Towards an Ethics of Reconciliation
La virgencita Ochún is [n]either the [m]other of all Cubans [n]or the bleached Virgin. But she does remain one of the most important icon for Cuba, characterizing the hopes and aspiration of all Cubans. To gaze upon La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, Cuba’s patron saint in a genuinely Cuban way is to transcend the narrow rationalism and doctrinaire empiricism of the secularist mind-set. To reflect on the meaning of Cuba’s patron saint is for Cubans to open themselves to the deeper ramifications of Her message, as their minds sort through a system of operations that engender structures of commonalities and divergences represented through language.
In Ferdinand Saussure’s main work, Cours de Linguistique Générale (1949), he defines paradigmatic (rapports associatifs) as a term in linguistics denoting the “vertical” property of language. For example, a term used in a sentence can be replaced by a meaningful related term. A paradigmatic relationship can be contrasted with a “syntagmatic” relationship. Saussure defines syntagmatic (rapports syntagmatiques) as a linguistic term denoting the “horizontal” aspect of language, whereby a segment of speech can be unfolded into meaningful phrases (170-175). I suggest that we can understand the symbolic meaning of La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún in the operation of its paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships. The linguistic terms La Virgen de la Caridad and Ochún cease to simply serve as signs linking their separate images to either a Roman Catholic or Santería concept. Within the ambiguity of the constructed definitions of the symbols used to signify La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún, a sacred space reconciling diverse elements of Cuban society can be forged. In short, the so-called reality of La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún can never be understood in purely secular terms. But recognizing that all language is relative – acknowledging linguistic relativism – we can look beyond any arbitrary verbal structure or conceptual system. Hence, this most Cuban symbol, as signifier (image) will connote a unique perspective on the transcendental signified (concept), serving as a sign and representing the liberative mandate of reconciliation.
La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún as signifier is ambiguous. She is (n)either Catholic (n)or santera; (n)either white (n)or black, (n)either African (n)or Spaniard. Instead She dismantles the binary opposition between culture as oral tradition (literature) and faith as a way of being (philosophy). Jacques Derrida in La Dissémination (1972) uses the term “hymen” to describe this in-between space occupied by La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún. For Derrida, the term “hymen” arose out of a specific writing where it rendered a specific function not meant to be imported or applied elsewhere. However, I find the usage of this concept in association with La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún to be appropriate.
Her significance being much more than merely the end product of a Catholic thesis and an orisha antithesis.
La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún as hymen connotes that She is an either/or between an either/or. As hymen, La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún lies beyond the notion of synthesis, Her significance being much more than merely the end product of a Catholic thesis and an orisha antithesis. As such, La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún in particular and Santería in general cease to represent the third element mediating between aspects of a binary opposition. Her ambiguity, like a hymen, represents (n)either virginity (n)or consummation, (n)either inner (n)or outer (Derrida: 258-267). The richness in diversity within the Cuban culture makes the possible loss of this hymen reparable; for, [within] the multiple undecidability of meanings of La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún, another hymen will always “pop” into place.
To gaze upon Ochún/La Virgen de la Caridad is to witness a drama in which no central configuration exists representing any single truth or a polysemy representing many meanings. La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún, as presemantic (before meaning) becomes indecipherable, refusing to be integrated into (n)either Catholicism (n)or Santería. Rather She is grafted onto each like a mutant branch, causing any reading of this symbol to interreflect within itself. Her meaning (Virgen or Ochún) as a Cuban symbol always depends upon Her relationship to what She is not (Ochún or Virgen). Hence, for Her to mean anything requires the subversion of what She means. (N)either La Virgen (n)or Ochún can purge the Other from its domain, for each contains the Other within Herself.
La Virgen de la Caridad/Ochún as subverter has played this role since Her creation on Cuban soil. Because of historical persecution, many practitioners of Santería maintained an outward appearance of Catholicism, in effect cross-dressing as Christian. Also, gender cross-dressing is found in Santería, where orishas appear as male or female depending on its paths or avatars (i.e., Changó, the male warrior appears as St. Barbara, and Obatalá, the father of the orishas, as Our Lady of Mercy). In addition, Santería demonstrates how race and class also play as formative a role as gender. Many of the orishas, all of whom are black, put on white masks to appear European. Moreover, the saints chosen are not the major ones of the Catholic faith. Rather they represent minor saints, those of the lower class who are closer to the people and hence able to understand the practitioner’s dilemmas and effectively communicate them upward. In short, los santos (the saints) fail to fit into any male/female, black/white, or major/minor category. They inhabit a sacred area where borders are fluid and opposites are subverted and perpetually put in disarray. With time, both the Catholic and Yoruba faith traditions began to share quite similar sacred spaces.
Modern examples of orisha worship are not limited to the “synthesis” of Catholicism with Yoruba religion.
Throughout the Americas, the widespread phenomenon of cultural groups simultaneously participating in two diverse, if not contradictory, religious systems continues to exist. Christianity, when embraced under the context of colonialism or slavery, creates a new space where the indigenous beliefs of the marginalized group resist annihilation. Unique hybrids developed as the religious traditions of Yoruba slaves took roots on Caribbean soil. The vitality of the Yoruba belief system found expression through Catholicism as Voudou in Haiti, Shango in Trinidad and Venezuela, Candomble in Brazil, Kumina in Jamaica, and Santería in Cuba. Modern examples of orisha worship are not limited to the “synthesis” of Catholicism with Yoruba religion. Examples of this African faith combining with Protestantism can be found in the Jamaican groups, Revival and Pocomania. A similar example can be noted in the Trinidadian group known as Spiritual Baptists or Shouters, where the Yorubas faith found expression through Christian Fundamentalism. Religion need not be the only lens by which to explain Santería. Another example is articulated by the resident Cuban Magdalena Campos, who finds no conflict between Santería and atheistic Marxism. For her, Santería expands the frontiers of Marxism while enriching it. Furthermore, for Marxism to function in Cuba, it must incorporate Cuban reality as defined by the traditions of Santería.
The ambiguousness of Ochún transcends Her role as solely a religious symbol, for She also identifies with the Cuban exilic existence. Additionally, she can help exilic Cubans transcend their physical space in order to begin constructing a Cuban ethical response toward reconciliation with resident Cubans. For exilic Cubans, Ochún represents the Divine who also left Cuba and resides in exile, waiting to return to Her rightful place. Simultaneously, for resident Cubans, She remains the hope for the marginalized who never left. The orisha discovered by the marginalized Taíno brothers and the slave boy can also speak to white middle-class exilic Cubans. By the 1990s the Miami shrine had become the most popular Catholic pilgrimage site in the United States, drawing mostly older, white, middle-class Cubans. La virgen has become a new symbol which exists for the entire cubanidad. She can be claimed as the Cuban’s own sign, white and black, poor and middle-class, exile and resident. Long after Castro and Mas Canosa (founder of the Cuban-American National Foundation) are dead and buried, la Virgen del Cobre/Ochún will continue to live. In this shared sacred and political space Cubans can begin a dialogue by which to reconcile and rebuild their Cuban house.
Santería is a Cuban national symbol that, as such, is also sacred in la virgin. Any attempt to Christianize or bleach Her does violence to the Cuban culture. And to ignore Her prevents the construction of a theology of reconciliation that can heal the brokenness found in cubanidad. This article advocates the use of Cuban cultural symbols to communicate the liberative message of intra-Cuban reconciliation. This salvation, manifested as reconciliation for the Cuban people, can be facilitated as Cuban theologians begin to operate from within Cuban spaces such as these. If Cuban theologians refuse to participate in bringing about a dialogue, then their voices will be irrelevant to whatever form reconciliation takes in a post-Castro era.