Remember the Pork Knockers! How the Caribbean Mourns Suriname Miners Clarifies the Values We Place on Ourselves
The recent death of independent, not illegal, gold miners in Suriname reminds us of the emerging crosscurrents of the popular will in South America and the Caribbean regardless of national language or colonial history. CARICOM, the federation of states and ruling classes of the Caribbean region that talks culture, unity, and degrades and polices everyday people issued a statement about their “deep sadness” about the death of at least 15 miners in a tunnel collapse in Suriname on Monday, November 22. In Suriname, as in its westward neighbor Guyana, these independent miners are called “pork knockers.” They have a great and hallowed place in the literary and popular imagination of the Americas.
Known for feasting on pickled pork (wild boar) after a day of hard labor, pork knockers carry the bare necessities for living on their backs. These miners are familiar with aspects of cooperative living that persist within the shell of extractive capitalist society. Rarely do they declare a new society, but at their best they do approximate it. Their struggles for happiness are well-earned and must be defended. As we place value on ourselves, this must be part of our philosophy of becoming.
A Caribbean federation from below must identify with the pork knockers and their fellow miners in our region. It must inquire about their workplace cultures and their self-governing creative power. Caribbean rulers and their cultural front of reparations advocates and development workers will never do this. We know CARICOM and its member governments are incapable of empathy for ordinary working people. Their top-down reparations campaign refers to the Caribbean masses as illiterate, unhealthy, and mentally ill. They offer “heartfelt condolences to the families and all who are affected by this horrifying event.” But if this event disturbed them so, they would cultivate a vision of the values Caribbean people should place on themselves independent of the hierarchical order of domination that masquerades as “national development.” CARICOM leaders do not relate to Caribbean toilers’ power and self-reliance at all.
We understand there are miners in the former British colonies such as the bauxite lands of Guyana and Jamaica. But they are also found in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia at various stages of development. Rarely, do we hear the industry discussed from the perspective of the self-organization and self-development of Caribbean working people. And if we take these principles seriously, their language or nationality will not matter. It will become clear that we are speaking the same language of autonomy, dignity, and self-management.
If CARICOM governments stand ready to provide any support needed to the rescue and recovery operation, suggesting member states may have technology and heavy machinery that could be shared, the fact remains their statement is brief and hesitates as a result that Suriname is a former Dutch colony. This is because, in fact, Caribbean rulers do not believe in one standard of citizenship for the whole region. Caribbean governments stir racial and ethnic insecurity constantly among the peoples of the region. They agree to police Haiti in collaboration with imperialists. They do not want the masses of Trinidad, Jamaica, or Guyana to identify with their comrades in Suriname at a moment of profound tragedy.
These Caribbean rulers in fact believe in a hierarchy of propertied citizenship, and along with Suriname and its global capitalist friends, believe that some Caribbean workers are “illegal.” This means the CARICOM governments’ “thoughts and prayers” are really with their fellow rulers who must manage a crisis of legitimacy, as ordinary people express their anger and discontent in the face of capitalist degradation. Who wants comfort from excremental personalities who believe our family members and their work are “illegal?” Some with a kinder touch call it “informal” mining. But when pork knockers are faced with eviction notices soon comes clashes with police.
Suriname’s government declared two days of national mourning as the death of gold miners climb to fifteen and counting. A nation is a hierarchy of social classes, and in no way do the local propertied and their global friends cry for those they have labeled “illegal.” The collapse occurred early this week at a mine where people had been “looking for gold in a sort of improvised tunnel of considerable depth,” President Chan Santokhi told the National Assembly at the time.
Rosebel Gold Mines (RGM) which are operated by a subsidiary of the Chinese company Zijin Mining reported that 20 to 30 miners were working “in a hole that they had excavated themselves.” In a statement Tuesday, while RGM said it “regretted the deaths,” they added that it had asked authorities last month to evict the illegal miners. The mine is in the Brokopond district, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital Paramaribo. Suriname rescue teams continue their search for possible survivors but are encountering difficulties due to unstable terrain and fears of further collapses.
We understand that mining accidents, like accidents on oil rigs, happen whether authorized by the state and capital. The mining conglomerates do not embody reason any more than the Caribbean political class. If everyday people and pious hypocrites acknowledge that accidents occur regularly in mining operations (legal or illegal) in multiple countries across the northern part of South America, what is not underlined properly is that these miners excavate for themselves. Whether unregulated, all industrial labor is unsafe and places toilers at risk.
These Suriname miners on their own time, not under the direction of their bosses, use the same skills they have mastered, in pursuit of wealth on their own authority. The risks they take for their bosses among states and ruling classes, they often take for themselves in a self-directed fashion.
Surely, there are conflicting tendencies in all Suriname and Caribbean toilers. Their creative self-government seeks more wages or more small trade in neighborhood markets to provide for their families under great adversity. They may share with friends and neighbors who need care and consideration. But they try to solve the problems they face not by abolishing systems or creating new institutions but as individuals in relative isolation. Indeed, they have dreams of wealth, and these have a certain absurdity. Despite their daring and extraordinary efforts, the house of cards they live by in a mine, or behind in their rent payments, often caves in. Nevertheless, these miners as a social class, share whatever sense of homeland we can muster without overlords.
If the Latin American and Caribbean creole elites cried for every toiler who suffered until they were crushed there would not be enough tissues in the world to wipe their eyes and blow their noses even if they were sincere. We know they can never be genuine. For they never wish to inquire how ordinary Latin American and Caribbean workers can improvise and arrive on their own authority. As we mourn and say our prayers for these individual souls, we know they inform our philosophy of becoming that when it fulfills itself will have Government Houses caving in across the region. Since we tend to drive them, we will offer heavy machinery to help discover and bury the dead. The CARICOM governments have been dead for some time. But nobody dares to tell them.
