Andalusia | Enrique Dussel: A Thinker Of Liberation El Salto

Enrique Dussel: Hegel and Marx of the Global South?

Philosophically speaking, Enrique Dussel is the Hegel of the global south. However, Dussel did not like this analogy and always politely asked us not to use it for various reasons. Firstly, for his humility. Secondly, because the analogy was false, as Hegel represents the height of Eurocentrism, while Dussel’s work contradicts precisely this approach. Nevertheless, we resort to this comparison so that a Eurocentric audience unfamiliar with Dussel’s work but familiar with European and North American philosophy can understand the significance of his thought.

Eurocentric philosophers, whether from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia or other regions, identify in Hegel the thinker who achieved the great synthesis of Eurocentric philosophy, world history, ethics and politics. From Hegel to Habermas, Eurocentric philosophers refer to it either to criticize it with the idea of improving the Eurocentric perspective or to accept it as it is. From our perspective, Dussel is our Hegel because he accomplished the great synthesis of decolonial thought in the global South. He created a philosophical vision from the experience of the oppressed, exploited and excluded of the global south, that is, from the externality or “non-being” beyond the ontological being of the modern world. From this place of utterance, Dussel founded a complete philosophical “system” that includes an ontology, metaphysics, ethics, philosophy, a method (the analectical), as well as a political, educational, erotic and theological, including economic and philosophical system. soon, posthumously, an aesthetics of liberation. But more than that, Dussel traced a world history that, unlike Hegel, was neither Hellenocentric nor Eurocentric, which implied a gigantic task that was reflected in works such as “Hypothesis for the Study of Latin America in Universal History” (1966) and “Politics of the Liberation” was expressed. World History and Criticism (2007).

The Calibans of the planet, wherever they are, find in Dussel a source of critical thought that has marked a turning point in the critical and decolonial tradition of the Global South, just as Hegel did in the Eurocentric tradition of the Global North. This is important because we don’t have to reconstruct everything Dussel did, but we can start from him in the same way that the Eurocentrics started from Hegel. Therefore, the global South and planetary decolonial thinking must be based on the grand synthesis and open philosophical system that Dussel gave birth to.

Dussel can also be seen as the Marx of our time. It is known that in his research he used the spirit of Marxian methodology and not that of the Marxists. Dussel devoted ten years of his life, the equivalent of eighteen university semesters, to the study of Marx’s work. However, Dussel did not identify himself as a Marxist, but as a follower of Marx’s ideas. This distinction is crucial because most 20th century Marxism is Eurocentric, with the exception of Marxism from the global South, such as black or Latin American Marxism, such as that of José Carlos Mariátegui, Cedric Robinson or Oliver Cox, among others . Other.

The version of Marx that prevailed in the 20th century was the Soviet and Western version, which led to a white and Eurocentric Marxism that reproduced many problems. Unfortunately, Marxist intellectuals did not have access to Marx’s complete works. In fact, many volumes remain unpublished to this day. Dussel is therefore a pioneer of the “unknown Marx”, as he studied both published and unpublished works in the archives of Berlin and Amsterdam, gaining unique insights into the German thinker’s work. For this reason, many Marxists of the 20th and 21st centuries recognize Dussel as the only person to have read the complete works of Marx, a voluminous work expressed in five volumes dedicated to his work (2). In these works, Dussel made important contributions by presenting us with a Marx who is in a constant process of transformation and who differs from the static and dogmatic Marx that Stalinism offers us. Dussels Marx is a thinker who, in the last years of his life, made several extremely important decolonial turns, unknown to many renowned Marxists.

In this context, Dussel updated Marx’s work. Works such as the Ethics of Liberation (1998), the three volumes of the Politics of Liberation (2007; 2009; 2022) and the five volumes on Marx (1985; 1988; 1990; 1993; 2014), among others, reflect the spirit of Marx’s methodology . This point is often lost sight of because Dussel does not constantly quote Marx, although he did so in his lectures, courses and seminars. However, it is important to understand that his approach does not dogmatically adhere to Marx’s methodology, but rather offers insights into the way Marx worked on the issues, which is different.

It is also important to recognize Dussel as an outstanding liberation theologian, with the criticism of fetishism being one of the foundations of this theology. Dussel managed to work in the fields of philosophy and theology, maintaining the overlap of both epistemes, but always maintaining a certain autonomy. This means that when Dussel wrote about liberation theology, although he was rooted in the prophetic and messianic worldview, he did not limit himself to theology but opened himself up to diverse and heterogeneous areas of knowledge.

The prophetic tradition of criticism of pharaohs, emperors and kings was fundamental for Dussel. Following Marx, he always affirmed that political criticism presupposes being atheists towards the earthly gods. For him, the sacralization and fetishization of these false gods prevents the development of critical thinking. Radical criticism arises from an atheistic attitude towards the earthly power: capital.

Another central category in Dussel’s work, which is linked to Marx’s thinking, is that of “externality”. In contrast to the Marxist tradition of the 20th century, which saw the category of “totality” as central to Marx’s thought, Dussel held that the categories of “externality” were the most important. This means that Dussel was not only dedicated to reading Marx’s unpublished material, but that his education included theology, political economy, world history, world philosophy, European, Chinese, Latin American, indigenous, African, Hindu and Hindustani language aspects all in one Marx’s sentences that have escaped general perception. While some of us identified two themes in one sentence, he was able to identify seven, allowing him a highly original interpretation of Marx that was in keeping with the spirit of Marx himself.

In the Eurocentric Marxist tradition, the theological aspects of Marx’s work are often neglected, as this modern tradition is torn between the secular and the religious. World historical elements are also neglected. However, Dussel places Marx in the Semitic tradition, thereby challenging the depiction of the Cartesian Marx promoted by 20th-century Eurocentric Marxism, which conceives of Marx as an author who thinks from a “non-place,” is mechanistic and scientific. On the other hand, according to Dussel, Marx is anchored in time, space and a certain worldview. In this sense, according to Dussel, Marx’s Semitic vision provided him with categories, some of which were theological in origin, and which enabled him to engage in a radical critique of the world of his time.

His relationship to science, critical thinking and political engagement

We had the opportunity to see Dussel in action. The fact that most of the Modernism/Colonialism Network events were organized by us allows us to share some first-person experiences (3).

Dussel was not only a great intellectual, but also a person who was deeply committed to the liberation of people. What he wrote and expressed was the formalization of his concrete practice. We traveled together to different places in the world and were able to exchange our experiences first hand. Personally, we were always very careful when choosing the places we invited him to and didn’t want to take his time. We always invited him to places where his participation was meaningful and could also be enriched by the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-racist and anti-sexist experiences of political and social movements. For this reason he used to say: “Where Ramón invites me, there I go.” With this in mind, we chose places of both intellectual and political importance, since it was the latter aspect that interested Dussel most in our invitations. We invited him not simply to think about the liberation of the world, but rather to intervene politically in its transformation and liberation.

We traveled together to many Latin American countries, including Venezuela several times, several Latin American countries, as well as African countries, including Morocco and South Africa, and several European countries. We have always worked with popular anti-imperialist movements fighting in the streets against imperialist, colonialist, racist, sexist and Eurocentric rule, including the indigenous movement of the Republic in France. We have also invited Dussel to participate in “Decolonial Europe” events and meetings, together with Muslim, Caribbean and Afro-colonial colleagues in Europe, in countries such as Germany, France, England, Spain, among others.

When organizing many events of the Modernity/Colonialism Network, we met thinkers like Aníbal Quijano, who reproduced a modern and Eurocentric logic regarding the debate between the secular and the religious, that is, between modern science and modern religion. which is a profound problem from a decolonial perspective.

What we call “secular” presupposes the theological worldview of Christianity as a horizon of meaning. The dominant theology of modern/colonial Christianity masquerades as “secular” and scientific and creates a very problematic dualism between humanity and religion. Nature, meaning to adopt as universal history the local history of Christianity’s medieval Europe, where the production of science was not permitted due to the incompatibility between spirituality and science. The dualisms of Christianity prevented the development of science as it was seen as a threat to the dogmas of the Church. Those scientists who experimented with natural forces considered demonic were condemned to the stake. This dualism plunged Europe into obscurantism for centuries. On the other hand, in the rest of the planet there was a compatibility between science and spirituality thanks to a holistic cosmological view of the relationship between humans and nature. This allowed the development of science, as opposed to Christianity, which was compatible with spirituality.

In this context, Quijano asked why we invited this “Curita”, which referred to Dussel, to these events. In other words, he didn’t want us to invite Dussel because he was supposedly just a theologian and had nothing to contribute to decolonial thought. However, when we asked him what he had read by Dussel, it turned out that he had not read anything out of purely Eurocentric and modern prejudices. In the 1970s he had read one or two texts in the spirit of liberation theology and thus dismissed Dussel’s work as a whole, as if he were a person who deserved neither respect nor attention.

When Dussel presented his work, Quijano disqualified everything he said. We were always impressed by Dussel’s humility in the face of Quijano’s arrogant tone, even though both were about the same age and Dussel had many other works, especially on Marx. With patience and respect, Dussel always responded to Quijano with valid arguments and respect. An example of this is the divergence of their positions on the category “totality”. For Quijano, everything is totality and nothing outside of it, although he had a vision of “totality with heterogeneity” and not a Eurocentric vision of “totality with homogeneity.” Instead, Dussel claimed the category of “externality,” specifically the externality of human subjectivity, a position that Quijano viewed with skepticism. Quijano recognized none other than European epistemologies because he assumed that everything was part of the same system. In this way he did not perceive the potential or possibility of a thought arising from the relative externality of the totality of the system.

In 1998 we organized a conference on “Coloniality of Power, Historical Capitalism, and Transmodernity”(4) at the State University of New York, Binghamton. Bolívar Echeverría was one of the guests. As a professor in the Department of Sociology and a member of the Braudel Fernand Center, Immanuel Wallerstein, director of the center, came to us one day and asked why Bolívar was complaining about inviting Dussel. He asked us to speak to him because Bolívar claimed that Dussel was not a serious person. During the conversation, Bolívar also disqualified Dussel as a “theological priest” with no significant contributions to Marxists. When asked whether he had read Dussel’s work on Marx, all five volumes of which had already been published in 1998, he admitted that he had not; He hadn’t even read the 1977 Philosophy of Liberation. His dismissal was again based on secularist, modern and Eurocentric prejudices. Therefore, we pointed out that this type of argument did not convince us not to invite Dussel, given its great relevance in numerous fields of knowledge and as a fundamental reference in South-South dialogues.

We never shared these experiences to avoid conflict, but now we feel free to do so. It is time to say that Dussel has been mistreated, persecuted and marginalized in academia, which is a disgrace to the global south.

We once accompanied Dussel to a seminar in Guadalajara organized by the Philosophical Association of Mexico. We were very impressed by the fact that when we entered the lobby of the building that housed many of the great Mexican philosophers, no one greeted Dussel and everyone turned away from him. No one responded to their greetings, which was extremely shocking to us. From there we walked for more than 20 minutes until we reached the furthest corner where the event classroom with Dussel was located. We walked through many hallways with almost empty classrooms until we reached Dussel’s room, which was full of people who even climbed to the windows to listen to him talk about liberation philosophy.

Something similar happened in 2019 when Dussel attended an event at the University of Saint Denis in Paris, France. At this event Alain Badiou spoke and he retired, then Jacques Rancière also left and finally Étiene Balibar did the same. Dussel’s turn was late and no French philosophers were present, although he had prepared for a debate with them. Since no philosopher remained and there would be no debate, he expressed his disappointment at the beginning of his speech. On this occasion he criticized the event and the arrogant attitude of French philosophers.

Six months later, in Paris, we also organized an event on the decolonial theme at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Latin America. Dussel was very interested in discussing with Balibar, so we invited him, despite his initial reluctance due to lack of time. However, he agreed to comment on Dussel’s lecture. On this occasion, Dussel gave a master lecture on the world history of politics, from Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago to China, India, Egypt, etc. The audience was amazed. When it was Balibar’s turn to comment, we were perplexed as we witnessed Eurocentric arrogance and arrogance personified. His Eurocentrism was so obvious that we wondered if he was aware of his limitations. Instead of being honest about his doubts and questions, as he was unfamiliar with philosophy outside Europe, Balibar first said, “I am very suspicious of people who talk about Eurocentrism,” and he continued to baselessly criticize whoever was using the concept. His reaction left everyone stunned and for us it meant a before and after (5).

Dussel demonstrated impressive patience and perseverance throughout his academic life, despite the violence he experienced in these places. He never let these situations deter him from his path. He continued on his path with enthusiasm, discipline and a deep love for humanity, people and liberation.

Dussel showed his ethical-political commitment even in the most complicated moments of Venezuela (6), Cuba and many other oppressed and excluded peoples of the global south. For example, the impact of decolonial schools in South Africa was enormous and led to the emergence of the “Rhodes Must Fall: Decolonize the University” movement. These students, who took the courses we taught with Dussel and Nelson Maldonado-Torres, formed a decolonial South African national movement that paralyzed the university system in order to decolonize it. Although heavily repressed, it left an important legacy as all universities in South Africa are now seriously considering decolonizing curricula.