What will your conversation heart say this Valentine’s Day?
Will it replicate the possessive politics of modern heteronormative love — summed up by phrases like “be mine” — or will it communicate the idea that love is always political, and that the greatest act of love is to work toward collective liberation?
Cornel West famously said that “justice is what love looks like in public,” yet most public versions of Valentine’s Day eschew this collectivist, politicized understanding, instead constructing love as a supremely individualistic and capitalist enterprise. That red, white and pink aisle full of heart-shaped products at the local retail store is brought to you by a process of commercialization that started in the late 1700s, when printed cards began to be circulated. The tradition that would eventually lead to purchasing cards was accelerated in the 19th century thanks to industrialization and the rise of the printing press, and catapulted into a festival of mass consumerism in the 20th century, thanks to Hallmark. Since inaugurating the Valentine’s Day card commercial tradition in 1916, the company still benefits handsomely from its share of the roughly 145 million Valentine’s cards sold each year. In fact, Valentine’s Day displays crowd out (Gregorian) Christmas displays practically before the new year has even begun, not only because of timing — the holiday is also the second-most lucrative, just behind Christmas, in U.S. greeting cards sales.
Contrary to popular belief, most histories of Valentine’s Day trace the holiday much further back than St. Valentine himself, noting that it seems to be based on an ancient Roman festival traditionally held in mid-February: Lupercalia, a celebration of health and fertility. The moniker of “Valentine’s Day” was later imposed by the Roman Catholic church as a way of appropriating what was seen as a “pagan ritual” that publicly and brazenly celebrated fertility. This rebranding of a “pagan” ritual that still held meaning and value for people represents a form of cultural colonization, ultimately taming and restraining the ritual within Catholic systems of meaning.
And who is this St. Valentine? In popular stories about the origins of the holiday, St. Valentine is widely identified as a martyr for love. Though there is debate about which St. Valentine is the one for whom the holiday is named, one popular legend is that the Valentine’s Day we widely celebrate is named for a St. Valentine who was executed by Roman Emperor Claudius II for secretly marrying couples — a practice that ran afoul of the emperor’s ban on marriage since, he claimed, it would dampen soldiers’ zeal for fighting. Some sources even claim love as a constant thread running through military history.
This article was originally published on Truthout.org on February 13, 2023.
Nadine Naber, PhD. is a public scholar, author, and teacher from Al-Salt, Jordan and the Bay Area of California. Nadine has been co-creating connections, research, and activism among scholars of color and social movements for the past 25 years. She is author/co-author of five books, an expert author for the United Nations; co-founder of the organization Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity (MAMAS); co-author of the forthcoming book, *Pedagogies of the Radical Mother* (Haymarket Press); and founder of programs such as the Arab and Muslim American Studies Program at the University of Michigan and the Arab American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois.
0 Comments