives toward a knowl­
edge that by definition would only be exercised within the
limits of a giyen language . It would renounce (Mallarme
notwithstanding, with h is anxious pleasure in being profes­
sor and translator of English) the nostalgia for other lan­
guages-for the infinite possible languages-now germinat­
ing in every literature.

A poetics of structure. The creator of a text is effaced, or,

rather, is done away with, to be revealed in the texture of his
creation. Just as narrative had been eliminated from Mallar­
mean poetics, History (in the sense given by the West to this
word) must be considered in context, according to the struc­
turalists . Emphasizing one more renunciation, a subtle one,
of the world as it produces itself, that is, as it rightfully
escapes the control of Western discoverers: explorers, mer­
chants, conquerors, ethnologists-those men of intelligence,
faith, and law.

* My intent in Caribbean Discourse was to question this equivalence.

25
 The neutral rather than harsh actuali ty of the object; the
tightening of a locus; the low regard for any thought claim­
ing falsely to be final; the literal and the flat-these are a few
of the factors l inked with the works of numerous contempo­
rary French authors that provide access to them within the
context of this poetics.

Those i n volved with the exegesis of French literature since

romanticism have looked to poe tics of depth, science of lan­
guage, an d textual disclosure, in turn , for the authority to
outline its problematics. But there is yet another-unno­
ticed, or rather evaded-that we shall call a poetics of Rela­
tion .

The cultures of the world have always maintained relations

among themselves that were close or active to varying
degrees, but i t is only in modern times that some of the right
condi tions came toge ther to speed up the nature of these
connections.
The vague feeling that the end of the world had been
reached, in the geographical sense, removed whatever ele­
ment of adven ture and perhaps blind belief there had been
in the discovery of the other. Since the beginning of this cen­
tury the shrinking of unexplored regions on the map of the
world h as made minds less in fatuated with adventure, or less
sensitive to i ts beauty, inclining more toward a concern for
the truth of human beings. Understanding cultu res then
became more gratifying than discovering new lands. Western
e th nography was structured on the basis of this need. But we
shall perhaps see that the verb to understand in the sense of
" to grasp" [ cornprendre] has a fearsome repressive meaning
here.
Contacts among cultures-one of the gi vens of moder­
ni ty-wi ll no longer come across the huge spans of time that
have historical ly allowed meetings and i n terchanges to be
active but almost i m perceptibly so. Whatever happens else­
where has immediate repercussions here . Not long ago cul-

26
tural influences were initially of a general nature, affecting
communities progressively; today the individual , without hav­
ing to go anywhere, can be directly touched by things else­
where, sometimes e ven before his community, family, social
group, or nation has been enri ched by the same effect. This
immediate and fragmentary repercussion on indi viduals, as
individuals, permitted the premonitions of Victor Segal en or
Raymond Roussel or the Douanier Rousseau-the first poets
of Relation.
Finally-the third condition-the consciousness of Rel a­
tion became widespread, including both the collecti ve and
the individual . We "know" that the Other is within us and
affects h ow we e volve as well as the bulk of our conceptions
and the development of our sensibility. Rimbaud's "I is an
other" is literal in terms of history. In spite of oursel ves, a sort
of "consciousness of consciousness" opens us up and turns
each of us i n to a disconcerted actor in the poetics of Rela­
tion.

Starting from the moment that cul tures, lands, men, and
women were no longer there to discover but to know, Rel a­
tion represented an absolute ( that is, a totality finally
sufficient to i tself) that, paradoxically, set us free from the
absolute's intolerances .
To the extent that o u r consciousness o f Relation is total,
that is, immediate and focusing directly upon the realizable
totality of the world, when we s peak of a poetics of Relation,
we no longer need to add: relation between what and what?
This is why the French word Relation, which functions some­
what like an intransitive verb, could not correspond, for
example, to the English term relationship.

We h ave already said that Relation informs not simply what is

relayed but also the relative and the related. I ts always
approximate truth is given in a narrati ve . For, though the
world is not a book, it is nonetheless true that the silence of
the world would, in turn, m ake us deaf. Relation, driving

27
humaniti es chaotically onward, needs words to publish i tseif,
to continue. But b ecause what it relates, in reality, proceeds
from no absolute, it proves to be th e totali ty of relatives, put
in touch and told.

It is not m erely a pleasan t option to consider this "move­

m ent" wi thin th e context of French l iterature. Quite simply,
two conditions h ave come together h ere: a culture that pro-
j ected onto the world (with the aim of dominating it) and a
language that was presented as uni versal (with the aim of
providing l egitimacy to th e attem pt at domination ) . Th es e
two intentions, n o t without som e acknowledged portion of
largesse, culminated in th e thought of an empi re. * Under
these conditions poetic thought went on the alert: beneath
the fantasy of domination i t sough t the really livabl e world.

It projected toward. A5 if i t set out all over again on th e tra­

jectory of an earli er arrowlike nomadism. Moreover, the
movem ents of this poetics can be located in space as trajecto­
ries, their poetic i m port being aimed at compl eting th es e tra­
j ectori es in order to abolish th em . These traj ectories link the
places of the world into a whole made u p of periph eries ,
which are listed i n function of a Cen ter. **
The first of th ese tr�j ectori es l ed from th e Center toward

*The em pire is the absolute m a n i festa ti o n of totality. The though t of

e m p ire is selec tive: what it brings to the universal is n o t the q uan ti ty of
tota l i ty that has bee n realized but a q u a l i ty that it represen ts as th e
Whol e . The em pire thus usually atte m p ts to foresta l l c o n f l i c ts through­
out i ts terri tory. But i m perial peace is th e true death of Relati o n .
* * I outl i n e d t h i s r o u t e i n L'intention poPiiquP: "From the O n e t o t h e Uni­
verse-From the diverse to the com m o n-The we of the other-The
other of us." In La li'zmde, to evaluate our a l i e nations, I m e n t i o n e d th e
perspective of a Cen ter for the first t i m e .
M . S a m i r Am i n developed a global th eory of worldwide econ omy,
articu lated in Cen ters ( to produce and c o n trol ) and Peri p h e ries ( to
receive). He c o n c l uded that it \Vas n ecessary for these peripheries to
have a self-cen tered econ omy, proceeding from a w i l l for "decon n ec­
tion" in relation to the global system .

28
the peri pheries.I take the work of Victor Segal en as an inno­
vative example of this; but is it necessary to mention all those
who, whether critical or possessed, racist or idealist, frenzied
or rational, have experienced passionately the call of Diver­
sity since his time: from Cendrars to Malraux, from Michaux
to Artaud, from Gobineau to Celine, from Claudel to Michel
Leiris?
A second i tinerary then began to form , this time from
peripheries toward the Cen ter.Poets who were born or lived
in the elsewhere dream of the source of their imaginary con­
structs and, consciously or not, "make the trip in the opposite
direction," s truggling to do so.Jules Supervielle.Sai n t:John
Perse.Geo rges Schehade.
I n a third s tage the traj e c tory is abolished; the arrowlike
projection becomes curved. The poet's word leads from
periphery to periphery, and, yes, it reproduces the track of
circular nomadism; that is, it makes every periphery i n to a
center; furthermore, i t abolishes the very notion of center
and periphery.All of this germinated in the works of writers
such as Segalen, Kateb Yacine, Cheik An ta D iop, Leon
Gon tran Damas, and m any o thers it would be impossible to
name.

The tim e came, the n , in whic h Relation was n o longer a

prophecy made by a series of traj ec tories, itineraries that fol-·
lowed or thwarted one another. By i tself and in i tself Relation
exploded like a network inscribed within the sufficient total­
i ty of the world.

Segalen's crucial idea was that encountering the Other

superactivates poetic imagination and understanding. Of
course, from that moment on there could be no question of
hierarchy in pursuit of relations with the other. Let me point
o u t, however, that Segalen does not merely describe recogn i­
tion of the other as a moral obligation (which would be a
banality) but he considers it an aesthetic consti tuent, the first
edict of a real poetics of Relation.The power to experience

29
 the shock of elsewhere is what distinguishes the poet. Diver­
sity, the quantifiable totality of every possible difference, is
the motor driving uni versal energy, and it m ust be safe­
guarded from assimilations, from fashions passively accepted
as the norm , and from standardized customs.
Segalen wrote novels that are at the same time ethnologi­
cal studies, declarations, and defenses; he struggled to
explain the though t processes of Gauguin (in this instance
his doubl e ) ; he proj ec ted also the main lines of a theoretical
essay on exoticism, considered as an experience of some­
thing new and unique and not a si lly delight i n novelty. And,
j ust as Mallarme was unable to see his Book through to the
end, Segalen did not com plete this basic work, though its
main poi n ts were fortunately preserved. The theory of the
poem is resistant to expression.
In Asia, another land of conj unction and permanence,
alongside the building crises, these three poets (among oth­
ers ) -Segalen, Claudel, and Sain t:John Perse-·ei ther met or
succeeded one another. An im portan t part of their work is
played out there. But Saint-John Perse and Segalen took the
road in opposite directions. Saint:John Perse began by fixing
in memory, in what would be Eloges) the scenery of his native
island, Guadeloupe . However, his real vocation was getting
away, no matter h ow i t made h i m suffer. Segalen, on the
other hand, wen t toward the other, ran to elsewhere . Saint­
John Perse, born in this elsewhere, returned to the Same-
toward the Cen ter. He proclaimed the universality of the
French language and declared this language his country. The
poems that followed attempted, to the very end, to erect th e
murmuring cathedrals of this chosen universal . *
Similarly, in Georges Schehade's poetry: the quarrying of
place, the fantastic fantasy that unleashes all known geogra­
phy, prophetically give an account-many years before the
even t-of the dramatic breakup of Lebanon, the place of
Relation. Expressed there again , in the ethereal suspension

*The rooted e rran try of this poet is d iscussed e lsewh ere"

30
 of language, is a renunciation of the earth: a disorientation
of words-which end up j oining with the only available
authority, the poetic grace of the French language.
This sort of effort, i n which pathos contributes to genius,
had i ts forerunners in far less convincing attemp ts to return
and, frankly, be reintegrated through the language : the Par­
nassians, Leconte de Lisle, and Jose Maria de H eredia are
examples. Without c ounting the immeasurable adventure,
entirely on the level of the absolute, of another poet from
elsewhere, who, like Sai n t:Joh n Perse, wanted to "inhabit his
name," m aking language his country: Lautreamont.
This thought of the Same and the Oth er2 thus put poets at
risk but became hopelessly banal as soon as emerging popu­
lations made i ts fo rmulation obsolete. Converging histories
have also j oi ned forces with this con tingent of the world's l i t­
eratures, bringing to life new forms of expression "within"
the same language. Poets from the Caribbean , the Maghreb,
and o ther parts of Africa are not moving toward that else­
where that is the aim of proj ec tile movement, nor are they
returning toward a Cen ter. They create their works in metro­
politan regions, where their peoples have made a sudden
appearance. The old expansive traj ectory and the spiritual i ty
of the i tinerary (always from Paris to Jerusalem or elsewhere )
yield to the world's realized compac tness. We have to enter
i n to the equivalencies of Relatio n .

My excuse f o r accum ulating so m a n y commonplaces about

these tendencies so readily discernible in literature written i n
French is that amassing commonplaces i s , perhaps, the right
approach to m y real subj ec t-the entanglements of world­
wide relation-and that almost everything that has been said
about these tendencies, concerning the poetics of Relation ,
has been done so in a manner that is fragmentary, reticent,
and stubbornly blind.
Because, as I h ave already emphasized, these trajectories
(from the European here to elsewhere ) end up abolishing
what yesterday origi nally occasioned their being: the linear

31
 prqjecti on of a sensibility toward th e world's horizons, th e
vec torization of this world i n to m etropolises and coloni es.
Th eoretician though t is l oath to sanc tion this abolition­
th ereby sh utting dmvn i ts bastions. It tries to be cl ever wi th
the thrust of the \Vorld and sidesteps it. It thinks up screens
for i tself.
In additi on, th e poetics of Relati on remains forever con­
j ec tural and presupposes no ideological stabili ty. It is against
th e comfo rtable assuranc es linked to th e supposed excel­
l ence of a l anguage. A poetics that is latent, open , multilin­
gual in intention , directly in contact with everything possibl e.
Th eoretician thought, focused on th e basic and fundam en­
tal , and allying th ese wi th wh at is tru e, shies away from th ese
uncertain paths.

Poetry's circulation and i ts action no longer conj ec ture a

given peopl e bu t the evolution of the planet Earth. That too
is a commonplace, one worth repeatirig. We have to know
that this activi ty pin poin ted h ere in French literatures oper­
ates for all th e oth ers, each time on th e basis of a differen t
perspecti ve. Every expressi on of th e humaniti es opens onto
th e fluctuating com plexity of the world. H ere poetic thought
safeguards th e particular, since only the totality of truly
secure particulars guarantees the en ergy of Di versity. But in
every instance this particular sets about Relation in a com­
pletely i n transitive manner, relating, that is, with th e finally
realized totali ty of all possibl e particulars .
When we say that, h en c eforth , this poetics of Relation
i n terweaves and no longer proj ec ts, that it inscribes i tself in a
circularity, we are not referring to a circuit, a line of en ergy
curved back onto i ts elf. Traj ec tory, even b ent or inflec ted, no
longer appli es. H ow many differen t probl ematics, secreted in
how many oth er regions of the world, and under how many
different auspic es, have com e to encounter th e problematic
we raise h ere, organizing th e rounds of the Earth totali ty?
And th en, in a circulari ty with volume, we imagine th e dis­
closeabl e aesth etics of a Chaos, with every l east detail as com-

32
plex as the whole that cannot be reduced, simplified , or nor­
malized. Eac h of i ts parts patterns activity implicated in the
activi ty of e very other. The history of peoples has led to this
dynamic. They need not stop running on their own momen­
tum to join in this movement, since they are inscribed in i t
already. They cannot, howe ver, "give-on-and-with" until they
reach the point at which they go beyond assenting to their
linear dri ve alone and consent to global dynamics-practic­
ing a self-break and a reconnection.

We no longer reveal totality within oursel ves by lightning

flashes. We approac h it through the accumulation of sedi­
ments. The poetics of duration (another leitmotiv) , one of
the first principles of the sacred, founding books of commu­
nity, reappears to take up the relay from the poetics of the
moment. Lightning flashes are the shivers of one who desires
or dreams of a totality that is impossible or yet to come; dura­
tion urges on those who attempt to live this totality, when
dawn shows through the linked histories of peoples.
Sediment then begins fi rst with the country in which your
drama takes s hape. Just as Relation is not a pure abstraction
to replace the old concept of the universal, i t also neither
implies nor authorizes any ecumenical detac hment. The
landscape of your word is the world's landscape . But i ts fron­
tier is open.
The Caribbean, as far as I am concerned, may be held up
as one of the places i n the world where Relation presents
i tself most visibly, one of the explosive regions where i t seems
to be gathering strength.
This has always been a place of encounter and connivance
and, at the same time, a passageway toward the American
continent. Compared to the Mediterranean, which is an
inner sea surrounded by lands, a sea that concentrates (in
Greek, H ebrew, and Latin anti quity and later in the emer­
gence of Islam, imposing the thought of the One) , the
Caribbean is, in contrast, a sea that explodes the scattered
lands into an arc. A sea that diffracts. Without necessarily

33
inferrin g any advantage whatsoever to their situation, the
reality of archipelagos in the Caribbean or the Pacific pro­
vides a natural illustration of the thought of Relation .
What took place in the Caribbean, which could be
summed up in the word creolization, approximates the idea of
Relation for us as nearly as possible. It is not merely an
encounter, a shock (in Segal e n 's sense) , a metissage, 3 but a
new and ori ginal dimension allowing each person to be there
and elsewhere, rooted and open, lost in the mountains and
free beneath the sea, in harmony and in errantry.
If we posit metissage as, generally speakin g, the meeting
and synthesis of two differences, creolization seems to be a
limitless metissage, it-; elements diffrac ted and i ts conse­
quences unforeseeable. Creolization diffracts, whereas cer­
tain forms of metissage can concen trate one more time. Here
it is devoted to what has burst forth from lands that are no
longer islands. Its most obvious symbol is in the Creole lan­
guage, whose genius consists in always bein g open, that is,
perhaps, never becoming fixed except according to systems
of variables that we have to i magine as much as define. Cre­
olization carries along then into the adventure of m ultilin­
gualism and into the incredible explosion of cultures. But
the explosion of cultures does not m ean they are scattered or
m utually diluted. I t is the violent sign of their consentual , not
imposed, sharing.4

The same holds true, in many different ways, throughout the

Americas. I cannot help thinking that these itineraries I have
described for literature written in French have long been
traveled by the literature of the U nited States in its links with
i ts common rootstock, the English language. From the
periphery to the Center with Henry James; in a total poetics
of Relation with Walt Whitman ; in the affirmation of differ­
ences with black American poe ts; in the struc turing of sup­
posed periphery as the Center, from the particular to a non­
generalizing universal, with William Faulkner ( "failed poet" ) ,
whose work practically never wen t beyond the limits of that

34
"postage stamp" of Yoknapatawpha County, the literary dou­
ble of Oxford, M ississippi, where he c hose to live.
And at s take once again in Brazilian and H ispano-Arneri­
can l iteratures: the explosion of baroque expression, the
whorls of time, the m ingling of centuries and j ungles, the
same epic voice retying into the weft of the world, beyond any
imposed solitude, exaction , or oppression .

Thus what -for Segalen and so m any o thers-was the wish

of the poet discovering the world is now, for everyone, the
work of the poet sharing in the l ife of the world .

Throughout this b o o k I return again a n d again to what I have

so long considered the main themes of such a poet ics: the
dialectics between the oral and the written, the thought of
multilingualism, the balance between the present mome n t
a n d duration, t h e questioning of l iterary genres, the power o f
t h e baroque, t h e nonprojectile imaginary construct.5 B u t
even this constant repetition is sufficient evidence that s u c h a
poetics never cul m inates in some qualitative absolute. For, in
reality, Relation is not an absolute toward which every work
would strive but a totality-even if for us this m eans disen­
tangling it, something it never required-that through its
poetic and prac tical and unceasing force attempts to be per­
fe c ted, to be spoken, sim ply, that is, to be complete.

35
 A Rooted Errantry

For Saint:John Perse uni versali ty is optati ve. Not that it was
p redicated by him in a desolate mood ( like someone who
takes refuge in the thought of the universal, because he con­
siders no speci fi c situation his responsibility) , but because,
steadfastly and without pause, he proj e cts it befo re himself.
Saint:John Perse, indeed, left the spot toward which so many
French poets who were his contemporaries proj e cted them­
sel ves-the elsewhere full of di versity-which somehow
always ends up contributing to the glo rification of a sove r­
eign Here .
The H e re for him : " m y bitch o f Europe, who was white and
poet more than I . " Unders tand that i t was not where he
uttered his fi rst cry ( Guadeloupe) that Saint:John Pe rse
engendered his poeti cs but in the places of i ts dis tant origins,
i ts ideal p rovenance . Poetry has i ts source in an idea, in a
desire , not in the lite ral fact of birth.
His elsewhere, by contrast: an island, above all a conj e c­
tural place, where apparently e ven the poet's birth already
marked a margin. His elsewhere was not like Segalen 's, col­
ored by a dream to be approached, a temptation to be
satisfied. It was given in childhood, already the e vidence of
e very possible elsewhere.
To consecrate the union between elsewhere and possibil­
ity, the poet demanded of himself permanent abstinen ce
from something impossible fo r him : the house of his birth in
the Antilles but also, and as if attributable to this first absti-

37
nence, he kep t a resolute distance from any Here conferred
in advance (not willfully medi tated ) .
Saint:John Perse 's stern errantry sets i ts course \'\ragering
on a Here (Europe) toward which one must choose to return
and an elsewhere ( the Antilles ) from which one leaves. He
could not have tolerated playing colon ial in the un iverse, as I
lon g th ough t he had, nor being i ts vagabond, as Rimbaud
attempted. He heightens the universal wi thin h imself, forg­
ing i t from things i mpossible. These are the very reasons his
universal i ty has nothing to do wi th exoticism, severely cri ti­
cizing it, instead, and serving as i ts natural negati on.
The poe tics thus set in play must be addressed. On a crude
and elemen tary level of analysis one m i gh t emphasize i ts con­
tradiction: Sain t-John Perse, descendant of the class of colo­
nial landholders, liked to think of himself as a Frenchman of
noble stock; n urtured by the orali ty of Creol e , he made the
choice to establish h imself in the purest of French styles. One
could push this further, i magining the wounds there beneath
the formal, lacquered surface, a drama that both cancels out
and elevates i tself into arrogant rigidity. But let's not. The les­
son of the poet goes much deeper. It leaves behind the ordi­
nary regi ons laid out in biography.
Saint-John Perse renounces any sort of " grasp" of the h is­
tory of the place he was born and proj e c ts, into an eternal ly
given future, the All he takes for his grounding. The com­
monplace of such a future is the name, h is name as poet, one
deliberately forged: a word. "I shall inhabi t my nam e. "
With these words h e announces n o t the obsolescence of
n arrative but a new and ori gi n al aesthetic form : the narra­
tion of th e universe . This is why his wri ting takes on added
s trength from his considerable efforts as an e n tomologist,
cartographer, or lexicographer. The rigors of m a terial and
his encyclopedic kn owledge weave a con trolled proli fe ra­
ti on through whi ch the universe overfl ows and recoun ts
i tself for u s .

38
Clearly, one of the places engraved in Antillean memory is
the circle drawn around the storyteller by the shadows of
nigh t. On the borders of this ring the c hildren who wil l relay
the word are beside themselves. Their bodies are hot with the
fever of day; their eyes grow larger in this time that does not
go by. These children understand nothing of the formulas,
nor do they catch the allusions, but the m an with the stories
speaks to them first. He is quick to guess when they will
shiver, wide mouthed in terror, or laugh to cover up their
fear. His voice comes from beyond the seas, charged with the
movement of those African countries present in their
absence; i t li n gers in the night, which draws the trembling
children into i ts womb.
I t astonishes me to h ear people sometimes try to reduce
Sain t:John Perse's orality to that of declamation. Yet it could
never be produced onstage. Too many broad zones of obvi­
ousness stretch out within it, blocked here and there by root
stumps, when language thickens into nodules. When the
obvious is declaimed, it immediately becomes a tautological
transparency. Believing that th is poet's text can fi ll or define
the stage of a theater is a mistake too often made. His sort of
orality does not l ead to things of a public n ature; it is the
equivalent of (alternative to) modesty. Underneath, the
inner voice weaves i ts redundant repeti tions. This is an oral­
ity that is not spoken aloud but articulated in underground
understandings.
The lack of any circle summing up the night around him
is the first distinction between Sain t:John Perse and the Antil­
lean storyteller. There are no torches surrounding his words;
there is only a hand stretched toward the horizon that rises
up as ocean swells or high p lateaus. I t is the always possible
infinite . The ring made by the voice is diffracted into the
world. The orality of Sain t:Joh n Perse is not wrapped by
rustling shadows suggestive of the surroundings ; it greets
dawns, when faraway echoes are already mingling with famil­
iar sounds, when the caravan makes i ts departure from the
u ndying desert.

39
 Saint:John Perse does not piece back together the torn
m emory of one place, where an other lost p lace still lies con­
cealed or is finally revealed. The Antillean story, diverting the
traces i t maintains of an original Africa, laces the swells of this
previous country i n to echoes and, refusing the inertia of
transparent words, makes us think of the real world, this
world he writes about. But this poet, likewise , who begins by
"celebrating a c hi ldhood," refuses the comforts of an album
to be -leafed through. vVhat, in fac t, is this always van ishing
memory? \t\That is this place ( this house ) the one they say we
c ome from? And this princely solitude in the midst of "al1
things" dazzling, exploded, and permanen tly bright? The
work of Sai n t-John Perse aims at pushing memory ( of a p lace,
of people, of the things seen in c hi ld hood) far forward. This
orali ty does not invi te listeners to the shadow's edge; it throws
each one of us i n to the resolution of one to come. Eloges is
not a tormented memory that is repeated in shadows but the
suspense heralding solemn departures. The poet knows that
he has abso lutely lost the thing he always remembers, the
thing he leaves behind.
In the works of Sain t:John Perse there exist simultaneously
a totalization one migh t call baroque and a revolution in the
tec hnique of the plainsong. They work toge ther. But I am
confident that this is a "naturalized" baroque; that is, it h as
nothing to do with any reference and would be opposed to i t.
Rerouting [ detournement] is i ts only norm, or i ts fundamental
nature. And p lainsong here, ordinari ly an occasion for trans­
port or escape, holds us c learly in the world at i ts fullest.
Thus, i t is around interac tions of memory and p lace that
things i rreconci lable for both poet and s toryteller are perpe­
trated. The Antillean locus appears to Saint-John Perse with a
dazzlin g c lari ty that I would mistrust. Isn ' t the memory for
detail ( this poe tics of diffracted moments) employed here in
order to ward off something e lse: the temptation of some­
thing s tirring for so long in the bac kground of the Caribbean
landscape? It is at this moment in the work that the explosion
of the instant obli terates duration , which will later be recov-

40
ered but under the auspices of universali ty. In contrast, in the
orality of the Antillean story the drive of this duration (of this
collective memory-of this " history"-whose energy must be
made wholeheartedly clear) cancels out the detail of the
place. Obsession with a possible duration clouds the explo­
sive dazzle of the presen t.
For Sai n t:John Perse, however, as fo r the man who tells the
tales, the same avenue awaits . In the poem's harsh transcen­
dence, as in the cunning organization of the story, there are
ruptures and densities of o rality that call up these impossible
things : for the latter the place where he remains and fo r the
former the world where he goes.

Dweller and pilgrim live this same exile.

Departure and e rran t ry i n Saint:John Perse are to be inter­

p re ted as a rejec tion of the his tories of peoples but their
m agnificence as an assuming of Histo ry, in the H egelian
sense. This e rrantry is not rhizomatic but deeply rooted: in a
wil l and an Idea. History o r i ts negation, the i n tuition of the
One, these are the magne tic poles of Western thought at
which Sain t:John Perse grounded his name. He thought that
the condition of freedom is that the individual not be ruled
by a history, except one that generalizes, nor limited by a
place, unless that place is spiri tual. Because the universal has
this heroic dimension, we are able to recognize ourselves in
his work, even though we c hallenge i ts gene ralizing models.
It may also be possible that this passion driving the work
(because it is fo reign to a space and a time-the Antillean
history and place-that are so p roblematic fo r it and because
it is roo ted in suc h absolute errantry) is reassuring to us
regarding the contradictions we expe rience here and now.
For the poetry of Sain t:John Perse, though it is not the
epic linking togethe r of l essons from a past, augurs a new
mode of connection with the Other, which, paradoxically,

41
and prec isely because of this passion for errantry, prophesies
the poe tics of Relation. By constantly moving on , one can
gather stones and weave the materiality of the universe from
which Saint:John Perse created his narrative. This is h ow, in
the end, he met with Victor Segalen, about whom he said li t­
tle , doubtless because in the same sumptuous manner, but in
opposite directions, their i tineraries parted.

Unaware of us, h e precedes us on this road through the

world. When we catch up with him, we find him still and
always drawin g for us figures of our solitudes to share­
though these are fi gures frozen in his noble renunciation.

42
 II

ELEMEN T S

The elementary reconstitutes itself absolutely

 REPE T IT IONS
��

This flood of convergences, publishing itself in the guise of the

commonplace. No longer is the latter an accepted generality,
suitabl,e and dull-no longer is it deceptively obvious,
exploiting common sense-it is, rather, all that is relentlessly
and endlessly reiterated by these encounters. On every side the
idea is being relayed. "When you awaken an observation, . a
certainty, a hope, they are already struggling somewhere,
elsewhere, in anotherform.

Repetition, moreover, is an acknowledged form of conscious­

ness both here and elsewhere. Relentlessly resuming something
you have already said. Consenting to an infinitesimal
momentum, an addition perhaps unnoticed that stubbornly
persists in your knowledge.

The difficulty: to keep this growing pile of common places

from ending up as dispirited grumbling-may art provide!
The probability: that you come to the bottom of all confluences
to mark more strongly your inspirations.
 Expanse and Filiation

In the Western world the hidden cause (the consequence) of

both Myth and Epic is filiation, its work setting out upon the
fixed linearity of time, always toward a projection, a project.
We can guess that energy circulated by philosophies of the
One in the West reinvigorated these imperatives of filiation .
Wherever time was not conceived of as linear-India, for
example-or where philosophers contemplated not the One
but the All, the founding myths did not generate the process
of filiation .* Conceptions of the origins of the world (its cre­
ation) were not corroborated in a genealogical sequence that
would have rooted the species (race or people) in this first
act.
The retelling (certifying) of a "creation of the world" in a
filiation guarantees that this same filiation-or legitimacy­
rigorously ensues simply by describing in reverse the trajec­
tory of the community, from its present to this act of creation .
This view is not at the origin of every Western myth, but it is
the view that prevailed, determining the evolution of these
cultures.
In every instance, and of necessity, the mythical commu­
nity precedes any thought of the individual, whose foremost
dimension is as a link in the chain of filiation.

*Among the Mayan and Aztec peoples a cyclical time-buttressed by a

passion for dating events-coincided with a tendency toward filiation,
reaching back as far as possible through ancient times, without, how­
ever� anchoring itself in an undoubtable "creation" of the world.

47
 Buddh ist mythologies, to offer an almost commonplace
com parison, are based on temporal cycles and consider first
of all , and uniquely, the individual (himself impermanent or
almost so) , whose "stories" are of selfperfection through dis­
solution into the All . The Buddha is the exemplary, but not
necessarily original , indi viduation, whose oneness is due to
this fulfillment. The One is distinguished from oneness, by
the total lack of any general izable understanding in this lat­
ter. Aided by a collection of ritual precepts th at do not con­
stitute a body of Knowledge , each individual will stri ve to fol­
low from afar th e example of Buddh a. The com munity's
chronology-i ts linearity (which in the West becomes His­
tory)-is completely in effec tual there.*
Western mythologies, in contrast, conceive of the individual
only insofar as he is a participant in the community. It took the
appearance of Christ (who broke away from Hebrew commu­
nity participation, though relying on it, and brought humanity
into Christian uni versality) for the indivi dual as such to subli­
mate in his dignity the evolution of the community.
The chain of filiation ( as h idden cause) would not, how­
ever, be despised or rejected at th at point. Christ is above all
the Son . He co nsecrates filiation: being a descendant of
David and at the same time the Son of God who is God-and,
perhaps, of whom i t would be heresy to say that he too is God.
Christian individuation did not result in a return flow of
history, a cyclical renewal; on the con trary, by universalizing
linear ti me-before and after Ch ris t i t brough t a chronology
-

of the human race into general use, ini tiating a History of

Humanity. It has been suggested th at, in th is instance, Christ

* I qualify this assessme n t as fa r as C h i nese c u l tu res are concerned. At

leas t to my kn owledge ( mediocre at best) we have n o t ye t, perhaps ,
been abl e to s tu dy the ful l-sense these cul tures attribute to h istorical
relation o r wheth e r or n o t they envisage p h i losoph ies of H i s tory.
(\:Ve are recap i tu l ati ng what we knmv of these m oveme n ts , in an
atte m p t to consider how they have come i n to our view. An d fre q ue n tly
we make m istakes. \i\7hat is i m p o rtan t is that we start re tracing the path
fr>r ourselves . )

48
marked a decisive break, uniting the histories of communi­
ties into this generalized History.
This chain of Christian filiation, however, would no longer
be considered absolute at the moment that another continu­
ous sequence, this time based on science, inscribed the
human race within the network of evolution. In the end this
network is only an obj ectivized vision of the old filiation,
applied not to the legitimacy of an e thnic community but to
the natural universality of all known species.
At that moment the generalization inspired by Christ was
picked up by Darwin 's generalizing theory, though initially
they opposed each other. Both were concerned with tran­
scending the old m ythical filiation linked to the destiny of a
community, to go beyond this with a universalizing notion
that would retain , however, the power of the principle of lin­
earity and that "grasped" and j ustified History.
Paradoxically, in Buddhist thought, in which the aim is to
dissolve the individual within the All, there is only individua­
tion. In Western systems of thought, solicitous of the dignity
of the h uman individual and originating with individual
adventu re, there ends up being-another paradox-only
generalization. Philosophies based on the One bear within
them the embryo of History (whether Natural History or the
History of Humanity) .

As Mediterranean myths tell us, thinking about One is not

thinking about All . These m yths express communities, each
one innocentl y transparent for self and threateningly opaque
for the other. They are functional, even if they take obscure
or devious means. They suggest that the self's opacity for the
other is insurmountable, and, consequently, no matter how
opaque the other is for oneself (no myth ever provides for
the legitimacy of the other) , it will always be a question of
reducing this other to the transparency experienced b y one­
self. Either the other is assimilated, or else it is annihilated.
That is the whole principle of generalization and its entire
process.

49
 Myth , therefore, con tains a hidden violence that catches
in the links of filiation and absolutely challenges the exis­
tence of the other as an element of relation. The same is true
of the E pic, which singles out a community in relation to the
Other, and senses Being only as in-i tself, because it never con­
ceives of it as relation.
Whether in myth or epi c , not only does Bei ng ( I would call
it Being-as-Being) obviously not partake of the nature of the
individual , but there is not even a " premonition" of individu­
ality in the e pic. Then , with Plato, the individual becornes the
tomb of the soul . In this way the philosopher i ntroduces the
process of individuation and generalization i n to the tradition
of Near Eastern thought, where it is sometimes harmonious,
sometimes conflicting. This will be completed ( resolved) in
the occurrence of Christ. Christ, and He alone, manifested
incarnation without the Fall , fi liation without the weight of
heredity. In him Parmenidean Being and Platonic soul are
j oined. It is, however, possible to make a case for the real
"break" in Western thought having taken place with Plato .

Filiation is explicit in the Old Testament; it is implicit in the

Iliad, in which th e reputed or chosen sons of Gods play out
the pr�jected rival ries of the Immortals among themsel ves. It
is legitimacy that is disrupted by the abduction of Helen
(with i ts threat of met issage-mixing the blood of East and
West) ; and legi timacy, perhaps, inseparable from the proj ec t
o f discovery and knowledge, provides the tragic driving force
for the Odyssey ( Ulysses and Penelope's faithfulness to each
other) ; legitimacy, in any case (with the realization of metis­
sage) , is the cause of weakness i n the e pic of Alexander. Filia­
tion is indispensable for the Aeneid. And, if Dante does not
have recourse to i t in The Divine Comedy (because Christ had
already realized the universal Ch urch by then ) , he nonethe­
less places his j ourney into hell-in short, into our world­
un der the enlightened guidance of Vi rgil ( tu duca, tu seg­
nore, e tu maestro ) . He does so not simply because Virgil was
at that time the mas ter of poetics but also because he went

50
beyond the break at the time of Christ to reestablish conti­
nuity ( th rough concern with filiation and i ts action ) with one
of the matrices of Myth, the city of Troy. From Homer to Vir­
gil the threat of metissage ceased to seem calamitous. Thus,
from the outset The Divine Comedy, one of the greatest monu­
ments of Christian universalization, stresses the filiation
shared by the ancien t myths and the new religion linking
both to the c reation of the world.

If I try to simplify, reducing and summarizing my thoughts

concerning these two Western "movements" of generaliza­
tion ( Ch ristian and Darwinian ) , and if I compare them with
things I think I know about thei r Buddhist equivalent, I come
up with the following fo rmulation:
CHRIST.- To an u ndivided ethnic community, with the
legitimacy of filiation, an individualizing act that inaugu rates
a Histo ry of Humanity is appended. Thus, the exclusive lin­
earity of this filiation is succeeded by the undiversifiable lin­
earity of a generalization.
DARWIN.- To an o riginal indistinction the process of Selec­
tion that governs evolution and determines the distinction
among genera and species is applied. The lineari ty of the
p rocess leads into the diversifiable gen eralization of Natural
History.
BUDDHA.- Through a p rimordial movement of circularity
the i ndividual strives in search of perfection toward a disso­
lution within the All . H is successive lives are the cycles ("the
histories" ) of this perfec tion and do not constitute a linearity.
At the end of a p rocess h e is reincarnated: he is the same and
yet other.
It is scarcely important that Christian generalization o rigi­
nated in a c hoice, whe reas Darwinian generalization was the
result of an obj ective observation . Both are linked to an iden­
tical spirit of u niversali ty-in opposition to commun i ty's
exclusivity or to Nature's heterogeneity; both reach
fulfillment at the end of a line; both already are and further
become the p ropagation of a Knowledge. The Buddhist gyre

51
never proceeds from generalization : it is not linear and do es
not depart from individualization. The approach to Nirvana
is impossible to generalize throu gh knowledge but is particu­
larized th rough knowledges.

The consequence ( th e hidden cause) of both Epic and

Tragedy, th en, is l egi timacy.
Tragedy springs from any situation in which community
consent is threatened. Something is "tragic " b ecause th e
threat will not be discovered ( h eld off or deferred ) until the
moment in which th e community feels that th e chain of filia­
tion has been broken. Th e tragic action is the uncoveri ng of
what had gone unnoticed.
Engenderi ng tragedy, i t is illegitimacy that threatens th e
c ommunity by l eading toward i ts dissolution. Tragic action,
th e art of opacity and disclosure, resol ves this dissolution in
th e quest for l egi timacy and i ts reestablishment. This same
quest, in myth an d epic, guaran teed the strict succession
through which every community linked i tself to th e first ac t
of Creation . I f legitirnacy is ruptu red, the c hai n of filiation is
no longer m eaningful , and the communi ty wanders the
world, no lon ger abl e to lay claim to any primordial nec essity.
Tragic ac tion absorbs this unbalance.
Tragic action is progressive and carri ed out wi thin opacity,
because th e violence linked to filiation (th e absolute exclu­
sion of the oth er) cannot be faced h ead on nor all at once.
Such a con fron tation would have l eft the community reeling
from a surfeit of understandin g, a sort of short-circuit of con­
sciousn ess. Wars and conquests m ask for the communi ty the
viol ence of this excl usion of th e o th er. But things that one
can valian tly endure in battle, whose pretext has been calcu­
lated or improvised, become unbearabl e in the sacred con­
templation of the root. Wh ence the i m po rtan c e in tragedy of
th e art of unveiling. Oedipus would be incapabl e of concei v­
ing "at first sight" th e truth that l i es within him.
This is also why th e City is threatened by the same forc e

52
that elects within it a para-fate hero, focusing the thunder­
bolt, who takes it upon himself to resol ve the dissolution.
Public consciousness was incapable of discussing a resolu­
tion: generalizing ( politicizing) the discussion would have
meant the community was no l onger inscribed in the pri­
mordial and sacred legi timacy p rovided by fi liation but in the
problematic ( th reatening) relation to the other. This rela­
tion would already consist of what, without elaborating, I call
"expanse" [ l 'etendue] .
This explains why the attempts-in Greek theater-to
shore up ( to "expand") the power of tragedy (by diversifying
and m ul tiplying characters, exposing their moti ves-all
those "impro vements" from Aeschylus to Sophocles to
Euripides) serve equally as paths leading away from sacred
awe, unti l gradually theater's citizen forms-drama, comedy,
etc.-are in troduced.
In an exemplary case, that of Oedipus, Freudian reinter­
pretation of the m yth confirms the process of filiation impli­
cated there and attempts to generalize this process. But we
shall see that what opposes th is new sort of general ization is,
in fact, the expansion, power, and reality that we shall define,
whose presupposition is the opposite of fi liation.
Shakespeare is considered to have confirmed this work of
legitimacy in his theater. If there is something rotten in Den­
mark, it is because the "line" of succession to the throne has
been broken, demanding catharsis with Hamlet as vic ti m .
During this same period Camoens , in h i s epic poetry, was
renouncing the sacrifice of a propitiating h ero, singing
instead of a community of h eroes who set off to conquer the
world.
In The Tempest, however, Shakespeare conceived of these
two dimensions, both founding legitimacy and power of con­
quest, as ultimately working together. It is because Prospero
is the legitimate duke of Milan that he has authority over Cal­
iban, the elemen ts, and the universe. Here the destiny of the
City expands according to the dimensions of the known and

53
colonizable world. I t is not, in the end, thro ugh th e sacri fice
(or punishment) of the hero that things in dissolution are
resolved but through the reestabl ishment of his power, for­
merly usurped. Prospero is distinguished, in fac t, from Ham­
let, Macbeth , Richard I I I , and the whole stream of claimants
to the Engl ish throne ( all characters thrust into s ituations
that "will tum out well": thro ugh their sacrifice or their exter­
mination, that is, through a return to legitimacy) , precisely
for that reason: he is the beneficiary, right from the start, of
this legiti macy. For this same reason The Tempest is not a
tragedy but a heroic/historical drama. Because, if the play
" turns out wel l , " it is not from the point of view of the com­
munity ( the city of Milan , which had never been threatened
by dissolution-the usurper, Prospero's brother, moreover,
never having seemed particularly serious) . I t is solely from
the point of view of the hero, the bearer of Westemness, in
order to assert the legitimacy of his power over the worl d . A
decoloni zed Caliban occupies this expanse and challenges
Prospero 's projective legitimacy. He does so in two ways, the
same two that from the begin nings of time have made it pos­
sible to relay myth i c , epic, or tragic obscurity: through the
individual ardor of lyricism and the collective practice of pol ­
itics.
Whe n , in fact, e pic and tragedy had run their co urse in the
West (after the City had reassured i tself about its own exis­
tence) , they yielded to these two modes: the lyric and the
political, both out in the open, where individuals were
engaged as human persons, that is, as individuals apart from
th e sacred mystery of the collecti ve community.
Yet the lyrics and pol i tics of Caliban revived this mystery,
with all i ts epic power and tragic disclosure, and did so, more­
over, without retu rning to the intolerance underlaid by Myth ,
thus opening out onto a new order of community (of the
planet Earth, henceforth so fragile and threatened) whose
legitimacy is still neither self-evident nor sanctioned. Tragedy
has here a new requirement, a new object for i ts renewed art
of disclosure.

54
Today it is not only the legitimacy of cultures that is threat­
ened in the world ( the l ifo e nergy of peoples ) ; also threat­
ened are their relations of equivalency. A modern epic and a
modern tragedy would offer to unite the specificity of
nations, granting each culture's opac ity ( though no longer as
en -soi) yet at the same time imagining the transparency of
their relations. Imagining. Because this transparency is pre­
c isely not en-soi. It is not rooted in any specifi c legitimacy,
which thus implies that the disclosure of tragedy would be
directed toward a continuum ( in expansion) and not toward
a past (set in filiation ) .
Modern epic and m ode rn tragedy would express political
consciousness ( n o lon ger an impossible naive consciousness)
but one d isengaged from c ivic frenzy; they would ground lyri­
c ism in a confluence of s peech and writing. In this
confl uence things of the community, without being dimin­
ished (and without turn ing truths into generalities as Christ­
ian tragedy-in the work of E l iot or Claudel-meant to do) ,
would be the initiation to totality without renouncing the
particular. In that way modem epic and modern tragedy
would make the specifi c relative, without having to merge the
Other ( th e expanse of the world) into a reductive trans­
parency. *

Reticulated in such a network, the former sacred power of

fil iation would not be the exclusive player; the resolution of
elemen ts in dissolution h e re would be relayed by the aggre­
gation of th ings that are scattered. This is what Segal en called
the action of D iversity. No longer would the sacrifice of a pro­
pitiating, or victim-hero be required; for we are able to
u n tangle this web, pondering it together and recogn iz ing
ourselves side by side within it.
We will look straight at the sacred, the assumed order in
the disorder of Relatio n , without being stricken with awe. We
will discuss it without the solemn chant of the Greek Chorus
*The imagined transparency of Relation is, in that way, the opposite of
the reduc tive transparency of the generalizing universal.

55
for our sole influence. We will imagine it without divining the
hand of a god there full force. To imagine the tranparency of
Relation is also to j ustify the opacity o f what impels i t. The
sacred is of us, of this network, of our wandering, our
errantry.
There (h ere ) the idea of filiation, its energy, its linear
force , no longer function-f(.>r us; nor is the root settin g and
conquerin g legi timacy an i m perati ve; nor, consequen tly, is
any on tolo gically based generalization required.
At the moment that the West proj e c ted into the world for
the first time, this began to be realized. This prqject of dis­
covery and ascendancy was taken to be an absolu te value. It
was even asserted that both geographical discoveries and the
conquests of science were driven by the same audacity and
the same capacity for general ization. Te rritorial conquest
and scientific discovery ( the terms are interchangeabl e ) were
reputed to have equal worth . The absolute of ancien t filia­
tion and conquering l inearity, the proj ect of knowledge and
arrowlike nomadism , each used the other in i ts growth . But 1
maintain that, ri ght frorn the first shock of conquest, this
movement con tained th e embryo (no matter how deferred
i ts realization migh t have seemed ) that would transcend the
duality that started i t.
Let us, then, press on past th is dual i ty. Let us not start by
confusing discovery and conquest, whi c h was the point of
D aniel Boorstin 's book about scientific disclosure, The Discov­
erers (whose subti tle in the French translation by Robert Laf­

fone [ 1 989 ] is "From Herodotus to Copernicus-From

Christopher Columbus to Einstein-The adven tures of the
men who invented the world" ) . Which means, of course , that
these masters of the Voyage and these masters of Knowledge
are one and the same. At the end of chapter 26, "An E m pire
wi thout Wan ts, " Boorsti n wri tes: "Fully equipped with th e
tec hnology, the i n telligence , and the national resources to
become discoverers, the Chinese doomed themselves to be
the discovered." 1
A j udgment of this sort impl ies that, in Relation, the ones

56
 who "discovered" retain absolutely the advantages of this
action. But Relation does not "grasp" any such antecedent.
The terra incognita lying before us is an inexhaustible sphere
of variations born of the contact among cultures. Disclosure
applies to this inexhaustibility in an expansion of a different
sort. "Discovery," projec tion, arrowlike nomadism, or proj ec t
o f knowledge, becomes l o s t there or gains through the net­
work. The powers of domination prosper there, but legitima­
cies are dead . *
William Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom! following lessons
learned from the Oedipus myth ( or, later, the Oedipus com­
plex ) , concerns a possible incest, a perversion of filiation.
But the decisive-fatal-element would be part of another
"causal series": that is, the intrusion of Negro blood. At first,
in the p lanter Sutpen 's fi rst wife, a Haitian woman, i t was
undiscernible. Once this black stock was discovered ( recall­
ing how southern aristocratic families in the United States
usually dread and are frequently haunted by this sort of "mis­
deed" committed by careless great-grandparents ) , Sutpen,
the founder, decided to repudiate m other and son and to
replant his stock i n M ississippi. But neither fo unding nor
filiation can be begun again, and Sutpen's history catches up
with h i m . That this fi rst son whom he had cast out into the
void and the daughter of his second marriage would come to
love each other is calamity enough ; but the discovery that his
fi rst son , despite his appearance, is Negro (which Sutpen
alone had known for a long time) finally brings together the
conditions for filiation to dissolve permanently into the new
expanse of extension. This is the double objec t of disclosure
in the novel. Incest c hanges the course of fil iation, and vice
versa; for the novel suggests that there (in the South ) incest

*Ideological though t is not going to be satisfied with the expression

"powers of domination" but will demand that the terms--political, eco­
nomic , or cultural- be specified. But we know today that these terms
cannot be calculated a priori and that each time, in each locus of dom­
ination, through the resistance of those oppressed, a precise and not
generalizable sense of the oppression here and now emerges.

57
might be accepted, concei ved of, but not th e intrusion of
black blood-which is noneth eless there.
Expanse: in which Africa (for us a sourc e and a mi rage,
retained in a simplified representation ) has, th erefore, its
rol e to play. In all of Faulkner's work the pil eup of
patronyms, of mixings of blood wheth er forc ed or not, of
doubl e lineages (black and white) , relentl essly reproduces
and al most caricatures th e extended fam ily styl e that h as so
long contributed to the formation of th e Caribbean social
fabric . It is no acciden t that Sutpen, unknowingly at first,
encountered his fate in Haiti. The protagonists of this story,
exc ept for th e ones chosen by their innocence-epic b eing
nai ve-to be i ts narrators, are stricken by a tragic stu por ( a
word s o similar i n m y mind t o Sutpen th at I pronounced i t
Stutpen fo r a long tim e) . But th e tragic crisis, magnificently
and ritually brough t to compl etion in the burning of th e
House of Sutpen , will not restore l egitimacy; on th e contrary,
this momen t consecrates the inevitable obliteration of it.
Faulkn erian tragedy is at odds with that of Aeschylus: i t does
not con tribute to reestablishing th e balance of a community;
it commits the h eresy of destroying the sacredness of filia­
tion ; i t closes th e history of th e sons of Solomon forever and
lays out the prospect open to th e sons of Snopes, th e unmiti­
gated upstart. Like any great tragic system , Faulkner's work
ignores, that is, it encompasses and goes beyond, politics and
lyricism , but i t m akes us contend with their contemporary
poles: violen c e and opaci ty.

( Expanse [ extending] ramifies its web . Leap and varianc e, in

another poetics. Transversality. Quantifiable infinity. Un real­
ized quantity. I n exhaustible tangle. Expanse [ extending] is
not m erely space; it is also i ts own dreamed tim e. )

(Let's open anoth er and deciding paren th esis: the Oedipus

compl ex does not function in the expanse that is extension.
N eith er moth ering nor fathering are factors th ere. Th e Oedi­
pus compl ex depends on laws of filiation, wh ereas an

58
extended famil y is circular and meshed, as is the web of
Faulkner's work. (And within this parenthesis we 'll open yet
another: that all the i nterp re tations (of our societies) domi­
nated by themes of filiation-the phallic, the oedipal, the
maternal complex, e tc ., and you must admit there are more
of these than the re is need fo r them-epitomize ethnocen­
tric and frequently naive p roj ec tions of Western thought. If
we take this further: in Roger D ragonetti's La vie de la lettre au
Mayen Age (Paris: E ditions du Seuil, 1 980) I picked up an
interesting observation concerning the feminine c haracter
of the (maternal ) l anguages that appeared in the Middle
Ages, as opposed to the normative, paternal authority of
Latin:

The p rivilege accorded to the femininity of language

(the reverse image of the theology of the Fathe r) arises
with the birth of romance languages.The result of this
is that in p reference to Latin the m ystery of the poetry
of languages is conclusively j oined with the mys te ry of
mother tongues, languages of the desire whose distant
essence, the indeterminate and indeterminable obj ec t
of every q uest, is symbolized in turns by the fi n'amor, the
sister, the lady, the queen or the virgin-mother.(45-46)

A valuable observation, yet one that I think would not

apply in the context of our Caribbean cultures, fo r example,
in the emergence of the Creole language.The French l an­
guage during the period of c reol ization was not the sole lan­
guage of literacy, as Latin was during the Middle Ages (even
if there did exist from the eighth to the eleventh centuries a
lingua romana rustica) . It was, instead, a living idiom that was
playing out i ts histo ry elsewhere-the re (here ) where, even
more important, all i mposition of filiation had been fo r­
saken. The l egitimacy con fi rming fi liation in patriarchal soci­
e ties also implies femininity as the locus of a counterforce ,
generall y o f a spiritual order. This i s what D ragonetti found
happening at the birth of romance languages. In matriarchal

59
societies legitimacy was "natural" ( i m possible, f(x example,
to doubt the function of the mother) and could not have
been raised to the s tatus of a value . * African cul tures, conse­
quen tly, despi te the "chain" of Ancestors, do not seem to m e
to obey filiation ' s hidden violence. T h e sam e is true o f o u r
heterogeneous societies. Creole tongues, mother tongues
vary too m u c h within them to "be conj oined," to be pri zed as
an essence or to be valorized as a symbol of either the mother
or the father. Their th reate ned violence is, admittedly, a syn­
thesis but one spread th roughout the expan se. This violence
has been brough t to a crisis by a new fact that is suddenly part
of the existence of contern porary languages: their wide­
spread and uneasy consciousness that they are subject to dis­
appearance. Languages no longer die away gently; they no
longer develop innocently. No symbolic system can resist all
this stuff) . Just as early discoverers/ discovered are equal in
Relation, the legi timate and i ts opposi te appeal to each
o ther. That is, legitimacy is totally replaced by contingency.
( Someone has suggested to me that adoj1tion has a truly gen­
erative function . ) I am fully aware of the forms of dom ination
perpetuated by presen t-day heirs of the discoverers and of
their intentions to res tore fil iation "elsewhere"-by imposing

*These analyses a h o u t hackgro u n d do n o t s t o p u s from observi n g that

o p p ressi o n of wom e n can i n tcnsif)' i n t h e heart of a m a trifocal society.
( I wou ld sti l l h esitate to describe An tillean soci e ties as rn atri l i n ear. ) I n
l a rge p a r t t h e respec tive attitudes of m e n and wo m e n i n their relati o n s
h e re were determ i n ed b y colon i a l p ressures. Col l e c tive dependence
re in forced the "reprod uctive" m achismo of male slaves but did not
authoriLe the appearance of fe m i n i n i ty as a spiri tual coun terforce ,
e v e n i f wom e n we re fre q u e n tly c e n te rs of resis tan ce. Th i s is ·why, p e r­
haps, at l east t h i s is what I t h i n k , the wom en of Mart i n i q u e and in many
c o l o nized c o u n tries h ave a ten d e n cy i n th e i r social i 1<ition to disregard
fe m i n ism and to pass d i rectly to various c o n q uests of power, both social
and pol i ti ca l . Fem i ni s m is, also, the l ux u ry by means of wh ich wom e n i n
t h e ·west th rough th e i r struggles transform t h e i r an c i e n t pseuclopower,
th e i r spiri tual c o u n terforce i n to real equali ty. Be that as it m ay, there i s
an equally h i g h n u m be r o f equally i n tense viol e n t i n c i d e n t s , rapes, and
i n cest i n whi c h w o m e n are th e victims everywhere.

60
familial or cultural m odels and ways of life or settings for
this-wherever it had not already exerted i ts silent power to
put down roots. But taking root, h enceforth, will be of a dif­
ferent nature. It is i n relation. Filiation cannot be replanted
elsewhere; i ts myth is not infinitely disclosable; and Oedipus
cannot be exported-in to the expanse of extension ) .

What, then, will both violence and opacity be for us i n Rela­

tion? It was to better assess such questions that we embarked
on these interweaving j ourneys to the sources of Western
thoughts-thoughts aimed at, but not inventing, the world.
Today the ancient i n tolerant violence of filiation is shaken
up in the anarchistic violence of clashing cultures, in which
no projec tion i m poses i ts line and in whi c h-this bears
repeating- legitimacy (with i ts resul tant imperative succes­
sion of the law and order of reasons, linked to the order
derived from possessions and conquests ) comes undone.
Inherited domination stemming from conquest and pos­
session persists and grows more attrac tive, but within these
voluminous circularities the lines become lost: l ight shed by
ideological analysis is no longer enough to flush this domi­
nation into the ope n . * The resistance to contemporary forms
of domination, too visible and a t the same time undetectable
and untouchable, is in turn limited in time and place, with
no possibility (at the moment) of support from another locus
of resistance. Internationals of suffering cannot be publicly
struc tured in this circularity, even though Internationals of
oppression are secretly planted there.

If i t is true that the i ntolerant violence of filiation was for­

merly buried in the sacred mystery of the root, and that
entering i n to the opaci ty of this mystery was tragically
granted, and if this o pacity therefore both signified the mys­
tery and simultaneously masked i ts violence-this always took

*I include under the heading "ideology" critical and political philoso­

phies that have contributed to "revealing" ideologies.

61
 plac e in function of a final underlying transparency in th e
tragic struggle. This sam e transparency, in Western History,
predicts that a common truth of Mankind exists and main­
tains that what approach es it most c losely is action that pro­
j ec ts, wh ereby th e world is realized at th e sam e tim e that it is
caught in th e act of i ts foundation.
Against this reducti ve transparency, a forc e o f opacity is at
work. No longer th e opac i ty that enveloped and reactivated
th e mystery of filiation but another, considerate of all the
threatened and d elicious things j oining on e anoth er (with­
out conjoining, that is, without m erging) in the expanse of
Relation.
Thus, that which protects the D i verse we call opacity. And
h enceforth we shall call Relation 's i maginary a transparency,
one that for ages ( ever since the Pre-Socratics? or the
Mayans? in Timbuktu already? ever since th e pre-Islamic
poets and the Indian storytellers? ) has had premonitions of
i ts unfo reseeable whirl.

For cen turi es "generalization , " as operated by the vVest,

brought different community tempos i n to an equivalency in
which it attempted to give a h i erarch ical order to the times
they flowered. Now that the panorama has been determined
and equidistances described, is it not, p erhaps, time to return
to a no l ess nec essary "degenerali zation"? Not to a replen­
ish ed outrageous excess of specificiti es but to a total
(dream ed-of) freedom of the connec tions among them ,
cleared out of th e very chaos o f their confron tations.

62
 Closed Place, Open Word

The Plantation system spread, following the same structural

principles, throughout the southern United S tates, the
Caribbean islands, the Caribbean coast of Latin America, and
the northe astern portion of Brazil. It extended throughout
the countries ( including those in the Indian O cean ) , consti­
tuting what Patrick C hamoiseau and Raphael Confiant call
the territory of creolite [ creoleness] . 1 There are grounds for
understanding why, despite very different linguistic areas
engaged in very divergent political dynamics, the same orga­
nization would create a rhythm of economic production and
form the basis for a style o f life. That takes care of the spatial
aspect.
Regarding time, or, if you will, our grasp of the histories
that converged in these spaces, two other questions need to
be addressed.The first concerns the system's evolution : Why
was there no continuation of i t an)"vhere-no social struc­
ture organically derived from it, with coherent or contradic­
tory repercussions, i nscribed in any enduring aspect? The
Plantation system collapsed everywhere , brutally or progres­
sively, without generating i ts own ways of superseding i tself.
The second question is even m ore amazing: How did a sys­
tem that was so fragile give rise, paradoxically, to what are

63
seen as th e modern vectors of civilization, in th e not untoler­
ant sense that this word h en c eforth holds for us?

Let us sum up in a few connected phrases what we know of

th e Plantation . It is an organization formed in a social pyra­
mid, confin ed wi th in an enclosure, functioning apparently as
an autarky but actually dependent, and with a technical
mode of production that cannot evolve because i t is based on
a slave structure.

A pyram id organization : everywh ere after 1 848 th e origin of

the mass of slaves, then workers, was African-or Hindu in
the Caribbean ; the middle level , managers, administrators,
and overseers, were hired m en of European origin, a small
number of who m were replaced early in th is c en tury by peo­
pl e of color-on c e agai n in th e Caribbean; at the top of the
pyramid were the planters, colonists, or bekes, as th ey were
called in th e An tilles, who strove to consti tute a white
pseudoaristocracy. I say pseudo because almost nowhere
were th ese attempts at pu tting down roots within a tradi tion
sanction ed by th e stamp of tim e nor by any l egitimacy of
absolute filiation. Plantations, despite secreting manners and
customs, fro m which cultures ensued, n ever established any
tradition of great i m pact.

An enclosed place: each Plantation was defi n ed by bound­

ari es whose cro ssing was stric tly forbidden ; i m possibl e to
l eave without written permission or unless authorized by
som e ritual exc eption, such as Carn i val tim e. Chapel or
church, stockrooms for distributing suppli es or later the gro­
c ery story, infirmary or hospital: everything was taken care of
wi thin a closed c i rc l e. Now th e follmving is what we n eed to
understand: How could a seri es of autarki es, from one end to
th e oth er of th e areas invol ved, from Louisiana to Marti nique
to Reunion, be capabl e of kinship? If each Plantation is con­
sidered as a closed entity, what is th e principl e inclining them
to function in a similar manner?

64
 Finally, the reality of slavery. I t was decisive, of course, in
the s tagnati on of p roducti on techniques. An insurmountable
tendency toward tec hnical i rresponsibility resulted from i t,
especially among slaveh olders . And when technical innova­
tions, mechanization, and industrialization occurred , as they
did, for example, in the sou thern United States, it was
already too late. Social dynamics h ad taken other routes than
cane traces, sugarcane alleys, or avenues of magnolias. As for
the slaves or their c l ose descendants , wh o had absolutely n o
inte rest i n the Plan tati on 's yield, they would b e a n excepti on
to this technical i rresponsibili ty because of thei r own need to
guarantee daily survival on the edges of the system. This
resulted in the widespread devel opment of small occupa­
tions, or what is referred to in the Antilles as djobs, a habitual
economy of bits and scraps. Tec hnical i rresponsibility on the
one hand and a b reakdown into individual operations on the
othe r: immobility and fragmentation lay at the heart of the
system eating away at i t.

Let us, n on e theless, c onsult these ruins with their uncertain

evidence, their extremely fragile monuments , their fre­
quen tl y incomplete, obliterated, or ambiguous archives. You
can guess already what we are to discover: that the Plan tation
is one of the focal points for the development of p resen t-day
modes of Relation. Within this universe of domination and
oppressi on , of silent or p rofessed dehumanization, fo rms of
humanity s tubbornly persisted. In this outmoded spot, on
the margins of every dynamic, the tendencies of our moder­
nity begin to be detec table. Our fi rst attempt mus t be to
l ocate j us t such c on tradictions.
One of these c on tradi c ti ons c ontrasts the tidy c omposition
of such a universe-in which s ocial hierarchy c orresponds i n
maniacal, minute detail t o a mercilessly main tained racial
hierarchy-with the ambiguous c omplexities otherwise pro­
ceeding from i t.
Airtigh t seals were appare n tl y the rul e of the Plan tation.
Not simply the tight social barrier but also an i rremediable

65
break between forms of sensibility, despite each one 's effec ts
upon the other. Saint:John Perse and Faulkner, two authors
born in Plantation regions and to whom I constan tly turn ,
not surprisingly, with my questions, provide us wi th a chance
to assess this split. We recall the famous description, if it is a
description, in Eloges:

but I .shall still long remember

mute }£ices, the colour ofpapaya and of boredom that
paused like burnt-out stars behind our chairs . . 2
.

That papaya and that boredom--seeing people as

things-do not so much emphasize the poet's distance as
they reveal the radical separation ( that imposible apartheid )
presiding over the life of the emotions in the Plantation . I
have also noted that Faulkner, who spoke so frequently of
blacks, never sets out to write one of the interior m ono­
logues, of which he is such a master, for one of these charac­
ters; whereas he dares do so for some of the m ulattoes in his
work and even, in a tour de force now classic, for the idiot
Benjy at the beginning of his novel The Sound and the Fury.
Thus Lucas, the black character who is the principal hero of
Intruder in the Dust, is never interiorized by Faulkner; he is
described entirely through postures and gestures, a silhou­
ette filled in against a horizon . Intruder in the Dust is not a
novel concerning an essence but, rather, an attempt at a phe­
nomenological approach . In the same novel Faulkner, more­
over, is explicit about his narrator's understanding-or lack
thereof--of the southern black: "Because h e knew Lucas
Beauchamp too-as well that is as any white person knew
him. Better than any maybe. " 3 As if the n ovelist, rej ected by
members of his class and misunderstood by the black Ameri­
cans who have had access to his work, had premonitions of an
impossibility brought to a head by history. The break exerts
i tself here.
But the break did not form delimited territories, in which
the various levels of population were sectioned off. The claim

66
that they were reciprocally extraneous did not prevent conta­
minations, inevitable within the enclosure of the Plantation .
Despite the insistent, cold ferocity o f Father Labat's writing,
for example , beneath the words of this seventeenth-century
chronicler of the Antilles one can feel a curiosity, riveted,
anxious, and obsessive, whenever he broaches the subj ect of
these slaves that he struggles so hard to keep cal m . Fear, fan­
tasies, and perhaps a barely willing flicker of complicity form
the undercurrent of the revolts and repressions. The long list
of martyrdoms is also a long metissage, whether involuntary or
intentional.
A second contradiction contrasts the Plantation 's will to
autarky with i ts dependence, in reality, in relation to the
external world. The transactions it fos tered with this world
took place in the elementary form of the exchange of goods,
usually at a loss. Payment was in kind, or as an equivalent
exchange value, which led to accumulation neither of expe­
rience nor of capital. N owhere did the Planters manage to set
up organisms that were sufficiently solid and autonomous to
allow them to have access to the control of a m arket, means
of international transportation, an independent system of
money, or an efficient and specific representation in foreign
markets. The Plantations, entities turned in upon them­
selves, paradoxically, have all the symptoms of extroversion.
They are dependent, by nature, on someplace elsewhere . In
their practice of i mporting and exporting, the established
politics is not decided from within. One could say, in fact,
that, socially, the Plantation is not the product of a politics
but the emanation of a fantasy.
And, if we come even closer to this enclosed place, this
Locus Salus, trying to imagine what its inner ramifications
may be, auscultating the memory or guts inside it, then the
contradictions become madness. I shall not attempt any
description here. This current year would not suffice. And we
are familiar enough with the countless novels and films
inspired by this universe to know already that, from north to
south and from west to east, the same conditions of life

67
repeat themselves . Rather, I shall turn to another synth esiz­
ing aspec t, in this case both oral an d written expression-l i t­
erature-stemming either directly or indirectly from the
Plantation.

No matter which region we con template from among those

covered by the system, we find the same traj ec tory and almost
the same forms of expression. We could mark out three
moments: l iterary production-first as an act of survival, then
as a dead end or a delusion, final ly as an effort or passion of
memory.

An act of survival. In the silent universe of the Plan tation,

oral expression , the only form possible for the slaves, was dis­
continuously organized. As tales, prove rbs, sayings, songs
appeared-as much in the Creole-speaking world as else­
where-they bore the stamp of this discontinuity. The texts
seem to neglect the essentials of something that Weste rn real­
ism, from the beginning, had been able to cover so we ll: the
situation of landscapes, the lesson of scenery, the reading of
customs, the description of the m otives of characters. Almost
never does one find in them any concrete relating of daily
facts and deeds; what one does find, on the o ther hand, is a
symbolic evocation of si tuations. As i f these texts were striving
for disguise beneath the symbol, working to say without say­
ing. This is what I have referred to elsewhere as detour, 4 and
this is where discontinuity struggles; the same discontinuity
the Maroons c reated through that other detour called mar­
ronnage.
Here we have a form o f l i terature striving to express some-

68
thing it is forbidden to refe r to and finding risky retorts to
this organic censorship every time. The oral literature of the
Plantations is consequently akin to other subsistance-sur­
vival--techniques set in place by the slaves and their imm edi­
ate descendants. Everywhere that the obligation to get
around the rule of silence existed a literature was created
that has no "natural" continuity, if one may put it that way,
but, rather, bursts forth in snatches and fragments. The s tory­
teller is a handyman, the djobbeur of the collective soul.
Though this phenomenon is widespread throughout the
system , nonetheless, i t is within the Creole-speaking realm
that i t stands out most c onspicuously. That is because, i n
addition t o this obligation t o get around something, the Cre­
ole language has another, internal obligation: to renew i tself
in every instance on the basis of a series of forgettings. For­
getting, that is, integration, of what it s tarts from : the multi­
plicity of African languages on the one hand and European
ones on the other, the nostalgia, finally, for the Caribbean
remains of these. * The linguistic movement of creolization
proceeded through very rapid, interrupted, successive set­
tlings of these con tributions; the synthesis resulting from this
process never became fixed in i ts terms, despite having
asserted from the beginning the durability of i ts structures.
In other words, the Creole text is never presented linguisti­
cally as an edict or a relay, on the basis of which some literary
progression might be detected, with another text coming
along to perfect the former, and so on. I do not know if this
diffraction ( through which multilingualism is, perhaps, really
at work, in an underground way, for one of the fi rst known
times in the history of humanities) is indicative of all lan­
guages in formation-here, for example, we would have to
study the European Middle Ages-or if i t is entirely attribut-

*It is the problem of "forgetting" that has made the various Creole
dialects so fragile-in comparison to the languages composing the m ,
especially French wherever it i s in authority, a s in Guadeloupe a n d Mar­
tinique.

69
able to the parti c ular si tuation of th e Plantation in the
Cari bbean and the Indian Ocean .

Then delusio n . Unlike this oral and popular literature,

though equally disconti nuous, another, written and elitist lit­
erature developed. The colonists and the Plan ters, as well as
the travelers who visi ted th em, were possessed of a real need
to j ustify the sys tem. To fantasize legi ti macy. And, of course,
this is why, unlike what happened in the oral texts, the
description of reality would turn out to be indispensable to
them-and irrefutable in their terms. Reali ty was fantasized
here as well, i ts i mage the product of a disguised apolo6'Y
rather than that of an austere realism. One condition of the
process was that conventi onal landscape be pushed to
extremes-the gen tleness an d beauty of i t-partic ularly in
the islands of the Caribbean . There is something of an invol­
untary Parnassus in the novels and pamphlets written by
colonists of Santo Domingo and Martinique: the same
propensi ty to blot out the shudders of life , that is, the turbu­
lent realities of the Plan tation , beneath the conventional
splendor of scenery.
Anoth er convention provided the occasion for a specific
category of wri ting. The supposedly receptive lasciviousness
of the slaves, mulatto women and men who were of mixed
blood, and the animal savagery with which the Africans were
credited, produced an abundant s upply for the ero tic litera­
ture flourishing in the islands from the seventeenth to the
encl of the nineteenth cen tury. In this manner, from one
blind spot to the next, a literature of illusion came into
being, one moreover that, every now and the n , was not lack­
ing charm or an old-fashioned grace. Lafcaclio Hearn , an
international reporter and a writer as well, cam e from
Louisiana to the An tilles at the turn of the cen tury, sending
us a much embellished report.

Memory. After the System c ollapsed the l i teratures that h ad

asserted themselves wi thi n its space developed, for the m ost

70
part, fro m the general traits so sketch ily indicated here,
either consenting to them or taking an opposite course.
Thus, Caribbean literatures, whether in English, Spanish, or
French , tended to introduce obscurities and breaks-like so
many detours-into the material they dealt with; putting into
practice, like the Plantation tales, processes of intensifica­
tion, breathlessness, digression , and immersion of individual
psychology within the drama of a common destiny. The sym­
bolism of situations prevailed over the refi nement of
realisms, by encompassing, transcending, and shedding light
upon it. This, of course, is equally true of a writer of Creol e
such a s t h e Haitian Franketienne a s o f a novelist from the
United States such as Toni Morrison.
So, too, the works that appeared in these countries went
against the convention of a falsely l egitimizing landscape
scenery and conceived of landscape as basically implicated in
a story, in which it too was a vivid c haracter.
So, finally, historical marronage i n tensified over time to
exert a creative marronage, whose numerous forms of expres­
sion began to form the basis for a continuity. Which made i t
no longer possible t o consider these literatures a s exotic
appendages of a French, Spanish, or English literary corpus;
rather, they entered suddenly, with the force of a tradition
that they built themselves, into the relation of cultures.
But the truth is that their concern, its driving force and
hidden design, is the derangement of the memory, which
determines, along with imagination, our only way to tame
time.

Just how were our memory and our time buffeted by the
Plantation? Within the space apart that it comprised, the
always multilingual and frequently m ul tiracial tangle created
inextricable knots within the web of fil iations, thereby break­
ing the c lear, linear order to which Western thought h ad
i mparted such brilliance. So Alej o Carpentier and Faulkner
are of the same mind, Edward Kamau Brathwaite and
Lezama Lima go together, I recognize myself in Derek Wal-

71
cott, we take delight in the coils of time in Garcia Marquez's
cen tury of solitude. The rui ns of the Plan tation have affected
American cul tures all around.
And, whateve r the value of the explanations or the public­
i ty Alex Haley afforded us with Roots, we have a s trong sense
that the overly certain affiliation invoked there does not
really suit the vivid gen ius of our countries. Memory in our
works is not a calendar memory; our experience of time does
not keep company wi th the rhythms of month and year
alone; it is aggravated by the void, the final sentence of the
Plantation; our generations are caugh t up wi thin an
extended family in which our root stocks have diffused and
everyone had two names, an official one and an essen tial
one-the nickname given by his communi ty. And when in
the end i t all began to shift, or rather collapse , when the
unstoppable evolution had emptied the enclosure of people
to reassemble them in the margins of cities, what remained,
what still remains, is the dark side of this i mpossible memory,
which has a louder voice and one that carries farther than
any chronicle or census.
The disintegration of the system left i ts marks. Almost
everywhere planter castes degenerated into fixed roles, in
which memory no longer functioned except as decor-as
landscape had formerly done. Occasionally, they were able to
switch to commerce; otherwise, they wen t to pieces in melan­
c holy. Former employees here and there formed groups of
so-called poor whi tes, who fed the ideologies of racist terror.
In the Caribbean and in Latin America the burgeoning shan­
tytowns drew masses of the destitute and transformed the
rhythm of their voi ces. In the islands black and Hindu farm­
ers wen t to war against arbitrariness and absolute poverty. In
the United States southern blacks wen t up North , following
the "underground rail road," toward cities that were becom­
ing violently dehumanized, where, nonetheless the Harlem
writers, for example, wrote their Renaissance upon the walls
of solitude. Thus, urban literature made i ts appearance in
Bahia, New York, Jacmel, or Fort-de-France. The Plantation

72
region , havingjoined with the endless terrain of haciendas or
latifundio, spread thin to end up in mazes of sheet metal and
concrete in which our common future takes i ts chances. This
second Plantation m atrix, after that of the slave ship, is where
we must return to track our difficult and opaque sources.

It is not j ust literature. When we examine how speech func­

tions in this Plan tation realm , we observe that there are sev­
eral almost codified types of expression. Direct, elementary
speech , articulating the rudimentary language necessary to
get work done ; stifled speech, corresponding to the · silence
of this world in which knowing how to read and write is for­
bidden ; deferred or d isguised speech, in which men and
women who are gagged keep their words close . The Creole
language i ntegrated these three modes and m ade them j azz.
It is understandable that in this universe every c ry was an
event. Night in the cabins gave birth to this other enormous
silence from which music, inescapable, a murmur at first,
finally burst out into this l ong shout-a music of reserved
spirituality through which the body suddenly expresses itself.
Monotonous chants, syncopated, broken by prohibitions, set
free by the entire thrust of bodies, produced their language
from one end of this world to the other. These musical
expressions born of silence : Negro spirituals and blues, per­
sisting in towns and growing c i ties; j azz, biguines, and calyp­
sos, bursting i n to barrios and shantytowns; salsas and reg­
gaes, assembled everything blunt and direct, painfully stifled,
and patiently differed i nto this varied speech. This was the
cry of the Plantation, transfigured into the speech of the
world.

73
 For three cen turies of constrai nt had borne down so hard
that, when this speech took root, it sprouted in the very midst
of the field of modern i ty; that is, it grew for everyone. This is
the only sort of universality there is: when, from a specific
enclosure, the deepest voice cries out.

Negative explanations for what is unique to the system are

clear: the decisive impact of the African population, but with
the horrors of the slave trade as i ts beginning; the grasping
opposition to c hange inherent in pro-slavery assumptions;
the dependent relationship with the outside world that all
Plantations had in common.
But one can also see h ow this monstrously abortive failure,
c omposed of so many solitary instances of s terility, had a pos­
i tive effect on some portion of con temporary histories. -
How? is you r question. How can you claim that such an
anomaly could have contributed to what you call mode rn i ty?
-I believe I have answered this question or at least left clues
about how it m ay be answered.
The Plantation, like a laboratory, displays m ost clearly the
opposed forces of the oral and the wri tten at work-one of
the most deep-rooted topics of discussion in our contempo­
rary landscape . It is there that m ul tilingualism, that threat­
ened dimension of our universe, can be observed for one of
the first times, organically forming and disintegrating. I t is
also wi thin the Plantation that the meeting of cultures is most
clearly and directly observable , though none of the inhabi­
tan t5 had the sligh test hint that this was really about a clash of
cultures. Here we are able to discover a few of the forma­
tional laws of the cultural metissage that concerns us all . It is

74
essential that we investigate historicity-that coruunction of a
passion for self-definition and an obsession with time that is
also one of the ambitions of contemporary literatures-in
the extensions of the Plantation, in the things to which i t
gave birth a t the very instant it vanished as a functional unit.
Baroque speech, inspired by all possible speech, was ardently cre­
ated in these same extensions and loudly calls out to us from
them. The Plantation is one of the bellies of the world, not
the only one, one among so many others, but it has the
advantage of being able to be studied with the utmost preci­
sion. Thus, the boundary, i ts structural weakness, becomes
our advantage. And in the end its seclusion has been con­
quered. The place was closed, but the word derived from it
remains open. This is one part, a limited part, of the lesson of
the world.

75
 Concerning a Baroque Abroad in the World

The baroque made i ts appearance in the West at a moment

when a particular idea of Nature-as harmonious, homoge­
neous, and thoroughly knowable-was in force. Rationalism
refined this conception, one convenient to its own increasing
ambition to master reality. At the same time, the spectacle of
Nature was supposedly something one could reproduce:
knowledge and imitation set themselves up as mutual guar­
antors.

The ideal of imitation presupposed that beneath the appear­

ance of things, but basic to them, there lay the same "depth,"
some indubitable truth, led to primarily by the sciences and
more closely represented in art, to the extent that these rep­
resentations systematized their reproductions of reality and
recognized the legitimacy of i ts aesthetic. Thus, the revolu­
tion in perspective in paintings from the beginnings of the
Quattrocento was conceived of as moving toward this depth.

Against this tendency a baroque "rerouting" emerged and

thrived. Baroque art was a reaction against the rationalist pre­
tense of penetrating the mysteries of the known with one uni­
form and conclusive move. A baroque shudder, via this
rerouting, set out to convey that all knowledge is to come and
that this is what makes it of value. Baroque techniques, more­
over, would favor "expansion" over "depth."

77
This historical ly determined rerouti ng generated a new hero­
ism in the approach to knowledge , a stu bborn renounce­
ment of any ambition to summarize the worl d's matter in sets
of imi tative harmonies that would approach som e essence.
Baroque art mustered bypasses, proliferation , spatial redun­
dancy, anything that flouted the al leged unicity of the th ing
known and the kn owing of it, anything exal ting quanti ty
i n fi nitely resumed and total i ty i n fi n i tely ongoing.

Th e "historical" baroque consti tuted, th us, a reaction against

so-called natural order, natura11y fixed as obvious fact. As con­
ceptions of nature evolved and, at th e same ti me, the world
opened up for Western man, th e baroque impulse also
became generalized. The baroque, the art of expansion ,
expanded i n concre te terms.

The firs t accou n t of this was Latin A.merican rel igious art, so
close to Iberian or Flemish baroque but so closely interm i n­
gled wi th autoch th onous tones boldly i ntroduced i n to the
baroque concert. These elements do not occur as innova­
tions in the representation of reality but as n ovel b i ts of infor­
mation concerning a nature that was definitely "new."
Baroque art ceased i ts adversarial role; i t established an inno­
vative vision ( soon a differen t conception ) of Nature and
acted in keeping with i t.

This evolution reached i ts high point in metissage. Through

i ts vertiginous s tyles, languages and cultures hurtled the
baroque wil l . The gen eralization of metissage was all that the
baroque needed to becom e naturalized. From then on what
i t expressed in the world was the proliferating contact of
diversifi ed natures. I t grasped, or rather gave-on-and-with ,
th is movement of the world. No longe r a reaction, i t was th e
outcome of every aestheti c , or every philosophy. Conse­
quen tly, it asserted not just an art or a style but went beyond
this to produce a being-in-the-world.

78
Contemporary conceptions of the sciences encountered and
confirmed this expanding baroque. Science, of course, pos­
tulated that reality could not be defined on the basis of i ts
appearance, that it was necessary to penetrate into i ts
"depths," but it also agreed that knowledge of these was
always deferred, that no longer were there grounds for claim­
ing to discover the essentials all of a piece. Science entered
an age of rational and basic uncertainties. That is, the con­
ceptions of Nature expanded, became relative, which is the
very basis of the baroque tendency.

Conceptions of human n ature were no longer based upon a

transparent model that was u niversally grounded or that
could be universally embodied. Being-in-the-world is nothing
without the quantified totali ty of every sort of being-in-soci­
ety. Nor is i t a cultural, irrefutable model. All human cultures
h ave experienced a classicism, an age of dogmatic certitude,
one that henceforth all must transcend together. And every
culture, at one time or another in i ts development, has con­
trived baroque disturbances against this certainty. And each
transcendence of this certainty was prophesied and simulta­
neously m ade possible by means of these disturbances. In this
full-sense the "depths" illuminated by Western science, psy­
chology, and sociology are in refutation of "depth," sensed by
this same West's classicism alone. Therein lies the movement
of the baroque spreading into the world.

We can sum this up: the baroque has undergone a natural­

ization, not j ust as art and style but as a way of living the unity­
diversity of the world. This process of naturalization prolongs
the baroque and recreates it, beyond the flamboyant realms
of a unique Counter-Reformation, to extend it into the unsta­
ble mode of Relation; and, once again in this full-sense, the
"historical" baroque prefigured, in an astonishingly pro­
phetic manner, present-day upheavals of the world.

79
 Concerning the Poem's Information

Some critical minds, more given to talk than to analysis, pro­

claim or prophesy the obsolescence of poetry as no longer
corresponding to the conditions of con temporary life and
somehow outmoded in relation to the violence and haste
abundant in modernity.1 This traditional debate has been
going on ever since reason, in the Western sense, apparently
dissociated poetic creation (deemed useless in the city-state)
and scientific knowledge (strictly inscribed within the drama
of its own evolution). The question remains always the same,
in the same context: What's the use of poetry? Modern works
have already given their answer, from Rimbaud to Claude} or
Aime Cesaire: Poetry is not an amusement nor a display of
sentiments or beautiful things . It also imparts form to a
knowledge that could never be stricken by obsolescence.
Poets today, fascinated by the adventure of computers
[ l'informatique], sense that here lies, if not the germ of a pos­
sible response to society's h aranguing, at least a chance to
reconnect the two orders of knowledge, the poetic and the
scientific. Visible now, and approachable thanks to comput­
ers, scientific intention, putting in action the m ost obvious
workings of social responsibility, concretely alerts and ques­
tions the poet. For what information can the poem be
responsible? Can this infor mation shoot through a com­
puter's laser jets, something really more serious than the
game of skittles that Malherbe evoked years ago?

81
 relationship between
The first obse rvati on, conc erni ng the
d an ob:ious dif�e r­
poetry and com puters , revolv es aroun . .
IS not a snn­
ence : the bin ary ch aracter of the l atter. Bmanty
ple o ne-two rh ythm , but n : ither is i t a poeti c m ode, in :very
. .
insta nce infe rring somethmg on gm al or revealed. Acoden t
th at is not the result of chance is natural to poems, whereas i t
i s th e cons ummate vice ( th e "virus" ) o f any self-en closed sys­
tem, such as the computer.*
The poet's truth is also the desired truth of the o ther,
whereas, precisely, the truth of a computer system is closed
back upon i ts own sufficient l ogic . Moreover, every conch1-
sion reached by such a system has been i nscribed i n the orig­
i nal data, whereas poe tics open onto unpredictabl e and
unheard of thi ngs .
That is to say that excl usion is the rule in binary practice
( e i ther/or) , whereas poetics aim s for the space of differ­
ence--not exclusion but, rather, where diffe rence is realized
i n goi ng beyond.

The advent of computers h as, nonetheless, thrown poetics

i n to reverse . By m a king speed commonplace . Just as rom an­
tic paraJiels or daring surrealist i mages now are displayed i n
con temporary production o f publicity "spots" a n d m usic
videos, the sudden flash, the poetics of the m oment, has
become established and in some ways obl i terated wi thin th e
unimaginable i ns tantaneousness of the computer.
A'l if in preparation for such a shock, three poetic works
h ave already been composed as systems: Mallarme 's Un coup
de des jamais n 'abolira le hasard ( Dice Thrown Never Will
Annul Chance ) , Joyc e 's Plnnegan 's Wake, and Ezra Pound's
Cantos. In these works a poetics of duration, as full of revela­
tions as the poetics of the moment, began once more to be
explored. Renounced first and foremost in Mallarme's
search for the absolute, Joyce 's search for totality, and
* No matter how much diversity there is in th e variables created with in
such a system, it is always dependent o n information stored i n a
yes/no/yes form.

82
Pound's search for multiplicity was Rimbaud's magnificent
claim concerning the sudden flash of revelation.

Every computer system, through i ts very instantaneity, makes

us familiar with unilingual revelation and renders the sudden
flash ordinary-but, from the viewpoint of a multilingual
scintillation, the aforementioned system is incapable of
"comprehending."
Imagine a young man oblivio us to anything that is not his
machine; before it he is absolutely "deranged in his senses"
[ deregle des sens] , a hoodlum afar and a saint at his desk, one
who has conquered the mechanics of vowels and consonants
and penetrated their color: a computer scientis t but also
Rimbaud. The latter went after the most raging fulguration,
speed's sole music, and left room for the versions of patience
that Mallarme stitched together, Joyce synthesized, and
Pound derived.

These poets had a premonition: of a tremendous unknown

lying ahead of us, with i ts demand that the totality be con­
veyed, that is, finally, the speech of all peoples, the ring of
every language. The computer scientist will exclaim that his
machine, better than any other possible, sets us to thinking
of totality. But his is a totality deciphered through a game of
signs , a code totality. I t evades the drama of languages.
(That the necessity for using computers today brings with
it writing's obituary has been sufficiently discussed. Maybe, in
fact, we will soon be the threatened disciples of a catacomb
religion, uniting in secret away from public prosecution and
punishment, to celebrate damned masses of writing, to com­
municate by sharing texts otherwise impossible to find or
objectionable. Are computers the harbingers of such perdi­
tion?)
But the drama does not sim ply boil down to a possible
deathblow for wri ting. Now the crisis of wri ting as a form of
expression meets the sudden burgeoning of oral languages.
Are we perhaps witnessing a transitional passage here? Yes-

83
terday we distinguished between the oral and the wri tten,
wi th the latter being transcendent. Maybe tom orrow we shall
be l iving through a synthesis that could be sum med up as the
wri tten resolution, or transcri ption onto the page ( which is
o ur scree n ) , of an economy of o ral i ty. This is the passage
opening o n to the archipelago of languages.
Oral forms of poetry are m ul tiplying, givi ng rise to cere­
monies, performances, and shows. All around the world-in
the Antilles, in the Americas, in Africa and A-;ia-poets of the
spoken word savor this turnaround, which m ixes the j angling
brilliance of oral rhe toric into th e alch emy of written words.
Poetic knowledge is no longer i nseparable from writing;
momentary flashes verge on rhythm i c amassings and the
m onotonies of duration . The sparkle of many l anguages
utterly ful fills i ts function in such an encounter, in wh ich the
ligh tning of poetry is recreated in tim e 's gasp.

Triggered by a premonition of this encounter between the

oral and the writte n , m any people have either a fascination
wi th computers or m erely a curiosity to see them cough up
poetry. An i n troduction and i nvitation to binary speed for
the operator's lastin g benefi t. A roll of the dice endlessly
resumed. Syste matics simultaneously sti tched together, syn­
thesized, and derived. But m issing throughout will be the
vivid contrast among the languages of the world. Which con­
sti tutes the desiri ng flesh of a poe m .

T h e compute r, on t h e o ther hand, seems t o b e t h e privileged

i nstrument of someone wan ting to "follow" any Whole whose
varian ts multiply vertigi nously. It is useful for suggesting what
is stable with i n the unstable. Therefore, though it does not
c reate poetry, i t can "show the way" to a poetics.

Even so, despi te i ts high visibili ty, this m ach ine is not the
place i n which science and poetry migh t connect. This place
precedes any techni que of application; it generates i ts space
within th e indeterminacy of axioms.

84
 Poetic thought, before or after the acciden t of the poem,
or through it, attempts to set i tself up in an axiomatic system :
to knit something up whose sti tches won 't run . That creates
the opportunity for an infinite sort of conjunction, in which
science and poetry are equivalent. Here the axiom is a
grounding fantasy, even if i t is then perpetuated through
conquests of ideas. This fantasy is privileged in not having to
be either elucidated or resorbed; the psychoanalysis of
knowledge is fixed on something else entirely. The poetic
axiom, like the mathematical axiom, is illuminating because
i t is fragile and inescapable, obscure and revealing. In both
instances the prospective system accepts the accident and
grasps that in the future i t will be transcended. Science trans­
forms its languages; poetry invents i ts tongues. For neither is
it a question of exploring, but one, rather, of going toward a
totality that is unrealizable, without being required to say
where they will come together-nor even that they have any
need to do so.

85
 III

PATHS

Out loud, to mark the split

 C RE O LI ZAT I O NS
��

Creolization, one of the ways offorming a complex mix-and

not merely a linguistic result-is only exemplified by its
processes and certainly not by the "contents " on which these
operate. This is where we depart from the concept of creoleness.
Though this notion covers (no more and no less) that which
accounts for creolizations, it goes on to propose two further
extensions. The first opens onto a broader ethnocultural
realm, from the Antilles to the Indian Ocean. But variations
of this sort do not seem to be determiningfactors, because the
speed with which they change in Relation is so great. The
second is an attempt to get at Being. But that would con­
stitute a step backward in comparison with how creolizations
can function. We propose neither humani�y s Being nor its
models. We are not prompted solely by the defining of our
identities but by their relation to everything possible as well­
the mutual mutations generated by this interplay of relations.
Creolizations bring into Relation but not to universalize; the
principles of creoleness regress toward negritudes, ideas of
Frenchness, of Latinness, all generalizing concepts�more or
less innocently.
 Dictate , Decree

Baroque derangement and the guarantee provided by sci­

entific rigor: just yesterday these were the counterpoises of
our movement (our balan, our surge, our momentum )
toward totalite-monde. 1
But the baroque no longer constitutes a derangement,
since it has turned into a "natural" expression of whatever
scatters and comes together. The age of classicisms (of deep­
ening an internal unity, raised to the dimensions of a univer­
sal itself postulated ) is past, no doubt, for all cultures. It
remains to make the network of their convergences work, or
to untangle it. It remains to study those cultures that have not
had time, before coming into planetary contact (or conflict) ,
to realize "their own" classicism. Are their powers not
impeded as they come to the meeting? Then again , what
shall we say about composite cultures, whose composition
did not result from a union of "norms" but, rather, was built
in the margins with all kinds of materials that by their very
nature were exceptions to the patience of the rule, to be
thrust headlong into the world by necessity, oppression,
anguish, greed, or an appetite for adventure?
The baroque is the favored speech of these cultures, even
if henceforth it belongs to all. We call it baroque, because we
know that confluences always partake of marginality, that
classicisms partake of intolerance, and that, for us, the substi­
tute for the hidden violence of these intolerant exclusions is
the manifest and integrating violence of contaminations.

91
 Note that metissage exists in places where categories mak­
ing their essences distinct were formerly in opposition. The
more metissage became realized, the more the idea of it faded.
As the baroque became naturalized in the world, it tended to
become a commonplace, a generality (which is not the same
as a generalization ) , of a new regime. Because it proliferated
rather than deepened a norm, it is unable to consent to "clas­
sicisms . " There is no culture rightfully im peded in the
baroque; none imposes its tradition, even if there are some
that export their generalizing products everywhere.
How can contin uity (which is "desirable") be practiced in
this incessant turnover? How can the stabilizing action of for­
mer classicisms be replaced? And with 'what?

At first our only recourse in the matter seemed to be the pos-­

itivity of scientific method. This, for example, was the
method adopted for the defense and promotion of lan­
guages, corresponding to the ambition of linguistics to set
itself up as a scien ce. A profitable pretense: despite its failure
to be confir med, it provided the basis for a system and gath­
ered together its scattered materials. But science had ceased
having any desire to obtain this sort of guarantee, having,
meanwhile, ventured not outside the positive but beyond
positivism . It had come face to face with the baroque and
understood that the work of th e latter deserved cognizance.
The most recent developments of science invite us, there­
fore, to venture in our quest beyond the laws laid down by its
philosophies. For a long time we have divined both order
and disorder in the world and projected these as measure
and excess. But every poetics led us to believe something
that, of course, is not wrong: that excessiveness of order and
a measured disorder exist as well . The only discernible stabil­
ities in Relation have to do with th e interdependence of the
cycles operative there, how their corresponding patterns of
movement are in tune . In Relation analytic thought is led to
construct unities whose interdependent variances jointly

92
piece together the interactive totality. These unities are not
models but revealing echos-monde. Thought makes music.

William Faulkner's work, Bob Marley's song, the theories of

Benoit Mandelbrot, are all echos-monde. Wilfredo Lam's paint­
ing ( flowing toge ther) or that of Roberto Matta ( tearing
apart) ; the architecture of Chicago and just as easily the
shantytowns of Rio or Caracas; Ezra Pound's Cantos but also
the marching of schoolchildren in Soweto are echos-monde.
Finnegan's Wake was an echo-monde that was prophetic and
consequently absolute (without admission into the real) .
Antonin Artaud's words constitute an echo-monde outside of
the world.
Whatever, coming from a tradition, enters into Relation;
whatever, defending a tradition, justifies Relation; whatever,
having left behind or refuted every tradition, provides the
basis for another full-sense to Relation; whatever, born of
Relation, contradicts and embodies it. Anglo-American pid­
gin ( something, therefore, spoken neither by the English nor
by the Americans ) is a negative echo-monde, whose concrete
force weaves the folds of Relation and neutralizes its subsis­
tence.
The Creole language is a fragile and revealing echo-monde,
born of a reality of relation and limited within this reality by
its dependence.
Spoken languages, without exception , have become ichos­
monde, whose lack we are only just beginning to feel each
time one is wiped out by this circularity in evolution.
Echos-monde are not exacerbations that result directly from
the convulsive conditions of Relation. They are at work in the
matter of the world; they prophesy or illuminate it, divert it
or conversely gain s trength within it.
In order to cope with or express confluences, every indi­
vidual, every community, forms its own ichos-monde, imagined
from power or vainglory, from suffering or impatience. Each
individual makes this sort of m usic and each community as

93
well. A" does the totality composed of individuals and com­
muni ties.

Echos-rnonde thus allow us to sense and cite the cul tures of

peoples in the turbulent confluence whose globali ty orga­
nizes our rhaos-monde. They pattern i ts constituen t (not con­
clusive ) elements and i ts expressions.
What we earlier remarked i n Saint:Joh n Perse as an aes­
the tics of the universe ( "narration of the universe" ) , we now
describe in a differen t manner. It i s an aesthe tics of the chaos­
monde.
The chaos-monde is only disorder i f one assumes there to be
an order wh ose full force poetics is not prepared to reveal
( poetics is not a science ) . The ambition of poetics, rather, is
to safeguard the e nergy of this order. The aesthe tics of the
universe assumed preestablished n orms ; the aesthe tics of
chaos-monde is the i mpassi oned i llustration and refutation of
these . Chaos is not devoid of norms, but these neither con­
stitute a goal nor govern a method there.
Chaos-monde is n e ither fusion n or confusion: it acknowl­
edges nei ther the u niform blend-a ravenous i ntegration­
nor muddled nothi ngness. Chaos is not "chaotic."
But i ts h idden order does not presuppose h ierarch i es or
pre-cellencies-neither of chosen languages nor of prin ce­
nations. The chaos-rnonde is not a m echanism ; it has no keys.

The aesthetics of the chaos-rnonde (what we were thus calling

the aesthe tics of the universe but cleared of a priori values)
e mbraces all the elements and forms of expression of this
totali ty within us; it is totali ty 's act and i ts fluidity, totality's
refl ection and agen t i n motion.
The baroque i s the not-established outcome of this
m o tion.
Relation is that which simultaneously realizes and
expresses this motion. It is the chaos-rnonde relating ( to i tself).
Th e poetics of Relation (wh ich is, therefore, part of the
aesthetics of the rhaos-monde) senses, assumes, opens, gathers,

94
scatters, con tinues, and transforms the thought of these ele­
ments, these forms , and this motion.
Destructure these facts , declare them void, replace them ,
reinvent their music: totality's imagination i s inexhaustible
and always, in every form, wholly legitimate-that is, free of
all legi timacy.

An equilibrium and ability to endure are revived through

echos-monde. Individuals and communities go beyond vain­
glory or suffering, power or impatience, together-however
imperceptibly. The important thing is that such a process
represents an optimum. I ts results are unpredictable, but the
beginnings of the capacity to endure are detectible, coming
where formerly there were classicisms. It is no longer
through deepening a tradition but through the tendency of
all traditions to enter into relation that this is achieved. Baro­
ques serve to relay classicisms. Techniques of relation are
gradually substituted for techniques of the absolute, which
frequen tly were techniques of self-absolution . The arts of
expanse relate (dilate) the arts of depth .

These are the forms we must use to contemplate the evolu­

tion of the Creole language: viewing it as a propagation of
the dialects that compose it, each extending toward the
other; but being aware also that this language can disappear,
or un-appear if you will, in one place or another.
We agree that the extinction of any language at all impov­
erishes everyone. And even more so, if that is possible, when
a composite language like Creole is in question, for this
would be an instant setback for the processes of bringing­
into-relation. But how many languages, dialects, or idioms
will have vanished, eroded by the implacable consensus
among powers between profits and controls, before human
communities learn to preserve together their diversities. The
threat of this disappearance is one of the facts to be incorpo­
rated, as we earlier remarked, into the field of descriptive lin­
guistics.

95
 Not every disappearance, however, is equivalent. The fact
that French-On tarians are gradually ceasing to speak French
wilI not cause the latter to vanish from the world panorama.
Creole is not in the same situation because i ts elision in one
single region would make the areas of i ts survival even more
scarce . But establ ishing that these differences exist in no way
attenuates both the human drama unleashed each time it
happens and the extent of impoverishmen t then inflicted
upon the chaos-monde.
We are not going to save one language or anoth er here or
th ere, while letting others perish. The floodtide of extinc­
tion, unstoppable in its power of con tagion, ·will win out. It
wi ll leave a residue that is not one victorious language, or
several, but one or more desolate codes that will take a lon g
time to reconstitute the organic and unpredictable liveliness
of a language. Linguistic multiplici ty protects ways of speak­
ing, from the most extensive to the most fragile. It is in the
name of this total multiplicity and in function of it, rather
than of any selective pseudo-solidari ties, that each language
must be defended.

An idiom like Creole, one so rapidly constituted in so fluid a

field of relations, cannot be analyzed the way, for example, it
was done for Indo-European languages that aggregated
slowly around their roots. We need to know why this Creole
language was the only on e to appear, why it took the same
for ms in both the Caribbean basin and the Indian Ocean,
and why solely i n countries colonized by the French; whereas
the other languages of this colonization process, English and
Spanish, remained inflexible as far as the colonized popula­
tions were concerned, their only concessions being pidgins
or other dialects that were derived.*

*An other lan guage of the region that would be an exception to this sta­
tistical rule is Papiamen to, which has a Spanish lexical basis in coun tries
( Cura<;:ao) that are no longer Span ish. It seems that, in this same region
of the Americas, more and more linguistic m icrozones are being dis­
covered in which Creoles, pidgins, and patois become undifferentiated.

96
 One possible response-in any case, the one I venture-is
that the French language, which we think of as so intent on
universality, was, of course, not like this at the time of the
conquest of the Americas, having perhaps not yet achieved its
normative unity. Breton and Norman dialects, the ones used
in Santo Domingo and the other islands, were less coercively
centripetal and thus able to enter into the composition of a
new language. English and Spanish were already perhaps
more "classic," and lent themselves less to this firs t amalgam
from which a language could have sprung. Of course, the
"unified" French language also spread throughout these ter­
ritories with no language. The Creole compromise
( metaphorical and synthesizing) , favored by Plantation struc­
ture, was the result of both the uprooting of African lan­
guages and the deviance of French provincial i dioms. The
origins of this compromise are already a marginality. It did,
indeed, name another reality, another mentality; but i ts
actual poetics-or construction-was what was deviant i n
relation t o any supposed classicism.
Traditional linguistics, when applied to such a case, seeks
first and foremost (and counter to what the h istory of the lan­
guage would indicate) to "classify" this language. That is­
and it is perfectly u nderstandable-it attempts to endow i t
with a body o f rules a n d specifically stated standards ensuring
its ability to endure. But, though fixing usage and transcrip­
tion are both indispensable, there still remains a need to
devise ( given marginality as a component of the language)
systems of variables, such as I earlier discussed, that would be
distinguished from a mere allocation of variants among the
dialects-of Haiti, Guadeloupe, or Guiana, etc.-of this Cre­
ole language. We would have a whole range of choices within
each dialect. Wherever etymology or phonetics faltered (and,
doubtless, etymology would be of less use in the matter) one
should let poetics take its course, that is, follow intuition
about both the history of the language and its development
in the margins. In other words, the alleged scientific charac­
ter can lapse into scholarly illusion, can conceal its strategem

97
for "stay in g put." Th e standard of such a language formation
would be flu en t. One could never legi timately have decreed
it.

The decisive element, as far as fixing language is concerned,

is th e rule of usage; those who forge words frequently come
up against i t. And, in turn, this rule depends to a large extent
on the practical functioning of the language . But, in the envi­
ronment we have outlined (combining echos-monde and
prevalent baroque ) , one could assum e that the true basis for
an ability to endure is that the rule of usage have both
momentum and diffraction.
One can i magine language diasporas that would change so
rapidly wi thin themselves and with such feedback, so m any
turnarounds of nor ms (deviations and back and forth ) that
their fixity would lie in that change. Their abili ty to endure
would not be accessible through deepening but through the
shimmer of variety. It would be a fluid equilibrium . This lin­
guistic sparkle, so far removed from the mechanics of sabirs
and codes, is still inconceivable for us, but only because we
are paralyzed to th is day by monolingual prejudice ( " my lan­
guage is my root") .
The normative decree, edict and instrument of this preju­
dice, prides itself, then, on the outmoded "guaran tees" of sci­
entific positivism and tries to administer the evolution of
threatened languages, such as Creole, by atte mpting to "fur­
nish" such a guarantee to the principle of identity (of perma­
nence) that language implies. But it is not simply because the
Creole language is a component of my identity that I am wor­
ri ed about i ts possible disappearance; i t is because the lan­
guage would also be missing from the radiant sparkl e, the
fluid equilibrium, and the ability to endure in disorder of the
chaos-monde. The way that I defend it must take this into
account.

Normative decrees have ceased to be the authoritative rule as

far as vehicular languages are concerned. English and Span-

98
ish, the most massive of these, and seemingly the best
entrenched in a sort of continental nature, met on the terri­
tory of the United States ( Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, the immi­
grants in Florida) . It may well be that their massiveness has
become fissured, that alongside the variances proliferating
Anglo-American, lucky contaminations from the Spanish will
occur, and vice versa. This process will no doubt move more
quickly than any analysis one will be able to make of it.
Contemporary arguments over whether or not to simplify
the spelling of the French language demonstrate how many
contaminations have occurred there. These proposals are a
counter-decree , as futile as the purism they oppose is inoper­
ative. Though the language must change in the world, and its
plurali ty must be confirmed, only dictions will bring this
about-not some authoritative edict.
We can only follow from afar the experimentation feeling
its way along in all the elsewheres that we dream of.* Is the
Chinese language absorbing the Latin alphabet? How is the
actual status of languages changing in the Soviet Union? Is
Quechuan beginning to make its escape from silence? And in
Europe are the Scandinavian languages starting to open up
to the world? Are forms of creolization silently at work, and
where? Will Swahili and Fulani share the written domain with
other languages in Africa? Are regional dialects in France
fading away? How quickly? Wil l ideograms, pictograms, and
other forms of writing show up in this panorama? Do transla­
tions already allow perceptible correspondences between

*It is not essential to n ote that archipelagic agglomerations of language

have formed everywhere . E ither according to "roots" or families: I ndo­
European languages, Latin languages, e tc. Or according to their char­
acteristic techniques of relation: composite languages, Creole lan­
guages, etc . Or according to both dimensions at once: veh icular
languages and their pidgins, all languages and their dialects, etc. It is
dangerous for the world's poetic diversity merely to link each of these
agglomerations to some politically self - i nterested project. What is
important is to track down the constants both within the agglomera­
tions and within the m ajority of their confluences: Is there a hidden
order to contacts among languages?

99
language systems? And how m any minorities are there strug­
gling within diglossia, like the numerous French-speaking
Creole blacks in southwestern Louisiana? Or the thirty thou­
sand Inuits on Baffin Island? Lists of this sort are not inno­
cent; they accustom the mind to apprehending problems in
a circular manner and to h atching solutions interdepen­
dently. Relating realms of knowledge ( questions and solu­
tions) with one another cannot be categorized as either a dis..
cipline or a science but, rather, as an imaginary construct of
reality that permits us to escape the pointillistic probability
approach without lapsing into abusive generalization.

The pronouncement of decrees in any case (issuing edicts

that constrict the future of the language ) does not set you
free from collective anxieties. Game shows on television,
organized in every country equipped to do so, spotlight the
destabilization of languages in a spectacular manner. These
games are the same everywhere . One must reconstitute
words whose letters are either hidden or given in no order.
Meaning h as little importance, and there have been cases i n
which contestants have appeared o n the shows after having
learned whole sections of dictionary. So one disjoints a lan­
guage, taking into account, in short, only its skeleton ( if one
can speak of the lexicon as a mere skeleton) to which one
clings .
The amusing character o f these exercises, which fall
within the province of true performance, links them with
another sort of contest that is organized in France on a very
large scale and whose purpose is a much more elitist practice:
dictation. The dictation is diction doing its best. In it, of
course, it is a matter of conquering the difficulties of French
syntax and grammar, wh ich, as everyone knows, are not sim­
ple.
Thus, a learning exercise, whose success depended on its
repetition day after day (we all remember the fateful dicta­
tion period in primary school ) , has turned into a show.
Where we had to learn, now we have to win . To prove there

1 00
are people, beginning with the winners of these sparring
matches, who still are interested in the subtleties-even the
most specious-of the language and who more often than
not master these.
These games seem to me a nostalgic exercise not devoid of
a strong tinge of collective anxiety.

Dictating, decreeing: both activities (in their secret complic­

i ty: a decree affixes laws to us, a dictation is from an edict now
essential) attemp t to form a dam against what makes lan­
guages fragile-contaminations, slovenliness, barbarism .
But what you would call barbarism is the inexhaustible
motion of the scintillations of languages, heaving dross and
inventions, dominations and accords, deathly silences and
irrepressible explosions, along with them. These languages
combine, vary, clash, so rapidly that the lengthy training of
earlier times is no longer worth much. Decreeing will have to
use dialects, devise systems of variables. Dictation, if it exis ts,
will have to transform i tself into an exercise in creation, with
no obligation or penalty. Faults of syntax are, for the
moment, less decisive than faults of relation ( though they
may be symptoms among others of the latter) and will take
less time to correct. On the other hand, let's admit to taking
a very personal pleasure in these rules when they improve the
quality of our expression. The only merit to correctness of
language lies in what this language says in the world: even
correctness is variable.

Baroque naturalities and the forms of chaos-monde have a

(desirable) ability to endure that a priori reasoning will not
unearth . It will not precede their work, the movement of
engagement (ascendency and surprise) from which, simulta­
neously, their matter and their full-sense arise. No topology
results from the echos-monde. B ut, on the other hand, the
baroque is not just passion and mystery, nor does the guaran­
tee of scientific rigor lapse in every i nstance i n to a dogma
secure in the positive. Baroque naturality, if it exists, has a

1 01
s tructure or at least an order, and we have to invent a knowl­
edge that would not serve to guarantee its norm in advance
but would fol low excessively along to keep up with the m ea­
surable quan ti ty of i ts vertigi nous varian ces.

102
 To Build the Tower

"Live in seclusion or open up to the other": this was suppos­

edly the only alternative for any population demanding the
right to speak i ts own language. It is how inherited premises
of centuries-old domination were given legitimacy. Either
you speak a language that is "universal ," or on its way to being
so, and participate in the life of the world; or else you retreat
into your particular idiom-quite unfit for sharing-in
which case you cut yourself off from the world to wallow
alone and sterile in your so-called identity.
However, as populations became liberated from legal ( if
not actual ) dependencies, the view emerged that it is the lan­
guage of a community that controls the main vector of i ts cul­
tural identity, which in turn determines the conditions of the
community's development. This viewpoin t has been consid­
ered suspect and, more often than not, pernicious. During
this same period all developmental processes became
reduced to one exclusive type of perfection, that is, techno­
logical. Hence the puzzle: What is it that you are demanding
when a language, one single language, would provide you
with the key to progress?
Nations could have only one linguistic or cultural future­
either this seclusion within a restrictive particularity or, con­
versely, dilution wi thin a generalizing universal. This is a for­
midable construction , and the "oral genius" of peoples of the
world urges us to burst our way out of it. The words of griots
and storytellers washed up on the edges of large cities, and

1 03
eroded by second-rate frnrns of p rogress, still endure. Gradu­
ally, the governments of poor coun tries are coming to under­
stand that there is no single, transcendent, and enforceable
model for developm ent.
In this explosion of incredible diversity, l inguis ti c relations
h ave become m arked by creations springing from the fri c­
tion between languages, by the give-and-take of sudden inno­
vation (for example, i n i tiato ry s treet languages in southern
coun tries), and by m asses of generally accepted notions as
well as passive prej udices.
The assu mption that was, perhaps, m os t c rucial concern ed
the hierarchical division i n to written and oral languages. The
latte r were c rude , unsuited to conceptualization and the
acquisition of l earning, i ncapable of guaranteeing the trans­
m ission of knowledge. The forme r were civilizing and
allowed man to transcend h is n atural s tate, i nscribing him
both in perm anence and i n evolution.
It is true that l i te racy is a matter of u tm ost urgency in the
world and that, lacking other appropriate m aterials, this is
usually acco mplished i n what are called communi cation , o r
veh i cular, languages. But w e h ave come t o realize t h a t a l l l i t­
eral l iteracy n eeds to be buttressed by a cultural l iteracy that
opens up possibilities and allows the revival of autonomous
c reative forces from with i n , and hence "inside," the language
under consideration . D evelopm e n t thus h as linguistic stakes,
with consequences that can be neither codified nor pre�
dieted.
Relationsh i ps between languages that were supposedly
transcendent because written and o th ers long kep t at a level
referred to, with a h i n t of con descension, as "oral"-these
relationships I described of suddenness, unplanned adapta­
tion, or systemati c apprenticeship-have been m ade even
more complex by both pol i tical and economic oppression.

The relationship of domination, consequen tly, is the m os t bla­

tant, gaining strength i n technologi cal expansion and gener­
alizing a neutral uniformi ty. D ominated languages are thus

1 04
pigeonholed as folklore or technical irresponsibility. At this
point a universal language, such as Esperanto, no matter how
well thought out, is not the remedy. For any language that
does not create, that does not hoe its own tuff, subtracts
accordingly from the nongeneralizing universal.
The relationship of fascination has become, of course, less
and less virulent, but it drove intellectual elites of "develop­
ing countries" to the reveren t usage of a language of prestige
that has only served them as self�impoverishment.
R.elationships of multiplicity or contagfon exist wherever m ix­
tures explode into momentary flashes of creation, especially
in the languages of young p eople. Purists grow i ndignant,
and poets of Relation marvel at them . Linguistic borrowings
are only injurious when they turn passive because they sanc­
tion some domination.
R.elationships of polite subservience or mockery come about
when frequent contact with tourist enclaves plays a substan­
tial role, along with daily practices of subordination or
domestic service. This tendency to promote the appearance
of pidgins is swept aside by the poli tics of national education,
when these are well conceived and carried to completion.
Relationships of tangency are by far the most insidious,
appearing whenever there are composite languages, lan­
guages of compromise betwee n two or more idioms-for
example, the Creoles of francophone regions in the Ameri­
cas or the Indian Ocean. Then the erosion of the new lan­
guage must be forestalled, as it is eaten away from within
through the mere weight of one of its components, which,
m eanwhile, becomes reinforced as an agent of domination.
R.elationships of subversion exist when an entire community
encourages some new and frequently antiestablishment
usage of a language. English-speaking Caribbeans and blacks
in the United States are two convincing examples in their use
of the English language, as are the Quebecois in their appro­
priation of French.
Relationships of intolerance are seen, for example, in the
teaching of a communication language. The language is

1 05
esta bl.1s I1e d or1ce
.
and for al1 in i ts (original ) history and
reg(ir e
d d as u n com p romisin g toward those formidable con-
spea � ers or crea to rs r� ·om els � v�h ere are
r

ta�ions to whic �
·

1t. An atav1stIC _ _ ,, m exerc1smg a lan­

_ _ flmd1ty
likely to subj ect

b-o u abo-e is d eem ed i ndispensible to i ts perfection , resulting i n

the opin ion that theories concerning i ts learning and teach-
ing can only be developed i n the "coun try of origi n . "

O ppositions between t h e written a n d t h e oral do not date

from the recen t past al one; they have long exerc ised their
divisions within a given language voice [langue], Arabic for
exam ple , in which two separate orders of language use [lan­
gage] 1 for the community are designated: one l earned and
the other popular.
This is the case for mono1i ngual countries wi th "internal"
problems, i n which these two usages-oral and written­
i n troduce ruptures ( through social d iscri mination, which
deploys the rules of language usage ) . Other i n ternal prob­
lems are linked, someti mes to the erosion of regional dialects
inscribed within the language, sometimes to the difficulty of
tran scribin g this language. This example provides a gli m pse
of the i nexhaustible variety of linguistic situations-some­
thing far more unsettling than the number of spoken lan­
guages in the world.
Monolingual coun tries with "ex ternal" problems would be
th ose in wh ich a national language, th e m ain form of com­
munication , is th reatened on an economic and cultural level
by a foreign language .
In bilingual coun tries with i n ternal problems there are
two languages of wide communication that confront each
other; each one is assumed by one portion of the community,
which is destabilized in consequen ce.
In diglot coun tries one commun ication language tends to
dominate or restric t one or several " mother tongues, " ver­
naculars or composi te languages vvhose tradition is oral­
sornetim es to the poi n t of extinction . The tasks of fixing and
transposing these languages th en becom es cri tical. As schol-

106
ars take responsibility for them and everyone uses them ,
these languages will doubtless reinforce compromise solu­
tions that will spread gradually according to systems of vari­
ables. One can expect the same urgent situation to apply to
languages whose writing is not phonetic, even when vigor­
ously backed by national unanimity.
In multilingual coun tries with no apparent problems
there is a federative principle that tempers the relations
among the languages in usage, which are usually vehicular.
There are some m ultilingual countries, on the other hand,
in which the great n umber of mother tongues makes choice
difficult, when i t comes to deciding which is the official or
national language.
All these situations in tersect; they add up and thwart one
another and go far beyond any conflict solely between the
oral and the written. They are astounding indicators of the
relations among peoples and cultures. Their complexity pro­
hibits any summary or reductive evaluation concerning the
strategies to be implemented. In global relations languages
work, of course, in obedience to laws of economic and politi­
cal domination but elude, nonetheless, any harsh and rigid
long-term forecast.

This same complexity is what allows us to come out of seclu­

sion. We stop believing that we are alone in the sufferings of
our expression. We discover that it is the same for any num­
ber of other communities.* From that point on the idea
grows that speaking one's language and opening up to the
language of the other no longer form the basis for an alter­
native. "I speak to you in your language voice, and it is in my
language use that I understand you." Creating in any given
language thus assumes that one be inhabited by the impossi-

*To our astonishment we also discover people comfortably established

within the placid body of their language, who cannot even compre­
hend that somewhere someone might experience an agony of language
and who will tell you flat out, as they have in the United States, "That is
not a problem."

1 07
bl e desire for aII the languages in the world . Total i ty calls out
to us. Every work of literature today is inspired by it. 2
The fact remains, nonetheless, that, when a people speaks
i ts language or languages, it is above all free to produce
through them at every level-free, that is, to make i ts rela­
tionship to the world concre te and visible for i tself and for
others.
The defense of languages assuring D iversity is thus insepa­
rable from restabilizing relations among communiti es. How
is i t possible to come out of seclusion if only two or three lan­
guages continue to monopolize the i rrefutabl e powers of
technology and their manipulation, which are imposed as
the sole path to salvation and energized by their actual
effects? This dominant behavior blocks the flowerin g of
imaginations, forbids one to be inspired by them, and
confines the general mentali ty within the limi ts of a bias for
technology as the only effective approach . The long-term
remedy for such losses is to spell out over and over again the
notion of an e th n o technique, by means of whi c h choices of
development would be adapted to the real needs of a com­
munity and to the protected landscape of i ts surroundings .
N o r i s it certai n that this will succeed, i ts prospects being very
c hancy; but it is u rgent that we take this route. The promo­
tion of languages is the first axiom of this ethnotechnique.
And we know that, in the area of understanding, poetry­
watch out for i t ! -has always been the consummate e th­
notechnique. The defense of l anguages can come through
poetry ( also ) .

Moreover, the tendency of all cultures to meet i n a single,

iden tical perspective laid out by radio and televisi o n
unleash es y e t unimagined possibilities for sharing a n d equal­
i ty. It is not a sure thing that languages with an oral tradition
would s tart with a disadvantage i n this encounter. Perhaps
more supple and adaptabl e, they would lend themselves to
change, all the more if the only other languages are those
with a written tradition, which have become stiffened and

108
fixed over the centuries. Not long ago I learned of a project
in which a Japanese computer company was investing consid­
erable sums of money on a theoretical study of several
African oral languages. Its intention was to explore the capac­
ity of these languages to generate a new computer language
and to provide broad-based support for new systems. The pri­
mary goal of this research was, of course, to capture a poten­
tial market in the twenty-first century, and it was motivated by
competition from Anglo-American companies. Still , it should
be noted how the most self-in terested technology was thereby
sanctioning not the (actual ) liberation of the languages of
orality, of course, but already their right to be recognized.

On the other side of the bitter struggles against domination

and for the liberation of the imagination, there opens up a
multiply dispersed zone i n which we are gripped by vertigo.
But this is not the vertigo preceding apocalypse and Babel's
fall. It is the shiver of a beginning, confronted with extreme
possibility. It is possible to build the Tower-in every language.

1 09
 Transparency and Opacity

There still exist centers of domination, but it is generally

acknowledged that there are no exclusive, lofty realms of
learning or metropolises of knowledge left standing. Hence­
forward, this knowledge, composed of abstract generality
and linked to the spiri t of conquest and discovery, has the
presence of human cultures in their solid materiality super­
imposed upon it. And knowledge, or at least the epistemol­
ogy we produce for ourselves from i t, has been changed by
this. Its transparency, in fact, its legitimacy is no longer based
on a Right.
Transparency no longer seems like the bottom of the mir­
ror in which Wes tern humanity reflected the world in its own
image. There is opacity now at the bottom of the mirror, a
whole alluvium deposited by populations, silt that is fertile
but, in actual fact, indistinct and unexplored even today,
denied or insulted m ore often than not, and with an insistent
presence that we are incapable of not experiencing.
The recent history of the French language corresponds
( and responds) to this trend. Because it lacks an anchor in
areas of concrete and undisguised domination-the Anglo­
American model-for some time now certain people have
apparently pledged the French language to establishing a
sort of semiconceptual dominance. It would thus maintain its
transparency and contain the increasing opacity of the world
within the limits of a well-phrased classicism , thereby perpe t­
uating a lukewarm humanism, both colorless and reassuring.

111
All languages have to be defended, and therefore French
( th e langu age in which I create and, consequen tly, would not
like to see s tereotyped) must also be defended-against this
sort of maladro i t rearguard mission . Whether it is veh icular
or not, a language that does not risk the disturbances arising
from contact among cultures, and not ardently i nvolved i n the
reflections generated by an equal relation with other lan­
guages , seems to me doomed to real impoverishment. It is
true that the leveling effect of Anglo-Arnerican is a persistent
threat for everyone and that this language, i n turn, risks being
transformed into a technical salesman 's Esperan to, a perfunc­
tory containerization of expression (neither Faulkner's nor
Hopkins's language but not the language of London pubs or
Bronx warehouses either) . It is also true that the actual situa­
tion is that languages lacking the support of economic power
and the competi tive politics that convey this are slowly disap­
pearing. The result is that the languages of the world, from
the most prestigious to the humblest, have ended up backing
the same demand, though general opinion h as not yet caught
up. They demand a change in ways of thinking, a break with
the fatal trend to annihilate idioms, and they would grant to
every language, whether powerful or not, veh icular or not, the
space and means to hold it5 own wi thin the total accord. It
would be more beautiful to live in a symphony of languages
than in some reduced universal monolingualism-neutral
and standardized. There is one thing we can be sure of: a lin­
gua franca ( humanistic French, Anglo-American sabir, o r
Esperan to code ) i s always apoetical.

In the i ndete rminate context of the French-speaking com­

muni ties we lump together as la francophonie, i t was, there­
fore , an apparen tly sim ple notion to regard th e French lan­
guage as the a pri ori bearer of values that could help remedy
the anarchisti c tendencies of the various cultures that are,
completely or partially, a product of i ts expression. La fran­
cophonie would be less what it claimed to be, an i nterdepen­
dent gathering of cultural convergences, than a sort of pre-

1 12
ventive medicine against cultural disintegrations and diffu­
sions that were considered unfortunate. This is one way, at
least, to analyze the discourse of a number of i ts early propo­
nen ts.
According to this way of thinking, for example, the French
language has always been inseparable from a pursuit of the
dignity of mary.kind, insofar as man is conceived of as an irre­
ducible entity. From this one could infer that French would
thus make possible the lessening of certain angry resent­
ments that are limiting and that have allegedly been
observed i n quests for i dentity currently taking place in the
world. In a collective quest for identity-somehow now
labeled the quest for e thnicity-sterile extremes would exist
in which man, as an individual , would ris.k disappearing.
Because the French language vouches for the dignity of the
individual, the use of it would limit any such excesses on the
part of the collectivity. In other words, this language would
have a humanizing function supposedly inseparable from i ts
very nature, which would serve as protection against the rash
actions of an excessive collectivization of identity. In the pres­
ent conceptual debate the French language, the language of
the Rights of Man, would provide useful protection against
excesses set i n motion by the presuppositions of any procla­
mation of the Rights of Peoples. La Jrancophonie would pro­
vide that transcendency by giving the correct version of
humanism.

Another characteristic of the language would lie in its literary

dedication to clarity, a mission that has led to i ts reputation
for a pleasing rationality, which is, in fact, the guarantee of a
legitimate pleasure to be had in the manipulation of a unity
composed of consecutive, noncontradictory, concise state­
ments.
The "essential" nature of literary language would preexist
any of the felicitous or infelicitous accidents of i ts real,
diversified cultural usages. (This literary mission repeats cer­
tain tactical appi·oaches: the defense of languages is said to

1 13
be inscribed in the nature of th e French language as defi ned
here ; it is a plural Jrancoplwnie, o r, as regards the Antilles and
Indian Ocean , the speaking of Creole wi th in a French-speak­
ing population . ) Looked at this way, French would represen t
notj ust what is common in various ways to the linguistic prac­
tic e of the populations constitu ting francophone culture, it
would also, in literature , or perhaps even in absol ute terms ,
be what i s given i n advance. From this it takes n o time to
reach the conclusion that there is a "righ t" way to use the lan­
guage. And the natural result will be scales of val ue to
appraise usage in the French-speaki ng real m . * Language
would reveal the diffe ring degrees in this hierarchical orga­
nization . * *
Neither its h umanizing fun c tion , however ( the fam ous
un iversality of French as the beare r of humanism ) , nor its
concordan t predestination to be clear ( i ts pleasurable ratio­
nality) stand up to examination . Languages h ave no mission.
This is, however, the sort of learnedly dealt nonsense we have
to s truggle e ternally against in a discourse depriving popula­
tions of cultu ral ide n tity. An atten tive observer will notic e
t h a t such wi n dbags a r e anxiously inte n t on confining them­
selves to th e false transparency of a world they used to run ;
they do not wan t to e n ter into th e penetrable opacity of a
world in which one exists, or agrees to exist, with and among
others . I n the history of the language the claim that the con­
ciseness of French is c onsecutive and noncon tradictory is the
veil obscuring and j us tifyi ng th is refusal . Th is is, in fact, a
rearguard mission .

*Already a distinction is m ad e between lajranrojJ/wnit o f the north, the

Fren ch spoken in Fran ce, Switzerla n d , Belgiu m , or Quebec; an d lafmn­
cojJ!wn ie of the south, everything else.
* *Specialists i n francophone l i te ra tures do n o t always resist "compar­
ing'' the writers from these countries. This objectifying practice negates
with one st roke the o rgan i c unity of o u r literatures for the ben efit of
the appreciation of the critic, wh o would never dare apply such meth­
ods to the French literary corpus.

1 14
Just as there is a right way to use th e language, there would be
a "correct" way to teach it. This notion has repercussions not
just on the idea one has of the language but on the idea one
for ms of its relationship with other languages. Consequently,
there are also repercussions on the theoretical apparatus set
in place by disciplines pertaining to language usage, whether
these are used to analyze languages or to translate from one
to the other or to make learning a language possible.

If, however, we look at literary texts, which after all best delin­
eate the image of a language, if not its function, and if we
analyze how such texts are affected by language l earning or
translation ( these being the two fundamental mechanisms of
relational practice) , ideas of transparency and opacity quite
naturally present themselves as the critical approach .

The literary text plays the contradictory role o f a producer of

opacity.
Because the writer, entering the dense mass of his writings ,
renounces a n absolute, his poetic intention, full of self-evi­
dence and sublimity. Writing's relation to that absolute is rel­
ative; that is, it actually renders it opaque by realizing it in
language. The text passes from a dreamed-of transparency to
the opacity produced in words.
Because the written text opposes anything that might lead
a reader to formulate the author's intention differently. At
the same time he can only guess at the shape of this inten­
tion . The reader goes, or rather tries to go back, from the
produced opacity to the transparency that he read into it.

Literary textual practice thus represents an opposition

between two opacities: the irreducible opacity of the text,
even when it is a matter of the most harmless sonnet, and the
always evolving opacity of the author or a reader. Sometimes
the latter becomes literally conscious of this opposition , i n
which case he describes the text as "difficult."
Both learning a language and translation have in common

1 15
 to a text. That
the attempt to give "som e transp arenc y" back
bridge two series of opacit ies: in the case of
is, they strive to .
la ngua ge l earn ing the se would be the text and the n ovic e
reader confi..ontin g i t, for whom any text is supposedly
difficu l t. In the case of translation the transparency must pro­
vide a passage from a risky text to what is possible for another
text.
Preferably, the literary works one chooses for learning a
lan guage are those best corresponding to what is assumed to
be the pattern of the language , not the "easiest" works b u t
o n e s supposedly h aving t h e least threatening opaci ty. This
was true of texts by Albert Camus given to foreign students in
France during the l 960s-a revealing instance of fundamen­
tal misi nterpretation, since Camus's work only gave the
appearance of being clear and straigh tforward. Language
learning, whose main axiom was clarity, skipped righ t over
the situational c risis that even ts in Algeria had formed in
Camus and the ech oes of this in the tigh t, feverish, and
restrain ed struc ture of the style h e h ad adopted to both
confide and wi thdraw at the same time .

When i t is a question o f using a language, therefore, we must

analyze the "situational competence" ( to use an expression
of Patrick Charaudeau's) of this language. Charaudeau
showed how the preliminary stages of language learning con­
sist of bringing the student to a state of "situational compe­
tence" in relation to the subj ec t of the text he is tackling.
Extending this notion fro m l anguage learning to usage, I
think that there is a global situational competence that the
learner as well as the speaker or auth or n eeds to be aware of
an d that it concerns not a given text but the language itself:
i ts situation wi thin Relation, i ts precursors and i ts conceiv­
abl e future. 1
So we m us t reevaluate veh icular lan guages, that is , th e
Western languages , which have spread practically every­
wh ere in th e world. Com m un i ties that are too "dense" to be
considered as the linguistic m argins of their l an guages '

1 16
countries of origin have adopted them in their diffusion.
The United States is not considered peripheral to Great
Britain (and neither is Aus tral ia or Canada) ; nor is Brazil
peripheral in relation to Portugal nor Argen tina nor Mex­
ico in relation to Spain . Among these vehicular languages
only French seems to have spread everywhere without really
con cen trating anywhere . French-speaking Belgium and
Quebec are threatened, the Magh reb becom es more and
more Arabic , the African s tates and francophone countries
in the Caribbean do not carry sufficient weigh t, at least in
political and economic terms . Moreover, as French spread,
it simultaneously strengthened the illusion that i ts place of
origin remained ( even today) the privileged womb and pro­
moted the belief that this language had some kind of uni­
versal value that had nothing whatsoever to do with the
areas into whic h i t had actually spread. Consequently, the
situational competence of the language became overvalued
and at the same time "upheld" in i ts place of origi n . A gen­
eralizing universal is always ethnocentric. This movement,
which is centripetal, is the opposite of the elementary, bru­
tal expansion of Anglo-American, which doesn ' t bother
itself with values or worry much about the future of the Eng­
lish language, as long as the sabir obtained in and through
this expansion works to maintain actual domination . Impe­
rialism ( th e thought as well as the reali ty of empire ) does
not conceive of anything universal but in every instance is a
substitute for it.

We can see another difference in the relationship, whether

manifest or latent, of these vehicular languages to the ver­
nacular or composite or subversive languages with which
they have been i n contact. Attempts have been made to
understand why, during European expansion in the
Caribbean, only French gave rise to compromise lan­
guages-the francophone Creoles-that get away from it and
at the same time remain dangerously close. O ther languages
that spread into these regions permi tted only pidgins or sub-

1 17
versive practices inscribed wi thin the language itself or dis­
ti nctive features that only emphasized regional cul tural char­
acte ristics, wi thout, apparen tly, calling into question the
organic unicity of each of these veh icular languages. * The
result of this is that Spanish, for instance, really became the
national language of Cubans and Colombians, wi th n o spec­
tacular problems or ackn owledged conflicts. Th is did not
happen wi th French. The language underwe n t far greater
changes when it became Quebecois; it was not able to serve as
an unproblematic national language for th e states of former
French-speaking Africa; nor-because of diglossia-could it
"naturally" be the language of inspiration for the people of
the An tilles or Reunion . * *
Despite these diffe rences i n si tuation , one cannot h e l p b u t
notice that, in varying degrees o f complexity, there exist sev­
eral English , Spanish, or French languages ( no t coun ting the
Anglo-American sabir that everybody readily uses ) . Whatever
the degree of complexity, the one thing henc e forth out­
moded is th e prin ciple (if� not the reality) of a lan guage 's
intangible unicity. Multiplici ty Ja�s invaded vehicular lan­
guages and is an in ternal part of them h·om n ow on, even
when--like Spanish-they seem to resist any cen trifugal
movement. What does th is mul tiplicity consist of? The
implicit ren un ciation o f an arrogan t, monolingual separate­
ness and the temptation to participate in worldwide entan­
gleme n t.

We can deduce three resul ts of th is: fi rst, the bolstering of old

oral, vernacular, or composite languages, their fixing and
*What I call C reole h e re ( an d con trary, perhaps, to the rules ) is a lan­
guage wh ose lexicon and syntax belong to two h e teroge n eous l i nguistic
masses: Creole is a compro m ise. \Vhat I call p i dgin i s a lexical and syn­
tactical re frnrn i n g within the m ass of a s i n gle language, with an agg.res­
s ive will to deformatio n , which is what disti nguishes pidgin from a
dialect. Both practices arc p roducts of an ac tive crcoli1ati o n .
* *What I cal l d iglossia (an i d e a t h a t m ade i ts appearance i n l i n guistics,
though l ingu i s ts say i t doesn ' t work ) is the domination of one l an guage
over one or several oth e rs in the same regi o n .

1 18
transcription , will necessarily be subjected to the hazards of
this internal complexity that is now part of the system ofl an­
guages. It would be almost futile and even dangerous to
defend these languages from a monolinguistic point of view,
because this would enclose them within an ideology and a
practice that are already outmoded. Next, any method of
learning or translation today has to take into accoun t this
in ternal mul tiplicity of languages, which goes even further
than the old divisions of dialects that were peculiar to each
language. Finally, and this observation is how the process
operates, the share of opacity allotted to each language,
whether vehicular or vernacular, dominating or dominated,
is vastly increased by this new multiplicity. The situational
competence of each of the languages of our world is overde­
termined by the complexity of these relationships. The inter­
nal multiplicity of languages h ere confirms the reality of mul­
tilingualism and corresponds to it organically. Our poetics
are overwhelmed by it.
I t is, therefore, an anachronism, in applying teaching or
translation tech niques, to teach the French language or to
translate into the French language. It is an epistemological
anachronism, by means of which people continue to con­
sider as classic, h ence e ternal, something that apparently
does not "comprehend" opaci ty or tries to stand in the way of
it. Whatever the craven purist may say (and he h as neither
E tiemble's arguments nor his force of conviction , hunting
down sabirs ) , there are several French languages today, and
languages allow us to conceive of their unicity according to a
new mode, in which French can no longer be monolingual.
If language is given in advance, if it claims to have a mission,
it misses out on the adventure and does not catch on in the
world.

The same is true for those languages that are currently strug­
gling inside the folklore pigeonhole. Through fixation and
new methods of transcription they are trying tojoin into the
baroque chorus, the violent and cunningly extended frame-

1 19
work of our in tertextuality. But because i n tertextuality is nei­
the r fusion nor confusion, if it is to be frui tful and capable of
transcendence, the languages that e nd up involved in it must
fi rst have been in charge of their own specificities. Conse­
quently, i t is all the more u rgen t to carefully u n tangle
moments of diglossia. If one is i n too much of a hurry to join
the concert, there is a risk of mistaking as autonomous par­
ticipation something that is only some disguised leftover of
former alienations. Opaci ties must be preserved ; an appeti te
for opportune obscurity in translation must be created; and
falsely convenient veh icular sabirs must be relen tlessly
refu ted. The fram ework is not made of transparency; and it i s
n ot enough t o assert one's righ t t o linguistic diffe rence or,
conversely, to i n te rlexicalit:y, to be sure of realizing them.

It would be worthwhile fo r someone who works with lan­

guages to reverse the order of questions and begin his
approach by shedding light on the relations of language­
cultu re-si tuation to the world. That is, by con templating a
poetics. Otherwise, he runs th e risk of turning in circles
with in a code, whose fragile fi rst stirrings he stubborn ly
i nsists on legitimizi ng, to establish the illusion that it is sci­
e n tifi c, doing so at the very poi n t i n this concert that lan­
guages would already have slipped away toward other, frui tful
and unpredictable controversies.

1 20
 The Black Beach

The beach at Le D iamant on the southern coast of Mar­

tinique has a subterranean, cyclical life. During the rainy sea­
son, hivernage, it shrinks to a corridor of black sand that you
would almost think had come from the slopes above, where
Mont Pelee branches out into foliage of quelled lava. As if the
sea kept alive some underground intercourse with the vol­
cano's hidden fire . And I imagine those murky layers undu­
lating along the sea floor, bringing to our airy regions a con­
voy of this substance of night and impassive ashes ripened by
the harshness of the north.
Then the beach is whipped by a wind not fel t on the body;
it is a secret wind. High waves come in, lifting close to the
shore, they form less than ten meters out, the green of cam­
peche trees, and in this short distance they unleash their
countless galaxies. Branches of manchineel and seagrape lie
about in havoc , writing in the more peaceful sunlight a m em­
oir of the night sea's work. Brown seaweed piled there by the
invisible assault buries the line between sand and soil.
Uprooted coconut palms have tumbled sideways like stricken
bodies. Along their trail, all the way to the rocky mound
marking the distant Morne Larcher, one can sense the power
of a hurricane one knows will come.
Just as one knows that in careme, the dry season , this
chaotic grandeur will be carried off, made evanescent by the
return of white sand and slack seas. The edge of the sea thus
represents the alternation (but one that is illegible) between

121
order and chaos. The established municipali ties do their best
to m anage th is constan t movement between threatening
excess and dreamy fragility.
Th e movement of the beach, this rhyth m i c rh etoric of a
shore, do not seem to m e gratui tous. They weave a circularity
th at draws me in.
Th is is where I fi rst saw a ghostly young man go by; his tire­
less vvandering traced a frontier between the land and water
as invisible as floodtide at night. I ' rn not sure what he was
called, because he no longer answered to any given nam e .
O n e morning he started walking a n d began t o pace up and
down the shore . He refused to speak and no longer admitted
the possibil i ty of any language. His mother became desper­
ate ; his friends tri ed in vain to break down th e barrier of total
silence. He didn ' t get angry; he didn 't smile; he would move
vaguely when a car missed him by a hair or threatened to
knock him down . He walked, pulling the belt of his pan ts up
around his waist and wrapping it tigh ter as his body grew
thinner and thinner. It does n ' t feel righ t to have to represe n t
someone s o rigorously adrift, s o I won ' t try t o describe him .
What I wo uld l i ke to show is the nature of this speechlessness.
All the languages of the world had come to die here in the
quiet, tortured r�jection of what was going on all around him
i n this country: another constant downward drift yet one per­
formed with an anxious satisfaction; the obtrusive sounds of
an excitement that is not sure of i tself, the pursui t of a hap­
piness that is limited to shaky privileges, the imperceptible
numbing effect of quarrels taken to represent a m�jor battle .
All this h e rejected, casting u s out to the edges of h is silence.
I m ade an attempt to communicate with this absence. I
respected his stubborn silence, but ( frustrated by my inability
to m ake myself "understood" or accepted) wan ted noneth e­
less to establ ish some system of relation wi th this walker that
was not based on words. Since he went back and forth wi th
the regularity of a metronome in front of the li ttle garden
between our house and the beac h , one day I called him

1 22
silently. I didn 't exactly know what sign to make-it had to be
something neither affected or condescending but also not
critical or distant. That time he didn 't answer, but the second
or third time around (since without being insistent I was
insisting) he replied with a sign that was minute, at least to
my eyes; for this gesture was perhaps the utmost he was capa­
ble of expressing: "I understand what you are attempting to
undertake. You are trying to find out why I walk like this­
not-here. I accept your trying. But look around and see if it's
worth explaining. Are you, yourself, worth my explaining this
to you? So, let's leave it at that. We have gone as far as we can
together. " I was inordinately proud to have gotten this
answer.
It was really a minute, imperceptible signal, sort of seesaw­
ing his barely lifted hand, and it became (because I adopted
it as well) our sign of complicity. It seemed to me that we were
perfecting this sign language, adding shades of all the possi­
ble meanings that chanced along. So until my departure we
shared scraps of the language of gesture that Jean:Jacques
Rousseau claimed preceded all spoken language.
I thought of the people struggling within this speck of the
world against silence and obliteration . And of how they-in
the obstinacy of their venture-have consented to being
reduced to sectarianism, stereotyped discourse, zeal, to con­
voy definitive truths, the appetite for power. And also of what
Alain Gontrand has described so well as "our masquerades of
temperament." I thought about those people throughout the
rest of the world (and the rest, moreover, is what is on the
move) who have not had the opportunity to take refuge, as
this walker has, in absence-having been forced out by raw
poverty, extortion, famines, or massacres. It is paradoxical
that,so many acts of violence everywhere produce language at
its most rudimentary, if not the extinction of words. Is there
no valid language for Chaos? Or does Chaos only produce a
sort of language that reduces and an nihilates? Does its echo
recede into a sabir of sabirs at the level of a roar?

123
The beach, however, h as con fi rmed i ts volcanic n ature. The
water now runs along the sea wall of rocks h eaped there, a
souvenir of former h urricane damage, Beulah or David. Th e
black sand glistens under the foam like peeling skin. The
shoreline is cornered, up among coconut palms that now
s tand in the sea, hailing wi th their foliage-so perfectly
suited--the energy of the deep. We gauge the more and
more drastic shri nkage as the winter season s trengthens.
Then, abruptly, at least for those of us atten tive to such
c hanges, the water subsides, daily creating a wider and wider
grayish strip. Don ' t get the idea that this is a tide. But, s till, i t
i s on t h e ebb ! T h e beac h , a s it broadens, i s t h e precursor of a
future careme.
It seemed to me that the silent walker accelerated th e
rhythm of his walks. And that exhilaration also infected the
surrounding country. At all costs we wanted to imi tate the
motion we felt everywhere else, by synthesizing, agi tating,
and speeding everything up ( n oise, speech , things to eat and
drink, zouc, automobiles ) . Forgetting ourselves any way possi­
ble in any kind of speed .
Then, in this circularity I haunt, I turned my efforts toward
seeing the beach 's backwash i n to the nearby eddying void as
the equivalent of the circling of this man compl e tely with­
drawn into his motor forces; tried to relate them , and myself
as wel l , to this rhythm of the world that we consent to witho u t
being able t o measure or control its course . I though t how
everywhere , and in how many different modes , it is the same
necessity to fit i n to the chaotic drive of totality that is at work,
despite being subj ected to the exaltations or numbing effects
of specific existences. I thought about these modes that are
j us t so many common places: the fear, the wasting away, the
tortured extinction, th e obstinate means of resistance, the
naive belief, the famines that go unmen tioned, the trepida­
tion , the stubborn determination to learn , the imprison­
ments , the h opeless s truggles, the withdrawal and isolation ,
the arrogan t powers, the blind weal th , the maintenance of
the status quo, th e numbness, the h idden ideologies, the

1 24
flaunted ideologies, the crime, the whole mess, the ways of
being racist, the slums, the sophisticated techniques, the sim­
ple games, the subtle games, the desertions and betrayals, the
unshrinking lives, the schools that work, the schools in ruin,
the power plots, the prizes for excellence, the children they
shoot, the computers, the classrooms with neither paper nor
pencils, the exacerbated starvation, the tracking of quarry,
the strokes of luck, the ghettos, the assim ilations, the immi­
grations, the Earth's illnesses, the religions, the mind's ill­
nesses, the musics of passion, the rages of what we so simply
call libido, the pleasures of our urges and athletic pleasures,
and so many other infinite variations of life and death . That
these commonplaces, whose quan tities are both countless
and precise, in fact produced this Roar, in which we could
still hear intoned every language in the world. Chaos has no
language but gives rise to quantifiable myriads of them. We
puzzle out the cycle of their confluences, the tem po of their
momentums, the similarities of their diversions.

The beach now undergoes tempestuous change. The sand is

the color of confusion , neither dull nor bright, and yet it suits
the quality of the atmosphere and wind. The sea is unseason­
ably foamy: one feels that it will soon subdue the attacks on
shoaling rocks. It is haloed by flickering surfaces. As if this
reality ( the sand, the sea trees, the volcano's conductive
water) organized its economy according to a cyclical plan,
buttressed by disorder. Those fantastic projects set up every
two years or so to save the country crossed my m ind: every
one of them determined by notions of subjection and
inevitably destroyed, swallowed up by personal profit. I won­
dered whether, in little countries such as ours ( "I believe i n
the future o f little countries" ) , economic prospects ( their
inspiration) ought not to be more like the beach at Le Dia­
mant: cyclical , changeable , mutating, running through an
economy of disorder whose detail would be meticulously cal­
culated but whose comprehensive view would change rapidly
depending on different circumstances.

1 25
 v\Th en, in fact, we lis t unme thodically some of the realms
demonstrati ng every level of economic developm e n t in a
coun try like this-the infrastructure and i ts main tai nence,
the terms of investme n t, the budget of the state (what s tate? ) ,
professional training, the search for prospects , enerf..,ry
sources (what sources? ) , unemployment, the will to create,
Social Securi ty coverage , taxes, union dialogue, the i n ternal
market, import-export, capi tal accumulation, the division of
the n ational product ( of what nation? ) --every single one is
i n c risis, nonexiste nt, or impossible ; not one has summoned
i ts i nspiration from i ndependent political power; furthe r­
more, all are products of struc tural disorder inheri ted from
colonization , which no aqj ustmen t of pari ty (between the for­
mer colony and the former home country) and, moreover,
no planning of an ideological order could ever remedy.
That is what we have to shake off. To return to the sources
of our cultures and the mobili ty of their relational content, in
order to h ave a better appreciation of th is disorder and to
m odulate every action according to it. To adapt action to the
various possibilities i n turn : to the subsistence economy as i t
existed o n the Plantation fri nges; to a m arket economy as the
contemporary world imposes it upon us; to a regional econ­
omy, in order to reuni te wi th the reality of our Caribbean sur­
roundings; and to a con tro ll ed econ omy whose forms have
been suggested by what we h ave learned from the sciences.
To forsake the singl e perspective of an economy whose
cen tral mechanism is maxi mum subsi dization , that h as to be
obtai ned at the wh im of an oth er. Obsession with these subsi­
dies year after year clots though t, paralyzes i n i tiative, and
tends to distribute the manna to th e most exuberant, n eglect­
i n g perh aps th ose wh o are the most effective .
An economy of disorder, which , I now recal l , Marc Guil­
laume had turned i n to a completely differe n t theory ( l�lo�e
du desordre, Gallimard, 1 9 78 ) , but perhaps it is one that would
be akin to what Samir Ami n said about autocentric
economies. Madness ! was my fi rst though t. Then-madness !

1 26
 they jeer. But th is is madness made up of considerable possi­
bil i ties of reflection for experts in the matter.
Here acceleration becomes the most importa n t virtue. Not
the deliberately forgetful haste prevailing everywhere but an
i n tense acuten ess of though t, quick to change i ts h eading.
The capabili ty of varyin g speed and direction at any mome n t,
without, however, chan gi ng i ts nature, i ts i n tention, or i ts
wil l , might be perhaps the optimal principle for such an eco­
n omic syste m . Course changes would be dependent on a
h arsh analysis of reality. As for s teadfastness of i n tenti on and
will, this we would forge as we come to know our c ultures.

This acceleration and speed race across the Earth. "And yet,
it does turn ! " Galileo 's aside did not simply determine a new
order i n our knowledge of the stars; it prophesied the circu­
larity of langu ages, the convergent speed of cultures, the
a utonomy (in relati o n to any dogma) of the resultan t energy.
But, while I was wandering like this, a silence as d izzying as
speed and disorder gradu ally rose from the uproar of the sea.
The voi celess man who walks keeps on carti n g his black
sand from a distant vol cano known only to h imself, to the
beaches he pretends to share with us. How can he run faster
when h e i s growin g so desperately thi n ? One of us whispers:
"He goes faster and faster because if h e stops, if he slows
down-he will fall . "
We are not going a n y faster, w e are all hurtlin g onward­
for fear of fall ing.

1 27
 IV

THE O RI E S

Theory is absence, obscure and propitious

 RELATI ON
��

The repercussions of cultures, whether in symbiosis or in

conflict-in a polka, we might say, or in a laghia -in
domination or liberation, opening before us an unknown
forever both near and deferred, their lines ojforce occasionally
divined, only to vanish instantly. Leaving us to imagine their
interaction and shape it at the same time: to dream or to act.

The deconstruction of any ideal relationship one might

claim to define in this interaction, out of which ghouls
of totalitarian thinking might suddenly reemp;rge.

The position of each part within this whole: that is, the
acknowledged validity of each specific Plantation yet at the
same time the urgent need to understand the hidden order of
the whole-so as to wander there without becoming lost.

The thing recused in every generalization of an absolute, even

and especially some absolute secreted within this imaginary
construct oJRelation: that is, the possibility for each one at
every moment to be both solidary and solitary there.
 The Relative and Chaos

We were circling around the thought of Chaos, sensing that

the way Chaos i tself goes aroun d is the opposite of what is
ordinarily understood by "chaotic" and that i t opens onto a
new phenomenon: Relation, or totality in evolution, whose
order is continually in flux and whose disorder one can i mag­
ine forever.

There is a revealing correspondence between the philoso­

phies secreted by the sciences in the West and the concep­
tions commonly held about or imposed upon cultures and
their relations. During the period when positivism was tri­
umphant, culture (and not yet cultures) was conceived of as
monoli thic, culture existing wherever the refinements of civ­
ilization have led to h umanism.* When conceived of in this
manner, culture is presented as purely abstract, the very
essence of this movement toward an ideal . Those who attain
it are responsible for this evolu tion and i ts pilots. They teach
the rest of the world . Montaigne's relativism is forgotten,
shoved through a trapdoor and stifled for more than three
centuries. It required the illustration of the notion of the rel­
ative in the scientific theory of Relativity for an awareness of
the relativism of cultures to prevail . 1
What we commonly grasp of Einsteinian thought is this
*Positivism and humanism have in common the fact that both end up
imposing the reality of an "ideal object" that they have i niti ally defi ned
as value.

1 33
simple connection between Relativity an d the principl e of
th e relative . All the rest lies in am bush wi th in th e bastion of
theorems . Substitu ting or compensating for its lack of direct
access to \Vhat Einstein said, the public h as mythologized the
scientist. This mythmaking is a sign of the exte n t to which the
relative is powerfully presen t for us. To the poin t at wh ich th e
form ula E m c 2 h as become a common place (or common­
=

placc ) 2 th at we use advisedly, th at is for its symbolic freigh t,

without being sure we really appreciate its conten t.
What part of this theory do we retain concerning the sub­
j ec t at hand, when \Ve are not limited by our infirmities as
n onspecialist-;? That there is n o though t of the absolute but
also that the Relation of uncertainty postulated by Heisen­
berg is n o t perh aps the basis for an irreversible probabilism .
(Are "primary" particles subjected to chance? ) For Einstein
Relativi ty is not purely relative. The universe has a "sense"
that is neither chance nor necessity: a geometer god ( th e
same a s Newton 's) , in any case a "powerfu l a n d mysterious
reason "-an d n o t, therefore, a malicious spirit, as in
Descartes-provides us with a riddle to decipher. This puzzle
(something to be divined th rough in tuition and verified
th rough experimentation ) "guarantees" the in teractive
dynamics of the u n iverse and of our knowledge of it.
Experimental though t has i ts basis in this interaction and
"guaran tees" in turn that the puzzle vvill not be taken into
realms of the impossible (something will always be there to
grasp ) nor into realms of the absolute (something will always
remain to he grasped) .
The totality within which Relativity is exerted and to which
it is applied, th rough the workin gs of the mind, is not total i­
tarian , therefore : not imposed a priori, not fixed as an
absolute. And, consequently, for the mind, it is neither a
restrictive dogmatism nor the skepticism of probabilist
though t.
Consen t to cul tural relativism ( "each h um an cul ture has
val ue in its own milieu, becoming eq uivalent to every other in
the ensemble" ) accompanied the spreading awareness of,

1 34
and adherence or at least habituation to, the idea of Relativ­
ity.
This cultural relativism has not always come without a
tinge of essentialism, which h as col ored even the concepts
that contributed to challenging the domination of conquer­
ing cultures. The idea of one Africa, conceived of as undi­
vided, and the theory of Negritude (among French speakers )
are two examples of this frequen tly debated for that very rea­
son.
Furthermore, this relativism in turn has been regarded as
falling into the category of a "golden mean." Here diversity
exists among cultures but does not preven t the formation of
hierarchies among civilizations. Or, at the very least, an
ascent ( regular or intermittent) toward the transparency of a
world-or model- that is universal. And, consequently, for
the mind there is neither totalitarian ethnocentrism nor the
anarchy of a tabula rasa. Montaigne's invaluable idea was
adapted to sui t the tendentious drone of this new version of
h umanism . This form of relativism h as no pertinence to the
relative.
Just as Relativity in the end postulated a Harmony to the
universe, cultural relativism ( Relativity's timid and faltering
reflection ) viewed and organ ized the world through a global
transparency that was, in the last analysis, reductive. This cul­
tural "Society of Nations" could not withstand the maelstrom.
But the dogmatic feeling of superiority and the clever
maneuvers of false relativism were succeeded by an elegant
disenchantment, the acute sense of the futility of it all. If
everything in this maelstrom was equal in fact to everything
else, if the realization of an Earth-totality opened onto
chaos-what was the use? Pervading what should have been
an exhilarating arrival at totality was a flavor of declining
empire, reinforced, perhaps, after World War II by the antag­
onisti c presence of the two Roman empires of our time, the
Uni ted States and the Soviet Union. Both were driven by the
same naive belief, frequently confirmed by reali ty, in their
preem inence over o ther populations. And you might imag-

1 35
ine each of these powers, which , having plen tiful wealth , did
not have to tormen t themselves so, going around muttering
to themselves, "Tonigh t Lucullus will be eating at Lucullus's
table. "
Meanwhile, poor nations, b y their very eru p tion , had
m ade it possible for new ideas to be born : ideas of oth erness,
of difference, of minori ty rights , of the rights of peoples.
These ideas, h owever, seemed only to dust the surface of the
swirl i ng magma. It was not clear h ow anyone could conceive
of the global dereliction of humanities meeting and con­
fronting one another i n the spaces and times of the planet.
Then, bit by bit, an idea came together from scientific
in tuitions: i t was possible to s tudy Chaos without succumbing
to a vertigo of disil lusion over i ts endless transformations.

Let us ven ture two of the directions in which the s trengths of

science either operate or become exasperated.
First, th ere is the directly technological application, which
tends to reactivate a "prqj ective lineari ty" and sets things up,
if not for getting to " th e bottom" of the matter ( possibly
something it will never achieve ) , at l east for discovery or con­
q uest, which are one and the same, of the galactic spaces.
Technological though t is clear about the fact that it wil l never
exhaust the yield of the universe but doesn 't let this scare i t
off. O n the contrary, i t i s stymied by the mystery o f the
infinitely small ( of the "prime elem e n t" ) , dreadi ng the dis­
covery there of an infi nitely receding limit.
The Unified Field Theory constructe d by Einstein
attempted to bridge these two dimensions of the universe
an d define i ts undifferen ti ated unity. But, for the time being,
"dominant" scie n tific though t h as apparently renounced
either supportin g or delving into this theory. I t seems, rathe r,
to have returned to the comfortable empiricism that provides
immense technological power, havi n g decided to devote
i tself principally to "exploration , " and preferably in the
realm of the infinitely large.
This tendency, morever, has become increasingly based on

1 36
 attempts to imagin e or to prove a "creation of the world" ( th e
Big Bang) , which has always been the "basis" o f t h e scien tific
project. The old obsession with filiation carves out a n ew
adornment for i tself. Lineari ty ties i n . The idea of God is
there. And the n otion of legitim acy reemerges. A science of
conquerors who scorn or fear limits; a science of conquest.
The other dire c tion, whi c h is not one, distances i tself
entirely from the thought of conques t; it is an experimental
m editation ( a follow-th ro ugh ) of the process of relation, at
work in reality, among the elemen ts (whether primary or
not) that weave its combinations. A science of inquiry. This
"orientation" then leads to following through whatever is
dynamic , the rel ation al , the chaotic-anything fl uid and var­
ious and m oreover uncertain ( that is, ungraspable ) yet fun­
damental in every instance and quite likely full of instances of
i nvariance.
I t is true that each of these two tendencies relays and rein­
forces each o ther: But the first perpetuates an arrowlike pro­
jection, whereas the second, perhaps, recreates the processes
of circular nomadism . It is also true that dispossessed
regions, countries in the throes of absolute poverty, are iso­
lated from participation . But, though they don 't " count" for
conquering science ( except as a ruthless reserve of primary
material ) , their presence constitutes another material, the
one covered by inquiring science. The subject m at ter of this
science is chaos-monde, one of the modes of Chaos.

This is not a passive participation. Passivity plays no part in

Relation . Every tim e an i ndividual or community attempts to
define i ts place in it, even i f this place is disputed, i t h elps
blow the usual way of thinking off course, driving out the n ow
weary rules of former classicisms, m aking new "follow­
throughs" to chaos-monde possible.
The science of Chaos renounces linearity's potent grip
and, in this expanse/ extensio n , conceives of indeterminacy
as a fact that can be analyzed and accident as measurable. By
rediscovering the abysses of art or the i nterplay of various aes-

1 37
th e tics, scie n ti fic kn owledge thus develops one of the ways
poetics is expressed, reconnecti n g with poetry's earlier ambi­
tion to establish i tself as knowledge.
One can see why philosophies issuing from diffe ren t
"stages" of science have driven successively "established"
ideas of cultures and their en tanglements. I t is because sci­
e n ti fi c i deas always presuppose generalization (uncon­
sciously i n fl uenced by the metaphysics from which th ey freed
themselves) and are suspicious of i t i n each i nstance (as every
poetics in the world i nspires us to be ) . They have finally been
able to u nderstand generalization from the angle of general­
i ty, abandoning filiation 's lineari ty for the surplus of expan­
sive n ess. Th is is h ow the evol ution of cultu res works.
In expanse/ extension the forms of chaos-mondP ( th e
immeasu rable i n te rmixi ng of cultures) are unforeseeable
and fr>retellablc. We have n o t yet begun to calculate their
consequences: the passive adoptions, i rrevocable rejections,
naive beliefS, parallel l ives, and the many forms of confronta­
tio n or consen t, the many syn theses, surpassings, or returns,
the many sudden outbursts of i nventi o n , born of impacts and
b reaking what has produced them, wh ich compose the fluid,
turbulen t, stubborn , and possibly organ ized matter of our
common desti ny.
Is it m eaningful, pathetic, or ridiculous that Chinese stu­
den ts have been massacred i n fro n t of a cardboard re pro­
duction of the Statue of Liberty? Or that, in a Rmnanian
h ouse, hated portraits of Ceau�escu h ave bee n re pl aced by
photographs cut from magazi n es of charac ters in the televi­
sion series "Dallas"? Simply to ask the question is to imagi n e
th e unimaginable turbulence of Relati o n .
Yes, w e a r e just barely begi n n ing t o conceive of th is
im mense friction . The more i t works i n favor of an oppressive
o rder, the more i t calls forth disorder as well. The more i t
produces excl usi o n , the m ore i t generates attraction. It stan­
dardizes-but at every node of Relation we will fi n d callouses
of resistance. Relation is learning more and more to go
beyond j u dgments i n to the u nexpected dark of art's upsurg-

1 38
ings. Its beauty spri ngs from the stable and the unstable,
from the devi ance of m any particular poetics and the clair­
voyance of a relational poetics. The more things i t standard­
izes into a s tate of lethargy, the more rebellious conscious­
ness it arouses.

We wil1 not gai n access to this turbulence through the same

means employed by theoreticians and students of Chaos. We
do not h ave a t our disposal computers capable of following
the flow of cultures, the poetic nodes, the dynamics of lan­
guages, the phases of cul tures in confrontation. Should we
hope that our i m aginary construct of Relation migh t some­
day be "confirmed" in formulas we can read on the monitor
screen? Can accident, wh ich is the j oy of poetics, be tamed
through circuits? Might i t be possible to relate the turbu­
lences of chaos-monde in this way (in and through analysis by
instruments ) to the turbulences of Chaos? Then what would
be the consequences of such an i ntrusion?
Every "virus" ( every accident) , according to Jacques Cour­
sil , is inj ec ted into a computer system; but i t would also be
possible for i t to have been secreted by the system i tself. In
this case i t would be proof that the system "thinks," that, in
short, acciden t is part of i ts nature. This outcome would also
be i nvaluable for safeguarding freedoms, the guarantee that
n o Law could ever b e founded on such a system. What's
more, taking a wild tack with this hypothesis, the virus would
manifest the fractal nature of the system; it would be the sign
of the in trusion of Chaos, the i rremediable indicator, that is,
of the asynchronous nature of the system. Th is i s h ow one
m ight i magine this o ther unimaginable event: the computer,
the privi leged instrument for the analysis of Chaos, would be
i nvaded and i nhabited by the latter. Chaos, turning back
aro und upon i tself, would shut the doors. It would be God.
(At least, i f no one i nven ted o ther instruments of investiga­
tion that could not be contaminated by their obj ec t . ) The
s tubborn determination ofanalytic though t makes it possible
to conti nue infinitely this perspective of deferral . Really, h ow-

1 39
ever, i t is only the human imaginary that cannot be con tami­
nated by i ts o�j ects . Because i t alone diversifies them
infinitely yet brin gs them back, nonetheless, to a foll burst of
unity. The h ighest point of knowledge is always a poetics.

1 40
 Distancing, Determining

Contemporary violence is the response societies make to the

immediacy of contacts and is exacerbated by the brutality of
the flash agents of Communication. 1 It is not all that easy to
forego the comfortable expanses of time formerly allowing
c hanges to occur imperceptibly. In cities this speed becomes
concentrated, and the response explodes. These same mech­
anisms are at work both in cultures of intervention and in
emerging cultures: New York or Lagos.* In the shantytowns
and ghettos of even the smallest cities the same gears engage:
the violence of poverty and mud but also an unconscious and
desperate rage at not "grasping" [ com-prendre] the chaos of
the world. Those who dominate benefi t from the chaos;
those who are oppressed are exasperated by it.
This speeding up of relationships has repercussions on
how the full-sense of identity is understood. The latter is no
longer linked, except in an occasionally anachronistic or
more often lethal manner, to the sacred mystery of the root.
It depends on how a society participates in global relation,
registers its speed, and controls its conveyance or doesn't.
Identity is no longer just permanence; it is a capacity for vari­
ation, yes, a variable-either u nder control or wildly fluctuat­
ing.
The old idea of identity as root, whenever it proves hard to
*The cultures that I call "emerging" are those that do not have at their
disposal the i nstitutionalized-nor, for that matter, improvised-means
of speaking up in the planetary flow of Communication .

1 41
defi ne or impossible to maintain, leads inexorably to the
refuges of generalization provided by the universal as val ue.
Th is is how th e elite populations in southern coun tries have
usually reacted when choosing to ren ounce their own
difficul t defin ition . A generalizing universal reassures th em.
Identi ty as a system of relatio n, as an aptitude fr>r "giving­
on-an d-\vi th " [ domzer-avec] , is, in con trast, a form of violence
that chall enges the general izing un iversal and necessitates
even more s tringe n t clernands for specificity. But it is hard to
keep in balan c e . * Why is th e re this paradox in Rel ation ? \Vhy
th e necessity to approach th e speci fi cities of communities as
closely as possible? To cut clown on the danger of being
bogged down , dil u ted, or "arrested" i n u ndifferen tiated con­
glomerations.
But, in any case, the speed wi th which geocultural e n tities,
aggregates formed thro ugh encoun ters and kinships, change
in th e world is relative . For example, th e re is a real situational
community among the creolizing cultu res of the Caribbean
and th ose of the In dian Ocean (in Reunion or Seychelles) .
H uwever, there is nothing to say that accelerated evolution
will not soon e n tail equally powerful and decisive encou n te rs
between th e Caribbean region and Brazil, or among the
smal l e r An til l ean islands ( both French- and English-speak­
ing) , that will lead to the formation of new zones of relational
communi ty. It would not be possible to base on tological
thi nking on the existence of e n ti ties such as these , whose very
nature is to vary tremendously wi th in Relation. This variation
is, on the con trary, evidence that ontological th ough t no
longer "fun ctions," no l onger provides a foun ding certain ty
that is stock-still , once and for all, in a restric tive territory.
In such an evolution \Ve are j ustified in maintaining the
followi ng principle: "Relation exists, especial ly as th e particu­
l ars that are i ts i n terdependent constitue n t have fi rst freed
themselves from any approximation of dependency."
*Th e re is a growi n g tc11clcnc y in \Vcstern aes t h e t i c t h e o r i e s . from
e t h n o p o c tics to gcopoc t i cs t o cos m o p o e t i cs , to m ake s o m e cl ai m of
go i n g beyo n d n otions or d i m e nsions of i de n t i ty.

1 42
 Gradually, premoni tions of the in terdependence at work
in the world today have replaced the ideologies of national
independence that drove the s truggles for decolonization.
But the absolute presupposition of this interdependence is
that instances of independence will be defined as closely as
possible and actually won or sustained. Because it is only
benefi cial to all (it only stops being a pretext or ruse ) at the
point at which it governs the distancings that are determi­
nant.
One of the most dramatic c onsequences of interdepen­
dence concerns the hazards of emigration. \\Then identity is
determined by a root, the emigrant is condemned ( especially
in the second generatio n ) to being split and flattened. Usu­
ally an outcast in the place he has newly set anc hor, he is
forced into impossible attempts to reconcile his former and
h is present belonging.
Despite their French citizenship, most of th e Antilleans
who live in France, participating in the widespread move­
ment of emigration into this country ( North Africans, Por­
tuguese, Senegalese, etc. ) , h ave not been spared this condi­
tion . It is through a rather impressive turnabout in h istory, in
Martinique, that i ts leaders are now speaking up to suggest
that i t would not, after all, be such a bad thing to participate
in a dignified manner in this citizenship.

Summarizin g what we know concerning the varieties of iden­

ti ty, we arrive at the following:

Root identity
-is founded in the distant past in a vision, a myth of the
creation of the world;
-is sanctified by the hidden violence of a filiation that
strictly follows from this fo unding episode;
-is ratified by a claim to legitimacy that allows a commu­
nity to proclaim i ts entitlement to the possession of a
land, which thus becomes a territory;
-is preserved by being proj ec ted onto other territories,

1 43
 making their conquest legitimate-and through the
proj ect of a discursive knowledge.
Root identi ty therefore rooted the thought of self and of
territory and set in motion the thought of the other and of
voyage.

R.elation identi�y
-is linked not to a creation of the world but to the con-·
scious and contradictory experience of contacts among
cultures;
-is produced in the chaotic network of Relation and not
i n the h idden violence of filiation;
-does not devise any legitimacy as i ts guarantee of enti­
tlement, but circulates, newly extended;
-does not thi n k of a land as a territory from which to
proj ect toward o ther territories but as a place where
one gives-on-and-with rather than grasps.
Relation identity exults the thought of errantry and of
totality.

The shock of relating, hence, has repercussions on several

levels. When secular cultures come i n to contact thro ugh
their intolerances, the ensuing violence triggers mutual
exclusions that are of a sacred nature and for which any
,
future reconciliation is hard to foresee. When a culture that
is expressly composite, such as the culture of Martinique, is
touched by another ( French ) that "entered into" i ts com po-·
sition and conti nues to determine it, not radi cally but
through the erosion of assimilation , the violence of reaction
is in termittent and unsure of i tself. For the Martinican it has
no solid roo tstock i n any sacred territory or filiation. This,
i ndeed, is a case in which specificity is a s tri c t requirement
and must be defined as closely as possible . For this composite
culture is fragile in the extreme, wearing down through con­
tact with a masked colonization.
Consequently, wouldn 't i t b e best j ust to go along wi th i t?
Wouldn ' t it be a viable solution to embellish the alienation ,

1 44
 to endure while comfortably receiving state assistance, with
all the obvious guarantees implied in such a decision? This is
what the technocratic elite , created for the management of
decoy positions, have to talk themselves into before they con­
vin ce the people of Martinique. Their task is all the less
difficult since they use i t to give themselves airs of concilia­
tion, of cooperative h umanism, of a realism anxious to make
concre te improvements in circumstances. Not counting the
pleasures of permissive consumption. Not counting the
actual advantages of a special position, in which public funds
(from France or Europe) serve to satisfy a rather large num­
ber of people ( to the benefit, h owever, of French or Euro­
p ean companies that are more and m ore visible in the coun­
try or castes of bekes converted from former planters into a
tertiary sector and thus won over to the ideas of this elite )
and serve to foster the hopes of an even greater number. *
And i t is true that i n a context of this sort o n e spares one­
self both the sacred violence, which is boundless, and the vio­
lence of absolute destitution , which is spreadin g with such
l ightning speed over h alf the planet. What remains h ere is
only the suppressed and intermittent violence of a commu­
nity convulsively demonstratin g i ts sense of disquiet. What
sense of disquiet? The one that comes from having to con­
sume the world without participating i n it, without even the
leas t idea of it, without being able to offer it anything other
than a vague homily to a generalizing universal. Privilege d
disquiet.
Traumatic reaction is not, h owever, the only form of resis­
tance in Martinique. In a nonatavistic society of this sort
three rallyin g poin ts have grown in strength: relationship
with the n atural surroundings , the Caribbean; defe nse of the

*This year ( 1 990) Martinique, which is an underdeveloped country

with 40 percent unemploymen t, consumed 1 . 3 tons of Iranian caviar
( imported from France) and forty m illion francs' worth of champagne ;
there are 1 73,000 cars registered for its 320,000 inhabitants. A s the tele­
vision newscaster, in a felicitous commentary on these figures, said,
"We 'll do better next year! "

1 45
people's language, Creole; pro tection of the land, by mobi­
lizing everyone. Th ree modes of existence that challenge the
establish ment ( th ree cul tural refl exes that are not without
ambiguity themselves) , that do not link, h owever, the severe
demand for specificity to the in tolerance of a roo t but,
rather, to an ecological vision of Relation .

E cology, goi ng above a n d beyond its concerns wi th what w e

call the e nvi ronment, seems t o u s t o represen t mankind's
drive to extend to the planet Earth the former sacred
though t of Terri tory. Thus, it h as a double orien tation : either
i t can be conceived of as a by-product of this sacred and in
this case he experienced as mysticism , or else this extending
though t will bear the germ of c ri ticism of terri torial though t
( of i ts sacredn ess and exclusiveness) , so that ecology will the n
a c t a s politics.
The politics of ecology has implications for populations
that are decimated or threatened wi th disappearan ce as a
people. For, far from consenting to sacred intolerance, it is a
driving force for th e relational inte rdependence of all lands,
of the whole Earth . It is this very i n terdependence that forms
the basis for e ntitlement. Other fac tors become null and
void.
Concerning th e An tilles, for example, the re is a lot of dis­
cussion concerning th e legitimacy of land "possessi on . "
According t o the mysterious laws o f rootedness (of filiation ) ,
the only "possessors" of the Archipelago would be the Caribs
or their predecessors , who h ave been exterminated. The
restrictive force of the sacred always tends to seek out the firs t
occupan ts o f a territory ( th ose closest t o an o rigi nal "cre­
ation " ) . So, in the Caribbean would this be Caribs and
Arawaks or other older and, consequently, more legitimate
and "dete rmining" populations? The massacre of the Indi­
ans, uprooting the sacred, h as already invalidated this futil e
search. O n c e that had happened, An tillean soil could not
become a territory but, rather, a rh izomecl land. Indeed, Mar··
tinican soil does not belong as a rooted absolute either to the

1 46
 descendants of deported Africans or to the bekes or to the
Hindus or to the mulattoes. But the consequences of E uro­
pean expansion ( extermi nation of the Pre-Columbians,
im portation of new populations) is precisely wha t forms the
basis for a n ew relationship with the land: not the absolute
ontological possession regarded as sacred but the complicity
of relati on. Those who h ave e ndured the land's constraint,
who are perhaps mistrustful of i t, who have perhaps
attempted to escape it to forget their slavery, have also begun
to foster these new connecti ons with i t, in which the sacred
i n tolerance of the root, with i ts sectarian exclusiveness, has
no longer any share .
Ecological mysticism relies on this intolerance. A reac­
tionary, that is to say i nfertile, way of thinki n g about the
E arth, i t would almost be akin to the "return to the land"
championed by Petain, whose only i nstinct was to reactivate
the forces of tradition and abdication while at the same tim e
appealing t o a wi thdrawal reflex.
In Western countries these two ecological options ( politi­
cal and mystical) come together in acti on . Still, one cannot
ignore the differences that drive them. Not acknowledgin g
these differenc es i n o u r countries predisposes us i n favor o f
mimetic practices t h a t a r e either quite simply imported
because of the pressures of Western opinion or else the bag­
gage of standardized fashion, such as j ogging and hiking.
We end up every time with the following axi o m-on e n o t
given i n advance: Pronouncing one's specific i ty is n o t
enough i f one is t o escape t h e lethal, indistinct confusion o f
assimilations; this specificity still has t o b e p u t into action
before consenting to any outcome.
But the axiom, though not a priori , is unbending when
applied. A perilous equilibrium exists betwee n self�knowl­
edge and another's practice. If we are to renounce i n toler­
ances , why h old out against outright consent? And , if we are
to follow our freedom to i ts "logical consequences," why not
have the right to confirm i t i n a radical negation of the
O ther?

1 47
 These di lemmas have their own particular areas of appli­
cation to govern . Such as the need for poor coun tries to exer­
cise self-sufficiency that is economically and physically sus­
taining. Such as the defi n i tion of how forms o f independence
are experienced or hoped for. Such as the putting into prac­
tice of ethnotechn ology as an instrum e n t of self-sufficien cy.
Never h ave obligations been so chancy in reali ty.

To oppose the disturbing affective standardization of peo­

ples, whose affec t has been diverted by the p rocesses and
products of in ternational exchange , either consented to or
imposed, i t is necessary to renew the visions and aesthetics of
relating to the earth .
But, since sensibilities have already been diverted widely
by these processes of exchange, i t will not be easy to get any­
one to replace produc ts bearing an i n tense relational charge,
such as Coca-Cola, wheat bread, or dairy butter wi th yams ,
breadfruit o r a revived production o f madou, mabi or any
o ther "local" products . All the more since products of this
sort, whose excellence depends on their fragil ity, do not tend
to keep well, wh ich is one of the secre ts of large-scale com­
m erce. Standardization of taste is "managed" by the indus­
trial powers.
There are plenty of native Martinicans who will confess
that when they were children they used to hate breadfrui t ( a
staple vegetable a n d , therefo re , intimately associated with
the idea of poverty and the reality of destitution ) . Then the
reverse has become true with age, especially for those who
have l ived for a long time away from the island-they have
acquired a lasting taste for it. Any survey taken would show
the same to be true today for most of the children in Mar­
tinique. With a fierce " tchip ! " of the lips, children reject even
the though t of breadfrui t and relish the idea of dried
sausage . I n coun tries i n whic h i mports reign , childh ood is
the fi rs t deportee.
I made note of someone who, claiming to criticize novel­
ists from Martinique whose vision of reali ty is expressed in

1 48
 the poetics of a language irrigated by Creole, spoke disdain­
fully of " dachinisme" ( from the word dachine [ dasheen] , or
C hinese cabbage, another local vegetable ) . Thus, the same
negativity is used to punish any production that does not con­
sent to international s tandardization or conform to the gen­
eralizing universal.
In rich nations, in whic h imports are balanced with more
or less difficulty by exports and in which, consequently, for­
eign goods offered for consump tion are exchanged more or
less indirectly against local pro duction, it is easier to main­
tain equilibrium between the l evels. The international prod­
uct h as a less severe impact on sensibilities; "desire" for it is
not so implacable.
In poor countries any appeal for self-sufficiency grounded
solely in economics and good sense is doomed to failure.
Good sense is of no consequence in the tangle of world Rela­
tion. Sensibilities have become so profoundly contaminated,
in most cases, and the h abit of material comfort is so well
established, even in the midst of the greatest poverty, that
political dic tates or proclamations are inadequate remedies.
Here , as elsewhere, one must figure out h ow much we have
to conse n t to the planetary evolution toward standardization
of consumer products ( th e present course in M artinique,
with French produc ts widely imported) and h ow much we
should push for inve n tion and a new sensibility in association
with "national" products .
This is where the imagination and expression of an aes­
thetics of the earth-freed from quaint naivete, to rhizome
instead throughout our cultures' understanding-become
i ndispensable.

It is certainly true that we do not work the land, are no longer

the country people we used to be, with our same old instinc­
tive patience . Too many international parameters come i n to
this relationship . A man involved in agriculture is inevitably a
m an involved in culture: h e can no longer produce inno­
c ently.

1 49
 Dai ly we hear about how occupations con nected \Vi th th e
land are among the sorriest that exist. Th e farmer's tradi­
tional sol i tude has become exacerbated by th e embarrassed
th ough t that his work is anac h ronistic, in deve loped coun­
tries, or pathetic , in poor coun tries. In the former he strug­
gles against pro duc tivity, taxes, m arkets, and surplus; in th e
latter against dust, th e lack of tools, epidem ics, and short­
ages. Roth here and there the display of technological weal th
overwhelms h i m . It would be obnoxious to indulge in idiotic
praise of the peasantry when i t is going downhill this way
everywhe re . Will it die, or will i t be transformed into a reserve
labor force for advanced techniques?
It is said-·a commonplace-that the future of hum an i ty is
at stake, un less, before extinction, such techniques make pos­
sible the m assive production of artificial foods that would
take care of the richest. Picture an uncultivated land when
the factories producing syn the tics have provided enough for
the stomachs of th e chosen fe\v. I t would only be used for
leisur e , for a kind of Voyage in which seeking and knowledge
would h ave no place at all . It would become scenery. That i s
what would happen t o o u r countries, since i t i s enti rely possi­
ble that th e aforesaid factori es would never be located i n
them (un less they are really responsible for producing too
much waste) . We would i nhabit Museums of N atural Non­
History. Reactivating an aesth etics of the earth will perhaps
help differ this nigh tmare, air-conditioned or not.
Th is trend tmvard i n ternati onal s tandardization o f con­
sumption will not be reversed unless we make drastic changes
i n the diverse sensibilities of communities by putting forward
the prospect--or at least the possibil i ty-of this revived aes­
thetic con nection wi th the earth .
How can such a poetics be resuscitated, when i ts mind-s,et
dri fts between the obsolete mysticism that we noted and the
mockery of pro duction that is emergin g everywhere? An aes­
thetics of the earth seems, as always, anachronistic or naive :
reactionary or sterile.

1 50
 But we must get beyond thi s seemingly impossible task. If
we don 't, all the prestige (and denaturation ) felt in i nterna­
tionally standardized c onsumption will triumph permanently
over the pleasure of consuming one 's own product. The
problem is that these denaturations create imbalance and
dry things up . Understood in i ts full-sense, passion for the
land where one l ives is a start, an action we must endlessly
risk.

An aesthe ti cs of the earth? In the half-starved dust of Africas?

In the mud of flooded Asi as? In epidemics, masked forms of
exploitation, fl ies buzz-bombing the skeleton skins of chil­
dren? In the frozen silence of the Andes? In the rains uproot­
ing Javelas and shantytowns? In the scrub and scree of Bantu
lands? In flowers encircling necks and ukuleles? In mud huts
crowning goldmines? In city sewers? In haggard aboriginal
wind? In red-light districts? In drunken indiscriminate con­
sumption? In th e noose? The cabin? Night with no candle?
Yes. But an aestheti cs of disruption and intrusion. Finding
the fever of passion for the ideas of "environment" (which I
call surroundi ngs) and "ecology," both apparently such futile
notions i n these landscapes of desolation. Imagining the idea
of love of the earth-so ridiculously inadequate or else fre­
quently the basis for such sectarian intolerance-with all the
strength of charcoal fires or swee t syrup .
Aesthetics o f rupture a n d connection.
Because that is the crux of i t , and almost everything is said
in pointing out that under no circumstances could it ever be
a question of transforming land into territory again . Terri tory
is the basis for conquest. Territory requires that filiation b e
planted a n d legitimated. Terri tory is defi n ed b y i ts lim i ts, and
they must be expanded. A land henceforth h as n o limits.
That i s the reason it is worth defending against every form of
alienation .
Aesthetics of a variable conti n uum, of an invarian t discon­
tinuum.

151
Self-sufficiency can be worked out. With the sole condi tion
that it not end up i n the excl usivi ty of terri tory. A necessary
condition but not e nough to incite the radicalities capable of
savi ng us from ambiguity, rallied together within a land-·
scape-reforming our taste, without our havin g to force our­
selves into it.
Thus, within the pitiless panorama of the worldwide com­
mercial market, we debate our problems. No matter where
you are or what government bri ngs you together into a com­
munity, the forces of this market are going to find you . If
there is profi t to be m ade, they will deal with you. These are
n o t vague forces that you might accommodate out of polite­
n ess; these are h idden forces of inexorabl e logic that must b e
answered with t h e total logic o f your behavior. F o r example,
one could not accep t state assistance and at the same tim e
pretend t o oppose it. You must choose your bearing. And, to
get back to the question raised earlier, simply consenti n g
would not be worth it, in a n y case. Contradiction would knot
the community (which ceases to be one ) with imp ossibilities,
profoundly destabilizing it. The en tire country would
become a Plantation , believing i t operates with freedom of
decision but, i n fact, bein g outer directed. Th e exchange of
goods (in this case in Martinique: the exchange of imported
public money against exported private p rofit) is the rul e .
Bustling commerc e only confirms t h e fragmentation and
opposition to change. Minds get used up i n this superficial
comfort, which has cost them an unconscious, enervating
braining.
This is the dilemma to be resolved. We. have learned that
peremptory declarations, gro unded in the old Manichaean­
ism of liberation, are of n o use here, because they only con­
tribute to reinforcing a stereotypical language with no hold
in reality. These are all liabilities whose dialectics must first be
either realized or bypassed.
Thinking, for example, that e thnotechnology would save
us from excessive importation , protect the vivid p hysical qual­
i ty of the country, fi nd an equilibrium for our drive to con-

1 52
sume, and cement J inks among all the i ndividua]s concerned
with producing and creating amounts to saying that we woul d
return t o a pre technical, artisan level, elevated t o t h e rank of
a system, leaving it to others to take care of providing us with
the spin-off from their dizzying experiments, making us
admi re from afar the achievements of th eir science, and rent­
ing us (but under what conditions) the fruits of their indus­
try. Have something to exchange that isn 't j ust sand and
coconut trees but, instead, the result of our creative activity.
Integrate what we h ave, even if it is sea and sun, with the
adventure of a culture that i s ours to share and for which we
take responsibility.
There is no value to practicing self-sufficiency, or consent­
ing to interdependance, or mastering ethnotechnology,
unless these processes constitute both distancings from and
accord with (and in relation to ) their referent: the multiform
elsewhere always set forth as a monolithic necessity in any
country that is dominated.
We struggle against our problems, without knowing that
throughout the world they are widespread. There is no place
that does not h ave i ts elsewhere. N o place where this is not an
essential dilemma. N o place where i t i s not necessary to come
as close as possible to figuring out this dialectic of interde­
pendencies or this difficult necessity for ethnotech niques.

The massive and diffrac ted confluence of cultures thus

makes every distancing (from a suggested or imposed pre­
norm ) be determinan t but also makes every ( self�) determ i­
nation be a generative distancing.
N ow let us try to summarize the things we don 't yet know,
the things we h ave no current means of knowing, concerning
all the singularities, all the traj ectories, all the histories, all
the forms of denaturation, and all the syntheses that are at
work or that have resulted from our confl uences. How have
c ultures-Chinese or Basque, Indian or Inuit, Polynesian or
Alpine-made their way to us, and how have we reached
them? What remains to us of all the vanish ed cultures, col-

1 53
lapsed or extermi nated, and in what frn-m ? v\lhat is our expe­
rience, even now, of the pressure of dominan t cultures?
Th rough ·what fan tastic accum ulations of how many exis­
tences, both individual and collec tive? Let us try to calculate
the resul t of all that. We will be incapable of doing so. Our
experience of this confluence will forever be only one part of
i ts totality.
No matte r h ow m any studies an d references we accumu­
late ( though it is our p rofession to carry out such th ings ) , we
will never reach the end of such a volume ; knowing this in
advance m akes it possible for us to dwell there. Not knowing
this totali ty is not a weakness. Not wan ting to know i t certai nly
is. Consequen tly, we imagi ne it through a poetics: this i m agi­
nary real m provides the full-sense of all these always decisive
differentiations. A lack of this poetics, i ts absence or i ts nega­
tion, would constitute a failing. *
Similarly, though t of the Other is sterile without the o ther
o f Though t.
Though t of the O ther is the moral generosity disposing
m e to accept th e principl e of al teri ty, to conceive of the world
as not si m pl e an d straigh tforward, wi th only one truth­
mine. But though t of the Other can dwell within me without
m aking me alter course, wi thout "prizing m e open , " without
changing m e wi th in myself. An e thi cal principle, i t is enough
that I not violate it.
The other of Thought is precisely this al teri ng. Then I
have to act. That is the mome n t I change my though t, wi th­
out renouncing i ts con tributi o n . I change, and I exchange .

*I see the extent to wh i c h this i m agin ary appears to m e to have a c e r­

tai n fo rm in spac e : I spoke of c i rc u lari ty ( im i tating, perhaps, those c u r­
vatu res of space-t i me that E i nste i n i nve nted ) and of vol u m e , the sph ere.
ical nature of concepts , of vari ous poetics and th e real i ties of the
rhaos-ttwfl(IP, all o f w h i c h reco nsti t utes ( fo r me) the i m age o f the m o ther
planet, an Eart h that would b e primordial . B u t motheri n g is excl uded
from this sym bolic system-at l east, I bel i eve that i t is. As wel l as the i dea
( so dear to Ari s LO t l e and Ptolemy) of a p e rf ection i n c i rc u larity.

154
This is an aesthetics of turbulence whose corresponding
ethics is not provided in advance.
If, thus, we allow that an aesthetics is an art of conceiving,
imagining, and acting, the other of Thought is the aesthetics
implemented by me and by you to join the dynamics to which
we are to contribute. This is the part fallen to me in an aes­
the tics of chaos, the work I am to undertake, the road I am to
travel. Thought of the O ther is occasionally presupposed by
dominant populations, but with an u tterly sovereign power,
or proposed until it hurts by those under them, who set

themselves free . The other of Thought is always set i n motion

by i ts confluences as a whole, in which each is changed by
and ch anges th e o th e r.

Common sense tells us that the world through which we

move is so profoundly disturbed ( most would call it crazy)
and has such direct repercussions on each one of us that
some are obliged to exist i n absolu te misery and others i n a
sort of generalized suspension . We line one day up after the
o ther, day after day, as if the world did not exist, though daily
it seeks us out with such violence. Yes, we act as if. For if we
s topped to think about i t really we would let everything go. A
commonplace-one I have h eard so often repeated.
To suspend the suspense we have recourse to this imagi­
nary construct of totality, by means of which we transmute fo r
ourselves this m a d state of t h e world i n t o a chaos that w e are
able to contemplate . An imaginary rekindled by the o ther of
Thought. A distancing in relation to the predetermined or
i mposed norm but also prehaps in relation to the norms or
beliefs that we have passively i nheri ted. How can we put this
distancing into practice if we have not fully mastered before­
h and the things that are ours or part of us? Dependencies are
infirmities of Relation, obstacles to the hard work of i ts
entanglement. Independencies, for the same reasons,
despite being uncomfortable o r precarious, are always worth
something.

1 55
The suffering of h uman cultures does not con fine us perma­
nently wi thin a mute actuality, mere presence grievously
c losed. Sometimes this suffering authorizes an absence that
constitutes release , soaring over: though t rising from the
prisms of poverty, unfurling its own opaque violence, that
gives-on-and-with every violence of contact between cultures.
The most peaceful thought is, thus, in i ts turn a violence,
when it imagi nes the risky processes of Relation yet noneth e­
less avoids the always comfortabl e trap of generalization. This
antiviolence violence is n o trivial thing; it is opening and c re­
ation . It adds a full-sense to the operative violence of those on
the margins, the rebels, the deviants, all specialists in distanc­
ing.
The marginal and the deviant sense in advance the shock
of cul tures; they live i ts future excess. The rebel paves the way
for such a shock, or at least its legibility, by refusing to be
cramped by any tradition at all , even when the force of his
rebellion com es fr·om the defense of a tradition th at is
ridiculed or oppressed by another tradition that simply has
m or e power ful means of action. The rebel defends his right
to do his own surpassing; the lives of marginal and devian t
persons take this righ t to extremes.
We have not yet begun to i magine or figure out the resul ts
of all the distancings that are determinant. They have
emerged from everywhere, bearing every tradition and the
surpassing of them all, in a confl uence that does away with
trajectories ( i tineraries) , all the while realizing them i n the
end.
Though the cultural contacts of the moment are terrify­
ingly "immediate ," another vast expanse of time looms
befo re us, nonetheless: it is what will be necessary to coun­
terbalance specific si tuations, to defuse oppressions, to
assemble the poetics. This tim e to come seems as i n finite as
galactic spaces.
Meanwhile, contemporary violence is one of the logics­
organic--of the turbulence of the chaos-monde. This violence

1 56
is what instinctively opposes any though t intending to make
this chaos monolithic, grasping it to control it.

Distancings are necessary to Relation and depend on it: l ike

the coexistence of sea olive and manchineel.

157
 That That

The world's poetic force ( i ts energy) , kept alive within us, fas­
tens i tself by fleeting, delicate shivers, onto the rambling pre­
science of poetry in the depths of our being. The active vio­
lence in reality distracts us from knowing it. Our obligation
to "grasp" violence, and often fight i t, estranges us from such
l ive intensity, as it also freezes the shiver and disrupts pre­
science. But this force never runs dry because i t is its own tur­
bulence . * Poetry-thus, nonetheless, totali ty gathering
strength-is driven by another poetic dimension that we all
divine or babble within ourselves. I t could well be that poetry
is basically and mainly defined in this relati onship of itself to
nothing other than i tself, of dens i ty to volatility, or the whole
to the individual.
This world force does not direct any line of force but
infinitely reveals them. Like a landscape impossible to epito­
mize. It forces us to i magine it even while we stand there neu­
tral and passive.
Borne along by this force or raging to control i t-no t yet
havi ng consented to the greatness that would come from par-

*The idea of this en ergy makes for a good joke: "the Force" is the leit­
motiv for a very famous metaphysical/western movie sequence.

1 59
takin g of i t-it will be a long tim e before we finally recognize
i t as the newness of the world not setting i tself up as anything
new.
The expression of this force and i ts way of being is what we
call Relati o n : what the world makes and expresses of i tself.

When we ask th e question of what is b rought i n to play by

Relation, we arrive at that-there that cannot be split up into
origi n al elements. We are scarcely at liberty to approach the
complete i n te raction, as much for the elemen ts set i n rela­
tion as for the relay mode relentlessly evolving.

v\Te reassure ourselves with this overly vague idea: that Rel a­
tio n diversifies fo rms of human i ty according to infinite
strings of m odels infinitely brough t i nto contact and relayed.
This point of departure does not even allow us to outline a
typology of these contacts or of the interactions thus trig­
gered. Its sole merit would lie i n p roposing that Relation has
i ts source i n these contacts and not in i tself; that i ts aim is n o t
Being, a self-im portant e n ti ty that would l ocate i ts beginnin g
in i tself.
Relation is a product that i n turn produces. vVhat i t pro­
duces does not partake of Being. That is why, without too
much anthropomorphic reductiveness perhaps, we can risk
i ndividuatin g it h e re as a system , so as to speak about i t by
name.

( Bu t if we tried to approach the one obvious fact about

Being, we would arrive at the expedien t poin t of view that n o

1 60
questioning is possible-because Being cannot bear having
any interaction attached to it. Being is self-sufficient, whereas
every question is interactive. )
Prime elements d o n o t ente r into Relation. Any prime ele­
ment would call up the shadow of Being. Lacking any reduc­
tive criteria, the undefinable realities of human cultures are
here looked upon as constituents, i ngredients, with no possi­
bility of our claiming them as primordial. We have ended up
thin king of cultures from a national, ethnic, generic (civiliza­
tional ) angle, as " natural" phenomena of the movement of
interaction that organizes or scatters the world we have to
share .
This way o f considering cul tures has become widespread
through Relation's very involvem ent. It is through this win­
dow that we watch one another reacting together. Before
being perceived as the thing urging us into community, cul­
ture calls to m ind what i t is that divides us from all otherness.
I t is a discriminating fac tor, with no ostensible discrimina­
tion. It specifies without putting aside. This is why cultures
are considered the n atural elements of Relation, without
really calling the latter by name and without, for all that,
their c onstituting i ts prime elements.

Discussing the comparative values of cultures would amount

to m aintaining that cultural values are s table and acknowl­
edged as such.
Conta c t among cultures i nfers, however, a relation of
uncertainty, in the percepti o n one has or the experience one
senses of them. The m ere fact of reflecting the m i n common,

1 61
i n a planetary perspective, i n flects the nature and the "pro­
j ection" of every specific culture contemplated. Decisive
mu tations in the quality of relationsh ips resu lt from th is, with
spectacular consequences that are often thus "experienced"
long before the basis for the chan ge i tself has been perceived
by the collec tive consciousness.
For example, the placid, traditi onal belief i n th e superior­
i ty of wri tten languages over oral languages has long since
begun to be challenged. Wri ti ng no longer i s , nor does i t
appear to be, any guaran tee o f transcendence . The fi rst
result of this was a widespread appeti te for works of folklore ,
som e times wrongly considered t o b e bearers of truth o r
auth en ticity; but th en came a dramatic effort on th e part of
most oral languages to become fixed-that is, to become
aki n to writing, at the very ins tant that the latter was losing i ts
absolute quality. Beh i nd th is c hange i s the oral /wri tten rda­
tionship; i ts fi rst, spectacular result, giving no clear indica­
ti on of the i n teraction, '\Vas the resurgence of folklores.
Henceforth , on e of the least disputed measures of "civi­
lization "-techn ologi cal capability, with i ts basis i n mastery of
sciences and control of economi c factors-will find i tself
bran ded as someth i n g negative ( th e catastrophes of the sor­
cerer's appre n tice) . Ecological protests (which the generic
anxi eties of the science of ecology h ave led up to ) have taken
up this in terru p ted c ry even more resoundi ngly.
Cultu res develop in a singl e plane tary space but to differ­
ent "times . " It would be impossible to determine e i th e r a real
c h ronological order or an unq uestionable h ierarchical order
for these times.
One of the resul ts o f curre n t cultural processes is a wide­
spread anxiety magnifying worries about the future we must
contem plate together; th is is everywhere translated i n to a
need for futurologies. Never, unti l thi s contemporary period,
did any i ndividual culture experience such an i n tense obses­
sion wi th the future . Th e passion for astrology, the predic­
tions and prophesies that were Assyrian or Babylonian i n ori-·

1 62
gin and that spread most actively, perhaps during the Euro­
pean Middle Ages, were far more the products of a synthesiz­
ing or magical thought than anything produced by concerns
about really safeguarding the future. The same held true for
the Mayans and Aztecs or in ancient China. Nor did the
notion of progress, so much tou ted by Vic tor H ugo, take
shape as motifs of anticipation. These days futurology is an
obsession that tends to set i tself up as a science. But any pos­
sible laws of such a science would be stamped by the same
principle of uncertai n ty that governs the metissage of cultures.
Our planetary adventure does no t permit us to guess
where solutions to the problems born in precipita te contact
between cultures will arise. This is why we cannot put a hier­
archical order to the differe n t " times" pressing into this
global space. I t is not certai n that technological time will
"succeed," where e thnotechnical time, not yet decided upon
by cul tures threatened today, would fail. It is not certain that
the time of History leads to confluences any faster or more
certainly than the diffracted times in which the h istories of
populations are scattered and c all out to one another.
Within this problematic, beyond decisions made by power
and domination, nobody knows h ow cultures are going to
react in relation to one another nor which of their elements
will be the dominant ones, or thought of as such . In this full­
sense all cultures are equal within Relation. And altogether
they could not be considered as i ts prime elements .

It is at their undefinable limits, through "precipitate con­

tact," that cultures move. Can we keep them safe, isolate

1 63
the m , "create" them by definition? Can we preserve them
from the fallout (pressure or domi nation ) that will take place
within them? The tendency, reinforced by how situations are
reported, to distinguish between a North and a South , indus­
trialized coun tries and countries existing in absolute poverty,
barely disguises the scorn fel t by the former for the latter.
Nor does it conceal the pitiless, agreed-upon stakes, m ain­
taining and exacerbating distances; nor, alas, the inability of
poor countries on their own, or through decisive effort by
those who govern them , to progress beyond the twilight zone
of deprivation. But th is distinction , san c tioning an estab­
l ished fact, does not permit i ts ful l-sense to be completely iso­
lated. As if the observation and the established fact, obeying
underground l aws, and following their set path , gave rise
around them to an indifference of a n ew sort, which, i n fact,
is neither egoism n or q ui te idiocy, and even less is it igno­
rance or lack of courage . Eroded or standardized forms of
sensibility are thus spread, but by both sides at once of the far
too visible dividing line.

Those are the facts that the planetary consc iousness now
forming and ful ly deculturing must adapt to , confron ted by
this undecipherable m agma.

The re are pseudo force-lines, like so many traces that explain

too much, prophesied in this maelstrom. Planetary con­
sciousness, m anipulated from underground by anyon e
profiting thereby, c reates barriers for i tself. B y confusin g, for
example, State and culture, the notion grows that there is
such a thing as legitimate States ( democracies) , a rank to
which progress will later lead the effective States reported to
be presently places of tyranny and bru te violence. An odd lie,
one that is simultaneously politi cal and cultural . Violence,
which determ ined which human communities sprang up,
today governs the difficult search for some balance in their
relations. The question should not be to transform effe ctive
S tates gradually i n to l egitimate S tates but to work toward

1 64
making there be an effective s tate everywhere corresponding
to the legitimate state.

What is really legitimate is a c ulture in apposition to others,

one that is permeable and determinant. A culture is what
remains after S tates h ave passed away or what precedes them
of necessity. Cultures can be shared when States h ave been in
confrontation. The limi ts-th e frontiers-of a State can be
grasped, but a culture 's cannot.
Pseudo force-lines h ide-at the same time as they autho­
rize-the real ones. Any expression of these real ones pro­
vokes in consciousness an u n heard response of rej e c tion . If
one forces oneself to be specific about developments i n
planetary consciousness, one comes c loser t o o n e o f t h e
dimensions of Relation without ever being in a p osition t o
define its c haracteristics-be c ause unvoiced and h ard-to­
analyze responses of rej ec tion are just as determ i nant i n
such matters as a nything wi th widespread and public
assen t. The rej e c tion apparatus is all the more effe ctive
whe n pseudo force-lines are i mp osed elsewhere through
the proliferation of glamorous fashions tha t provide an
illusion of fruitful i nn ovation . The s uc cession of rapidly
passing fashions, embodime n t and lure of a passion for the
new, is put fo rth as the only guarantee of progress toward
real i ty. It apparently makes a ny patient attempts at imagi n­
i n g Relation obsole t e . It would seem that experiencing
Relation, even if c aricaturall y, abusively, or superficially,
whe th e r manic or totally devoured, would be enough to
sustain it. And that a ttempts at dealing with it in some sus­
tained m anner would fall i n to the category of a pedantic
pomposity that is completely foreign to i ts exacerbated
content.

What we call actuality or curren t events in part is none other

than this transience of fashions, taken to the utmost degree of
exasperation by an infinite number of agents of commotion ,
flash agents .

1 65
What is a flash agen t? To conceive th e question we must first
consider the age-old ways i n which cul tures have in teracted
each time they h ave been in con tact. Not just the in teraction
of their ten dencies toward attraction or repulsion but the
worki ngs of th eir inner struc tures that become modi fied
each time-the n e twork of similari ty or osmosis, or r�j ection
or re naturi ng, that formed, manifested i tself, canceled itself
out, sirn ply because of what could have been called rc1ay
age n ts . Form erly (and by agreem en t ) , these relay agents
needed relative obscuri ty, like a latency period, in relation to
their perception of the results of their action-to really work.
The relay agent was active because, first of all , he wen t unno­
ticed.
Today flash agen ts are the relay agen ts who are in tun e
wi th t h e implici t violence o f contacts between cul tures and
the ligh tn ing speed of techniques of relati on. They send con­
sciousness hurtling i n to the sudden certain ty that it is in pos­
session of th e obvious keys of in teraction or, usually, in to th e
assurance th at it does not n eed such keys . They dictate fash­
ion and common place-these two modern embodiments of
in terrelation .
If these risky keys ( fashion and commonplace ) seem to us
so very obvious, it is because the flash agen ts impress us espe­
cially thro ugh the immediacy ( pure pressure ) of their com­
munication tec h niques. Their action is sufficient unto i tself
here ; th ere is n o s tated ideology of communication. Th e
o n es in con trol of i t in the \Vorld do not even h ave to j ustify
th is con trol . They plai n ly sanction itjust by th e fact that com­
munication is conti nuously in fl ux: that is, i ts "freedom"
made legitimate by i ts topicality, that is, i ts transience.
Relay agen ts, today transformed into f l ash agen ts, tend
thus to reject as i noperable t\vo n o tions that were forrn e rly of
mc_�j or importan ce: the idea of structure an d that of ideolof,ry.
The transform ation of relay i n to flash strikes at th e weak
poi n t of th ese two n o tion s : th eir overemphasized generaliza­
tions in space and ti me. They too, the i dea of stru c ture an d
the idea of ideology, also req uired a latency period to shed

1 66
some ligh t on what they were about. The violent haste of the
present offers them a challenge . Fashion sends the analysis
inferred by ideology drastically off course , and the common­
place scatters the intent preserved in stru cture's thought­
or, at least, this is what they fierc ely claim to do .

1 67
 Relinked, ( Relayed) , Related

It would be impossible to maintain that each particular cul­

ture constitutes a prime element among all those activated in
Relation, since the latter defines the elements thus at stake,
and at the same time it affects (changes) them. Nor could it
be asserted that each particular culture is plainly knowable in
its particularity, since its p roper limit is not discernible in
Relation.
Each particular culture is impelled by the knowledge of its
particularity, but this knowledge is boundless. By the same
token one cannot break each particular culture down into
prime elements, since its limit is not defined and since Rela­
tion functions both in this internal relationship (that of each
culture to i ts components) and, at the same time, in an exter­
nal relationship (th at of this c ulture to others that affect it).
Definition of the internal relationship is never-ending, in
other words unrecognizable in turn, because the compo­
nents of a culture, even when located, cannot be reduced to
the indivisibility of prime elements. But such a definition is a
working model. It allows us to imagine.
Definition of the external relationship could be infinitely
analyzed as well, because, not being plainly composed of
prime-indivisible-elements, no particular culture in turn

1 69
can be consi dere d as aprime element in Relation. The resul t
is th at
we come back to our original propositions, completing
the circle-the round-of our space-tim e . Paradoxically,
every breakthrough toward a defini tion of th is external rela­
ti onship (between cu1 tures) perm i ts us a better approach to
the compone n ts of each of the particular cultures consid­
ered.
Analysis helps us to i magine better; the i m agin ary then
h elps us to grasp the (not p ri m e ) elements of our total ity.
Case by case and society after society, the humani ties , from
anthropology to sociology, have s tudied these s tructural com­
ponen ts and dynam i c relati onshi ps. But none of these disci­
plines forms any conce ption of the overall rhyth m , though
wi thout their work this would be inaccessible.

If we carry over these two movements ( in ternal and external

relationship) to certai n presupposi tions of though t, the
assessment, perhaps, will be that the former is determined by
something related to the physical nature of beings, whe reas
the l atter would follow a course that amounts to an approach
to Being.
The i n ternal relay would be massive, operating directly,
whereas the external relation wou ld be evasive ( expanded ) ,
too swi ft in any case for any possibility of grasping i ts laws of
operation at the moment that they apply.
We shall guard against suggesting, parabolically, that
beings would be solid and Being volatil e nor that a variable
m ass of beings would assume, in con trast, th e infinity of
Bei ng. We m ust, rather, abandon this apposi tion of Bein g
a n d beings: renounce t h e frui tful maxim whereby Being i s
relation, t o consider t h a t Relation alone i s relation .

But Relation is not to be confused with the cultures we are

discussing nor wi th the economy of thei r i n ternal relation­
shi ps nor with the projection of their exte rnal relationships
nor even wi th the intangible results of the intricate i nvolve­
ment of all internal relationships with all possible external

1 70
relationsh ips . Nor is it to be confused with some marvelous
acciden t that might suddenly occur apart from any relation­
ship, the known unknown, i n which chance would be the
magnet. Relation is all these things at once.

The genesis of a particular c ulture could be grasped and i ts

specificity approached withou t having to be defined. The
gen esis of Relation cannot be approached, whereas the
definition of i t can be, if not decided, at least imagined.
If one misj udged the i n tensity of the particularity of a cul­
ture, if one meant to deny the particular value of any culture,
for example, in the name of the universality of an All , the
implication would be either that Relation has i ts principle in
i tself (it would be the u niversal in-itself and only that) or else
that i t relays afferen ts p roviding one another with mutual ref­
erence and consequently leading not to totali ty but to the
totalitarian.

The totalitarian is i n troduced i n to relation on the basis of

some nonprime element (violence, for example, or rac e )
whose definition is overdetermined b u t knowledge o f which,
nonetheless, has lim i ts. Th is totali tarian relation is, i n turn,
approac h able, but i ts definition cannot be imagined.
Because one cannot imagin e a relation-open-among ele­
ments the knowle dge of which has boundaries. Totality, on
the other hand, like Relation, is not approached, but i ts
definition is imaginable .
The difference between Relation and totality lies in the
fact that Relation is active within i tself, whereas totality,
al ready in i ts very concept, is in danger of immobility. Rela­
tion is open totality; totality would be relation at rest. Totality
is virtual. Actually, only rest could, in i tself, be legitimately or
totally virtual . For m ovement is precisely that which realizes
itself absolutely. Relation is m ovement.

Not only does Relation not base i ts principles o n i tself ( rather

with and through the elemen ts whose relationship i t con-

171
ducts ) , but also these principles m ust be supposed to change
as rapidly as the elements thus put i n to play define ( embody)
new relationships and c hange them.
Let us repeat this, chaotically: Relation neither relays nor
links afferents that can be assimilated or allied only in their
principle, for the simple reason that i t always differentiates
among them concre tely and diverts them from the totalitar­
ian-because i ts work always changes all the elements com­
posing it and, consequently, the resulting relationship, which
then changes them all over again .

Relation, as we have emphasized, does not act upon p rime

elemen ts that are separable or reducible . If this were true, it
would i tself be reduced to some mechanics capable of being
taken apart or reproduced. It does not precede i tself in i ts
action and presupposes no a priori. I t is the boundless effort
of the world: to become realized in i ts totality, that is, to evade
rest. One does not first enter Relation, as one migh t enter a
religion. One does not first conceive of it the way we have
expected to conceive of Being.

The thing that makes the understanding of every culture lim­

i tless is precisely the thing that allows us to imagine, without

1 72
approaching it, the infinite in teraction of cultures. Magma in
profusion, tending to empty all though t of ideology, which is
considered inapplicable to such an amalgam. Collective
drives tend more toward the literal and u tilitarian ( the reas­
suring heft of concrete results promoted to the dignity of a
value) or toward the providential and ideal ( the reassuring
determination of a c ause or hero making choices for you ) .
Literal and ideal make good company for each other.
Repressed in this manner, ideological though t ( the need
to analyze, u nders tand, transform) invents n ew forms for
i tself and plays tricks with profusion: i t projects itself into
futurology, which also h as no limits. I t attemp ts, for example,
to create a synthesis with likely applications from the sci­
ences, which gradually leads into theories of model making.
The models claim to base the matter of Relation in relation­
ships; in other words, they claim to catch its movement in the
act and then translate this in terms of dynamic or energized
structures.
Thus, ideological thought and structural though t come
together in their use of m odels to protest against the amal­
gam 's m ixing action . Making models is a (generalizing)
attempt to get beyon d the transient currency of fashion and
the falsely definitive obviousness of the commonplace.

Relation relinks ( relays ) , relates. Domination and resistance,

osmosis and withdrawal, the consent to dominating language
( langage) and defense of dominated languages ( langues) .1
They do not add up to anything clearcu t or easily perceptible
with any certainty. The relinked ( relayed) , the related, can­
not be combined conclusively. Their mixing in nonappear-

1 73
ance (or depth ) shows nothing reveal ing on the surface . Th is
revealer is set asti r wh en the poetics of Relation calls upon
the im aginati on . What best emerges from Relation is what
one senses.
By the same token, wh enever \Ve try to an alyze Relation ,
the analysis as such being in turn an element of relation , i t
seems pointless t o gran t every new proposi tion i n a succes­
sion of convincing exam ples. The example only bears a rela­
tionship to one element of a multiple whose parts are in har­
mony with and repel one another in many areas at once.
Choosin g one exan1 pl e ( i n troducing i t as evidence, using i t
for demonstration ) also unduly privileges one of these areas:
m isperceiving relationsh i p wi thin Relation .
Th e accumulation of examples is reassuring to us but is
outside of any claim to system . Relation cannot be "proved,"
because i ts totality is not approachable. But it can be imag­
ined, conceivable in transport of though t. The accumulation
of exarn ples aims at perfec ting a n ever complete descri ption
of th e processes of relation, not circ um scribing them or giv­
ing legitimacy to some impossi ble global truth . In this sense
the most harmon ious analysis is the one that poetically
describes flyin g or diving. Description is n o pro of; it simply
adds someth ing to Relation insofar as the latter is a syn thesis­
genesis that n ever is corn plete .

Cultu res coin cide i n the historic preci pitousness ( th e

confl uence o f histories ) that has become their common­
place. There is no poi n t nmv to the vast expanses of time ( le t
u s get back t o this) that formerly allowed slow, deep sedi­
men tations to accumulate gradually. They used to authorize,

1 74
unheeded, th us all the more decisive con tacts whose quality
of in terrelation was not immediately forseeable or measur­
able, in the same way that haste today distracts us, spreading
out before our eyes the networks of causality whose workings
we might have been able to discover. The results of unheeded
con tact became as essen tial as original elements , j ust as if
only the internal m ovement of a particular culture h ad
caused them-an infinite and undefinable movement.
Industrialized nations h ave long beat time for this precipi­
tousness, dete rm ining i ts speed and givin g rhythm to trends,
through the contro l they exert over modes of power and
means of communication. The situation worldwide "inte­
grates" cultures becoming exhausted by this speed and oth­
ers that are s tuck somewh e re off by themselves. The latter are
kept in a state of sluggish, passive receptivity i n which fan­
tasies of spectacular development and overwhelming con­
sumption remain fan tasies.

An important principle of the process of interaction is that i ts

force lines can be reported without the report ever havin g
any effect. Contemporary fl ash agen ts ( radios, n ewspapers,
tel evisions, films, and their by-products ) have long ceased to
be capable of producing s u c h effects, but this is because they
spread the radiance of their own dazzle, which is only the
reflection of force lines that go unnoti ced. For that matter
this is possibly the quickest rou te to identifyin g the lines of
force thus revealed ( i dentification being made not through
reflection but through the sort of diffracted provocation that
is the mark of these agents ) .
What is apparen tly an infinite regression ( th e accumula­
tion of commonplaces that are publicly shared and cele­
brated in epheme ral rituals ) thus withstands the presume d
barbaric nature of fashion but at t h e same tim e delineates
the evolving d�pth of Relation . It is n o longer easy to spot the
possible i nfluence of any group of i ndividuals or works
belonging to an "elite," except at the limited s tage of some
tec h nical or scientific specialization that is tacitly recognized

1 75
wi thout veri fi cation . Proof by elite has ceased to count. The
enormous divagation replacing i t leaves no time for retreat
or re-seizure.
Such an analysis, whose gears start to engage at the place
where flash agen ts are generated ( roughly, the i ndustrialized
coun tries ) , is absolutely vali d for those subj ected to i ts i mpo­
sition ( ro ughly, the countries existing in absolute poverty) .
We will never be able to l ist all the commonplaces echoing
thro ughout Relation: an idea rerun across many, i n p ri nci­
ple, heterogeneous fi elds; repetitions ( i n a rudimentary and
caricatural but immediately triumphant form ) by flash
agents of some reflected-upon i nformation , whi c h moreover
had gon e under and vanishedjust because it was a reflection,
that is, suspiciously deep; baroque assemblages of force lines
that i n tensify in unexpected places, etc.

The commonplace ( defined as the manifestati on by some

flash agen t of a maj or, latent, or unsuspected line of forc e )
thus immediately acquires a neutral power whose side effects
are spectacle and swift passage. Even the very notion of fash­
ion is outrun at this speed. Indeed, what we have is a
sequence of moments of inebriation whose sense no fash ion
could fathom. Commonplaces are rambling, ephemeral par­
ticles within communication , this cold nodule; all the ideas
are i n the air, but it is the public manifestation of these
( pushed, whenever p ossible, to the limit or simplified) that
counts. (Thus, the commonplace, lieu-commun, wi th i ts
hyph e n in French between the two terms articulating and
consti tuting i t, is the spectacular manifestation of this open
and mysterious poetic n ecessity-the common place. ) 2 What
is public, therefore, is fi rst spectacular. The conclusion i s
immediately obvious: t h e cultures apart,* w h o are receivers
of this manifestation of the spectacular but not i ts generators,
h ave no thought that counts.
A particular culture can pretend to function off on the
*Apart is not the same as what was formerly peripheral: i t refers to de
facto dependence, no longer a dependence by Law.

1 76
sidelines (because of being cut off from relay lines or because
it has no flash agents or because it chose, defining its own
dazzle to scorn such lines ) , but it nonetheless plays a part­
because things couldn ' t be o therwise-as an active relay of
Relation.
The relaying action of cultu res does not depend on their
will or even their power to relay. The consequences of the
succession of relays go beyond the occasion of the first relay,
or the original relay, which claimed to have started it all. The
inadequacy of this claim is revealed when the sequence s tops
or becomes realized i n another area or another cycle. This is
why Relation, which is the world's newness, drives every pos­
sible fashion faster and faster. In contrast with the parade of
fashions, Relation does not p resen t i tself as anything new.
Indiscriminately, i t is newness.

Any presence-even though i t is ignored-of a particular

culture, even a silent one, is an active relay in Relation. Could
passive relays exist? Of course not, but in any case there are
neutral relays. A factor that is c onsumed in its own dazzle : the
interven tion of one S ta te on the territory of another, geno­
cide, the universal triumph of a way of life, generalization of
a s tandardized product, humanitarian aid, an international
institution, commercial exchange on a large or small scale,
the ritual demonstration of sports gatherings, the great plan­
e tary swell of gut-wrenching m usic . . . . All these are direct
agents, in fact, but ones whose relay is not directly perceived
to the extent that what is spec tacular about the agent over­
rides the continuum of i ts effect, and m asks i t through the
very organization of its spectacle. The difficulty one has in

1 77
discernin g the effects of interaction is what allows one to dif..
feren tiate between neutral and active age n ts. A cultural p res­
ence can be active and ignored, whereas an i n terven tion can
be, on th e con trary, spectacular and n eu tral . Here the neu­
tral is not th e i neffective but, rather, what is concealed
beneath the spectacle. The active is not dominant; i t acts in
the continu um .
Flash agen ts transform i n to a neutral relay ( n eu trali zed i n
t h e dazzle o f i ts manifest pro ofs ) th e very thing that formerly
fun ctioned as an ac tive relay, one not immediately perceived
but long rendered dynam ic by relay agents.
In consequence, we know what these relay agen ts are
today: they are echos-monde workin g with the matter of Rela­
tion. And, conversely, we can define the scope of the tactics of
flash agents; they li terally reflect this matter, their reflecti on s
manifesti ng i ts violence wi thout shedding a n y ligh t on it or
shifti ng i t or c h an ging it.

Anyone who wishes to i ntervene i n modes of Relati on (color­

i n g, balanci ng, changing them perhaps ) will find his action
on unsure footin g because of th is i n de terminacy between
active and neutral relays. This is why such an in tervention "in
Relation" can only really happen "in a place," one simultane­
ously closed in on i ts components and open to i ts returning
echoes. There is no generalizable strategy of action in Rela­
tion that can be developed. Ideology has increased i ts "disci­
pli ned" etI<xts to go beyond this stubborn limit, precisely by
making generalizations: the p roletariat's final role, perma­
nent revolution , a nation 's civi l izing mission, universal
defense of freedom, or even the anticommun ist c rusade (we
h ave to hope that oppressors of every stripe will soon fi nd this
pretext lacking) , e tc . These attempts at repossession or
global action run up against the singularities of Relation
every time. Relation is only universal thro ugh th e absolute
and specific quanti ty of i ts particulari ties. *
*The actions that arc ge n e ral i zed i n rea l i ty are h i dden there and hard
to spot: the actions of m ul t i n ati onals a n d powe r pl ots.

1 78
It is the nature of flash agents to keep a distance, to widen the
gap between surfaci ng cultures and cultures of in tervention
(one of the "undisciplined" forms of the generalizing univer­
sal) . They wear thought out with the apparatus of its delu­
sion. They divert it toward the certainty that i ts "end" is to
perfect the very thing that reinforces their emergence alone
as flash agents and maintains their simultaneously logical
and distorting power. They need the gap (between produc­
ing countries and recipient countries) to hold to their line.*

It would be a utopian assessment to say that cultures that do

not manipulate flash agents would be compensated with
some sort of reverse reward in a slow and balanced deepen­
ing of their values. While it is true that there is no way of
guessing "where the real solutions will spring from," simply
having confidence in some sort of future justice would also
be presumptuous. Ethnotechn ology, for example ( the appro­
priateness of needs and means within a given place) , will not
have enough "natural" apparatus to force itself anyvvhere: i ts
agents are neutral and powerless; its aim runs out of steam
and in the long run wears thin in the dazzling diffraction of
the flash agents. There is no escaping the precipitousness of
history, even if, through force or inclination, one keeps one's
distance when it avalanches.

*It would seem that, strictly corresponding to the old division between
the discoverers and the discovered, there is n ow a redivision bet\vee n
producer coun tries a n d recipient countries, except for Japan. B u t l e t us
repeat that this redivision is no longer the result of law; it sanctions a de
facto domination , one not based on any privilege of knowledge nor on
any claim to be absolute.

1 79
 v

POETICS

Beings, multiple infinite in subsistence

 GENERALI ZATION
��

Recognizing, imagining, Relation.

Yet another undertaking, thoroughly disguised, of univer­
salizing generalization ?
Escape, the problems at our heels ?
No imagination helps avert destitution in reality, none can
oppose oppressions or sustain those who "withstand " in body
or spirit. But imagination changes mentalities, however slowly
it may go about this.

No matter where one is, no matter how strong the force of

errantry, one can hear the mounting desire to ''give-on-and­
with," to discover order in chaos or at least to guess its unlike�y
motivation: to develop this theory that would escape
generalizations.

Poetics ? Precisely this double thrust, being a theory that tries to

conclude, a presence that concludes (presumes) nothing. Never
one without the other. That is how the instant and duration
comfort us.
Every poetics is a palliative for eternity.
 That Those Beings Be Not Being

" Being is relation": but Rel atio n is safe from the idea
of Being.

The idea of relation does not limit Relation, nor does it

fit outside of it.

The idea of relation does not preexist ( Relation ) .

Someone who thinks Relation thinks by means of it, just as

does someone who thinks he is safe from it.

Relation contaminates, sweetens, as a principle, or as

flower dust.

Relation enferals, lying in wait for equivalence.

That which would preexist ( Relation ) is vacuity of Being­

as-Being.

Being-as-Being is not opaque but self-important.

1 85
Relation struggles and states i tself in opac ity. I t dete rs
self-importance.

Wh atever clai ms to preexist i t is insufficient, that is

self�im portance for i tself.

Being-as-Bei ng is suffi ciency for i tself.

For which reason it is the echo of the idea of Being.

Relation does not assert Being, except to distract.

Also, when put forward in Relation, every assertion is a limit.

For Relation n ei ther deteriorates through nor obliterates

any regression. Its patience outdistances depths and sea.

Th us Relation is idea of Being but scatters abroad from

Being-as-Being and confronts presence.

Beings remain, as long as Being dissipates.

Relation scatters from Being, asserts the sul�ject.

To himself the su�j ect is a thick cloud of knowledge .

That i s why Relation also disman tles th e though t of

non-Being.

That is why it is not: (of) Being, but:-( of) beings.

1 86
Non-Being could not be except outside Relation.

Non-Being does not precede Relation, which is not

expressed on the basis of any break.

The nonbeing of Relation would be i ts impossible

completion .

Beings, whi c h subsist and present themselves, are not

m erely substance, which would be suffi cient unto itself.

Beings risk the being of the world, or being-earth.

The being of the world realizes Being:-in beings.

The being of the world cannot be divided from the being of

the u niverse and whatever i m agines i tself suspended in this
whole . This suspension is not primarily spatial.

The being of the world is total and limited. Its imagination

varies; i ts knowledge flows.

Relation is the knowledge in motion of b eings, which risks

the being of the world.

Rel ation strives toward the being of the universe, through

consent or violence. This effort is not pri marily spati al .

Never conceive o f the being o f the world or the being of the

universe as being of Being or fi tting themselves to it.

187
It depends upon Relation that the knowledge in motion of
the being of the universe be granted through osmosis, not
through violence.

Relation comprehends violence, marks i ts distance.

I t is passage, not primarily spati al , that passes it5elf off as

passage and confronts the imaginary.

1 88
 For Opacity

Several years back, if I made the s tatement, "We demand the

right to opacity," or argued in favor of this, whoever I was
speaking to would exclaim indignantly: "Now it's back to bar­
barism ! How can you communicate with what you don't
understand?" But in 1 989, and before very diverse audiences,
when the same demand was formulated, it aroused new inter­
est. Who knows? Maybe, in the meanwhile, the topicality of
the question of differences ( the right to difference) had
been exhausted.
The theory of difference is invaluable. It has allowed us to
struggle against the reductive thought produced, in genetics
for example, by the presumption of racial excellence or supe­
riority. Albert Jacquard ( Eloge de la difference, E ditions du
Seuil, 1 978) dismantled the mechanisms of this barbaric
notion and demonstrated how ridiculous it was to claim a
"scientific" basis for them. ( I call the reversal and exaspera­
tion of self barbaric and just as inconceivable as the cruel
results of these mechanisms.) This theory has also made it
possible to take in, perhaps, not their existence but at least
the rightful entitlement to recognition of the minorities
swarming throughout the world and the defense of their sta­
tus. (I call "rightful" the escape far from any legitimacy
anchored silently or resolutely in possession and conquest.)
But difference itself can s till contrive to reduce things to
the Transparent.
If we examine the process of "understanding" people and

1 89
ideas from th e perspective of \1Vestern though t, we discover
that i ts basis is this requirement for transparency. In order to
understand an d thus accept yo u, I have to measure your
solidi ty wi th the ideal scale providing me with grounds to
make comparisons and, perhaps, j udgmen ts. I have to
reduce. 1
Accepting differences does, of course, upset the hi erarchy
of this scale. I understand your difference, or in o ther words,
with out creating a hierarchy, I relate it to my norm . I admit
you to existence, wi th in my system. I create you afresh . -But
perhaps we need to bring an end to the very notion of a scal e .
D isplace a l l reductio n .
Agree n o t merely t o t h e right t o difference but, carryin g
this further, agree also t o t h e right t o opacity that i s n o t
enclosure wi th i n an impenetrable autarchy b u t subsistence
wi thin an irreducible singularity. Opacities can coexist and
converge, weaving fabrics. To understand these truly one
must focus on the texture of the weave and not on the nature
of i ts components. For the time being, perhaps, give up this
old obsession with discovering what lies at the bottom of
natures. There would be something great and noble about
initiating such a movement, referring not to Humanity but to
the exultant divergence of h umanities. Though t of self and
thought of o ther here become obsolete in their duality. Every
Other is a citizen and no longer a barbarian . What is here is
open, as much as this there. I would be incapable of prqject­
ing fr'Om one to the other. This-here is the weave, and i t
weaves no boundari es. Th e right t o opacity would n o t estab­
lish autism; it would be the real foundation of Relation , in
freedoms.

And now what they tell me is, ''You calmly pack your poetics
i n to these craters of opacity and claim to rise so sere nely
beyond the p rodigiously el ucidati ng work that the West has
accomplished, but there you go talking nons top about this
West." -"And what would you rather I talk about at the
begi n ning, if not this transparency whose aim was to reduce

1 90
 us? Because, if I don ' t begin there, you will see me consumed
wi th the sullen j abber of childish refusal, convulsive and pow­
erless. This is where I start. As for my identity, I ' ll take care of
that myself." There has to be dialogue with the West, which,
moreover is contradictory in itself ( usually this is the argu­
ment raised when I talk about cul tures of the One ) ; the com­
plementary discourse of whoever wants to give-on-and-with
must be added to the West. And can you not see that we are
implicated in i ts evolution?

Merely consider the hypoth esis of a Christian Europe, con­

vinced of i ts legitimacy, rallied together in i ts reconsti tuted
universali ty, having once again , therefore, transformed i ts
forces into a "universal" value-triangulated with the techno­
logical strength of the United S tates and the financial sover­
eign ty ofJapan-and you will h ave some notion of the silence
and indifference that for the next fifty years ( if it is possible
thus to estimate ) surround the problems, the dependencies
and the chaotic sufferings of the countries of the south with
nothingness.
And also consider that the West i tself has produced the
variables to contradic t i ts impressive traj ectory every time .
This is t h e way in which t h e West is not monolithic , and this
is why it is surely necessary that i t move toward entanglement.
The real q uestion is whether i t will do so in a participatory
manner or if i ts entanglement will be based on old imposi­
tions. And even if we should have no illusions about the real­
i ties, their facts already begin to change simply by asking this
question.

The opaque is not the obscure, though i t is possible for it to

be so and be accepted as suc h . I t is that which cannot be
reduced, which is the m ost perennial guarantee of participa­
tion and confluence . We are far from the opacities of Myth or
Tragedy, .whose obscurity was accompanied by exclusion and
whose transparency aimed at "grasping." In this version of
understanding the verb to grasp contains the movement of

191
han ds that grab their surroundings and bring them back to
themselves. A gesture of enclosure if not appropri ation . Let
our understanding pre fer the gesture of giving-on-and-with
that opens finally on totality.

At this point I need to explain what I mean by this total ity I

have made so much noise about. It is the i dea i tself of totality,
as expressed so superbly i n Western though t, that is threat­
ened with immobili ty. We have suggested that Relation is an
open totali ty evolvin g upon i tself. That means that, thought
of i n this manner, i t is the principle of unity that we subtract
from this idea. In Relation the whole is not the finality of i ts
parts : for multiplicity in totali ty is totally diversity. Let us say
this again , opaquely: the idea of totali ty alone is an obstacle
to totality.
We have already articulated the poetic force . We see i t as
radiant-repl acing the absorbing concept of unity; it is the
opacity of the diverse anim ating the imagin ed transparency
of Relation . The imaginary does not bear with i t the coerc ive
requi rements of idea. I t prefigures reality, without determin­
ing i t a priori.
The thought of opaci ty distracts me from absolute truths
whose guardian I migh t believe myself to be. Far from cor­
nering me within futi l i ty and inactivity, by m akin g me sensi­
tive to the l i m i ts of every method, it relativizes every possibil­
ity of every action withi n me. Whether this consists of
spreading overarch i ng general ideas or hanging on to the
concrete, the l aw of fac ts , the precision of details, o r
sacrificing s o m e apparen tly less important thi n g i n t h e n am e
o f efficacy, t h e thought of opacity saves me from unequivocal
courses and irreversible choices.
As far as my identity is concerned, I wil l take care of i t
myself. That is, I shall n o t allow i t t o become cornered i n any
essence; I shall also pay attention to not mixing it i n to any
amalgam . Rather, it does not disturb m e to accept that there
are places where my identity i s obscure to me, and the fact
that i t amazes me does not m ean I reli nquish it. Human

192
behaviors are fractal in nature. If we become conscious of
this and give up trying to reduce such behaviors to the obvi­
ousness of a transparency, this will, perhaps, contribute to
lightening their l oad, as every individual begins not grasping
his own motivations, taking h imself apart in this manner. The
rule of action (what is called ethics or else the ideal or j us t
logical relation ) would gain ground-as a n obvious fact-by
not being mixed i n to the preconceived transparency of uni­
versal models. The rule of every action, individual or com­
munity, would gain ground by perfecting i tself through the
experience of Relation. I t is the network that expresses the
e thics. Every moral doctrin e is a utopia. But this morality
would only become a utopia if Relation i tself h ad sunk into
an absolute excessive ness of Chaos. The wager is that Chaos
is order and disorder, excessiveness with no absolute, fate
and evolu tion.

I thus am abl e to conceive of the opacity of the other for me,

without reproach for my opacity for him. To feel in solidarity
with him or to build with him or to like what h e does, it is not
necessary for me to grasp him. I t is not necessary to try to
become the other ( to become other) nor to "make" him i n
m y image. These proj e c ts o f transmutation-without m e tem­
psychosis-have resulted from the worst pretensions and the
greatest of magnanimities o n the part of West. They describe
the fate of Vic tor Segalen.
The death of Segalen is not just a physiological outcome .
We recall his confiding, in the las t days of his life, about the
slovenliness of his b ody, whose illness h e was unable to diag­
nose and whose decline h e was unable to control. No doubt
it will b e known, with a list of his symptoms and the h elp of
medical progress, what he died of. And no doubt the people
around him could say he died of some sort of generalized
consumption. But I myself believe tha t h e died of the opaci ty
of the Other, of coming face to face with the impossibility of
accomplishing the transmutation that h e dreamed of.
Like every E uropean of his day, h e was marked with a sub-

193
stantial, even if unconscious, dose of e thnocentrism. But h e
was also possessed, more than any o f his con temporaries, by
this absolute and incomplete generosity that drove him to
realize hi mself elsewhere . He suffered from this accursed
con tradiction. U nable to know that a transfer into trans­
parency ran coun ter to his pr�ject and that, on the con trary,
respect for mutual forms of opacity would have accom plished
i t, h e was heroical ly consumed in the impossibili ty of being
Other. Death is the o utcome of the opacities, and this is why
the idea of death never leaves us.

O n the o ther hand, i f an opacity is the basis for a Legitimacy,

this would be the sign of i ts having en tered i n to a poli tical
dimension . A form idable prospect, less dangerous perh aps
than the erring ways to which so many certain ties and so
many clear, so-called lucid truths h ave led. The excesses of
these politi cal assuran ces would fortunately be contained by
the sense not that everything is futile but that there are limits
to absol ute truth . How can one poin t out these limi ts without
lapsi ng i nto skepticism or paralysis? How can one reconcile
the hard line inheren t in any poli tics and the questioning
essential to any relation? Only by understanding that i t is
i mpossible to reduce anyone, no matter who, to a truth h e
woul d not have generated on his own . That is, wi th in the
opac i ty of his time and place. Plato's c i ty is for Plato, Hegel 's
vision is for Hegel , the griot's town is for the griot. Nothing
prohibits our seeing them i n confluence, wi thout confusing
them i n some magma or reducing them to each other. This
same opacity is also the force that drives every community:
the th i ng that would bri ng us together forever and make us
permanen tly distinctive. Widespread conse n t to specific
opacities is the most s traigh tforward equivalen t of nonbar­
barism .

We clamor for the right to opacity for everyon e .

1 94
 Open Circle, Lived Relation

There is a poin t at which Relation is no longer expressed

through a procession of traj e c tories, itineraries succeeding
or thwarting one another, but explodes by i tself and within
itself, like a network, inscribed in the self-sufficient totality of
the world.
We leave behind the imaginary that projects, with its dar­
ing inve n tions, i ts escapades, the u nknown things it has
risked: flaming arrows and unmerciful shots. The thrust of
the world and i ts desire no longer embolden you onward in a
fever of disc overy: they multiply you all around.
Having in the end, and despite all the impossibilities,
drawn n ear Relation and acknowledged our presen timen ts
of how i t works, n ow we must disindividuate it as a system,
stretch it to the m ass that bursts forth j ust from its energy,
fi nding ourselves there along with others.

To disindividuate Relation is to relate the theory to the lived

experience of every form of h umanity in its singularity. This
means returning to the opacities, which produce every
exception, are propelled by every divergence, and live
through becoming involved not with proj ec ts but with the
reflected density of existences.
What we call the world today is not only the convergence
of the histories of peoples that has swept away the claims of
philosophies of H istory but also the encounters ( i n con­
sciousness) among these histories and materialities of the

1 95
planet. Catastrophic fires reactivate the work of genocides;
famines and droughts take roo t in suicidal political regimes;
warring parties defoliate on a staggering scale; floods and
h urricanes call forth international solidarity, yet no one can
prevent them or really combat their effects; humanitarian
m ovements that have sprung up in wealthy n ations strive to
bandage the open sores in poor countries, inflicted m ore
often than not by the merciless economies of these same ric h
countries; j ungles and tribes are simultaneously torn up by
the roo ts; and so it goes on endlessly. The shock wave set off
in the E uropean consciousness by the earthquake in Lisbon
in the eigh teenth cen tury has spread far and wide. No
specific h istory (joy or tragedy, extortion or liberation ) is
shut up solely i n i ts own territory nor solely in the logic of i ts
collective though t. The woes of the l andscape h ave invaded
speech, rekindling the woes of humanities, in order to con­
ceive of i t. Can we bear ad infinitu m this rambling on of
knowledge? Can we get our minds off it? Here the imaginary
of totali ty saves us from escheat-from reverted errantry.
If� however, we mean to escape either vague ram bling o r
t h e neutralizing tactics o f suspension w e ordin arily u s e to
avoid it, we m ust n ot j ust imagine totali ty as we earlier sug­
gested nor simply approach Relation through a displacement
of thought; we m ust also involve this imaginary in the place
we l ive, even if errantry is part of it. Neither action nor p lace
are generalizable.
What I said abou t antillanite, in this p lace where we, men
and women of the Caribbean, rise up, represents quite simply
the wil l to rally toge ther and diffract the Ante-Islands
confi rm ing us in ourselves and j oining us to an elsewhere.
For us antillanite, a m e thod and not a state of being, can
never be accomplished, nor can we go beyond i t.

But though we are thus entering m odernity, by confirming

the work of our cultures, we cannot be unaware that one of
m odernity's m ost persistent m o tifS is wholly e mbodied in the
unconscious drive that wills deculturation. Because humani-

196
ties sense that their cultures consti tute the ( not prime ) ele­
ments of the generality of chaos-monde, they instinctively
indulge in an ticultural backlash . As if they wanted to pre­
serve this generality from any n ormative effects that the cul­
ture 's thought might h ave introduced. ( Moreover, i t doesn't
matter how we stigm atize one episode or ano ther, for exam­
ple, of the Chinese Revolution, when the entire apparatus of
flash agents aims for the same anticultural elementarity.) As
if they meant to assert that cultures do not delineate
preestablished harmonies, that the histories of peoples do
not all work toward a single genealogy. 1 Modern violence is
anticultural, which means i t tries h ard to guarantee the open
energy of the sho ck between cultures. Is this a return of bar­
barism, or is it some prophetic precautionary measure
against the barbarism of reductiveness and uniformity?
One of the consta n ts of this modern violence is that its
duty is to be staged at all costs. Wheth er this modern violence
is real or simulated, it demands to shine and cannot do with­
out the services of flash agents . The undergroun d violences,
in the ghettos or in th e bush , the viole nces of obscure wars
for survival, come unraveled when solutions appear. The
blacks in the United States, in the places where they are the
poorest, because they are the poorest, because the means of
existence are beyond them, and because they have no other
solutions, exert a total violence in the city underground. The
violence of destitute poverty is not, h owever, a mission. But
modern violence, born of the shock among c ul tures, is of
another sort. I t feeds on i ts own dazzle and is exacerbated by
its own feedback.
Two of the television shows that struck m e m ost in the
United States, in a surprising parallel, present a m ixture of
belief, intensified by i ts own spectacle and by a wil lingness to
believe, which is kept up beyond any approximations of spec­
tacle. Wrestling m atches are not really meant to determine
which competi tor is the strongest. In the audience, however,
they stir up waves of irrepressible violence, stripped of any
skep ticism . This is not a matter of displaying only bestial vio-

197
Jenee but, goi ng much furth er, a pure ( i f one can call i t that)
violence, wh ite as metal heated to the most i n tense i n candes­
cence. The audie nce believes in this violence, in i ts spectacle;
i t comes for that. I t comes in fam ilies, wi th children . I t does
not care that staging conceals the c heating. The desire for
man ifest violence is s tronger than any suspicion of hidden
nonviolence. The alarming costumes of the wrestlers, the
incredibly heigh ten ed language that they en gage i n during
the televised in terviews h eralding th eir fights and servi ng to
advertise them , the surge of pre tend or real sadism onstage,
al l make i t perfectly obvious that the rule here is to produce
the severest shock possible .
There is another spectacle that is just a s astounding
because of i ts suppressed violence: TV preaching. Th ese
preachers give a physical performance, making the most of
th e body's every posture . They imitate the extremely effective
ges tures of black acto rs, they weep, they sing, they play the
piano, they turn the vol tage as high as it will go and keep the
physical and spiri tual tension up relen tlessly before resolvi ng
i t in a blessed beatitude. Those presen t ( an d perhaps also the
television vie\'\'ers? ) all weep in u niso n , faint, and go i n to
trances. That the preaching is staged does not bother anyone
nor do the scandals concerning the behavior and corrupt
practices that have sullied a number of these dazzl ing minis­
ters, these fl ash preachers. Th e desire for catharsis is s tron ger
than any suspicion of i nsinceri ty.
A-;ceticism through violence, i n order to rediscover an
origi nal puri ty. You h ave to show that you abandon yourself
to it and that this works. Th is is not yet the violence of bar­
barism but a desperate quest. Barbarism ( tyrannical self-love )
comes later. That is why such powerful personal generosities
exist in this coun try: they are an endeavor to fend off the con­
vulsions of the m aelstro m . Although the social service laws
are ridiculously inadeq uate here compared wi th the various
European legislations in force , nowhere else in the \Vorld
does a call for gifts and private con tributions encounter such
a response, frequen tly verging on na1vete . Th e violence of

198
deculturation is thus somehow domesticated: caught up in
dailiness.

Let us not stop with this commonplace: that a poetics cannot

guarantee us a concrete means of action. But a poetics, per­
haps, does allow us to understand better our action in the
world. We consider, for instance, how our requirement for
cultural responsibility, inseparable from political indepen­
dence, is to be related to the prophylactic violence of forms
of deculturation. Put into Relation . That is what one rnigh t
call "defolkloration . " The reductions of folklore ( the belief
that only atavistic energies will provide an existence) lie in
ambush for all cul tures, wheth er or not they are technologi­
cal . The awareness of modernity leads us away from this
reductiveness, offering us the image of relations, similarities
of situation or diverging directions, between what is us and
what is other.
But we must also examine the need to be careful , because
every generalization gives birth to i ts illusions.2 For example:
though folklore debilitates, it j ust as powerfully creates rhi­
zomes. One could say that modernity, when it puts us thus in
a position to be relative without being lost, coadj usts without
confusing.

What means do we have at our disposal to balance these

requirements , which are not necessarily harmonic?
First, the imaginary. It works in a spiral : from one circular­
ity to the next, it encounters new spaces and does not trans­
form them into either depths or conquests. Nor is it confined
to the binarities that have seemed to preoccupy me through­
out this book: extension/filiation, transparencyI opacity'.) . . .
The imaginary becomes complete on the margins of every
new linear projec tion . It creates a network and constitutes
volume. Binari ties only serve as conveniences for approach­
ing it<.; weave .
The imaginary comments with a dirge, or it j ust giggles.
Usually, approaching the chaos-rnonde in all i ts turbulence, it is

1 99
wary of this reserve dirnension referred to as hum or. Humor
always presupposes some hidden reference, providing the
humorist his superiority. Humor derives from a classicism left
unspoken or, quite the opposite , put in question as in the
black humor of the surrealists. But i ts corrosive power is per­
haps dissipated in the turbulence of the chaos-monde, in which
classicisms do not occur. The Creole storyteller does not want
to be a humorist; he is surprising in h is talen t (which should
not be said to be innate ) for relentlessly bringing together
the m ost heterogeneous elements of reality. Pierre Reverdy
describes the same thing operating in poetry. There is no hid­
den reference in it but, rather, an uninterrupted process of
revelation: of putting into relation . There ought to be some
other word to define this bringing together when i t astounds
us and deflects us from convention.
The preferred scene of the poetics of Relation is plainsong
or a yell ( in duration or in the instant ) because this poetics is
disgusted by the offhandedness assumed by any presumption
of superiority. In truth, however, this preference does not
hold. Baroque speech does not acknowledge any preestab­
lished norm . It recognizes only the rigors of form, precisely
because it is confronting excessiveness.
Next, the approach to reality. Conceiving of the order and
disorder of the chaos-monde does not put you in a privileged
position to oppose those who perpetuate their powers of per­
version . And yet, if we tried to m ake a list here concerning
loci of hardship and oppression, one of those lists sketched
throughout this book about other subjects, this one would
surely be the longest. In totality powers reinforce their pow­
ers, and i t is the weakness of aesthetic thought, of the various
specific poeti cs, that they "make believe" when confronted by
this other sort of m aelstro m . Though the imaginary of total­
i ty m ay be of no use to anyone in organizing resistance, at
least it is possible to think it would allow everyone some pro­
tec tion against the numerous bad habits that are the result of
ideology's time-honored thoughts.
How m any revolu tions, full of how m any instances of

200
going beyond, have not foundered in blind limita ti ons,
absurd principles, thus rej oining the things they struggled
against? The poetic perception of the chaos-monde leads us to
sense a few of the lessons of these many disastrous atte mp ts.
As for me, and only for myself� that is, with no pretense of giv­
ing a lesson, I would sum up these lessons as follows:

The control of an action is in i ts act.

The full-sense of an action i s i n i ts place.
The future of an action i s i n Relation.

These three s tatements are not i ntended to constitute a

law. They mean that, once totali ty has been conceived of, one
could not claim to evoke it a priori i n order to i ntercede i n
problems here a n d now but that n o solution that is acted
upon could, h owever, i gnore or underestimate this totality's
activity-which i s Relation.
Against those who deal out generalizing lessons. Against
ideology content with i ts own company. Against petty local
m asters. Against an i ntolerant, nationalist seclusion. Against
those who erect borders. Those obsessed with military power.
Those who are the repositories of the collective conscious­
n ess. The m outhpieces.

There is n o naivete i nvolved i n thus "relativizing" the most

particular actions thus within the concrete matter of Rela­
tion. Habit cannot be snared a t one fell swoop . We are j ust
barely beginning to have some idea of this underground
logi c that i s not i mposed as p redicates but that subjects us
collectively to our contradictions.
Contradicti ons. The racist Boers of South Afric a are i n
seclusion there. They stubbornly i nvoke t h e sacredness of
roo t ( th ough filiation is not exportable ) , and they are unable
to consent to the approaches of Relation. They h ave taken
refuge in the rigidity of Apartheid. Oppressed blacks in this
country are the bearers of going beyond. They could h ave
merely withdrawn i n to the sacred that is Terri tory ( th ey have

20 1
an ancestral "righ t" to i t, which is, of course, why a poin t was
made of assigning them reservations on this soil ) , but the ter­
rible i n tensity of th eir s truggle leads them, however i mper­
ceptibly or chaotically, to encounters with people of m ixed
blood, with Indians, with whites: it teach es them and inspires
them with the sense of Relation. Nelson Mandela is an echo­
monde. Wh erever oppressors , in one form or anothei, impose
themselves, those who are oppressed represent, through
their very resistance, the guarantee of such a future , even if i t
i s fr·agil e and th reatened.* Meaning well has nothing t o do
with it but, rather, the demand fr.f f totality, that every form of
oppression tries to reduce and that every resistance con­
tributes to increasing.

Then words, no one 's fiefdom , meet up wi th the m ateriali ty

of the world. Relation is spoke n .
I was struck b y t h e cover o f a m agazi ne ( Paris J\fotch, May
1 1 , 1 989 ) , whose tactics are certai nly those of a flash agent) ,
on which I read the caption :

CHERNOBYL:
12 villages to be evaruated,
the wolves are returning
the /Jines a.re blue

What was the infinite detour taken by this nuclear cata­

strophe, whose worldwide repercussions were fel t among the
desti tute as well as among the well-to-do, in savanna villages ,
pro bably, j us t a s m uch a s in skyscrapers , and which conse­
quently fed th e most passively experienced of commonplaces
i n the planetary consciousness, that led i t also to be con­
densed into what seemed to be an involuntary poe m ,
thro ugh wh ich i t happened that t h e world could speak t o us?
* O ppressive powers kn ow this very \vc l l and atte m p t to i n c i te " h e roes , "
whether real or mythic, t o symbolize t h e i r causes. T h u s there appear
pse udo-h hos-monde, which Western opinion h as apparen tly become
expert at creating.

202
The landscape forced i ts way through the dazzling barrier,
fixing upon the superficial brilliance this terse scrap of utter­
ance.

The circle opens up once m ore , at the same time that it

builds in volume . Thus, at every moment Relation becomes
complete but also is destroyed in i ts generality by exactly what
we put into action in a particular time and place . Relation
that is destroyed, at every instant and in every circumstance,
by this particularity spelling our opacities, through this sin­
gularity, becomes once again the experience of relation. Its
death as generality is what creates the life it has to share. For,
if every group of h umankind were to fully live Relation, they
would divert the concept into the naturality that would have
made it concrete . Relation exists in being realized, that is, in
being completed in a common place.
This m ovement allows giving-on-and-with the dialectic
among aesthetics. If the imaginary carries us from thinking
about this world to thinking about the universe, we can con­
ceive that aesthetics , by means of which we make our imagi­
nary conc rete, with the opposite intention, always brings us
back from the i nfinities of the universe to the definable poet­
ics of our world. This is the world from which all norms are
eliminated, and also it is this world that serves as our inspira­
tion to approach the reality of our tim e and our place. Thus,
we go the open circle of our relayed aesth etics, our
unflagging politics. We leave the matrix abyss and the immea­
surable abyss for this other one in which we wander without
becoming l ost.

203
 The Burning Beach

The sand sparkled. Some subterranean (submarine) force

repressed what northern volcanoes supplied. The beach is
now without cover, without surprises, like a prisoner.
Strolling tourists spread their towels on it. Not very many
because this is an out-of-the-way spot. Not a single big wave to
distract you from the pleasure of lethargy. Order and com­
fort have timidly returned.
Beneath the conventional image, the kind one sees devel­
oped-or summarized-in publicity films in the U nited
States or Japan, the luxuriously fatal image for selling a coun­
try ( "The Antilles cheap"),* beneath this insipid facade, we
rediscover the ardor of a land. I see the mockery of the
image, and I do not see it. I catch the quivering of this beach
by surprise, this beach where visitors exclaim how beautiful !
how typical ! and I see that it is burning.
For i ts background, it has the mornes, whose silence can be
frightening, the same hills that s tand ragged above the Cohee,
the bay of Lamentin and the devastated mangrove there.
They are trying to fill in this m angrove swamp , zoning it for
industry or for maj or centers of consumption. Yet still the
swamp resists . My friends took me there, drifting along, look­
ing for hot spots, those redwater muds that gurgle and burn

*The Europeans, in anticipation of the Acte unique of 1 993, are buyin g

l a n d here without leaving h o m e : they p u t in their orders and delegate
power of attorney.

205
here and there in the man grove . * The words of th e vol can o
rol l i n g in th ese mouths come back to me, more rneaningful
n ow than when I roamed the place as a child. The same
words that used to adorn the sand in dark, pen i ten tial ves t­
ments, th en, bit by bi t pulling back, uncovered its luminosity.
Th is tie between beach and island, which all ows us to take
off like m. arrnns , f ar from the permanent tourist spots, is thus
tied i n to the dis-appearance-a dis-appearing-i n wh ich the
depths of th e vol cano circulate.
I have always imagined that these depths navigate a path
beneath the sea in the wes t and the ocean in the east and
that, tho ugh we are separated, each in our own Plantation ,
the now green balls and chains h ave rolled beneath from one
islan d to the next, weavi ng shared rivers that we shall open
up when i t i s our time and where we shall take our boats .
From where I stand I see Sain t Lucia on the horizon. Th us,
step by s tep, calling up the expanse, I am abl e to realize thi s
sea bow.

I am doing the same thing in the way I say we--organ izing

this work around i t. Is this some community we rhizomecl i n to
fragil e con nection to a place? Or a total we i nvolved i n the
activity of the planet? O r an ideal w e drawn i n the swirls of a
poetics?
Who is this in tervening they? The_r that is Other? or they the
neighbors? o r they wh om I imagi n e when I try to speak?
These w r s and theys are an evolvin g. They find the i r ful1-
sense, here, i n my excessive use of th e words totalit,r an d Rela­
tion . This excess is repetition that signifies.
They fi nd ful l-sense i n the extension of discourse, i n whi c h
perem ptory abstract n o tions gain force only through force of

* B akeries, i ron i cal ly, are also called "hot spots," f)()inls ch.r11ul'I. \Vh e n
th e i r b read is delive red by air frnm France, al ready sh aped i n to
baguettes, ready-m ade noissants a n d /wim au dwmlat. a gree nish-gray
fro/en dough. Al l the bakery h as to do is p u t them i n the m ic rowave
. . . to our great delight.

206
 accum ulation, since they cannot burn in the body's charcoal
fi re. The word m ass burns, from i ts amassing.
They find full-sense i n the echo of the land, where morne
m eets beach, where the m o tifs are in tertwined in a single veg­
e tation , like words off the page .
Red-earth-red , blacker underneath than the black chalk of
our dreams. The clouds of the Pitons e ntangled in e normous
ferns, the passionately gray sand where so many volcanoes
j oined i n , the flat stretch of banana trees' dirty lumps of curl,
the yam ravines where you can stand up, traces marked along
the crests like stubborn sulphur, the l ight-givin g shade of
verandas whe re old and jagged bamboo stirs .
So what comes over us then i s neither flash nor revelation
but piling up and a vague endlessly repeated i mpatience.

Suddenly, there i s someth in g about the morne. A movin g on

the surface of chaos that changes chaos by i ts movement.
This i s not a neu tral point; it i s not the starting point of a
blueprint; i t too sends rhizomes i nto the earth .
( So n ow, fi nally, they h i n t that I have already said al l or
m os t of what i s said here in Soleil de la conscience, that l i ttle
book published more than thirty years ago. And I agree . We
travel on the surface, i n the expanse, weavin g our imaginary
s tructures and not filling up the voi ds of a science, but rather,
as we go along, rem ovi n g boxes that are too ful l so that i n the
end we can imagi n e infinite volumes . Volumes l ike the space
s ieves i nven ted by the technicians of Chaos that seem filled
s imply with their own echo. )
(And n ow here comes the clan of l i ttle goats too, leaping
morn in g and evening, to s top off inside the garden wal l ,
i nvading i ts grounds a n d foraging among the sweet bread­
fruit and the rotting prunes de cythere. Their keeper is right
behind them , chasing them toward the dirt road that runs
along the beach . The goats ' s tampeding toward this ritual
meal, the shouts of the young goatherd, the circular, dis­
jointed movement, from their hungry s tormi n g of the gar-

207
den to their panicked departure, never changes. And I could
never imagine closing the garden gate or banning the ani­
mals' detour. )
This shadow o n the morne all by i tself is a school o f little
goats, rioting in its own noise.

The man who walks (because that's who it is) has soon come
down from the hills; once again he is· making sense of the
beach. His energy is boundless, his withdrawal absolute.
Distant reader, as you recreate these i mperceptible details
on the horizon , you who can imagine-who can indulge the
time and wealth for imagining-so many open and closed
places in the world, look at him. Imagine him, falling irre­
versibly into prostration or suddenly waking up and starting
to scream or else gradually succumbing to his family's atten­
tions or all at once going back to his daily route, without fur­
ther explanation. He signs to you with this bare outline of a
movement that precedes all languages. There is so much of
the world to be uncovered that you are able to leave this one
person alone in his outlook. But he will not leave you . The
shadow he throws from a distance is cast close by you .
As for those of us who follow him , if we can p u t it that way
(but we do know the rhythm of his passages; we are able to
an ticipate them) , we are beginning to accept the fact that he
is more resistant than we and more lasting than our endless
palaver. No one could be content with this enclosed errantry,
this circular nomadism-but one with no goal or end or
recommencing. The absent man who walks exhausts no ter­
ri tory; he sets roots only in the sacred of the air and evanes­
cence, in a pure refosal that changes nothing in the world.
We are not following him in reality, because we always want to
change something. But we know in the end that his traveling,
which is not nomadism, is also not rambling. It traces
repeated figures here on the earth, whose pattern we would
catch if we had the means to discover it. This man who walks
is an echo-monde who is consumed within himself, who repre­
sen ts chaos without realizing i t.

208
 The place re-creates its own Plan tation, and from it this voice­
less voice cries out. Plantations of the world, lonely places of
isolation, unnatural enclosures, that you, nonetheless are
touching. Mangos, bayous, lagoons, muskegs, ice floes. Ghe t­
tos, suburbs, Volga beaches, barrios, crossroads, hamlets,
sand trails, river bights. Villages being abandoned, ploughed
fields given over to roads, houses shut up against their sur­
roundings, seers bellowing inside their heads.
I leave you now, you who at no point leave the celebration
you provide us. Going to acknowledge myself in the unclear
and so particular effervescence, of another sort, one with no
accumulation of forgetting, and unending because always
changing.
The horizon seaweed is interwoven in variations of gray
tinged blue with black, where space increases. Their fern
makes a rain that does not peel away from the heat of the sky.
With the dove gray of thought you touch a tousle of vegeta­
tion, a cry of morne and red earth . Glowing fires scarcely
sparked by dizziness. Rainshower motionless. Dwindling
echoes . A tree trunk slivers against the rim of the sun, stub­
bornness, stiff but melting. Call the keepers of silence with
their feet in the river. Call the river that used to spill over the
rocks. -As for myself, I have listened to the pulse of these
hot spots . I have bathed there beside friends, attentive to the
volcano's drums. We have stood bent against the win d with­
out falling. One lone bay; whatever name it had evaporated.
Also endeavouring to point out this blue tinge to everything
. . . -Its sun strolls by, in the savanna's silver shuddering and
the ocre smell of the hounded earth .

209
 Notes

E RRANTRY, E X I L E

1 . While errance i s usually translated a s "wandering," "errantry" seems

better suited to Glissant's use of the word, and there is precedence
i n translations of Cesaire. Errance for Glissant, while not aimed like
an arrow's traj ectory, n or circular and repetitive like the n omad's, is
not idle roaming, but includes a sense of sacred motivation. Trans.
2. The poet M onchoachi organized a series ofl ectures on the theme of
errantry, in Mari n , a city in the southern part of Marti n ique. I was
one of the fi rst, I believe, called upon to discuss it in this setting. The
Caribbean is a land of rootedness and of errantry. The numerous
antillean exiles are evidence of this.
3 . Kan t, in the Critique ofPure Reason, presents what he says about Rela­
tion in this manner:

Unconditioned unity
of RELATION
that is
i tself, not as i nherent
but as
sL:BsISTENT.

( Pleiade, vol . 1 ; 1 468)

"\Vhether this Relation works toward the systematic u nity of ends

( moral pri nciple) or toward the u n i ty of understandings ( architech­
tonic princ iple ) , one can assert here two quali ties: first, that it is the
binding age n t that guarantees the permanence of thought i n the
i ndividual; and, second, that it has n o share i n the substance. This

21 1
 difference that Kant seems to establish between substance and sub­
sistence is invaluable . Be that as it may, the idea of Relation for him
docs not intervene as an opening onto plurality, insofar as it would
be a totality. For Kan t plurali ty takes place in time, not i n space. In
space there is existence , which seems not to be diffe ren tiated wi thin
itself.
4. The word I have translated here as "rerouting" is detou rnement, one
of a number of related words that are important in Glissant's work.
( O thers are detuurner; delotu; relour. ) Usually, I believe that Glissant
sees these words i n a very active sense, implying a real change of
direction . This can be th e act of taking another path , or forcing evo­
lution to flow in a diffe re n t course. It can also be a turning away, o r
turn i n g aside in a redirection of, or refusal t o direct, attentio n .
There are times, for instance, i n t h e slave/ master relatio n whe n
"diversion" in the sense of "providing amusemen t" was a tactical
move o n the part of the slave, diverting the master from the slave 's
actual desires or agenda, but i n general I have tried to stress the
most active sense. Trans.
5. H ere Glissan t uses the verb cmnpren dre in the mechanical sense o f
including withi n a system , a n d comprelumds is t h e best translation. I n
o ther cases, however, he stresses a n almost rapacious quality o f the
word, its division i n to two parts based on i ts Latin roots ( i . e . com­

/mndre: to take with , which I have translated as "grasps" ) . He con­

trasts this with a n eologistic phrase: dormer-avec, which would consti­
tute understanding i n Relation. Because, in doing so, h e means don­
nn- both in the sense of generosity and in the sense of "looking out
toward" ( as in l a fen litre donne s u r l a mer) , and because our combining
the words give and with constitutes less a notion of shari ng than one
of yielding ( i . e . , "he gave with the blow" ) , which-though not domi­
nan t-is not totally absent from Glissant's usage , dmmeHLVf'C will be
translated a s "gives-on-and-with . " Trans.
6. The poetic striving toward totality in no 'vay impugns the min utiae
of those who struggle in a given place. The subject matter is not in
con flict, and Sain t-John Perse does not eclipse Faulkner. Rather, i t is
possible that the harped-on universal , with ·which Sai n tJohn Perse
so splen didly thre\v his lot, scatters before Relation , without really
coming in contact with it. Generalizing words do not ahvays accom­
pany the cry of the peoples or countries n aming themselves.
The spirit of un iversalizatio n , moreover, is willingly connected
with a ten dency to deny specific times and histories that are periph-

212
 eral ( Borges or Saint-John Perse ) , and the aspiration toward this
universal tends to disclaim particular spaces and evolutions (V. S.
Naipaul ) .
Numerous writers i n our countries strive i n similar ways. Rather
than dealing with their own fertile imperfections i n their works, they
revel in the completed and reassuring perfections of the Other.
They call them universal. There they find a bitter and legitimate
pleasure that gives them the authority to hold themselves above the
surroundings i n which they might share . The distance they keep
from commonality thus leads them to j udge quite dispassionately
whatever babbles there beside them. But their serene dispassion is
strained.

POETICS

1. Glissant's phrase word "full-sense'' will appear throughout the text as

the translation of plein-sens. It indicates a combination of signifi­
cation , direction , and concrete sensory perception. Trans.
2 . I n La conquete de l 'Ambique ( Editions du Seuil, 1 982) ( The Conquest of
America: The Question of the Other· [ New York: Harper and Row, 1 984] ,
trans. Richard Howard) Tzvetan Todorov studied one of the most
important manifestations of this relationship between the Same and
the O ther: that which opposed the American Indians to the Con­
quistadors. He suggests that when they entered into this relation the
Indians reacted with a logic of totality, putting them i n a situation of
technical inferiority when they confron ted the Conquistadors, who
acted solely on the basis of a logic of self-interest ( "There exist two
great forms of communication, one between man and man , the
other between man and the world, the Indians cultivated the latter
above all , the Spanish the former" [ 75] ) . Todorov infers from this
that, whereas from the poin t of view of conquest the Indians, in fact,
suffered a defeat that was the prelude to reshaping the Continent
and the start of a n ew history, on the other hand, from the poi n t of
view of what I call here a worldwide Relation, their system of refer­
ence was the most durable ( the most profitable?) one there is. He
thus took i n to account the state of the world, the stage at which we
are today, and, in proposing this perception of it, he does not place
greater importance on a (Weste rn ) "sense" in relation to a (global)
content; despite the claim that perhaps he never stopped being

213
 depende n t upon the "sense " Europe h ad assigned to the Other
( D ebo rah Root, "The I m pnial Sign i fi e r: Todoro\· and the Conquest
of M ex ico . " Cult u ral Cl itirfllP [ Spring 1 988] ) .
'.). Fol l owi n g Fran c;oise Lio n n et's fi ne a nalysis of m/tissar;r ( A u tobio­
graphical \i(JirrT Race, Gendn; Sr!fPortra iture [ I th aca: Corn e l l U n i ver­

s i ty Press, 1 989] , 1 -29 ) , I have chosen to reta i n the Fre n c h term

h e re . The word h as a >vicle ran ge of c u l turally specifi c m ean i n gs , a l l
val ue laden . �l ost English translation s . such as noss-h renli ng and mm1-
grelizatio 11 , bear a n egative valu e . (The product, mhis, is a " half�brecd,
etc. " ) Crossing, hraiding, and i11term ixing a1e perhaps the most n e u tral
but ignore the pro bl e m a t ics of rac ial d i ffere n c e . Creoliza tion works
but l i m i ts mftissage to a cul t u ral context. For Gli ssant mft i �·sage moves
from a narrow ra nge o f racial i n te r m i x i n g to become a rel at i onal
practice affirm i n g the m ul t i p l i c i ty and d ivers i ty of i ts compo n e n ts .
Tm n s.
4. M eanwh i l e . a book by Jean Bernabe , Patrick Chamoiseau, and
Raphael Con fian t has been published w i th th e titl e /<.,'loge d e l a Creolitf
( Paris: Gal limard, 1 988) . This man ifesto atte m p ts to d e fi n e or pro­
claim th e l i n e of c o n ti n ui ty in M a1 ti n i can l i te rature . This is the wor k
t o which I refer when I compare the terms creo!izatio n a n d creoleness.
5. S u rn m ari/ing t h us :
O r a l and wri tte n .
Th e emerge n c e of the lan guages o f oral i ty acc o m panies a 1-csnr­
ge n ce of spoken poe try, \vh i c h has becom e a much m o re widesp read
practi c e , not with o u t n u m e rous shortc o m i n gs , of cours e . Ano th e r
econ omy of poetic speech is tak i n g shape, i n w h i c h recu rren c e ( rep­
e t i t i on or red un dancy) , asso n a n c e , variati o n s in t o n al i ty, e tc . , are
beco m i n g the approved m e thods. M aybe wri ting practices wil l find
th emselves rej uve n ated by th i s .

M ul t i l i n gual i s m .
The though t o f the ( :e n te r was m o n o l i n gu a l . The poetics of Rela­
tion req u i res all th e l a n guages of the worl d . N o t to know o r to pon­
der them . but to know ( fe e l ) that it i s esse ntial for them to exist.
That th i s existe n c e determ i nes the acc e n ts of any wri t i n g.

Voi ce-l a n guages ( la ngues) a n d Use-l an guages ( lrwgages)

There are comm u n i ties of use-lan guage that cross the barrie rs o f
voice-l anguage . I feel closer to t h e writers o f t h e Engli s h- or Span ish­
speak i n g Caribbean ( o r, of c o u rse, Creole-speaki n g ) than to m ost

214
 writers of French. This is what makes us An tillean . Our voice-lan­
guages are different, our use-language ( begi nning with our relation
to the voice-languages) is the same.

Literary genres.
As it strives toward totality, literary work moreover forms the
ethnography of i ts own subj e c t matter. We see a poem by Brathwaite
as the equivalent of a novel by Carpentier and an essay by Fanon. We
go even farther i n not distin�uishing between genres when we deny
that their divisions are necessary for us or wh en we create differen t
divisions.

Present moment and duration.

The two "realities" of time, whether it is considered to be linear,
circular, cycl ical , " natural ," or "cultural." They determine the
accen ts of our poetics. Might i t be said that a poetics of the presen t
moment would be blasphemous, while every poetics o f duration
would consecrate some unanimity?

E X PA N S E A N D F I L IAT I O N

1 . Daniel J . Boorsti n , The Discoverers: A History of Man '.s Search t o Know

His World and Himself (New York: Random House, 1 98 3 ) , 2 0 1 . Trans.

C L O S E D P LA C E , O PE N WORD

1. This notion was expounded at length i n Eloge de la Creolite by Jean

Bernabe, Patrick Chamoiseau, and Raphael Confiant ( Paris: Galli­
mard, 1 989 ) . The volume, dedicated i n part to Glissant, proposes a
transregional identity, history, and politics based on "creoleness"-a
concept that, for Glissant, does n o t have the suppleness of process
he finds in "creolization ." Trans.
2. Saint:John Perse, Eloges and other Poems, Trans. Louise Varese ( New
York: Bollingen/Pantheon, 1 956) , 1 7.
3. William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust ( New York: Random House,
1 948 ) . In terestingly, i n the French translation, which Glissan t has
quoted here, this is far more explicit: " I do not know him in the
least, and, as far as I know, there is n o whi te man who does" ( m y
translation o f t h e French versi on ) . Trans.

215
4. Michael Dash , in his translation ot Glissan t's Caribbean Discou rse (Dis­
wurs antillais) ( Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1 989 ) ,
translates detour as diversion and retour as reversion. This is particularly
inte resting if one is atten tive to the sense of version, thus , connecting
it wi th an impo rtant meaning of Relati o n , i . e . , "telling." I believe ,
however, that Glissant is vastly more in terested in the movement
implicit in both detour and retour and, therefore , translates these
words as detour and return-or go /J(U k, etc. , in the case of the latter. In
this particular case, because noun and verb are iden tical in English,
they convey m ore action-which action might, of course , be one of
"diversion" or "distraction." See note 4 to the chapter "Errantry and
Exile . " Trans.

C O N C E R N I N G T H E P O E M ' S I N F O RMAT I O N

1 . The insertion of a text i n to a text, o r the articulation o f a part with a

whole, sometimes will run counter to the overall economy. This ref�
erence to French critics who thus proclaim the end of poetry is o n ly
one relay for registering situations in the world, where poetry is on
the increase as a means of expression.

D I CTAT E , D E C R E E

1 . Th ree related i mages of the world hypostasized b y Glissant-la t ot a l­

ite-monde, les echos-monrle. and le ch aos- m on de-have been left untrans­
lated here , not only because of the i nherent difficulty in translating
them but also because they function as n eologisms that have to be
accepted i n to the French, so why not i n to English as well, since Glis­
sant is working on languages in relation? Their structure cannot be
duplicated in English. The article clearly modifies the first element
( la totalite, les edws) , but the second clement ( rnonde) is not a mere
modifier, as it would appear to be if the n ormal English reversal of
terms took place ( i . e . , world-totality, world-echoes, world-chaos) . In
fact, in this third instance all the implications of ordered chaos
implicit in chaos theory would slip a\vay, leaving the banality o f
world-disorder. N o r are these guises of the world ( the world a s total­
ity, e tc . ) ; they are identi ties of the world. The world is totality,

216
 echoes, and chaos, all at once, depending on our many ways of sens­
ing and addressing it. Trans.

TO B U I LD T H E TOWE R

1 . For Glissant, when these two words are set in contradistinction to

each other, langue is the language one speaks and langage is how one
speaks it. A langue may be a national language ( French, Spanish,
etc . ) or an imposed language ( French i n Martinique) or a domi­
n ated language ( Creo le ) . A langage is a way of using language that
can cross linguistic borders. Glissant shares a langage with writers
who do not write in French: Derek Walcott, Jose Maria de Heredia,
and Kamau Brathwaite, among oth ers. In Le Discours antillais he
described the relation between these two terms: "the Creole langue,
which is natural to me, comes at every moment to irrigate my written
practice of French, and my langage results from this symbiosis" (DA,
322; my translation ) . In Caribbean Discourse Michael Dash renders
this distinction as "language" and "self�expression . " I t is perhaps an
expression of Glissan t 's langage that he prefers to see the disti nctions
marked by composite words that i ndicate their fundamental con­
nection; my translation of these words when they are set in this rela­
tion are language-voice (for langue) and language-use (for langage) .
2. In Le Discours antillais I wrote: "I speak to you in your language-voice
and I understand you i n my langu age-use" (322 ) . When all languages
are equivalent, the poet's language-voice gives-on-and-with [ donne
avec] his language-use. For language··voice and language-use to be
no longer differentiated presupposes that every language-voice has
been set free as poetics. In the same way, to write is to experience
oneself as already i nhabited, i n joyful n ostalgia, by all the languages
of the world.

T RA N S PARE N CY AND O PA C I TY

1 . Charaudeau's proposition concerning situational competence i n

the beginning student can b e foun d i n another form i n a n article by
Robert B . Kaplan: "Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Edu­
cation," Language Leaming 1 6, n os. 1 -2, 1-20. Kaplan examines the

217
 conditions for teaching English as a second language in the U n i ted
States. His general conclusion is that the foreign student, 'vho has
assi m i lated and mastered the rules perfectly, nonetheless is n o t
immediately able t o speak o r write i n t h e language: his or her situa­
tional competence-Kaplan does n ' t use these words, but the i dea i s
t h e sam e-n eeds to be developed b y t h e teacher.

T H E RE LAT IV E AN D C H AO S

1 . I t was when I was at U NESCO that the constan t misunderstanding

concern i n g these two senses of the word r·1dt1u1> (among many o th­
ers) became confi rmed for m e . Some of the Western offi cials who
had served i n th is organ ization a long time were offended hy the
arrival of citizens from the coun tries of the south, seeing this as a
sort of betrayal of the i deal of "cultu re" that, according to them, had
govern ed i ts foundati o n . Goi ng even fort her, they put the cultures o f
these countries, so obviously remote from what they considered to

be humanistic accomplishmen t, in the same category as the various

government regimes i n charge of them. Barbarism , consequently,
was penetrating the Institution , and you could hear these worthies
grumbling to themselves: "Soon we ' ll be working under coconut
palms." This mistake was two-pronged: "cultu re" was confused with
humanistic soph isticatio n , and people 's cultu res were confused with
the govern ments ruli n g over them. Of course-and not to mention
that there is little to choose between underdeveloped dictatorsh ips
in their sphere and m any poli tical regimes that are apparen tly much
m o re civilized-i t was not an i n nocent m istake.
For, if they had been willing to consider that a culture is a totality,
a participating eclw-monde by the same token they would have been
..

willing to relinquish thei r exclusive privilege to "culture" and i ts

adm in istration. And, if th ey substan tiated the notion that culture
and governmen t \Vere equ ivalent, there was every possibili ty, or rea­
son , to claim that th is p rivi lege should be mai n tained whe re it was,
in the name of good "government of the thi ngs of this world . "
Arrangements of t h i s sort m e t w i t h approval fr o m m o s t of the
represen tatives of the wealthy nations, \vhich o n ly allmved for sup­
porti ng cultu ral assistance to poor countries on a selective basis ( the
only way they believed to be effective ) and preferably in a bilateral
con text-in which fruitful negotiations were always possible.

218
 Moreover, any global analysis of the situation-what U NESCO
for a while summed up under the awkward title of "worldwide prob­
lematics"-was immediately pilloried by these representatives and
declared useless or dangerous. Time and money wasted. I t would,
however, have been a major accomplishment on the part of an insti­
tution of that n ature to have woven the beginnings of this global
Relation .
U nfortunately, both the language conventions holding sway i n
such a context ( particularly the punctilious precautions necessarily
adopted to avoid shocking any of the parties involved) as well as the
great number of reservations were significan t curbs on this attempt,
precisely at the poi n t at which all the wealth of the imagin ation and
of poetics should have been alerted. Poetics, in an i nternational
Organization !
The stubborn-it could be considered heroic-determi nation of
Amadou-Mahtar M 'B ow, the director general at the time, stemmed
in large part from h is convic tion that it was in the in terest of every­
one, developed coun tries and coun tries in the process of develop­
ment (as they were described ) , to try to defi ne the global i nterde­
pendency of problems and, consequently, that there was a
m ul tilateral necessity for solutions that might ensue from such an
analysis. The afflue n t n ations acknowledge no such joint interest.
They are willing to distribute largesse but in proportion to friendly
cooperation.
It is one of the phenomena of society that organs of the Western
press seem to have constantly misinterpreted these facts. It is true
that the heart of the debate was n o t mean t to fascinate public opin­
ion and that it is far more e n tertaining and more striking to pay
attention to personalities or occasional conflicts presen ted in this
man ner. The flash-agents of the media (see n . 1 in the chap ter "Dis­
tancing, Determining" ) perfo rmed their function here and con­
cealed beneath pseudo-force lines ( "Crisis at UNESCO ! ") the real
ones. For example: "Preserve Freedom of the Press" obliterated the
real issue: "Find a n ew equilibrium in the space of the world for the
floods of information and their cultural cargo. "
I t was not a n innocent mistake.
2 . The terms lieu commun (common place) and lieu-commun (com m o n­
place ) are important for Glissan t , and they are discussed at some
length i n the c hapter " Relin ked ( Relayed) , Related." Their English
equivalents are less felicitous, perh aps, but common place can be

2 19
 understood as the place common to coinciding cultures-the place
they share-and commonplace exists i n its commonplace sense as
banality. Trans.

D ISTAN C I N G , D ET E RM I N I N G

1 . Flash agen ts i s m y solution t o Glissan t's phrase "age nts d ' eclat." This
term in French is no more instan tly legible than my E nglish phrase;
generally, however, the function performed by these flash agen ts is
defi ned by context. Constructed o n the analogy o f "press agen ts"
( agents de presse) , the formula goes beyond our very general notion of
media to i nclude a sense of instantaneous dazzleme n t wielded by
hegemonic agen ts. Trans.

RE L I N KE D , ( RE LAYE D ) , R E LATE D

1 . I n the French i t i s n o t clear that langage ( use-language ) i s dominant

in this case or that langue (voice-language ) is domi n ated, but Gl is­
san t clarified this poin t for the translatio n . Trans.
2. One language 's particularity-the addition in French of a hyphen
(turning lieu rommitn [common place] i n to lieu-commun [com mon­
place] -allows me to ven ture a concept that goes beyond its occa··
sion. This is some thing that woul d be i m possible if sabirs replaced
languages. Just think of the unimaginable reserves p rovided by the
world's languages to produce just such ways of goin g beyond them­
selves. H ow many idioms, dialects , would we not take for inspiration
to come back every tim e to mechanisms of Relation that cann ot be
dismantl ed? Failing to attain th is mul tipl icity, we atte m p t to reach it
from the very environment of the lan guage i n which we express o u r­
selves. When we want to give-on-and-with m u l tiplicity, we open the
linguistic bastion and i n turn multiply the lan guage that •ve i n h abit;
we open stars into it: into a use-language that, by shortcutting,
reassem bles the language and scatters it.

F O R O PA C ITY

1 . Comprehension could, of course, be translated as "comprehension" to

point out the root connection with the French word cornprendre,

220
 which I have earlier rendered as "to grasp" or, when the sense is
mechanical, as "to comprehend" (and once, at Glissan t's behest, as
" to integrate") . In American E nglish , however, the controlling atti­
tude implied in this particular instance, vis-a-vis other people or cul­
tures, is m ore apparen t in understanding than in comprehension. Trans.

O P E N C I RC L E , L IVED R E LAT I O N

I . Henri Meschonnic defines m odern ity by ( among other things) a

return of historicity. He thus seems to contradict the general curren t
of structuralist thinking. B u t I sense--perhaps wrongly- that this
historicity is abstracted from the evolution of the world. We are sum­
moned not so much by historicity as by the diffracted synchronicity
of peoples' histories. The active p resence of these peoples is what
antihistorical thought has mutely impugned with its self-defensive
tactics. Historicity takes place o n ly in liberated geographies.
Meschonnic, for example, deplores the excessive use in contem­
porary critical texts, of the word horizon. No doubt because he sus­
pects there is a project there, the i n tention of conquest (one more
arrow-like nomadism ) , the breakthrough of an ideology or-com­
ing down to the same thing-of a propagating ideal. The word hori­
zon loses this meaning, h owever, when it is a question of the realized
horizon of the world . Would not m odern i ty be the contradictory
and reflected totality of cultures? The horizon is how all these places
circle the planet. Though, in the m eanwhile, humanity is updating
all over again, in a deplorable manner, the old understanding and
usage of this word, by "proj ecting" against yet unimagin able places,
to the interplanetary horizo n .

Perhaps modernity exists when a tradition functioning in a time a n d

place n o longer gradually assimilates t h e changes offered, either
from within o r from without, but adapts to them by violence. Vio­
lence does n o t in every instance mean a break, which could emerge
latently. But, because the violence of change has become wide­
spread these days and increased i ts speed, it can be described as
absolutely modern .
Thus, sequences of modern i ty have laid the groundwork for
modernity. And the latter, extravagant and endogenous, is con­
sumed in its predicates. I ts duration is its extremity: the more

22 1
 modern i ty is flaun ted, the m o re it is u n realized. Fol lmvi n g this logi c ,
one could th i n k of s uccessive fu tu res without modern i ty o r o f
i n fi n i te modern i ties wi th n o fu ture.
\!\'hat Western c u l tu res call the postmodern is an atte m p t to fi nd
an orde r i n (and p u t some order into) t h is real i ty that is experi­
e n ce d as ch aos, w i thout, however, abandon ing the e n e rgy of this
c h aos. An atte m p t to man age mode rn i ty hy putting i t in order. In
oth e r words, anchoring oneself the best o n e can i n the c o n t i n u u m
of o n e 's own p roduction . T h a t i s , i ndeed, one ot th e m o s t obvious
tem p tations of postmodern ism , which takes as i ts subj e c t the for­
malist resurrection of the works and orname n ts of the vVestern past,
adapted to the c u rren t magma. But, as we have p reviously suggested
o n several occas i o n s , aes t h e ti c and p h i l osophical though ts , n o mat­
te r w h i c h cultu re e nge ndered the m , w i l l have to b reak away from
the b i rth of their own h istory alone, to give-on-and-with every possi­
ble contam i n atio n . They will have to i m p l e m e n t th e i r Other o f
though t. Curren tly, there a r e no s i g n s of a n y a ppreciable begi n n i ngs
of these self�breaks. Except p e rh aps in the West, and as if by
an ti p h rasis, the i n te l lectual q u est for an rpistenwlogiml break, ·what­
ever it m ay be and wherever it is b rough t to bear, is evi dence of a
fee l i n g for ( bu t also of a rese n t m e n t against) this need to b reak with
the exclusivi ty of on e 's con ti n u u m .

2. Ge n e rali zation h a s b rought about s o m e d ramatic m o m e n ts o n the

plan e t .
Leon Trotsky 's sym bolic f i gu re h overed ove r th e d ram a of t h e dis­
p e rs al of Trotskyi te i n te l ligences and ge n e rosities.
Stal i n ism , by taki n g the Revol ution back i n to a single coun try,
reac tivated the ge n e ralizing u n iversal-always eth nocentric a n d
abso l ut e . The Th i rd I n t e rnati o n al was t h e tragic i n stru m e n t of t h i s
ge n e ralization .
Tro tskyi sm , developing the t h e o ry of p e rman e n t Revol ution ,
atte mp te d to escape t h is generalizi ng u n iversal and to replace it with
a concre te and relativi7ed u n iversal .
B u t t h e li berations of nations cann o t be p rogramm ed in a uni­
v e rsa l m a n n e r. The Trnt skyist perspec t ive , wh ich freed the lessons o f
Marxism fr o m th e strai qacket o f State n ati onalism , did not g o far
e nough in its evo l u tio n .
Today w e know t h a t M arxist ph i l osophy ( o r t h e philosophy o f
Marx ) was , l i k e a l l p h i l osoph ies of History, l i n ear ( o n e H istory, o n e

222
 drivi ng force: the class struggle; an agent: the proletariat; an end:
classless society) and ethnocentric (it moved from the outermost
parts of the world toward the great cities of Europe ) . But it also took
its strength from an imaginary structure that had to have been i ts
first inspiration and that, beyond theory, presen ted the world as a
totali ty.
The idea of permane n t Revolution, if it were to radiate outward
in con tradiction , could n o t be merely ideological. It is the a priori
( the program mable calendar of liberation movements ) one would
have had to go beyond in order to appreciate the exte n t to which
Marxist thought had contributed methodological progress in grasp­
ing situations. This thought contained seeds of the generalizing uni­
versal: it authorized the Stalinist monstrosities. Whereas the Marxist
imagi nary, if it had been separated from its obsession with seizing
power, would have had the opposite effect, providing for Relation .
Trotskyism wen t farther, b u t i ts tragedy lay in n o t making a sys­
tematic criticism of Stalinist ethnocentrism and not applying some
of this critique to M arxist th eory i tself, at least as this theory was
i nterpreted by the Russian revolutionaries.
This is why Trotskyism ran i n to the stubborn particularities of
specific situations j us t about everywhere, i n a dust of heroic, ridicu�
lous, and usually vague battles.
That's all easy to say-and quickly said-today.
But it is true that this was an abortive erho-monde that left deep in
many the grip of regret and nostalgia.

3. Among these binarities, whether or not they can be transcended:

Matrix abyss, immeasurable abyss.

Arrowlike nomadis m : -circular nomadism.
Discovery, Conquest.
Linearity-circularity.
Filiation-extension .
Legitimacy-contingency.
Cente r: -peripheries.
D iflerences: singularities.
Transparency-<>pacity.
Generalization-generality.
(Faulkner, Sai n t�John Perse. )
Classicisms-Baroque.

223
Models-Echos-mon de.
Relative: Chaos.
Totality: Relation.
Grasping ( comprendre) -giving-on-and-with ( donner aver) .
Sense ( i n linear terms) , the full-sense ( in circularity ) .
Aesthetics of the universe: aesthetics of Chaos.
Voice languages: use-languages.
Writing: orality.
The i nstant, duration .
H istory-histories.
Root identity-relation identity.
Thought of the O ther: -the Other of thought.
Assim ilations--distancings that determine.
Relinked ( relayed) , Related.
Relay agents-flash agents.
Common place: commonplace.
Violence, deculturati o n .
Creolizations, errantry.

In this litany commas (, ) i ndicate relatio n , dashes (-) oppositi o n ,

a n d colons ( : ) consecuti o n .

224
 References

Is it not one of the conditions of writing today that it conceive

of itself as preceded by a pretext of discourse? In any case,
this is what usually happens: I accept invitations to expose
my points of view publicly whenever the proposed confer­
ence fits in with my ( nonprojectile) project. And sometimes
the suggested theme will have a ripple effect, set rootlets, or
swerve in some new direction.
The public lecture functions as a sort of first draft to the
written text resulting from i t. But this presentation will have
determined, meanwhile, the lineages of the text and ori­
ented its economy. The practice of writing then will tighten,
or draw out, what the lecture brought to light. Preliminary
written texts sometimes function in this process as
approaches that foretell and really provoke orality.
These two practices contribute to a phenomenon that is
no longer certifiably either "pure" writing or transcribed
orality. The consequence of this is that, with each edition of
such a text, if there happen to be any, the temp ta tion arises
(by recalling these relayed techniques) to change-to per­
fect?-the letter of it, over and over again. What is related
thus varies (at the same time that the substance of Relation
moves) toward a perfectibility of expression that does not
arrive at an absolute. To what extremities can this go? What is
the limit? No doubt to the point where voice begins to fail
and the hand stops.

225
 The following are som e of the occasions that h ave pre­
ceded ( sometimes authorized) the work of overal l elabora­
tion for this volume.

"The Open B oat'' ( La Barq ue ouverte ) . Pape r for t h e colloqui um " L' ex­
pcrience du gouffre" ( Experience of the Abyss ) , Louvai n , 1 986.
"Erran t ry, Exile" ( L' e rran c e , l ' ex i l ) . Lec ture given in 1 987 as part of a
series on " L' erran c c , " in :Vlarti n ique.
" Poetics" ( Poetiques ) . A syn th esis of two sets of observations give n as
separate lectures at Te mple U n iversi ty ( Ph i ladelphia) and Rice C n i­
versity ( Houston ) in 1 988 and 1 989. The fi n al text was p resented a t
t h e U n iversity of Califo rn i a at Berkeley in M arch 1 990.
"A Rooted Erran try" ( U n e errance e n raci n ee ) . The first version
appeared as the p reface to "Pour Sai n t-J ohn Perse ," p u bl ished by
GEREC ( Groupe d ' etudes et de rec herc hes creolophones ) , Mar­
tinique, 1 988.
"Closed Place, Open Word" ( Li e u dos, parole ouverte ) . Give n at the
Colloqu i u m on the Plantation sys te m , Center for Fre n c h a n d Fran­
cop h o n e Studies, Louisiana State U n ivers i ty ( Baton Rouge ) , April
1 989.
"Concern i n g a Baroque Abroad i n the World " ( D ' un baroque m o n di­
al ise ) and "To B u i l d the Tower" ( B;1ti r la tour) were reworked from
texts that appeared in f,e rou rrier de l 'Unnco, 1 985 and 1 986.
"Concern i n g the Poem 's Information" (De l ' i nfonnation d u pot� m e )
was first approac hed at t h e colloquium " Pocsic c t i n formati que,"
Liege, 1 984.
"Transparency and Opaci ty" (Transpare nc e e t opac i te ) . Theme devel­
oped before the Con gress o f Fre n c h Prnfessors o f South America.
Bogo t<:1 , 1 982.
"Th e Relative and Chaos" ( Le relatif e t l e c h aos) is based on a pape r
give n before the Association of Professors of Physical Chem istry of
Mart i n i q u e , 1 980.
" D is tan c i ng, Determ in i n g" ( Les ccarts determ i nants ) . Prese n te d at a
meeting of l 'Assaupamar (Association pour la Sauvegarde du Patri­
m o i n e Marti niquais ) , August 1 989.

226