By David Šír
In recent continental theory, Giorgio Agamben has devoted considerable effort to uncovering the theological underpinnings of our concepts of government. Just as Medieval Christianity imagined God as a cosmic monarch, so the word hierarchy, from Greek hieros + arché, literally means “sacred order” or “sacred command”, and was first coined to describe the organization among angels:
In Christian theology, the angels are first and foremost the ministers of divine government in the world; divided into nine hierarchies or ministries, they implement the decrees of Providence at all times, in heaven as on earth. In the Christian West, angelology has operated as a paradigm of bureaucracy, and our concept of ministerial hierarchies has been profoundly influenced by this celestial paradigm.[1]
Does domination have its roots in theology? Or should we, as good materialists, assume that worldly inequality (economic or political) merely mirrors itself in theological conceptions, thus finding ideological justification? Be that as it may, the knot that unites politics and theology should be examined. Perhaps the purpose of political theology is only to ground worldly command in lofty principles. Yet the secret of any political theology is precisely that such grounding is impossible, since there will always be an irreducible gap between the ultimate nature of the divine and the governance of the world. God himself is anarchos, beginningless and boundless, beyond principles,[2] and because of this, he cannot be circumscribed by any of the laws that he establishes. An abyss of cosmic anarchy haunts all systems of principled governance.
In State of Exception (2003), Agamben argues that the purpose of Carl Schmitt’s political theology was precisely to reconcile sovereignty with the existence of this abyss.[3] The German conservative jurist who joined the Nazi party in 1933 proclaims, in the first line of his Politische Theologie (1922), that “sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”[4] To declare exception is to suspend constitutional rights when serious emergencies threaten the very existence of the system. Since the perception of “serious” is quite subjective (and worse, manipulable), and since the state of exception is part of all modern legal systems in some way, one could say that every system of rights rests upon an abyss of arbitrary will.
Unless a dictatorship emerges by assuming emergency executive powers (as happened in Germany in the 1930s, or during the military dictatorships in Latin America), the normal citizen tends to see the state of exception as a “limit case,” relatively irrelevant in normal life. And yet, there have always been whole classes of human beings for whom the state of exception was precisely a daily reality. In The Use of Bodies, Agamben begins by discussing the case of the slave, who is deprived of rights and can be treated arbitrarily, yet on whose labor the existence of the Ancient polis rests. Included in polis as excluded, neither fully a citizen nor fully a thing, the slave inhabits an abyss in which he or she can be treated with sovereign impunity:
Both artificial instrument and human being, the slave properly belongs neither to the sphere of nature nor to that of convention, neither to the sphere of justice nor to that of violence. (…) The slave in fact represents a not properly human life that renders possible for others the bios politikos, that is to say, the truly human life. And if the human being is defined for the Greeks through a dialectic between physis and nomos, zoè and bios, then the slave, like bare life, stands at the threshold that separates and joins them.
What would a political theology written by the slave look like? If Agamben has to excavate sovereign “anarchy” at the heart of legal systems with considerable efforts, this is so because the Western tradition has generally been written from the perspective of the citizen, the bios politikos, the subject of rights. But other traditions do exist, and we should take their “political theologies” seriously. In Brazil, African-descendent religions have articulated the experience of the formerly enslaved (and today largely excluded) subject through a sophisticated and extremely diverse “oral text”.[5] There is no reason why this text should not be read as political commentary.
The Myth of the Stolen Throne
The idea of an Afro-Brazilian political theology has been haunting me since reading Santos e daimones: O politeísmo afro-brasileiro e a tradição arquetipal, an ethnological study about the religion of the orixás in the Brazilian city of Recife, written by Argentine-Brazilian anthropologist Rita Segato.[6] The cult, known here as Xangô (after the most popular divinity), is a local derivation of what is known in Bahia and much of Brazil as candomblé. The religion comes from the West African Yoruba matrix. It is polytheistic: while it recognizes the supreme God Olorum, he is too absolute and distant as to be worshipped directly. Instead, people worship orixás, divinities sent by Olorum to govern the world.
In Brazil, the original West African pantheon is reduced in number, and the orixás take on different meanings, modified by the forced uprooting and new social contexts. The same orixás can mean slightly (or very) different things in Nigeria, Salvador da Bahia, and Recife. A change in context inscribes itself into the popular interpretation of each particular orixá. For instance Oxumaré, an androgynous orixá symbolized by the rainbow, has become associated with LGBTQ rights and transsexuality in recent years. Rita Segato emphasizes this mutability when she writes that “with these same figures, in other historical periods – in the future, for example – or in other social niches, different propositions can be formulated.”[7]
One thing should be emphasized, then. In what follows, I will primarily be dealing with Rita Segato’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the Xangô cult in Recife: I am not trying to make any transcendental claims about the nature of each individual orixá. Nor am I in a position to ethnographically verify Segato’s claims. But I find Segato’s conceptual construction highly interesting, because she reads the oral texts of Xangô as a political theory – as a series of “cryptic statements” by the formerly enslaved people that “point to the lie at the very foundation of the establishment and its laws”.[8]
As Segato tells us, in Recife, the number of worshipped orixás is reduced to merely six: three male, and three female, forming a “family”. Oxalá (also known as Orixalá) is their father, the “highest” among them, entrusted by Olorum with the creation of humanity. Oxalá is certainly revered and respected for his wisdom, but like Olorum himself, he tends to withdraw. He does not, in general, exercise his authority, leaving the governance of the world to the younger orixás. Real sovereignty is thus disputed between two brothers and eternal rivals: Ogum and Xangô.
Segato often recounts the myth in which the two make claims for the throne. Both Ogum and Xangô are fierce and powerful orixás, but the throne legitimately belongs to Ogum: the elder, but also more trustworthy and deserving son. Yet what happens is that his ambitious and unscrupulous younger brother steals the throne by way of trickery:
According to the myth, when the day of the coronation finally arrived, everything was set up so that the firstborn and most responsible and industrious of [the] children, Ogum, would be crowned. But then Xangô, the youngest and his mother’s favorite – described as spoiled, seductive, and ambitious – prepared a soporific potion that he then offered to Ogum, “in his coffee.” After Ogum fell asleep, Xangô dressed himself in sheepskin so that he could pass himself off as his hairy older brother. (The hair covering Ogum’s skin points to his primitive nature, his status as firstborn.) In this way, Xangô acceded to the throne.[9]
Once Xangô is crowned, the fact cannot be undone, and much of Segato’s interpretation hinges on this story. What does it mean that the “most responsible and industrious” of the sons is left empty-handed, while the charismatic trickster reaps all the glory and pomp? We should begin by showing what each of the two brothers stands for.
Ogum
Ogum is the civilizing hero of the Yoruba: a Promethean figure, a great primordial hunter and first blacksmith. Himself a warrior, he invented innumerable tools used for conquest, but also for agriculture. In this sense, he is the orixá of technology and creativity, of what the Greeks might have called poiesis. As a personality archetype, Ogum is just like the iron he forges in his furnace: once melted and imprinted, it solidifies and holds form. It remains faithful to the original shape, in a disciplined and constant manner.
Although he is probably better known, among those superficially familiar with the orixá, as a merciless and even bloodthirsty warrior, for Segato, the most important qualities that define children of Ogum are the power of will and determination, a certain workaholism, objectivity and precision, obstinacy and inflexibility, loyalty and solidarity, among others.[10] This faithfulness to principles makes Ogum a trustworthy partner and a determined fighter for higher values. He is the man of firm principles: hard-working, disciplined, and meritocratic, who measures everyone equally. He always defends justice. But he can also become rigid, dogmatic, and authoritarian. Segato often describes Ogum as a person without much charm, who does not know how to enjoy life. He is extremely virile, but the art of love escapes him; he is often depicted as a solitary man, fully devoted to his work. According to Segato, it is no coincidence that Ogum is very popular among policemen and soldiers (but, as Wole Soyinka[11] notes, also among revolutionaries). Because of his association with work, he has also become a patron of the urban proletariat. [12] As Segato writes:
Ogum is a warrior santo, a professional warrior. He is independent, authoritarian and the most virile of the santos. […] Ogum’s children achieve everything they set out to do through their own efforts. They are fighters and refuse to accept defeat. They are tireless warriors. Ogum is a hardworking, diligent santo. With him, everything comes down to work. Ogum is the santo of human labor, of tools, of man-made metal implements that serve him in all his tasks: cars, airplanes, scalpels, radios – everything belongs to him.[13]
In Book V of Metaphysics, Aristotle introduces the term arché (ἀρχή), which will remain central over the course of Western metaphysics. He famously defines arché as both the “beginning” and “command”: it is the primordial form that continues to give stable shape to everything that comes afterwards, preventing any unpredictable or uncontrollable change. In this sense, it can also be translated as “principle” or “rule.” Philosophy has traditionally been defined as the search for first principles. Arché is at the root of many other key concepts, such as “hierarchy” or “monarchy.” The Greek office of the magistrate, who rules according to law (kata nomon), is also one of the meanings of the term. Finally, the art of architecture – the conjunction of the terms arché and techné – is listed by Aristotle among its meanings: arché is the art of organizing matter into permanent forms through creative poiesis.
When certain Heideggerian critics suggest that arché, understood as a “technological,” obstinately goal-oriented metaphysics, is synonymous with Western metaphysics,”[14] one could argue that some African cosmologies know it too – certainly in the figure of Ogum. Ogum is the first, the legitimate, the principled: the embodiment of law itself, and the antithesis of “anarchy.” But however important this archic posture toward the real may be in the religion of the orixás, it is merely one among several possible. And, as the coronation myth explicitly shows, it is not the one that governs the world, at least not in the last instance.
Xangô
As a matter of fact, Xangô has not only stolen Ogum’s throne: in various myths, it is said that he defeats Ogum in combat, and, to add insult to injury, he seduces and steals Ogum’s wives. It could seem strange that Xangô, famously chaotic and disorganized, even described as “lazy” by Segato, is ultimately the winner. One myth recounts how Xangô took the female orixá Iansã from Ogum:
One day, Xangô and Ogum faced each other on the battlefield:
they were fighting for the conquest of Iansã.
Ogum arrived furious, clad in his metal armor with every kind of protection.
He carried many weapons, was heavily armed with iron, and it was impossible to defeat him in hand-to-hand combat.
He was all armor.
Xangô came with nothing, because he always acted on impulse and never knew how to organize himself properly.
His only weapon was a stone he carried in his hand.
Then Xangô threw the stone at Ogum, and Ogum burst into flames.
Xangô’s stone was the corisco, a meteorite that spews flames – it was the stone of lightning, edum ará.
With his magic, Xangô defeated Ogum and won Iansã.
Ogum was a fierce warrior orixá, always hunting in the forests, fighting to survive.
Xangô was also a combative orixá, and knew how to fight just as well as Ogum.
But Xangô, unlike Ogum, knew how to enjoy the good life.[15]
What Ogum gains by hard work, Xangô gets (in this case, literally) by a spark of magic. What Xangô lacks in discipline, he compensates for with his personal charisma. Xangô embodies authority: a self-confidence that magnetizes people. Or masses. Those ruled by Xangô are said to be great orators and artists, they are gifted with language.[16] For instance, Gilberto Gil, the legend of Brazilian music who mixes folk, rock, funk, and reggae with Afro-Brazilian influences and lyrics about the orixás, is a famous son of Xangô. Xangô has access to something, a vital dimension of life, which is difficult for the industrious Ogum to access. According to Segato, this is why people adore him:
He is hot-tempered, lively, and enthusiastic. Xangô’s children are the easiest to recognize by their wide-open, lively eyes. They are attention-seeking, confident, and captivating. They are not petty. Xangô has a knack and charm for everything. He is the great seducer. Xangô’s children are good conversationalists; their conversations are entertaining. There is something about them that charms everyone; people like them at first sight. It is said that there is a spell in their gaze.[17]
The color of Xangô is red, after his hot temper. Although Xangô is “the most powerful santo in the cult”,[18] he is also unpredictable and unstable. Those ruled by Xangô can run out of luck, and with their lack of organization, end up as beggars. But overnight, they can become powerful again:
The children of Xangô have no inclination to waste their energy working. They attain only what they can easily obtain through their ingenuity. They may be poor, in the worst of circumstances, and yet they can amass enormous wealth through a trick, their charm, or a stroke of luck or magic. They can gain everything and lose it just as easily, and they do not grieve.[19]
And so, while Xangô is the king of the orixás – the sovereign, whose archetype historically traces back to the fourth king of Oió, the great Yoruba kingdom located in the present Nigeria and Benin – it is striking how often Segato uses the word “anarchy” in connection to him. He is a king without the air of a king:
Xangô’s children like to cause anarchy and have fun. They feel at ease in any situation and don’t worry about appearances. They are very confident, uninhibited, and assertive. They don’t get flustered easily; they are carefree. Xangô is not proud: he is the “foolish king.” He is vulgar, mocking, a charlatan, a cheat, a liar. He knows how to get what he wants and how to impose his will. He wants to be greater than everyone else, because he is the king of the orixás.[20]
Regarding the mesmerizing power of Xangô’s charisma, we can draw a parallel with the Ancient figure of auctoritas. Auctoritas represented a “charismatic” form of power (in Weberian terms): originally an extra-legal force associated with a private, paternal authority. It was an affective form of law that was indissociable from the person who held it: it was a “living law” (nomos empsukhos). Agamben contrasts auctoritas with potestas of the magistrates: a well-defined form of power that was legally binding, but also subject to limitation. Agamben sees a danger in situations when auctoritas and potestas blur, as happened during the Roman principate.[21] In these cases, arbitrary will and legal form become indistinguishable. Anomie and nomos then “perfectly coincide” in the body of one person:
That the sovereign is a living law can only mean that he is not bound by it, that in him the life of the law coincides with a total anomie. (…) Here too the state of exception is the – secret and truer – life of the law.[22]
One can see this figure of exception in myths where Xangô asserts his sovereign will through “magic” tricks that suspend normal laws that govern reality – as when a disorganized Xangô defeats the heavily armed and well-prepared Ogum with a single blow of a blazing corisco stone from the sky. Already the lightning, as the most well-known element associated with Xangô, is perhaps a good metaphor of sovereign decision: an intervention from the sky that transforms landscapes with a single sudden stroke.
As expected, there is also a darker side to Xangô’s “anarchic” temper: he is impulsive and violent. He is seen as the orixá of justice – but what kind of justice is this? Segato repeatedly describes Xangô’s character with terms such as “irrational” or “explosive”. Apparently, Xangô’s justice is quite an arbitrary one that seeks revenge, rather than Ogum’s measured and meritocratic sense of virtue. Xangô is the one who acts as he pleases; he is not bound by rules or laws. Sometimes, Xangô has even been described as a particularly cruel sovereign. In one myth, he is depicted as so despotic that he is ultimately overthrown by his subjects. It is after this incident that he turns into an orixá:
Xangô loved war more than anything else.
He would always send his armies to destroy cities in other kingdoms in his name.
One day, his own people, the people of Oió, gathered and proclaimed:
“Our king is devastating all the neighboring kingdoms.
We want not just a king who gives us slaves, but a king who gives us food.”
They sent a delegation to Xangô and told him:
“You became king, but you are a very harsh, very bad king.
That is why you must step down as king.”
And they gave Xangô five days to leave his kingdom.
Xangô had been dethroned by his people.
Xangô argued that he was a great sorcerer and that no one could defy him.
He said he understood what was happening and that he himself was tired of such a miserable life.
But the people would not listen to him.
So Xangô left the city and went into the forest.
Xangô was carrying a rope when he entered the forest.
And in the forest, he hanged himself from a tree.
Some men passing by saw Xangô and told the people what had happened.
When the people went to the site of the supposed hanging, they found neither a body nor anything else.
Two chains had descended from on high, and by them Xangô had ascended to Heaven.[23]
A “Realist” Cosmology
Segato sees the myth of coronation, in which Xangô steals Ogum’s throne, as “a page taken from social history.”[24] As she writes:
the myth describes the foundation of a reign of injustice and favoritism, a reign of inequality […] The acceptance of the unjust coronation represents nothing other than a recognition of the context in which slaves and descendants were forced to live.[25]
Ogum was supposed to be crowned by Iemanjá, the mother of the two brothers. A famous orixá and motherly figure associated with the sea, Iemanjá represents the status quo; she “embodies the qualities of law and order”.[26] And as Segato also tells us, many of her informants thought that during the coronation, Iemanjá instantly recognized Xangô under the clothes of Ogum, even before she put the crown on his head. If she proceeded, it was because of her personal sympathies for her charismatic younger son, and also because she wanted to maintain the façade of normality. What the myth says here is that while arbitrariness and exception are the rule, the function of the legal order is simply to cover up this fact: “nothing prevents Xangô from continuing to coexist with her [Iemanjá] and recognizing the legitimacy of this mother, whose rules he constantly flouts.”[27]
But if this is true, then Segato’s interpretation faces one inevitable difficulty. Why is it that Xangô is more popular than Ogum, when he apparently embodies privilege, the logic of the master who takes power through a con, as opposed to the “proletarian” Ogum, the exploited underdog?
Popular sympathies are not aligned with the hard-working and disciplined orixá, with the “legitimate” firstborn, who is harmed and deprived of rights by his greedy brother. People instead sympathize with the younger brother whose demands were met because he resorted to guile, who usurped the crown and became king through cunning.[28]
Of course, since we are dealing with a pluralistic religion, there are many of those who do favor Ogum. Against Xangô’s impulsivity and arbitrariness, Ogum can be seen as embodying the true, authentic, or natural law, against the false law that rules society. Few orixás are as popular and revered as Ogum. In the Nigerian context, Wole Soyinka writes that
traditional poetry records him as ‘protector of orphans’, ‘roof over the homeless’, ‘terrible guardian of the sacred oath’; Ogun stands for a transcendental, humane but rigidly restorative justice. (Unlike Sango, who is primarily retributive.)[29]
As already mentioned, this is what made Ogum popular among modern revolutionaries, especially those who fought against colonialism in the 20th century. Soyinka notes that the pro-Batista elites in Cuba should “have worried less about Karl Marx than about Ogun, the re-discovered deity of revolution”.[30] Yet as the name of the cult already indicates, at least in Recife, Xangô is the more popular of the two. For Segato, this is so because Recife’s cult of Xangô is fundamentally a “realist” religion. It is “descriptive”, rather than normative: it does not split reality into good and evil, measuring this fallen world against the divine Ideal. Rather, it offers a map for navigating the world as it is:
Although it speaks to a latent sense of ethical estrangement, the myth does not seek to formulate an alternative moral statute, but rather to produce a sociology, a hermeneutics adequate to the social context. Elsewhere I have called this a pragmatic psychology. It is a manual for survival under an alien and arbitrary regime.[31]
While the official ideology of modern capitalism praises hard work, discipline and meritocracy, the myth clearly says that the world does not work according to these values. It is a jungle that abides “law” only in appearance. In Segato’s interpretation, Xangô teaches that success in a hostile society is achieved through trickery and charisma, rather than work; he demonstrates that law and meritocracy are a scam. He also teaches that one has to be able to enjoy life, with its ups and downs, even when those are largely beyond one’s own control. He is a fundamentally ambiguous figure.
People identify with him [Xangô] because they know that his ways are the only ways to survive under a state whose laws do not serve the interests of justice but those of order.[32]
Yet I am not completely satisfied with Segato’s answer. My intuition is that the claims of Xangô are not only sociological, but broader. Perhaps ontological. This is a topic for future research. There seem to be many important resonances between Xangô and Agambenian concepts such as “inoperativity” or “inactivity”. The Italian philosopher posits these paradoxical figures against the ontological productivism of the post-Aristotelian tradition – the idea that being is essentially realized through goal-oriented work (ergon), activity (energeia), or making (poiesis). For Agamben, inoperativity nevertheless differs from a mere mystical quietism. And Xangô, who is described as idle or even “lazy,” only to be hurling lightning the moment after, clearly demonstrates that “inactivity does not in fact mean simply inertia, non‑activity.”[33] He shows that it is through “finding peace in oneself” (acquiescentia in ipso), in Spinoza’s words, that the ultimate source of power is to be found.
It is this source of power that is captured by sovereignty, when it becomes the divine “glory” of the ruler.[34] But the “lucid exposition of the anarchy internal to power”[35], for Agamben, opens up the “possibility of thinking a true anarchy”.[36] What has been captured by sovereignty can be taken down from the sky, liberated, and given other uses.
In my view, the religion of the orixás, as a theory written from within the state of exception, offers an exceptionally lucid commentary on the world. As for the possibility of “true anarchy,” the resources it provides for this project may be more useful not just to angelology, but to much of the Western tradition more broadly.
[1] Giorgio Agamben, “Art, Inactivity, Politics”, Serralves International Conferences, (Porto, 2007), pp. 131-132. https://www.oddweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Agamben-Art-Inactivity-Politics.pdf
[2] Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory. For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (Stanford University Press, 2011).
[3] Giorgio Agamben, “Gigantomachy Concerning a Void,” in State of Exception (The University of Chicago Press, 2005).
[4] Carl Schmitt, Political Theology. Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (The University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 5.
[5] See Antonio Risério, Oriki Orixá (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1996).
[6] All citations are from the Spanish version. Rita Segato, Santos y daimones. El politeismo brasileño y la tradición arquetipal (Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros, 2020). All English translations from Spanish or Portuguese originals are the author’s own.
[7] Rita Segato, “Cidadania: Por Que Não? Estado e Sociedade no Brasil à Luz de um Discurso Religioso Afro-Brasileiro”. DADOS -Revista de Ciências Sociais, Rio de Janeiro, Vol. 38, 3, 1995, pp. 581 a 601, p. 585.
[8] Rita Segato, “Black Oedipus. Coloniality and the Foreclosure of Race,” in The Critique of Coloniality. Eight Essays (NY: Routledge, 2022), p. 141.
[9] Segato, “Black Oedipus”, p. 140.
[10] Segato, “Santos e daimones”, p. 158.
[11] Wole Soyinka, Myth, Literature, and the African World (Cambridge University Press, 1976).
[12] See Reginaldo Prandi, Ogum – caçador agricultor ferreiro trabalhador guerreiro e rei (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Pallas, 2019).
[13] Segato, “Santos y Daimones”, p. 309.
[14] See Reiner Schürmann, Heidegger on Being and Acting. From Principles to Anarchy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987).
[15] Reginaldo Prandi, Mitologia dos orixás (São Paulo, Companhia das Letras, 2001).
[16] See Risério, “Oriki Orixá”, p. 32.
[17] Segato, “Santos y daimones”, p. 159.
[18] Segato, “Santos y daimones”, p. 160.
[19] Segato, “Santos y daimones”, p. 301.
[20] Segato, “Santos y daimones”, p. 301.
[21] “The Roman principate (…) is not a magistracy, but an extreme form of auctoritas. Heinze has described this contrast perfectly: ‘Every magistracy is a preestablished form, which the individual enters into and which constitutes the source of his power; auctoritas, on the other hand, springs from the person, as something that is constituted through him, lives only in him, and disappears with him.’” Giorgio Agamben, “Auctoritas and Potestas”, in State of Exception (The University of Chicago Press, 2005).
[22] See Giorgio Agamben, “Feast, Mourning, Anomie”, in State of Exception (The University of Chicago Press, 2005).
[23] Prandi, “Mitologia dos orixás”.
[24] Segato, “Black Oedipus”, p. 141.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Segato, “Santos y daimones”, p. 332.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Segato, “Black Oedipus”, p. 141.
[29] Soyinka, “Myth, Literature, and the African World”, p. 141
[30] Soyinka, “Myth, Literature, and the African World”, p. 54.
[31] Segato, “Black Oedipus”, pp. 141-142.
[32] Segato, “Black Oedipus”, p. 141.
[33] Giorgio Agamben, “Art, Inactivity, Politics”, p. 139.
[34] Agamben, “The Kingdom and the Glory”.
[35] Giorgio Agamben, The Use of Bodies. Homo Sacer IV, 2 (Stanford University Press, 2015) p. 275.
[36] Ibid.
Hyperspekulation 
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