What significance can the story of something as affordable and insignificant as nutmeg have in the 21st century? And yet this spice and the future of the population that gave birth to it, that of the inhabitants of the Banda Islands, ten small volcanic islands that belong to the Moluccas archipelago (Indonesia), explain the origin of the current climate crisis, according to the Indian writer and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh (Kalkulta, 67 years old). Because the plundering of natural resources to the point of endangering the existence of the planet “is not new, but has its origins in Western colonialism,” which began after the “discovery of America,” explains Gosh in the recently published book in Spanish, The Curse of Nutmeg (Capitan Swing, 2023), an essay in which he draws a parallel between the history of this spice and “that of our time”.
“The Bandans had this wonderful and wonderful tree as a result of volcanic ecology and it brought them prosperity for a long time until it became the reason for their extinction,” says Ghosh during a video call interview with this newspaper. . And he adds: “More than 90% of the population of the archipelago was killed, captured or enslaved on the orders of the Dutch Empire” – the Portuguese pharmacist Tomé Pires wrote in his Suma Oriental (1515) that the population of the archipelago was between 1 and 1515 20% was 2,500 and 3,000 people.
The purpose of the massacre was to control and dominate the nutmeg trade, but above all to get rich, the author concludes. Nowadays, a jar of ground nutmeg weighing about 60 grams costs less than three euros in a Spanish supermarket, depending on the brand. But “in the 15th century, in most European cities, a handful of this spice or mace, the even more valuable nutmeg shell, could buy a house and even a ship,” he says. This uncontrolled extractivism, according to Ghosh, is the same one that is causing the current climate crisis today.
“It is no secret that the value of Asian trade fueled the voyages of great explorers such as Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama and Ferdinand Magellan,” recalls Ghosh. “And his plan was exactly to find the Spice Islands,” he adds. The result of dominance in the nutmeg business, the anthropologist emphasizes, brought enormous profits to the Dutch Empire. “The return was sometimes 400% of the amount invested in the trip,” he explains.
The spices of the past are “the oil or natural gas of our time”
Therefore, the fate of the Banda Islands, a place that was once prosperous and paradisiacal until its population was wiped out, “is the history of the resource curse and serves as a model for the present,” because the spices of the past are “the oil or natural gas our time.” “For the Bandanians, the landscapes of their islands were habitable places intertwined with human life. It was not land, but the earth [en mayúsculas]“, describes Ghosh. But for the Dutch, “the trees, volcanoes, and landscapes of the Banda represented nothing more than a resource that could be profitably exploited.” “Furthermore, for the Dutch, there was no intrinsic connection between the Bandans and the landscape they inhabited: they could just pass through Workers and managers who would turn the islands into a nutmeg factory should be replaced.”
This idea of eliminating the local population of the Banda Islands in order to take over their resources “could have arisen because it had already been practiced in America,” the anthropologist remembers. “The Spanish did it, the Portuguese did it and this became the European standard for dealing with people everywhere,” an approach that, according to the author, the Dutch Empire knew well, “because one of its axes, New Amsterdam, is today's New York , was in North America.”
The slavery that drives capitalism
Out of this violence comes what the author calls “the most astonishing demographic project of all time” that would ultimately “enable the birth of capitalism.” According to Ghosh, this project was to “eliminate the population of a continent.” [América] to replace it, on the one hand, with white Europeans as bosses and, on the other hand, with enslaved Africans and Native Americans as the labor force.” “Capitalism was essentially made possible by slavery, particularly in North America, for it is now proven that many of the techniques that later led to Cars used in mass production were first invented on plantations,” he says. And these techniques were later applied to the Banda.
For the Dutch, “the trees, volcanoes and landscapes of the Banda meant nothing more than a resource that could be profitably exploited.”
In fact, according to Ghosh, most 17th-century British philosophers defended ideas related to slavery, such as the British politician Francis Bacon, who advocated the very idea that “nature must be tortured to obtain its goods extract.” a concept “still”. “Very present today,” criticizes Ghosh.
But more than that: in his An Advertisement Touching a Holy War, written around the time of the Banda massacre, Bacon laid out the reasons why he believed it permissible for Christian Europeans to put an end to the existence of certain groups set. Specifically, the author explains, because “there are nations ostracized and excommunicated by natural laws, misguided countries, which are not nations as such, but rather resemble herds and mobs.” And this combination of the exploitation of the country and its inhabitants in order to profit from its riches Profiting “got us to where we are.” “Nothing is new,” he laments.
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