A Passage: Knowing, Experiencing, and Being in the Orient

As I distinguished in my first post, Edward Said gives a better description of the Occident and which countries represent the hegemonic control of the Orient. Once again the Occident, according to Said, is made up of two European powers, France and England, and Orientalism is established through the relationship between the two and the Orient. Therefore, we have a place to begin the deconstruction of the Orient/Occident binary through the lens of Said's Orientalism. But just because Said gives greater power to what countries represent the Occident it doesn't mean that one can't discern what constitutes the Orient.


However, let’s not forget that Orientalism is a product of colonialism. So it is through the anthropological discourse of colonialism that it can be understood.  It is colonialism towards which I will turn my task of deconstruction through a comparative study.  I want to continue with understanding the way the Occident/Occidentals understood the East, and will (in the post to come) explicate the way the Orient/Orientals understand the West.

I find it fitting to start with a passage to the theoretical East, but not just any passage. E.M. Forester's A Passage to India is more than just a trip, or a crossing of borders, it's a rite of passage and an introduction to understanding the Orient.
 

(Definition: Rite of Passage--a ceremony or event marking an important stage in someone's life, especially birth, initiation, marriage, and death (Oxford Reference).)


It's an experience of the way in which English established, and exploited its colonial rule over India and its people.  However, Orientalism is much more than just the discourse in which colonial society was constructed.  It penetrates the psyche of both the colonizer and the colonized, and creates a mental state of fear, discrimination, distrust, and racial hate.


But before any explication can be attempted there are two more passages I would like to visit in Said’s Orientalism because they have to do with controlling the Orient/Oriental and viewing the Orient/Oriental.


I mentioned previous factors/qualifications in my initial post for this class.  There is one final qualification from the “Introduction” that I would like to examine.


The final qualification—or aspect of Orientalism—that Said points out is that:


One ought never to assume that the structure of Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies or of myths which, were the truth about them to be told, would simply blow away.  I [Edward Said] believe that Orientalism is more particularly valuable as a sign of European-Atlantic power over the Orient than it is as a veridic discourse about the Orient…Never the less, what we must respect and try to grasp is the sheer knitted together strength of Orientalist discourse, its very close ties to the enabling socio-economic and political institutions, and its redoubtable durability. (6)

The most important part about this passage is that Said points out that the way Orientalism functioned most successfully is that it was an “Enabling” form of discourse.  But what enabled it? Said points out that established Economic/Socio/Political institutions were all factors that Enabled control over the Orient. England had money, the military strength, and the “superior” social position.   But there’s more, control over the Orient stems from a mental state of “European Superiority” and Orientalism depend[ed] for its strategy on [the] flexible positional superiority, which [put] the Westerner in a whole series of relationships with the Orient without ever losing the relative upper hand” (Said 7).


The relationship between the Occidental and the Oriental is important and it comes in many forms.  I will get to that a bit later in this post.  There is one final passage I’d like to visit within Orientalism before I get to A Passage to India and leave Orientalism behind—Chapter 1: “Knowing the Orient.” 


Said states that “Knowledge of subject races or Orientals is what makes their management easy and profitable: knowledge gives power, more power requires more knowledge, and so ion in an increasingly dialectic of information and control” (Said 36).   Well that’s obvious isn’t it? Knowledge is power, and if colonial authority created and instilled a certain knowledge within, and without, the Orient they would be the people in charge.  Knowledge created a strict code that every Orientalist followed.


Said examines the way Lord Cromar (Evelyn Baring) ruled over Egypt and the knowledge he propagated as his seat of power enabled him to do so.  According to Said Lord Cromar established the knowledge (I think it more colonial propaganda than knowledge) that:

 

“There are Westerners (Said refers to the English) and there are Orientals (Said refers to the Egyptians). The former dominate the latter must be” (36).

Orientals/Arabs—(Said is specific here when it comes to identifying the Oriental) are gullible (38).

To be an Oriental was a crime, period. If an Oriental deviated from any standard behavior predetermined by Colonial authority they were unnaturally a worst criminal (39) Hypocrisy?

Finally, “…the Oriental is irrational, depraved, (fallen), childlike, different” (40).


By clarifying each of these different “knowledges” of the Oriental, Said demonstrates that “the point is that in each of these cases the Oriental is contained and represented by dominating frameworks” (40).

 

It’s important to understand this final qualification of Orientalism, as well as the way the Oriental is understood, in order to thoroughly explicate the relationship between the English colonial authorities in India during the time period in which A Passage to India takes place.  These two passages provide the framework in which we can understand Orientalism in A Passage to India.

 

So let's start at the beginning even though we know no two colonial narratives are ever the same but the colonial experience often is.

 

The setting and place: 1920's India, under British Colonial Control

The Conflict: A Rising Racial Tension between the "Orientals" and the English.

The English: Miss Adela Quested, Mrs. Moore, Mr. Cyril Fielding, and Colonel Ronny Heaslop, and the Turtons and the McBrydes. 

The Indian (Or as the English prefer to call them the curios, odd, lowly, Orientals): Dr. Aziz, Professor Godbole.

Each of these characters is divided by their “Race” or I should say their experiences with Orientalism.  I could write a book on the way each of these characters understands their “other” through the lens of Orientalism, but for the sake of time there are a few specific passages I would like to illuminate or examine side by side with Said’s theory.  Take note though that the list of English characters is substantially bigger than the list of Indian characters.  There are only two specific Indian characters that are scrutinized because of Orientalism—Aziz and Godbole.  The other Indian characters that are represented in the book are only recognized as masses of people—inhuman at that for all of their qualifications have to do with their bodies—after Miss Quested renounces Aziz’s crime “Mass of Indians” (Forster 257) to the beautiful punkah (Fan) man when she enters the courtroom (241

The first passage coincides perfectly with Lord Cromar’s beliefs that Said so expertly outlines when he confirms the last qualification of Orientalism.  This passage concerns Mr. McBryde—the District Superintendent of the Police.  He is reflecting on the impending trial about to take place concerning Dr. Aziz’s indecent assault on Miss Quested. Mr. McBryde says to Dr. Aziz “‘I have to detain you until you get bail...But no doubt your friends will be applying for it, and of course they will be allowed to visit you, under regulations. I am given certain information and have to act on it—I’m not your judge.’” (Forster 184).  Mr. McBryde than thinks to himself and reflects that:

[He] was shocked at his downfall, but no Indian ever surprised him, because he had a theory about climatic zones. The theory ran “All un-fortunate natives are criminals at heart, for the simple reason that they live south of latitude 30. They are not to blame, they have not a dog’s chance—we should be like them if we settled here.” Born at Karachi, he seemed to contradict his theory, and would sometimes admit as much with a sad, quiet smile. (184).

This passage is EXACTLY the knowledge of the Oriental that Said points out—it even shows the hypocrisy and invalidity of such knowledge.  Mr. McBryde as a colonial official possesses a certain knowledge of the Orient.  YET, he thinks that Indians are unable to be anything else but criminal.  He goes so far as to feign surprise at Dr. Aziz yet expected it of him all along.  Finally, it demonstrates the “superior” complex that permeated the English conscious—he thinks his superiority stems from the fact that he lives north of latitude 30.  AS IF the physics of geography has any affect on the behavior of any people! The binary of control is one founded on scrupulous principles that are hypocritical and ridiculous! Every colonial official that Forster characterizes has this mindset when dealing with the Indian Orientals.  

Before I end this posts, because there is a lot of sections within A Passage to India that I can explicate in terms of Orientalism I would like to assign different levels of Oriental thought to the key characters within the novel.  Say we were to judge Orientalism on a scale of 1-5-10.

1) This number would represent Pre-Oriental thought

5) This number would represent being stuck between Pre-Oriental thought and Oriental thought

10) This number would represent a full Oriental mentality.

Of course there would be numbers between because each character within the novel responds differently.  However, the numbers represent certain thresholds, or tolerance, of Orientalism.  Let me determine, however, that some characters transcend the whole scale of Orientalism, but ONE can never go back to Pre-Oriental thought/naivety.  Orientalism changes everyone permanently. So let’s apply this theory to the characters. Also, the middle stage is extremely susceptible and can be easily influenced to sway either way.

Figure of Orientalism Scale

Miss Quested: traverses each threshold and becomes fully immersed in Oriental thought—it’s what leads her to accuse Dr. Aziz of such an atrocious act. She arrives in India with pre-conceived thoughts.  Eventually, she becomes a 5 on the Scale of Orientalism. I associate this with guilt for having become an associate of colonial authority.

Mr. Fielding: Occupies a space of 5 on the scale.  Even though he’s takes the side of his Indian friends Godbole and Aziz, he is still bound by his own society.

Mrs. Moore: Is 1 on the Oriental scale of thought.  Her thoughts are always Pre-Oriental, and eventually she leaves India because she cannot stand how Miss Quested occupies the space of Orientalism, a mentality Mrs. Moore never fully understands.

Colonel Hysop: Occupies the space of 10.  He is a full Orientalist that uses his superior position to control the Natives.  He is constantly trying to move his way up the proverbial colonial ladder.

I'm sure many of the other characters can be placed on the scale as well, but the overall point is that Orientalism comes in many different forms, but the types of people never change.

I’d like to end this post pointing out that I believe Forster himself was an advocate for Indians and was extremely against colonial authority and the oriental thought that goes along with colonial rule.  His wide spectrum of characters that occupy the different levels of oriental thought proves this? I admit I’m guilty of analyzing only one side of the Oriental binary, but I did so because I think Said’s theory reveals alout about Orientalism within A Passage to India.

Intro for English 599: A Comparative Study of Orientalism and Occidentalism

It’s good to be back. However, I will skip the formal introductions (I feel no need to repeat my first post, if you want to know about me or my work check it out).


The purpose for this new introduction will be the starting point for the blog posts that follow for the next few weeks. Needless to say, I started this blog for a class on Post-colonial theory/literature, and will continue it—although for the time being for a slightly different purpose, a purpose that will offset the rest of my work as a graduate student. Hopefully it will give me more insight into Orientalism and the thoughts, theories, and ideas that that followed this major piece of post-colonial work.

During my Post-colonial Theory/Literature class, I had the privilege to read an excerpt from Edward Said's Orientalism, specifically the Introduction. His theory had a major impact on me, and I found myself questioning and wanting to learn more. And that's how I came up with the idea to do an independent study, under the helpful guidance of Dr. Clemens. Therefore I would like to begin my attempt to deconstruct the binary of West/East and Orientalism/Occidentalism.

For this first post I will revisit the Introduction for Orientalism for my post next week I will apply portions of Said's theoretical insights to E.M. Forster's A Passage to India.

I’d like to start the deconstruction process with a story:
I was at work one day over Winter break, and a customer asked what I was studying in graduate college. Like the dutiful graduate student I am, I told her politely that I was studying Post-colonial literature and theory—in essence I revealed that I loved reading and learning the differences that define the many cultures of our world.  I then proceeded to tell her that I love to read Arab, African, and Indian literature because I find it so enriching and powerful.  The person then said to me “I sure hope you don’t become a terrorist reading that filth. I might just have to hurt you then.” I was shocked with this response and awkwardly laughed.  I laughed because I was horrified, but then I was horrified that I had no response to such a remark.  

Why didn’t I say something in return?  How does someone respond to such a statement? WHY was this statement was even made in the first place? What does this say about our own culture, and other cultures? What happens when people refuse to respond to such ignorance?

This simple comment was such a powerful one, but I knew it was made out of ignorance. However, it reassured me that my studies have a purpose, and that it is important to understand both sides of the binary in order to establish a place where both sides can finally understand each other. Ultimately I realized that the purpose of my studies is to rectify the damages that arise from these types of comments and statements. 

After all it gave me a place to begin because this anti-Eastern sentiment is a product of modern American orientalism. But this type of thought had to come from somewhere right?

I’d like to give a quick disclaimer before I begin my work, or more like a warning and understanding for myself.

Therefore let’s start at the beginning, but only one beginning because I believe Orientalism has many—Said’s theoretical work of Orientalism.

What is Orientalism?  Edward Said sees:

Orientalism, [as] a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western Experiences. The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. Yet none of this orient is merely imaginative. The Orient is an integral part of European material civilization and culture. (1)

There are a few concepts that Said establishes within this passage.  Europe is established as the factor of control over the way the Orient is understood.  However, the control is derived from an initial fear of superiority and domination.  The Orient, according to Said, is special because it is seen as the place in which all humanity first has its existence. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Europeans stake a major claim on its existence, not out of superiority but out of inferiority.  A binary is established through this fear.  However, the relationship is one in which the other constantly reaffirms itself through the other’s existence—thus Said calls the Orient Europe’s “cultural contestant.” 

The Orient is a geographical space, and Said sets this binary up as East (Orient) and West(Europe).  However, orientalism transcends geographical space and is present with European society itself because Said states that it is deeply invested in Europe’s material civilization and culture.  This means that Europe depended on the concept of Orientalism as a means of financial stability, and did so under the premise of materialism and material production.

This is a somewhat challenging and broad definition. Yet, Said provides more insight into the way he establishes the Oriental discourse that defines his work.  There are several fundamental aspects to Orientalism all of which are “interdependent” (Said 2).  The first is that any person—be it scholar, artist, scientist, or historian—is a guilty of practicing Orientalistic thought and even though it is primarily a product of European colonialism it still exists today though it is an even broader category than it once was (Said 2).   The second aspect is that Orientalism “is style of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) “the Occident””(Said 2).   This means that the Occident—once again this refers to Europe—validates its own existence through defining that which is different from itself.  Difference is the key—I’ll return to the concept of the Other in a future post.  In doing so there are different levels of categorization with the Occident/West/European at the top.  The next aspect is that of “material production” (3). According to Said this is done by corporate reproduction of the Orient by a variety of ways most of which are “making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient” (3).  The final aspect of Orientalism is that it focuses on a specific and closely linked relationship between France/Britain and the Orient. 


What Said seems to repeat within his Introduction, is the locus of power and how it is determined through a specific anthropological discourse—one that is extremely unbalanced.  From these definitions it is easy to pinpoint who controls the way Orientalism is understood—it is no surprise that this is Europe.

I’d like to end this post on one more thing that Said states which is really interesting considering the principles he basis for the establishment of Orientalism.    This is the fact that the relationship between Britain, France, and the Orient “is enormously productive even if it always demonstrates the comparatively greater strength of the Occident” (Said 4).

Even though control and domination are the main premise of Oriental thought, it is a binary of production—one that functions for both sides of Orient/Occident.  I noticed that throughout this post I have navigated between different terms when describing the binary. Therefore I want to end this post by matching these terms to each other because I think they reveal something about the binary of power:


Orient=East=?

Occident=West=Europe=Britain and France

Through these analogies is it clear that the Orient is a much more vague term than the Occident because we can see that Said is very specific in his categorization of the West.   Orientalism, in accordance with Said’s work is one sided and it seems that he neglects to define the Orient on a more specific level.

How do we define the Orient other then the way it is defined by the occident? What countries fall into the category of Orient? Is it ok to group countries and people under one term?


These are all questions I hope to answer as I continue this course.

Crossing Borders: A "Global World"

As I was reading through Arif Dirlik's "Third World Criticism in the Age of Capitalism" I couldn't help but feel critically nostalgic--feeling as if some of his ideas are rather outdated, or are presented in a fantasized way. 

It is also one I don't necessarily agree with.  There are several issues that beg to be questioned.

Dirlik highlights the fact that capitalism has become decentered and is no longer dominated by Eurocentrism(Postcolonialisms 577).  Because of this the "transnationalization of production is the source at once of unprecedented global unity and the unprecedentied fragmentation in [the] history of capitalism [and] the homogenization of the globe economically, socially, and culturally is such that Marx's predictions finally seem to be on the point of vindication" (Postcolonialisms 578).

I have to disagree with Dirlik on this one.  THERE is no such existence of  unity in global production and cultures.  In fact I would have to argue that the center of capitalism has not really been "decentered" but "recentered" in a place directly across the sea from Europe.  This place my fellow poco scholars would be the United States of America.   The United States has become a culture of capitalistic nature, even worst than what was going on in the 1960's.   The very fact that Black Friday has turned into "Gray Thursday" and "Cyber Monday" is the very proof one needs for the justification of our "bourgeousis" type society.  The poor want to be richer, so they spend money they don't have, to maintain the appearence that they have expensive taste.  Must I continue? The United States my friend is the new capitalist center, which has begun to assert its own imperialist reach across seas, and then some.   Must we be reminded of the factory fire in Bangladesh this past week killing how many workers? Not to mention they were producing American goods. 

The other issue I have with this statement within Dirlik's work is the fact that cultures have become unified.  Really?? In the United States alone, a person of different ethnicity can not go down the street without illiciting a degrading stare from some culturally ignorant hypocrite.  In fact how many hate crimes against ethnic or racial others are commited within the United States in one day? I don't know the exact statistics, but I would have to guess that they are extremely high.  If a country like the United States who is founded upon the ideals of equality and is the supposed "melting pot" of the world is not culturally unifed, then it is no way possible for the world to become one culture. 

With the way the world looks now, I would have to argue that there is no such concept of a "Globalized World" according to the type that Dirlik outlines. I would have to argue that there are Global Superpowers that extend their imperialistic practices to try and colonize our current world.  I do believe that people are intermixing between cultures, and that people are becoming more culurally aware.  Borders are being crossed, yet there are still powerful divsions between North America, Europe, and Asia.  I would argue that each continent is fighting for global control.  AND if that were to happen our culturally "diverse" world would cease to exist and we would all become mindless global capitalist.

I know my views are somewhat negative, but it is because of the current state of our "Global World" that I am doing my best to become a post-colonial scholar.

*****

I had read the entire book of Rushdie short stories in East, West and I must say the two that really stuck out in terms of globalization were "Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies" and "At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers." I'm sorry to say but I must make this explication of these text rather short because I have three final papers I need to finish so I will give you my thoughts in a rather short way.

In "Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies" there is emphasis placed on the discussion between Muhammad Ali and Miss Rehena's eyes.   Miss Rehana wishes to leave her cultural home, India.  Muhammad Ali represents cultural purity--or anti-globalization.  He tries over and over again to convince Miss Rehena not to go and argue for a permit to leave, but alas the tempation for Miss Rehana to leave her own poor statis and travel is great.  However, Muhammad Ali knows the power of money and wealth is the equivalent to the passport he is witholding from Miss Rehena.  It can be implied that Ali was in the possession of a forged passport, therefor he was aiming at improving his own pocket wealth through the process of allowing globalization. Overall the story, plays with the concept of identity, and the crossing of borders--eventually Miss Rehena passes the colonial interagation that will alow her to leave.  She passes through the colonial gaze, and gains her ticket to globalization.

In "At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers", the concept of global capitalism is at its finest.  The ruby slippers represent one of the most important piece of capitalist propoganda for they come from a movie that would become a global hit, The Wizard of Oz.  When it first premiered in 1939 the movie grossed 3,017,000 dollars (IMDB) but after each realease it gained more and more gross income.  However, whats important is that The Wizard of Oz has become a global icon, to the equivalent of Star Wars. Everyone knows these iconic movies, and the Ruby Slippers are the most iconic.  Everyone has travelled from all over to see and bid for the Ruby Slippers including "politcal refugess, conspirators, deposed monarchs, defeated factions, poets, bandit chieftens" (91).  The people stand and "pools of saliva begin to form" (90).  The low down people, and the higher up people come and are unifed in wanting this one object--a pair of ruby slippers.

However, the most important passage of this short story is the one that reads:
We revere the ruby slippers because we believe theycan make us invulnerable to witches...because of their powers of reverse metamorphosis, their affirmation of a lost state of normalcy in which we have almost ceased to believe and to which the slippers promise us we can return; and because they shine like the footwear of gods. (92)
There is longing in this passage, a want to revert to what was before.  Yet, it is only through the capitalistic practices that the people can regain their salvation.  To revert from a globalized society, to become something other more defined in ones own culture. 

Both these short stories were awesome, but I have more to say about where I want to go and what I have learned.

*****

 As a post-colonial scholar I feel like we can learn the secrets, and create the vocabulary, that can help us become better global citizens by promoting dialogue between cultures and people that are different.   Some might say that as a White American Male I couldn't possibly succeed in the field of post-colonial studies because I don't understand or live in a post-colonial society. I couldn't possibly understand what it's like to be colonized and fight against the types of injustices that occur everyday in our post-colonial world.  Sometimes I feel like I am intruding in a field that isn't my own cultural inheritance. But then I realize that I know what its like to suffer the colonial gaze, to have the government control my body, to suffer injustice at the ideology of sexual oppression. I also realize that colonization is EVERY person's inheritance in this world.  Afterall, the first humans were nomads who migrated across millions and trillions of frozen Earth to populate it, we are more interconnected than we like to think.  As a post-colonial scholar I want to seek to create healthy cultural relationships, understand the world in terms of its diverse people. I also want to understand sexuality and its place in different cultures.  I want to rectify the division that global capitalism has created within our  every changing world.

Above all though  I want to question the existence of homosexuality in the Arab world, because homosexuality has been such a major issue in my own world. 

This is where I see myself going as a post-colonial scholar.

As for now, I will continue my journey to understanding our post-colonial world.

Colonized Desire: "S/he yearns for two things only: To be loved, of course, and to be safe."

There are those in the Post-colonial world of theory that believe that homosexuality doesn't exist in the colonized world.  In fact theorist, like Franz Fanon and Joseph A. Massad, believe that homosexuality in the colonized world is, and was, a product of colonial taint, enforced upon the indigenous people by the colonizers.   However, I like to think that homosexuality did exist in the world of the colonized way before the Europeans showed up—sexual acts between people of the same sex were normal, not questioned as obscene, nor even given a name.  In fact love between two men, or women, was considered the purest form of love.   It is only when Europeans showed up and introduced the politics of heterosexism that are completely ingrained in post-colonial societies today, where the violence and persecution against homosexuals is extremely violent.  In doing so, the colonizers declared that sexual relations between people of the same sex were abhorrent homosexual acts condemned by the religious doctrines of Christianity.

Whatever the case, somewhere along the line the concepts of sex and gender became completely misconstrued, and policing of sexuality in the post-colonial world is a result of this misconstruing. 

The Caribbean is a post-colonial society where sexuality is policed through gendered behavior.  In fact the Caribbean is a special place when it comes to colonization and sexuality, because it is a place full of people from many cultural backgrounds—both West and East—who have different views when it comes to sexual behavior.  Because the Caribbean was a place of violent colonization and decolonization, sex became the new way to either control—whether it is colonization or decolonization.

Before I get to the readings for this week, I’d like to introduce some of my own theory on the way sexuality is constructed within the Caribbean.  I build off of the works of social oppression theorists to construct the way in which sexuality can be understood within the Caribbean.

Here is an excerpt from a paper I wrote on sexuality within the Caribbean. It focuses on the way homosexual men are forced into a space of sexual hybridity within the nation of Cuba.  I am in no way assuming that the way homosexuality is treated in Cuba is the way it is treated for the entirety of the Caribbean.  The colonial story varies from country to country.  However, several nations have created laws against homosexuality, and more times than not, homosexuals are forced to hide their sexuality through gendered behavior. 

You will notice in my paper that I bring up the concept of sexual hybridity, and I explain the reason why homosexual men are forced into this space of sexual enunciation.   

To better understand this concept I would like to focus on two of the readings for this week.  The first is one of my personal heroes and role model, Reinaldo Arenas.  For those who don’t know who Arena’s is, I suggest you read the rest of his memoirs, or see the movie, Before Night Falls.   “Eroticism” is a chapter from these memoirs.  To make a long, and important, story short Arenas was a political hero for homosexuals in Cuba.  He fought long and hard to write novels against the Castro Regime—ironically a regime he helped put into power.  Many of his manuscripts were confiscated by police, as well as homosexual men who were “supposedly” his friends.  Arenas was exiled to the United States in the Mariel Boat Lift in 1980—Castro finally gave those who wanted to leave, who he called the scum of the Earth, the permission to do so.

I hope you take the opportunity to learn more about Arenas because he was truly an amazing person. 

“Eroticism” was the first piece I read of Arenas, and it helped form the topic for my undergraduate colloquium paper.  Plus, it helped me decide where I want to situate myself in the field of post-colonial studies—homosexuality within the post-colonial world.  I’d like to point out that Arenas uses autobiographical anecdotal writing to create a gay aesthetic—this process is what Audre Lorde first called biomythography.  Biomythography combines narrative form with autobiographical form to convey one’s own personal life with other homosexuals—somewhat similar to the mbari process.  It is used to celebrate queer life within the Caribbean by uniting, and embracing other homosexuals.  

The first autobiographical anecdote that Arena describes in “Eroticism” is of a young male who he and his friend Tomasito La Goyesca met while on a bus.  Arena’s narrates that “the young man had signaled Tomasito several times and touched his very erect penis. [But] when Tomasito grabbed it, the man reacted violently, beat him up, and called him, and all of us queers” (34).  From this little bit of narration, it is clear that the man was obviously interested in both Arena and Tomasito, yet when approached for a sexual handout he was unable to cross the liminal threshold and identify as a homosexual man even though his erect penis said otherwise.  Arena later narrates that Tomasito had accidently switched wallets with the violent man who turned out to be “an official of the Ministry of the Interior” (34).  

Arena comments that “[This] man, who was persecuting us for being gay, probably wanted nothing more than for us to grab his penis, rub it, and suck it right then. Perhaps this kind of aberration exists in all repressive systems” (35).  Arena is not only describing the psychological oppression that the official was facing, but that something was preventing him from acting out what was obviously his same-sex sexual desire. It also shows that even people in power during the revolution were forced to act out the laws of nationalism.   In this case the official was acting out his repression through violence because of his inability to cross the liminal threshold into same-sex desire, a product of his place within the government.

Another place where Arena describes the representation of sexual hybridity and gender identification is when he is the recipient of a brutal beating by a man he has had sex with.  Arena recounts this violent memory and says that:

Things were settled with a look, asking for a cigarette...The young man accepted, and once  inside my room, surprisingly asked me to play the role of the    man. Actually that gave me pleasure to, and the man went down on me.  I fucked him and enjoyed it like a convict. Then, still naked, he asked me, “And if anybody catches us here, who is the man?” He meant who fucked whom. I replied perhaps a little cruelly, “Obviously, I am  the man, since I stuck into you.” This enraged the young man…and he started to throw     me against the low ceiling…I was getting an awful beating… [and] I was afraid to die. (41)

Arena shows that even the physical act of sex doesn’t escape the oppressive chains of heterosexism and gender identity.  Masculinity is equaled to the act of performance and insertion, and femininity is labeled as submissive and receiving. Because Arena challenged the young man’s masculinity he was seen as challenging the systems of gender that embody the physical act of sex.   Arena himself identifies his act as that of a “convict” because he is taking away his sexual partner’s masculinity. This results in sexual hybridity being forced upon both participants through gender identification, and sexual freedom is denied from taking place.

The final part of “Eroticism” Arena describes, in autobiographical form, the setbacks he faced while writing down his memoirs, manuscripts, and novels.  He writes that “By the year 1969 I was already being subjected to persistent harassment by State Security, and I feared for the manuscripts I was continually writing” (49). He juxtaposes the appropriation of his writing by the government, to how the sea “[was] a way to escape from the land where were repressed; perhaps in floating on the waves we escaped our cursed insularity” (49).    His writing served as a way to express the repression he was experiencing at the hands of gay men and the government which wreaked havoc on his sexual identity.   Because he was making his voice known, and not conforming to sexual repression, he became visible as betraying the gender of the nation.  So because his writing was compromised—an intimate part of his identity—the sea, a place separate from land/nation, was the only escape from the daunting confines of heterosexism.  

The second reading that I would like to focus on for this post is Thomas Glave’s “Whose Caribbean? An Allegory, in Part.” Thomas Glave is from Jamaica and is an activist who fights for gay rights.  In fact, he helped create an organization called the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals, and Gays( J-FLAG).  He is also the editor of Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing From the Antilles—the first anthology of Gay Caribbean Literature.  (The readings for this week come from this book, which I am extremely fond of!).   

This short allegory/political speech is full of questions on sexuality, gender, and democracy.  However, it’s interesting that Glave would use the term allegory, because it is significant to a National allegory—which connects both heterosexuals and non-heterosexuals. (Refer to my blog post on National thought).  I call it a speech because it switches from narrative to speech half way through the text.  But what is most interesting is that Glave manifest the concept of sexual hybridity through his narrator/protagonist.  The manifestation of sexual hybridity functions as a way to unite both sexes—in essence a connection between homosexuality and heterosexuality.  In the very beginning the narrator states:

 I am fairly certain…that the child was both female and male—a common enough occurrence in that place of the child’s origin at that time, as, contrary to numerous  prevailing opinions, happens frequently today. The child—let us know him/her as “s/he”—possessed a slender penis of startingly delicate gree…s/he also possessed a pair of luminous blue breasts…The child also possessed a vagina and uterus, which, as was             common knowledge among all who knew him/her, produced at least two or three times     per year (Glave 177).

Glave uses gendered pronouns and connects the two, but let us remember that gender is a social creation so by doing so Glave is deconstructing the binary of he and she by combining the two. A manifestation of sexual hybridity through gendered pronouns.  WOW!!! He also uses physical reproductive organs, penis and uterus, to "re-gender" a human being. Glave, as a gay political activists is “Hope[s] that [they] could engender social and political change in a nation that , broadened through [their] efforts, would ultimately be worthy of all Jamaicans:a nation welcoming to all, irrespective of sexuality and perceived gender transgressions.

As I was reading through Glave's narrative, I reverted back to Spivak’s assertion that the subaltern cannot speak.  Maybe I reacted too harshly to this idea. Even though I am gay I live in a society where I can express it freely without fear of consequence.  I must say I have to reformulate my own opinion on this subject.  If sexual hybridity exists, and homosexuals are forced to conceal their sexuality within the space of sexual enunciation then in fact they cannot speak authentically—thanks Cait Turner for making me question this.  They are forced to share “Darkness and silence…For all time….un-voicedness, complete despair” (Glave 179).  They can only demonstrate their sexuality—which in essence serves as their “voicedness”—through heterosexual norms.  However, Glave by “gathering” these narratives, poems, and speeches work to give an authentic voice that isn't suppressed or colonized by heterosexism. Instead their voices work to un-colonize their sexual desire which is policed through gender and sexual politics. 

Homosexual desire in the colonial world is often met with forceful resistance.  It is often considered disgusting, taboo, and unnatural.  It isn't that homosexuality doesn't exist in the colonial world. Instead it is re-colonized by the colonized. Therefore, sexuality, a significant aspect of culture, is appropriated and distorted so that it can never be purely the same. 

An Eye for an Eye: The Violent Colonial Gaze in The Battle of Algiers

The colonial gaze, in my opinion, is the most important part of any colonial discourse.  As a post-colonial theorist it is vital to understand the colonial gaze—because it plays a major role in colonization and the interactions that ensue after different cultures and peoples come in contact.  The colonial gaze defines the ways in which the colonizer visually and psychologically portrays the colonized and vice versa.  However, the colonial gaze can be hard to understand because of its visible and invisible representations.  When I say it has invisible representations, I mean the psychological implications that influence the actions of both the colonizer and the colonized.  We already know from our readings that the colonial gaze plays a vital role in colonization, but it also plays a major role in decolonization—the colonized invert the gaze and use it as a weapon against colonial authority.  For this blog post I would like to focus on the physical inversion of the colonial gaze so that it functions as a weapon for decolonization.      

I’ve briefly touched on the concept of the colonial gaze before, and I have provided many textual examples to help understand its place in colonial discourse.  However, I find understanding it visually is the best way to understand the implications of such a powerful weapon of colonization—and in this case decolonization.   Therefore, let us turn to a movie that represents the colonial gaze as a violent weapon for decolonization—the 1966 movie, The Battle of Algiers. For those of you who don’t know, The Battle of Algiers is about the fight for the city of Algiers between the colonial French and the colonized people of Algiers.  This movie is full of scenes that depict the colonial gaze that takes place between the colonized and the colonizer.  However, there is one particular sequence of scenes that I would like to focus on when it comes to this concept.

These scenes focus on a sequence of bombings which are carried out by three Arab women whose men are part of the FLN—an anti-colonial group that aims at taking back the city of Algiers from colonial authority by any means necessary.  This link will take you to the scenes I am most interested in examining—sorry I was unable to fully embed the video into this blog post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hYtN2zWX8c

I’d like to point out a few things before I explicate these scenes. 

 Because the colonial gaze was used to imprison and incriminate the colonized—Ali La Pointe’s own personal flashbacks  within the movie show his own troubles with  colonial authority because his “visual” difference as an Arab could be seen—the colonized soon realized the power of the colonial gaze and how it might be made into a weapon. 

The first step in undoing the gaze was through purification.  In the movie, this was done by the Algiers by first upholding their own moral and religious values as Muslims from the taint of colonialism—all people must give up their corrupt colonial behavior that has come to permeate their Arab society.  If we remember in Leila Ahmed’s work we read about how certain radical religious groups in post-colonial societies often used violent laws and behavior to purify the colonized society from colonial infection. One scene depicts a group of children beating a publically drunk man to death.  This is a prime example of what Ahmed describes.  The second part of decolonization within the movie, and perhaps the most important part of inverting the colonial gaze, to make it a weapon, is mimicry. 

 Now we can begin the explication of these scenes.   

Remember in his article “Of Mimicry and Man” Homi Bhabha explains the duality or ambivalence that the colonized experience.  Bhabha argued that it was through ambivalence that the indigenous destroyed the authority of colonial powers and recognized their own strength.  It is through this ambivalence that the colonial gaze is inverted and made a weapon for decolonization.

In the sequence of scenes above, it first opens on a room with three Algieran women.   Each is combing her hair, and then suddenly and violently they chop their hair short and dye it a lighter shade.  You can see the colonial gaze in the women's eyes as they hold the scissors to their hair in front of the mirror. The scissors serve as the physical undoing of the colonial gaze as they cut away the colonized  identity. They mimic the colonizer in appearence and play act the loyal colonial subject.  Suddenly, the colonial gaze becomes self reflexive. They become the docile and loyal colonial subjects. However, this is only in appearance, because their ultimate goal is to blow up a French soda shop, a French dance hall, and a French airport.  Let me remind you that they do so willingly, and because it is only a woman who can now penetrate and invert the colonial gaze—women were seen as harmless and helpless therefore they couldn’t possibly carry out acts of violence and terror, men were seen as the ones with power.  But at the same time they became that which the colonial authority wanted to see, even though they were blind to the true motives of the colonized.  Thus, the colonial gaze is inverted through the visible/invisible ambivalence of mimicry and made a physical weapon for decolonization. 

I’d like to make one more explication of the colonial gaze within The Battle of Algiers.  The colonial gaze is often seen as extremely violent.  Violence begets violence, and the old saying “An eye for an eye” becomes the motto of both colonial authority and the colonized.  The more the colonial gaze pierces the subconscious of the colonizer and the colonized the more violent the interaction becomes.  The colonizer is further convinced that the colonized need to be controlled and civilized.  The colonized is further convinced that it doesn’t need to be repressed by the colonial gaze.  Thus the concept of relativism is destroyed all together and peaceful reconciliation can no longer be achieved.  Violence begets violence, and all become dehumanized.  The colonial gaze ceases to exist or becomes extremely hypersensitive.  The colonized become the colonizers and the colonizers become the colonized.

Remeber to vote

Just a friendly reminder to vote today!

Abstracts

Here are two abstracts of critical essays that have to do with Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.  The first is an essay on Chinua Achebe and what influenced him as a writer.  The second has to do with the duality of individual/collective memory within Things Fall Apart.

Gikandi, Simon. “Chinua Achebe and the Invention of African Literature.” Things Fall Apart: A Norton Critical Edition. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2009. 297-303. Print.

            This article seeks to examine the context in which Chinua Achebe’s novel was written by outlining the circumstances in which the novel was written—what was going on in Nigeria at the time—and the outside forces that helped shaped its creation.  The essay first examines the challenges that faced Achebe when it came to publishing his novel—his only finished manuscript was sent to London and ignored for almost an entire year, after which Achebe sent it to William Heinemann who published it in 1958 after much speculation and misgivings.  Gikandi points out that only 2,000 copies were first published—which doesn’t seem like much given the popularity it has received gaining the title of the first African novel.  However, Gikandi highlights that many people think that Things Fall Apart was the first written/published African novel, but others came before him by writers such as Casely Hayford, Sol Plaatje, and Amos Tutuola.  What made Things Fall Apart so popular, and helped it achieve the title of the first African novel, was that Achebe had written it at a crucial time in Nigeria’s own history—the end of its domination by colonial rule.  Therefore, Things Fall Apart could be considered a testament as what to do after decolonization had begun, even though Gikandi says that unlike other African writers Achebe did not want to reject colonial history altogether.  Instead, Achebe saw the written word as a powerful colonial legacy to be used by the colonized—by fusing African oral storytelling traditions with the written European novel.  Gikandi points out that the Achebe’s own family history played an important role in colonial history—Achebe’s great grandfather was the first to receive Chirstian missionaries in the village of Ogidi.  The most important part of this article is where Gikandi highlights how literature shaped Achebe’s own view of the world, as well as his own view of his people.   Therefore, past and present helped shaped Achebe’s novel which would become the most famous novel to come out of Africa.

 Irele, F. Abiola. “The Crisis of Cultural Memory in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.”Things Fall Apart: Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Francis Abiola Irele. 1st ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2009. 453-91. Print.

Within this article, Irele Abiola gives an explication on the narrative discourse of Things Fall Apart so that one can understand that it functions on the principle of duality that exists between the individual/collective experience as well as the relationship between writer/society.By analyzing certain moral dilemmas that take place within the story, Abiola focuses on the fact of whether or not Okonkwo’s moral/ethical struggles are representative of one individual or whether or not they represent the collective consciousness of Igbo life and history. Abiola creates a clear distinction between Achebe’s personal beliefs and the beliefs the novel represents and or manifests through its characters—the novel almost works as a meta-consciousness or extension of the author’s own understanding of certain morals and ethics particular to his society which is critical to African oral tradition. In doing so, Abiola shows that reality becomes represented as fiction, and the struggles of the individual become symbolic for the collective African experience.However, what is curious to note is that Abiola points out that the African experience is not just particular to Africans. Instead Achebe reaches across the space of “cultural proximity” (a concept that is somewhat simalr to "cultural enunciation) to create a novel in which the human experience—moral/ethic struggles—can be understood as collective. The author concludes his essay by saying thatThings Fall Apart can be understood as a historical epic tragedy, and as such it challenges the concepts of space and time by examining the human condition—an act that that makes the individual experience part of the collective human experience.