Matias Koch - Entry No 5 (Taussig)

The author tries to focus on the importance of fear in the older civilizations, and he talks about how this fear was the common ground for all the civilizations and enemies. Fear was what every culture and religion fears, it was an eye opener for all humans, becoming a part of their traditions. The space of dead in the society was always a huge mystery, and it is also today that we wonder about it. No one can escape from the fear of dead, and that’s why it has become a kind of universal language. The subordination of colonies in the early history of mankind was not only produced because of the advanced weapons or tactics of the conquerors, but also because of the manipulation of the fear of dead the tribes or other colonies had at the time. This is what he called a “dense web of magical realism”. The torture, the idea of demons, and all the other questions without an answer were very helpful at that time.

He emphasizes deeply on Conrad and Casement, who had been both exiles from the imperialized European societies, Poland and Ireland. Casement was a strong activist against the abusive power of the colonies in the Congo and Putumayo. Casement was later on hung for treason in 1916, after joining the militant action on behalf of his native land, organizing gun running from Germany to the revels.  Casement was also an English Foreign Officer, who has travel to Putumayo and had written a full report about what was happening at the colony disputed between Peru and Colombia. And the author of this text centers the majority of his work analyzing the fear and the crude images the report from Casement brings to the table.

What Taussing sees in the report is the fear as a mechanism of labor, and a life taking structure created by the subordinates colonies in order to produce death limit situations, which help to maintain the slaves in order. What they were looking to produce was the agony of death, a situation so extreme that the only thing the workers wanted was to stay alive. But because fear is not a one way street, the same people that create the fear and terror, were also afraid of a possible and most certain revolution from the Indians. For me this is what happened in a day to day basis in our society. The rich are afraid of the poor and the poor are afraid of the rich, this is the sad and yet true story of history.

The author of this work wanted to demonstrate how the fear and terrorism can create the pure essence of domination during the history of colonies and countries. The fear of death, spirits, magic and all those kind of things helped some humans to dominate the others. The fear is shared; it does not belong to one single group. The idea of fear is that it is everywhere, and the best way to control that fear is to response with more fear. The atrocities that the modern colonies had made to the less developed ones are huge, and it was all based in the fear of dead. If humans weren’t afraid of dead they wouldn’t have tolerated as long as they had.