essay
by ÉDOUARD GLISSANT
So many communities under threat today have only the alternatives of, on the one hand, the tearing apart of their being, identitarian anarchy, war between nations and dogmas, and, on the other, a Roman peace imposed by force, an empty neutrality imposed on everything by an all-powerful, totalitarian, well-meaning Empire.
Are we reduced to these impossible choices? Do we not have the right and the means to live another dimension of humanity? But how?
As much as ever, masses of Negroes are threatened and oppressed because they are Negroes, Arabs because they are Arabs, Jews because they are Jews, Muslims because they are Muslims, Indians because they are Indians, and so on through the infinite diversities of the world. This litany is indeed never-ending.
The idea of identity as a single root provides the measure according to which these communities were enslaved by others, and in…