Un Mapa de las Tinieblas: hacia la Cartografia del Progreso

It appears the Company had received news that one of their captains had been killed in a scuffle with the natives. This was my chance, and it made me the more anxious to go. It was only months and months afterwards, when I made the attempt to recover what was left of the body, that I heard the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens. Yes, two black hens. Fresleven--that was the fellow's name, a Dane—thought himself wronged somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he was; but he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way. Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck, till some man,--I was told the chief's son,--in desperation at hearing the old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a spear at the white man--and of course it went quite easy between the shoulder-blades. Then the whole population cleared into the forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to happen, while, on the other hand, the steamer Fresleven commanded left also in a bad panic, in charge of the engineer, I believe. Afterwards nobody seemed to trouble much about Fresleven's remains, till I got out and stepped into his shoes. I couldn't let it rest, though; but when an opportunity offered at last to meet my predecessor, the grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell. And the village was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting, all askew within the fallen enclosures. A calamity had come to it, sure enough. The people had vanished. Mad terror had scattered them, men, women, and children, through the bush, and they had never returned. What became of the hens I don't know either. I should think the cause of progress got them, anyhow.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Anotaciones al margen del Mapa de las Tinieblas

El Progreso no es moderno: es antiguo y preexiste, porque su tempestad viene del Paraíso, como señaló Benjamin. El progreso es una acumulación de ruinas sobre ruinas y la primera ruina es el cadáver (..."al fin conocí a mi predecesor: la hierba que crecía a través de sus costillas era tan alta que escondía sus huesos"...). En el cadáver la inmediatez pierde prehistoria y nombre, y el que lo mira por primera vez se convierte en el desaparecido. El desaparecido es el hombre bajo el Progreso y carece de nombre. El acto fundacional del progreso no es el crimen del conquistador sobre el salvaje (..."y entonces golpeó al viejo negro sin piedad"...) sino el propio crimen del salvaje sobre el conquistador, porque con ese crimen el salvaje se convierte en su contemporáneo (..."y entonces, lo atravesó con facilidad por entre los omóplatos"). Por ese crimen ambos se vuelven hombres que se reconocen. Para Conrad, tan sólo basta mirar el cadáver (that unnatural being) para que los salvajes conozcan que han sido alcanzados por la causa del progreso. El crimen no clama justicia: la justicia del crimen es el Progreso. El Progreso no necesita agentes: necesita testigos. No hay resistencia: hay reconocimiento. Sólo la estirpe de los asesinos fundará la ciudad: "...padres de los que habitan en tiendas y crían ganados, […] padres de todos los que tocan arpa y flauta, […] artífices de toda obra de bronce y de hierro, […] pues un varón mataré por mi herida, y un joven por mi golpe, y si siete veces será vengado Caín, setenta y siete veces sus asesinos lo serán." La civilización transcurre bajo el silencio de un horror sagrado.