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  • Transgression as a specific form of enjoyment in the criollo world1
  • Gonzalo Portocarrero (bio)

To write for people And not for institutions

-Alberto Flores Galindo

Something paradoxical occurs with the criollo being, as it arouses totally opposite valuations.2 That is to say, the word is charged with ambivalence, as, on one hand, it means something appreciated and loved, and, on the other hand, something strange and condemnable. Indeed, the criollo is associated with happiness, ingenuity and humor; and it is, for many Peruvians, that which is our own, that which is dear to us, that identifies us and that we fully accept. However, for those very Peruvians, the criollo is also a synonym for the condemnable, the abject, that which must be rejected if one wants to be considered a serious and respected person. If we say that the music is very criollo, we mean that it is very ours, that it expresses the authenticity of what we are. But, if we say that an action is a criollada, we will be valuing it as immoral; in any case, as improvised and unserious. So, ambiguity is an integral part of the term and the result is that we criollos love and hate each other at the same time. The criollo subjectivity is, therefore, fragile and insecure; it moves between a pitiless and pessimistic self-criticism and a short-lived celebration of achievements.

It is clear that these valuations are the result of a colonial past that is still very much present, of a conflict that is not yet solved and whose roots are in the cross between colonial impositions and the resistance of the criollos. The thing is that, even when the metropolis devaluated everything native, conceiving natives as a second class copies, and also made the very natives absorb this image as a fundamental part of their being, then again these natives also succeeded in defending themselves and in preserving a self-esteem based on the image of themselves as enjoying more, caring more and being freer that the colonizers. Actually, the criollo society was characterized by the transgression of order, by the “pendejada”, that is to say, by the underground rejection of a legal system considered to be abusive, illegitimate and corrupt.3 In this rejection, an enjoyment, excitement or emotion is inscribed, in which the fear of being trapped collides with the hope of getting out unharmed, which, finally, leads to a feeling of power, of being on-top, of being superior to others.

It is clear that, in a society such as the Peruvian one, where the public law has no prestige, the conditions are right for the “deviation” to stop being the exception and to convert itself into an institutionalized behavior, into a rule. Therefore, corruption and abuse of the weak become “normal” activities, accepted as natural and inevitable. Thus, a tolerance is developed in the face of transgression that undermines the moral order and hinders any common enterprise, since it breaks society up into groups that turn their backs to the values and norms that, supposedly, we are all obliged to respect.4

It is symptomatic that the practice of transgression has always started from the very authorities whose job it is to enforce the law. The colonial administration, composed of Spaniards, tended to see in Peru a kind of booty that could be sacked through abuse and extortion, obtaining illicit profits by exploiting the Indians and the Royal Treasury. As time went by, the bad example spread towards every social sector, and therefore abuse and bribery were “democratized”. The pendejada became popular, even reaching the Andean migrant who, in the city, becomes criollo and sly and, then, is able to take advantage of those that are what he once was.

Before proceeding, I want to clarify that I am far from demonizing criollo society and its strategies of humor and transgression as forms of resistance to an exploiting and illegitimate order. Not every power is just and good, nor is all transgression negative and destructive, as conservatives tend to think. Although, then again, neither is it true that power is intrinsically negative and that all transgression is liberating, as a dogmatic...

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