Calling C from Python is very different from calling Java code from Clojure. Clojure always runs on it's host (Java/JavaScript), so calling functions via interop usually speeds up everything with zero overhead, compared to calling C code from Python which does introduce overhead.
Everything in Clojure comes from Java, it's unfair to compare it to "performance is coming from C, not Python" as Clojure works differently.
That wasn't really my point. There is still a translation process you have to apply to cross the boundary between immutable and native data structures though, and that has its own overhead.
Everything in Clojure comes from Java, it's unfair to compare it to "performance is coming from C, not Python" as Clojure works differently.