Pedagogy of the other: Edward Said, postcolonial theory, and strategies for critique / 9781433113833

Citation preview

/';-=09

)(8*

=-0/']

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:09 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

PEDAGOGY

of the Other

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:09 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Studies in the

Postmodern Theory of Education Shirley R. Steinberg General Editor

Vol. 417

The Counterpoints series is part of the Peter Lang Education list Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG

New York • Washington, D.C./Baltimore • Bern Frankfurt • Berlin • Brussels • Vienna • Oxford

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:09 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Shehla Burney

PEDAGOGY

of the Other Edward Said, Postcolonial Theory, and Strategies for Critique

PETER LANG

New York • Washington, D.C./Baltimore • Bern Frankfurt • Berlin • Brussels • Vienna • Oxford

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:09 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burney, Shehla. Pedagogy of the other: Edward Said, postcolonial theory, and strategies for critique / Shehla Burney. p. cm. - (Counterpoints: studies in the postmodern theory of education; v. 417) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Orientalism. 2. Postcolonialism. 3. Postmodernism and education.

4. Said, Edward W. I. Title. DS61.85.B87 303.48'2182105- dc23 2012027778

ISBN 978-1-4331-1383-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4331-1382-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-4539-0826-6 (e-book) ISSN 1058-1634

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the "Deutsche Nationalbibliografie"; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

Cover photos: Front: E. M. Forster letter, March 22, 1962; Back: Mughal miniature painting of Babur's court, 1589.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources.

© 2012 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006

www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. Printed in the United States of America

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:09 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

For My Mother

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that 's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

-Lord Byron (1788-1824)

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:09 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Contents

Abbreviations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

Chapter One Orientalism : The Making of the Other 23 Chapter Two Edward Said and Postcolonial Theory: Disjunctured Identities and the Subaltern Voice

41

Chapter Th Representation and Re-presentation 61

Chapter Four Resistance and Counter-Discourse: Writing Back to the Empire 105

Chapter Five The World, the T ext, and the T eacher Contrapuntal Analysis and Secular Criticism 117

Chapter Six Erasing Eurocentrism: "Using the Other as the Supplement of Knowledge" 143 Chapter Seven Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory: Applications for Educational

Critique Chapter

173

Eight

Towa

Interculturalism

Interdisciplinary 193 Afterword The Arab Spring: East Meets West 209 References Index

221

227

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:09 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Abbreviations for Said's Works Orientalism

O

The World, the Text, and the Critic WTC

Culture and Imperialism C&I Humanism and Democratic Criticism HDC

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:28 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Acknowledgments

I

would

like

to

than

Edward

Said's

ing

opened

but

subject Lang

am

thanks

original

bridge I

a

N

for

s

guidan go

letter

out of

E

University

moving

that

very

series,

valuable

My

my

Publishing,

points her

I

work

words,

have

so

"I

n

often

perspective. I

am

of

out I

thankful

the

Arab

books

am

I

helped

me

me

progressive tion

of

poet

in

when

I

Seema,

in

for

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:32 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

th

decip

parents

Urdu,

zeena for her astute comments.

grat

to

critical was

A

needed

eternally

troducing

to

Spring

in

thin

for

r

prep

her

lov

INTRODUCTION My hope is to illustrate the formidable structure of cultural domination and, specifically for formerly colonized peoples, the dangers and temptations of employing this structure upon themselves or upon others. ( Orientalism , p. 25)

The 1980s were glorious times in academia. A sense of energy surged through the so-called hallowed halls, making them come alive with ne

ideas, new configurations, and new 'ways of seeing.' French poststructuralis

theory had finally begun to infiltrate into North American scholarship, tran

forming ideas about how the underlying structures of power and hegemo

operate to create ideology and meaning. Michel Foucault's influential work

(1970, 1977, 1979) on power/knowledge paradigms and what he called t "archeology of knowledge" had become a central motif of academic critiqu

Foucault's notion of discourse and his social critique of institutions had al-

ready left its mark in North America as the cutting edge of criticism. Rola

Barthes's demythologizing semiotic essays (1957, 1977, 1981) - snapsho or 'signposts/ as he had named them - were having a huge influence

scholarly writing style and the making of meaning through signs and code

images and fragments. Umberto Eco's theories on semiotics and his intrica

symbology (1976, 1979) had been translated into popular media and fil

such as The Name of the Rose, and Marxist and feminist theories were at th

forefront of textual analysis and sexual politics (Moi, 1985). The political h

certainly superseded the personal, and Fredric Jameson's notions of Marxi

theory, geopolitical reality, and aesthetics (1981) were influencing progres

sive views and perceptions. The polyphonous, pluralistic, postmoderni

flow of ideas had made it impossible to step into the river twice, as one a

cient philosopher once said. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak had translate

Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology (1978) from the French into Englis making complex theoretical precepts such as deconstruction and dijférance part of literary critique. The intricate complexity of deconstruction as

strategy of critique had gone beyond academic realms to become an integr part of popular jargon and general misuse, including a Woody Allen fil Popular culture itself had been deemed a respectable subject for serious de

construction and critical analysis. English departments were contendi with new-fangled literary theory (Eagleton, 1983), coming to terms wi revolutionary concepts that had caused deeply entrenched notions abo culture, tradition, the canon, and classic literary criticism to literally turn

their head. Walter Benjamin's (1969) ideas about art in an age of mechanica reproduction, first presented in 1936 and then interpreted by John Berger

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

2

his popular book an about image, ideolog seemed,

usurped

opposing theory to

inte

camps

and

-

those

contemporary

politics.

In

the

short,

postmodernism course,

as

through

to

Indeed, cutting

leths

rather

-

sity

of

focus

was

the

were in

crossin

becomin

constr

the

deve

Studies, at

w

the

Raymond

from

Although

the

W

elite

to

Cultural

glocentric,

with

ternationalist,

a

S

fo

interc

parts

of the w Nandy, and t

involved

Raj.

s

Birmingham

of

other Ashis

a

logocentri

loosely

of

pop

critica

initially

work

wer

as

Left

Cultural

ing

a

there

portantly as

as

the

and

studies

eso

microscop

emerging Slant

well

th

wh

in

its

probi

Borrowing

Gramsci's

paper,

the

"On

Group" (1934), the I nated and exploited

rose up against the times were "a-chang scholarship to an ope

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Introduction

Edward

Said

University

at

in

The Politics of Literature

It was in this rarefied atmosphere that Edward Said's groundbreaking work, Orientalism (1978), was beginning to have its powerful impact on academic

disciplines across the social sciences and humanities. Edward Said has indeed been acknowledged as one of the most important critics of contemporary times. His critical and cultural work is recognized as the cornerstone of

postcolonial theory. Orientalism was a deeply passionate, panoramic, and political work of great erudition and scholarship that presented the radical notion that the Orient was an iconic social construction of the West, manufactured by the political power and hegemony of dominant colonial relations, and represented in art and literature as the ultimate Other of the "Occident" Said boldly posited that this static and stereotypical image of the Orient was

perpetuated through the traces and palimpsests of textuality created by the sediments of images and words in scholarly, literary, philological, anthropo-

logical, and travel writings of the privileged Western Orientalists, from the sixteenth century to the present. In other words, the "Orient," as depicted and mediated by the West, was actually an imaginary construct created by

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

t

4

the

writings

ertoire and

of

and

workings

uncertain

tionship ony"

5)

of

.This

had

Criticism. porary ing

linked

Brooks,

by

social

the

Allen

lik

politics

Perceived

seen

pe

Tat

aesthetic,

mundane

was

ke

practice of

and

and

ness."

deep

firmly

and

Critics

ac

hith

scholarship

current

New tine

had

Said

w

in

been

politics

the

of

innov

thought

Orientalism

which

syste that

power,

inextricably grain

of

terms

of

(p.

repr

repetitions

as

a

as

a

a

h

purely

worldly reality. The N social context, that it als

such

liefs,

as

beauty

the

reader's

unnecessary Robert

Penn

which iconic

for

Warren's

taught

represented stantial terior

studen

universal

reality

or

structure

Moreover,

called

great

traditio

1970s,

making

the

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and

it

Marxist

area

th

didact

informed

of

soci

of

the

(1957),

ies,

r

und

American colleg with its formal

1970s

work

and

a

m

and

focused

f

c

Introduction

Chaucer

and

literature worthy

or

the

of

erature cism

st

forme

important

were

end

or

had

b

governe of

This

litera

rather

where

only

interjection

torical

a

o

literat

critics,

Said

establishmen culture

off

subversive

l

id

representatio lieu. well

Not as

fectly

thing

surp

high

p

happy

as

inte

institutional, dividual stantial

field

Said's

of

auth

realit

litera

major

Cultural Politics

The sedate field of Literary Studies had been jolted by Said's ingenious concept

of the deep symbiotic relationship between culture and empire, literature and

imperialism, and of the complex role of textuality and geopolitics in socially constructing our notions of the 'Orient' as the ultimate Other. The idea of any-

thing political being associated with the pure realm of literature and art, in conjunction with Mathew Arnold's prevailing hegemonic concept of 'Culture' as opposed to 'Anarch/ (1963 [1869]), was anathema in the highbrow realm of English Studies. Said's revolutionary notion of the politics of literature, of the cultural politics embedded in the relationship between power and culture,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

b

6

art

and

riod.

imperialism,

Orientalism

forever pact sive

of

Said's

theory

the ity

In

a

of

into

a

few

Said's

literary

Said's with

great

and

th

acad

Discourse

eye-opening inventing,

the

o

dec

postcolonial

Colonial

of

aspect

representatio

short,

field

w

indivi

interdiscipli

just

and

the

work

of

key

new

Today,

had

changing

readings

w

A

co

crea

representation

Orient

had

been

perc

the foil to the Occi dramatically de-cen was

hailed

as

a

work

temporary

thinking

Ahluwalia,

2001,

odology

of

discourse

faceted

p.

1

subjectify

that

and

has

em

critical

analysis of the trope order to make a case structures suing At

of

chapters.

the

Cutting

Indeed,

Said's

advent

was

scholarship.

time,

Orient

Edge

Orient

an It

excit was

a

presenting pa seminars, or

theory

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Introduction

Derrida, Richard

others and

Umb

Sche

-

who

whose

mad

rush

Said's 1986,

w

of

course which

dents as wel doorways or table with D best: actors/ dent In

of

1980

your

come was

Said' when

seminar

a

legend

still

trapp

presence made just endowme gence

2005,

of

an

pp.

un

44-4

Undoubtedly

style,

astut

'worldly" cultures,

sc

and

"Education Is a Political Act"

It was also a sheer privilege as a graduate student to attend the First Critical Pedagogy Conference in 1986 - the very year in which I took Professor Said's course - and to meet and listen to the world-renowned Brazilian educator,

Paulo Freire (1921-1997), whose activist work was changing the face of education globally. A radical educational theorist and activist for social justice, it

was Paulo Freire who declared, "Education is a political act" Freire's work and teaching practice had initiated an influential contemporary school, now

known as Critical Pedagogy. Critical Pedagogy was an emerging radical, grassroots movement for critical literacy, critical teaching and learning, and

consciousness-raising of the 'oppressed.' Critical pedagogy encouraged the questioning of inherited assumptions, identity, power, and authority (Giroux,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

8

2005, from with far

p.

20).

It

education,

from

that

being of

uplifts

realities

Freire

Indeed,

ideas the

neutr

future

educatio

life

that

their

and

Freire's

about own

radical

cri

Henry

Peda

collective

consciousness

their

was

of

raising

and

students

lem-solving

Paulo

advo

democracy

liberation

and

challe

of

oppression

notions

of

formulated

knowledge,

and

relationships

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

tra

to

stood

betwee

Introduction

"popular ating

-

tures

edu

educa

and

Freire

firml

positive

actio

structed

tha

dominant dom,

and

context, process,

liberate is

me

ide

(19

thei

exact

cobwebs nial

my

orga

discourse This

m

of

m

discourse

colonial

subje

Conscientization

Freire saw education and literacy as a force that could transform the world.

Introducing methodologies for consciousness-raising or "conscientization" - the development of consciousness that has the power to transform reality and lived experience - Freire cultivated possibilities for the liberation and collective empowerment of downtrodden peoples. The term is derived from Frantz Fanon's coinage of a French word, "conscienciser," in his

anti-colonialist work, Black Skins/White Masks (1952), discussed later. Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) encouraged education as cultural action, leading towards the liberation and transformation of people's minds and reality. It revealed that education was based on oppressive relations of power and domination, and it helped to translate educational practice into liberationist movements. For Freire, education was not simply a means for literacy or the learning of reading and writing, but rather a cultural and po-

litical awakening that would lead to the reclaiming of one's identity, awareness of politics, and consciousness of oppression, social justice, and human

rights. As Freire writes, "I can see validity only in a literacy program in which men [sic] understand words in their true significance as a force to transform the world" (1974, p. 81). Indigenous knowledge was valorized, and education was seen as a liberationist praxis, wherein both theory and

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

_10

practice

tion

came

and

action

through critical

gogy,

of

'Pedagogy critique

of

of

a

hegemony, constructed pire,

and

tives at

of

of

the

was

an

w

deconst

impe

dominat

purpos

the

'othe

and

then

empire,"

University his

so-c

the

and

immensely

surely

wor

power

of

Said's

discourse,

cu

teac

the

by

colonial

sciousness in

of

and

culture,

presence.

and

tropes

aware

life

-

as

Pr

of

T

grate

worki

Freire and Said

I am not suggesting a simplistic comparison between Freire and Said at all. That would be completely erroneous, both historically and theoretically incorrect. The differences between the theorists stand out categorically: Both were markedly different in persona and style, context and content, with totally different cultural and social backgrounds - one hailing from a workingclass milieu, the other born into a privileged family. They worked in differ-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

O

Othe

Said's

of

the

f

cultural

science

of

the

the

art,

sciousness

subject

of

the

Edward

aware

th

particular

literature, that

of

o

credits Freire f works pedagogi

Pedagogy

gogy,

t

the

oppression.

legitimate The

upon

praxis

awareness

chains power

together

Introduction

ent the

environment South,

tigious

one

trenches,

especia

realms

estinians

merous

(see

a

and

respected imm on

the

primarily

education lectual, ship

ackn

of

the

writing

between

cul

representation texts.

Critics

questioning logic

one

point

tive

able

Op

that

to

were and

Stu

actual in

and

Said

placed stood

so

Palestinian

to

fo

translate use

indeed,

fields

ho

fough

strongly

the

im

pol

implem

peace

While

or

is

change

ized,

able

of

Literary

Both

for

spe

recei

supremely

were and

o

transforma

Discourse My

r

garnered

tensively is

Af

most

powerful

and

o

publish

Palestine's

has

in

universi

political

a

11

of

was

of

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

a

the

bra

Educat

J

2

theorists Wretched

and

in

of

the

Culture

Fanon's gogy

were

book.

of

the

insp

Eart

and

On

Im

the

o

Oppressed

Wretched of the Eart vided with an educatio Said

and

Critical

Freire

were

Pedagogy,

in

i

F

now

called. In short, d mendous impact on r ness, of colonial dom

followers tools

to

know

reflect

what

tionship This

writes,

has

it

"Rea

on,

an

means

between certainly

the

bee

Edward Said: A Public Intellectual

Edward Said is not only a leading cultural theorist and eminent critic but is also acknowledged as a stalwart public intellectual. His critical and cultural work has contributed greatly in creating a paradigm shift in thinking about the Orient It has brought the Other into focus, jolting the West to look at the

East differently, undercutting the layers, tropes, and sediments of colonial discourse perpetuated through the textuality of Orientalists. An internation-

ally renowned scholar of culture, history, and literature, Edward Said was University Professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. Incidentally, President Barack Obama claims the honor of having been one of his undergraduate students. The vast historical, political, and cultural scope of his writing, his stunning erudition and knowledge of different

literatures and languages, has earned him high praise. The Washington Post Book World considered Said to be a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete, and political activist His learning was global, his perspective was internationalist, and his philosophy was secular and humanistic.

A scholar and a gentleman, Said was also an accomplished concert pianist, a music critic, and a musicologist who had used music for peace and activism, setting up an orchestra for both Palestinian and Israeli children in

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

t

Introduction

13

partnership

wit

outspoken

ted

defen intellectual

tion

as

a

factions.

secular

Indeed,

in remembrance: Should we stress his literary, humanistic writing and teaching? His musical criticism and his work as a musical activist in collaboration with Daniel Baren-

boim? His role as a cultural theorist, from his early assessments of French theoiy in Beginnings to his latest reflections on postcolonial theory? Or should we

stress his importance as a political commentator, an engaged intellectual who emerged as the most eloquent spokesman for (and acerbic critic of) the Palestinian movement in the last quarter century? (Mitchell, 2005, p. 1)

Fluent and well-read in several languages and literatures, from both the East and the West, Said had the advantage of living and existing in the 'two

solitudes' of the two oppositional cultures, Europe and the vast ancient lands and societies known in the West as the Orient or the Arab world. Said

would have liked to see what Gayatri Spivak calls the "worlding" of his World, the establishment of a peaceful Palestinian state and the flowering of

the promised Arab Spring, which has been wavering on the precarious verge of blossoming in full or of withering away. Exile

The sense of exile or being "out of place," the title of Said's award-winning memoir (1999), increased his sensitivity, insight, and knowledge, as an out-

sider looking in. Born in Jerusalem, schooled in Palestine and Cairo, with summers spent at the mountain resorts of Beirut, Said was later sent to boarding school and college in the United States - a long journey between and betwixt cultures, with the dissonances of being an American citizen, a Christian, but at heart a Palestinian, and ultimately an outsider. Said himself

suggests that a sense of exile, a sense of distancing, can often provide a deeper and more profound perspective about oneself as well as the Other. In his work he mentions several times that the critic Erich Auerbach was

able to write his exemplary work on Western culture, Mimesis (1968), because he was living in Turkey in exile at the time. Calling him a "Critic of the

Earthly World" in an article (2004), Said credits Auerbach with writing with

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

14

such in

vision

the

and

East,

library.

and

Said

persp

writi

quotes,

w

Auerbach uses to end his work: The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. (0, p. 259)

Said concludes that the more one leaves one's cultural home and lives in

exile, the better one is at assessing oneself and other cultures. Perhap Said's Orientalism could not have been written with such clarity of critical vision and the panoramic breadth and width of his canvas had he not been

away from his own cultural home. In brief, this notion explicates his thesis

that the Occident was created by the Orient, that one needs the Other t comprehend reality. In Memoriam

Said's passing in 2003 has left a deep chasm in intellectual, political, and academic spheres that needs to be filled by applying his conceptual framework in critical and pedagogical praxis. This is what this book attempts to do: to focus on his cultural and critical theory and its applications for educa-

tional critique. Moreover, Said's role as a public intellectual has been so im-

portant that critics have often failed to focus on his critical and literaiy theory, which has been highly acclaimed but seems to be almost taken for granted. The plethora of political writings, interviews, and lectures on the plight of Palestinians and the dire need to find a Palestinian solution have

been the main focus of critics and commentators. Though important and powerful, this aspect of Said's work is not within the scope of this writing, which focuses on his theory. It is crucial, however, that Said's bold activism for the cause of peace and humanism be recognized and valued. He occupies a very high place in academia today as a responsible public intellectual and critic of oppression, war, and the hegemonic discourse of American foreign policy in the Middle East. Said sees the public intellectual necessarily as an oppositional figure, whose role it is to represent alternative thinking, alternative points of view, and alternative possibilities. In Representations of the Intellectual (1994), Said examines the role and impact of intellectuals in society, which is a recurring theme in all his theoretical work and cultural cri-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Introduction

tique.

In

othe

being,

needs

thrice

remov

and

cultural

cries

the

where politics as

t

far

r

depo

educat and w

away

as

aster, and he chanted with Derrida

esoteric to

do

and

F

acad

with

wh

Said and Education

Said's Orientalism; the ground-breaking critique of representation, of culture and imperialism, of textuality and the world; and his theoretical per-

spectives on postcolonialism have all had a tremendous impact on popular culture as well as on academic disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. While Said's theory is effectively deployed in most academic disciplines, unfortunately his critique of the condition of postcoloniality has not yet been applied or explored widely in the field of Education. Said's notion of the inextricable interplay between literature, politics, and representation; his concept of cultural imperialism as a function of empire and conquest; his

insightful theory of postcolonialism (though he himself does not use the word); and its impact on questions of power and knowledge, identity, hierarchy, and voice of the subaltern have literally changed the ways in which various disciplines are taught at universities and the ways in which we think, view media, and mediate culture and society. Said's theoretical work has been studied, researched, and discussed extensively by prestigious critics, but, despite its impact, it has not been trans-

lated into questions relating to Education and schooling. Educational issues such as curriculum and teaching, identity, representation, media, and mar-

ginality can all be critiqued through Said's theory. Nor has Said's theory been applied to practical strategies for critique. Key educational issues about curriculum, the canon, and pedagogy such as who teaches what, representing whose culture, to which students, why, where, and how - can be

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Jjj

critiqued

insightfull

representation some

have eral

of

tried to

of

are

of

to

on

three

Said's

qu

relate

books,

self-styled

the

critical

Education

There jority cus

the

S

and

majo

journ

political

"exile"

bet

views after 2003 are to Said's caliber as a

respected critical

jor

colleague;

thinker

publications

tions

to

m t

and

ac

that

Education.

been done on Said as a critic in mainstream academia.

Said's major theoretical works, such as Orientalism (1978), The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983), Culture and Imperialism (1993), and the

posthumously published Humanism and Democratic Criticism (2004), as well as other related writings, are deeply intermingled with notions of culture, geography, and the politics of empire in all facets of literature, art, and life. The first three major works are the focus of this book because of their vast impact on literary criticism and cultural theory, and their con-

tribution to developing complex postcolonial frameworks. The controver-

sies surrounding Orientalism after its immediate publication will not be discussed at length in this book, as most of the criticism has faded away with time as the acceptance and prestige of Said's contribution has grown. However, most of the criticism was minor to begin with. Moreover, rather

than rely on critics to explain Said's theoretical perspectives, I have used Said's own words, arguments, examples, and writing quite extensively, as 1

find that he is his own best and most lucid spokesperson, as pointed out earlier. Again, unless his arguments and explications are studied in depth, it is not possible to comprehend the significance of his theory. There are

many who have a superficial understanding of Orientalism as a concept, but who have no idea as to how meticulously and intelligently Said arrives at his conclusions through a vast array of erudition, scholarship, and dis-

course analysis. To understand the real depth and range of Said's work, one needs to read his own writing; here I have tried to translate it as best

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

a

Ac

Introduction

as

possible.

Mo

supplement teaching, talism of

examples Said's

to

fro

discours

accessible ture

o

since the

to

to

th

elucida

India

as

the

ish

Raj and its accessible to t

everyday

have

disco

called

"a

ents of our culture emanate from both the East and the West. I see this

praxis as a means of bringing the margins into the center, a strategy for

erasing the deadly effects of Orientalism, negating the predominance o Eurocentrism by 'using the other as the supplement of knowledge' in or der to complete our knowledge of the World as a whole. Filling in the Gap

Indeed, Edward Said occupies a distinctive place as an important cultura theorist in the contemporaiy, critical, interdisciplinary, and intercultural

field of Cultural Studies, which is at the cutting edge of scholarship today.

Postcolonial theory is considered highly relevant in Cultural Studies and other departments all over the world, including Cultural Studies in Education. India and the Middle East, like North America, Britain, and Australia,

place a high importance on Said's work and postcolonial theory, but hav not yet begun to deploy it in practical research in Education. Hence, thi

book fills in the gap by offering strategies for creating thought-provoking

frameworks for research and for cultivating critical rethinking, especially in

areas relating to pedagogy. It is noteworthy that these relationships between Said's theory and its applications to pedagogy have never befor been worked out in such concrete and substantial ways, and could prove to be valuable and insightful strategies for educational critique. The purpose of this book, then, is to make Said's complex theory acces-

sible to readers, educators, teachers, and learners. Its goal is to translate theory into practice, creating applications for academic critique. Pedagogy

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

jl8

of

the

Other

hopes

to

based

on Said's work critical and c cations of Said's theor ologies,

particular. The chapt bilities" (Simon, 1992

supplement knowledge, words,

ideas,

by

one

of know that the

using

can

and

compl

classroom.

Chapters

Chapter one, "Orientalism: The Making of the Other," focuses on Edward Said's epoch-making work Orientalism and its contribution to the develop-

ment of postcolonial theory. Said's theory of Orientalism (1978) is discussed in depth as a hegemonic, constructive power dynamic that has historically dominated the literary, political, and cultural discourse of the Orient/Other. This image and ideology of the socially constructed Orient has

infiltrated our contemporary imagination, making the word 'Orientalism' part of everyday parlance. The notion of Orientalism is probed as a cultural phenomenon, as a Western, institutionalized, hegemonic gaze that objectifies the Other as exotic and restless (Burney, 1992b) or as the mystical and

mythical, but ultimately inferior, secondary, and marginal. Said's idea of Orientalism and its symbiotic relationship to empire, to culture, and to imperialism is explored. Most readers know the general concept of Oriental-

ism, but reading it through Said's extensive referentiality and discourse analysis, one begins to appreciate its depth and insidious subversiveness. Chapter two, "Edward Said and Postcolonial Theory: Disjunctured Identities and the Subaltern Voice," highlights the developments of postcolonial theory in light of their ramifications for contemporary critique. Moreover, the beginnings of anti-colonialism are probed through Frantz Fanon's work, which is considered to be the foundation of anti-colonialism and colonialism

as practiced in the colonized world helping to spring several revolutions. Said himself has referred to Fanon throughout his three major works. Contemporary postcolonial theory as an emerging theoretical perspective and

new multidisciplinary field with innovative critical frameworks has also

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Introduction

been

discusse

such

as

to

the

Gayat

develo

nial critique for Education are introduced, raising questions about power/knowledge relations; the representation of the Other; and issues of

identity politics, hybridity, marginalization, and voice - or, in Spivak's words, "Can the subaltern speak?" Chapter three, '"Re-doing the Narratives of Empire': Representation and Re-presentation," decodes the Orientalist politics of Representation through

references to semiotics, image/word ideologies, and the meaning-making process. This chapter attempts to help teachers, educators, and students to

recognize the underlying structures embedded in Orientalist discourse. It tries to show how and why Orientalism operates insidiously in texts, cur-

riculum, teaching materials, and classroom practice. It sheds light on the ways in which works such as Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, E. M. Forster's A

Passage to India, and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness create a discourse of empire. The opera Aida is analyzed as a colonial representation of Egypt, rather, Egyptology, more than reality - full of images of colonial power and

extravagance. Genres such as travel writing, travelogues, and literature that represent the feminization of the East/Other are critiqued through a postcolonial lens, using Said's discourse analysis. Chapter four, "Resistance and Counter-Discourse: Writing Back to the Empire," focuses not only on modes of representation but also on the means of reception, or the meaning-making processes, of culturally different audi-

ences, readers, and students. Said's plea for a counter-discourse that writes back to the empire is discussed. The new modes and means of re-doing the narratives of empire are elaborated upon via various textual analyses of African and other contemporary writers' work. In short, the social construction of

chinoiserie is viewed through media representation of women, 'natives,' and aboriginal peoples. Portrayals and stereotypes of ethnocultural minorities in literature, art, and curriculum are critiqued and the whole geopolitical area known as the Third World is viewed through a different framework.

Chapter five, "The World, the Text, and the Teacher: Contrapuntal Analysis and Secular Criticism," presents a theory of secular criticism, of the

'worldliness' of texts, and the "text-in-the-world" that has bearings for a pedagogy of the Other. This chapter focuses on Said's concept of the World, of the "worldly, circumstantial reality of texts" that needs to inform a work

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

20

of

literature.

Saidian theory

cal

theory, that

with

in

are

which

tremendous

The

sign

texts

moments

has

The

signi

text-in-the-wor

politics, and culture which become an in power, alism.

of

Said

primarily arts.

nations

It

is

notes

and

very

initiated the

imperialism.

by

tropes

In

'contrapuntal*

order

or

opp

disjuncture and deco cism" (WTC, pp. 1-30 sentation and criticism of texts. Secular criticism undercuts the so-called

exoticness, mystery, and mysticism of the Other/Orient. Notions of the

remoteness of the Other (Fabian, 1983) in relation to contemporary time are demystified, and Said's secular criticism prevails in representation and discourse. In short, the World according to Said needs to infiltrate into the realms of the classroom, curriculum, and pedagogy, thus creating critical learners who can indulge in contrapuntal criticism, or critical and oppositional reading, which undercuts the hidden agenda. This theory of textuality and the worldliness of texts has deep implications for questions of the canon - that is, which texts are prescribed in the curriculum and how they are interpreted. Chapter six, "Erasing Eurocentrism: 'Using the Other as the Supplement of Knowledge,"' delves into a discussion of Eurocentrism, focusing on motifs

of Discovery and Exploration, and notions of Time and Space in cartography, which helped to create the idea of Europe as the center of the world. Pedagogical devices that can be practiced in teaching and discourse in order to undercut Eurocentrism in the curriculum are highlighted, probing meth-

ods of teaching that can create intertextuality, referentiality, and worldliness in texts, creating a global classroom and literally bringing the World

into the picture. This chapter deploys Jacques Derrida's concept of "the other as the supplement of knowledge" and uses it as a strategy of creating a

mode of classroom teaching - a pedagogy that ensures that the Other is al-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Introduction

ways ence" using

21

present in of the We the

other

an understandin the teacher, educ riculum

on

the

and

literary racist

the

canon

in

works,

from

s

anot

Chapter seven, plications for E works that info to critique. As p vative terminol applications to c gation,' 'compra 'neo-colonialism in relation to po Chapter

eight,

siveness,

"

Interdis

Said's 'Pedagogy pressed.' Indeed which the Other ture can

and

knowle

work

in

teac

clusive

critical p tercultural peda theory, and my an innovative po

ginalize,

oppress of repr goes far

discourse

praxis

multicultural

where tional debate

the and on

perative

Othe

interc

Mideas

that

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

edu

we

22

An

Afterword

happenings The

series

sive

youth

term dafi has

the

of

be

Mi

upheava

movement

dictators, Libya,

come

Said,

in

of

has

to

such

have

be

dr

called,

with his entren It still remain

world. materializes or fails.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:36 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER ONE: Orientalism: The Making of the Other Author(s): Shehla Burney Source: Counterpoints , 2012, Vol. 417, PEDAGOGY of the Other: Edward Said, Postcolonial Theory, and Strategies for Critique (2012), pp. 23-39 Published by: Peter Lang AG Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42981698 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Counterpoints

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER

ONE

Orientalism The Making of the Other Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient - dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short. Orien-

talism as a western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient (0, p. 3)

Edward Said's groundbreaking critical work Orientalism (1978) is widely acknowledged as the cornerstone of what has evolved into a multifaceted and diverse conceptual framework known as 'postcolonial theory.' Orientalism questions the very foundations of Western representation and the social construction of the 'Orient' as the ultimate Other in history, literature, art,

music, and popular culture. The publication of Orientalism created a stir, causing a huge impact on the humanities and social sciences that has influ-

enced academic scholarship in diverse disciplines, from Literary Studies, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, History, and Politics to Women's Studies, Media Studies, Native Studies, and Fine Arts. It has changed the way of seeing the Orient or the East, creating what can actually be called a 'paradigm shifť in our ways of seeing and knowing. Orientalism sheds light on the underlying structures of power, knowledge, hegemony, culture, and imperial-

ism that have been historically embedded in what Said has called "colonial discourse" - a discourse that presents the Orient as Other. Orientalism as a

practice, according to Said, is a "systematic discipline [my emphasis] by which European culture was able to manage - and even produce - the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post Enlightenment period" (0, p. 3). In other words, Said argues that Orientalism is a built-in system or method by which the West not only socially constructed and actually produced the Orient, but

controlled and managed it through a hegemony of power relations, working

through the tropes, images, and representations of literature, art, visual media, film, and travel writing, among other aspects of cultural and political

appropriation. Said contends that 'the Orient' is a European invention. He distinguishes between the Orient (The Other or the East) and the Occident (the West - mainly Britain and France, because of their massive colonial

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

24

empires from the b World War II, and th East as

and

the

binary

The

West

oppositions

major

contribut

the

Orient

the

structures

were

ha

was

create of

pow

historically

domination

binary

of

em

the

Ot

opposition, th not only

imperialism identity, ent

was

blance

(hi)story,

an

to

discourse

iconic

actual were

cu

ima

live

compl

the Middle East. The tropes of knowledge Said explains in simpl My

Idea

is

according

but

that

along

the

with

Said's and

(0,

was

p.

seas

of

the

brute

and

culture

interest

European

some

politic

complica

of

thesis the

interest

in in

the

cult

12)

central

military

the

it

varied

talism.

that

to

Or

in

search culture

of th

eventual colonization of the Orient. In His Own Words

As mentioned earlier, Said is his own best spokesperson, in that he writes with grace and simplicity in a lucid style, unlike present-day theorists who indulge in creating an elitist discourse based on exclusive terminology that is accessible only to the initiated few. Moreover, in order to understand the

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

c

Orientalism

25

complexity

so

much

has

befuddled

talism's

of

O

be

and

co

publicat

acclamation

of

points.

itera

Said

t

political

phenom

plot"

dominat

to

awareness

into

philological tinction but

also

tains" Such

text

(the a

(0,

wo

whole p.

12).

vested

tography,

int

trade,

priation of geo century, to the which construc psychological tion

of

the

building by to

the

an

colon

up

of

E

Orientali

govern

concrete

the

Ot

examp

sources as well lological texts. at

length

in

a T

this

b

Orientalism is d the expans

lishes

two

centuries;

tiquity"

tain

to

ideas

"Oriental

the

it

p

crea

splend

critiques these r second part, "Or

of

eighteenth-c

Renan

to

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

show

t

26

through already" This to

tropes, tra (to use a De

knowledge

establish

ism,"

an

throws

ported

to

of

imperi

light

America

Throughout

the

perialism

is

Orient

covery tions

and

on

the

tion,

an

establis is

"

practice"

contradiction

constructed see

on

writ

which

the

th

between

Orient

linked

as

to

'Orientalizing' the Orient Orientalism, then, is a complex web of Western representations of the Ori-

ent Said reiterates his main argument that the "Orient was created - or, rather as I call it orientalized" (0, p. 5) by a hegemonic process that robbed it of its true identity, voice, and indigenous culture. This imagined reality was substituted with pictures, perceptions, and perspectives derived from what I like to call the "Western gaze' or a hegemonic Eurocentric perspective. This Western gaze, not unlike the deadly "male gaze" in feminist theory, subjectifies and objectifies all that it sees in its own image, through its own colored lenses, and from its own position of power. As Said says, "The main thing for a European visitor was a European representation of the Orient" (0, p. 1). Indeed, Orientalism views the Orient through its own vested interests, from its own vantage point, with an imperial Eurocentric perspec-

tive. In a sharp and penetrating critique of the systemic and systematic ob-

Under the general heading of knowledge of the Orient, and within the umbrella of Western hegemony over the Orient during the period from the end of the

eighteenth century, there emerged a complex Orient suitable for study in the academy, for display in the museum, for reconstruction in the colonial office,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and

which

jectification of the Orient by the Occident, Said states:

co

colon

comprehensively Orientalism, accepted fact

a

h

Orientalism

for

theoretica historical thes nomic and soc ity, national or

These

are

th

Orientalizing of

its

charact

culture,

relig

'Imaginative Orientalism, of

the

Orient

raphers,

it

is

trav

more th no

Foucault's

ism.

Foucaul

which in

the

society

wo

con

disciplines, ism

-

pert

the

a

heg

Orienta

entrenched in written and oral texts. Foucault's theories of discourse and

his view that representations and discursive formations are influenced by

systems of power is a central argument in Orientalism. Said had engaged with Foucault's work in depth between 1972 and 1986, but over the years he had become skeptical of Foucault's notion of power, as it did not lead to

action, unlike Gramsci, who believed in the application of theoiy into actions. Foucault's writings reject any possibility of direct transition from his methodological analysis to action. Moreover, Foucault's ideas often seem to deny the possibility of resistance, which Said develops towards the end of Orientalism and, later, more deeply in Culture and Imperialism (1993). Some early critics found fault with Said for basing his arguments on both Foucault

and Gramsci - poststructuralism and Western Marxism - but others contended that Said used both theorists in ingenious ways to create a powerful

theoretical concept This is Said's genius - he thinks beyond binaries, borders, and disciplines, deploying "commonsense" theory, or theory that can

be applied rather than just theorized. Whatever methodological inconsis-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

28

tencies

the

Said

work

may

have

monumental and

cultural

have

now

critique,

questions

Said's argument is t "positional superiorit close ties to the enabl

Commenting identity

on

Gra

is

deem

("us")

and cultures, "reiter ness" (0, p. 7). Deplo French, and

English,

historians,

Arab

Said

b

in

discourse by revea Orient, in academic vast canvas of susta

from

has

literary

never

Said's

works,

been

thesis.

discipline,

Said

referentiality any

that

conceptions is

an

ing

a

The East,

tal an

of

is of

Oriental

Shakespe

an

mode

its

mo

Orie

of

implying

pr

th

consistent

Literature

centuries

note

a

of

geographically,

English

the

of

by

Oriental

Said

have

comme

personality,

cause

act

pheno

range

choice

Mandeville,

the

to

that

artists, wide

a

builds

imaginary

tuals,

su

reite

to

references

discourse

as

Using

certain

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of

colon

concepts

Orientalism

classical

The

lite

word

signifies exotic,

c

ste

stati

nary opposi tional, civili In

semiotic

meanings

pants

Things all

(1970

those

by

an

per

ture

wh

act

se,

erent

an th

in

of

unles

The

and

works

sig

con

like

iconicized ference The

Or

of

th

Orient

is

contestant, a addition the ing

image,

That gies

yet

is,

ide

the

that

are

another

trace

by

cultural

tra

disc

sedimented

technologica

self-referen

ated

through

reality

of

the

Appropriatio

The

subjugat

enced

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

by

co

jSO

voiced,

represented,

tations

of

or

the

Orient,

Occidental

writers,

experts

artists,

"pioneers,"

d

and

and

t

"disco

history and celebrate most explorers a

that For

instance,

'sherpa' Mount

has

be

Nor

Everest, thoug sherpa/servan

altern guide,

he

was

of

Everest

of

the

with

it

Tenzing

possibly

It

is

highest

the

Sir

Ed

mount

passing

of

ti

reach the summit (Th chapters three and s peoples of the world

honor of discovering Western traveler. The

had

long

them

existed

long

originates nizer

its

Fanon

to

The

writes

own

is

is

not

nation

(Quoted

Fanon, from

in

the

and

substantial

his

history

p.

to 270)

firmly

point

its

histo

the

regard

C&I,

work

in

has

be

tim

been

impact

on

political

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

n

extension

the

in

who

Fanon's

to

begi

the

makes

the

n

p

colonize

explain

refers

himself

ism

the

the

history

settler

stantly

does

from

sees

which

ago

and

ch

Orientalism

However,

d

temporary

a

gotten

in

politics

still

the the

m

nineteen stormy

considered honor is be helped to bu that

one

Chi

tions have g deed a form Other.

In

Ce

tionalities

ish,

p

Scottish

Eurocentric, revealing

th

worthy tha show how w tric way

perspec of

seein

priating history, ments

an

arc

sardo

(0, p. 263). The Power to Name

The question that Said seems to be posing, put simply, is "Who has the power to name?" It was the privilege of the Orientalist to represent the images, scholarship, knowledge, and descriptions of the Orient. As a result

of colonial domination, the voice of the indigenous person - the disempowered Oriental - had been appropriated by the educated and trained

Orientalist, whose travel writing and critiques built the sources upon which notions of the Orient were not only constructed but perpetuated throughout history. Said reinforces the point that it is the Westernestablishment Orientalist who has the power to name and the privilege to represent the Oriental:

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

32

Because

he feels himself the Orientalist not onl each aspect of Oriental o other geographical half

Said

critiques

trenched the

concept

Other.

ordained manage

this

He

O

tha

suggest

systematic

and

produce

t

Said's notions have tional, stereotypical, East/West binaries. H truth

to

power,"

of

subjectification,

go

s

d

critics, contends tha Eastern scholars but w decade or so before th explored by various w (1965) by the Syrian sian historian and ph ments about the rep

the Malaysian sociolo Myth of the Lazy N constructed teenth the

ideology

have cause

the

century

much of

very

voice

communication, 3)

the

were

politics

situated

writing

in

th

colon

impact

the

subaltern

of

imag to

on

poi

of

th

whic

of

loca

outside

English,

ern

scholarship.

not

only

because

an

Said's of

S

Comparative Literatu worlds of the East a

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Orientalism

scholarship many

use

critics

of

a

wid

poststructur

nial

discour

mented, factors, rather

an I fi

mean

Feminization of the Orient

At the opening of Orientalism, Said raises the issue of the feminization of the

Orient by citing the relationship between Flaubert and an Egyptian courtesan. This encounter, Said suggests, "produced a widely influential model of the Oriental woman":

She never spoke of herself, she never represented her emotions, presence or history. He spoke for and represented her. He was foreign, comparatively wealthy, male, and these were historical facts of domination that allowed him not only to possess Kuchuk Hanem physically but to speak for her and tell his

readers in what way she was "typically Oriental." My argument is that Flaubert's situation of strength in relation to Kuchuk Hanem was not an isolated instance. It fairly stands for the pattern of relative strength between East and West and the discourse about the Orient that it enabled. (0, p. 6)

Kuchuk Hanem personified for Flaubert the exotic, erotic, and sensual, selfsufficient Oriental woman, the Other, who appeared in many of his novels in

various forms. The Orient represented desire, color, sensuality, and feminine sexuality: "Woven through all of Flaubert's Oriental experiences, exciting or disappointing, is an almost uniform association between the Orient and sex" (0, p. 188). The Orient is the charming seducer, the feminine per-

sona, who never speaks but is spoken for, just like in Kuchuk Hanem and Flaubert's relationship. Here Said makes a crucial point about the East/West divide with reference to gender: One can explain such statements by recognizing that a still more implicit and powerful difference posited by the Orientalist as against the Oriental is that the former writes about, whereas the latter is written about. For the latter passivity is the presumed role; for the former, the power to observe, study, and so forth;

as Roland Barthes has said a myth can invent itself ceaselessly. (0, p. 308)

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

34

Despite

out

about

into the

the

energy

the

place

of

Orient

India.

in

universally terious, In

Orient,

themsel

also

Though

writing

this

of

figures

1

can

fiction, and

sensual

typical

the

typica and

se

form

try, becomes the eler's gaze. Said has been criticized by some critics, once again by Aijaz Ahmad

o

main

(1992) and others, for not using gender as a theme in Orientalism. However, historically there are hardly any women Orientalists or Orientalist works by women, so it is a fairly moot point Moreover, Said feels that in any relation-

ship between the rulers and the ruled, race precedes gender and class as a category. He also states that the problem of emphasis and relative importance took precedence in his overview of Orientalism. As he writes, "Latent Orien-

talism also encouraged a peculiarly (not to say invidiously) male conception of the world....The Oriental male was considered in isolation from the total community in which he lived.. ..Orientalism itself, furthermore, was an exclu-

sively male province; like so many professional guilds during the modern pe-

riod, it viewed itself and its subject matter with sexist blinders. This is especially evident in the writing of travelers and novelists: women are usually

the creatures of a male power-fantasy. They express unlimited sensuality, they are more or less stupid, and above all they are willing. Flaubert's Kuchuk

Hanem is the prototype of such caricatures" (0, p. 207). His point that Flaubert's prototype of the Oriental woman described the whole relationship of power between the East and the West is very insightful, showing categori-

cally that Said was indeed conscious of gender in Orientalism-, he could not address it more deeply because of the massive scope of the book, which literally covers a period of textual/colonial discourse from the fifteenth century to

the present time. In this light, the criticism over non-use of gender seems

rather self-centered and de-contextualized. Said's own description of the range of Orientalism reveals the immense proportions of the work: To speak of Orientalism therefore is to speak mainly, though not exclusively, of

a British and French cultural enterprise, a project whose dimensions take in

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

p

Orientalism

such disparat vant, the Bib

and a long tr innumerable

plex array of domesticated definitely.

(0,

Never the Twain Shall Meet

It is evident that in discussing the example of Kuchuk Hanem and Flaubert, Said is revealing the absolute opposite attributes of the East and West, the binary oppositions that define the two halves of the globe, the Orient and the

Occident Early in the book, he defines the binary relationship categorically after explaining that for Britain and France, the Orient is the Middle East, "adjacent" to Europe, but for America, historically the Orient is the "Far East": European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the

Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self. (0, p. 3)

Kipling's celebrated lines, "East is East and West is West / And never the twain shall meet" - define the entrenched colonial attitudes that still prevail. According to Said, however (putting it simplistically) the East is East and the West is West but the two are symbiotically "intertwined" and "interdependent." This position of the interdependent history and culture of

the Orient/Occident stands against the 'Orientalized' Orient where the reader gets to the Orient through "the grids and codes provided by the Ori-

entalist" (0, p. 67). In other words, the Orient is Orientalized through a "process that forces the uninitiated Western reader" to accept "Orientalist codifications" as "the true Orient" (0, p. 67). For Said the Orient and Occident are "man-made" [sic]: As much as the West itself the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in

and for the West The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other. (0, p. 5)

The ambivalent love-hate relationship of the colonizer/colonized is discussed later, but the point that Said makes here about mutual support and interdependence of the Orient/Occident is deconstructionist - that the binaries break down, reflecting each other. However, one of the most interest-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

36

ing

points

that

could

not

could

write

tage

exist

point

a

of

life;

it

has

been

further

Colonial

Said

r

withou

definiti exile

both

in

a

pe

discusse

Discourse

Th

One of Said's major c 'colonial discourse/ w to point out the trop tives.

Said's

known

as

extensive

colonial

dis

signs and codes that within colonial relat of

power,

denigration

texts. The technique Said uses to elucidat underlying structur

postcolonial theory. the traces and trop meaning. nial to

As

Kennedy

discourse

analyse

colonialism

has

rec

to be taken seriously terms of colonialist trends were brought strategies are now be Travel

The that

Writing

critique Said

Said's

logues

travel

initiated

colonial and

wit

discour

tales,

explorations

in

of

of

whic

travel

diverse ways. One Writing and T

Travel

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Orientalism

quiry of trav She also cons

starting some

poin

new

women's

go

co

trav

deeper

touching does

not

nedy

does

to

ackn

poin

not

men

without ingly, but

in

upo

the

Said

also

n

calls

Orientalism With

the

bu

scientific ence the

of

an

langu

first

tim

language,

pow

do with Em Europe and 1700s,

and

it

gen

cultures

later

develop

ogy, establis ward raciali despite the d In

be

1786,

an

Indo-A

guages,

Bengal

gate

San

by

in

the

Bri

rel

statement The

W

cr

Sanskrit

perfect fined

than

than

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

l

t

eit

38

roots

of

produced

What

lost

verbs, and in by accident (C

Jones

mother

language Russia, guistics

had

tongue

that

and to

unc

led

the fill

to

t

Middl in

all

t

skrit and Latin. The oldest form of Indian is Sanskrit The earliest

documents in archaic language are the religious texts known as Vedas,

ing from 1000 BC. The term 'Aiyan' became significant in 1819, as the

pean tribes that had come down through the Himalayan Passes a

1000 BC and settled in the fertile northern plains of India were called

Aryans. 'Arya' in Sanskrit means 'noble' and still exists in the language,

found as a last name. The Vedic Sanskrit of 1000 bc was followed by C

cal Sanskrit of the fourth century BC, which "remained in use as a le

literary medium down to 1835 when Macaulay's Minute inaugurat

era of English" (Lockwood, 1969, p. 34). Macaulay's Minute to Parliame

Indian education (1835) is famous for its denigration of Sanskrit and a

literatures of India while establishing the supremacy of the Englis guage. This Minute is cited by Said (O, p. 152) to show the Orientalist

tion of the basic supremacy of the West over the East, linguistical culturally. It is ironic that within just a hundred years of colonial Bri rule, and despite the designation of Sanskrit as the purest and fin

Germanic languages with its roots reflected in all the Indo-Europea guages, Macaulay would denigrate Sanskrit, the ancient language o learned Vedas and the rich modern Indian languages and literatu "childish and unsuitable for study" (see Curtin, 1971, pp. 178-91 fo complete text of McCauley's Minute). This crucial question of Mac colonial attitude toward Indian scholarship, and his direct words, a cussed later in some depth in chapter five.

Freidrich Schlegel's (1772-1829) linguistic research had popula

the notion of the Aryan race, which historically became the theme of

cious nationalism in Germany. Schlegel suggested that the German lan

and not the French, stood in unbroken continuity with ancient Sanskri

the German Romanticists, Sanskrit, the oldest surviving Indo-Europea

guage, led to romanticizing India in a way that stood in marked contr the Orientalist clichés of the time. For him, the link between Sanskri

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Orientalism

German been

criticize

tones and the

mad

of

Ger

German horror

o

notion that Iranian or A the inverted India as a dec word the

'Aryan

political

guage

that

o

has tonal inflexions and intonations similar to German.

This endorses Said's point that it is the interest in culture that eventually leads to conquest. Said also acknowledges that the origins of Orientalism were philological, which racialized the Oriental subject and endorsed a built-in sense of European superiority, so that neither Macaulay nor Renan

nor other Orientalists had any hesitation in denigrating the Oriental language, literature, culture, and religion as inferior. This is the power of em-

pire and colonialism, as Said suggests, and it can destroy the cultural identity, language, and land of the colonized Other through the practice and power of Orientalism.

Indeed, the impact of Orientalism and its critique of representation and

discourse analysis cannot be denied. It has established Said as a leading theorist of the present age and as a leading scholar of postcolonialism. After Orientalism Said further developed his seminal theory about the intrinsic

relationship between culture and colonial domination in his later works, The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983) and Culture and Imperialism (1993), which are discussed in depth in later chapters. The next chapter, however, will focus on the developments and innovations in theoretical perspectives on postcolonialism which in/form contemporary postcolonial

critique. First, I shall discuss postcolonial theory in general as it emerged from Said and Frantz Fanon's work, and then elaborate on the contributions

of Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha to the development of conceptual frameworks in postcolonialism.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:39 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER

TWO

Edward

S

Disjunctured Fanny

Price

[in

Ja

ing Sir Thomas a suggest that one w ply is no common traordinary discr empire

ness.. ken

was.

The

itself

..In

of,

and

(C&l,

word the

empire

other

as

a

as

has and

another

our

'Ori

k

"a

p

remarkab

reality,

in

su

96)

Orient

sentation"

scapes,

th

the

p.

iconicized that

and,

time

play

conq

leading

e

discipline

critic

to

b

colonial Studies monumental wo dominant,

logoc

intercultural

pedagogy Eastern half

of

of

di

th

cultures,

the

globe

Postcolonial the alone it is at th cause of its insig society,

to

key

its

globa

questions

garded as an in postcolonial th

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

42

search

cial

issues

class,

language

cerns

in

ethnicity,

and

tures,

power,

postcolonia

disciplines

as

and

present.

dealing

a

forms

geopolitics,

the

critical

and

lens

and

Possibilities The

th

Wide-rangin

ics,

reading

critic

of

i

p

discours for

possibility

Crit

of

ap

critique in many or less and limited onl ties of 'doing' cultu chapters. Theories ingeniously, not on struct the structur by Gayatri Spivak. representation of th ent have been cri stance, the framew analysis can be app cinema, or art, or to the social construction of the 'native.' Postcolonial

theory has also been used to decode the tropes, traces and textuality by which art, literature, and the media marginalize, distort, manufacture, and represent the Other. It has been utilized in deconstructing how identity is politicized and how the postcolonial subject is created through hegemonic Western lenses. It has been used to understand how meaning is made through difference, and it has been applied to the question of the

silencing of the subaltern or to the negation of the marginal voice. Most importantly, strategies for the creation of a counter-discourse and tech-

niques to destabilize the dominant narratives are an integral aspect of the critical realm of postcolonial theory. This wide range and diversity of

research applications has made postcolonial theory an indispensable tool of academic critique today.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward

Said

and

Postcolonial

Postcolonial

upon

theory

colonized

discourses

of

Theory

investig

countries

resistance

Postcolonialism

does

to

not

simp

also "after the era of colonialism started." Hence it covers a wide area of dis-

course and engages in various fields of study - the impact of language on identity; identity politics; the literatures of formerly colonized countries; the impact of colonial systems of education; questions of curriculum and teaching; cultural difference; governance; links between Western knowledge and colonial power, discourses, and narratives; the struggles over the representation of place, self, history, race, and ethnicity; and the contemporary realm of diasporic cultures.

Diasporas and Disjunctured Identities The growth of transnational migrations, multicultural diversity, globalization,

and intercultural interaction of multicultural societies has created diasporas of metropolitan culture that are deeply but silently colored by relations of power, discrimination, racism, and hierarchies of cultural importance. The cultural changes wrought upon people as a result of wars, famines, immigration, and settlement in new continents, the movement toward the Western model of industrialized metropolises, and the forces of globalization have cre-

ated new diasporas, which have evolving hybrid identities built upon the 'back home' culture and the new styles of being learned from the adopted land. These diasporas have created complex social structures; innovative and mixed cultural practices; hybrid art, music, literature, representation, and education, thus carving out new hybrid configurations of identity. These and

other issues can be studied, addressed, questioned, and critiqued through the critical strategies of postcolonial theory. Indeed, postcolonial theory develops approaches to studying diversity, hybridity, and diasporic subjects that have

become pressing concerns today. 'Politics of Location'

Said has emphasized the role that geography plays in the construction of colonial discourse. One of his sections in Culture and Imperialism (1993) is devoted to the discussion of "Empire, Geography, and Culture" (WTC, pp. 314). Geography and place are important concepts related not only to culture but also to the notion of identity formation. Northrop Frye ([1971] 1995), a

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

an

cult

44

leading

Canadian

literary

criticism

erary

the

theory,

Canadian

talks

lite

hav of

imagina

am I?" but "where is here?" This notion of "where is here?" is crucial. The

identity formation of postcolonial, diasporic peoples through an understanding of place and location are, I believe, integral in 'discovering' oneself. Indeed, empire, geography, and culture become central issues with the colonial domination of the globe and hence are salient concepts in postcolonial theory. Geographic location, or what has been called the 'politics of location,' is crucial to postcolonial theory, whose premise is that culture and geopolitics are intrinsically interconnected. Location, or where you are and where you come from, matters. Positionality and place define one's status and persona. These are important precepts of the social construction of reality in postcolonial theoiy.

The Postcolonial Subject An interdisciplinary, often controversial and contested area, postcolonialism throws light on the intricate cultural, social, and geopolitical relations

between the colonizer's historical past and the colonialist discourse still very prevalent in the twenty-first century. In other words, postcolonial theory, which stems from the concept of postcolonialism, is concerned with the

aftermath of colonialism, not just as a political or historical reality but also as a felt and lived experience. Colonial experiences that have adversely af-

fected the subaltern subject - or a person who has been marginalized and silenced through the dynamics of imperialism, oppression, and power, remain as a sedimented form of collective memory and desire, forming a major strand of the criticism.

Postcolonialism generally connotes various global changes that occurred after the end of the Second World War. Boundaries changed and colonized countries in Asia and Africa fought for freedom for years, eventually regain-

ing their independence. An indigenous social and cultural politics began to

inform the consciousness of the postcolonial subject, who emerged as a strong, cultural, intellectual, and dynamic force. A concept of self-identity and postcolonial subjectivity was born, creating new configurations of seeing the world, from lenses other than those of the colonizers. The decline in

European colonialism and the resistance to imperial domination in the twen-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward

Said

tieth

and

century

forms

of

versive cultural tural

Postcolonial

is

of

rise

a

po

narrative,

and

especially

of

to

po

representing

hi(stories),

forms,

consciousness It

gave

fiction,

means

Theory

the

re

poetry

colonized

fascinating

that

an

poetry,

nized peoples as a means to freedom across the world. Poets such as W. B. Yeats of Ireland, Pablo

sub

Neruda of Chile, Faiz Ahmad Faiz of Pakistan, and Mahmoud Darwish of Pal-

estine are poets that are cited by Said for memorializing the native landscapes, spaces, and places they had left behind (C&I, p. 226). These natural

and nationalist motifs are often used in poetry and art subversively and with double entendre to create feelings of patriotism for one's original coun-

try. For "Imperialism after all is an act of geographical violence through which every space in the world is explored, charted, and finally brought un-

der control. For the native, the history of colonial servitude is inaugurated

by loss of the locality to the outsider; its geographical identity must be searched for and somehow restored" (C&I, p. 225). Culture and the awakening of indigenous cultural consciousness play a

crucial role in global struggles for independence. For instance, dance and drama become a tool in India's fight for independence: Despite the fact that

the British colonial government had banned all forms of indigenous arts, Uday Shankar - the great Indian dancer and brother of famous sitarist Ravi

Shankar - performed with Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, traveling all over the world in the 1950s to carry the message of freedom. Pavlova and

Shankar's performances in the international metropolises - London, Moscow, Berlin, New York, and Toronto - brought the message of freedom from

the periphery to the center, an important theme in postcolonial critique. The Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) is a national grassroots activist theatre group that has been performing activist theatre for the last seven decades in an attempt to awaken people to both British and Indian

oppression. IPTA has played a large role in raising the working-class consciousness against foreign rule and still continues to function. Bertolt Brecht's famous "epic theatre" (see Willett, 1964) and Augusto Boal's "thea-

tre of the oppressed" (1979) have played a major role in consciousnessraising all over the world. Interestingly, European festivals such as the Mas-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

46

querade by

or

which

bean tool

Carnival

former

countries

to

fight

M

slav

(Burn

against

"Carnivalesque" is a ([1941] 1965) which through

humor

and

the

of

carn

idea

oppression. ture

and

ration

a

ity

sea

voyage

practice

colonized

of

cies

people

colonized

of

as

Dichotomy

general

about

Said

Imperialism

and

Love-Hate

As

the As

c

place

colonialism

hierarchies of imper about indigenous peo sponses to the colon symbiotic nizer

and

love-hate the

r

colonize

simple but complex, and exaltation to the writing

and

colonial

ics

Said's Most and Said

the

discourse

times.

such

as

of

discusses

contains

po

that

in

g

Orien

control

poststructur

(Gramsci), critical

to

ha

Fou

importantly,

knowledge

from

Althou

Bhabha

Critique

power

r

difference

theoretical

fr

postmodernism

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward

cal

Said

and

and

Postcolonial

social

oppression ety,

in

texts

of

discourse

in

World,

the and

real-world power, circle

him"

a

belief

in

and

of

an

in

and

how to

he

Critic how

why

extent

and

that

This

po

of

"Fo

(WTC, is

p

comp a

pret

resistance.

anti-Amer

expatriates

and

intel

soon the revolution deteriorated into a fundamentalist Islamic and autocratic

state, disillusioning Foucault, who returned to France. Said contends that Fou-

cault does not pay attention to class struggle, state power, or economic and colonial domination. Above all, in Said's view, Foucault fails to account for historical change in his critical analysis and does not pay attention to imperialism - to Europe's domination of the non-European world (See WTC, pp. 221247). On the other hand, Jacques Derrida is seen as excessively abstract He does not provide enough "specification" about the institutional basis of power relations that underlie the Western metaphysical tradition. His work ignores oppression and is found to be ethnocentric (WTC, pp. 209, 212).

Said's approach to postcolonialism is characterized by his emphasis on

historicism and empiricism. He questions the theoretical orthodoxy of postmodernism by challenging Jean-François Lyotard's theory (1978) that the era of grand narratives of emancipation has ended in the present, post-

modernist age. Said contends that for many people in the non-Western world, the grand narratives still dominate the psyche of colonized subjects

and still exist in various shapes and forms as hegemonic Western imposi-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

i

passive

circle

and

ha

becau

of

and

initial

ot

Thou

entrenched,

its

su

political

the

itself

that

action

left-wing

the

view

application.

supporting

and

forms.

curiously

goes

to

prese

philosophers

Text,

around

and

the

racist

sterile

within

revolve tion

but

Said

in

Orientalism,

social

"takes

agenda:

postcolonial

and

cultural

passive

121).

the

contain

in

structuralist

[He]

justice

history

that

niality

Theory

48

tions

on

the

mind.

S

ences of the Other which have remained 'outside' the norms manufactured

by the 'insiders' (0, p. 24).

Contemporaries and Colleagues It is interesting to note that these criticisms are animated interjections and arguments between academics who were actually contemporaries, who respected, valued, and built upon each other's work. The intellectual debates and disagreements between these cultural theorists are a discourse of ideas

between colleagues. Said (1935-2003), Foucault (1926-1984), and Derrida (1930-2004) are contemporaries, as are semioticians such as Roland Barthes (1915-1980), who decodes the mythologies of popular culture (My-

thologies, 1957); postmodernist critics such as Lyotard (1924-1998), who critiques "universais" and "metanarratives" ( The Postmodern Conditionals); and Noam Chomsky, linguist and renowned media critic ( Manufacturing Nationalism, 1988), who is thanked by Said in his acknowledgements to Orientalism for following "this project from its beginning to its conclusion." As I point out in the introduction, these eminent crit-

ics - who were contemporaries and colleagues in many senses - were some

of the most stalwart minds of our times. They were influenced by each other's work, which has deeply informed the intellectual discourse and debates of the latter part of the twentieth century and continues to do so to-

day. It is this intellectual dialogue and regeneration of new philosophical, poststructuralist, postcolonial, and postmodernist perspectives that had made ideas and theory so exciting in the 1980s as I posit in the Introduction.

The cultural, social, and political realm of postcolonialism not only describes the subjective experiences of the postcolonial subject but also analyzes the structures, sediments, and tropes that give rise to cultural imperialism, hegemony, power relations, and Western domination. Thanks to the foundational work of Edward Said and his theoretical and textual

analyses of postcolonial and classical 'travelogues,' contemporary trave writing has become a popular critical theme in the expanding area of post-

colonial studies, as discussed in chapter one. Said's contributions to post colonial theory - colonial discourse analysis, the concept of 'worldliness, secular criticism, amateurism, contrapuntal analysis - are evident in cur rent scholarship and academic research. These Saidian strategies for cri tique are further discussed in chapter six. Orientalism is a stimulating and

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward

Said

and

elegant

Postcolonial

work

novative

that

has

arguments

perspective

termed

Postcolonial

of

Theory

have

and

indee

'postcoloni

theory

discourse

punctur

then

not

thought,

incl

and

gender, but also focuses on deconstructs the structures th

Other ture.

in

In

literature,

short,

colonialist ironically Frantz

The

discourse in

a

Fanon:

French

Black

travel

wri

postcolonial that

so-called The

still

postcol

'Native'

Algerian

Skins/White

the

and

writer

Masks

(

(1963[1961]), have been consid theory was constructed. S several points in his three m Fanon's critical, psychoanalyti

nial

instrumental

nized

in

peoples.

(1925-1961)

revealing

A

was

French a

radical,

"psychopathology great

impact

on

of

light

identity

the

the to

subaltern

him

or

wards

an

Fanon's

was

a

to

mind

creating

herself.

In

s

d

iden

most

study

decolonization.

m

re

self-i

was

subject's

thus

(1963[1961]),

that

and

contribution

speak,

Marx

liberationist

psychosis

on

o

colonizati

underlying Fanon's

the

psychi

it,

f

of

Fan

of lost identity of the 'nativ elite,' who mimic and admir

pressors. and

This

attitudes

tures

of

the

'comprador/

without

people.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

o

restruct

_50

Said calls Fanon's work "critical nationalism" in the sense that he was aware that "unless national consciousness at the moment of success was

somehow changed into social consciousness, the future would not hold lib-

eration but an extension of imperialism" (C&I, p. 269). This insight - that national consciousness needs to change into social consciousness in order to achieve liberation - is profoundly pertinent at a moment in history when

thousands of people in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, and other Middle East countries have risen up to disclaim oppression and throw away dictatorial rulers. Fanon and Said believe that it is the lack of social conscience that

often enables the native elite to become the new oppressors, dictators, and

power brokers in newly independent societies. In short, Fanon's psychological insights throw light on the conflicts, confrontations, dilemmas, and dynamics of being governed by foreign rulers or their local puppet 'masters'

and of feeling inferior and second-rate as a result of domination. Fanon be-

lieves that colonization robbed the indigenous person of her humanity. Throughout his historical analysis he warns of the possibilities of neocolonialism at the hands of the native elite unless the people, the working classes, the oppressed groups, begin to understand their own role and that of the oppressors. This crucial point of Fanon becomes the central thread of Paulo Freire's educational and political work and is the motif of Said's eyeopening discourse on Orientalism - that the Other needs to understand the

means of his own oppression. Moreover, Fanon's candid psychological analysis of race relations and inherent racism in Black Skins/White Masks

(1967[1952]J was embarrassingly candid, especially when he comments about inter-racial marriage, identity, and power relations.

The impassioned preface to Wretched of the Earth, which was written by the existentialist French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, also added to the

impact of Fanon's work. Fanon argued that imperialism and colonial domination initiated a process of internalization, which created a feeling of negativity, self-hatred, and sense of inferiority in the subjugated or op-

pressed subaltern or native. This feeling of inferiority was enforced by economic and social conditions, which affected the formation of cultural identity. Material inferiority also created racial and cultural inferiority, creating disjunctured identities, as one's sense of identity is deeply tied up with socioeconomics, politics, pride, and power relations. Fanon's new

insights into the dialectic between colonizer and colonized reshaped the political imaginations of colonized peoples, giving them the strength and power to fight for freedom.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward

Said

and

Language Fanon

was

guage,

and one

of

of

the

and

the

colonized

first

writ

oppression.

conqueror,

subject

power,

compelling

rior

not

or

Theory

Power

culture,

language

The

Postcolonial

him

important

was

was to

for

rejec

While

rec

could not help thinking of th short story, "The Last Lesson," was ten years old, along with G dora Duncan's My Life, and Sha Zoya that

and

Shura,

disturbed

a

rather

my

social

motley

conscie

ton's "dandelion fairies" and wicked witches. "The Last Lesson" describes

the emotion and pathos of the last lesson being taught in French, the mother

tongue, in a little town in Alsace as the Prussian army marches in and the medium of instruction is to change to German. As Fanon would say, pride and love of one's native language is inextricably linked with the patriotic love of one's countiy. Language, identity, and culture are connected to em-

pire and conquest, as has been Said's mission to point out. The imperial construction and deployment of English literature and language in British India as a means of institutional, colonial domination and control is discussed in more depth later.

In short, colonialism does not necessarily operate through political domination alone but also through the tropes and power of language and culture. As Sartre writes in the preface of Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, the

world consisted of two warring factions: Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million inhabitants: five hundred million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the others had the use of it. Between the two there

were hired kinglets, overlords and a bourgeoisie, sham from beginning to end, which served as go-betweens. In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on: the native had

to love them, something in the way mothers are loved. The European élite undertook to manufacture a native élite. They picked out promising adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with the principles of western culture, they stuffed their mouths full with high-sounding phrases, grand

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

_52

glutinous

words

try

were

they

that

sent

Sartre's words natives do not cense

to

name,

stuck

home

reveal t have th to

expre

the colonial oppressor, so-called haves and the The

lege

latter

to

script

do

use

of

not

the

have

word

history,

t

to

nor

t

subject has been robbe theme in postcolonial ole in Algeria and Fra prove his point. But th instance,

the

superior

p

languages in conjuncti Proficiency in English international and busin India with better oppo

superior position of R whole area formerly k other native national l yet another example o course is evident in th

periences dominion

of of

the

Irish

English

ex

Frantz Fanon is seen and liberation. His ide stroys"

the

stinctual

past

life"

of

and

the

thus

one generation to anot gument that moderni

nized

peoples

is

rein

representative of the ates his argument tha tional consciousness m

independent

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

country

Edward Said and Postcolonial Theory 53 The Native Elite

For Said, Fanon's work should be read as "a surreptitious counternarrative/' as it reveals the power of the conflicting narratives derived from the splits and patterns in nationalist movements. In Culture and Imperialism

(1993), Said does an extensive discourse analysis of Fanon's Wretched of the

Earth (1963) as a central work on colonialism and culture. Like Sartre, he invokes Fanon's idea of the nationalist bourgeoisie, who often ran the new countries with a callous, exploitative tyranny reminiscent of the departed masters. These native elite had replaced colonial rulers with an exploitative neo-colonialism based on class differences and social standing (C&I, pp. 20, 269). Said argues that the alternative between blaming the natives or blam-

ing the "Europeans sweepingly for the misfortunes of the present" is to "look at these matters as a network of interdependent histories that it would be inaccurate and senseless to repress, useful and interesting to un-

derstand" (C&l, p. 19). As has been pointed out, Fanon's analytical critique of colonized peoples set the stage for various liberation movements across

the world, including the Algerian revolution, which had an impact on France. Said acknowledges the groundwork laid by Fanon and quotes his hard-line words:

We should flatly refuse the situation to which the Western countries wish to condemn us. Colonialism and imperialism have not paid their score when they withdraw their flags and their police forces from our territories. For centuries

the [foreign] capitalists have behaved in the underworld like nothing more than criminals. (C&I, p. 12)

Said adds that 'we' need to take stock of the "anger and resentment that it provokes in those who were ruled" and that we must look carefully and critically at the "imagination of empire" in order to try to "grasp the hegem-

ony of the imperial ideology" (C&I, p. 12). Said reiterates this point, which runs like a thread in all his work: culture cannot be divorced from "worldli-

ness" and politics. He elaborates: What I want to examine is how the processes of imperialism occurred beyond the level of economic laws and political decisions. ..by continuing consolidation within education, literature, and the visual and musical arts. These forces were manifested at the level of national culture, which we have tended to sanitize as

a realm of unchanging intellectual monuments, free from worldly affiliation.

(C&I, pp. 13-14)

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

_54

Culture

Equals

Politics

Ever the erudite lite force his own point quest: "The Foundati Degrade them and the versa as Englishmen Said was

has

been

the

For

both

ironically, but

often

native," against

as

and

[the

of

"

nativ

the

point,

the

says,

as

colo

men

beginning

writing

of

from

modern

North

logocentric

Fanon

links

which

the

the

the

great

Am

poin

po

settle

narra

extraordinary

tious

F

rationalizes

written

The

th

Europe

Fanon

him

sightful

and

Said the

judgments ony

reiterati

culture

power

counter-narrative

difference between Fanon and Yeats is that Fanon's theoretical... narrative of

anti-imperialist decolonization is marked throughout with the accents and inflections of liberation. (C&I, p. 234)

Said engages the idea of margins and center by making a key distinction be-

tween 'marginalization' and 'centrality': "Marginalization in American culture means a kind of unimportant provinciality. It means the inconsequence associated with what is not major, not central, not powerful.... Centrality is identity, what is powerful, important, and ours. Centrality maintains balance between extremes; it endows ideas with the balances of moderation, rationality, pragmatism.... And centrality gives rise to semi-official narratives that authorize certain sequences of cause and effect, while at the same time preventing counter-narratives from emerging" (C&I, p. 324). This is the

way in which mythologies of culture and conquest are built and endorsed

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward

Said

over

and

and

Postcolonial

over

Theory

again,

as

'centra

sentation,

and life, undercutti women's and subaltern v

and

centrality, tant

Fanon's

psyche upon

areas

over

of

the

are

theory,

Gayatri

Chakravorty

Gayatri

Chakravorty

of

Spivak

several

an

versity highest

in

2007, in

the

super-st

three

Said

and

R

Spivak:

'S

ha A

spokesper

the its

co

to

Spivak

Spivak

honor

pr

theory.

eloquent

books,

with

according

postcolonial

is

t

col

generally

colonial

ment

of

last

critique.

Bhabha,

th

work

condition

systematic

circulated

and

postcolonial

foundation

and

Homi

margins in

foundational

and

this

temic new

the

leitmotiv

was

appo

only

wom

269-year

h

matology (1978), she acquired structionist work to the atte Calling

herself

question: it

"Can

brought

nation power, The

the

the

built

Like

Said,

tual

borders

been

for

and

of

a

she

She

has

nities,

subaltern

forefront

subaltern

up

creating

birth.

"Marxist-Fem

domination,

question

lowing

by

of

to

a

the

in

the

wom is

fr

1980s,

S

counter-discou

is

fluent

between

has

as

th

subjug

identity

worked

engaged

with

and

sp

the

through

a

in

in

sever

North with

th

philanth

indigenous

D

foundation

s

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

_56

The ally

politics

and

from

of

intellectually

theory

sity in

ident

small-minded

intellectual

of

"signs

of

and

her

p

positions.

British

without

North

cr

a

Colum

refer

American

cu

independent-minded, India. This was a reference to her notion of the theoretical term 'catachre-

sis/ which she deploys in her critical analysis. The Oxford English Dictionary

defines catachresis as "the application of a term to a thing that it does not properly denote." As she explains, catachresis is the process by which the colonized take and re-inscribe an idea or thing that exists traditionally as a

feature of imperial culture. For instance, when she refers to the catachresis

of parliamentary democracy, she means "the reinscription of something

which does not refer literally to the correct narrative of the emergence of parliamentary democracy" (1991, p. 70). In other words, concepts and ideas

are often not applied correctly to the colonized subject, or are catachretized or misplaced. This is an important critique in postcolonialism. 'Strategic essentialism' is another major concept in postcolonial theory

that Spivak has contributed. The term refers to a strategy that nationalitie or ethnic or minority groups can use to present themselves. While strong

differences may exist between members of the minority groups, and

amongst themselves they may engage in debates about identity politics, it i sometimes advantageous for them to strategically and temporarily 'essentialize' themselves and bring forward their group identity in a simplified

way to achieve certain goals. Essentialism is a concept that suggests that there are certain defining or essential characteristics that belong to a cul-

tural group, ethnicity, race, or nation. The dangers of this more stereotypical

essentialism have often been raised and contested in postcolonial theory However, Spivak argues that at certain times essentialism, rather than uni-

versalism, can be deployed strategically as a form of teasing out the 'truth.

Strategic essentialism can be deployed on behalf of a group, using a clear image of identity to fight opposition. She suggests that in different periods

the use of essentialist ideas may be necessary in order to retrieve a sense of the pre-colonial cultures or to reinforce cultural identity. Spivak strategi-

cally brings the writings of Bengali and other women writers, such as

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward Said and Postcolonial Theory 57

Mahasweta Devi, into the so-called mainstream w

work and constant referentiality to their writings

sonality and persona - dress, attitude, voice - are s

reveal her own location in the discourse of postc

politics, this positioning, can be seen as a form of s

also uses strategic essentialism when he assigns gre ences from and analyses of Arab literature, which

literatures from the Orient and reveals his commit

the West. 'Writing back' connotes the creation of r

non-essentializing discourse that counters and un of empire (see "Challenging Orthodoxy and Auth

In this book, I myself have used references to the E

tory and literature in particular - as a form of str

a strategic attempt to bring the Other into the ma

de-center Eurocentricism, and to use "the othe

knowledge," in Derrida's words, a concept that is th

Like Said, Spivak rejects notions of identity b

gional affiliations; both believe in a secular identity

discuss the need for postcolonial intellectuals to be

intellectuals and represent those who are oppres

that intellectuals may also be compromised by thei

Therefore, both believe in positioning themselve

their own location. Spivak always makes a point of

writing through the personal, and Said interject

work. Both are aware that the use of theoretical mo

ity to speak to a wider audience, but both believe th

understanding postcolonialism and cultural disco

use indigenous Egyptian Arab and Indian literature tralize it in the mainstream. Despite several similar

Spivak are extremely different in their approaches

the theoretical tenet of rewriting alternative histor

alism to undercut the grand narratives of Orientalis

'Epistemic violence' is yet another term coined b

that colonialism has inflicted violence on the postc

legitimizing colonizers' hegemonic, biased knowledg

ject. She also argues against 'hegemonic historiograp

Indian history, she critiques it for its homogeneous

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

58

colonialist

view

of

point

the

scholar,

student,

dominance. altern.

Spivak

She

and

tion

of

tain

of

vie

indigeno

the

consciousness norm

of

and

tries

a

the

new

w

cha

to

c

'wor

natives

goodness

is

or

e

non-Western

cultur

work,

Worlds

In

Other

Homi

Bhabha:

Homi

Bhabha

sis

of

his

the

been

tionship

has

bee

symbiotic

concept

have

Identit

of

'ambiv

much

accl

between

extremes

of

love

th

and

gration. 'Ambivalen between wantin wanting its opposit quo or balance bet nized by disruptin colonizer is attracted

flict

cal,

and

ated

as

in

historical

the

first

discussed

at

plac

earlier.

B

colonizer is always moving between sev this and

constant so

nology The

the of

ambiva

term

'amb

postcolonia

colonized

subjec

'superior' persona of but very often this evitably, the colonia

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Edward

Said

(1994,

and

p.

Postcolonial

86)

or

ues

of

the

ity

of

colonial

which

Theory

'Not

colonizer

words,

repetition,

and

expounds

ideology

on

reveals

discourse.

stereotypes

through

White/No

how

are or

creat

the

about

the

am

Bhab

rep

the

coloniz

ambivalence,

Most

stereotypes, and importantly, Bhabha i

hybridity.

Bhabha

essentialism cal

by

representation

nial

theory

result been

of

believes

offering

that

of

the

as

a

tha

cha

Othe

denotes

colonization.

prominent

a

the

Hybridi

result

of

that of the colonized. Bhabha contends that all cultural ethos is created in a

"third space of enunciation" (1994, p. 37). This space is liminal, or lies in between two spaces. From this ambivalent liminality stems the notion of hybrid identity, rather than the sense of the exotic diversity of cultures. Hy-

bridity not only displaces the history that creates it, but it also sets up new structures of authority, generating new political initiatives. It is thus a site of

resistance and a reversal of the process of domination. The concept of hybridity has often been used in postcolonial theory to signify cross-cultural

exchange, referring to identities that are created from mixed cultural sources. Some critics of Bhabha, such as Anthony Appiah (1992), feel that the notion of hybridity and ambivalence has whitewashed cultural differ-

ence collapsing postcolonialism into postmodernism. Appiah argues that postcolonialism and postmodernism need to be sharply distinguished from

each other; he sees postmodernism as a primarily Western phenomenon associated with the global dominance of capitalism. Postcolonialism, he argues, searches for an ethical universal and a solidarity that challenges the globalization associated with postmodernism. Indeed, Bhabha is an intriguing critic who speaks from a more postmod-

ernist position of plurality and polyphony. Born in Bombay and currently a professor at Harvard University, Bhabha has been well received as a leading

postcolonial theorist in the West He has analyzed ideas about postcolonial subjectivity with a great deal of insight, but it is unfortunate that his writing

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

60

style

is

using

found

his

Uses

arg

examples,

of

Postcolon

Postcolonialism, of

ter

complex

elaboration,

area

man

unnecessary

forth

The

by

then

contemporary

studies,

anthropology

man

so

geography, socio on. A wider area o

which

primarily

theory. is

just

the as

The

being

hands

discover

of

contemp

'abrogation,'

icry,'

focu

potential

'appro

'palimpsest,'

'ca

ism,' 'diaspora/ 'com postcolonial theory. postcolonial critique.

lary of key terms an discussed these theor implications colonial The tion

Theory:

next of

nous

the

empire."

to

Appl

or

Chapter while

theories

three

provided

and

what

for

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:43 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

fo

chap

such

Eurocentrism his

is

Other

Imperialism. in

appl

chapter

voices,

discourse, and

and

as

w

and

Thus, major

Sa

wo

construc

CHAPTER

THREE

"Re-doing

Representati I

believe

within

a

it

needs

culture

sentations... on

the

that

Orient,

resentation

Or

and

that

institutions, their

t

tha

t

ma

tradit

effects.

(

Orien

Representation is by which w ing the ways in w literature, curricu ries and histories, self. These repres know, make mea cades, codes, assoc inform our image mode

Other.

order since

Representa

to

create

Said's

talizing

Media

id

close

the

a

Orient

technologi

from

politics to s and art, story an world and discove ture,

to

or

play

the

a

curri

selective

tics

that

and

discriminatio

cultural all

colonizes identity

aspects

of

population called

ment

global

of

geop

based

diver

diaspora

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

62

histories

of

half

the

stereotypical, distort Orientalized in curriculum, classrooms, media, and discourse. The stories/histories of disenfranchised groups need to be retold as narratives of our own collective identity, to be re-presented in our curriculum and re-

flected in the media, art, and literature, in order to engender collective memory and a sense of belonging. Diasporic peoples, women, minorities, and all those who have been "othered," as Gayatri Spivak calls the process of being subjectified, need to write themselves into the national script. For 'representation/ as I have called it, is a form of naming. It is a methodology for the reclaiming of voice, for the reaffirming of identity. Postcolonial theory,

stemming from Said's monumental work, provides the framework through which one can probe this complex problematic of Representation and Representation. Re-presentation: Reclaiming of Voice I have tried to make a distinction here between the terms Representation and Re-presentation in light of Professor Said's eloquent plea for "re-doing the narratives of empire" in one of his classroom lectures that I attended at the University of Toronto in 1986. /te-presentation, as I see it, is a mode of empowerment; it stems from the desire to break stereotypes and construct

a self-identity that understands geopolitical and postcolonial realities. As Roland Barthes (1977] says, "texts are tissues from the centers of many cultures," yet this polyphony, diversity, and intertextuality of texts is not visi-

ble in our education system, politics, media, or social life. Education is mostly canonized, governed by Eurocentrism in curricula; media is often mainstream and logocentric; politics ignores the margins, excluding the Other; and social life is exclusionary and ethnocentric. Re-presentation is a necessary mode for "writing back," as Said calls this project of resistance resistance to Eurocentric, logocentric, and ethnocentric grand narratives of empire that have been passed down through a legacy of textuality in Orien-

talist texts. The Saidian concept of Orientalism, which was discussed in chapter one, has become a generic term defining the manner in which the

Other is subjectified, objectified, and represented. The word 'Orientalist' applies in the larger sense not just to texts of and about the Orient, or to one

who studies the Orient, but also to an Orientalist discourse of representation that uses the tropes of power and knowledge to subjugate, objectify,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

"

Re-doing

the

Narratives

marginalize,

ity,

or

thority

Empire"

distort,

another of

of

and

culture.

socially

oppres

Orienta

constructing

The difference between the Orientalist and the Oriental is that the for-

mer has the power to name, power to proclaim, and power to know, whereas the latter is silent, voiceless, passive, or written about. As Said says, The Oriental is given as fixed, stable, in need of investigation, in need even of knowledge about himself. There is a source of information (the Oriental) and a

source of knowledge (the Orientalist). (0, p. 308)

Here Said shows that the power of knowledge operates like a form of cultural praxis. There are five ways by which the Orientalist distributes and redistrib-

utes knowledge. These are by having representations of the Orient 1) bear his distinctive imprint; 2) illustrate his conception of what the Orient ought to be;

3) consciously contest other views of the Orient; 4) provide Orientalism with

what it needs at the moment; and 5) "respond to certain cultural, professional, national, political, and economic requirements of the epoch" (C&I, p. 273). Here the word 'Orient' can be switched for 'Other/ for all of the above forms of representation are applied not just to the Orient or the Oriental but

to all gendered, marginalized, and racialized "Others" - women, minorities,

natives, gays, etc. The versatility of Saiďs theory of Orientalism is that it has a

broad constituency of applications in postcolonial critique. Orientalism as a

practice can describe not just the Orient, but also the representation of women in the media, mostly as helpless and mindless objects of desire and beauty; minorities as 'exotic' or strange characters, but never the protagonists; or native peoples as stereotypes of kindly souls attuned to nature or as murdering villains, but never as normal human beings. Orientalism, as can be seen in all spheres of life, distorts the reality of the other.

Unfortunately, the practice of Orientalism persists into the present as evidenced every day both in the popular media and in serious commentary;

it is significantly visible in the relationship of domination of the West over Africa, the Middle East and Asia, especially in its representations, study, far-

reaching political and economic control, and imposition of Western cultural imperialism and values on the rest of the world. Africa might as well be one

country, as Sarah Palin, the former American vice-presidential candidate is

supposed to have said, because Africa's cultural, linguistic, religious, geographic, and historical diversity is often negated in its singular, totalizing,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

64

stereotypical represe motif of darkness as lary.

Orientalism

hegemonic critiqued

in

it

representa

these

hegem

society in Culture an and the Expert [1981]), which decon

Media

stereotyping evident nority.

in

the

For

literature,

It

peoples

travel

used

is

(2001) it

is

"A

the the

r

se

co

con

except

Orientalist

be

the

in

of

Ourselves

It

natives. lost

I

is

a

is It

a is

o

int

mea

manifests

construct

int

through

presentation

their

th

as

ourselves

image.

which

i

repr

focus

words,

write

and

uni

applied

of

Re-presentation,

own

m

marginalization

Writing

to

hi a

East

the

theorizes

Such

own

r

cultural,

resentation,

will

as

explain,

discourses

This

wri

to

the

and

profound where

used

from

viduality

Said

repres

fundamental

ences.

al.

Islam

example,

commonly their

of

its

mod a

fo

knowledge

identities

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

an

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 65

is a rewriting of the grand tales of imperialism an undercutting the legendary (hi)stories of the heroism ous 'conquerors/ 'adventurers/ 'discoverers/ trave who had the license to represent the 'lazy natives/ t

'quainť manners, and 'barbaric' practices of those prived of the 'Word/ in Sartre and Fanon's terms

previous chapter. All non-European cultures are gene

of the West, and within Western society itself, wom

indigenous peoples, and homosexuals are often visuali

Re-presentation, as I see it then, is the constr discourse that breaks down the binaries of the Or

us/them orthodoxy that has been the cornerstone of neric practice:

For Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of realit

promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, t strange (Orient, East, Them). (0, p. 43)

It is this us/them dichotomy that is manifest in Ori plied to Said's Orient or any of the Others that st called mainstream culture. Us/them binary oppositio are prevalent not only in colonial discourse of the ei centuries, but are also found in all aspects of represe postcolonial, technologically advanced, and 'globa

twenty-first century. Some marked changes, however

Orientalist discourse since 1978. The influence of

sights into the ways in which Orientalism works, an

and critical perspectives gained from poststructurali

development of postcolonial theory, have helped to u

structures of power/knowledge paradigms. The effe

praxis, which has created re-presentation and resista

be reflected in our literature, schooling, university cu

extent even in the media. But progress is slow and

Orientalism still persist today, unabatedly, in all aspe Mimesis and Semiosis

Edward Said's Orientalism has raised the crucial question of Represen tion to the forefront of contemporary intellectual debate. However,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

66

notion of Represen Plato and his invalu tion,

interpreted

in

tation of reality, a reality, as in Plato's forget

the

knowledge

that the concept of Indian Vedic treatis (trans. Gosh, 1951). vided a wealth of d sented on stage thr performance.

components text

of

the

pleasure come role tra

of

of

is

3)

a

audienc

the

facto

gestures,

a

fir

Nat

play;

or all

The

of

emo

foundational

its reception by aud trism in our educat power, and subjugat been and

marginalized

African

ception aspect

has

in

become

Eastern

Semiosis

and

or

t

the

Recept

Representation, view,

an

knowled

thus

position,

bu

meaning-making,

is or

or with t

concerned receive

discussed Brechťs effect,

epic

and

audiences theatre

representa

this

proble

theatre

the

from

recep

other

reception

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

inv

"

Re-doing

the

Narratives

learning-play, a

basthi

the

of

,

or

the

play,

Image

for

of

Brechťs

(or

as

well

ences

masks,

der

The had

on

to

create

be

(Willet, (in

or

epic

nor

dance,

this in

1973)

instan

Hydera

form, in

Toront

in

understoo

and

the

essen

and

le

non-liter it

to

be

Ironically,

didactic

th

"classical

meaning

intended

theatre.

did

academically

working-class,

Brechťs

a

"entertainmen

audiences

intended

actually

the

stylistics,

them

song,

the

storytel

gesture),

ancie

audience

to

appreciated

'ep

effec

"absurd,"

forms

as

or

from

West

Brechťs

"obtuse,"

2002a).

alienation

message

the

sophisticated ized

(or

order

non-literate pret

b

were

drama,

provide

as

in

play

such

Brecht

in

learning,

in

reception

symbolic

diingseffeckt

theatre,

its

stylized

by

colony,

master/wor

Ideology

representation,

rowed

working-cla

Brechťs

(Burney,

and

'gestus'

a

the

and

of

perience

Empire"

squatters'

dialectics

dialectics

of

message

in

the

of

'

clas

ing-play - which was about t sented through his overt the representation. because

of

ference,

and

context

actually

Other;

estrangement

non-literate

collective

the

representation oppressed

The

their

this

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of

the

enable

was

inherent

exper

in

possib the

a

68

discourse,

had

I

was

become

reception

a

ology, which knowing,

is

As is

Jacques

perc

repres

upon

implies

D

Derrida

difference

playing

also

th

Difference/

through

t

metaph

suggests

and

Derrida's

able

"to

b

the

d

defer

The

present participle together a configurat

ble...

first

différance

deferring

by

means

r

of

ment,

that that

reserving... the m which differentia

mark

our

language

That is, meaning the gaps, and the referentiality

audience

différance periences, the

to

made via

oth

mean

the

through

deliberate

is es

ot

t

juxtap

ology, or ways of s Roland Barthes refe tural form, is a "pr ment of "seeing and process of semiosis icons, and cultural c ment"

the

as

it

represen

meaning-makin

necessary

through

for

unders

representat builds ideo

sentation,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 69 Signs and Codes

Semiotics, the science of signs and codes, has contribu

ing the present-day complex theoretical notion of R

linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's Semiologie: Course ([1938] 1978) presented the structuralist notion of

system of signs that generates interpretative meanin guage, however, do not correspond to a pre-existing

Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, and others agree with Saus

are arbitrary. They are communicated as signifiers o

give meaning to the signified through cultural codes,

Language thus needs to be interpreted through relat difference that exist between signs and also through

signs acquire specific meaning. In other words, it is n

(or the meaning-making process) that translates (con)texts, times, places, and signs. Said cites Roland

representations are formations, or rather, they are "d

the impossibility of true representation (C&I, p. 273)

process that interprets signs, giving them meaning, c

tion. That is, abstract and ideological ideas are given

stance through representation. The idea of repre

construction imbued with ideology was also promulg

gram and book, Ways of Seeing (1972) by John Berger

jamin's Illuminations ([1955] 1969). The production an

can reveal how ideology is constructed through the j

and words. As Berger declares, "Every image emb

Said's discourse analysis of Orientalism in literary, his

and travel texts reveals that indeed, every image does by creating ideology and meaning.

In short, Orientalism as a discursive model has had

wide array of authors who have deployed its critique locations, translating it into many cultural contexts

Orientalism has now come to be seen as a generic ter which other cultures and peoples are represented, as

methodology of Orientalism has been appropriated b

after Said's close analysis. Orientalism (1978) has show

of representation - writings, images, and words in l

ture - that has been passed down since antiquity,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

70

through Said and

of

seems

to

be

Other.

point.

here

I

power

The

idea

fragments

the

his

the

Sun

sugg

to

cre

Said

But

would of

of

as

ha

not

like

t

textuality

Never

Sets

globe in 1886.

"The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire" In the heyday of colonialism in the Victorian era, it was said that "The sun never sets on the British Empire." This was not just figuratively but literally

true, and the phrase became a symbol of the greatness and transcendence of

the British Empire. This sense of transcendence became endorsed in the imagination of peoples across the world, not merely through the politics of imperialism and empire, but also through cultural factors such as the unchallenged mythologies of the greatness attributed to English writers, for

instance, Shakespeare, the Bard of the British Isles. Shakespeare's plays

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

on

i

"Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 7 1

were performed and read everywhere the sun shined

was an essential component of curriculum all over th

British Raj in India, the colonies in the Middle East (

Australia, the Caribbean (or the West Indies, as it wa what was then known as the Far East.

If there is one motif that defines Shakespeare's prolific work, it is the patriotic notion of "England" - the great country, the beloved homeland: This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,... This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

(Richardii, Act I, Sc. 1)

I use this simple example because it is very familiar to most of us who grew

up believing that one could not be considered educated without knowing the greatness of Shakespeare. This is a way of seeing, an attitude, an ideology, or a firm conviction and belief, gained from representation and textuality. If one did not love the poetry of Shakespeare or admire his greatness, or mimic British values, style and culture, then one grew up 'stupid' in the Brit-

ish Empire, as Austen Clarke's hilarious memoir, Growing Up Stupid under the Union Jack (1980) suggests. Clarke, the award-winning Canadian writer born in Bermuda, uses humor and satire to re-present his trials, tribulations

and experiences of colonial schooling practices as a child growing up in the former British colony. This, indeed, is a form of "re-doing the narratives of empire" or of "writing back to the empire," an integral methodology used in

contemporary postcolonial theory and the expanding field of postcolonial studies. The supreme world-wide appreciation of Shakespeare and the glorification of his images, words, poetry, and drama has indeed globally reinforced the ideology of the superiority of British culture and empire. The representation of an idea and its consistent repetition builds up intertextuality and ideology, which is Said's central argument in Orientalism. Said has used this argument brilliantly, and in greater depth, while discussing more covert texts such as Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in his later work, Culture and Imperialism (1993). All of the major English writers of the colonial pe-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

72

riod as

accepted

the

norm,

overseas abled

the

exi

rarely

reach

empire

of

Bri

and

imp

twentieth-century the

works

Jane

Conrad p.

of

Austen,

75).

are

those

prepared

Yet,

as

Said

scholars

have and

58).

The

and

have

failed

that

Time

is,

and

and

forms

of

not

critics

tory the

fact

st

chartin

oppression

tury,

n

Charles

mapping the

w

im

the

been

in

Saiď

space

acq

geography,

are

represente

superiority

literature

of

the

His

central

are

inextricably

generating

of

B

peri

argument

link

attitudes

In

British culture, for Spencer, Shakespeare, ered space in metropol tive, and development desirable but subordin

Here

the

bedded cal

in

point

is

literary

re

di

act.

The

Novel

of

Empire

Said's discourse anal tropes of empire are manors in the Bri

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 73

slave plantation is mysteriously necessary to the p

Mansfield Park." In the novel, Sir Thomas Bertram ha

his plantations in Antigua, which leads to a genteel d

Mansfield Park. When a performance of the play "Lo

cause what the Victorians would consider chaos, Sir T time to restore the household to order. As we know from the Victorian his-

torian Mathew Arnold, culture and anarchy, or order and chaos, are diamet-

rically opposed; the former belongs to the cultured elitist class and the latter is characteristic of the uncivilized masses. Obviously, Sir Thomas governs his plantation and manor in the 'cultured' manner - methodologically, rationally, and authoritatively. Austen here synchronizes domestic with international authority, making it plain that values associated with such higher things as ordination, law and propriety must be grounded firmly in actual rule over possession of territory. (C&I,

p. 104)

Mansfield Park itself exists as a metaphor for colonization. Said points out that the same "ruthless propriety tones of the white master" found in

John Stuart Mill's Principles of Political Economy, which states that "our

West Indian colonies, for example cannot be regarded as countries... but rather as a place where England finds it convenient to carry on the production of sugar, coffee..." (C&I, p. 59) are also evident in Austen, who "subli-

mates the agonies of Caribbean existence to a mere half dozen passing references to Antigua" (C&I, p. 59). Mansfield Park itself also embodies the

notion of power and politics in reference to the times, when Britain was

struggling against Napoleonic France. The Bertrams could not have been characters of the novel without the slave trade, sugar industry, and colonial plantations. These political and cultural ideas of empire, Said suggests, are

encoded in the novel. He reiterates that "Austen's novel is about England and about Antigua.... It is therefore about order at home and slavery abroad and can indeed - ought to be - read that way" (C&I, p. 259). This is a form of contrapuntal, or oppositional, reading, a strategy invented by Said that will be discussed in the next chapter.

Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), the poet laureate of Britain, the most quoted writer from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, and Thomas Carlyle

(1795-1881), the Victorian historian and essayist, also represent the power of the British Empire in their poetry and moralistic writings, which indeed

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

74

were

read

empire, that

ity as

well-known

French

"Camus,

been

taugh

regenerating

the

of

and

coloni

the

deleted"

manism

autho

(C&I,

associated

p

wi

Fanny

[the protagonist France holds Algeria a tagonist's] astonishingl

Both

are

"Camus' and If

representat

novels

discursive

this

the

is

text,

hard

its

association

and

s

strate for

an

influen

between

C

not understanding have imputed to L'E manity facing cosmi

cism"

(C&I,

p.

185).

ideas

for a 'purist' ac implications of

the

until his

Said

ist cal

the

work

is

interventio met

with

unhappy

theory has context, or

also

reading

a

that

ignore 'world

Fanon

an

culture

from its en as an ex intertwined historie that politics, geogr "overlapping territor close textual readin imperialism

writer

tion"

and

(0,

p.

the

24).

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

comp

In

th

"Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 75 Foucault to whose work I am greatly indebted, I do

ing imprint of individual writers upon the otherwi

body of texts constituting a discursive formation lik

It is for this precise reason that Said has analyz

texts. ..not only scholarly works but also works of li

journalistic texts, travel books, religious and philolo

frequently refer to each other: Orientalism is after

works and authors" (0, p. 23, my emphasis). Here Sa

of the poststructuralist notion of the "death of the

or reader-response theory, to posit that texts are 'w

situated in circumstantial reality, and that their wo

live in play a major role in constructing contextualit

Orient as Metaphor

Said has the inherent ability of coining multitudino

and simple, of understanding the practice of Orient

ple of classic Orientalist representation, which does

tinguish characteristics of the Other, Said cites

major work. Manners and Customs of the Modern E

Lane's work was also cited by diverse figures such a

ton, and Nerval, except that Nerval was "borrow

from Modern Egyptians to describe village life in S

flood of present-day images pouring in on 24-ho

recent Egyptian revolution and the uprisings in Syr differences between the two nations and cultures - differences that are his-

torical, political, and social. But these essential differences and individual identities, or authenticity, are camouflaged in Orientalist discourse. Said shows that in Orientalist practice a single image can often turn into

an icon or a symbol for the whole group. He cites the example of Aeschylus' play, The Persians, in which the Orient is transformed from a very far distant

and often threatening otherness into figures that are relatively familiar (in Aeschylus' case, grieving Asiatic women): "The dramatic immediacy of representation in The Persians obscures the fact that the audience is watching a highly artificial enactment of what a non-Oriental has made into a symbol for the whole Orient. My analysis of the Orientalist text therefore places emphasis on the evidence... for such representations as representations, not as 'natural' depictions of the Orient" (0, p. 21).

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

76

Thus,

the

worldly

ity

Orient

reality.

that

are

postcolonial talism

in

of

This

embedd

theory

European

f

c

tency, one that has presence to show fo that he does not be sented,

but

states

Orientalism

for

a

as

a

purpose,

economic

form

setting.

That

is,

oppression,

as

of

British

of

Egypt

large." such and

a

it

cannot the

are

Said

knows

have

"W

to

to

in

Egyptians,

explores in

point:

Western

a

sen to

Egypt. Egypt

this

is

he

"For

Eg

imperial

example

English

e

do

self-gover

case

of

is

scenario

Said of

Min

there

tries

exists,

academic

s

East

1910:

thing

England

and

the

country..."

we

concrete

and

Prime

in

other

though

p

Imper

knowledge

represent

any

(0,

Orientalism

Knowledge to

o

accordin

tion,

The

th

of

knowled

ments of the 'backwardness' of the colonized countries and the mission of

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 77

the colonizers to uplift the Orientals that the project

takes place: "Balfour nowhere denies British superior

riority. He takes them for granted as he describ knowledge" (0, p. 32). Said explains this Foucauldia knowledge and power as follows:

Balfour inherited the knowledge both academic and practic

modern Western Orientalism; knowledge of Orientals, their ture, history, traditions, society, and possibilities. (0, p. 38)

This knowledge was supposedly put "to good use" by

ish representative of Balfour. It became the means o

tion, and control of the Orient/Other. This given kn

mind thus guided the colonizers in their political dec edge of the Other a means of power.

Said's argument about textuality and Orient/Occ again reinforced as he states that "the absolute dem

and West which Balfour and Cromer accept with been years, even centuries in the making" (0, p. 3

tradition provided them "with a vocabulary, imagery with which to say it" (0, p. 41). This explicates Saiďs

entalism as a discourse was perpetuated by the intert ings, or "accredited knowledge." [T]o say simply that Orientalism was a rationalization of

nore the extent to which colonial rule was justified in adv rather than after the fact. (0, p. 39)

Secondly, Orientalism was related to the expansion o

and 1914, when colonization grew from covering 3

85 percent of the earth's surface. With the expansion

Orientalist's knowledge grew substantially and so did

The weight of the past representations of the Ori colonial rule - Balfour's 'Orientals' turned into L

races/ as the governors had a plethora of textual k their operations with expertise. In an essay published in the Edinburgh Review in

writes from his experiences of ruling in India and E races need to be managed as they do not know what

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

78

states

that

Cromer

mentality'; Egypt.

this

beca

Statements

Oriental

and

in

perpetu

Accuracy

is abhorrent t his statements of fact works like a piece of m like

in

his

0,

p.

picturesque

38,

Ironically,

the

my

stre

emphasi

this

attitu

condescension,

a

colonizer and colonize construction of the 'e this of

chapter.

energy

and

unkindness and

of

Moreov

to

suspicious

the

initiat

animal and

in

Anglo-Saxon

ent/Other

is

indeed

i

The authority of the is buttressed by a cult European to a seconda ness is paradoxically e 59, my emphasis)

Indeed, ariness

the

constru

between

Euro

entalism is constructed.

Pleasures of Imperialism: Representing India

India as 'the jewel in the crown' of the British Empire, both literally and figuratively, has played a major role in the social construction of the idea of

the Orient as containing the pleasures of imperialism - palaces, creature comforts, servants, grandeur, decadence, princes, and exotic adventures like shikars and tiger hunts - that it offered the British officer and continues to offer the foreign traveler to this day, with five-star service, Sahib treatment,

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

"Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 79

and white privilege. In a class-conscious society, the

in India was more than pleased to have the opportun

cial-class ladder to become a part of the elite society

his colonial power and the color of his skin. Even th

Britisher could become a sahib because of his power

colonial India. Despite the appropriation of all th

privilege, the notion of inferiority of the Orient is s

blatantly evident in John Stuart Mill's (1806-1873) d about India. Like Balfour and all other colonialists, M

pion of liberty and freedom, believed that it was n

power, greed, loot, and occupation that was at the h

the belief that colonization and imperialism were pa

lize the natives. The British were in India "becaus these are territories and peoples who beseech domin

the English India would fall into ruin" (Said, 1994 prevalent argument in the rationalization of colo powers left the occupied countries, the native ma chaos, as they were not ready for democracy.

Tigers of the Raj: Tiger hunts were a popular pastime of p Tiger hunts are now banned.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

80

This

been and

argument

was

elsewhere,

Rule

policy,

country,

India

but

whic

has

co

its independence in education, productio grassroots, as

civil

eign

disobedience,

goods,

other ants

nonviolen fasting

forms

to

vote

elections Gandhi,

is

of

peace

intelligen

far

highe

directed

portrait

of

a

by

Mahatma

highlights

momentou

coast

thousands

with

hoped

of

to

India

reveal

to

sell

how

them

prices. Forster's India

The tropes of inferiority and superiority are evident in E. M. Forster's A

Passage to India , which Said analyzes in depth using his prowess in the field of colonial discourse analysis (C&I, pp. 200-06). It is remarkable to see how Said can move seamlessly between analyzing the hard imperial politics of official speeches and colonial decrees to a sensitive reading of literary texts. This is the accomplishment of Said's work - the bringing of

the World, or worldliness, to the text. In A Passage to India Forster's affection for India is obvious, but it is colored by his overwhelming feelings about India's complexity, spirituality, inapprehensible character, mystery, mysticism, and exoticness. Said comments on Forster's ability "to use India to represent" elements that go beyond the "canon of the novel form...vastness, incomprehensible creeds, secret motions, histories, and social forms" (O, p. 200). Despite Dr. Aziz's vindication, his being hailed as a nationalist hero, and his close friendship with Fielding, the two cannot be considered equals; a cultural and racial barrier divides them irrevocably as colonized and colonizer. Forster suggests that

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

"Re-doing

the

Narratives

of

Empire"

nature itself could not accept '"They didn't want it," they sa and the sky said, 'No, not her hospitable Muslim nationalist bole's Hindu, philosophical, p strong opposition to inequities British imperialism. Said belie tween India and Britain to stan However, Mrs. Moore's caring she manages to transcend the one

sees

Moore tudes

Raj

hope

for

the

represents

does

that

Forster's

not

future

Forster's

represent

denies

the

resolution

in

ow

Forster

closeness in

the

b

nov

find Forster's denouement to b lent, marked by the exigencie tionality. Indeed, empire is take

definitely characterized by am attraction syndrome between

cussed earlier. In Forster's case negativity, reservation, and a prevents a sense of total equalit E.

M.

Forster:

"I

never

spoke

Ur

I read this discourse in the lig ter of March 22, 1962 written sity, England to his friends i pounds ("the whole of my tak formances") toward the buildi

and archival institution for t when it was threatened by th state into a province by the I writes:

I never spoke Urdu, and yet it is my language for the reason I have so often heard it on the lips of those I loved.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

82

King's Cambridge

Col

tVlarch 22, 1962 My dear Sajjad,

In reply to your request: it is both a pleasure and an honour to grant it and to contribute to a project which would be so near to our beloved Masood's heart. I accordingly send you the enclosed cheque. It represents the whole of my takings (up to date) on the A. neri can performances. No conditions whatsoever are attached to it. I want you to apply: it to the needs of the Urdu Hall as best to you seems. I nevef

spoke Urdu , and yet it is my language for the reason that!

have so often heard it on the lips of those I loved. 1-

(Morgan) 1|

(Chequefor £ 1,000.00 enclosed - Please acknowledge) m

""J

E. M. Forster: 'I never s often heard it on the li acknowledges Försters le

I

had

the

hangs

on

letter

is

unique the

printed

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

pleas

second in

f

th

"Re-doing

India, with

the

Narratives

his

long

of

eleven-year

Hyderabadi

recently

Empire"

culture,

printed

for

frie

and

the

hi

first

t

Canada Souvenir, (2011, p. 34), 18, 2011 at which I receive

June

Forster's

gift

erary

family

child

1

is

pretty

has

been

attended

personal

associated

literary

and

c

knowing the Forster connectio Hyderabad boasted an aristocrat and

a

ings)

rich

being

concert life.

the

intellectual

in

attended

the

Forster's

highly

mous

West.

work

and

by

literally

No

wonder

is

advanced

revolutionary

cultur

clearer

to

literary poet

and

Maqdoo

Hyderabad was an erstwhile p on the cover of Time magazine (

world. 1980) ket

He

as

in

continued

Hyderabad

the

to

was

nineteenth

enjoy

the

only

century.

It

i-noor ('Cave of Light,' 105 car Queen Victoria's crown, was fo which tem, The

ish

had

its

nobility,

Nizam,

Crown"

own and

titled

currency, feudal

"His

because

Exalted

of

rai

govern

his

Hi

riches

pendence was won on August Indian government, crushing peasants and workers' revoluti intellectuals. princely

divided the

of

Hyderabad

culture

Hyderabad

progressive

Hyderabadi

guage,

until

Urdu

his

into

death

separat

intellectuals

culture,

Hall

intelligentsia.

continu

It

as

an

still

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of

would

t

be

institutio

functions

84

source

center,

publi

events and mushairas.

The Love-Hate Dichotomy Continues Another major writer of British India is Rudyard Kipling, whose "magnificent" prose is appreciated by Said as literary performance. In an analysis of Kipling's novel, Kim, Said raises the question of how deeply empire and its

"attitudes and structures of feeling" - a phrase borrowed from Raymond Williams that Said deploys throughout his work - are embedded in the fic-

tion of the time: "Kipling's fiction [is] positing the Indian as a creature clearly needing British tutelage... since without Britain India would disap-

pear into its own corruption and underdevelopment" (C&I, p. 167). This is the very argument put forth by Balfour and John Stuart Mill, which rational-

izes the British mission of colonialism and occupation of a foreign territory and is consistently represented through the voice of the colonial writers. For instance, Kipling presents the predicament of the white man's burden having to govern the sea of natives in India for their own benefit while always being aware of his real place and privilege as a 'Sahib.' The appropria-

tion of history and its narrative gives force to the novel as a form, a technique that Kipling uses brilliantly, making his young protagonist go back and forth, into and outside the native cultural ethos. Kim's love of the land and Kipling's attachment to home are very evident in the writing. It must be remembered that unlike other colonial writers, Kipling was born in India and spent a very happy childhood near the Himalayas, with their luxu-

rious geography and spatiality, before being sent back to London for an education. India was home to Kipling and he loved all the adventure, excitement, and pleasures of empire with a passion. India was certainly home to the British, and this sense of ease and affiliation - "the pleasures of impe-

rialism" - prevail in the adventures of the novel and the British colonial experience. Said's point is that it is not enough to appreciate the beauty of the prose but one must also understand and decode the underlying structures of empire hidden within the tropes of fiction.

Kim is an orphaned Irish boy who masquerades as an Indian boy - an "Indian among Indians" - playing the "Great Game" (the secret service game

of control over India by Britain) with aplomb under the guidance of his guru, a Buddhist lama. Only when Kim wins the Great Game and is discovered to be white is he rightfully appointed in the British service. This is re-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 85

demption, the end of the fun of youth; Kim is ambi

mask he was able to enjoy freedom and adventure

rules. But indeed, the reader is left with a feeling tha that God's in his heaven and all's well with the world

Said says that the idea of British India was suprem ment was imperative to Kipling's fiction. The lov Kipling as a colonial writer exhibits still prevails in t India and Britain today. A great deal of mutual admi

each other's culture exists, but that is tainted by an u

ambivalence, and deep-seated hate. This indeed, is ment of empire - the ambivalence and the love-h integral part of postcolonial critique.

Appropriating the land and the landscape: Pleasures of the Raj

Tryst with Destiny

Though political resistance was beginning to rise, K register it. He seems to be saying, "India is ours and

in this mostly uncontested, meandering and fulfil

The novel can be read as Kim's love for India, the lan

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

86

but

the

"India

resolutely document

way the

to

as

its

of

h

boo

histo

midnight

stroke

his

the

of

mortalized in

that

Au

midnig

by

refined

Pundit and

so

Long years ago, we ma we shall redeem our p world sleeps, India wi comes when

take

of

quote

was

to

an

of

pledge

of the

of

rest

sulted

the

in

of

mind which

one

pinned

and

with

a

vio

Pundi

nobility

freedom

D

partitio

attracted

English

th

nonv

incited

of

h

and

astute

the

politically

ded

(Ret

words

colonization

of

hi

nati

excerpt

the

exemplary,

cause

in a

humanity.

this

poetry from

rarely

soul

the

cause

I

but

the

love and

leader red

ro

Travels in India: The Exotic and the Restless

India, the land, and the landscape become a character in the colonial novel

and art. Even in A Passage to India, it is the mystique of the land that directs

the force of action in the novel, casting a spell on the protagonists, whose

basic response to the mysticism and aura of the land is confusion, which destroys their (European) ability of clear judgment and rationality. In an article entitled "The Exotic and the Restless: Colonial Discourse in Canadian

Literature" (1992b, pp. 129-39), presented at the International Semiotics Congress in 1988 at the University of British Columbia (and which won me

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

"Re-doing

my

the

15

Narratives

of

minutes

nomenon

at

of

the

appropriated

Empire"

fame,

time),

as

I

during

nates

in

contemporary

the

logue

titled

Walls

My

days

of

col

argued

Other.

written

as

of

po

em

travel

India,

w

by

with paintings by Canadian a walls have been appropriated parts

of

the

profusion anges, out

world,

of

and

the

bright

burnt

watercolors

Indian

reds,

yellows

sans

s

padd -

is

people,

r

san

dia shine indiscriminately thr vision that seems to have noth tradictory

The

people

postcard, and

niques

(1983), in

of

as

always

India

or

are

India,

of

the the

argued

Other

or in

is

present

ancient,

the

Time

-

and

b

and

or

t

the in

"

progr

backward,

the

O

subjectif

mystic,

age

la

people

denied

modernity

haunt

totally

evoking

the

Orientalism,

has

realit

deprives

timeless,

European seen

of

emptied

eternal, Fabian

of

which

palaces

scapes

ing

worldliness

and

representatio

ernity.

The goal of these representations seems to be the exoticization of a new, independent, and emerging modern country, robbing it of its contemporari-

ness and pushing it into an endless, mystic, mysterious, colonial past. Though Walls of India is described on the jacket as a "richly textured por-

trait of contemporary India by two distinguished Canadians," it does not represent a living and breathing nation crowded with people in search of modern technological advancement. George Woodcock describes himself as

an "Old India Hand," a definitely derogatory epithet as it dehumanizes a country, while promoting his "long journey that took the travelers from the

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

88

deserts ber

to

and

hills

Kerala

Delhi,

City

the

R

the

Conque

in Kipli represen

pendence, of

and

of

appropriate it

of

marginalizatio

only for the Orient called the "national e native elite, who dr parties

from the

for

the

Bombay

grand

other

side

There

they

vice

New

of

the

dignity

of

ers;

the

the

viding throb my

the

pe

they

join

the

t

wal

colorless

are

w

into

part

dentally,

word

ancient

the

of

ina

English

colonial

the

has

f

completel

pastel-colored

also

ri

The

to

paint

monuments,

as

gro

contemporary

people,

gone

ca

dichotom

condescend a

in

of

towards

us/them

The

on

band

unless

denigration

produce

is

stood

booming

of

to

din

watching

emphasis).

here

p

shouting

travelers the

the

blaring

a

har

to

menu

tablishment born;

Ho

Yea

the

have

because on

Coc

Malabar

indigenous

food

foreig

to

way

d

in

colonialist

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

"Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 89

while 'mogul' is a Europeanized version. The cultural

biotic love-hate relationship of appropriation bet

colonized, is once again visible in the thousands of w (Urdu-Hindi) that have become part of the English

'punch,' 'guru/ 'pyjamas,' 'cummerbund,' 'avatar,' et In Walls of India, a whole country, one known for

is represented as inanimate, dead; only the walls of

lently through a pale, uncharacteristic haze. This

chisement, the de-humanizing of the subaltern subj

representing the other as exotic by the rich and re

propriates a whole land through the Western mal kind of travel writing and representation abound. A

one of his classroom lectures: "The colonial traveler

Travel writing as a genre, as discussed earlier, h

of academic critique thanks to Said's work: "Travel w

whose specialty it is to deliver the non-European wo

and judgment or for satisfying the exotic tastes American audiences" (C&I, p. xviii) have the auth

Other. The travelogue is indeed an important genre role, hitherto unrecognized, in creating ideological Other. Analysis of travel writing as a genre is Said's

prejudicial, opinionated denigration of the Other

through Orientalist travelogues. "Travelling and col

the ruling passions of Englishmen as they were in t

Robert Stafford (1989, p. 208) writes and is quot

Travel writing is discussed in greater detail later. In

and the Restless," I also refer to the Booker Prize-w

Michael Ondaatje, who has written a much acclaimed

oir, Running in the Family, which describes his exper

native Sri Lanka. Despite the fact that the country w

civil war and political upheavals at the time, Ondaat

exotic aspects of the island - the sun, the jackfruit,

memories of family - playing to his Western audien

text prevails, but glimpses of 'the World' are totally

This, again, is a form of the appropriation of the la

The quest or voyage motif appears in much Europ

non-European world, as is discussed later. Referring

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

90

"Irish

writer

experiences p.

211).

Art

and

the

This

considers

is

quest

a

Joyce

form and

I

Empire

Orientalism's fields

coloni

of

Fine

impact Arts

an

an exhibition entitled "Orientalism: From Delacroix to Klee" at the Art Gal-

lery of New South Wales in 1988, which was replete with insights from Said in its notes and catalogues, was another form of "redoing the narratives of empire." It made spectators understand the colonialist perspectives embedded in the structures and forms of a whole tradition of fine art and showed

how the subject had been orientalized in the paintings. This intellectual ap-

proach and critical sensibility was appreciated by many, but criticized by other critics. A right-wing critic, Keith Windschuttle (2000) has deplored this popular trend towards the acceptance of Saiďs radical ideas about Orientalism and representation in art. The influence of Said's ideas, however,

has grown rather than diminished. One tends to see the famous Western renditions of the Orient in poetry, painting, song, opera, and cinema in a critical light more often. Indeed, the painting titled "The Snake Charmer" by Jean- Leon Gerome, which graces the front cover of Orientalism, has become

somewhat iconic, representing the context of the book in a dynamic and visual representation that speaks volumes. The justification and embodiment of imperialism is also found in other

cultural forms, such as opera. Commenting on the relationship between scholarly and artistic endeavors and national ideology, Said writes: In so relatively insulated and specialized a tradition as Orientalism, I think there is in each scholar some awareness, partly conscious and partly nonconscious, of national tradition, if not of national ideology. This is particularly true in Orientalism additionally so because of the direct political involvement of European nations in the affairs of one or another Oriental country. (0, p. 263)

Indeed, art and ideology are inter-related, and the tropes of empire are found in art and literature. But very often we are unaware of their deadly effect on curriculum, media, and life.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 9 1 Verdi's 'Egyptian' Opera

Verdi's famous 'Egyptian' opera Aida has been critique

imperialism, a celebration of the topicality of British

historic moment of the inauguration of the Suez Cana

missioned for the celebration of this occasion and " the enabling circumstances of its commission and 125), thereby gaining stature and place as represen

state. Many recent performances of this popular, most

grand opera have been influenced by Said's critical an

An accomplished concert pianist and musicologi Verdi's opera in detail as an example of the impact and vice versa. Citing former texts and political ev

that the composition of Aida is closely tied to the Bri

rial politics in Egypt at the time of the opening of the

two countries were competing to assert their pow dramatized the dangers of a successful Egyptian po

pia" (C&I, p. 126). Said notes "the subject matter and s

"its monumental grandeur, its strangely affecting fects, its overdeveloped music and constricted dom

centric place in Verdi's career. ..its stretto techni heightened intensity and rigor," along with the "m Aida's score" (C&I, p. 125). These Orientalist elements of representation, su

otherness, create impressions of the greatness of emp

trapuntal reading that deconstructs these tropes. Said

As a visual musical, and theatrical spectacle, Aida does a for and in European culture, one of which is to confirm sentially exotic, distant, and antique place in which Euro certain shows of force. Concurrently universal expositio tained models of colonial villages, towns, courts and the li cultures were exhibited before Westerners as microcosms rial domain. (C&I, p. 112)

These musical representations were reinforced throug

images - representation of static versions of life in th

point of view of the colonizers. This is an example of used for the service of the political agenda of empire.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

92

Egyptology: Pyramids

of

Libretto

Moreover, modate

f

Giza.

a

the

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

new

grand

op

op

"Re-doing

isted ties

the

Narratives

between

or

rich

of

Empire"

the

two

façades,

section

and

the

please the small European co bolic of the new Europeanizat empire and imperialism. Th ment and a specifically dated to alienate and impress an a 125).

The

resented thetic

sense

memory,

Europe's

[C&I,

circumstances the

version

of

Aida of

of

th

imperia

embodie

Egypt

at

p.

125). By 1882 Britai the myth of West empire through its music, st sense of worldliness or pertin discourse analysis of the oper

represents

of

empire

are

'A

Uniquely

so

deeply

Punishing

entre

Destin

As a committed and secular lifelong battle for social jus knowledged as an authorita Palestine

ing

of

by

those

on

both

sid

Said's interviews, Ter because of his eq

intellectual"

Intellectuals are not only diffe Academics usually plough tuals of Said's calibre roam amb demics are interested in ideas, entire culture. The word "intel clever," but a kind of job descri

them.

Anger

and academia do not usua to low pay, whereas anger and 2004, retrieved from internet, N

As

a

secular

attempt his

to

humanist

'speak

extensive

academic

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Said

truth

to

ha

po

work

94

jority

of

his

intervie

most pressing the plight

conce dis

and

mitted tainly

theme,

the

me

a

to

part

and

include of

it

personal

strength. ated

His

from

thor,

or

indeed

presumed

Said's

deeply

and

th

thesis

the

the

a

of

politics

"very to

be

t

world

a

worl

politi

ary culture can only disciplines today hav the

text,

in

intertext

Contemporary tics

of

culture,

critic

includ

Personal/Political

Said acknowledges that his study of Orientalism derives from his awareness

of being an 'Oriental' as a child growing up in two British colonies, Palestine and Egypt: "My study of Orientalism has been an attempt to inventory the traces upon me, the Oriental subject, of the culture whose domination has been so powerful a factor in the life of all Orientals" (0, p. 25). In Oriental-

ism, one retrospective moment of personal thought shows the depth of Said's pain at his "uniquely punishing destiny" as an Arab. The passage below from Orientalism reveals the sensitivity and sensibility of Said as a man

who has had to live with this uniquely punishing destiny of being an Arab intellectual living through the web of racism, cultural stereotyping, dehumanizing, othering, and marginalization. My own experiences of these matters are in part what made me write this book. The life of an Arab Palestinian in the West, particularly in America, is disheart-

ening. There exists here an almost unanimous consensus that politically he does not exist, and when it is allowed that he does, it is either as a nuisance or

as an Oriental. The web of racism, cultural stereotypes, political imperialism, dehumanizing ideology holding the Arab or the Muslim is very strong indeed, and it is this web which every Palestinian has come to feel as his uniquely punishing destiny.... The nexus of knowledge and power creating the 'Oriental' and

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 95

in a sense obliterating him as a human being is therefore n

sively academic matter. Yet it is an intellectual matter of

tance. (0, p. 27)

Said has been critical of Bernard Lewis, the Orient

pert on Islam, for his consistent negative pronounce statements about the Arabs and Islam. In Orientalism Said cites Lewis's arti-

cle, "Islamic Concepts of Revolution/' in which Lewis contends that "the Western doctrine of the right to resist bad government is alien to Islamic

thought," which leads to "defeatism" (Lewis, quoted in C&I, p. 314). What really angers Said is Lewis's Orientalist analogy comparing thawra (revolu-

tion) to a camel about to raise itself from the ground, and his counsel of "wait till the excitement dies down." Said writes: "One wouldn't know from

this slighting account of thawra that innumerable people have an active commitment to it, in ways too complex for even Lewis's sarcastic scholar-

ship to comprehend" (0, p. 315). Looking at the recent images pouring in from protests and revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Libya, it is not possible to deny that Arabs too can rise up in the face of oppression. Said feels that Lewis's association of thawra to a camel rising and to "excitement (and not with a struggle on behalf of values") (0, p. 315) is denigrating and insulting. Said cites several other examples and concludes: "Lewis' polemical, not scholarly purpose is to show that Islam is an anti-Semitic ideology, not merely a religion" (0, p. 317). Said's work is full of concrete examples of

mis-representations in Orientalist texts of Arabs and Islam from experts such as Lewis and Lane. That, according to Said, is the Arab's "uniquely punishing destiny" in the West.

As pointed out earlier, Said sees himself as an exile: "I have remained as a native," but, in addition, as "someone who also belongs to the other side" (C&I, p. xxiii). This has enabled him to live on both sides of the East/West

divide, and mediate between the two solitudes. For Said, the question of identity has been at the core of cultural thought from the era of imperialism

to the present day. "This book is an exile's book belonging to both sides of the imperial divide," which has enabled Said to feel that "I belonged to more than one history and more than one group" (C&I, p. 36). The motif of exile is

predominant in his writing and in his perceptions of his own identity as a Palestinian living in the United States, always an outsider on both frontiers,

forever "out of place," as his memoir (1999) suggests. After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives (Said, 1986) is a moving photographic essay on the an-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

96

guished lives of the identity that has be Here Said can see his own self as Other. Born in Palestine and schooled in

Egypt during his early years, until he was sent off to private schools and

university in the United States, Said writes about the representation of th

Arab in literature, media and discourse with a great deal of pain, unde

standing, and sensitivity. Not a Muslim but a Christian Protestant by birt

Said has written most eloquently about the ideological representations Islam in Orientalist discourse - how the Arab has been invested with all the

demonic terror of U.S. racial and political xenophobia and why such stereotypes enter into public and academic discourse to begin with. He cites con-

temporary politics and media as perpetuating this infinite imagery: "One aspect of the electronic, postmodern world is that there has been a rein-

forcement of the stereotypes by which the Orient is viewed" (0, p. 26). This

stereotyping and othering has been exacerbated and disseminated by the latest internet technologies, cinema, cartoons, and literature. Said is critical of the compression and reduction that results in the eradication of the plurality of differences between Arabs (0, p. 309). This is a relation of power, which is used in representations of all those who are othered. 'Othering' the Other

The representation of Islam and the Arab has been a central critique in Saiďs writings. His book Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts De-

termine How We See the Rest of the World (1997[1981]) is an insightful

analysis of the media representations of the Arab and of Islam through Orientalist hegemony. His earliest works began his lifelong task of representing

the Arabs from an Arab perspective. The Question of Palestine (1979) is Saiďs first sustained work on Palestine. It is followed by dozens of articles

in leading journals. Blaming the Victims (1988) reveals the deployment of Israeli power politics in the treatment of Palestinians, while blaming the oppressed victims for the problems. The Politics of Dispossession (1994a) is a collection of his essays on Palestine. He has written other political books on the Palestine-Israel Peace Process and given numerous interviews on the subject. Moreover, both Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism have elaborated extensively on the subject of the representation of the Orient, Islam, and the Arab, in particular. Thus, his writings on the politics of repre-

sentation of the Other have been prolific and sustained, valiantly presenting

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 97

his clear and strong voice in favor of peace and huma

son - the depth of his vision and the integrity of his

spected as a committed public intellectual.

The representation of the Arab, he feels, is influenc

the history of anti-Arab and anti-Islam prejudice in t

between Arab and Israeli Zionism and its effects on c

the absence of any cultural position that makes it Arabs or Islam dispassionately. In a highly politiciz

by the price of oil, power politics, and fear of terro

Muslim, and especially any supposedly Arab-looki

the object of maligned representation. One well know

denigration, and degradation suffered by Muslims, h the horror of 9/11.

It is very telling that even a highly educated, well with a privileged cultural background can be pained

that one suffers as the Other/Oriental, as discuss

process that one who is culturally different endures

ence and lasting impact on the mind and heart, causi

is revealing that cruel, untrue, stereotypical, dem

representations of the Other, especially of the Arab o

are so widely prevalent without any regard to the fa immensely hurtful, offensive, and disturbing. Such

tions are commonplace in the media and everyda

Moreover, these representations are taken for grant

consciousness or skepticism. These representations ov

criticism, curriculum, film, comedy, comic books, c

pers, television, and even the national news. The exam

cite here, but one needs to simply follow the popula

school curriculum or read news commentary to know course.

Undercutting Stereotypes

It is no wonder that the recent news coverage of uprisin

in several Middle Eastern countries has surprised most v

all Egyptians or Iranians or Tunisians or Syrians or Arab

'terrorists' or 'fundamentalists,' but rather are diverse an

with individualized cultures, languages, and histories. Mo

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

98

was news to most pe also be brave, secula humanitarian goals o ple in the West. The or even practicing M are staunch, practicin lam there exists a wh fundamentalist. Most see that women seem agitations. One of th in which powerful re spite p.

their

56).

It

influenced Indeed, Said

for so

Said's

gives

objectified was

stereotyp

is

an

in

But

after

decided

This

the

what

and

examp

dehum

th

would war

the

h

en

"now

above

camel-riding tence

r

that

hands is

much

theory

before

itself

was

sion,

r

and

decided

This

this

hea

Arab to

nomad

easy

defeat:

t

However, since the thing more menacing line pump turned up makes the point that was suddenly transfe Semitic animus from the figure was essent policy governed the the

p.

history

286).

It

given

is

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the

importan

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 99

plicable to all others who have been marginalized - w

ties, the disabled, and homosexuals. As Said explicates

In the films and television the Arab is associated either w thirsty dishonesty. He appears as an oversexed degenerat devious intrigues, but essentially sadistic, treacherous, low driver, moneychanger, colorful scoundrel: these are some t

in cinema.. ..In newsreels or news photos the Arab is al numbers. No individuality, no personal characteristics or

the pictures represent mass rage and misery, or irration eccentric) gestures. (0, p. 287)

Running Amok

While discussing Heart of Darkness, Achebe had referr

resentation sarcastically as "hordes" of Africans runn

"frenzy." This is a very typical form of representat

deprived of his persona, seen only as a subordinate o

servant or exotic Maharaja, Latino maid or a sup

crowds of Oriental or native extras 'running amok' in

representations of the Arab can be "even more sland

the example of an article, "Chimera in the Middle Eas

Harper's magazine (November 1976, pp. 35-8), "argu sically murderers and that violence and deceit ar genes" (0, p. 287). As we know, such articles aboun

journals under the guise of serious writing and have

public psyche, which perceives the East as dangerous

A key point applicable to the quintessential Other i

erature, and art by and about Arabs (or, the Other) i

described in the media and in academic and journalist

becomes only a number, a static fact or statistics,

human being with actual individuality, family, inter

Without any literature or culture, the Other become

dehumanized representation. Since an Arab writer

ences, of his values, of his humanity, he effectively d

terns by which the Orient is represented: "A literar

less directly of living reality" (0, p. 287). But this co

tory is denied to the Other. This missing link is strat

who consciously uses examples from other literature

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

100

protagonists,

to

continuously

uses

Spivak Bertolt nial

deploys

ney, 1989) "using the

I

exam

Bengal

Brechťs

theory,

bring

perfo

have

cal

and have other as t

phrase. Media and the Other: Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky has made a compelling case for the devious ways in which the media manufacture consent. Said cites the media for "molding and manipulating" the representations of the Arab: In the west representations of the Arab world ever since the 1967 war have been crude, reductionist, coarsely racialist, as much of critical literature ... has

ascertained and verified.. ..Yet films and television shows portraying Arabs as

sleazy "camel jockeys," terrorists, and offensively wealthy "sheikhs" pour fourth anyway. ( C&I, p. 36)

This is not an innocent coincidence. Said sees it as a larger, more sinister enterprise guided by social and political structures that are embedded not only in the foreign policy and politics of the nation but also in popular cul-

ture. The Orientalist tropes of exoticism, damsels in distress, dressed in jewels and dancing veils, high melodrama and violence, and massive cinematic sets, such as in Cecil B. DeMille's early epic movies or modern caricature, have indelibly governed and colored the collective imagination of the

public: "While it is certainly true that the media is equipped to deal with caricature and sensation... the deeper reason for these misconceptions is the imperial dynamic and above all its separating, essentializing, dominating and reactive tendencies" (C&I, p. 37). In an article, "Manufacturing Nationalism: Post-September 11 Discourse in United States Media" (Burney, 2002b), I have analyzed the impact of 'manufactured' media images and words that were strategically deployed to construct the patriotic and nationalist narrative of empire after the horrific tragedy of 9/11, achieved by creating an "US(A)/Them," good/evil ideology that brushed every Other with the same stroke of terrorism and violence. One might well wonder what baking a cake has to do with the dis-

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

"Re-doing

the

course it,

Narratives

of

power

where

art's

in

nation

questions.

sages,

of

nationalism the

baking

supreme

As

a

reality,

or

of

knows,

as

natio

over

hys

the

m

meaning, personal

advertising

the

ap

wi

nationalistic

one

power

in

flag

cakes

constructing

in

subconscious

women ample

on

Empire"

and

images

lessons

influence the

of

vehicles

as

sex

used

to

representation

s

of

made into what the media makes of us. Untold Stories

Said's point about exclusionary, selected, and distorted Orientalist representations of the Arab can be applied to any group, minority or nationality. In Across the Atlantic: The Story of Portuguese Canadians (Burney, 2001), I

have used Brechtian techniques of representation such as story, montage, disjuncture to re-present what I have called the "shared (hi) stories" of eth-

nocultural groups who are marginalized in media, society, and the school curriculum, despite the American 'melting poť and the so-called policy of multiculturalism in Canada - more than 169 ethnic groups live in the coun-

try (see Magosci, 1999). This exclusionary discourse is highly evident in most European and American education systems, where the face of the Other is usually Oriental, Middle Eastern, Latin American, or African. These other stories, histories, pictures, and presence are missing in the literature

that is read and taught in the classroom - there are no protagonists who represent these disenfranchised others, no heroes who are hailed in the media, no history of their lives in the curriculum, or role models of teachers

and principals, politicians and governors. Said also makes the crucial point that in the order of things, language study of Other countries, like Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic, is a mere political

tool for business, imperialism, public relations, and political power; it is certainly not meant for reading texts, appreciating literature, or learning about

other cultures. As a result of these strategic practices, the representation of the Other is robbed of its richness, wholeness, history, and aesthetics, be-

coming a means of dehumanizing the Other. The East, therefore remains

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

an

ob

102

forever

fragmented,

pete with the power other words, the kn stereotypes

ences,

cial

class,

cultural has

highly

divers

gender,

the

sees

14

official

religions

or

disciples,

to

be

who

distinctions, non-literate, classes,

ar

dif

lan

of

th

Zoroastrians,

considered

nants

re

difference

predominantly

South, all

is

internal

the

f

t

such

as

privileg

palaces

of

the

sailed

and

slu

ancient

dians from all walks of life are stamped as 'subaltern subjects' in postcolonial representations. All individual differences are erased in stereotyping; blanket statements about the Other are taken for granted. As Said states, while Arabs are presented as prospective terrorists, nobody knows the author Naguib Mahfouz, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. The fact that the Other can be normalized is a far-fetched notion. That the

Arabs are also great writers, artists, historians, and mathematicians, and also everyday normal people, is an alien concept in the West. Here I would like to cite an oral history excerpt from actual interviews that are used in Across the Atlantic to show how the Other is stereotyped. A professor of Por-

tuguese descent, currently teaching at a leading Canadian university, tells the story: Every time I answer the typical Canadian question, "Where do you come from?'

the comment which generally follows is: "Really? You are Portuguese? My cleaning lady is Portuguese too!" What am I supposed to say? "How interesting?" But from now on I won't be able to resist adding, "Really? The 1998 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature is Portuguese too!. ..I am still double checked when I answer another common question, "What do you do?" It is hard for some peo-

ple to believe that a Portuguese woman can do more than 'clean houses' in wealthy neighborhoods. Cleaning a house is as worthy as being a teacher. But, we all know that the status attributed to the two different jobs is as similar as

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

" Re-doing the Narratives of Empire" 103

going out for a burger and going out to a chic French restau p. 35)

In another interview, a Portuguese Canadian schoolteacher, who had graduated from a top university, related this anecdote: Everyone assumed that since I was Portuguese, I was in construction. One Pro-

fessor told me that perhaps I should take up something mechanical as a trade.

And I told him my dad had eight children and I want to turn things around. (Burney, 2001, p. 35)

It is impossible to recognize the truth of one's experiences in the popular media; as Spivak has said, she sees herself as a sign without a referent images of scholarly, acculturated, intelligent, secular women from India hardly ever appear in the media. The power of the Western media to represent the Other World is boundless - the far-reaching CNN and BBC represent the world from their own point of view, with their own selective bias and Western Eurocentric perspective. As Said comments, there are a small minority of contesting marginal voices, "but journalistic and academic critics belong to a wealthy system of interlocking informational and academic

resources with newspapers, TV networks, journals of opinions, and institutes" at their disposal (C&I, p. 28). One feels helplessly crushed under the big media machine with flimsy reportage, mixing of the trivial and the seri-

ous, sensationalist 'talking heads/ and the desire to grab the headlines at any cost. It is very rare that one finds images of the East except for those of

disasters, earthquakes, or famine. The present media scandal of press mogul Rupert Murdoch's monopoly empire, resulting from the hacking of private telephone calls in Britain by the News of the World and the efforts to hack the telephones of the families 9/11 victims, tells the sad tale of how low the

media can stoop. While one may raise questions about this media manipulation, the abysmal representation of the Arab, or of Islam, or of the Other, is often taken for granted.

Representation, in other words, is crucial in constructing ideology, meaning and attitudes, and Said's work has drawn attention to this important and overlooked area. The next chapter highlights the theme of resistance to the hegemony of Orientalism.

This content downloaded from 62.197.152.35 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:29:59 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER

FOUR

Resistance and Counter-Discourse Writing Back to the Empire The post-imperial writers of the Third World therefore bear their past within them - as scars of humiliating wounds, as instigation for different practices, as

potentially revised visions of the past tending toward a postcolonial future, as

urgently reinterpretable and redeployable experiences, in which the formerly silent native speaks and acts on territory reclaimed as part of a general movement of resistance, from the colonist. (C&I, p. 212)

The major theme of Culture and Imperialism (1993) is the resistance of t subaltern to colonialism through forms of 'writing back' to the empire

creative and critical ways in order to create a counter-discourse to po

and imperialism. "Resistance, far from being merely a reaction to imper

ism, is an alternative way of conceiving human history" (C&I, p. 216), Sa

writes, highlighting the importance of postcolonial resistance that unde

cuts the tropes of Orientalism, narratives of empire, and colonial discou

Culture and Imperialism is considered to be a 'sequel' to Orientali

(1978), but it is neither as radical, controversial, nor as epoch-making as

earlier work. It is less theoretical, less scholastic, and more overtly politic

with references to American foreign policy - the Gulf War, Iran, Nicarag

Vietnam, the Palestinian question, and other world issues of the time re forced with the essential theme of Orientalism. The representation of the

in Western political and cultural discourse, which was an extremely sensit

issue for Said, is critiqued in depth here in a moving and convincing man This topic was discussed in some length earlier in chapter three.

Culture and Imperialism also sheds light on the role and responsibilit

of a public intellectual. Unlike Orientalism , the book focuses on the patte

of imperial, cultural, political, and literary writing that reveal the possib

ties of alternatives - of new configurations and new modes of resistance

imperialism. Said reads modern canonical literary texts closely and d

deep discourse analysis of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Kipling's Kim , E.

Forster's A Passage to India, Camus' L'Etranger, and several other texts s

as Ngugi's The River Between and Salih's Season of Migrations to the Nort

which 'write back' to the empire. Some of these critiques of representat have been considered in this writing.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

106

Imperialism Said

makes

perialism

politan

and

a

is

the of

colonization with

a

other It

is

crucial

deep

hand,

d

"pract

center

implanting

Colo

rulin

settlem

is

over"

investmen culture

ingenious

and

is

int

gued and represented elaborates on the not means

of

which

crept

that

are

site"

undercutting into

central

and

in

mo

(contrapuntal)

res,

unexpected

experiences

p

com

based

on

335) are tools that can "re-doing the narrativ aforementioned lect

many these The

contemporary

methodologies strategy

form

of

that

'writ

resistance,

hegemony

ratives

of

of

and

of

of

undercu

empire

"writing

narratives

f

and

back the

-

t

Orien

ful or a more process" (C&I,

powerf p. 216)

praises

Rushdi

Salman

[A] brilliant work based with all its anomalies a scious

effort

transform histories of

is

to

it, of

resistance

enter

to

it

particular

writing.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

int

make

Th

Resistance

and

critics,

Counter-Discourse

and

intellectuals

in

(C&I, p. 216)

Indeed, Rushdie, who won the Booker Prize for this novel, which was read by thousands of people around the world in translation, creates an oppositional narrative of empire by inventing a protagonist who was born on the

midnight hour when India gained independence. Deploying indigenous Indian characters, using Urdu words and names as common parlance, normalizing other Indian cultural scenarios and actions, bringing the Other into the

mainstream, Rushdie literally turns the Eurocentric overtones on their head, de-centering colonial discourse. Rushdie seems to be actually writing in Urdu - stylistically, idiomatically, and culturally - with inflexions and ex-

pressions, variations and tonalities from the rich 'Hindustani' language. However, the writing happens to be in English, and its rhythms sound like transliteration. This, I feel, is the quintessential reason as to why his style is

found to be fascinating, idiosyncratic, curious, and new by Western critics and readers. For someone familiar with Urdu it seems pretty mundane. This is indeed the construction of a new stylistic and thematic counter-discourse to the narratives of empire.

Against the Grain

Interventions by non-European writers, artists, scholars cannot be dismissed or silenced, as these interventions are a part of a political movement

and its guiding imagination. They are a form of intellectual energy that wishes to inscribe itself as a counter-discourse in an effort by formerly colonized countries to regain national identity. A counter discourse in this context is a form of deep resistance that speaks through creativity, words, and actions, deliberately negating the dominant discourse of colonialism. A counter-discourse is a re-inscription, rewriting and re-presenting in order to reclaim, reaffirm, and retrieve subject peoples' ownership of their own lives, which had been appropriated by the colonizers; it is a discourse that

goes against the grain to challenge assumptions of imperial power. A counter-discourse tries to generate new narratives, new paradigms of em-

powerment and resistance for the oppressed, colonized, and subjectified peoples and nations. Resistance is not practiced only through works of literature but is also evident in the pull away from separatist nationalism toward an integrative view of human community.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the

p

1Q8

The

key

point

is

to

"prisoners

in their ow imprisoned by struct and intellectual movem fueled by the fight f women, who were jo very evident in the P which was using poetr the people to the figh but peace-loving phi (1861-1941), the firs warned of tionalism,

the conform such as Ern

the

idea of non-Weste alist philosophies" wo to be abused by Arabs But India's answer, as alism but to find a cr consciousness" (C&I, p world renowned and an open-air university (House of Peace) in Ca to the British Raj. Sha tionalist activity. Tag the

world,

teaching

a

fo

indigenous

and

a

new

was

a

form

dercut

center

the

form of

of

a

lib

writin

hegemonic

toria

had declared her Today, Visva-Bharat full-fledged universit serving national cultu tity and a resistance collective memory; c pride and emotions; tionalist songs and mu

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Resistance

that

and

Counter-Discourse

became

symbolic

of

res

local forms of resistance:

Local slave narratives, spiritual autobiographies, prison memoirs form a counterpoint to the Western powers' monumental histories, official discourses, and

panoptic quasi-scientific viewpoint. (C&I, p. 217)

The practice of "re-doing the narratives of empire" or of creating a counter-

discourse can be achieved in diverse ways by different authors. Said explains: The tentative authorization of feminine experience in Virginia Woolf s A Room of One's Own, or the fabulous reordination of time and character giving rise to the divided generations of [Salman Rushdie's] Midnight's Children, or the re-

markable universalizing of the African-American experience as it emerges in such brilliant detail in Toni Morrison's Tar Baby and Beloved. The push or tension comes from the surrounding environment. (C&I, p. 334)

These texts are not master discourses, he says, but they create a counter narrative of resistance in their own terms. Said is implying that creative and

ingenious means of undercutting the dominant discourse are being used by other writers to disjuncture the grand narratives. Currently, more and more writers from the former colonies are experimenting with literary forms like

parody, satire, comedy, irony, humor, use of indigenous language, and dialect, among other styles, to create a counter-discourse in order to undercut the grand narratives of empire.

Rivers of Darkness and Light

Conrad's controversial novella, Heart of Darkness, which Said analyzes in great depth, is indeed a classic example of a Voyage south' - or a journey of the white man into southern colonial lands where darkness prevails, where the other is depicted as wild, savage, and barbaric. But these journeys south also germinate resistance - other voyages, the voyages north, act as a coun-

terpoint, as the reversal of colonial discourse, very much a postcolonial strategy of critique. Conrad's highly acclaimed canonical novel has received much attention from Said as well as from Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian Nobel

laureate. In 1977, Achebe presented a satirical and humorous lecture on a very serious topic: a biting critique of the representation of Africa and Afri-

cans in Heart of Darkness. The original speech has now become a popular

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

110

but

controversial

(Achebe, about

piece

1989),

the

of

racist.

essa

whic

representat

literature,

Thus,

derogatory,

ho

Achebe and

dehu

racist terms.

Silence and Frenzy Achebe pointedly cites "demonic repetition" as a stylistic device in Conrad's novel, where two major images define the African - one of "silence" and the other of "frenzy." Achebe comments pungently that the native cannot speak

because he is so busy with his "frenzy." Achebe makes fun of the consistent repetition of the images of silence and frenzy that create a dire, dismal, and

fearful symmetry of vision and mood, defining Africa in iconic terms of darkness, frenzy, and silence. The picture of the looming black African figure is invariably represented with images of rolling eyes, long limbs, and motifs of darkness. The African is represented as savage and evil, the antithesis to the European white-man and to civilization itself, a quintessential Other, the foil to light and goodness. There has been a great deal of positive response and some criticism of Achebe's staunch position and his blunt critique of Conrad as a racist. However, it is to be noted that Achebe was trying

to emphasize his point about the marginalization, denigration, and derogatory representation of the African at a time when Africanism was emerging as a movement and was fighting for space in the North American university

curriculum, with protests and debates, such as the famous Stanford Core Curriculum controversy in 1988, discussed later in the book.

Unlike Said's complex literary analysis of Heart of Darkness, Achebe's point of view is straightforward and pointed. As a literary critic, Said is ap-

preciative of "Conrad's majestic prose," which camouflages many inconsis-

tencies and discrepancies in his narrative. However, Said is critical of the

Orientalist representations of the age-old discourse of empire: "Conrad's narrative is preoccupied with jungle, desperate natives, the great river, Africa's dark life." This imagery constructs the ideology of Africa's otherness,

difference, and 'backwardness.' Conrad's audience was European, and the narrative of his protagonist, Marlow, is an acknowledgement of Europe's world significance. As Said explicates:

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

c

Resistance

and

Counter-Discourse

[T]he inclusive cultural forms are markedly ideological and se concerned just as the pictures ing.

..it

rules

Said

effectively

over

and

remarks

silences

represents

that

as

the

domai

creatur

not comprehend that the n non-European world resisti eignty

the can

and

reclaim

discourse,

The

independence

darkness" a

itself

Marlow's young great

ture

journey naïve

blank

about

up

the

the

and

a

t

the

Con

explorers,

protagonist

acknowledges

spaces

on

the

imperialism which

ma

(C&I,

sedimented

Orientalism,

T

Quest

Marlow

of

and

30).

from

travelers,

and

When

p.

literature

Imperial

colonial

(C&I,

p

textua

has

had

a

imperial

management practi positional thinkers' like Ma

readings tives,

on

much

the as

Orient:

Marx

"Con

and

Eng

can ignorance and superst reproduce "the aggressive c (C&I, p. 188), just as discus Forster,

encoded speare and

in

to

the

the

Ngugi

of

etc.

of

to

is,

of

a

Conrad

empire

throu

Resistance

literature

and

That

novels

Austen

ideology

Tropes But

Camus,

the

of

resistan

Sudanese

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Taye

112

topoi of colonial cul claiming them for t words,

postcolonialism

rewriting The

River

into

means

cure,

to

live,

happy."

This

is

or

empire.

n

by

river

on

J

t

bring-ba

scorning

(Cited

a

grand

Between

Conrad's

will

and

the

in

form

dr

C&I,

of

p.

wri

Ngugi's

river

sustenance,

unlik

reversed,

creating a c Conraďs aggressive and mystery are nev gentle, and deliberat Ngugi's novel "the w

quiet

ates

life

a

turn

of

new

to

an

the

Afric

mythos

wh

African

A

indigenous, ingeniou identity through it wherein art and cultu voice,

In

re-presenting

Tayeb

Salih's

the

Nile

whose

the

theme

position

person versed voyage

and

to

of

the

the

first

itself

thirdly

Western come

Seaso

water

the

rive

dark

British

-

narr

is

rever

because

metropolis. center

of

from

ment,

breaking

protagonist.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

a

throug

discourse of

t

It

the

is

a

I

th

m

do

rev

Resistance

tive

and

Counter-Discourse

genealogy

of

re-presentation,

writing speak?"

seems

Yes,

narratives,

not

to

the

and

power.

other

and

discourse.

reaffirmation

tion

of

the

powerful

Thus lenses, an

is

a

Said

also

tellers

form

th

of

not

just

represen

of

poet,

the

Labels like 'Indian/ or 'woman' or 'Muslim/ or 'American' are not more than on a global scale. But its worst and most paradoxical gift was to allow people to believe that they were, mainly, exclusively, white or black or Western or Orien-

tal. Yet just as human beings make their own history, they make their cultures and ethnic identities. (C&I, p. 336)

Said is cognizant of the polyphony of literatures coming out of postcolonial countries, ironically still garbed in colonialist nomenclature and known as

commonwealth literature. He acknowledges these new intertwined and overlapping histories: Today writers and scholars from the formerly colonized world have imposed their diverse histories on, have mapped their local geographies in, the great canonical texts of the European center. And from these overlapping yet discrep-

ant interactions the new readings and knowledges are beginning to appear. (C&I, p. 53)

In short, Saiďs goal has been to "reverse the gaze of the discourse, to ana-

lyze it from the point of view of an 'Oriental' - to inventory the traces upon. ..the Oriental subject, of the culture whose domination has been so powerful a fact in the life of all Orientals" (0, p. 25). This reversal of the Western hegemonic gaze is the most important feature of postcolonial resis-

pos

notion

starting points... imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

K

stories."

strong

expounds

[C

Orien

effectua

is

and

c

other

of

'progressive'

many

ries

says

of

and

Orient

studied

an

sub

territory"

tropes

mode

the

Urdu

and

Said

fictive

to

obj

the

subaltern

an

this

tance

the

be

He

114

tance

exhibited

reclaiming,

Other

and

followers In

the

occupies sions

of

Each the

reaffi

recurring

Shakespeare's one.

wri

Tempests

Another two

in

a

Ariel,

culture

The

grand

political

allegor -

special

new

m

of

plac

Tempest.

American story,

and

invi

cultural

tale

of subjugation an usurps the natives' id

nity

tried

in

Europe,

and

Austr

oppressed

C

214). Caliban and Pro slave/master relatio pasts

replay

reveal

the

conscious forming histories.

Prospero

passions

effort it

to

while

This

of

pl

ackn

strateg

Said's intention in his work has been to show how a discourse of Orien-

talism can hurt, harm, and destroy the humanity and dignity of the Other. However, Said is disappointed that his wish "to create a non-coercive, non-

dominative and non-essentialist knowledge" of Orientalist representation has "been thought of [more] as a kind of testimonial to subaltern status the wretched of the earth talking back - than as a multicultural critique of

power using knowledge to advance itself (Said, 1995, p. 336). This might

have been true in the early years of controversy on the part of a minority of critics - such as the Orientalist scholar, Bernard Lewis, who was himself the

subject of Said's critique - but this does not hold true any longer. Oriental-

ism has grown in stature and prestige, establishing itself as a profound cri-

tique of subjugation through textuality and the tropes of representation More than three decades after its publication, Orientalism is still considered

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Resistance and Counter-Discourse 115 a definitive treatise that has influenced the minds and hearts of hundreds of readers. Politics of Liberation

Said's writings on representation and resistance have thrown light onto what

has become a critical area of investigation in postcolonial theory. Indeed, the

deconstruction of images, words, and ideology hidden in the underlying structures of representation and discourse has become one of the most used strategies in postcolonial critique. We are what and how we are represented in story and history. Said has chosen narrative and literature to project his theory of Orientalism because "stories are at the heart of what explorers and

novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity" (C&I, p. xii). As Clifford Geertz has said, "Stories are what we tell ourselves about ourselves."

Postcolonial writers from formerly dominated societies bear their wounds and scars within them not only as memories, but also as new visions of the past and future, as Said has discussed (C&I, p. 212). Representation of the mythologies of the past is the task of the postcolonial

subject, who wishes to revise, re-write, re-present his or her own untold story. Said's greatest achievement is to move from a 'politics of blame' to a 'politics of liberation.' The politics of blame creates rage, making the Other gloat over his achievements, causing greater hostilities; thus, the cycle of animosity goes on instead of affirming the interdependence of various histories. Here Said seems to be striking the note raised by Fanon in an anticolonial context, and by Paulo Freire in the educational field - to move towards a politics of liberation, not of blame, which frees the Other by giving her the gift of the word, the voice to speak, and the pen to write.

The epoch-making journey from Orientalism to Culture and Imperialism has been an eye-opening exposé of the strategies and tropes by which the Orient/Other has been historically, culturally, and politically constructed as the binary opposition of the Occident/West. That the hegemonic notion of empire is buried in literary and political textuality has been delineated by Said, leading to the idea of resistance and a note on the possibility of reconciliation and peace: No one can deny the persisting continuities of long traditions, sustained habitations, national languages, and cultural geography, but there seems no reason but fear and prejudice to keep insisting on their separation and distinc-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

116

tion....

reality

Survival

cannot

in

be

fact

p. 336)

This is a pretty mellow conclusion to the extensive work, Culture and Imperialism, revealing Said's long journey into the history of colonial discourse: countries, cultures, and histories are inextricably linked, one affecting the other. As Said reiterates, "The map of the world has no divinely or dogmati-

cally sanctioned spaces, essences, or privilege" (C&I, p. 311). He elaborates upon this sense of interdependence and mutual borrowing here: The history of all cultures is the history of cultural borro wings.... [J] ust as west-

ern science borrowed from the Arabs, they had borrowed from India and Greece. Culture is never a matter of ownership... but rather of appropriations,

common experiences, and interdependencies of all kinds among different cultures. (C&I, p. 217)

This interdependence of texts is what one forgets while valorizing Western culture over the vast treasure of knowledge and cultures of the East. This mutual mixing, hybridity and intertextual East/West aesthetics, as I have called it, is not just a proposition, an idea, or a notion, but also a worldly reality, to use Saiďs term. So, what is the World that the text represents? What is the role of the Text in the World? What is the ideology that in/forms the work of an author? And who is the Critic? Above all, what is the task of the

Teacher? These are questions I attempt to explore in my next chapter, "The World, the Text, and the Teacher."

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:49 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

is

depriv

CHAPTER FIVE: The World, the Text, and the Teacher: Contrapuntal Analysis and Secular Criticism Author(s): Shehla Burney Source: Counterpoints , 2012, Vol. 417, PEDAGOGY of the Other: Edward Said, Postcolonial Theory, and Strategies for Critique (2012), pp. 117-141 Published by: Peter Lang AG Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42981702 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Counterpoints

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER

The

FIVE

Worl

Contrapunt The

point

form

are

is

that

always

they

are

aside

for

ered

dangerous

world,

The

in a

same

The

is

o

a

implic

and

write

World

World,

w

period

which

readers

e

the

or

tak

the

informing

n

all

h

clearly

elucidate

lection

of

essay

and

the

respons

the

inextricable

possibly most v contrapuntal an literary

The that

theory.

World a

text

within

the

words,

a

acq

is

a wor

text

happenings,

is

or

circumstantial

w

r

existing

in a cu litical, and wor (WTC, pp. 31-53 cault's notion of My

position

when

they

human

is

life,

interpreted.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

th

appea and

o

(WTC

118

That

is,

history

texts

and

argues,

culture,

"the

worldly

belong

rise,

matter,"

imperialism.

a

deve as

it

Political

d

ters, as they operate over the East, which i nial and

in

dominance its

the

and

worldliness

word/image

representations litically,

only and

be

and

or

radical

even

studied

culture

above

of

are

-

an

di

hist

tied

u

in

the

idea

tha

Saiďs main argument, in short, is that the Text is related to the World, that

the intertextuality, or the meaning-making process, that emerges from the complex web of associations contained in the text is related to the circumstantial reality of the world. Said writes: Words and texts are so much of the world that their effectiveness, in some

cases even their use, are matters having to do with ownership, authority, power, and the imposition of force. (WTC, p. 48)

The positionality, location, and situation of the world, the author, and the critic are highly important in gleaning the meaning of a text, which, ac-

cording to Said, is not an independent entity as structuralists believed. For

instance, Roland Barthes (1977) theorized certain key structural differences, based on structuralism and linguistics, between a text and a work. The work, he felt, was a finished object, but a text is constructed by weaving

together 'syntagmatic' and 'paradigmatic' features of language; therefore it exists apart from the author in the field of language. It can be read by the

reader's response to it, and the author is merely a function of the text.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

r

through

The Text-in-the-World

Barthes characterizes the text as follows:

i

the

and

beyond

point

together

po

is

The World , the Text, and the Teacher 119

A text is not a line of words releasing a single "theologi

sage of the author - God) but a multidimensional space

writings, none of them original, blend and clash. (1977, p

Such thinking had managed to divorce the text from

and circumstances. On the end of the spectrum, Sa

form of cultural production and it cannot be divor

power and culture through which it is produced. Sa

criticism that deals with the textuality of the text with

ing it, firmly in the power relations of worldliness the first place. Hence, the text does not exist above

semiotic, linguistic aura, but rather lives in the mat

ing and breathing author has produced it culturally

reiterates his position on the importance of the wo

"Texts make up what Foucault calls archival facts, t

as the text's social discursive presence in the world" The Author Is Alive and Well

Said contends that the author is alive and well, not 'dead,' as Barthes, Fou-

cault and other poststructuralist theorists believed. The text is a form of cultural production, connected to the author's location in culture and the world. Meaning does not simply reside in the reader's response but is also understood through the consciousness of the author. Said was getting increasingly disapproving of literary theory for the sake of literary theory. He writes critically of the focus of literary theorists on tropes and aporias of the

text, while discarding the actual circumstantial reality of the text-in-theworld:

As it is practiced in the American academy today, literary theory has for the

most part become isolated, alienated from the circumstances, the events, the

physical senses that make it possible and render intelligible as the result of human work. (WTC, p. 4)

The intricate nuances, the theoretical terminology, the play on words and meaning, and the use of technical devices had become the trademark of lit-

erary theorists, but this kind of critique did not appeal to Said, as it had nothing to do with the actual political and social reality of the world. He goes on to explicate that, despite its theoretical brilliance, literary theory had not translated into the everyday lives of people:

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

120

In

having given up the of the text, contem

doxes the

citizens

forces,

Here

of

modern

multinational

Said

is

in

disag

poststructuralist

gist

and

resides

Said A

in

is

the

erence

is

not

Ricoeur Saiďs

of

r

actualize

the

seems and

(1

without

to

deferred,

outside

férance,

interpre

Ricoeur's

terpretation,

air"

theo

semiotician.

cites

text...

s

cor

to

the

argument

in

th

world

be

'post

here

c

My

contention is that w not merely the alchemi worldliness, for they to are p. 35)

felt

regardless

Thus, not only the text but also the critic is bound by time, place, and the circumstantial reality of the world, and also by her or his own bias or location/ as Spivak and Bhabha have called it. A text does not exist 'in the air' as an ephemeral entity, but is tied up with worldliness, as are the author and the critic. Indeed, this theoretical position of tying up culture and literature with the World is Saiďs greatest contribution to literary and critical theory.

It has many implications for Education, pedagogy, and teaching praxis, which are discussed later in this chapter.

Language and Culture Saiďs erudition, creativity, and vast knowledge of both Arabic and Western

scholarship is evident as he juxtaposes the important philological problem of the interpretation of texts with examples of leading Arab linguists from Andalusia in the eleventh century. There were two schools of thought, he

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of

wh

The World, the Text, and the Teacher 121

explains - the Batinists and Zahirites. On the on

"that meaning in language is concealed within wor

had a surface meaning, one that was anchored in p

stance, historical or religious situation" (WTC, p. 36 Zahirite's effort was "to restore by rationalization

in which attention was focused on the phenomena

on hidden meanings" (WTC, pp. 36-7). Said itera

century theories of language represent a thesis fo

significant form, in which. ..worldliness, circumsta

as being incorporated in the text" (WTC, p. 39). Ap

own point regarding texts, this example from Eas

be an element of a deliberate strategy on Said's pa

of the Other into the mainstream of Western know

ing the Other. The example also shows how deep a

Arab knowledge was in the middle ages, address sider to be modernist, if not postmodernist.

This eleventh-century reference to highly adva

garding textuality stands in sharp contrast to

scholarship in our academic discourse. It also contr

talism and the denigration of Eastern knowled

thinkers, such as John Stuart Mill, the champion of

states that his doctrines on liberty "were only mea

tries which were sufficiently advanced in civilizat

ample, India's 5,000-year-old highly advanced civil

knowledge, fame, riches, culture, and architecture

Empire - were not good enough for Mill. Accordin

"sufficiently advanced" to deserve freedom and dem

the advanced culture of India, including the fame

the Mughal Empire and the gold of the temples, th

the East India Company's ships to sail the trade wi

commerce. As another example of this condesce

Said cites Macaulay's famous Minute to Parliament

tion (see Curtin, 1971 for the full text of the Minut I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most

celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works.. ..I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

122

among

them

worth

the

who

whole

could

d

native

l

of the western literatur committee who support t geration to say that all the Sanskrit language is abridgments used at prep

This

is

an

culture by so

on

of

the

Latin.

art,

harata;

Urdu

two

or

and

and

ph

poe

new

indi

'Hindustani,

similar

and

I

Roman

Sanskrit

drama;

-

skrit) were

Other.

culture,

to

almost

the

German

than

birth

incredibly

in

the

Persian.

actually

s

The

flourishi

Orientalist

position

of

was

to

in

forced

fication' national

ferent

in

the

than

from

great lum

poets,

is

The that,

of

m

the

Magna

India's

such

further

as

point

unlike

other are

historical,

analyses.

This

A

the

discussed

crucial

that

su

student

postcolonial

prejudice arly,

by

nationalities,

studying

which

former

identity

generations

tory,

learn

is

of

S

crit

laten

and an

em

exa

the

world in scholarly Vishwanathan (1989), literature was valorize

for

political

control

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

an

The World , the Text, and the Teacher 123

the British Empire, subtly through the tropes of cultur

cipline of English Literature became a means of soc

control in British India. Knowledge of English liter

belonging to a higher class and having greater priv

ogy still persists in independent India, where profic

a passport to success. Yet, it is culture that provides the

tance to imperialism and power, often initiating the

Culture is defined by Said (1993) as those pra communication, and representation - that have

ondly, culture is a concept that contains each societ

that has been known and thought, as Matthew Arn Said has often been critical of Arnold's elitist, Victo

exclusionary category that serves to divide the whea from chaos, and the cultured classes from the mas

as a hierarchy posits that it is important to know ce

art, and culture in order to be a part of Matthew A Culture and T. S. Eliot and F. R. Leavis's notion of 'Tradition.' It is in this

hegemonic way that canons of great works of literature and philosophy a

built. Said feels that while the world is opening up - and he is writing in th

1980s, not in the present polyphonous times of the twenty-first century

more and more exclusions are being created in the university curriculum: For the first time in modern history, the whole imposing edifice of humanistic

knowledge resting on the classics of European letters... represents only a frac-

tion of the real human relationships and interactions now taking place in the world. (WTC, p. 21)

The knowledge, experience, culture, and art of half of the world is missing

most Western curricula, but ironically the West is generally perceived being the most informed, educated, and cultured society in the world. Fac and figures, however, do not necessarily bear this out today, as unfort nately the United States falls back in educational statistics to countries lik Japan, India, China, and so on.

Teaching Practice

Education and teaching have been areas of critique in Said's work as he de-

cries the great divide between education, knowledge, and the World. S

has captured the pulse of university teaching of the period and critiqued th

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

124

notion

of

tion

to

is

humanities appreciate

a

lected texts that are considered to be the best in the humanities - without

any political and cultural critique. When our students are taught such things as "the humanities" they are almost

always taught that these classic texts embody, express, represent what is best in our, that is, the only tradition. Moreover, they are taught that such fields as the humanities and such subfields as "literature" exist in a relatively neutral po-

litical element [and] that they are to be appreciated and venerated, that they define the limits of what is acceptable, appropriate, and legitimate so far as culture is concerned. (WTC, p. 21)

This thought, which was so ingenious and revolutionary when presented by

Said more than 30 years ago, has today become more or less normalized in th

university curriculum, with the addition of a few more courses based on Asia

and African perspectives. However, it is important to note that this curricula

change did not come easily; the battles over Western core curriculum, the pro tests for the inclusion of African and Asian studies, touched all campuses in the

1980s. The great Stanford University debate over Western culture core cur

riculum courses in 1988-1989, which is discussed at length in the next chap

ter, was instrumental in creating a major public controversy that resulted in

some marked changes in university curriculum in North America. Despite th

talk of the 'internationalization' of the curriculum on university campuses to-

day, which more often than not has been a practical endeavor to attract mor

foreign students and greater revenue rather than a philosophical position, ma

jor changes have not yet occurred in the syllabi of university courses. Thoug

some courses in non-European cultures were added, notions of knowledge,

prescribed readings, texts, and teaching still continue to be Eurocentric and ethno-centered, ignoring the other half of the globe.

The World is certainly missing in the curriculum. Moreover, there has been much resistance to change. For instance, 15 years ago when I started applying Said's theoretical perspectives on canonization, Eurocentrism, and the representation of the Other in my graduate classes in Education, I was severely chastised by the then-coordinator of graduate studies for deploy-

ing cultural theory that had nothing to do with Education, rather than sim-

ply teaching from the textbook. It was assumed, without any knowledge or research, that Edward Said's theory and work, like other cultural theory,

had no relevance to or implications for Education. Unfortunately, the disci

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The World, the Text, and the Teacher 125

pline of Education has been deprived of cultural an long in favor of the practical training of teachers tude in most faculties of education.

As a discipline, Education has been historically regimented and regulated into teacher training, rather than the exploration of ideas, pedagogy, and praxis. However, of late these rigid boundaries have slowly given way to pro-

gressive notions of Education conceived in the broader sense, with 'bordercrossings,' interdisciplinarity, and the introduction of contemporary theory such as critical pedagogy and cultural theory. The use of critical approaches to

teaching and learning, and the exploration of the social context of culture, race, class, gender, and equity, and its relationship to pedagogy are expanding the horizon of Education today. Indeed, the context of Educational studies has

delved deeply into social and cultural fields. This experimentation, however, has not gone far enough, but persistence and perseverance in support of innovative ideas is of the essence in Education. As I single-handedly continued to use Said's work, many graduate students were excited and inspired by it and began to deploy it creatively themselves in order to demystify ideas in their own theses. For instance, ideas such as seeing space as the new 'Orient" and applications of Orientalism to the genre of space literature, film, and vir-

tual reality showed some weird ingenuity, among other suggestions.

Said's critique of teaching shows how tradition is used to valorize the canon and establish the authority of texts, which eliminates other voices, other literature and other points of view in favor of the selected Eurocentric

curriculum. As he explains, "The curricular structures holding European literature departments make that perfectly obvious; the great texts as well as the great teachers and the great theories, have an authority that compels respectful attention not so much by virtue of their content but because they are

either old or they have power and they have tradition" (WTC, p. 22). It has

been a deep-seated belief and ideological assumption that the Eurocentric model, which has been handed down through generations, is the best that our

culture has to offer; that everything outside this realm is unworthy to be a part of the curriculum. As most educators know, it has been an uphill battle over the years to fight against the authority of tradition to include studies of

women, indigenous writing and cultures, other literatures such as commonwealth literature, popular culture, Asian and African studies, and the newer critical, interdisciplinary area of Cultural Studies. Indeed, postcolonial theory includes these areas in its cultural critique. As Said acknowledges.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

126

[T]he men, are

realities of women and

the

solicit taken

realities

the

power social

that

attention

into

account

mak of

by

c

cr

The logocentrism, to embedded in academi criticism

and

incorporate into

the

contrapu

Eastern

classroom.

s

Sai

Texts are protean things small, and these require

texts ures deal

are

never

entailed with

ture

of

various

the

the

This

neutral matter

literature

national

or

lines

syste

of

a

gl

working

together.

is

grand

Saiďs

porary

o

metropolitan

contrapuntal

seen

no

textual

and

(

des

pol

tics, and worldliness Word, the Text, and t cism

are

the

Contrapuntal Contrapuntal

center,

from

technique

of

postcolonial

critic from

and the

whose

t

Analysis analysis

the

i

poin

oppositio

strategy

f

accomplishe style

of

virtuoso

formance. Western other,

answer

The

term

classical

with

polyphonic

Glen

style

only

a

pro

"concert

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

'c

musi

an

The World, the Text, and the Teacher 127

"not from a rigorous melodic or formal principle ou

31-33). Said's versatility, ingenuity, and creativi he extrapolates inspiration from Gould's virtuo the art of criticism, where the hidden structures reveal themselves through the play of several writes, "Indeed, Gould's strategy is something of

we might take in trying to get at what occurs bet

aesthetic or textual object" (WTC, p. 32). Said refe

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in the Liszt transcri

discusses Gould's eccentric stylistic exaggeratio ticulous performances, which led Gould to be co "unadorned of all pianists" (WTC, p. 31). Said tells

interview, Gould described the reason for his de in 1964 and confining his work to recordings a

he had developed a "bad performing habit" of i

live performances in Russia, the moment of world

become a "virtuoso": playing to the gallery with a

and style. In his standing ovation performances h

ture of other instruments to "make a flamboyant

skill" (WTC, p. 31). The interjection of the wor

case - had suddenly transformed Gould's usual style into a brilliantly improvised virtuoso perf came a contrapuntal style of playing where differ each other, providing new interpretations. Dani

music director of the Chicago Symphony Orche

an Israeli-Palestinian peace orchestra, has an intere

Said's creative genius.

Edward Said was many things for many people, but in cian's soul in the deepest sense of the word.. ..He wrot

versal issues such as exile, politics, and integratio

surprising thing for me, as his friend and great admi that, on many occasions, he actually formulated ideas

through music; and along the same lines, he saw musi ideas. (Barenboim, 2005, p. 163, my emphasis)

It is truly a testament to Said's genius that he coul The intervention of the world in music, literature,

gives rise to contrapuntal performance and contrap

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

128

This

worldliness

ality,

which

ism,

deconstr

imperialism

analyze pire

a

and

text

the

contrap

reads

between of

and

picture

to

work

trangement, narrative

looking

the

li

perspectives

dual

me

an

ideology

aware

to

can

or

and

of

r

much

Verfr

storytel

again

with

dif

Contrapuntal reading for the "cultural arch discursive

presence

metropolitan narrated

subtext which this

history

that

can

is

inter

subvert

exposed

kind

field and

but

of

Park,

in

t

thro

contrapu

which

Ahluwalia

was

clearly

Contrapuntal reading is terpoint is established perspective,

individual cal

a

counter-n

texts

culture.

Re-reading

the

Contrapuntal

the

to

had

dealing Jewel

not

analysis,

Maharanis

read

as

needs

the

at

just

to

be

a

di

over

India's Crown

garden

the seen

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of

been

with

and

&

Empir

mainstream

that

elabo

(Ashcroft

ritual

contr

The World, the Text, and the Teacher 129

and traditions of India - histories of grand Indian d

British to India, in the first place, the refined Mugh

hal, the Peacock Throne, and the dazzling diamond,

conda and given as a gift to Queen Victoria at her J

the jewel in the crown. In other words, one invariab

Empire was made by the East, by the tea trade, by

jewels, stolen or borrowed, colored by India's rich a

fluenced by the scholarly and architectural traditio

nasty, enriched by the ancient knowledge of the V

breadth of Indian philosophy, and the princely style

and polo, picnics and festivities, which was tradition

arrival of the foreigners. One thinks of polo as a q

but it was invented in India and was even played by

in the seventeenth century as the renowned Rajput

Another simple example of cultural and culinary b

Christmas pudding that developed out of the use of

noted that Queen Victoria covered her head with a l

all her official pictures, very much a traditional Ind

culture of royalty in Britain has borrowed its excesses

the indigenous Indian culture of the past, while con

This is not to condone opulence, decadence, and

contrapuntally, it can be argued that it was this flamb

states, and the aesthetic and scholarly traditions o

brought about the formation of many cultural pra

British Raj, transforming the rather hardy, horseba

land - with Henry VIII's legacy of prison towers an veils, spicy puddings, tea parties, and the grandeur of

the Empress of India. Indeed, the famous British l rowed greatly from the luxurious Mughal gardens,

hal, built in 1653 by Mughal Emperor Shah Ja

insistently, the Orient indeed created the Occident

ample of Erich Auerbach's important work on West

declaring that it was possible to write this treatise onl

exile in Turkey: "In Mimesis, Auerbach does not sim

has lost through exile but sees it anew as a composit

prise" (WTC, p. 24). This point that it is the Other that

extremely important to Said, as he mentions it several

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

130

Mughal miniature paintin the East India Company to

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The World, the Text, and the Teacher 131

The necessity and purpose of contrapuntal re

when one looks more deeply at Said's analysis of t

sage to India, discussed previously. He comments o

that each text contains, which is often juxtaposed tories of conflict": Obviously no reading should try to generalize so much as to efface the identity of a particular author, text, or movement.... Kipling's India in Kim has a quality of permanence and inevitability that belongs not just to that wonderful novel, but to British India, its history, administrators, and apologists, and no less important, to the India fought for by Indian nationalists as their country to be won

back.. ..In reading a text, one must open it out both to what went into it and to what its author excluded. Each cultural work is a vision of the moment, and we must juxtapose that vision with the various revisions it later provoked - in this case the nationalist experiences of post-independent India.... In addition one must

connect the structures of a narrative to the ideas, concepts, experiences from which it draws support. (C&I, p. 67, my emphasis)

In other words, a reading of a text will not be complete unless a critic probes not only what the author included but also what she excluded from the writing. A contrapuntal reading of Kim is conscious of what is excluded by the author - the underlying resistance to the British Raj in India despite Kim's adventures and his approval, endorsement, and normalizing of British rule as being benign, friendly, and good for you. In this sense, contrapuntal

analysis probes a text's multiple, sometimes contradictory, layers of perspectives and visions that are inlaid in the textuality. A famous modern Urdu 'progressive poet' from India, Sahir Ludhianvi, writes an ode to the monumental beauty of the Taj Mahal, but is reminded of the hundreds of workers who toiled and died to build an "emperor's dream of love," which mocks his own love. This would be a simple example of contrapuntal textuality, as it works on several conflicting layers. The poet is not only contemplating the beauty of the Taj but also considering its worldly reality in Said's

terms. Incidentally, Said makes a similar point, citing the book The Country and the City, written by the so-called founder of Cultural Studies, Marxist critic Raymond Williams. Said praises Williams's critique that seventeenth-

century 'country house poems' fail to represent the contested social and political relationships of the time: "Descriptions of the rural mansion, for example, do not at bottom entail only what is to be admired by way of har-

mony, repose, and beauty, they should also entail for the modern reader

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

132

what

in

fact

mansions,

has

the

possessions

been

social

and

sense of the worldliness of texts that needs to be tied to their circumstantial

social and political reality and to be read contrapuntally. Thus, the opera Aida was analyzed contrapuntally by Said in Culture and Imperialism, as discussed earlier, in the context of Egyptology and the opening of the Suez Canal. The difference is that Verdi could and indeed, for the first time in European op-

era, did avail himself of Egyptology's historical vision and academic authority.

The simple point to be made here is that Egyptology is Egyptology and not Egypt. (C&I, p. 117)

The point that is reiterated here is that Egypt is not Egyptology or rather, that Egypt is not what has been made of Egypt through the practice of Ori-

entalism. Egyptology does not represent the worldly reality of Egypt as a living and breathing modern country, by any means. Moreover, Said cites

that Napoleon Ill's speech at the opening of the Suez Canal mentioned France and its canal, but not Egypt, according to Egyptian historian Sabry (C&I, p. 127). These are all aspects of the worldliness of a text that contrapuntal analysis can investigate, rather than focusing on genre, period, and so on: "A contrapuntal reading interferes with those apparently stable and

impermeable categories founded on genre, periodization, nationality or style" (C&I, p. 134).

Other literary works that Said has analyzed contrapuntally - Kim, Heart of Darkness, L'Etranger, A Passage to India, Mansfield Park, Robinson Crusoe, Jane Eyre, for example - gain tremendous depth and provide insights when they are situated in relation to colonial history (C&I, pp. 36, 127, 216). It is for this reason that Austen's work should be read contrapuntally in relation to Fanon and Cabral's (C&I, p. 71). For contrapuntal reading is a strategy for acquiring and discovering multiple global perspectives in the text. Always the lucid explicator, Said reiterates his central point: Contrapuntal reading as I have called it means reading a text with an understanding of what is involved when an author shows for instance, that a colonial sugar plantation is seen as important to the process of maintaining a particular

style of life in England.. ..Contrapuntal reading must take into account both

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

p

theft

The

World

,

the

Text,

and

the

Teacher

processes of imperialism and resist to include what was exclude

reading

It

is

the

for

the

reality

deed,

helps

secular

and the

critic

to

sedimented secular

pro

mean

critic

and

Secular Criticism

Secular criticism is criticism with a 'critical consciousness/ This idea of critical

consciousness is eerily reminiscent of Paulo Freire's concept of 'conscientization' in the politically charged and activist context of social justice. I have tried

to draw a parallel between Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed and what I have

named Said's pedagogy of the Other in the introduction. Though there is no evidence that the two had even met or been influenced by each other's work, both thinkers have played a major role in making Education a 'political act' and

in constructing a pedagogy that is based on the social, cultural, and political discourse of the World. Just as Freire believes that politics and education go hand in hand, Said believes that literature and culture are inextricably linked

with politics. Said's crucial work in making one understand the discourse of the Orient/Other and its insidious operations of representing the Other negatively, is in suggesting that the secular role of the critic, and the need for con-

trapuntal analysis, is central and integral not only in various intellectual areas

but also in educational praxis. Said believes in praxis, similar to Freire's philosophic position on the necessity for translating theory into practice. In Said's

time literary criticism was "located as far away [as possible] from the questions that trouble the reader of a daily newspaper" (WTC, p. 25); his theory has

disturbed this paradigm, making a breakthrough in bringing the World into

the classroom. His notion of open-minded, politically aware, conscientious, and worldy secular criticism has interjected traditional criticism that was a powerful institution from the times of the New Critics and which publicly affirmed the values of the European dominant culture. As Said sums up: Criticism, in short, is always situated; it is skeptical, secular, reflectively open to

its own failings. Secular criticism deals with local and worldly situations. (WTC, p. 26, my emphasis)

The concept of worldliness is once again highlighted in Said's view of textuality and social reality. "The world is too much with us," says Wordsworth

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

134

poetically with

us,

human there

a

differe

within

rights,

are

cannot aloof

in

worldly

afford

and

us,

p

and to

above

s

issu

ign

the

W

quo. Indeed, secular of totalizing concept tience with guilds, s habits

of

mind"

commentator justice,

ing

on

the

the

literary

its

(WTC

with

plight

of

stylistic

criticism

social,

a

ap

as

political,

t

an

and the teacher:

Criticism must think of itself as life-enhancing and constitutively opposed to

every form of tyranny and domination and abuse; its social goals are noncoercive knowledge produced in the interests of human freedom. (WTC , p. 29)

Here Said lays the burden of social responsibility squarely on the shoulders

of the critic. The critic has the moral responsibility to speak out against overt institutional power: "articulating those voices dominated, displaced or silenced by the textuality of texts" which are "a system or forces institution-

alized by the reigning culture" (WTC, p. 53). As a public intellectual himself,

he sets high standards - his extensive work on political and social justice, his candid interviews on the Palestinian situation, his activist agenda, are as extensive as, if not more so than, his academic and scholarly writings. His

academic work possesses unfaltering integrity, sense of purpose, and also persuasiveness (in the context of how influential it has been). The notion of secular criticism stands in contrast to poststructuralism's

inward-looking analysis of texts and linguistic or symbolic constructs, where the intricate play on words and meanings, nuances, and palimpsests can become a highly intellectual game in itself without any social context or reference to the World:

A precious jargon has grown up, and its formidable complexities obscure the social realities that, strange though it may seem, encourage a scholarship of

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The World , the Text, and the Teacher 135

"modes of excellence" very far from daily life in the age

power. (WTC, p. 4)

But no matter how much the intellectuals believe in

Said argues in Representations of a Public Intellectua

responsibility is to the secular world; criticism n

"where it takes place, whose interests it serves, how

and universalistic ethic, how it discriminates bet

what it reveals of one's choices and priorities" (1994b

be reduced, however, to a political position or doctri critical consciousness toward the world. Moreover,

be above the filiations of religion and avoid religio

sees as a trend at the time, evidenced by the publis

Code and other such critical works. As Said writes: "

zations like the Orient, Islam, Communism, or Terro

increased role. ..and this increase is a sign of how st

has affected discourse pertaining to the secular, hi

291). This is a huge fear, indeed, as religion with it and Islamic fundamentalism threatens to infiltrate and contaminate all as-

pects of worldly reality in an attempt to defeat secularism. Amateurism and Criticism

Said has also been critical of the system of academic specialization at universities, which constructs strict boundaries of scholarship - a cult of profes-

sional expertise - thus restricting a critic's commitment to the World of discourse to his own little field of specialization. In contrast, Said introduces

the concept of the amateur critic - the critic who is not locked into narrow professional specializations that produce their own obtuse vocabularies and speak only to other specialists. As he explains in very clear terms, [Specialization and professionalism, allied with cultural dogma, barely sublimated ethnocentrism and nationalism, as well as a surprisingly insistent quasireligious quietism, have transported the professional and academic critic of lit-

erature... into another world altogether. In that relatively untroubled and secluded world there seems to be no contact with the world of events and

societies. (WTC, p. 25)

The specialized language and terminology of critical writing and lite

theory have become increasingly technical, obscure, obtuse, and often fu

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

136

jargonistic Said's

rida

own

and

trived

lucid

acc

style,

other

and

insights

lingo,

postc

obtuse,

and

of

intellect

deconstructionist text."

meaning case

of

with

which

is

from

for

continues the

the

text

Bhabha.

the

to

the

m

re

initiate

affirm

possibility

of

t

chan

An amateur critic should feel free to traverse into different fields and

areas of expertise, and to raise moral questions about worldly issues and concerns. These types of border crossings are necessary for the critic who wishes to relate the text to the world, rather than just enjoy its words. Post-

colonial theory, influenced by Said, believes in returning to the world and engaging knowledge and learning with everyday reality. Criticism need not

be entirely oppositional or dogmatic, but balanced and worldly. There is probably no other contemporary cultural theorist who so strongly believes in criticism's role in interpreting the world and in opposing ethnocentrism, elitism, and one-sidedness, which continue to marginalize the Other. Said's notion of amateurism in criticism is that one does not necessarily need to be an expert, like the Orientalist, to be a critic who takes in the World.

In other words, Said believes in interdisciplinary ways of seeing the world, not just from the point of view of literature but also that of politics, geography, science, history, and so on, while bringing the Other into the mainstream

discourse. Said is an excellent example of what he calls 'amateurism' in criticism, as he himself moves from literary theory to textual discourse analysis to

anthropology to musicology to art to geopolitics to history, all the while reflecting the worldliness of the world and the text in his critique. Incidentally,

Said was criticized for his much-acclaimed Orientalism by critics such as Ernest Gellner, James Clifford, and Bernard Lewis, who felt that he was not a historian but was deploying historiography, not an anthropologist but writing

about anthropological issues, not an Orientalist but writing about the Orient.

These 'boxes' close the intellectual mind from engaging with key social, cul-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

i

Thi

becoming

removed meant

th

Unfortunately,

The

World

turai,

tory.

of

,

the

and

is

a

Teacher

the

to

and

forms

of

World

contains

some

and

from

this

all

texts.

and

extent over

creasing. the

or

be

span

The

part

to

is

of

real

by

the

College

cultu

more

chan

you

world

the

ca

of

the

acc

me

power,

license

today

an

acco

world

Whatever

unwritten

f

revolution

relations

students

exp

hail

tsunamis

the

say,

so

gr

trave

news

youth

World.

governed

iden

with

world,

of

the

and

reflected;

Yet,

than,

Clas

multitu

often

monstrous

time.

centered

having

a

the

With

globe,

t

they

hybrid and

24-hour

of

fe

depl

intercultural

the

troubled

nesses

into

Europe

diversity

of

the

what

technologies,

ternational

for

classroom

sexuality,

contexts,

working

of

say

multicultural

guages

issues

Indisciplinarity,

critics

Bringing

the

means

Other.

colonial

the

and

scholarly

This

the

The

Text,

are

to

r

high

puters, iPhone applications, an have not only traveled in Euro them are involved in internation for Humanity or collaborative, d accessible and open, from the there

are

construct

sentation,

deep the

gaps

and

Orient

teaching,

as

solitude the

and

ultim

educatio

The Teacher

What can the teacher do to bridge this gap, this missing link in teaching and

curriculum, at both the secondary school and university levels? Said had a

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

138

practical

agenda

gram

worldliness

the

of

teacher

particular

as

for

a

th

a

specia

subject

in

t

specialization. This b isolation of ideas, no tunnel

the or

vision,

which

classroom.

specialized

This

p

is

scholars

Western scholarship he opposes th

guages,

teachers

Saiďs ing

to

encompass

unique

what

applies

concept

one

just

loves

as

referentiality degree

that

in

a

the

critic

someone mediate

wi

well and

to

int

field

or

with

of

teach

a

criti

between

seve

world, worldliness, a writer, teacher) is a tions The

pertaining

amateur,

fessional

to

the

po

teac

specialization

terminology;

a

teacher

through a contrapun thinking among stu forms and represent through In ety

is

get

literary aporias

su

med

most

technocrats,

social

dom

the

concerned

mists, of

strategies

watching

justice,

an

oppr

submerged critics

in

important

the

and

te

text,

di

discourse

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

b

o

The

World

,

the

Text,

and

'Universalism' that

should

be

the

Teacher

and

'neutrality'

followed

in

a

academ

believe that universalism implie values being considered 'universa voice emerges from a location, vested

by

interests.

the

ken

advocate,

enced

the

and

tyrants Much its

discourse

Said

politics

schooling. vails

Neutrality

dominant

As

he

turns

and

of

has

of

what

explicates,

of

was

the

and

the

front

idealistic

I

so

say,

s

m

the

diff

he

future

is

-

"

oppositions

exciting

lines

the

for

f

i the self-consciousness of literary a abstract, desperately Eurocentric t

from

-

been

cultural

idealistic

aftermath

and

and

elaborate

where

struggles

co graphic and archeological descripti video or film, photography, memoi periences (C&I, p. 330).

Integrative

oppositions,

hybrid

Strategies

Interdisciplinary

is

the

mark

of

it

should well be the style of ped does not use the word, Said has

his tial

work,

starting

treatise,

talism

so

amateur, ogy,

as

powerful, he

early

Orientalism. can

history,

is

197

the

persuasive,

play

with

sociology,

terdisciplinary

as

It

strategy

a

literat

art,

of

and

critiq

progressive educators at both u deed, Interdisciplinary Studies brings several perspectives to b parative and critical methodolo theory,

a

following

strategy

in

the

lead

criticism,

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of

Said

research

140

arts

and

sciences

and

cultural

proaches mented

The

challen

yield

one

as

an

with

inte

deploy

education

filled

with

scene

linguistic,

which informs how Separatist identity po been

rallying

cries

of

the teacher to bring representation. The t her own amateurism, students and the circu course that can bring can

demystify

Other,

and

areas

o

deconstruc

course and curriculum.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

This pedagogy of the Other can be brought into the classroom by deploying secular criticism and contrapuntal analysis; that is by engaging not merely with the theme and linguistic felicity of a text but also by associating it with

crucial referentiality to the worldliness of the World. In other words, when

the teacher interprets a text as a text-in-the-world, its political, social, and

cultural tropes can be deciphered and its inherent worldliness explored through secular criticism, which does not paint or represent the East as exotic

or remote, or timeless, lost in time and space, but sees it in terms of present

worldly reality. This style of teaching implies not being afraid of Virginia Woolf or Huckleberry Finn or The Merchant of Venice, but rather to use them

like Brechťs 'pregnant moment' or what Oprah Winfrey calls an "ah-ha" moment. The teacher can use this textuality as a teachable moment in relation to

the circumstantial reality of racism or sexism. By further associating these texts with Other texts by Eastern or non-European writers, the teacher can deploy the worldliness of a text to widen the scope of classroom discussion. This worldliness of texts can operate by undercutting canonization, creating intertextuality, and opening windows to the world by the representation of new literatures, new voices, and brave new worlds. Said explicates:

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

The World ' the Text, and the Teacher 141

The major task then, is to match the new economic and

tions and configurations of our time with the startling r

pendence on a world scale... a new critical consciousness

be achieved only by revised attitudes to education. Merely

sist on one's own identity, history, tradition, uniqueness

to name their basic requirements for a democracy and

sured, decently humane existence. But we need to go on

a geography of other identities, peoples, cultures, and t

spite their differences, they have always overlapped 330-31, my emphasis)

In short, Said sees an interdisciplinary, critical,

form of criticism not only as being essential to op

the World, but also as the answer to today's growi

and multicultural hybridity. He makes a call for mo

pretation that are secular and oppositional to offic

fundamentalism, and coercive systems of thought. I

discuss how this integrative and interdisciplinary a

World to the classroom by erasing Eurocentrism fr

I shall focus on how Eurocentrism has been con

politically since centuries of colonization and on ho

through power relations and social and cultural str

nally, I shall discuss the means and measures to un and teaching practice.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:31:56 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER

SIX

Erasing "Using

the

At

the heart of sion lay an und periences, territ

verified

except

white

them.

as

a

Christian

ing

and

the

material

fied so

..

lowe

invigor

and

cen

observe

thoroughly

cultures

an

unstud

Eurocentrism interprets

lenses.

Eurocen

European lization riod

the

to

the

cultu

as

the

that

world

of

to

t

ism, market e trism simulta contributions, science, culture, and civilization of the East. Eurocentrism

also negates the history, story, and importance of half of the globe at the expense of its own grandiose self-image and self-interest.

As an ethnocentered, logocentric discourse, Eurocentrism sees the World solely from the dominant point of view of Europe or the West. It is found in all aspects of life, from philosophy, politics, and economics to geog-

raphy and education. Its influence and impact is felt, especially in questions relating to the curriculum - the canon of literary works, Western culture core courses, values, language and culture, teaching practice and, most importantly, the lack of representation of the knowledge of the East in academic fields. To understand Eurocentrism, one first needs to explore why and how the notion of the supremacy, power, and hegemony of Europe was constructed historically and culturally as a universal value via conquest and

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

144

empire; course

and

and

sciousness

secondly,

ideology

of

'Discovery'

the

as

a

h

worl

histo

and art, as an ethno cover' the world h Europe and

the

center

centrality

idea

the

as

that

time

of

history,

they

Eur

geo

were

'd

tors is central to this discourse. These 'discovered' territories across the

seas may have physically and culturally existed independently - with their own native peoples, their own indigenous languages and civilizations - but

the European conquest is deemed as the defining moment of their existence

Thus, not only areas of human study, such as science, history, sociology, an-

thropology, language, literature, and especially geography, are perceive

from the Eurocentric point of view; the world itself is literally constructe

from the European perspective through the geopolitical structures of Time

and Space. Mapping of the Other

'Discovery' is dependent on cartography and the construction of maps, whose projection is a means of textualizing spatial relations of power, of representing the spatial reality of the Other. The allegorization of space is shaped by cartographers, with projections of maps of the world that privilege certain lands over others by use of the north/south axis maps - which highlight the North more than the South - or projecting special maps cate-

gorizing areas by resources, climate, population, production, and so on which tends to show off the Western hemisphere in a better light. Such mappings create ideology and ways of seeing the South or the East as Other. For instance, the most popular and standard version of the map of the world

has been the Mercator projection of 1569, which represents Europe and the Western hemisphere as much larger than it actually is on the globe. This constructs a powerful, psychological imprint of the superiority and importance of the West on the mind of the viewer. Gerardus Mercator's projection

has influenced the mental map of millions of Westerners throughout the centuries, (in) forming their attitudes of European centrality. As a geogra-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing

Eurocentrism

pher recently note facts but on Merc Mercator tudes

as

map

pivotal

jections of reality and climate focus

raphy

been

tropica

areas,

than

of

Europe,

the

an

other world

which

the

poin

the Eur visual i

over

populated in

becam

becam

unquestion

for centuries, up t popularize the Gail more equitable and a Prime Meridian

The establishment of the Prime Meridian of the world at the Royal Observa-

tory in Greenwich, England during the second International Geographers Conference, held in Rome in 1875 (the heyday of British colonialism), was indeed a symbolic gesture, revealing the prevalence of Eurocentricism. A meridian is a north-south latitudinal line selected as the zero-degree reference point for astronomical observations. Every place on Earth is measured relative to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in terms of its longitude (distance east or west from this line) or latitude (distance north or south from the equator). Thus, all the time zones of the world are based on GMT: "Greenwich, England defines both time and place for the whole world," as the offi-

cial website of Greenwich 2000 proudly states. The Prime Meridian divides the Earth into the Eastern and Western hemispheres - just as the Equator

divides the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Moreover, Greenwich Mean Time, a term referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in

Greenwich, represents Western European Time as well as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), introduced in 1972 as a standard astronomical concept. The Greenwich website declares lightheartedly: So whether you are flying an aircraft, or sailing a ship, or just planning to meet up using your GPS remember that it is measured from Greenwich, England.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

146

On

a

serious

represents of

pire, from

in

the

England,

the

grained

Said and

to

the

United through

res

co

global the

but

U

the

commented

Culture

Europe

quinte the

to

world,

has

ho

imperial

in

Europe

the

note,

and

and

Britain

States, its

as

foreign

du

it

pol

What's in a Name?

The naming or changing of indigenous names to newer, Europeanized versions is characteristic of the mapping of colonial settlements in conquered lands. It is a form of re-inscription, of overwriting the past, of erasing former

culture and identity of peoples and places, and of asserting ownership. Indeed,

the power to name is a privilege that the colonial powers enjoyed. In many instances, the postcolonial nations and places have reclaimed, reaffirmed, and

retrieved their identities by reverting back to their original names; for instance, Ceylon now calls itself Sri Lanka, the city of Bombay, India has changed

its name to Mumbai; and so on. In colonial discourse the role of the native guide who leads the colonizer in his mission of exploration is often erased or

marginalized. A classic example is that of the Nepalese Sherpa guide, Tenzing Norgay (1914-1986), who is now generally considered to be the first person to have reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953, with the Hunt

expedition, but the credit and honor of being the 'conqueror' of Everest has historically been bestowed on Sir Edmund Hilary. Ironically, the one and only photograph of this historic moment on top of Mount Everest is that of Tenzing

planting the British national flag on an ice axe. Hilary is supposed to have commented that as Tenzing did not know how to operate a camera he could not take a picture of Sir Edmund on top of Mount Everest

The Journey South

As a result of the so-called age of discovery or age of exploration, which lasted from the fifteenth century to the seventeenth century, European

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

o

Imper

Erasing

Eurocentrism

navigators

started

routes

spices

as

for

slaves

for

peditions.

First

charting

and

the

147

gold,

European

the

the and

o

n

monar

Portuguese,

a

ish, French, and Dutch, traveled mountains, countries, and contin to

Australia,

setting

the

eighteenth

the

Atlantic

ing' in

the

Lisa

Islands

who

capital,

Canada.

the

pastoral

I

was

Atlantic:

how

from

green

opening

had

The

was

so

arrived

more

colony when mains is

it a

own

strident

of

Goa

was

of

of

Port

North this

A

a

litt

and

dev

throu long

strategic

until and

Indian

c

1961

annexed

city

Azo

groups

India

and

finally by

on

culture in

a

th

valleys

that

lasted

beautiful

frequented

to

advanced

its

of

because

their

Portuguese

1419

organized

Story

Portugal

were

Port

unpollut

immigrant

presenting the

and

Miguel,

experience

Othered,

in

middle

included

"hi(stories)"of grants

São

The

set

leadership

the

in

Remigio,

the

the

both -

trade

century.

under

Madeira

1424,

territory in

up

by

I

beach

and

forei

Errors and Omissions

Christopher Columbus's 'discovery' of America, as every North American student knows, took place in 1492, but fewer students are aware that Columbus had made a crucial error, thinking he had arrived in India, or the East Indies, as it was called, when he landed in the Caribbean Islands. Thus, the islands were later named West Indies, a misnomer that has been

rejected today by the Caribbean peoples because of its colonial, imperial overtones. Moreover, the indigenous peoples of North America were erro-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

148

neously

named

Indian

now much maligned the native peoples an India, despite the que The journey south in lentlessly by all of t most sought-after d temples, the prospec preservation of food. ture that leads to co credited with being journey around the 1498, arriving at the fine cotton fabrics, f da Gama's 'discovery history and taught i other, untold (hi)stor 1497 failed because o to Portugal without fully took abroad Af one of whom, ibn Ma experiences and know vanced navigators w friendly relations wit

pressed with the Por and advanced mater sented the intrusion kets; and that the 'Z agreement with Portu These

are

a

lot

camouflages.

mission,

and

rewarded

da

Gama

broke

the

by

of

imp

Vasco

he

retu

King

made Arab

da

Man

yet

an

trade

in massacres on the coast of Africa and India to take over their trade mo-

nopoly of spices and silks. Yet another voyage was made by Vasco da Gama

in 1502, this time with 15 to 20 well-armed caravels with imperialist inten

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing tions and

Eurocentrism

and

the

expand

command

trade.

149 from

During

this

the

exp

at da Gama's command - hundreds of native Hindus and Arab Muslim trad-

ers were violently massacred. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that up to 400 men, women, and children were locked on board and burned alive over

a period of four days. Today this would be considered genocide. Five hostages were forcefully taken from India as specimens for King Manuel's in-

spection. In 1524, just before his death, da Gama was named Viceroy of India by King Juan III of Portugal.

As a student, I had learned about the grand Eurocentric narrative of Vasco da Gama's discovery of a route to India, but until I researched facts more recently, I did not know of the atrocities, exploitation, and violence that actually occurred. Gayatri Spivak (1990) calls this "epistemic violence,"

the symbolic violence caused by the power to control and disseminate knowledge. Indeed, the narratives of empire of Vasco da Gama's 'discovery' (note that the trade route had already been discovered and used by the Arabs) are part of our folklore, but the reality of the Other, the native, indige-

nous story behind the conquest, remains untold and unknown. The Other hi(story) showing the advancement of Arab and Indian culture and trade, revealing the violent atrocities and failures of the Portuguese mission, is not

part of the popular Eurocentric representation regarding Vasco da Gama's famous navigational achievement. The atrocities, cruelties, and struggles are simply an unpopular version of history from the point of view of the Other.

The Other in history has invariably been written out of the global script, primarily because of Eurocentrism, the biased expertise of Orientalism and

Orientalist scholars, the power of the dominant language and knowledge, the license and means to print and disseminate information, and the Eurocentric social construction of academic curriculum, as well as the everyday universalist discourse of the West.

Other (Contexts Postcolonial theory investigates and explores the underlying structures that lie behind these popular Eurocentric narratives, as discussed in chapter one. In order to balance this Eurocentric narrative, it is important to read other writers, other critics, other stories, from other parts of the world. For instance,

K. M. Pannikar's highly praised and well-researched scholarly history, Asia and Western Domination: A Survey of the Vasco Da Gama Epoch of Asian His-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

150

tory sis

1498-1945

of

the

(1959)

historic

ven

view, providing other that balance the bias o is

used

order

as

to

the

"supplem

make

knowle

Based on Derrida's c knowledge, I have t makes meaning thro discourse. thetics" East

as

That

well

as

instance, to

it

o

where

the

deconstructive

refer

is,

(1989),

We

mode

o

Shakespear

other

render

there have been man play. As discussed ea deconstructively

pedagogical advance either

The

to

mode,

knowledge,

the

East

or

th

the

t

the

presence of the of the East, t strategy complem

absence this by

bringing

estate

of

Antigua other

As

a

the

Mansfield

through

in-depth

meanin

play,"

"double

"dissemination,"

essential forces

of

posit

textuality,'

through

Other

b

throug

Derrida's

emerges

"defe

difference

meaning

stream the

Pa

cont

deconstructioni

"double

make

Other

as

difference.

I

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

a

the

supplem

have

act

Erasing the

Eurocen

graduate

bringing have ern

the

applied

as

well

culture

the

Other

discourse Said

gemony trism

as

of

Africa

to

of

and

this

(my

re

example). of

know

literature

create

Eurocentric

an

an

inte

domination

the

presence

o

Empire

'new'

and

to

marginalize

Arab

Spivak

lev

classroom

texts

for

not

normalizes

Discovery

the

supplement does

texts,

Eurocentrism

in

India,

a

and

and

to

technique

Western

that

Other

both

World

of

151

undergraduate

this

as

and

and

and

trism

Asia

lands by

gave

the

way

European

cient Vedic civilization (1500 bc-5 Empire, as it was called, which r establishment their it

jewels,

was

of

British

spices,

during

the

Raj

riches,

height

in

185

and

rar

of

the

M

first made its inroads into India, s the Great, with his darbar, or cou cians;

his

secular ligions

had of

Hindu

wife,

religion, of

the

attracted

culture,

Joda

Bai,

Deen-e-Ilahi,

world

fame

poetry,

wh

based

(Hinduism,

overseas. and

Bud

The

M

aesthetics

to

1653, had established the Mugha secular (promoting unity between

dia),

of

and

extravagantly

India.

eighth

wonder

or

tomb

in

Indian

estate you

built

of

in

to

knowledge

the

live of

world,

books

was

East

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

of

-

it

th is

Shah

under in

l

J

Mumta

advertising

here?"

the

which

though

memory

history

company

like

rich,

Incidentally,

the

a

fo

pict

West.

152

The

Taj

Mahal

precious

Stories spread has

also

of

far

argued

appeal

at

Agra,

gemstones

and

feels

the

and in

by

learn

wide,

both

that

the

construction

ment

of

Europe

o

trad

in

derived

b

Ori

influence

social

course

In

Mug

of

the

from

version

of

Eurocentris

history

of

conquest

The

Gifting

The

history

tale

as

not

the

of

pires.

Bombay

of

reported

just

away

of

In

an

the by

Br

We

appropria

parts

of

appr

colloquial

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

pa

Erasing Peter

to

Eurocentrism pay

birthday

had

present.

gained

Bombay

-

as

a

gift

to

Charles

signed

a

started guese

The

in

now II

in

as

of

In

marriage

at

the to

Mumbai of

Cat

addition, with

trade

into

India

away

actually

part

agreement

inching

gave

Braganza's

re-named 1662.

the

Portuguese,

there,

prosperous

Gateway

perhaps,

The

England

trade

a

or,

ground

to

but

India,

Paul"

153

in

power

Bombay

city

of

Charles

t

the

spic as

th

Harb

Bomba II

in

16

Divide and Rule

Britain became notorious for its Divide and Rule policy during the partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan after independence, on August 15, 1947, raising the specter of animosity, atrocity, and bloodshed between

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

154

Hindus by in

and

the

East

India,

Sultan lies'

Muslims. India

as

they

against

through

notoriously more nial

They

from

the

mar),

with

as

and

north the

of

which

ou

to

the

exceptio

Bagh

Eurocentric

became

strat

beating

sustained

riod

Nizam

Hyderabad,

achieved

-

of

established

Jallianwalla Many

Shivaji

offers

rich

powers,

such

Comp

pitted

ferociously,

India.

Ho

by

Mys

Mas

histo

struggle

the

sacrific

struggle,

is

oft

independent...."

the

country

su

knowledge the long fig even the addition of a f fought

for

independen

Other.

Moreover, by

the

European

underplayed walla dier

in

stories

Bagh

in

coloni

Eurocen

massacre

General

R.

Eurocentric

E.

celebrating

walla

Bagh

go

Dy

the

(garden],

to

in

H.

history

were

warning,

of

on

a

Ba

ord

pla

1,650 rounds were fir hausted. The entrance blocked. The British wounded,

but

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the

India

Erasing

Eurocentrism

155

and 1,500 wounded. Dyer walk medical help to the wounded, d wounded died alone without aid. However, a woman, Rattan Devi, defied the curfew and stayed up all night with the body of her husband to protect it

from animals and vultures. She reported children's cries for water and their

bodies writhing in pain. There was no possibility of escape from the site: People jumped into a solitary well in the compound to escape the bullets. Later, 120 bodies were pulled out of the well. The images remind one of people jumping off the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, a ghastly sight that is entrenched in our collective memory.

A preserved wall with bullet holes at the Jallianwalla Bagh memorial in Amritsar, India.

This was indeed a cold-blooded massacre of innocent civilians, but it

was condoned by the British. The House of Lords passed a measure commending actions against 'another Indian Mutiny.' The incident was largely

overlooked by Eurocentric narratives of empire. Dyer had been informed that a political meeting was going to take place in the garden, while others

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

156

celebrated quiry,

held

"obliged

he of

later,

to

could

come

Baisakhi. teach

have

back

Sikh

revenge, the

was

lianwalla posed

was

with

in

Londo

Michael

hanged

Bagh

to

l

teenager

and

Punjab,

Singh

les

and

Dyer

presented

young

that

a

disper

again

myself."

was

H

have

O

in

L

massac said,

"T

their Motherland" (r internet, May 30, 20 pendence right'

The

-

movement,

the

slogan

Eurocentric

of

pers

oppositionally

differe

ten

point

his

from play

portant tor to

and

get

the

The to

use

the

a

Devil's the

rebellion

pe

victim,

clearer

figures,

and

o

D

an

view

version

against

the

pendence by Indian h British history, there bellion was merely a major revolt against India here, but such colonized countries. A of empire" in order t

It is also important stand the indigenous centric university a Other perspectives.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing

Eurocentrism

157

Exhibitions and Eurocentrism

By the eighteenth century, the concept of Europe as a sign of superiority in

opposition to the world's cultures had become firmly consolidated. As Said has pointed out, Europe, or the West, stood as a binary opposition to the Orient or the East, the former as advanced, civilized, and superior, the latter as primitive, uncivilized, and inferior, as seen in Orientalism. This sense of power

and superiority needed to be transmitted to the public in order to create a rationale for the colonial project Imperial displays, both in the metropolitan centers and the colonial peripheries, were organized as exhibitions of power, conquest, and the appropriation of the 'exotic' Other. From the early days of

exploration, people, plants, specimens, and spices became artifacts of empire and were brought back as loot to be exhibited for the ordinary people in mu-

seums, private collections, and parks. What Bhabha (1994) has called 'ambivalence' is visible in these exhibitions, promoted as gestures of goodwill to spread knowledge and showing both curiosity and disdain, admiration and repulsion, love and hate, between the colonizers and the colonized. Many pri-

vate and public zoos were established during this period. People of other cultures were brought back to be introduced in courts and private salons or to

be participants in entertainment shows. Not only were indigenous tribal members, native 'Indian princesses,' medicine men, shamans, and so on exhibited as 'exotics,' but also Westerners who had spent time with the 'savages,' along with parrots, turkeys, and other species. These were shows of imperial power and conquest signifying victory and empire. Into the Heart of Africa Exhibit: Cultural Racism?

A major modern exhibition, "Into the Heart of Africa," consisting of African artifacts brought back by Canadian soldiers and missionaries from the African

colonies, was held at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, Canada, from 1989 to 1990. It became one of the most controversial exhibitions at

ROM, inciting continued protests, letters to newspapers, articles, public d

bate, picketing in front of the venue, street marches, police confrontations

and violence. Not just African Canadians but also many other sectors of th

public saw the exhibition as cultural racism, appropriation, a condoning of

colonialism, and a colonialist representation of loot and mayhem, which de

humanized the indigenous peoples of Africa and created ethnocentric narr

tives of empire. Interestingly, just a few years earlier in 1986, Profess Edward Said had taught his popular course and given lectures at the Unive

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

158

sity

of

Toronto,

movement

education critical

had

was

eralizing also

time

was

Other, The

ner

which

pejorative

ary

Said.

show

to

Univ

which

were

voca

five

secti

into

Room,

posedly

Darknes

theory,

community divided

"Into

exhi

and

of

and

colonial

of

Sai

implications

Heart

Achebe

ma

glossy c repr

organization, rad's

a

by

the

its

th

gener

for

problems

by

of

the

critiqued

in

nizzo,

infiltr

effects ripe

new

argume

had

swerved

th

become

the

theory

domination

in

Ovimbundu represent

African

t

culture.

jects collected by the the official brochure.

totally

failed

to

viewers

through

tuality.

Literally

have the

j

more

the

press critiquing th analysis that would d hibit were used to den

such

ous

of

as

"dark

land,"

"barbarous,"

Muslims,

marks Linda ody

animals

around

these

Hutcheon

are

very

Moreover, cred

continen

objects

de

(1985)

difficult

the

displ

and

idols;

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing

Eurocentrism

sented

the

as

the

colonialists

trophies. the

"life

by

of

the

the

their

Eurocentric,

any

sold

The

p

represen

inferiority.

subdued, ing

memor

Canadian

and

obs

continent

heritage.

ness,

and

Instead,

historical

and

of

passive,

sub

representatio

that the racist repr conducted with t

not

to

see

her

soldiers pire."

of

A

few

India,

protests The

great

being

critics,

discussed

were

Toronto

hibition

unc

hailed

e

merely Board

after

o

receivi

impact on students. (Lalla & Myers, 1990 dents,

and

reported

intimidated cluding

St. I

George

and

personally

"Lord room

with

corner

the

recall

its

of

the

C

see

It

a

s

and

reminded

prominently

George's banner,

en

paintin

conquerors

hang

th

force

stabbing

quished. to

th

so)

Beresford's

depicted

ish

when

(rightly

i

Grammar killing

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the

Sc

d

160

more

ironic

president just in

been

the

tion.

its

of

South

struggle

the

a

fr

Zu

creat

African

Another

Af

from

for

Moreover, the

that

released

undoubtedly

over

in

was

peop

photograph

white

dress

teach

a river. The caption many visitors. It wa women to wash clothes. Critics wrote that while the art and crafts of the

people showed their creativity and intelligence, the Africans were surprisingly "infantilized." Yet another big, poster-like photograph showed some African women sitting by a dusty roadside, weaving baskets under a huge

sign for the soft drink Fanta overhead. The ideology seemed to be to fanta size and exoticize Africa as the Other, the primitive, the undeveloped, the

uncivilized, which was being modernized and developed by the Europea

missionaries and the British military. On the one hand this exhibit could b

perceived as a universal humanistic venture, and on the other as a class

representation of colonialism and Saiďs Orientalism. For Orientalism examines the ways in which Europe not only influences and alters, but actually

produces other cultures, erasing the marks of indigenous patterns of livin

through the tropes of its own knowledge, power, and expertise. This Orien

talist scenario was well played out in "Into the Heart of Africa," but it was

rewarding to note the critical response of the audience to the performance The height of public consciousness and the intellectual awareness of ord nary people who criticized the Eurocentric exhibit and its colonial, out dated approach was certainly remarkable as a form of resistance. The inten tions of the curator of "Into the Heart of Africa" were supposedly univers and human, as spelled out in the catalogue; however, the outcome was veneration of Eurocentrism and Orientalism. Universalisai and Eurocentrism

The concept of universalism, the moralistic sense of depicting the so-called

human condition - the poverty and misery, the floods and the famines, th

African villages without food or water, the smiling but hungry children with

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing

big

Eurocentrísm

eyes

seem

-

often

benign

Other

in

the

cam

and

f

cause

o

been a well-intentio Eurocentric World t

the

exploitation

generous

Universalism

experiences, apply

to

all

gates a

This

h

improvement mission

uncivilized,

Dark

e

rationale

civilizing

and

the

humanity

the

ment,

is

and

humanit

differences. common

an

overtones.

Ages

cultural

and

or

brou

patterns

of

which believed in universalism and assimilation.

The Eurocentric point of view sees European cultural assumptions as be-

ing the norm - the universal, accepted perspective. For instance, as discussed earlier, English Literature as a humanistic, universal discipline was perceived as a noble pursuit in most colonized countries. The Eurocentric universal human condition that English Literature presented was perceived as the cultured and refined version of existence, which could be applicable

universally. As Vishwanathan [1989) has argued, English was used in the British Raj as a sociopolitical tool to establish colonial power, as discussed in an earlier chapter. The effects of the dominance of English still continue to inform postcolonial India, where a class-conscious society lays a lot of premium on being able to speak English fluently, where one's manner of speech

immediately 'places' one in a certain class or privileged position, as in Britain. Moreover, when comparisons are made between the philosophy or scientific beliefs of native peoples and contemporary modern thought, as David

Suzuki's environmental programs often do, universalism is being applied pejoratively because the perception is that only if the views happen to be 'modernistic' are the indigenous cultures perceived to be advanced. For instance, the Dance of Shiva, which in Vedic Hindu mythology is believed to

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

162

have jof

created

Capra

tury in

to

the the

([1975]

West.

is

This

spective,

ment

of

is

In

the

by

yet

mod

som

anot

know

marks

to

which

Achebe for

Th

the

Other

perspective, writers

to

that

despite

quotation Chinua

eleme

2000).

comparison

reinforces

univ

d

is

(1989

lacking

nature

of

un

things

universality.

It

is

on

is universal; he has tru bend in the road which tion of Europe or Amer your home." (1989, p. 7

It

is

ironic,

notion

of

as

Achebe

universalism

Eurocentrism codes

worldwide.

trative

red

trends, cially

West in

is

Other

seen

resenting was lar

that

as

inhere

institut

'universal

established

first

found

and

in

189

in

G.

work the

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

the

together

chair,

[Aļcademic Europe

cult

countr

when

bringing

mankind its

e

stru

European

in

ali

In

tape,

colonialist

point

is

the

E.

in

W

Co

United

S

Erasing by

Eurocentrism

virtue

ones

of

most

their

worth

Eurocentrism universality from

the

is

in

point

163

political

positions,

studying."

masked

in

literature; of

view

(C&I,

litera

in

of

pp

histo

the

vi

pology by the unconscious assu vanced, developed, and modern defined

as

primitive

Moreover, highly

the

and

study

Eurocentric,

as

ancient.

and

it

is

disc

based

to develop Other countries acco ment, progress, achievement, a an

understanding

history, mate

malizing'

is

and of

endorsed

have

place

reality.

The

of

indigenous

and

time.

process

Westernized

over

and

traditionally

a

Cult

of

glob

lifestyle

above

had

p

local

p

universa

The assumed superiority of We supposed to have invented num venting the notion of zero), ar most

influenced

practices

(which

primarily of

European

cultural

create order

art, to

manity.

by

African

were

universal

borrowings, literature,

supplement

Or, proposition

as

is

mask

borrowed the

and

our

f

val

hybr

histor

collectiv

Said has reiterated that Orient/Occi

functioning as the Other in Said's work, then, tries to deconstruct the embedded and essential

order

Eurocentrism that is reflected in the practice of Orientalism, in politics and

literature, in representation, and in culture and imperialism. As Said explains, [WJhat partly animated my study of Orientalism was my critique of the way in

which the alleged universalista of fields such as the classics (not to mention his-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

164

tonography,

anthropolog

other literatures and societies had either an inferior or transcended value.

(C&I, p. 44, my emphasis)

The theoretical concept of the World and its worldliness that Said advocates is, indeed, more expansive, inclusive, and intercultural than the nar-

row Eurocentric World that is represented in typical university and secondary school core curriculum in North America. Looking forward to a

World beyond Orientalism, beyond empire and imperialism, Said sees a

coming together of the East and the West through our intermingled experi-

ences and overlapping territories. The world has changed since Conrad and Dickens. ..to ignore or otherwise dis-

count the overlapping experience of Westerners and Orientals, the interdependence of cultural terrains in which colonizer and colonized co-existed and battled each other through projections as well as rival geographies, narratives, and histories, is to miss what is essential about the world in the past century. (C&I, pp. xx)

Indeed, it is the whole World's reality, culture, and aesthetics that can enrich curriculum, literature, and life, rather than a narrow Eurocentric study of 'great works' that ignores Other great works. The Great Debate: Western Culture Core Curriculum

What is taught - how, why, where, by whom, and to whom it is taught - is one of the foremost questions facing educators today in light of growing globalization, interculturalism, and the changing face of the world in the twenty-first century. The famous Stanford University Debate on Western

Culture Core Curriculum became a crucial subject of much controversy between 1988 and 1989 - those hectic 1980s of rejuvenation, revival, and change in academic discourse that I alluded to earlier. The controversy concerned what role, if any, cultural content and values should play in the general education curriculum, as well as the degree to which this curriculum should reflect the cultural diversity of the United States. Reminiscent

of the culture wars that occurred during the student rebellions of the 1960s, the Western culture debate also involved a power struggle between oppressed groups, such as African Americans and feminists, and the

predominantly white male establishment that advocated traditional, conservative, Western values. The debate challenged the predominant Euro-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing

Eurocentrism

centrism, which and

sexism,

excluded

African

posed based

to

on

racism,

the

Other

cultures

different

proach

and

and

-

wome

Studen

entitled

hierarchy

h

literatu

programs.

courses

the

165

of

'Gre

the

gre

dents also revolted against Wes which ignored and negated East tures and knowledge. Several

lic

can

media

pages. late in

factors

discourse, One

1980s

but that

The

Closing

in of

this

media,

also

such

academia

fueled

the

the

factor

the

internation was

discussed

the

the

particular, the

contr

and

role

the

American

pu

mo

Min

(1987). Another factor was the intense confrontation between students and

the administration at Stanford University. While students protested

marches and sit-ins in the president's office the debate was carried out i

newspapers and was even reported in Europe. The Great Debate, as it termed, ended up at the senate with emotional, rational, and passion arguments on all sides. Writers like Saul Bellow jumped into the fr

through articles in New York Times Magazine : "I do not know the Tolst

of the Zulus, the Proust of the Papuans," valorizing elitist ideas of w constitutes knowledge and cultural literacy. Of course there could ne be a Tolstoy or Proust of the Zulus, as the notion itself is totally abs

Eurocentric and ethnocentered. Certainly there are other forms of writ

other works from all over the world, that are as important or centr

masterly as Marcel Prousťs In Search of Remembrances Past (also tra lated as In Search of Lost Time). William Bennett, the then-Secretar Education under George H. W. Bush's presidency, complained that "co have to go up because new knowledge costs more than old knowled Political activists such as African American spokesperson Jesse Jack also played a leading role in bringing national attention to the West Culture versus Multiculturalism controversy. In 1988 dramatic chan occurred in the general education curriculum. Stanford changed its m

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

166

datory

Western

debate

was

who I

was

never

than

Solon

that

the

never

told

Front

One

three

that in

page,

still

15,

m

oa

19

beg

progressive is

deeply

ingrain

column

Weste

Lewis,

entered in

b

mentio

the

Bernard

States,"

gr

refers

(1993), up

un

prima

facts,

himself

opening that

Egy

Algebra

even

culture

alism

in

Internation

April

universalist Said

thousa

to knowledge. M but the omissio

haunt

is

W

di

geometry,

cannot

tions dant,

in

many

Hippocratic

(Reported

that

taught

studied

astronomy,

in

out:

contained

more and

carried

pointed

Dead

Cultu

the

the

Wall

"

"

St

To

the students and Pro the curriculum to inclu Lewis speaking as an a Western culture does in would come in their pl the reading list would

subjects

(he named them and child marriage wou riosity about other cul also come to an end. (C&

Said

concludes

inflated

sense

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

that of

su

Wes

Erasing

of

a

Eurocentrism

tremendously

l

of the world" (C&I that Lewis's Orien Westerner boasting

an

into

about

East/West

that

does

"rather

not

than

a

vi

the

oppo

resolv

affirm

other, and the nec another. ..the sepa West, rial

the

Orient

contest"

East

edge,

and and

and

O "a

the

histories,

W

lite

educate the World as a whole.

The Stanford Debate brought some important changes to the curriculum of many universities across the United States and Canada - offering more courses in Other cultures, languages, and literatures; and creating an interdisciplinary and multicultural curriculum, though it is still restricted and limited. It is important to remember, however, that it was only a few

decades ago that Women's Studies, Native Studies, Ethnic Studies, and all the other interdisciplinary and critical programs, such as Cultural Studies, simply did not exist at institutions of higher learning in North America.

Moreover, the field of Education was entirely closed from this expansion

of ideas until recently, focusing primarily on teacher training in a noncritical academic milieu. The Stanford controversy over curriculum did result in a widening of that school's curriculum to include Asian and African culture and literature, but the long-term effects were more profound:

As the discussion widened and spread to other academic institutions, it initiated curriculum reform at most American and Canadian universities.

The concept of an inclusive curriculum began to circulate in school systems, while universities started talking about 'internationalizing' the curriculum. Most importantly, the notion of the canon began to include more

works by women, minorities, and indigenous peoples, undercutting the predominance of Eurocentrism in the curriculum. However, this trend has to rise above tokenism to go further into incorporating the Other in academic critique.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

168

Cultural

Literacy:

Cultural and

iar

informal

with

most tion not

literacy

it.

in

Against

tural that

this

What

diverse and be

changing

cessful

canon

at

Ame

that

standard

stream

from

reflect

Every

literacy a

of

art,

stories

increasingly

acy:

lite

and

with

cultures, with needs to know and

signs

slang,

sufficient

tives,

th

Knowledge

interwoven

is

is

content

street

recent

of

Who

wa

know

was

esse

school

and

canon is an authoritative and hierarchical list of texts and works that are

considered important enough to be part of a standard criterion. Traditionally the canon has consisted primarily of white, male, European literary fig-

ures and philosophers, from the Greeks and the Romans to modern times, who have represented the best of mainstream culture in the curriculum.

The notion of the mainstream, as opposed to the margins, was constructed in Western academic discourse in the 1980s as a result of the de-

bates over the Eurocentric notion of culture and curriculum, and the rising opposition to it by critics such as Said, Spivak, et al. Moreover, the perception of marginality has been constructed through dominant discourses such as patriarchy, imperialism, and ethnocentrism, implying that certain forms of experience are peripheral and thus not important enough to be a part of the mainstream. Marginality represents various forms of exclusion and oppression. The marginal is defined by its limitations in accessing power. In order to deconstruct this dominant notion, postcolonial theory deconstructs the very presence of center. As Spivak once said, it is the margins where we make the key notations; the margins are at the center of knowledge. The discussions over multiculturalism and multicultural education in

Canada and America wrestled with this idea of mainstream culture as op

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing

Eurocentrism

posed lum

to

so

the

as

informs move and

to

represe

today's

beyond

dance,

education

in

margin

cla

token

to

incorp

policy

Canada.

th

Such

mo

some

positive result social justice, while was beginning to ha In be

this

conflicting

reflected

tices,

in

values,

the

and

no

that reading comp also wide-ranging schools a

should

highly

ern

culture.

dates, of

these

mainstream Cultural just

to

the us

'the

the

Literacy Allan

m

(

tw

Bl

compared.

homosexual

academic

to

ing

of

culture

or

behind

women,

co

Hirsch

number

quently

h

and

sources

peripheries

b

cu

Thus

words,

Eurocentric.

rising

not

specific

read

with

only

his

elite'"

Hirsch's

world a

ha

theory

(C&I,

long

p.

list

3

o

the epitome of 'cul though himself a l cate

for

a

pedagogy,

conservat

and

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

a

rea

170

addressing mation

ter

about

the

1989 tles

minoriti

success

with

that

the its

ignoring

of

hi

same

were

flaunting and

difference

ti

attract

Eurocen half

of

t

The

interrelationships b the institutions of nat should, but it is neverth brated humanity or cul they ascribed to their o

Orient,

This

Africa

and

deliberate

intermingled,

even

narro

intercu

quires

familiarity wit sources, not just can understanding, insig knowledge, and share Ironically,

of

Europe

proximity

one

as of

does

one the

n

doe

East,

of heritage and trad European countries i American works. Mo edgeable about Eastern Ukraine to work with a

project

reinvent

with

helping their

the

cultura

their knowledg who are indige and heritage whe

Tatars, ture

stan while Hitler's armies marched into Russia. In 1991 the Crimean Tatars

were repatriated, when the Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union, but they were living in dire conditions on the margins of society on the outskirts of cities, having lost their homes, schools, and lands, which

were now occupied by others. The UNDP had set up an experimental school

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Erasing

for

Eurocentrism

this

work ate

I

with

an

struck

cu

by

t

Ukrainians,

World, cal

students

indigenous

was

sians,

community

a

generally.

dance

gestures

A (

used as a theme for the ballet. Russian culture has been familiar with Indian

art and film because of the friendly relationship between India and Russia

during the 1950s and 1960s. Ordinary people on the seaside promenade in Yalta asked about Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi, and the famous

Bollywood actor Raj Kapoor, while welcoming me with the famous slogan "Hindi-Russi, Bhai Bhai' (Indians and Russians are brothers) and showing hospitality and warmth.

In Europe I discovered that courses in Cultural Studies at Lisbon University featured Indian writers and critics; in Spain many students studied about India, the Moors, and Africa; the Germans were surprisingly familiar with India through their Max Mueller Bhavans, German cultural centers situated in all the big cities of India and with their cross-cultural research in

Sanskrit and Indo-Germanic linguistics. A German professor who took me sightseeing knew about the Nizam of Hyderabad and his history. Germans were especially interested in the poetry of Indian poet Iqbal, who was influenced by Goethe's transcendentalism and after whom a street in Frankfurt is named. In Britain the knowledge of the subcontinent is not only household mythology, but is favored because of the former colonial love-hate relationship, which strongly persists in everyday cultural discourse, seen in popular symbols such as Indian cuisine, cricket, and commonwealth writers.

The Brits seemed to love Nehru and admire Gandhi, as well as the palatial wealth of the princely states, life on the tea-estates and hill stations, the art

and the common people, and also the Vedic Indian philosophy. Ironically, visiting London today is like visiting the Bombay of the 1960s. In contrast, knowledge about the East seems to be fairly limited in North American academic institutions.

None of this, however, denies or condones the latent Orientalist, us/them discourse of otherness and underlying animosity ingrained in all these European cultures. I recollect that while returning from the Fourth

International Semotics Congress in Barcelona in mid-April 1989, I read a

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

172

critical

titled

piece

"Whose

Culture

core

remember about

an

fr

Cultur

the

punch

culture

(Hi)stories

conclude,

the

the

curriculu

Western

Shared To

on

dots

to

it

is

impe

make

East/West

a

wh

aestheti

from both the East a writers, philosophers, East as well as the W sign A

that

is

understoo

postmodern

fluence

of

century solely new

individ

many

in

cultu

either

from

lists

the

of

e

communications

Marshall McLuhan's postcolonial cultural only half the world a the 'supplement of kn culture, Said's World new

geopolitical

ticing

in

the

a

realit

pedagogy

next

minology

of

chapter

and

have offered.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:01 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

t

I

critical

CHAPTER

SEVEN

Conceptua Theory Applications for Educational Critique Marginalization in American culture means a kind of unimportant provinciality.

It means the inconsequence associated with what is not major, not central, not powerful - in short, it means association with what are considered euphemisti-

cally as "alternative" modes, alternative states, peoples, cultures, alternative theatres, presses, newspapers, artists, scholars, and styles, which may later be-

come central or at least fashionable.... The executive presence is central in American culture today: the president, the television commentator, the corporate official, celebrity. Centrality is identity, what is important, powerful and

"ours." Centrality maintains balance between extremes; it endows ideas with the balances of moderation, rationality, pragmatism;... And centrality gives rise

to semi-official narratives that authorize and provoke certain sequences of cause and effect, while at the same time preventing counter-narratives from emerging. (C&I, p. 324)

Postcolonial theory draws upon diverse theoretical frameworks and their specialized strategies and techniques of critique. It is an interdisciplinary critical and conceptual framework that has borrowed terms from various disciplines - literature, anthropology, history, psychology, sociology - but

has deployed these words in specialized and particular ways to denote other meanings and connotations. Language, literature, and culture have played a major role in colonization, as Said's work has shown, making language and terminology specific and central to postcolonial inquiry. In this context, words occupy a sensitive area of discourse, as Derrida's notion of différance suggests, making meanings through difference , cultural codes and other signs. Postcolonialism has traversed across the world amidst and betwixt cultures - from Africa and

Australia to Asia and the Middle East and Europe - acquiring different contexts and different codes of language usage and discourse, which have key

applications to critique. I have briefly discussed several concepts below in a

glossary format in order to clearly present the vast array of terminology that is deployed in postcolonial criticism.

Postcolonial theory operates on the notion that imperialism and colo nial domination have affected the whole world, not simply the coloniz

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

174

nations.

The

cloak

of

the

c

globe in the heyd for the rest of t "The sun never sets on

tions

and results of the aftermath of colonialism are still evident in Western cul-

tural imperialism and Eurocentrism. Moreover, the remains of empire affect

the formerly colonized countries as much as the colonizing nations them-

selves because of the much discussed symbiotic relationships between colonizers and colonized. The settlement of formerly colonized peoples in the colonizing country, such as the large populations of Indians in Great Britain, or Africans in France, creates its own social and cultural patterns, some positive and others resulting in racism, discrimination, conflict, and so

on. As a result of this 'reverse colonization/ the very nature, character and milieu of the mother country can change. Ironically, when I visit Britain I feel extremely welcome, totally at home, and quite 'native/ more so than in North America, because of the commonality of knowledge and shared experiences on both sides, the love-hate relationship, and the solid foundation of English education and acculturation. This is the result of the dominance of English literature and culture in the lives of formerly colonized peoples. However, this love-hate affinity with the colonizer does not deny the possibility of postcolonial critique, such as in the work of Salman Rushdie and other postcolonial authors who reveal their resistance and empowerment through re-presentations of their lives and stories.

Postcolonial analysis is critical of the discourse of cultural imperialism, which is manifested in several different spheres of thinking, from literary

writing and criticism to historical and cultural analysis of artifacts and ideas. As a result, postcolonialism has borrowed as well as invented a series

of terms and words that denote key theoretical concepts. For instance, Gayatri Spivak's terms 'othering/ 'catachresis/ 'strategic essentialism/ 'epis-

temic violence/ and 'worlding' have particular conceptual meanings. Homi Bhabha's terms, such as 'ambivalence/ 'mimicry/ and 'hybridity/ have come to signify particular notions in the context of postcolonial theory, which are different from the original denotations of the words. Most significantly, the title of Said's work, Orientalism, itself now signifies a practice and process of

'othering' or 'orientalizing' the Orient. Moreover, the 'Orient' in postcolonial critique has come to represent a complex panorama of all those individuals who are objectified and subjectified and represented as the Other. For instance, based on the critical analyses of various scholars, the subject of

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 175

Said's Orientalism can be a diverse group of Others - women; chil

nocultural, racial, and linguistic minorities; indigenous peoples; h

als; the oppressed and the disabled in a deconstructivist paradigm Critiquing the Curriculum

As pointed out in the introduction, postcolonial theory has been

several disciplines, but the theory has not yet been used exten

educational critique. Postcolonial theory has tremendous potential

cal inquiry in the field of Education. As an example, here 1 shall br

upon how some of the theoretical perspectives from postcoloniali

applied to curriculum, considered to be a central problematic in E

with implications for teaching and learning, questions of identity

difference, and issues of representation, race, class, gender, and di

name a few areas. For example, curriculum can be critiqued from of view of canonization, Eurocentrism, interculturalism, multicu

inclusivity, hybridity, Orientalism, and notions of worldline World - critical frameworks that are Saidian and lie at the hea colonial theory.

The complex issue of the representation of the Other in curricu

the media or in society can be critiqued intensively using the too

plies in Orientalism. These tools or techniques include discourse an

textuality, inter-referentiality, and critique of ideological ste among other strategies. Moreover, Bhabha's theories of ambiv

stereotyping (1994) can be used to study the representation of th

curriculum, media, or discourse, with references to the tropes of

knowledge that Said has deconstructed in Orientalism. The exotici

feminization of the Other in texts in the curriculum, or the ambiv

tained in the love-hate relationship between the colonizer and

can indeed be deconstructed through the lens of postcolonial theo

sentation in curriculum and its empowering corollary Re-present

have called it, can also be studied by deploying the notions of discourse of resistance, rewriting of narratives, and undercutting

ony and cultural domination - key critical practices in postcoloni

The processes of othering or marginalization (of the student,

gender, minorities, natives, language, or culture, for instance) ca

applied as strategies for critical analysis in Education. As a matte

plethora of subjects and topics, such as cultural identity, identity

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

176

hierarchies light

of

and

mimicry, colonial

Indeed,

ingeniously

to

a

by

and

and

creatively

brief

have

the

scribed ences.

They

theory

normative inferior

location guage

of

riority, Scottish

Pidgin

it

s

dis

te

th

prese

refers

of

t

co

and

'marginal

presented the

is

sp

subjec

pronunciat

postcolonial inflections,

English

distinct

of

literally

English

and

con

for

form

Pygmalion, which

c

re

These

are

or

a

key

dialects

ripheral' in

as

insight

tools

Abrogation nial

critics

been

here. as

l

differe

glossary

already

applied

a

being

and

clarify

has

postcolo

functions

evolving

st

Framewor

today

diasporic,

dis

useful

theory

Conceptual

a

objectif

colonial

present

still

culture

Orientalism

jugation also

of

to

cultural

c

ab

iden

formation and libera the 'master's

without die

employs

lieu

in

his

many

Booker

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Ur

aw

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 177

abrogation can be applied to discourse, much as Jamaican Canadia Olive Senior uses the Jamaican dialect in her poetry to create 'aut

ity' - another popular word in postcolonial theory. The concept of ab

tion can serve as a tool for investigating language and cultural id cultural difference, class, social status, learning, teaching and edu representation, and other areas.

Alterity is a word that implies the state of being Other, or differe

used in postcolonial theory in the sense of 'alternate/ 'alternative,' a

ego.' The term has also been used interchangeably with the words ness' and 'difference.' A discourse analysis of the state of alterity ca vide deep intellectual insights.

Ambivalence, in common parlance, signifies an uncertainty of pos

preference, or choice between two objects, ideas, or likes and disl also refers to a simultaneous attraction or repulsion from some

(Young, 1995). As adapted by Homi Bhabha (1994) as a term in postcol

discourse, ambivalence describes the strange symbiotic relation

love/hate, attraction/repulsion, admiration/derogation, between the nizer and the colonized. Ambivalence also relates to the conduct of the colo-

nized, which can be exploitative or nurturing. Robert Young (1995) believes

that Bhabha's concept of ambivalence disrupts and disjunctures the power of the colonizer through its complexity and tension. Ambivalence is indeed a

complex conceptual framework that has profound applications for critique in the area of personal and political relations, geopolitics, desire, education of and attitudes to the Other, representation, cultural difference, diversity,

cultural hierarchies, and numerous realms of postcolonialism. Appropriation refers to the idea that the colonizer adapts or takes over the colonized subject's land, culture, identity, language, art, manners and customs and represents them as its own, with some modifications. For instance, 1

discussed earlier how the ritual grandeur and other excesses of the Mughal empire of India were appropriated by the British Raj as its own cultural prac-

tices. Another example is the great British tradition of evening tea or 'high tea,' which has a complex colonial history of appropriation. Tea was an indigenous plant grown at the intersecting boundaries between northern India,

Burma, China, and Tibet However, it was first grown commercially by the East India Company in India after its popularity and profitability for trade were discovered. Incidentally, the colonial connection goes further: The escalation of tea importation and sales over the period from 1690 to 1750 is mir-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

178

rored

closely

drank

meet

tea

in

with

the

compassing Britain's

and

global

retrieved in

centuries

Queen

and

its

mond to

co

cultu

an

world, ago

Victoria

British

c

today

ginger,

the

In

century

many the

Af

trade,

elegance,

cardamom,

an

tea

Britain,

worldwide

dence,

in

milk

'cuppa

eighteenth

seen

the

Britain,

compassing the

by

K

wi

on

Empire's

h

gr

now

part of the crown national treasures suc

should

be

returned

Appropriation,

and

culture.

corporates

1993),

It

the

to

also

des

land

deploying the

th

then,

th

and

tradition

of

great

jahs,

was

appropriated

tice

that

symbolize

appropriation

can

be

in various areas of cultural discourse.

Binary, a very important term in postcolonial theory, means "dual; of or involving two(s)," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The sys-

tem of binary, or extreme opposition - such as Orient/Occident - is at the center of the theory of Orientalism. Binaries such as black/white, birth/death,

man/woman, and nature/culture suppress ambiguous in-between spaces and create polarized categories. Contemporary feminist and poststructuralist the-

ory has demonstrated that such binaries are hierarchical mindsets, confirm-

ing the dominance of one over the other. Thus, 'man' is considered more dominant than 'woman'; 'advanced' is valorized over 'backward'; 'civilized' against 'primitive,' and so on. The binary is a conceptual framework that has

been instrumental in constructing ideological meanings in colonial discourse.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 179

The integral binary concept of Orient/Occident can yield tremend

into representation, cultural discourse, sociology, psychology, pol

geography, education, the social construction of the Other, and 'ot discussed throughout this book.

Cartography is the mapping of territory, but it has a deep con

with colonial enterprises, as it was used extensively for voyages o ery to so-called undiscovered lands, which were later colonized. I

cartography in depth earlier as being a central tool of colonial op Cartography is not merely the mapping of territory; it can also

conceptual framework by which Eurocentrism and empire w

structed geographically and politically through power and knowle

drawing of maps inscribes the reality of the conqueror on the sp Other by naming it in a symbolic act of control and power. The

open and vacant spaces on older maps represented an invitation to

discover, and conquer. Cartography is related to Eurocentrism th

projection of maps, such as Mercator's atlas, that privilege the W

tablish a hierarchy of spatial relations by defining Greenwich, En

the center of time and space measurements. Thus geography a

phers, such as the Royal Geographical Society, are heavily involve

colonial imperialist project. Cartography represented not just the geographic space but also the fixity of power entrenched within

ern symbols. Carter (1987) and Rabasa (1993) have discussed fu plications of cartography: The applications of postcolonial the

the role of cartography in colonization can be applied to studies o ism, space/time relations, center/margins, cultural imperialism, trism, education, and perspectives of the Other.

Catachresis, according to the OED, is the "incorrect use of word

application of something to an entity that it does not represe

Spivak very ingeniously applied the term to postcolonial theory b

ing that catachresis is "a sign without a referent" during a perso

sation at the University of British Columbia while at an int

semiotics summer institute in 1988. The notion seems to imply th

colonial subject or individual, country, or culture, is 'non-essentia

ferent,' 'unique,' and 'self-representative'; it does not have a concr or solid referent, primarily because most representations of the

stereotypical. She also uses the term in the sense of appropriation

suggests that an institution or entity, such as democracy, which h

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

180

centric origin, is ca adapted, and develop (Spivak,

1991).

generally, deeper

but

into

This it

the

co

can

const

tural difference.

Center/Margin represents an ongoing controversy in the field of postcolonial theory. As Said has pointed out, the East/West, Orient/Occident bi-

nary has dominated our notions of the world for centuries, becoming a dominant discourse during the period of colonization. This conceptual framework of the center and the margins was imperative to the idea of em-

pire, as it needed the Other as its corollary. That is, without the concept of the 'civilized/ the notion of 'savage1 could not occur; without the notion of 'us/ the concept of 'them' has no meaning. The 'us/them' dichotomy still runs

strongly in colonialist discourse, even in present times. President George W. Bush's use of the us/them binary, or the 'US(A)/Them' opposition (Burney,

2002b), after the tragic and brutal catastrophe of 9/11 has been an iconic representation of the West ('us') as opposed to its Others. Imperial Europe was defined as the center, or the metropolis or mother country, and everything that lay outside the periphery of the center was at the margins of knowledge, power, and culture. The colonial mission was to use the margins for its own exploitative purposes, or in missionary colonial structures, to provide culture and civilization to the Other at the margins. The idea of center/margin is controversial, as some theorists argue that the model functions

to perpetuate the idea of marginality. (See Said's position on marginality, cited at the beginning of this chapter [C&I, p. 324].) In short, the theory of

center/margins can be applied to several aspects of academic and educational critique as a key conceptual framework in postcolonial theory.

Chromatism is a conceptual framework that is deployed occasionally by postcolonial critics to denote the power of color as a form of differentiation. The OED defines chromatics as the "science of color." Chromatism

means 'of or belonging to color or colors' and refers to the essential dif

ence between people based on skin color, or 'shades of color/ as I h

called it - the notion that the lighter the shade of skin color among peo

of color, the better it is assumed to be. This concept can be applied to wh

wish to call a 'politics of color' in postcolonial countries, such as Ind Jamaica, where the old colonial ideas about the supremacy of whiteness

persist - lighter complexions become a sign of class, status, and cult

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks irt Postcolonial Theory

opening doors to opportunity. This con

plies a supercilious and stereotypical di

sentation and prejudice. This concept

criticism of race and color bias and in s

very sensitive area and thus has not be

Comprador is a Portuguese word that

that acted as a go-between for the forei

The Portuguese were the first colonis

dominance to the British very early. Y

language have become part of the India

prador' is reminiscent of Fanon and Sar

cussed earlier. In Marxist thought it position to foreign monopolies and c

working with the rulers. In contempor

used in a wider sense for all the classes

nial power and the ruling class in gener

ceptual framework that can be applied of the humanities and social sciences.

Colonial Discourse is a term invented by Said to describe the systemic practices, policies, and forms that were engendered through the tropes of

knowledge and power for colonial domination and representation of the Orient. Colonial discourse theory is highly insightful, with countless applica-

tions to academic and educational critique. Indeed, the idea of colonial dis-

course as a theory, as a conceptual framework, and as praxis is Said's remarkable and influential contribution to postcolonial theory, which has been deployed widely in critique.

Said's Orientalism shows how pervasive and stereotypical the idea of the Orient was, and how it was socially constructed through the treatises and textuality of expert Orientalists. Colonial discourse theory critically ana-

lyzes texts and visual representations to reveal how colonial discourse operates systemically in social formations through underlying structures and codes, based on power relations between the colonized and the colonizer. It is a system of beliefs and ideology about the colonized subject based on Orientalist constructions of language, literature, and culture. Colonial discourse

can arouse resistance and anger in the colonized person's consciousness through conflict and oppression, as it is based on the perceived supremacy of the white, Western colonizers over the uneducated hordes of uncivilized

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

182

people is

a

who

need

complex,

to

be

complic

on many forms (Bur course in greater det Spivak (1987) and Bh Colonialism sion

is

a

and

of

process

its

is

colonies

the in

es

one

whereby

social

s

structur

alism establishes une tropolis and the colony, between the colonists and the indigenous populations. Colonialism normally refers to a period of European expansion from the late fifteenth to the twentieth century when European nation states

established colonies on other continents. In this period, the justifications for colonialism included profitability through trade, the expansion of the power of the colonialists, and their missionary and political beliefs. Colonialism and imperialism were ideologically linked with mercantilism or trade, as has been seen in the colonial discourse analyzed in this book.

Contrapuntal Reading , as discussed in depth in chapter five, is a term coined by Said to describe an oppositional or critical reading of a text that reveals its deeper political implications for colonialism. One of the examples Said uses is that of Jane Austen's novel, Mansfield Park , suggesting that a

contrapuntal reading reveals that Mansfield Park represents the overseas colonial world of Antigua and its plantations, which were being exploited by the colonizers for the benefit of the British upper classes. He cites several other examples as well. Contrapuntal analysis can be applied to readings in the curriculum; educational, literary and political research; and other areas such as international relations.

Counter-discourse is a term coined by Richard Terdiman in his book, Discourse/Counter-discourse: The Theory and Practice of Symbolic Resistance

in Nineteenth Century France (1985). The term is commonly used in postcolonial theory to signify moments and movements of subaltern resistance to the colonizers, which can take several forms. Saiďs call for 're-doing the

narratives of empire' is a call for a counter-discourse. Resistance and counter-discourse are central strategies for critique in postcolonialism, which can be widely deployed for further study in various areas.

Cultural Difference is a concept with deeper and different connotations from the term 'cultural diversity,' with which it is sometimes interchanged.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 183

'Difference' is not just a term, but also a conceptual framework. H notion of 'difference' is valorized over 'sameness' and 'assimilation.' It con-

notes more than physical difference - it is a concept for understanding cul-

tural difference as something valid and legitimate that needs to be recognized. The notion of 'difference' is highlighted by Derrida's theory of 'difference' and 'différance.' Based on Derrida's notions, I have referred to an 'identity of difference' as an informing metaphor for otherness and other

identities (Burney, 1989). 'Cultural diversity/ on the other hand, implies a

variety or diversity of objects, peoples, attitudes, customs, and norms. Bhabha (1994) suggests that systems of diversity that merely acknowledge distinct behavior, attitudes, and values often suggest that such systems are 'aberrant,' 'exotic,' or 'backward' and are part of pre-given cultural contents and customs. In multicultural settings, the notion of difference was often under-valued, with the overriding humanistic assumption that human be-

ings are all the same. 'Difference' does not necessarily negate this notion, but asserts that we are all 'the same as human beings' despite and because of our essential difference. The word 'difference' today has acquired symbolic, positive, and empowering connotations in postcolonial theory and is the basis of wide-ranging critical inquiry.

Dependency Theory is a conceptual framework that states that the socalled Third World countries are underdeveloped because historically they missed the Industrial Revolution due to colonial rule and are still 'develop-

ing' because of global capitalism and present-day globalization. It shows that underdevelopment is endemic to the structures of domination and oppression that were imposed by imperialism. Modernization theory suggests that underdeveloped societies lack drive, entrepreneurship, creativity, and

ambition to achieve success. But postcolonial theory dismisses these arguments by pointing out that it is not internal forces but exploitative capitalist

development by the West that is responsible for the continued underdevelopment of the Third World. These theories, including globalization, which is

discussed below, are part of postcolonial, social, geopolitical critique. Diaspora is a central word in postcolonial theory and signifies the dispersions of peoples, either voluntarily or forcibly, caused by colonization, dis-

location, wars, and disasters. Colonialism itself was a diasporic event causing the movement of Europeans into the colonies in India and the Caribbean plantations, and in reverse, causing peoples from former colonies to move to the metropolises. The practice of slavery in the Americas started asa result of the

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

184

economic century,

from

the

the

created

and

need

vast

Africa,

Indian British from

in

culture,

how

over

States

cultures,

and

Br

giving

cult

imm

the

gl

from

diasporic

c

evo

in

original

all

United

and

Mauritius,

diaspora

transnational

from

I

the

laborers

the

f

in

diasporic

from

customs,

dentured

fre

demand

colonies

socially

guages,

for

th

culture

their

arts

an

their attitudes and f Various authors such ram (1995) discuss di nur,

2007)

diasporic is

an

provides

cultures

exciting

Discourse work the

and

most

cept

of

word

a

and

aspect

is

has

a

been

deployed

discourse

suggests

a

o

posts

ex

co

ext

social

created; that is, it is and see the wor signs and statements a systemic operation constitute 'the regim knowledge and value been used by Said to discourse, or systemi and ruled by the Occi colonialism as in colon insights, as we see in

know

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory

Ecological Imperialism is a term c show how colonization and imperialis

indigenous peoples and societies by alte

tural, social, and political structure framework in postcolonial theory to

mental exploitation of the other by W

pire. Imperialism devastated and

countries, changing their subsistence p

bing their natural production, and sell

turn, at high costs. The colonizing c livestock, which were advantageous but endangered and devastated native

lations depended. The colonists also i nesses to indigenous populations and

eventually ruined the river systems of

as a form of social and territorial cont cannot be underestimated. Deforestation caused floods, rainforests were depleted, and in sub-Saharan Africa the rotation of crops was changed into repetitious production, undermining the delicate ecological systems. Grove (1994] has also discussed the connection of the ecological destruction of the Third World to the concept of colonial empire. Said himself briefly refers to

ecological imperialism in Culture and Imperialism. Vandana Shiva (1997, 2000), a physicist and environmentalist, has done extensive grassroots work and critical scientific, social, and political work in

the postcolonial critique of biodiversity and ecology, land management, ag-

riculture, and globalization in India. She has published several key books, established a foundation, and runs a blog from Dehra Dun, her hometown, a former colonial 'hill station' in northern India. Her father was the conserva-

tor of forests and she claims that her mother was a farmer, and that most of

the farmers in India are women. In other words, she stands for the empowerment of women and explores the deep connection between 'Mother Earth' and women. Her work has been labeled as 'eco-feminism' and is renowned

all over the world. A follower of Mahatma Gandhi's principles, Shiva (2000) believes that democracy begins with freedom from hunger, unemployment, fear, and hatred. Postcolonial theory, in short, provides several serious conceptual applications for the critique of imperial policies and their aftermath on ecology, geography, world poverty, globalization, and politics.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

186

Essentialism cultures ture.

the

have

That

is,

group, from

as

cont

certain

essential

that s cult

other

the

generally such

a

a

and

tinct

stereotype

is

Other

been

Fanon,

i

reject

are

cite

of essentializing nati opposed to essentiali Spivak,

however,

essentialism

tual

by

in

coining

framework

geously

and

a

that

strategica

colonial oppression, groups in retrieving used

effectively

cultural sense

of

identity used of

by

identity. the

and

pride. as

c

o

S

a

politics

Ethnicity calls it the European,

It

dignity

effectively

identity

th

s

and

has acquir "ethnic re

Asian,

and

refers to characterize a

A

Ethnicity

sh

that

pa

itself

land,

with

positive

including

an

ch

ima

Hyderabadis in Canad state in India that no imaginary

homeland.

R. Magosci, which ada, their beliefs,

The such still in

word as

'ethnic'

being

persists.

North

foc cult

'heathen 'Ethnic'

America

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

wa

the

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 187

mainstream, as it is associated with power and the national myth

Canadian and American multicultural societies, ethnicity has powerful political identity, but in practice ethnic groups cont

marginalized. As 'ethnic' continued to become a pejorative term f

riphery, these cultural groups began to call themselves 'ethn

groups' instead of 'ethnic groups.' 'Ethnogenesis' is the rebirth of

positive cultural identity and pride in one's ethnicity (Burney, political and social advancement and recognition. The cultural the

art Hall (1991) discusses questions of identity, ethnicity, and glob

providing valuable insights for postcolonial critique. Conceptu

works revolving around ethnicity and ethnogenesis are central to nial critique and can be applied as methodologies.

Eurocentrism is the process by which Europe has been soci

structed as the center of the world and is taken as the natural, n

universal starting point of all discourse. This has been discussed i chapter six. Eurocentrism is a major area of postcolonial critique

applied as a conceptual framework to issues in Education, history tics, and other areas.

Exile in postcolonial theory is an important motif that defines

in which an individual defines himself as either emotionally o tively removed from one's culture, origins, and homeland or

apart from home and land. Exile becomes a conceptual framework

an outsider, for 'otherness,' for not belonging to the mainstream

extensively of exile in his memoir Out of Place (1999), which i own positionality as an exile living between two cultures - the

and the Arab. Diasporic peoples sometimes feel a sense of perp and are conflicted between belonging to their new country or the land. Said suggests that a sense of exile, a sense of distancing, can

vide a deeper and more profound perspective about oneself as

Other. Exile as a conceptual framework has wide applications t

nial theory, especially in discussions of themes in commonwealth cultural identity, and sense of otherness.

Exoticization is a term in postcolonial theory that implies rend entity as 'alien' and 'foreign,' picturesque but strange, attractive

cessible. The social construction of the exotic is an interesting ph

of mystifying the Orient/Other, making it appear mysterious, rem

less, strange and alien rather than normal, contemporary, or par

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

188

day

to

reality.

India

eternal

For

(1924)

place,

undercuts

and

actuality.

spices,

flora,

Europe

as

exoticization critiques

in

a

to

the

generic

tribution.

exo

rem

the

mo

From fauna,

a

way

and

t

a

of

the

postcolon

Exploration tion

is

far

egy

in

insta

and

Trav

motifs

example Travel

of

of

writ

course.

Frontier suggests going 'westward' in search of freedom

in American studies (Taylor, 1971) before being appropria

nial theory. Here, frontier signifies going beyond civilizat

inhabited by 'savages' and 'barbarians,' who lack rules and

of conquering it. As usual, the concept of the frontier in laced with ambivalence, both fear of and attraction to th

one lived with nature, fighting the elements with the br

tive peoples. The Khyber Pass in Afghanistan - from whi

Aryan tribes had come in ancient Vedic times to settle in

in northern India - was and still is considered a mythic fr ever be completely conquered. The notion of the frontier tial for academic critique.

Globalization has crucial implications for postcolonial t

increasingly come to define power relations and tropes of tween the West and the East, between the so-called First World and the Third World. Globalization is the legacy of Western imperialism and colonialism that is reflected in the domination by global forces and the powerful industrialized Western states of the economy, communications, and technology of the underdeveloped parts of the world. It is a transcultural phenomenon that has its admirers and detractors. Said has suggested in Culture

and Imperialism that America has taken the place of British colonialism, with its domination of foreign lands, power politics, and hegemony in inter-

national relations, as seen through the recent wars waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mass production, mass communications, and mass consumption

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 189

are aspects of globalization and are, according to one view (Albrow

positive feature of a changing world order, providing poorer par

world with chances to grow and access to information, techn

world trade. Another view of globalization is that it has created g

qualities between the rich and the poor, undermined local econ rural lifestyles, devastated the ecological systems of countries

militarism, fragmented communities, and created a cultural crisi

adding to the per capita growth of developing nations, globalizati

be separated from the structures of power perpetuated by the m

imperialism, capitalism, and modernity. Moreover, globalization i

tric, grounded in the West in terms of power and institutional o

(Featherstone, 1995). Richard Terdiman suggests that globaliza presses difference and creates the sinister homogenization of

Dominating powers inflict their identity and interests upon dista

mies and ways of life and eventually overwhelm them. Globalizat

view, is seen as neo-colonialism, where the First World exploit raw materials, but also exports to and imposes upon poorer an states its own dominant mode and relations of production in a increasingly hegemonic exchange. This latter, critical point of vie braced by postcolonial theory, with its wide applications in sever Hegemony is a powerful concept that originated in the writin

ian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s. It is most often used in turalist and postcolonial theory to signify domination by consent.

class has the power to convince the working classes, the subaltern

colonized peoples that the governmental interests are universa that are good for all. Hegemony operates not through actual

rather through the hidden structures of power, such as social org

institutions, education, media, and control of economy. It is a for

tural imperialism that dominates through a subtle discourse

which is not visible to the masses. Said has used the concept in hi

struction of Orientalism as a hegemonic practice of domination. H

has been used extensively as a critical tool in postcolonial theory, plications to numerous areas and disciplines.

Hybridity is a conceptual framework that has been popul Bhabha (1994) to denote the ambivalence of postcolonial identit

emanate from a mixture of several cultural sources and places

are not static and have multiple diverse and hybrid referents tha

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

190

materialized in a 'Th Some postcolonial crit hybridity negates the by

stressing mutual c cific differences am concept of difference them

from

while tion,

their

leading

toward

hybridity

describing

the

Imperialism practice, ing

a

the

ritory" globe, that the

of

dia

8).

I

fifte

Oth

power,

instance, before

imperi

p. the

paramount

For

diffe

the

Mercantilism of

postm

territor

controls

media,

m

theory,

(C&I,

from

has

is

distant

consequence

orig

is

and

the

d

importa it

was

th

establishing

Metropolis is used i 'mother country,' as thought

the

civilization Mimicry

as

is

individuals

metropo a

opposed word

who

u

mimi

ues of the colonizers During British rule i educated and to acqu genteel

class,

'brown

married

mimicry

was

denigrating education millions"

Englis

Britis

also

should we

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

an

Indian be

govern

e

im

-

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 191

lish in tastes, opinions, morals, and in intellect" (Macaulay, 183

(1994) says that this gave rise to a class that was "White, but not q

Miscegenation is a concept about the sexual mixing of black an

races, which was seen as a threat to imperialism by the colonialist

nineteenth century, slave owners had developed a hierarchy an tion of admixture of races and miscegenation. Miscegenation was

not approved, but Bhabha and some other critics note that this f

times stemmed from a fascination and desire for the Other, cloake the hate-love ambivalence between the colonizer and the colonized in the

imperial discourse. The word signifies the process of racialization and the importance of race in colonial discourse.

Nativism is the theory that desires the return to a simple pre-colonial existence where indigenous culture flourished. This is the rhetoric of de colonization, but some postcolonial theorists wonder if it is possible or even desirable today. Négritude is a theoretical framework that sees African personality and

culture as different and distinct, suggesting that African art, literature, and

society needs to be judged from its own criteria and point of view, not according to European models. The movement was founded in Paris by black intellectuals, such as Leopold Sédar Senghor, Birago Diop, and Aimé Césairé, and was supported by Jean-Paul Sartre. By essentializing African culture,

négritude presented a form of strategic essentialism, as formulated by Spivak, that worked to create a sense of unity among African cultures. It helped to target African culture as an entity and presence.

Neo-colonialism is a critical perspective that sees the role of modern superpowers and forces of capitalism, globalism, and Western cultural imperialism as a new form of colonialism. The word was coined by the first president of independent Ghana, President Kwame Nkrumah, who believed

in Pan-Africanism. Nkrumah believed that Western imperial powers continued to colonize the other newly independent countries through monetary

control, multinational corporations and cartels, educational and cultural institutions, market economy, and capitalism. He believed that neocolonialism was more insidious and dangerous than even colonialism, as it was covert and wrapped in a cloak of goodwill.

Oraiity is a concept emphasizing the significance of oral cultures, which

were based on storytelling, folklore, anecdotal tales, and other oral cultural practices. Many pre-colonial cultures were oral cultures that valued oraiity

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

192

as

much

tures

as

and

literacy.

P

investigates

cultures.

Other is a key conceptual framework in Edward Said's theory, which constructs the Other as the binary opposition to the Occident and to Europe.

The Other is anyone who is separate from one's own self. The colonized sub-

ject is characterized as Other through discourses of primitiveness, backwardness, and otherness. 'Othering,' as Spivak formulates it, is the process of making the Other through marginalization and colonial discourse. In colonial discourse the subjectivity of the colonized is revealed in the gaze of the imperial Other, as we have seen earlier in Orientalism.

Palimpsest was a term popularized by Umberto Eco in his writings on semiotics and meaning. As a postcolonial framework, the term 'palimpsest' suggests the layers of past culture that leave their traces and sediments and cannot be completely erased. In literal terms, a palimpsest is a tracing of the

original image. The vestiges of colonial culture on postcolonial nations are

palimpsests that need to be decoded and explored in order to understand the present. This conceptual framework is highly useful in probing cultural formations and their impact on peoples, their pasts and present, and their identities and cultures.

Subaltern is a term originally used by Antonio Gramsci in his Marxist

analysis of ruling classes and peasants and workers to designate those groups who are considered to be 'of inferior rank' by hegemonic state pow-

ers. The term was incorporated into postcolonial theory by Ranajit Guha (1982), who formed the Subaltern Studies Group in New Delhi, India, comprised of historians studying the historiography of colonialism and subal-

terneity in India. Five volumes of Subaltern Studies were published. The project's intention was to study the role of the subaltern as opposed to the elite - either the elite bourgeoisie or the nationalist elite - which were invariably the focus of historical analysis. Third World is a term that is consistently used to denote the developing

world or countries that previously had been under colonial domination for centuries. However, this construct is problematized and questioned in post-

colonial theory. The term was first used in 1952 during the Cold War by economist Alfred Sauvy to designate those countries that were not aligned with either the Soviet block or the Western block, which consisted of the United States and its allies. With images of poverty, famine, deprivation,

disasters, and so on perpetuated by journalists and the media, the term

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory

Third World became a pejorative term

ity of the hegemonic power structure that had created this state of affairs.

and underdevelopment do exist in Ame

the media. Postcolonial critics do not

and take the trouble of throwing lig

manufactured it. Moreover, the power

production and domination, are chan

term outdated today. The term sugges

become racialized in pejorative terms deconstructed by postcolonial theory.

The World in Said's theory is a power

cultural, geopolitical, and 'circumstant

ists within and beyond the text. The W

and inform the centrality of texts, wh

not live in an imaginary, unreal spac center of Said's work; its dimensions

been discussed throughout this writing ing' is a term that Gayatri Spivak has which colonized space is brought into Method and Madness

There is a method to the madness of postcolonial theory, with its new-fang

terminology and methodology for academic critique, which is growin

through ingenious and creative applications by researchers and students. T

comprehensive range of conceptual frameworks and terms from postcolon

theory, discussed above, has deep connotations for and applications to int

cultural, international, and interdisciplinary research on postcoloniali Each of these concepts, starting from the powerful concept of Orientalism

practice of 'othering,' can work as a methodological tool for the deconstr

tion of the tropes, structures, and paradigms of power, knowledge and poli

embedded in colonial discourse. In short, postcolonial theory can yield sev

eral valuable techniques, methods, and strategies for critique of colonialis

anti-colonial movements, diasporas, cultures, hybrid identities, and ident

politics, among other areas. In the next chapter I shall conclude by present Said's groundbreaking work as a pedagogy of the Other.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER EIGHT: Toward a Pedagogy of the Other: Interculturalism, Inclusiveness, Interdisciplinarity Author(s): Shehla Burney Source: Counterpoints , 2012, Vol. 417, PEDAGOGY of the Other: Edward Said, Postcolonial Theory, and Strategies for Critique (2012), pp. 195-208 Published by: Peter Lang AG Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/42981705 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Counterpoints

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Toward

a

Interculturali A

huge

quired

and

remark

accou sistance culture, an what Foucault has c once controlled, so

who

to

live

take

in

first-rate locale tion,

no

once

"one

again

Marquez,

like

Said's

Wes

longer

but

Garcia ers

the

literature

them

is

Chi to

s

theoretica

Orientalism

(1978

and Imperialism Said sheds light structed

through

and

colonialism, the hege Other. But he has and individual res oppression. This r

through

literary

discourse,

empire/ centric

and

thro

paradigms

Saiďs privileged nents, two oppos West,

mediating

opposite

ends

of

the

Other.

to

the

Middle

literary,

of

b

t

His

East

social,

an

Orientalism.

Thes

structed

West

the

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

196

lation

of

the

positions. validity,

planet

However,

role,

ourselves

is

opposition.

As

I

hope

to

minder

These be

are

the

time.

word

either

Orient

subjectifying

human

be

seduct

any

on

the

as

cause

last

in

of

different

th

all

human

a

co

hi

domi

humanists,

civic

th

Hum

"Never

and

applications

resist,

as

work,

humanism,

how

wh

'humanity*

humanism

sistance

t

ag

pra

for

important

Said's for

beings

of

my

knowled

strong

inflicted

talizing

say

shown

the

at

c

binary

Said

the

of

anywhere,

when

a

have

..If

to

presenc

too,

ent/Other

talism..

w

acade

temporalitie

expose

and

knowledge

manism

to

the

foreign

policy

disp

but

politic

since

t

nationalistic humani ways led Said to seek and

to

find

academic A

peace

work

Prolegomena

Indeed,

Said's

humanism,

his

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

in

t

throug for

th

contri

unrele

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcoloniaì Theory 197

for the Palestinians, his public intellectualism, his music crit

above all for his erudite scholarship and knowledge in constructin that has become the foundation of the new school of Postcolonial Studies.

But Said's major contribution, in my opinion, is to throw light on the predicament, plight, and position of the Other in an ethnocentered, Eurocentric

world, which negates its connection to the real World of everyday social, political, and circumstantial reality - to bring the question of the Other into

mainstream discourse, to create a Pedagogy of the Other. By 'pedagogy' I mean a broad-based philosophy, practice and prolegomena of the discourse of the Other in society, literature, life, and in all aspects of representation in

the media, arts, and curriculum. The word 'pedagogy' here represents a program, a plan, a system of seeing and knowing the interdependent and intertwined histories of the Other, which depending on the context can either be the Orient or the Occident, the East or the West. As Said has reiterated, there would be no Occident without the Orient, for it is the East that has built the West, which in turn has Orientalized the East.

Pedagogy is a teaching practice, a preface, a philosophical position, a theory, and a perspective. In this sense, Said's postcolonial theory of Orientalism, his theory of the inextricable relationship between culture and the politics of imperialism, his discourse analysis of the denigration of the Orient and the subjugation of the subaltern subject through the tropes of em-

pire and the persistent interextuality of Orientalist texts, is indeed a pedagogy of the Other. It deconstructs how the Other has been socially, culturally, and historically constructed through the tropes of Orientalism and imperialism. Above all, it presents a prolegomena for the Other about how to understand the means of one's marginalization and how to reassert and

reclaim one's indigenous voice and re-present one's identity and culture. Said's pedagogy of the Other teaches, informs, and wakes up the Oriental/Other into seeing and comprehending the ways in which he or she has been Orientalized through the Western gaze, subjectified through the tropes

of colonialism and imperialism, and stereotyped and objectified through colonial discourse. In other words, Said's pedagogy deconstructs the practices by which the Other has been ' othereď ; it demystifies the means of op-

pression, the representational and repetitive textuality embedded in literature, media, anthropology, geography, history, philology, colonial administrative practices, governance, and imperialism that socially constructs the Other as the subaltern subject, as inferior and powerless.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

198

The how

pedagogy knowledge

lonial

rule;

conquer, and

of it

Said's

Arnold's

pedagog

counter-discourse nized

ing

and

of

subaltern

Other

reclaiming

pression a

b

has

discussed

Matthew

Lastly,

has

how

as

the

su

stories

and

of

of

t

reaffir

colonialism

prolegomena

of

the

In the introduction gogy of the Oppresse Though Freire's celebr eration of the oppres from Said's work, bo theoretical and literar complex deconstructi tion

of

postcolonial

pedagogy stands in fact that

totally

tionality

one

with -

major

and

one

The tics,

act"

field

of

from

metic

that

discours and

why

Said

Educatio

was

this

t

Both

traditionally

disrupts

cu

opposin

trait:

literary

"political

and

sharp contr the two men

different

grounds,

th

propagated

see

far

discourse

certain

segm

find opportunities f their futures. These, political questions de underdevelopment.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

A

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 199

arouse people's consciousness in understanding the means of their

sion. He hopes to create resistance by instilling practices that em

liberate the oppressed, using other collective styles of education innovative pedagogical practices such as 'popular education' and 'liberation education' (Freire, 1970, p. 71) that go against the powerful system. Freire's

pedagogy focuses on agency, social justice, and democracy. It encourages "the questioning of inherited assumptions in terms of identity, power and authority" (Giroux, 2005, p. 20). Praxis

Freire's sense of praxis, interpreted as theory and practice, or theory put into action through a process of knowing, thinking, and doing, is the moving

force of his pedagogy. Praxis is reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it. Through praxis individuals can acquire a critical awareness of their own condition, prompting them to struggle for freedom. Freire

encourages the oppressed to take initiatives against the oppression they suffer by creating new paradigms for education. Along a similar vein, Said's

eye-opening work stimulates the critical consciousness of the subaltern colonized subject and inspires her to critique the tropes of her own subjuga-

tion, silence, and oppression. Said has been instrumental in making the Other understand his own otherness and how he has been othered by power/knowledge and cultural domination. This is indeed a pedagogy, a teaching, and an awakening. Furthermore,

Freire's concept of 'conscientization' and Said's 'critical consciousness' possess eerily similar goals of creating resistance and counter-discourse among the oppressed or subjugated peoples. Most importantly, as I pointed out in the introduction, these two eminent thinkers of our time have both been inspired by Frantz Fanon's anti-colonialism, as presented in his The Wretched

of the Earth (1963). Said states that he has cited Fanon "so often" because "more dramatically and decisively than anyone, I believe, he expresses the immense cultural shift from the terrain of nationalist independence to the theoretical domain of liberation" (C&I, p. 268). For Freire also, liberation is the most import aspect of education. This mutual admiration of Fanon is a pivotal point that brings them together despite their vast differences.

Without belaboring the point, I posit that Said's design and purpose, his

praxis, and his academic theories of Orientalism, colonial discourse, and representation are, in fact, a pedagogy of the Other. Postcolonial scholars

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

200

and

intellectuals,

today

criti

to

apply Said's and coloni subject. The pedagogy the new developments knowledge,

is

to

of

bring

persona. rary

Other

In

This

i

colonia

is

indeed

the

theore

thinking.

view

of

discussed as

the

Orientalism,

in

this

highlights

of

book

Said's

siveness; and 3) inter cussed in relation to however, that Said ha the all.

word I

have

'pedagogy' applied

his

n

t

ideas about the World and the Text and his notion of the Other and his

methodology of colonial discourse to the possible critique of educationa questions. Incidentally, Said has not described his writings as 'postcolonia theory,' either, but the theory, the perspective, the discipline is now associ-

ated with his monumental work; he is considered to be the founder of post-

colonial theory. This is reminiscent of Jacques Derrida's 'deconstructionism' or 'deconstruction' - a word that he never used in his writing as such, but that is what his theory is now called. Though I discuss specific pedagogical

practices below that can be deployed in the classroom for teaching the

Other, I wish to clarify again that Said's work is not about Education per se

nor about teaching practice. It is about the larger design of discourse and representation that colonizes the contemporary imagination with its legacy of colonialism and imperialism. It is about creating a context and space for the Other/Orient, for bringing it into the mainstream of humanistic and academic discourse. In this critical context he refers to the Stanford Debate

on Western Culture Core Curriculum and chastises Allan Bloom and his fol-

lowers for "extolling" the "supreme value of purely Western humanities" (C&I, p. 17), and for believing that the "appearance in the academic world of women, African-Americans, gays, and Native Americans... [is] a barbaric threat to 'Western Civilization'" (C&I, p. 320). He also blames Bloom, in Humanism and Democratic Criticism (2004), for thinking that "education ide-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 201

ally was to be a matter less of investigation, criticism, and h

enlargement of consciousness than a series of unsmiling restricti p. 18). Indeed, there is a paucity of Other writing, Other literatures, and Other

texts in the curriculum at the highest levels of learning. Said refers to the academy and curriculum again, pointing out in no uncertain terms that the academic world in his day was so essentially purist and marked by specialization and boundaries that it had no connection to the real, social, economic, and political world of everyday reality: The irony is that it has been the university's practice to admit the subversions of cultural theory in order to some degree to neutralize them by fixing them in

the status of academic subspecialities. So now we have the curious spectacle of

teachers teaching theories that have been completely displaced - wrenched is the better word - from their contexts. (C&I, p. 321)

Said is referring to the dire need to interject the World and its worldliness, or circumstantial reality, into the teaching and interpretation of texts. That is, the academy and pedagogy need to descend from their ivory tower to the

level of the World and its peoples, including the non-Western Other, to in-

corporate lived experience, problems of worldliness, and cultural politics into their curriculum. He also opens up a panoramic colonial discourse analysis of classical, scholarly, and literary texts to show how Orientalism operates by creating images and ideology through the textuality and tropes of Eurocentric representation. However, Said does not use the word 'Eurocentrism' in his writings, either, though he critiques European imperial attitudes of cultural and colonial domination that have constructed and

Orientalized the Orient/Other. It is evident that like most great think

Said does not rely on labels and iconic descriptors that have become words' today, but rather analyzes ideas and concepts originally, des

tively, and deeply. This is one of the reasons that Saiďs work has had s

huge impact on the world. In brief, it is possible to glean ideas from S

theory and apply them to pedagogy and teaching. Extrapolating on his t

retical perspectives on representation of the Other and the context of

tural imperialism and colonial discourse, I have gleaned the three aspect

interculturalism, inclusiveness, and interdisciplinarity, which are at the

ting edge of educational critique today. I posit that they are extremely

portant for Said and are essential ingredients of the pedagogy of the Ot

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

202

Interculturalism

Interculturalism is a notion that suggests the mixing and mingling of different cultures, where one borrows from the Other, learns from the Other, and connects with the Other to produce new configurations, forms, and cultural

practices. Said describes the mutual, intercultural, and inter-related contributions of cultures as follows: The history of all cultures is the history of cultural borrowings. Cultures are not

impermeable; just as Western science borrowed from Arabs, they had borrowed from India and Greece. Culture is never just a matter of ownership, with

borrowing and lending with absolute debtors and creditors, but rather of ap-

propriations, common experience, and interdependencies of all kinds among different cultures. This is a universal norm. Who has yet determined how much

the domination of others contributed to the enormous wealth of the English and French states? (C&I, p. 217)

Historically cultures have developed through borrowings and mixings,

appropriations and interdependence. This interactive, two-way process I call 'interculturalism/ as opposed to 'multiculturalism/ which actually has been a problematic issue in Education, state policy, and politics. It has often

been used as a pejorative term, robbed of power and influence, marginalized, and merely managed as an evil necessity. Interculturalism, however, suggests sharing and communication between cultures; it does not suggest a hierarchy of cultures, some superior, others inferior, but the equality of all cultures. It posits that each culture is equal and can borrow, mingle, and learn from the other. Multiculturalism, as

practiced in the North American education system and social milieu, represents a hierarchy of cultures - some in the mainstream, others on the margins, some important, others peripheral. I have argued (1992b) that official multiculturalism "boils culture to curry and perogies"; that is, it trivializes and marginalizes the concept by focusing merely on the celebration of song and dance, food and festivals, in a superficial, tokenistic manner, while ignoring the substance of art, literature, and other contributions of the Other. By negating its literature, art, and philosophy, the Other is totally dehuman-

ized as having no foundation or cultural context; it is merely exoticized as being Other and strange. In this way the Other becomes a one-dimensional figure, painted through the stereotypes and subjectification of Orientalism.

This often happens in our schools and institutions of learning, where tokenistic practices are celebrated, such as multicultural festivals of ethnic

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory 203 foods, festivities, song, and dance, or the celebration of Hanukah,

Eid around Christmastime at some liberal institutions. These are i

practices indeed, but unless the Other is visible in the curriculum media, literature, and art in concrete, substantial terms, the redu

ginalization of the Other continues. For instance, African or Asian

adorned on the walls of institutions, Other stories by Other writ

taught in the curriculum, and minorities are not visible in the m Other is also absent from most university curriculum, except for ignated courses in Asian or African Studies, as pointed out earlier.

For instance, courses in Media Studies do not usually refer to th

entertain any scholarship from the East; similarly Women's Studi

are not concerned with Other women's studies, nor do they socioeconomic and political issues that impact women's lives in

World, nor do they study feminist scholars, authors, and critics f

countries, though feminist movements have been very strong in

such as India and China. Until the image of the beautiful young wo

in the streets of Teheran during the protests against Iran's dictat ernment, flashed in the media a few years ago with tremendous

one in the West had any concept that women in the Middle East c be well educated, strong, and play an active role in the fight for

This Eurocentrism, which reports only disasters or strange huma stories from the Other world, not normal life, is endemic in Nort

media. This Eurocentrism is also reflected in the curriculum, whic

by excluding the Other from education and scholarship by not re the rich knowledge from other sources.

Intercultural pedagogy tries to encompass the World by deploy other as the supplement of knowledge,' as described earlier. That

tivating a pedagogy that refers to both the East and the West, th

tric curriculum can be expanded to include the World, to use S

Interculturalism, then is a pedagogy where the referents of o

come from both the East as well as the West; it can bring the Wor

classroom by creating referentiality to other knowledge, othe

other literature, and other texts. This model can encompass the k

of the whole world just through intertextuality and references to

For instance, while teaching The Tempest the teacher could possibl

the counter-discourse of resistance, satire, and irony that has bee

by Other writers from previously dominated cultures in the Car

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

204

Latin

America,

tropes theme

of of

throu

colonial The

dis

Tempest

teacher could possibl the eyes of Ari

from and

Guildenstern

Are

This would be a form Said has suggested as and meanings of text discourse can become culture core curriculu and the hegemony o Hirsch and Allan Bloo education can help to tive of the interming ism are

and

also

represents

mingled

with

memories.

lated

from

In

other

culturalism integral

is

aspect

th

othe

tod

cult

the

of

n

the

Indusiveness

Inclusiveness is essential in creating a pedagogy of the Other so that Other is strongly visible in culture, society, media, and curriculum. As I

argued elsewhere (1995] every child needs to be reflected in the curricu

if learning is to be meaningful. Identity and self-image are integral to le

ing. Unless the student sees herself as a protagonist, a player, a role mo

as a presence in the curriculum - she can become alienated, othered,

estranged. Creating a classroom discourse where every student is visible

not an impossible feat. As suggested earlier, by deploying various postco

nial strategies it is possible to create a polyphony of voices and sou

without necessarily going through the difficult process of changing the riculum, which is a mammoth task, as the structures of Eurocentrism a embedded in both culture and curriculum. The teacher can make references

to other texts and contexts and use other narratives with examples from other cultures so that every child can see herself in the curriculum. By being

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory

represented in curriculum, through dis

gically deploying references to other c

histories, students from different ling

can be made to feel part of the class

alienated as Other. I have called this an

creates a sense of hybridity in the cla

and drawing in of the different racial

circle of shared meanings and values

ronment of mutual respect and sense o

can inculcate a sense of social responsib

ment to equality and democracy. In th

the political as well as the personal t

intertwined histories," to use Said's ph

Who Speaks? In order to negate the effects of Eurocentrism and to critically analyze if the Other is present or absent in the curriculum and the text, the student can ask

some key questions: Who speaks? Who is silenced? Whose voice do we hear? Whose experience is described? Who is the protagonist? Whose perspective is being presented? What kind of images and words are being used to describe characters in the text? These questions can begin to critically inform students

about representation and meaning, leading to analysis of how the Other is represented and whether the Other is included in or excluded from the text These simple questions can lead even young students to understand the idea of discourse analysis, which is Said's central analytical strategy in Orientalism - though of course his critique operates at a highly advanced intellectual level of scholarship, textuality, intricacy, and complexity. The idea of inclu-

siveness in education and curriculum includes gender, cultural difference, disability, sexual orientation, race, class, ethnic origin, religion, dress and ap-

pearance, and language. These are categories by which the Other has often been excluded and marginalized. An inclusive pedagogy, in short, is designed to bring the Other into the center of discourse.

Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinarity is the mark of postcolonial theory. Said employs it himself in his work, creating a critique that encompasses various areas, such as English Studies, Comparative Literature, History, Anthropology, Ethnogra-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

206

phy,

Geography,

Polit

partly

animated my alleged uni historiography, anthr (C&I, p. 44). No doubt

which

and

breadth

cized

his

the

by

of

some

its

int

critics

writing. One of h an extreme exam work, questioned

called his

grees

he

tory,

and

to

the

Said

possessed, his

knowled

criticism

does

believes

in

hi

not

levele

believ

crossing

bo

several perspectives this practice am posed to an expert, a academic world, remo locked into narrow pr called

cabulary Said

does

and not

speak

o

indulge

nology that has been was established as an explicated

in

chapter

course that defies co and the expert. of the aporias and tro In opposition to thi Saidian strategy that demic experts who wi is very important to act of political and so to be far removed fro the world and self-aw sional

ism,

and

Though

interdisciplin

he

does

interdisciplinary

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

not

appr

Conceptual Frameworks in Postcolonial Theory

tise, Orientalism, in 1978, when the co

disciplinary critique that made Orien

pertinent. In his chosen position as the

politics, media, psychology, anthropolo

culture. This interdisciplinary strategy

popular among progressive educator school levels. Indeed, Interdisciplinar scholarship today, as it brings several

and can deploy comparative and crit

study. Postcolonial theory, following t

ity very seriously as a strategy in criti

ciplinary approaches yield an integrati

rather than a fragmented one. It is es siveness, and interculturalism need t

sent-day education and cultural politic Summing Up

Orientalism was indeed epoch-making,

brought to light the making of the qu

imperial eyes: the Orient as the very an

'us.' It turned the tide that had defined

pire by revealing the tropes of "intert

tories" (0, p. 3) of the Orient/Occident

means of her or his own oppression, d

ture, language, and literature that the

acclaim. It showed the postcolonial su

manized by the Western gaze. Orient

imperialism by deconstructing the s lence that was hidden in the tropes

hundreds of revered historical, philolog

entalist, stereotypical, and demeaning

mote, timeless, and powerless. He pres

identity of difference and a strong voi He revealed the resistance and counter

fronted the power relations and hegem

alism; that is, the past era of British a

American cultural and political imperi

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

208

We

live

and

of

course

tion

-

are

the

very

representation text,

a

cept

to

Saiďs

Lasting

been

sive

a

is

p

Legacy

insi

enabled of at

him

the

major

quarters

t

elem

used

unrelenting

has

w

-

monu

being

conformism has

a

deemed

that

Said's

today,

Said's

is

context

Thanks

pire

in

representations

W

facto

least,

its own creation and i literature, the arts, m Said's

that

greatest

he

has

postcolonialism tegrity

of

contri

brought as

a

cr

postcolonia

lonial

discourse.

Other

into

the

The

mainst

of

Orientalism, cultu with its variou amateurism, worldli teaching, pedagogy, a disciplines and interd tives of empire" has b tives that undercut t have tried to show. I

world,

empowering,

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:32:55 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

and

libe

AFTERWORD

The

Ara

East Meets West

Waiting for the 'Day of Departure:' Thousands protest night and day at Tahrir Squar Cairo, Eqypt. Photo courtesy of Amina Ismail. Democracy in any real sense of the word is nowhere to be found in the still "na-

tionalistic" Middle East; there are either privileged oligarchies or privileged eth-

nic groups. The large mass of people is crushed beneath dictatorship or

unyielding, unresponsive, unpopular government But the notion that the United

States is a virtuous innocent in this dreadful state of affairs is unacceptable.... For

two generations the United States has sided in the Middle East mostly with tyr-

anny and injustice. No struggle for democracy, or women's rights, or secularism

and the rights of minorities [in the Middle East] has the United States officially

supported. Instead one administration after another has propped up compliant

and unpopular clients and turned away from the efforts of small peoples to liber-

ate themselves from military occupation, while subsidizing their enemies. The

United States has prompted unlimited militarism and. ..engaged in vast arms sales everywhere in the region. (C&I, p. 300)

As the dramatic sounds, images, and virtual reality of uprisings, upheav

and revolutions in Saiďs Orient - from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, and Syr

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

210

came of

pouring

the

Occident,

testing of

people

power

As

and

thousands

ing, day

some ened

and

to

Mubarak's fallen. power 18

As on

As

his

a

th

'occu

out,

fe

mov

with this

scar

book.

break

thro

Western-

Mubarak the

bloody

op

fel

marauding

hotels

ginning

t

privileg

Orientalist

writing

see

as

upon

day

with

via

and

protesting, in

fire,

of

in

"Day

days

people

of

w

of

rev

claim

t

humanist and ac and cherished d

desire

Protestors

at

Tahrir

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Squa

Afterword

Call

211

to Action: courtesy

Photo

The

Arab

relentless Egypt,

last

brutality

the

freedom

It

of

shed

near with

has

to

Yem

collapse its

bu

own

the

sha

future

bec

Imperialism East

u

remaining

of

Orient

Spring

Libya

few

brink

Friday of Ami

he

great

been

an

has

insig

unca

reclaim their ident and land thr ment for freedom

guage,

participants,

and

th

central Tahrir Squa historical changes indulged in this wr

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

212

in

the

West,

it

was

m

reality of a war agai were shot, and wom and

often

dying

murdered.

bodies

homes,

while

of at

child the

ot

and violence continu toward the freedom East/West binaries w lives for the Arab Sp the

fight

One

of

Cairo was It

my

goes

the

protesting

is

one

thing

and

25th

sum

at

to

Tah

follow

another

of

on,

Egyptian

during

news, the

still

to

January,

ac

20

ing

what everyone will ward to complete the A

uprising

This

that

makes

revolution

government sisted

very

of

was

different

this

di

the

Further

peaceful

faced

it

th

sect

revolutio

attitude

with

A revolution is a very social, political, and id apparent long before th cause Egyptians felt wo own government. Police shows, images in newsp ideas and views shared b The the

influence past

Alia's right ter's

decade

that is

comments

now,

thesis

still on

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

visu

import

as

a

prote

the

ind

Afterword

tion

may

theatre

of

ha

p

lions of viewers on television and the internet. But for those thousands

upon thousands of Egyptian men, women, and children who protested day

and night at Tahrir Square in Cairo amidst gunshots, bloodshed, police atrocities, arrests, torture, and killings, freedom was a cause more precious than life itself. They waited week after week, saying their Friday afternoon

prayers in unison and then moving to action, waiting, waiting for the final Day of Departure when the doomed dictator would capitulate. The day did

arrive and the jubilation was overwhelming. Thousands of technologysavvy young people captured the historic event on their cameras and today one finds literally thousands of pictures which photographers and bloggers post on the internet to share and remember. Here I have reproduced some of the happier shots as a picture speaks a thousand words. Occupy Wall Street: Speaking Truth to Power The Arab Spring has become the unfolding of what Said has called "the voyage in" (C&I, p. 239), as the current Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement in the West publicly acknowledges on its website that it "was inspired by the Arab Spring and the youth freedom movement in the Middle ¿Tasfc" This is an

incredible turn of events, as normally one is used to seeing Western ideas and culture infiltrate the East rather than the other way around. This is a major change in the discourse of the Other, where the Other has been transformed into 'us' from the erstwhile 'them.' Indeed, it is a counter-discourse with the journey heading north, from the waters of the Nile to those of New York, and onward to the World.

The official website of Occupy Wall Street (occupywallstreet.org) states categorically on its front page: "The Revolution Continues Worldwide." The World is very much present here, as Said would have wanted, rather than

having only the two binaries of the Orient/Occident. The revolutionary youth movement in the West seems to have crossed borders and shared ideas, strategies, and ideology, as its website claims. Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of

the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

214

This

#ows

tom

up.

corner

a

Spring far,

a

is

one

their

of

already

spontaneous,

ment nored

and

of

in

the

alright

calls

home,

right

cam

in in

"S

to

Syria.

St

of

American

it

b

while

front

when

o

solidari

nowhere

at

especially ing

on

thou

hundreds

Foucault is

m

base

created.

youth

strength what

o

the

has

with

f

north

of

and

ties

don't

(Retrie

conclusion

versity

em

see

stance

sailing

control

to

we

society.

strong

Spring,

ing

want

because

better

This

movement

We

m

happe

but when it happens being marginalized a drug-addicted 'no-go ble-makers

without

a

American media, the not disappeared. A m materialized.

The mostly youth-oriented, revolutionary Occupy movement, which started in New York City in September 2011 as a protest against economic and social inequality and corporate greed, has spread to 82 countries within a short time, grounding itself in the Occident, street after street, city after

city, country after country, entrenching itself in global metropolises, as a unified protest opposing the excesses of the 1% against the sea of the 99%.

This new development has changed the political, social, and cultural discourse of the West into a discourse of the Other, actually a joint discourse of

others, from both the East and the West. The solidly entrenched binaries of

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Afterword

the Orient/ into a unifi gether

in

liberty. counter

th

It se disc

what it demands.

The strategies, tactics, or modes of operation of the Arab Spring revolu-

tions and the Occupy movement are very similar, but the contexts are markedly different. In Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, protesters were hysterical with anger, fear, and desperation in the face of fire, bloodshed, and gunfire,

knowing that immediate action was needed to bring change. The Occupy movement is more sedate and peaceful, knowing it has to gather power through knowledge - hence the 'general assemblies' and constant discourse. The use of modern internet technologies - iPhones, iPads and iPods, Twitter and Facebook - has created ample scope for organization, coordination, and direction. The Occupy website also informed its followers that [T]wo days ago, in a reversal of prior claims to support OWS, the Mayor of Boston threatened to evict Occupy Boston. In response, supporters from across

Massachusetts and the country gathered at Occupied Dewey Square. They came

by bus from New York and DC. They carpooled from Providence and flew in from Chicago. They drove from Worcester, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Last night, demonstrating how clearly Occupy Boston's message has been heard and understood, two thousand people traveled from near and far to defend Dewey Square. They painted signs and spoke in General Assembly. They chanted and sang, "Which Side Are You On?" six times, at least, as a brass band

blew steam into the frozen December night. They rallied at midnight, making

circles two deep around tents, as the Veterans for Peace stood guard, white flags snapping in the wind. They dressed as bankers so that bankers might be arrested for once. And when the news came that no raid was coming, no eviction imminent, they danced in the streets to celebrate.

The police did eventually come. They waited days; hoping people would stop paying attention. Like previous raids in other cities, they made their move like cowards in the pre-dawn shadows at 5 am this morning. The city used bulldozers to destroy what had been home to hundreds. At least 45 peaceful protesters were arrested while linking arms to nonviolently protect their homes and their

right to free speech. (Retrieved December 11, 2011)

This could well tell the story of most OWS occupations, from Toronto to New York and Chicago, from San Francisco to London, England, where a va-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

216

cant

Swiss

Bank

headquarters ment

seems

society

is

of

to

not

bui

the

be

m

dyi

conduci

Person of the Year

Waking up to the reality of the power of protest, Time magazine named "The Protester" as the "Person of the Year" on the cover of the December 2011 is-

sue. Historically it has been considered a tremendous honor and distinction to be recognized as Person of the Year because of the great line of powerful persons who have held that exclusive title. This honor is bestowed on the person

who has the greatest influence on the world, whether for good or bad. This latest recognition of the Arab Spring on the front page of the popular, distin-

guished news magazine is an extraordinary paradigm shift in cultural and political thinking, reversing the trend of continuing marginalization. The Other: From Terrorist' to 'Protester'

The picture of an Arab-looking woman with a hijab and dark, beautiful eyes

makes the December 2011 issue of Time stand out. It is a dramatic representation of not only the Other and the Orient, but also of gender, culture, and difference. The point I have made here about the deep underlying relationship between the Arab Spring and the elevation of the notion of protest in the West, as seen in the Occupy movement, seems to be represented in the concept of the cover of Time. This is a time for protest; a time for putting things right both here and there, for us and for them.

The Arab Spring, led by the protester, was no mean feat. Within a few months, it saw the demise of three fierce dictators who had held the helm of power for three decades or more, in three Arab countries on the north coast

of Africa - Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. So-called regime-change was not imposed by hegemony and power from the West but by the indigenous peoples themselves, who came together after months and years of suffering and tolerance. Unlike the Iraq war, there were no American boots on the ground,

and the United States surprisingly did not make any unilateral decisions to

invade or bomb, but instead decided to go through NATO and its allies to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and give support just where and when needed; this was done after the 'rebels' requested Western aid. It is important to note that no unilateral decision was taken by the USA (unlike previ-

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Afterword

ous

times)

were allowed to take their own affairs into their own hands. The former U.S.

foreign policy under President George W. Bush - that of domination, inva-

sion, and violence, with billions and billions being spent on war - was changed into a policy of non-interference with firm diplomatic support, despite criticism from both the Right and the Left. The Obama Effect?

I would like to call this major paradigm shift, 'the Obama Effect' - a balanced, basic, peace-loving approach to the World. President Obama's first overseas speech after his inaugural on January 20, 2009 as the 44th President of the USA was strategically delivered in Egypt, at the University of Cairo, on June 4, 2009. Designed to mend fences with the Middle East, it was powerful, riveting, and influential; it brought a breath of fresh air of friend-

liness toward the Middle Eastern peoples in sharp contrast to the alienation

and exclusion they had suffered as the Other for years under President Bush. The initial promise of President Obama's speech was to offer a handshake to the East, to anti-terrorists, inviting the youth to join forces with others to bring peace to their own country without East/West hostilities, without the horrific tactics of terrorism. This warm gesture seems to have

resonated with young minds looking for a brighter future. As an undergraduate student in Said's class at Columbia, possibly President Obama took a lesson or two from Professor Said. There is some evidence that he met the

intellectual several times at debates and conferences in Chicago while he was a senator, but this has not been researched or established. One thing is certain though, that Edward Said was indeed a stern critic of American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, especially on Palestine and Latin America, as the epigraph at the beginning of the chapter shows.

The Arab Spring and the "We Are the 99%" OWS movement are grassroots, people's movements led by those considered the Other: the protester, the outsider, the revolutionary, the critic. These are happenings in-

spired by the new Orient, the new Arab discourse, and are spreading out into the trenches of the new Occident of the new century. After all, it is the

new United States of America too, under President Obama, and the new European Union, with its recessionary cracks in Greece, Portugal, and Spain and with agitation and economic discontent spreading to the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the rest of Europe. Protest is the keyword of

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

t

218

today.

times

These

are

are

diffi

a-changing

East-West,

breaking

d

It is interesting that in Culture and Imper that a literary critic his delineation of th seems

own

to

[T]he

the

do

words exilic,

exactly

th

extrapolat the

margina

liberationist

resilient

to

strugg disappear, h

"anti-systemic

movemen pansion historically wa twentieth century. Wal tion is irrational; its ad

though

its

"buying tant,

costs

off

not

ordinate

worth

or

disrupting ian

-

in

'...and

mai

in

the

liv

gain

imprisonin

it,

proposing

compulsions

of

the

w

All

these hybrid counter ments provide a commu hints and practices for

cion

or domination. Th earlier. The autho and overtook so ma

spoke into in

modern

nuities

of

binations

culture,

find

intellectual of

tradition

an

a of effort and interpret classes or corporations o

35)

Here Said seems to be almost commenting on the social and cultural inequities between the 99% and the 1% all over the world. Indeed, it is time for

the East and West to break the chains of the Orient/Occident oppositions and come together in a postcolonial society, shedding the tropes of Oriental-

ism, colonialism, and imperialism. With transnational migrations; growth of

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Afterword new

diasporas;

music,

of

art,

diverse

cial

calls

The

deve

and

liter

young

justice,

Said

pe

freedom

it,

has

com

revolutionary

present

a

presidents first

as

219

challeng and

century

young

World

sistance

ind

people

march

Moving

gove

is

in

and

beyond and

p

Or

counter

young,

and

ture

colonialism

to

cultural

global

West

talist

into

unify

evolves,

binaries

to

be

of

eme seen

the

East/

discourse,

the

cruel

a

challenge

revolutionary remains

c

new

(yet

does

year

a

Western

fallen dictators; whe ernments in the Mi

more the of

serious

conse

politicians

social

fiscal

and

policy

America. with

a

it

'bang'

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:03 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

th

financ in

Said

ultimately

in

the

would

remai or

a

'w

REFERENCES

Achebe, C. (1989). An Image of Africa. In Hopes and Impediments ; Selected Essa York: Doubleday, Anchor. Ahmad, A. (1992). In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literature. London: Verso. Alatas, S. H. (1977). Myth of the Lazy Native. London: Routledge.

Albrow, M. (1994). Globalization: Myths and Realities. Inaugural Lecture. Londo hampton Institute. Amin, S. (2000). Eurocentrism. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Appiah, K. A. (1992). In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. Methuen.

Arnold, M. (1869[1996]). Culture and Anarchy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Ashcroft, B. & Ahluwalia, D. P. S. ( 2001). Edward Said. London: Routledge. Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., & Tiffin, H. (1989). The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice

in Post-Colonial Literature. London: Routledge. Austen, J. (1814). Mansfield Park, First Edition. London: Thomas Egerton. Auerbach, E. ([1946] 1968). Mimesis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination. M. Holoquist (Ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Barenboim, D. (2005). Maestro. In H. Bhabha & W. J. T. Mitchell (Eds.), Edward Said, C tinuing the Conversation (pp. 163-67). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Barthes, R. (1957). Mythologies. New York: Hill & Wang.

Benjamin, W. (1969). Illuminations. New York: Sch

Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: British Books.

Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Bharata, M. (1951). Natya Sastra. Trans. Sri Manmohan Ghosh. Orig. 2 BC. Calcutta, India: Asiatic Society of Bengal. Bloom, A. (1987). The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the Oppressed. London: Pluto Press

Bové, P. (2005) Continuing the Conversation. In H. Bhabha & W. J. T. Mitchell (Eds.), Ed-

ward Said, Continuing the Conversation (pp. 36-42). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Brennan, T. (2005). Resolution. In H. Bhabha & W. J. T. Mitchell (Eds.), Edward Said, Continuing the Conversation (pp. 43-55). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Braziel, J. E. & Mannur, A. (Eds). (2003). Theorizing Diaspora. London: Blackwell Publishing.

Brooks, C. & Warren, R.P. ([1938] 1960). Understanding Poetry. New York: Hill and Wang.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:08 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

222

Burney,

S.

Brechtian

(1989).

Theatre

Ways

(Unpub

The Toronto Star. July 29. A 21.

In S. Wakil & M. Sinha (Eds.), South Asian Horizon

129-39). Montreal: Canadian Asian Studies Associat Heath Canada.

ference Press.

Rasmussen & A. Stern (Eds.), Playing Betwixt and B

way: IDEA Publications.

States Media. In SIMILE. Studies in Media and Inform

Vol. 2, Number 2, pp. l-9.Toronto: University of Toron

versity, 13 (4), pp. 7-14.

Burton, R. W. (1987). The Tigers of the Raj: Pages from Toovey (Ed.). Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Pub Ltd.

Capra, F. ([1975] 2000). The Tao of Physics. Berkeley, C

Carter, P. (1987). The Road to Botany Bay. London: Fabe

Chomsky, N. & Herman, E.S. (1988). Manufacturing Con

Clarke, A. (1980). Growing Up Stupid Under the Union j

Crosby, Aģ W. (1986). Ecological Imperialism: The Bi 900-1900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Pr

Curtin, P.D. (Ed.). (1971). Imperialism. New York: Walke

Derrida, J. (1981). Positions. Chicago: University of Ch

Djait, H. ([1977] 1989). Europe and Islam. Berkeley, CA: Un

Duncan, D. (2002). A Flexible Foundation: Continuing Goldberg & A. Quayson (Eds.), Relocating Postcoloni ford University Press, Blackwell.

Eagleton, T. (1983). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Ox

Eco, U. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: India Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the Other: How Anthropology lumbia University Press.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:08 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

References

Fanon,

F.

([19

York: Grove Press.

York: Grove Press.

Featherstone, M. (Ed.). (1990). Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity.

London: Sage. Fishman, J. A. (1985). The Rise and Fall of the Ethnic Revival: Perspectives on Language and Ethnicity. Berlin & New York: Mouton.

Forster, E. M. (1924). A Passage to India. London: Edward Arnold. Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things. London: Penguin.

Reader. London & New York: Longman.

Freire, P. (1970). The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. N

Frye, N. (1957). The Bush Garden: Essays in the C House of Anansi Press.

Giroux, H. (2005). Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education (2nd

ed.). London: Routledge Publishing. Gramsci, A. (1934). Prison Notebooks. New York: Colombia University Press. Grove, R. (1994). Green Imperialism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Guha, R. (Ed.). (1982). Subaltern Studies. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Hall, S. (1980). Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms Media, Culture and Society. London: Edward Arnold.

Modernity and Its Future. Cambridge, UK: Polity

Hirsch, E. D. (1987). Cultural Literacy: What Ever Houghton Mifflin Co.

Hutcheon, L. (1985). A Theory of Parody: The Teach London & New York: Methuen.

Hyderabad Deccan Foundation Souvenir. (2011). Souvenir for Awards Night June 18, 2011. Toronto, ON: Hyderabad Deccan Foundation. Jameson, F. (1981). The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Kennedy, V. (2000). Edward Said: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Lalla, H. & Myers, J. (1990). Report on the Royal Ontario Museum's Exhibit, ' Into the Heart of Africa/ for the Toronto School Board of Education. Toronto, ON: Toronto Board of Education.

Lane, E. W. ([1836] 1936). Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. London: J. M. Dent.

Leavis, F. R. (1963). The Great Tradition. New York: New York University Press.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:08 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

224

Lockwood,

Lord

W.B.

Cromer,

(1969).

Evelyn

In

Ba

York: Macmillan.

Lyotard, J. F. ([1979] 1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

Macaulay. Minute to Parliament. (1835). Quoted in P.D. Curtin (Ed). (1971). Imperialism (p. 182). New York: Walker & Co. Macedo, D. (2008). Introduction to Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th anniversary edition. New York, London: Continuum International.

Magosci, P. R. (Ed.). (1999). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.

Mitchell, W. J. T. (2005). Edward Said: Continuing the Conversation.In H. Bhabha & W. J.

T. Mitchell (Eds.), Edward Said: Continuing the Conversation (pp. 1-6). Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Moi, T. (1985). Sexual/Textual Politics. London: Routledge. Nelson, E. S. (1993). Writers of the Indian Diaspora: A Bio-bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Westport, CT : Greenwood Press.

Ngugi, wa T. ([1965] 2009). The River Between. New York: Longman. Pannikar, K. M. (1959). Asia and Western Domination: A Survey of the Vasco da Gama Epoch of Asian History ; 1498-1945. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Parry, B. (1987). Problems in Current Discourse Theory. Oxford Literary Review, 9, pp. 27-58.

Pratt, M. L. ([1992] 2007). Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Acculturation. London Routledge. Rabasa, J. (1993). Inventing A>M>E>R>l>C>A: A Spanish Historiography and the Formation of Eurocentrism. Norman, OK, and London: University of Oklahoma Press.

Rajan, G. & Mohanram, R. (Eds.). (1995). Postcolonial Discourse and Changing Cultural Contexts: Theory and Criticism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Ricoeur, P. (1971). What Is a Text, Explanation and Interpretation? In D. Rasmussen (Ed.), Mythic Symbolic Language and Philosophical Anthropology (p. 138). The Hague, Netherlands: Nijhoff.

Rushdie, S. ([1981] 2006). Midnight's Children. New York: Random House. Salih, T. (2009). Seasons of Migrations to the North. New York: New York Review of Books Classics

Said, E. W. (1976). Interview. Diacritics, 6(3), pp. 30-47.

Press.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:08 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

References Palestinian

225

Question.

L

Vintage Books.

See the Rest of the World. New York: Vintage.

Press.

Sartre, J. P. (1968). Preface. In F. Fanon, Wretched of

ton). New York: Grove Press.

Saussure, F. ([1938] 1965). Semiologie: Course in Ge York: McGraw-Hill.

Shiva, V. (1997). Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

South End Press.

Simon, R.I. (1992). Teaching against the Grain: Texts for a Pedagogy of Possibility. New York: Bergin & Garvey. Spivak, G. (1979). In Other Worlds : Essays in Cultural Politics. London: Routledge. the Interpretation of Culture. London: Macmillan.

(Ed.), The Post-colonial Critic. New York: Routledge.

don: Routledge.

Spurr, D. (1993). The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Di and London: Duke University Press.

Stafford, R. (1989). Scientists of Empire. Cambridge,

Taylor, G. R. (Ed.). (1971). The Turner Thesis: Con American History. Lexington, MA: Heath.

Terdiman, R. (1985). Discourse/Counter-discourse: Resistance in Nineteenth Century France. Ithaca, Press.

Tibawi, A. L. (1964). English Speaking Orientalists: A Critique of their Approach to Islam and Arab Nationalism. Islamic Quarterly, 8, pp. 1-4, 25-45. Vishwanathan, G. (1989). The Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:08 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

226

New

York:

Columbia

Windschuttie,

K.

Un

(1999)

17, January.

Willett, J. (Ed.). ([1964] 1978). Brechton Theatre. London: Eyre Methuen. Williams, R. (1958). Culture and Society, 1780-1950. London: Chatto & Windus.

Woodcock, G. (1985 ). The Walls of India. Toronto, ON: L

Worswick, C. (1980). Princely India. London: Hamish H

Young, R. (1995). Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theo Routledge.

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:08 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

INDEX A

British Empire, 198, 204, 208, 209

Achebe, Chinua, 99, 109-110, 157-158, 162

Ahmad, Aijaz, 32-33, 190 Alatas, S. H., 31

Albrow, M., 189 ambivalence, 59-60, 81,84-85, 89, 157, 174-175, 117,188

appropriation, 42, 59-60, 74, 78-79, 89, 115, 157, 179, 202, 218 Amin, Samir, 143

British Raj, 128-130, 131, 154, 160, 170, 171, 176

Brooks, C. & Warren, R.P., Understanding Poetry, 4

Burney, Shehla, 17-18, 31, 46, 66-68, 100, 128, 170, 172, 180

Burton, Richard and Nerval, 75 Burton, R. W., 178

C

Amir Khusrau and Ghalib, 122

Camus, Albert, L'Etranger, 74,111

Appiah, K. A., 59

Capra, Fritjof, 162

Arnold, Matthew, 5, 73,123.198

Carter, P., 179, 184

Arab Spring, 13, 22, 210-219

Chomsky, Noam, 48, 100

Ashcroft, B. & Ahluwalia, D. P. S., 6, 65,

Clarke, Austin, 71

93, 98,127,1 28,138

Conrad, Joseph, Heart of Darkness, 19, 21, 72,105,109,110,111

Austen, Jane, Mansfield Park, 19, 41,

Contrapuntal analysis, 20, 48, 73, 91,

71-72, 182

106, 113, 117, 126-128, 130, 131-

Auerbach, Erich, 13, 14, 36, 129

133, 140, 150, 182, 209, 138 B

Critical pedagogy, 8, 10, 12, 21, 125

Bakhtin, Mikhail, carnivalesque, 46 Barenboim, Daniel, 13, 127 Barthes, Roland, 1, 33, 48, 63, 68-69, 75, 118-120, 136

Crosby, A. W., 185

Cultural Literacy, 165, 166, 168, 169, 170

Cultural Studies, 2, 17, 23, 125, 131, 167, 171

Benjamin, Walter, 1, 69 Berger, John, 69

Bhabha, Homi, 55, 58-59, 136, 157, 174-175, 177, 182, 183, 189, 190

Bharata, M., Natya Sastra, 66

D

Darwish, M., 45

Derrida, Jacques, 1, 7, 15, 20, 46-48, 55,

Blake, William, 54

57, 68-69, 100, 117, 120, 125, 136,

Bloom, Allan, 165, 169, 200, 204

150, 173, 182-183, 200

Boal, Augusto, 45

Djait, H., 32

Bové, Paul, 196

Diaspora, 43, 60, 61, 171, 183, 184,

Brennan, Tim, 6, 7, 8

194, 219

Braziel, J. E. & Mannur, A., 184

Duncan, Dawn, 41

Brecht, Bertolt, 67-68, 100, 101, 128,

Duncan, Isadora, 51

140

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:12 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

228

E

H

Eagleton, Terry, 1, 93

Hall, Stuart, 2, 8, 11, 25, 187

East India Company, 154, 178, 190

Heart of Darkness, 19, 21, 97, 104, 107108,110,129,152-153

Eco, Umberto, 1, 7

Education, 7-12, 14, 15, 101, 121, 122,

Hilary, Sir Edmund, 146

124, 125, 132, 138, 140, 144, 158,

Hirsch, E. D., 165, 168, 169, 170, 204

159, 164, 165, 174, 175, 176, 180,

Hutcheon, Linda, 158

198, 199

Hyderabad, 83, 154, 171, 186

Eliot, T. S., 4,116,124,219 Eurocentrism, 20, 62, 66, 122, 124, 143,

149, 150, 151, 157, 160, 163, 164, 167, 174, 175, 160, 163, 164, 167,

174, 175, 179, 187, 204, 206

I

India and Russia, 171 Into the Heart of Africa Exhibit, 157160

Exile, 11, 13, 14, 16, 36, 47, 95, 96, 127, 129, 187, 188

F

J Jallianwalla Bagh, 154, 155, 156

Fabian, Johannes, 20, 87 Faiz Ahmad Faiz, 45 Fanon, Frantz, 9, 12, 30, 39, 49, 50-52,

53-55, 65, 78, 88, 181, 199

Featherstone, M., 189

Jameson, Fredric, 1 K

Kennedy, Valerie, 36, 37 Kipling, Rudyard, Kim, 33, 72, 84, 85, 87,112,131

Fishman, J. A., 188

Forster, E. M., 19, 34, 72, 80-83, 87,

Koh-i-noor diamond, 130, 152, 153, 177

105,112,188 Foucault, Michel, 1, 15, 27, 28-29, 32,

Kuchuk Hanem and Flaubert, 33, 34. 35, 101, 86

46-48, 69, 75, 117, 119-120, 128, 172,184,195,214

Freire, Paulo, 7, 8, 9, 10-12, 50, 115, 133, 198, 199

Frye, Northrop, 4, 43, 135

L Lane, E. W. 75, 88, 95, 170 Leavis, F.R., 5, 123

Lockwood, W.B.,37,38

G

Lyotard, J. F., 47, 48

Giroux, Henry, 7, 8, 10, 199

Gramsci, Antonio, 2, 27-28, 46, 189, 192

M

Macaulay. 38, 121-122, 190, 191, 198

Grove, R., 185

Guha, Ranajit, 2, 192

Macedo, D., 12 Magosci, J. P., 101, 186 Mitchell, W. J. T., 13

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:12 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Index

Moi,

Toril Orient/Occident, 25, 32, 35, 65, 77,

163,178,179. 180,207,213, Mughal,

215,218

111

secular criticism, 19, 117, 126, N

133, 134, 140, 209

World, worldliness, 4, 15, 19, 20,

Neruda, Pablo, 45

48, 60, 74, 80, 87,93,94,117,

New Criticism, 2, 4, 5,

118, 119, 120, 121, 127, 128,

Keats's Grecian Urn , 7, 134, 141,

132, 133, 136, 138, 140, 164,

Ngugi, wa T., 105,111,112 Nizam, The, 83, 154, 171 Norgay, Tenzing, 6, 30, 146

176, 193, 208

Salih, Talib, 105,111,112 Sartre, J. P., 50-53, 65, 181, 191 Saussure, F., 69

0

Semiotics, 1, 2, 6, 19, 56, 66, 69, 86,

Obama, Barack, 12, 217 Orientalism, 1-23, 129, 178, 179

179, 190

Shakespeare, William, 5, 28, 70-72, 74,

resistance to, 105-140, 143-173

111,114,150

Shankar, Uday, 45 P

Shiva, Dance of, 186 Shiva, Vandana, 186

Pannikar, K. M., 149

Simon, Roger, 18

Pavlova, Anna, 45

Portuguese, the, 102-103, 147-150,

Spivak, Gayatri, 1, 7, 10, 13, 19, 39, 41,

42, 56-57, 58, 62, 100, 103, 113,

153,154

Postcolonial theory, 3, 23-41, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 36, 42, 43, 44,

45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 176, 177, 183, 109, 200

141, 148, 179, 182, 186, 191-192

Spurr, D., 178 T

Pratt, M. L., 7, 36, 37

Taylor, 187

R

Terdiman, R., 182, 189,

Tempest, The , 114, 150, 203, 204 Tibawi, A. L., 32

Rabasa, J., 145,179 Rajan, G. & Mohanram, R., 184 Ricoeur, Paul, 120

Rushdie, Salman, 106, 107-109, 174,

V

Verdi, G.,Aida, 19, 91, 92, 93, 132

176

U S

Universalism, 56, 139, 60, 160, 161,

Said, E. W.

163, 206

amateurism, 48, 135, 136, 138,

Urdu Hall, 8, 82, 83

140, 206, 208

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:12 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

230

V

Vishwanathan, Gauri, 122, 161 W Willett, John, 45

Williams, Raymond, 27, 84, 131 Windschuttie, K., 90 Woodcock, George, Walls of India, 87, 88, 159

Worswick, C., 83 Y

Young, Robert, 55, 177, 178 Z

Zulu, 108, 159, 165

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:12 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education General Editor

Shirley R. Steinberg

Counterpoints publishes the most compelling and imaginative books being

written in education today. Grounded on the theoretical advances in

criticalism, feminism, and postmodernism in the last two decades of the twentieth century, Counterpoints engages the meaning of these innova-

tions in various forms of educational expression. Committed to the

proposition that theoretical literature should be accessible to a variety of audiences, the series insists that its authors avoid esoteric and jargonistic languages that transform educational scholarship into an elite discourse for

the initiated. Scholarly work matters only to the degree it affects consciousness and practice at multiple sites. Counterpoints' editorial

policy is based on these principles and the ability of scholars to break new

ground, to open new conversations, to go where educators have never gone before. For additional information about this series or for the submission of

manuscripts, please contact: Shirley R. Steinberg c/o Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.

29 Broadway, 18th floor New York, New York 1 0006

To order other books in this series, please contact our Customer Service Department: (800) 770-LANG (within the U.S.) (212) 647-7706 (outside the U.S.) (212) 647-7707 FAX

Or browse online by series: www.peterlang.com

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:16 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

ESH|¡aga| *

BBbhBBI _ '■* 11 : *" * • |^^HHH||HlUÉ^HÉtfì|ÉÌjèBB|Uè|HÌÌÌÌÌÌM ; r

,Jr1! ■|)N)N1|M iio^

- "';Cf §>^/^

HMSIRRIIPHMRHHIMHRI ■-• ' v.

^ļgggr

^ ^ ~ i

H jm HHH|HpļMļ|HHļpHHpHHHHļBHMHH^H

This content downloaded from 104.28.243.190 on Tue, 20 Jun 2023 22:33:16 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms