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Diamanda Galás and Redefining the Devil
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So the most recent subject of my human interest is one Diamanda Galás, a controversial rebel to say the least. Reading her, I found her radical views fascinating, twisted, too much, and, at times, absolutely brilliant. I hesitate to call her as Ann Coulter's polar opposite, but I do wonder how the two women would fare in a boxing match of wits. Diamanda is an artist, a vocalist, a woman, a human being, a global citizen, an activist, a feminist, a radical believer, a non-believer, a criticizer, and most of all she is above all labels. I first discovered her in "Angry Women," a collection of interviews of feminist performance artists. The description from the back: "16 cutting-edge performance artists discuss critical questions such as: how can you have a revolutionary feminism that encompasses wild sex, humor, beauty and spirituality plus radical politics? How can you have a powerful movement for social change based on dualisms (male/female, gay/straight, black/white, mind/body, personal/political) obstructing our visualization of a "better world"? A wide range of topics-- from menstruation, masturbation, vibrators, S&M & spanking to racism, failed Utopias and the death of the Sixties-- are discussed passionately. Armed with total contempt for dogma, stereotype and cliche, these creative visionaries probe deep into our social foundation of taboos, beliefs and totalitarian linguistic contradictions from whence spring (as well as thwart) our theories, imagingings, behavior and dreams." Diamanda's words: "I'm getting a tattoo which says "We are all HIV Positive." And if I wear the right clothes it will just say "HIV Positive." A lot of people already assume I've got AIDS because of my work, just as they assume I'm a lesbian-- obviously, no STRAIGHT person would be interested in doing what I do!" Interviewer:What does "the Devil" or "Satan" mean to you? Baudelaire described "Satan" fairly well. I was in Berlin and some girls came up to me and said, "Oh, you are Diamanda-- please do another record for us soon. We have witchcraft rituals and shoot up speed and chant to the Devil and listen to your music." I thought, "Oh, FUCK-- you could get a Julie Andrews record and do this kind of stupid shit." When a witch is about to be burned on a ladder in flames, who can she call upon? I call that person "Satan," although other people may have other names, and it's the same entity that schizophrenics call upon to create an essential freedom they need. It's that subversive voice that can keep you alive in the face of adversity. If you've ever been institutionalized (and I have), then you know what a descent into hell is. And if you can come out of it alive, then you are so much the stronger. I have this text: "You call me the shit of God? I am the shit of God! You call me the Antichrist? I am the Antichrist, I am Legba, I am the Holy Fool, I am the Scourge of God" (Legba is the trickster in the West African tradition). So you say, "Yes, I am the Antichrist, I AM Legba, I AM all these things you are afraid of." If anyone knows anything about Diamanda, I would love to learn more about her. What do you think of these quotes? Is "Satan" really just the name of the God of the Outcasts, the socially misshapen, the morally deformed human beings who cannot fit in to this Judeo-Christian society no matter how hard they try? This moral dichotomy of of the righteous and the damned, the saint and the sinner, the "Christian" and the "Other," like any dichotomy, is vastly incongruous. It is impossible to lump every single human being into these two categories alone. Please, before I get defensive remarks from the religious audience that this article may garner from its title, take note that this article, like the the dichotomy it discusses, is generalized and non-specific. It is gray in a world obsessed with black and white. I recognize that not all who identify themselves with the label of "Christian" will fall under this category, but that alone proves the point I am making of the flawed dichotomy. The "moral" are, in a religious nation like the United States-- and don't kid yourself, it is a VERY religious nation-- defined by their faith. Whichever religion is in the majority is the "right" religion to have in that region, and by that I mean they tend to look at all other religions with either contempt, arrogance, or pity. In the United States, this religion is Christianity (though it isn't always Christianity in other nations). The biggest problem that I can find with religion is how divisive it is. And the odd thing is, is that "sinners" like Diamanda are the ones that are trying to unify the world rather than further divide it. The questions "Are you homosexual? Are you heterosexual? Are you white? Are you black?"-- who cares? I'm a civilized human being and I don't think in those terms. This shouldn't even be a primordial way of thought-- people should think of themselves as planetary citizens.-- Diamanda Galás The thing is, if we think of these labels in terms of just that-- names to give you or an object an identity-- but we take away the identity they represent, what you have left is absolutely meaningless. What is "God" without meaning but any other name? As we define words, we can redefine words. "God" and "The Devil" have slowly been twisted around by those who claim to represent the former to justify their own means. "God" has, therefore, become corrupt because humans have corrupted its definition. God now, according to those who claim to follow him, endorses war, endorses violence, endorses discrimination and elitism and punishment. Have we gone back to the days of the Old Testament? Is this definition cyclical in nature? An infinite sine wave perpetually ascending and descending above and below the moral equator separating "good" from "evil," "violence" from "peace," "love" from "judgment"? Maybe I'm getting a little too philosophical for my own good. What I mean to say, for those minds who may have strayed in the rambling of the last paragraph, is that the term "God" has been redefined by the people who use the word the most. If this is so, and if Satan is God's opposite, then the same must be said for that term. Because God and Satan cannot stand for the same things at the same time. And as God can now support things like terrorist attacks or hate crimes (as Fred Phelps may suggest), it would be logical to assume that the devil would be against these things. Let me speak less radically, as the Westborough Baptist Church is a minority even among other Christians. Plenty of Christians hold to the truth that God does not condone homosexuality (despite the interesting fact that the term "homosexuality" has only existed since the recent half of the last century). Therefore, it is believed that Stan endorses it. A homosexual Christian who has accepted himself would claim that he knows HIS God loves him. To the Christian disagreeing with him, "His God" would be termed "Satan." But one man's Satan is another man's Savior. Just because one may call something the devil does not make it evil (in the conventional sense of the word). A perfect example of this would be the infamous witch trials, or the demonization of other non-Western cultures in the post-colonial era. Labels only have any real meaning to the individual who uses them. People like Diamanda who embrace the term "the Devil" ascribe their own morals to it, which are not necessarily the same things a Christian may ascribe to it. The term is simply used as a way to describe whatever a Christian believes to be immoral: homosexuality, paganism, sex. If a person does not believe in this, then they may fall under the category of a sinner. But as I said in the beginning of this article, every dichotomy is really a generalization, and it is constantly evolving. Soon enough, in a thousand years, as words get morphed, "good" may in fact have the opposite meaning of its present definition. Depend not on labels, or what someone tells you is right or wrong. Depend only on your mind to decipher the true definition of your acts, and your heart to tell you what is the true "moral" thing to do. |
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