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Introduction 

In one of his poems, the well-known Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai expresses his hope for an era of peace and love between the Palestinians and the Israelis on the land of Palestine:

• An Arab shepherd searches for a lamb on Mount Zion,
• And on the hill across I search for my little son,
• An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father
• In their temporary failure.
• Our voices meet above
• the Sultan’s pool in the middle of the valley.
• We both want the son and the lamb
• to never enter the process
• of the terrible machine of ‘Chad Gadya’.
• Later we found them in the bushes,
• and our voices returned to us crying and laughing inside.
• The search for a lamb and for a son
• was always the beginning of a new religion
• in these hills. (Cited in Coffin 1982: 341).

According to the preceding lines, the Israeli poet’s dreams were not fulfilled due to dubious political policies imposed by colonial hegemonic powers. Historically, the British colonial strategy of divide and rule prior to WWII era intensified the conflict in Palestine, widening the gap between the Arabs and the Jews. Due to British colonial policy, the Jews and the Palestinians were not able to come to an agreement about their attitude toward the British occupation. They were not able to drive the British colonizers out of Palestine, and consequently were obliged to confront the possibility of either dividing the country or living in a multi-national state of double nationality.

Apparently, there were important currents and trends within the Middle East on the eve of the Second World War that had a great impact on the geo-political history of the entire region in general and on the situation in Palestine in particular. Just as the First World War was a dramatic historical event that stimulated competing visions about the political future of the Middle East, the Second World War had equally momentous consequences. First, the demands of the war provoked the intrusion of the European powers into the region as they sought to mobilize the political, social and economic resources required to secure their respective strategic positions. Although in the short term this policy appeared to redouble the assertion of European-control, in the longer term it signaled the end of European imperial power. In the aftermath of the war, the exhausted states of Europe, particularly England and France, lacked both the means and the will to maintain the kind of hegemony over the Middle East that had once seemed vital to the security of their interests (Tripp 1991: 88).

In a related context, the great Israeli novelist, Amos Oz argues:  ”The encounter between the Arab residents and the Jewish settlers does not resemble an epic or a Western, but is perhaps close to a Greek tragedy. That is to say, it is a clash between justice and justice, and like ancient tragedies, there is no hope for happy reconciliation on the basis of some magic formula,” (cited in Coffin 1982: 319).  In an interview with Amos Oz, he attempts to come to terms with the essence of the Arab-Israeli dispute. He argues that the Arab-Israeli conflict is greatly influenced by prior confrontations between the Arabs and the European invaders during the colonial era, as well as by the traumatic Jewish experiences and the genocide of European Jews during the Holocaust.  Amos Oz points out: I feel that it is fundamentally a struggle not over territories or over symbols and the emotions they raise. I think that both sides of the conflict overlook the actual enemy. Now for the Palestinian Arab, “Jews are considered a mere extension of the arrogant, white European oppressor. Both parties regard their enemy as an extension of their traumatic experience. Both Israelis and Arabs are fighting against the shadows of their own past” (cited in Coffin 1982: 332). Moreover, the Palestinians are currently struggling against a hegemonic occupying force in a relentless attempt to establish their own nation state.

Irrespective of occasional periods witnessing a growing sense of frustration and pessimism, both Israeli and Arabic literature, prior to 1948, expressed a great yearning for coexistence between the Jews and the Palestinians. Under the impact of western Orientalism, early Israeli fiction portrayed Arab characters in an exotic fashion.  Nevertheless, sentimental Arab images are to be found in the socialist/realist Israeli literature of the late forties and the fifties. In both Arabic and Israeli literature, mutual hostile representation of each other dominates the works written between 1948 and 1973. But the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in the mid seventies marks the beginning of a new era of increased understanding and tolerance between the two sides of the conflict, which is reflected in literary production.

There is no doubt, however, that the existence of militant organizations and regimes that advocate violence on both sides, in addition to the rise of political Islam and the Jihad movements in Palestine-under the sweeping impact of the Islamic Revolution in Iran since the eighties-have complicated the situation in the Middle East. Regardless of violence and bloodshed, there are positive solutions underway in the political arena and many promising developments in the field of civil society on both sides that would bring about a better future of more understanding and tolerance between the two peoples.

 The Myth of Arab Anti-Semitism

In the Arab world, the aphorism “the Jews are our cousins” used to be a recurring motif in Arabic folklore and everyday language prior to the rise of the nationalist movement after the 1967 war and the emergence of political Islam in the 1980’s.  The above-cited aphorism is still used in Arabic discourse, although it gains punning and ironic connotations shaped by the radical developments and political complexities in the ongoing Middle East conflict.  The notion of the so-called blood ties between the Arabs and the Jews is deeply integral to Arab popular culture and local religious traditions, particularly in locations where Jewish communities resided such as Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine.  According to Islamic tradition and popular culture narratives, both Arabs and Jews descended from the same Semitic roots, therefore they are originally cousins and relatives. Regardless of these anthropological narratives, which may contradict their counterparts in Western theology, the Jews, like other Middle Eastern minorities such as the Christians, the Kurds and the Druze, were able to live in a state of coexistence with the mainstream Arab-Muslim population.

Like all minorities and non-conformist groups in the region, the Jews have been marginalized, ghettoized and deprived of certain basic rights as Arab citizens. However, they were not physically annihilated or exterminated due to their religious doctrine. After the massive immigration of western Jews to Palestine during the Nazi Holocaust and the emergence of Zionism as an independence movement, an armed struggle erupted in Palestine between the Arabs and the Jews. The conflict between the two sides culminated in the 1948 war which paved the way for the establishment of the state of Israel and the exodus of Palestinian refugees. The dramatic consequences of the Palestinian tragedy in 1948, the erroneous equation between Zionism as a neo-colonial movement and Judaism as a sacred scripture, a pervasive lack of knowledge on the part of the Arabs of the Nazi Holocaust, and a Jewish history of genocide and victimization intensified Arab hostilities toward the Jews. The Arab antagonism towards the Jews, in Palestine or elsewhere, has never taken the form of anti Semitism in the European sense.  In other words, the Palestinians dealt with the immigrant European Jews as western colonial invaders the same way the Algerians did with the French or the Egyptians with the British during the era of colonization.

Nevertheless, in several fictional and nonfictional texts, Western writers claim that both Arabs and Palestinians are hostile to the Jewish people, which is a distortion of a complex history. In English literature, the negative Jewish image epitomized by Shylock, Barabas (The Jew of Malta) and others, has had an expansive effect on Arabic literature, particularly after the 1948 war. However, there does exist Arab fiction that reveals a counterattack on the Shylock image. While the artistic superiority of the bad over the good Jew is dominant in English literature, the positive image of the Jew in several Arab novels fits the shifting imaginative interests of a changing generation. The fictional Jew, the wandering Jew, and other images that display a stereotypical rigidity are altered by several liberal Arab writers. Incorporating Eastern and Western myths and recalling archetypal figures from the Bible and Islamic history, these writers attempt to be objective in their treatment of the Jew as a historical victim.

In the same context, Trevor Le Gassik points out that in Arab culture, Judaism is approached “as a divinely-inspired religion as the Quran teaches”  (Le Gassik 1982: 250). According to Le Gassick “even armed resistance groups” in Palestine distinguish between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as a political and colonial movement aiming to dismiss the Palestinians out of their homeland. The wide differences between the attitude of the Palestinians toward the Jewish people and towards the Zionists is “a fundamental motif in the ideology of the Palestinian Liberation Organization as many of their publications show,” (Le Gassick 1982: 250). It would appear that many Western authors equate Zionism with Judaism the same way they equate Islam with terrorism, in order to fulfill dubious ideological or political ends. Moreover, even though critics claim that Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, was a dedicated Jew, Herzl problematizes this claim in The Diaries, confessing that “he does not believe in the Jewish religion,”  (Herzl 1960:54).

Moreover, in his discussion of the image of the Jew in Arabic literature, Trevor Le Gassick argues that “Arabic political writings frequently express negative comments on the greed and duplicity of Zionists but reiterate that “there should not be any quarrel with Judaism or its adherents. In general, they emphasize their respect for Judaism as a divinely inspired religion” according to Islamic traditions and insist on the idea that “Zionism is an aberration supported by fanatics in the service of Western imperialism,” (Le Gassick 1982: 250). There is no doubt that the deliberate distinction between Zionism and Judaism in Arabic political discourse is reflected in Arabic literature about the Arab-Israeli conflict. This difference becomes a fundamental motif in the ideology of Arab writers dealing with the Palestinian question. Thus many of the fictional works incorporating Jews and Zionists are extensions of political polemics.  Most of these works aim to express the anger of the writers and incite the Arab masses against the Zionists in Israel. However, “few words in Arabic of recent years involve a major character who is Jewish and the portrayal is rarely sympathetic,” (Le Gassick 1982:  251). In this connection it is significant to argue that for centuries Arab culture has lacked any information about the historical suffering of the Jews, particularly the Holocaust. This cultural gap, in addition to other elements, contributed to what Le Gassick calls “the rare sympathy” (Le Gassick 1982: 252) toward the Jews in Arabic literature.

Apart from Le Gassick’s perspective, it is evident that the image of the Jew in Arabic literature is shaped by a variety of national and international elements including internal social and political transformations and external pressures and interventions. Some of these images are directly inspired by negative stereotypes assimilated from western literature, particularly the works of Shakespeare in which Shylock, the famous Jewish character in The Merchant of Venice, is demonized. Likewise Christopher Marlowe, in The Jew of Malta, introduced a biased image of the Jew through the character of Barabas. In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens unfortunately appears to dehumanize the Jews by emphasizing the inhumanity of Fagin. In The Cantos, Ezra Pound associates usury with Jewish bankers. Moreover, many of T.S. Eliot’s well-known poems reveal a sense of anti-Semitism.

It is noteworthy to point out that after the defeat of the Arab armies in the 1948 war, negative images of the Jews adapted from western literary sources were transformed and recycled in Arabic literature to serve political and ideological aims integral to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In other words, western stereotypes of the Jews reflecting European anti-Semitic discourses have been extensively duplicated by Arab writers in the aftermath of the 1948 war to underscore Israeli aggression and violence against the Palestinian people. Several Arab versions of Shylock, Barabas, Fagin and others are aesthetically articulated by conservative writers to reinforce the image of the Jew as a fearful and hypocritical colonizer and a sadist who wants to slaughter all the Palestinians and drive them out of their land.

On this basis, it is apparent that many Arab writers, supported by tyrannical/local regimes that stood to benefit, depicted the entire Jewish community in Israel as Haganah militia fighters determined to annihilate the Palestinian people. This simplistic image of the Jew has also been deployed by other Arab writers who introduced a balanced vision of the Middle East conflict. Deploying positive portraits of the Jew and foregrounding the human dimensions of the Jewish character as a defender of the oppressed and the humiliated as well as a victim of a history of persecution and genocide, these writers aim to bridge the gap between the two conflicting parties in Palestine.

For example in Samih al-Qasim’s novel al-Sura al-Akhira fi al-Album/The Last Picture in the Album, the protagonist is a sympathetic Jewish girl who becomes acquainted with the suffering of the Palestinian people after her visit to an Arab village.  The girl, who lives in Tel Aviv, changes her attitude toward the Palestinian situation due to her journey to the Arab community. Consequently, she becomes convinced of the right of the Palestinians to have an independent state of their own (cited in Zalum 1982: 46). In confrontations with her father, a militant Zionist who keeps an album including the pictures of the Palestinians he murders, the Jewish girl asks him to put her picture in the same album as a sign of sympathy with the Palestinian victims.

Another example is al-Qasim’s novel Orange Fruits in which Miriam, a German girl of Jewish origin, identifies with the Palestinians. She even refused to cooperate with the Zionist Agency in Germany.  When members of the Jewish Agency attempted to urge Miriam to immigrate to Palestine she told them: “I will not cooperate with you.  You are criminals.  You want to use us to implement your hateful Zionist agenda.  Palestine is not my homeland.  My homeland is Germany and I will stay here. I will not help you to use our misery as a means of achieving your aims” (cited in Abu-Matar 1980: 410).  Apparently, the Palestinian novelist Samih al-Qasim aims to draw a distinction between the Jews and the Zionists, acknowledging the Holocaust as “our misery,” a painful catastrophe experienced by the Jewish people. The analogy to the Shoah as “our misery” reveals the sympathy of the Palestinian novelist toward the Jewish victims of Nazism and emphasizes the shared Semitic origin of both sides of the conflict.

Moreover, the Palestinian writer Hanna Ibrahim depicts a sympathetic Jewish character in his novel al-Mutasalelun/The Infiltrators. The novel’s events portray the encounter between Sara, a Jewish girl, and a Palestinian family consisting of an old man, his daughter and her baby who came to the doorsteps of Sara’s house inside a Jewish Kibbutz.  At the beginning of the confrontation, Sara carried her gun and went toward the door where she heard strange voices and mild knocks.  She screamed in Hebrew “who is there?” and a female voice replied in Arabic “for God’s sake, open the door.” Hearing the cries of a baby, Sara became confident that the strangers were not Palestinian rebels because the rebels did not carry babies. When Sara opened the door, she found an old man in a state of fatigue, coughing and groaning. His daughter Hind was also exhausted due to the cold weather outside, as the cries of her baby broke the silence of the night.  Immediately Sara threw her gun away and brought clothes for the woman and her baby while attempting to help the cold man who fainted and fell on the floor out of hunger and exhaustion.

Afterwards, the old man told Sara that they should leave her house “because our presence will cause trouble for you” (cited in Abu-Matar 1980: 110), but Sara refused to let them go at night in the raining weather. They left Sara’s house at daybreak, but she discovered later that the Palestinian family had been killed by the Israeli soldiers in the Kibbutz. In conversation with an ex-Israeli soldier Sara became aware that Hind and her father were killed in an olive tree field near the house. The soldier happily told Sara that two Palestinian rebels were killed while attempting to infiltrate into the Jewish community. Sara became very angry and she insisted on reaching the spot where the assassination took place. Inside the olive field, she found a crowd of people and only two dead bodies lying in the mud. She asked the crowd about the little baby and they asked her in return whether she saw them before.

In her embarrassment, Sara told them, she became confident that the dead mother carried a baby after watching “the milk coming out of her breasts,” (cited in Abu-Matar 1980: 112). Sara feels sympathetic toward the Palestinian family particularly when she remembers that Hind’s husband, detained in an Israeli prison, will not be able to see his baby anymore. In addition to Sara, Hannah Ibrahim introduces Shlomo, another sympathetic Jewish character who takes care of the cows in the Kibbutz. Shlomo decides to help Said, a Palestinian villager, to bury the dead bodies of his two brothers, killed by Israeli soldiers seemingly without reason. While the two brothers were carrying furniture from their own house, the soldiers killed them assuming that they were thieves. Shlomo decided to dig the grave insisting on helping Said to bury his brothers despite the Sabbath. Explicitly, the novel reveals the honorable side of the Jewish characters because “Shlomo, the Jew, preferred to offer help to a Palestinian Muslim even if he disobeyed God,” (cited in Abu-Matar 1980: 113).

The Humanization of the Jew in Palestinian Literature 

The humanization of the Jewish subject through literature is a process that originated in the eighteenth century, accelerated in the nineteenth century and continues on in the present time. Western writers must cope with the two great antipodes of the fictional Jewish stereotype, the Jew as a saint and the Jew as a devil, with frequent emphasis on the latter image. The fear and the basic impulse of animus surrounding evil Jewish characters such as Shylock, Fagin and others ultimately lead back to the fabled role of the Jew in the Christian narrative of crucifixion. This nucleus served as lodestone that unfortunately associated the Jew with ritual murder, necromancy, greed, duplicity and lust. In the Arab world, the historical and political ramifications of the Arab-Israeli conflict over Palestine not only created long-term hostility between the Arabs and the Jews; it revived old Jewish tropes and also undermined the possibility of initialing a mutual dialogue between both sides.

One of the main elements of tension that increasingly plague Arab writers who engage the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in their literary works is their recurrent foci on hostilities between Palestinian militants and hawkish Zionists or stone-throwing Palestinians and gun-wielding Israelis. Further, in several Arabic narratives, the Jew is viewed not only as a senseless murderer of children but also as a downright sadist. The invisibility of moderate Jewish characters in contemporary Arabic literature contributes to the anti-Israeli discourse prevalent in Arabic writing and valorizes the Arabic fanatic perspective toward the Hebrew state. In the absence of Jewish counter narrative, in Arabic literature on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Palestinian militancy becomes a suitable alternative to the rhetoric about the suffering of the Palestinian people whereas the Jews emerge as the violent aggressors in the Middle East.

In traditional Arabic literature where the issues of nationalism and Arabism are one of the central foci of contemporary literary discourse, the question of representing the Jew, the cultural other, remains problematic and critical to any serious attempt to engage the Arab-Israeli issue from an objective perspective. In most of the Arabic literature written prior to the 1948 war, resulting into the foundation of Israel, the Oriental Jews were positively represented, even romanticized, as part and parcel of the social structure of their countries in the Arab world. The post 1948 war literature witnessed an unfortunate rebirth of a web of cultural stereotypes where the Jews are either systematically expunged from the textual narrative or, when acknowledged, are associated with a status of ontological otherness, evil and inferiority. Through the narrow lens of an Islamic fundamentalist perspective pervading traditional Arabic literature on the Palestinian question in the aftermath of 1948 war, the Jew emerged as an inimitable and inexorable counterforce to an ideologically pure Palestine. In Returning to Haifa, Kanafani indicates that the categorization of all the Israeli Jews as hard-core Zionists is completely out of touch with the exigencies of contemporary geopolitical realities.  Explicitly, the argument and events in the novel consider the principle behind Jewish hatred as corrupt and self-serving.

Ghassan Kanafani’s[1] famous novel Returning to Haifa (1969) marks a turning point in Arabic literature after the 1948 war and the establishment of the state of Israel, because the author deploys positive images of the Jews, thus challenging orthodox Arabic narratives. Unlike writers who either romanticize or demonize the Jew, Kanafani underlines human issues of common interest between the two sides of the conflict-the Israelis and the Palestinians-foreshadowing the political agenda of the novel. In Returning to Haifa, Kanafani introduces the Arab-Israeli conflict not only by incorporating Palestinian suffering and displacement, as in traditional Arabic literature, but also through an engagement with the Jewish history of Diaspora and genocide. The Jewish motif in the novel has precipitated the emergence of a new pattern of Jewish characters in Arabic literature associated with the nature of the cultural ‘other’. For decades, the awareness of such a motif resulting from an encounter between the Palestinians and the Jews emerged as an outburst of literary consciousness characterizing major Palestinian literature on the conflict.

Returning to Haifa is “the story of a Palestinian couple’s return to the flat from which they were forced to flee twenty years before,” (Campbell 2001:53). The main events of Kanafani’s novel cover the period that extends from the beginning of the armed clashes between fighting factions in Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel until the post 1967 war era. After the 1967 war and with permission from Israel, Said S. and his wife, Safiyya, returned to their house in the Halisa area in Haifa looking for their son, Khaldun, left behind during the occupation of the city in the 1948 war. When they entered the house, they were warmly received by a kind woman, Miriam Iphrat, who did not identify them in the beginning: “She was short and rather plump and was dressed in a blue dress with white polka dots.” As Said began to translate into English, the lines of her face came together questioning. She stepped aside, allowing Said and Safiyya to enter, then led them into the living room (Kanafani 2000: 162).

Miriam lost her family in the Nazi Holocaust and immigrated to Israel. During the carnage perpetrated against the Jews in Europe, she escaped and hid in a neighbor’s house. When she came to Palestine, she settled in the house of Said, which was given to her by the Jewish Agency. She found Said’s abandoned baby son Khaldun/Dov in the empty house and brought him up as her own child. Obviously Miriam felt sympathetic toward the plight of the Palestinian people. This emigrant woman, a Holocaust survivor, witnessed a massacre in which Palestinians, not Jews, were slaughtered. She saw two Haganah (an Israeli militia) soldiers throwing the dead body of a Palestinian boy in a truck. The incident reminded her of the murder of her brother at the hands of German soldiers during the Holocaust. To her, the Haganah violence against the Palestinian refugees is reminiscent of the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany and in Poland under German occupation, from where she has come.

In a flashback, Said S., the Palestinian refugee and main character in the novel recalls the bitter memories of the 1948 war when he was forced on 21 April to leave Haifa “on a British boat” and “to be cast off an hour later on the empty shore of Accra,” (Kanafani 2000: 166).  On April 29, 1948, Miriam and her husband, Iphrat Koshen, accompanied by a Haganah member entered “what from them on became their house, rented from the Bureau of Absentee property in Haifa,” (Kanafani 2000: 166). Escaping from the Nazi Holocaust Iphrat Koshen’s family “reached Haifa via Milan in the month of March under the auspices of the Jewish Agency” (Kanafani 2000: 166). The woman told her visitors that she came from Poland in 1948 to settle in their house, which she rents from the Israeli authorities. In the beginning Miriam’s family had to live in a small room at Hadar, the Jewish quarter in Haifa.

After the initial confrontation between Said S. together with his wife Safiyya and Iphrat’s family, it seems that the Jewish woman had anticipated the visit of the Palestinian family: “I have been expecting you for a long time”, says the woman. “The truth is, ever since the war ended many people have come here, looking at the houses and going into them. Every day I said surely you would come,” (Kanafani  2000: 163). When Said and Safiyya returned to Haifa, their former house was only inhabited by Miriam and Dov after the death of Iphrat.  During the visit of the Palestinian couple to their house and in a conversation with Miriam, she told them that Khaldun/Dov had become an officer in the Israeli army, and is due to come back home within few hours .  Waiting for the return of Khaldun/Dov, Said told his wife the story of a Palestinian friend, Faris  al-Labda – when Faris came back to his flat in Haifa he found it occupied by another Palestinian family who convinced him to join the Palestinian resistance forces. The novel moves toward its climax after the arrival of Dov, and the final chapters witness the confrontation between Dov and his Palestinian/biological parents.

Castigating Said and Saffiya for abandoning him, Dov denounces his Palestinian origins, affirming his identity as a Jew and an officer in the Israeli army: “I didn’t know that Miriam and Iphrat weren’t my parents until about three or four years ago. From the time I was small I was a Jew. I went to Jewish school, I studied Hebrew, I go to Temple, I eat kosher food. When they told me I wasn’t their own child, it didn’t change anything. Even when they told me – later on – that my original parents were Arabs, it didn’t change anything. No, nothing changed, that’s certain. After all, in the final analysis, man is a cause,” (Kanafani, 2000:181). The young man continues his address to Said, his biological father: “You should not have left Haifa. If that wasn’t possible, then no matter what it took, you should not have left an infant in its crib. And if that was also impossible, then you should never have stopped trying to return. You say that too was impossible? Twenty years have passed, sir! Twenty years! What did you do during that time to reclaim your son? If I were you I would’ve borne arms for that. Is there any stronger motive? You’re all weak! Weak! You’re bound by heavy chains of back­wardness and paralysis! Don’t tell me you spent twenty years crying! Tears won’t bring back the missing or the lost. Tears won’t work miracles! All the tears in the world won’t carry a small boat holding two parents searching for their lost child. So you spent twenty years crying. That’s what you tell me now? Is this your dull, worn-out weapon?” (Kanafani 2000:185). Expressing his gratitude to his Jewish foster parents, Dov remains in Haifa as an Israeli citizen. As Said and Safiyya drive back to Ramallah, Said thinks seriously of allowing his elder son, Khalid, to join the Palestinian fighters. In the beginning of the novel, Said prevented Khalid from joining the resistance movement in Palestine, but his meeting with Dov changes his attitude regardless of his fear of a potential confrontation between Khalid and Dov on the battlefield.

Moreover, Said and Safiyya started to see the Palestinian-Israeli question from a new perspective not only because of Dov’s response, but also as a result of the encounter with Miriam. As a Holocaust survivor, Miriam expresses sympathy toward a Palestinian boy treated brutally by some Israeli soldiers in Haifa. Drawing an analogy between the Palestinian boy and her brother who was killed by the Nazis in a concentration camp in German occupied Poland, Mariam is able to change the hostile attitude of the Palestinian couple toward the Jews as a whole.  The new awareness on the part of the Palestinian couple of the painful Holocaust experience opened their eyes to new realities that should be taken into consideration in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In Returning to Haifa, Kanafani takes the readers back to Iphrat Koshen’s experience as a Holocaust survivor in Europe: “He’d read Thieves in the Night by Arthur Koestler while in Milan, a man who came from England to oversee the emigration operation had lent it to him. This man had lived for a while on the very hill in Galilee that Koestler used as the background for his novel (Kanafani 2000: 166). The allusion to Arthur Koestler’s novel is significant because it recalls a highly romanticized account of a group of Jews who flee the Nazi Holocaust and came to Palestine to build a little settlement in the late thirties. The characters in the novel aim to challenge the surrounding hostilities in order to establish a promising community constructing “houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruits of them,” (Koestler 1967: 357). The novel, like American frontier literature, depicts an image of an isolated country conquered by young pioneers who stayed in the Jewish ghetto, in Haifa, in “a building choked with people.” Kanafani describes the life of Iphrat Koshen’s family in the “Emigres’ Lodge” where emigrants spend the night, eating dinner together and “waiting for eventual transfer to some other place” (Kanafani 2000: 166). Like the characters in Koestler’s novel prior to their adventure, Iphrat Koshen was not fully aware of the nature of Palestine.

Attempting to counter misconceptions and stereotypes that impede the cultural dialogue between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine, Kanafani, in Returning to Haifa, does not acquiesce to literary traditions which view the Jew simply as a militant Zionist.  Instated, he deploys a reconciliatory discourse creating positive Jewish characters such as Miriam and Iphrat, two Holocaust survivors, in an attempt to carve out a morally viable narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict. By locating Miriam, Iphrat-and their adopted child, Dov-at the center of his novel, Kanafani aims to dismantle local traditional conceptions about the Jews as Zionist invaders similar to other European colonialists. Further, the Holocaust motif is unequivocally and passionately introduced in an Arabic novel about the Palestinian tragedy in order to foreground parallel human calamities and suffering.  Convinced that the Arabs were not able to distinguish between the white settlers in South Africa and the Jews who escaped from European anti-Semitism and the Nazi Holocaust, Kanafani reveals a desire to build a new future, a desire that reveals an identification with the other victim who had also experienced humiliation. The idealized portrayal of the Jewish characters in the novel and the representation of the Jew as an individual and a human being signify a sympathetic understanding that would hopefully develop into further understanding and tolerance between the two partners in the conflict in Palestine.

In a related context, Returning to Haifa is a testimony that undermines claims about anti-Semitism in Arabic literature regarding the Palestinian-Israeli issue. Zionist scholars like Neville Mandel and others argue that the Palestinian hostility toward the Israelis is not the result of anti-Semitic sentiments, but due to the former considering the latter as colonizers settling Palestinian territories. Regardless of recent and frequent attempts to engage the race issue in the Palestinian  question, there is no anti-Semitism in Palestinian literature and culture, in the western sense simply because the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict  are primarily due to political  and geographical differences about borders. The hostile attitude toward the Israelis in Palestinian literature stems historically from the false conception that all the citizens of the Hebrew state, without exception, are militant Zionists who insist on transferring the Palestinians off their land. This claim was introduced into school curriculums and was propagated by right-wing media in the Arab world after the 1948 war and the establishment of Israel. Since the Palestinian-Israeli dispute lies in politics rather than race, the Palestinians approach the Israelis in the same way the Algerians approached the French colonizers during the era of imperialism.

As a Marxist oriented scholar, Kanafani, in Returning to Haifa, creates thoughtful voices openly skeptical of traditional Arab views toward the Israeli survivors of the Holocaust. In Arabic literature, it is easy to fall back on the negative stereotypes of the Jew, originally assimilated from western culture and built on models like Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and Fagin in Oliver Twist and other European fictional works. In an attempt to purge Arabic literature on the Palestinian/Israeli issue from the realm of political propaganda  advocated by totalitarian Arab regimes that views the Jews in Israel as sadistic Zionists and brutal invaders, Kanafani introduces a balanced vision of the conflict incorporating the Holocaust motif as a sub-plot serving his aesthetic intentions.  Refusing to look at the genesis of the conflict with a myopic eye, blinded by feverish militancy and religious attachment to institutions like al-Aqsa Mosque, Kanafani engages the perspective of the cultural other, dismantling virulent stereotypes of the Jews assimilated in Arabic literature from Western sources.  Unlike writers who disseminate Jewish stereotypes to achieve an ideological agenda, Kanafani weaves the Holocaust motif into the Palestinian issue, narrowing the gap between two histories of pain and exile.

Regardless of the fact that Kanafani’s fiction is ultimately harnessed to the Palestinian national cause promoting native culture and identity, Returning to Haifa explores new horizons confronting Jewish stereotypes in Arabic literature. The novel simultaneously introduces two narratives reflecting the viewpoints of the partners in the Arab-Israeli conflict. For the first time in Arabic literature following the humiliating defeats in the 1948 and the 1967 wars between the Arabs and Israel, the Holocaust experience is aesthetically articulated from a sympathetic perspective that honors the memory of the Shoah. Though it is difficult to study Kanafani’s fiction in isolation from the discourse of Palestinian nationalism, Palestine is depicted in Returning to Haifa as the native land of both Palestinians and Jews.  In this context, the novel is not only a challenge to the Arab official master narrative but also a deconstructive critique of the Arab version of the conflict.

Conclusion

Though Kanafani’s fiction is frequently dominated by what critics call “the discourse of resistance,” Returning to Haifa breaks new ground in Arabic literature dealing with the armed conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In the novel, Kanafani unabashedly introduces Jewish images which undermine previous stereotypes about the Jews as antagonists to everything Arabic or Islamic. Returning to Haifa was written during a period in Arabic literature that prioritized a work’s social function as well as literary merit. Sabri Hafez argues that the novel’s socio-economic and political aspects interweave somewhat with the national cause and contribute to its development,” (cited in Harlow 1996: 163). This sense of commitment, in Harlow’s view gives way to a deeper sense of alienation as the 1960’s wore on and it became apparent that grand socialist experiments like Nasser’s or grand political dreams like the idea of Palestinian reunification were going to fall short of their goals. In the dark days after the 1967 war, many Palestinians felt that the defeat of the Arab armies (the United Arab Forces) by the Israelis had also defeated “the very ideals of Pan-Arabism for deliverance and a victorious return to their homeland had largely been based,” (Harlow1996: 72).  This defeat of ideals led to a period of self-criticism, wherein one function of the literature of commitment was to posit which changes of ideals might result in a better future. Returning to Haifa embodies this principle by depicting two similar version of what ensues when Palestinians who have held onto these defeated ideals are forced to face the reality of their defeat.

Discussing the impact of the 1948 War of independence on the relationship between the Palestinians and the Jews, Edna Amir Coffin argues that the war intensified feelings of guilt on the part of the Jewish community in Israel: “the military victory put the Jewish community in the new position of perceiving itself not only as intended victims but also as potential victimizers defending itself but also expelling civilian populations from villages and homesteads” (Coffin 1982: 326). The reference to the dispersal of the Palestinian refugees as a result of the 1948 war triggers an interrogative move toward a re-reading of the Arab Israeli conflict in Israel.  In parallel lines with Coffin’s argument, the incorporation of the Holocaust theme in Kanafani’s Returning to Haifa opens new horizons about the possibility of a revision of Arabic literature on the Palestinian-Israeli question that takes into consideration the painful histories of the two partners in conflict.

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Although there are numerous cultural connections linking Cuba and Brazil through the Black Atlantic, surprisingly little has been written about the similarities in performance between the two countries beyond simply acknowledging similar ethnic makeup.[1] In most parts of the world, the capoeira diaspora has been expanded since the 1980s by Brazilian mestres travelling abroad and opening new capoeira schools. In the Cuban context, however, no capoeira mestre ever arrived with the sole purpose of opening a capoeira academy. When capoeira arrived in Cuba in the 1990s, through Brazilian telenovelas and through student-capoeiristas studying at universities in Havana, Cuban practitioners connected capoeira to their own lived experiences and sense of Cuban identity. Learning to embody and relocalize Brazilian capoeira has created an incentive for a reencounter with their Afro Cuban traditions. As the last societies to abolish slavery in the Americas, Cuba and Brazil (1886 and 1888, respectively) have both engaged in historic cultural discourse around the integration of a large African Diaspora into the concept of a national identity.

El contrapunto histórico entre africanos, cubanos, y brasileños tuvo lugar, a nivel simbólico, en los relatos contados a ambos lados del Atlántico, que así conforman una cuenca épica. Esos lugares comunes del imaginario afro-románico sobrevivieron gracias a los continuos intercambios entre América y África. (Leo 142)

The capoeira practiced in Cuba today is not only a recent phenomenon of globalization, but is an ongoing reconfiguration of the circular movement of ideas, people, and practices that emerged in the New World and has continued into the present. National consciousness is an imagined expression of “people” in its collective form. In both Cuba and Brazil this imagining played itself out in the realm of performance. The myths and icons of nationality in Cuba and Brazil, often embodied through the mulato or creole figure, personified the social inversions, hybrid cultures, and the violence of colonialism.

Contextualizing Capoeira

In the words of Floyd Merrel, to define what capoeira is, it is necessary to define it by saying what it is not (2003, 279). It is not just a Brazilian martial art, although its characteristics are very martial and its history is in self-defense. It is not a musical tradition, although all the movements follow a distinctive rhythm and capoeiristas (capoeira players) must learn to be equally skilled on the berimbau, atabaque, pandeiro, agogô, and reco-reco. It is not a dance, although many moves are so fluid and graceful that you would think that the players were dancing. And it is not a ritual, although the roda of capoeira (the place where capoeira is performed) follows the traditional characteristics of ritual in that there are predetermined and symbolic actions that reoccur in a particular environment and sacred space.  Capoeira is all of these things and none of these things. And this enigma has been what has drawn practitioners and helped preserve this art form for hundreds of years.

Although capoeira is a Brazilian art form, it has origins in different dances and martial traditions of Africa. The Angolan martial arts n’golo, basula, and gabetula may have been influences in the creation of capoeira. It may also have picked up elements of West African culture such as the use of the agogô instrument and references to Yoruba orixás (sacred deities of nature in the African religion). (McGowan 118) Mathias Assunção explains that history is paramount in contemporary capoeira through the invocation of its historical roots and its performative reenactments of the resistance techniques used by the first practitioners of capoeira who were living under oppressive institutions. “The belief in the remote origins of the art, coupled with the conviction that an unaltered ‘essence’ of capoeira has been transmitted from that foundational moment down to the present, confers greater authority to contemporary practice, and is therefore shared by many practitioners” (McGowan 5).

Some of the first documentation of capoeira is among enslaved Africans and Creoles in colonial Brazil as early as the 18^th century. Despite periodic clampdowns by the police, the martial art continued to spread to the free underclasses in Brazilian cities throughout the nineteenth centuries (Assunção 1). While many of these legends come from the rural setting of capoeira during plantation life, much of capoeira’s development actually took place in the urban centers where there was obviously a tension between public authority figures and lower class Blacks (Chvaicer 546).  The fact that the performance of a historical past is at the very core of the game of capoeira means that its past has serious implications for its current practice in global settings worldwide. In the case of Cuba, practitioners are able to draw parallels with their own Cuban performative traditions of resistance, feeling a connection to capoeira’s history through a circum-Caribbean dialogue.

Capoeira in Cuba

The few foreigners who have come to Cuba and have made their mark on the capoeira community have not stayed in Cuba to create a new diaspora, rather they have been part of transnational flows, coming and going for brief periods of time over the years. Capoeira in Cuba has developed through sporadic encounters with these foreigners (who are mostly not Brazilian nor capoeira mestres) who come to the island for short periods of study or tourism and, in periods of their absence, Cubans continue training by improvising movements learned through studying the CDs, DVDs, books, or flash drives of capoeira music and videos left behind by these visitors. As Cubans inevitably learn about capoeira’s historical myths through playing capoeira and through media that has been left for them, Cuban players begin to find similarities with their own Cuban experiences of resistance to oppressive systems from their remembered historical past and from their present conditions.

Derrida argues and Stuart Hall elaborates that identity formation can be captured by the term, différance. According to Derrida, this term can refer to both French verbs “to differ” and “to defer.” Not only does identity describe a difference, but also characteristics of identity are often “deferred” or “postponed” as we focus on the more sounding likenesses. This creates bonds of commonality.[2]  The capoeirista historically has embodied this idea of différance. During times of slavery, traditions of different tribes and African nations were melded and incorporated into a system of resistance made solely for the context of the New World. As players and the game developed, this différance was reoriented to unite people of different social classes, ethnicities, countries, and languages. Today Cuban capoeiristas defer what may be seen as differences in Cuban and Brazilian cultures and instead focus on their imagined likenesses.  Capoeira evokes the struggles of resistance of Afro Brazilians throughout history and holds the healing powers to confront injustices committed against a group so often overlooked and forgotten. The processes of transculturation and globalization then make it so that the transformative powers of capoeira performance are not confined to a solely Brazilian experience; Cuban capoeiristas are able to connect its history to their own present and historical struggles, both real and imagined.

Transnationalism is defined as “the flow of people, ideas, goods and capital across national territories in a way that undermines nationality and nationalism as discrete categories of identification, economic organization, and political constitution” (Braziel and Mannur 8). Transnationalism is often talked about in parallel with diaspora; however, diaspora refers specifically to the flow of people. The arrival of capoeira in Cuba is transnational but it is not diasporic since there has not been a relocation of Brazilian mestres or Brazilian capoeira academies to Cuba. Cuban capoeiristas, thus, are processing their capoeira training through their own lived experiences in Cuba. The processing of capoeira through a Cuban lens, however, is an example of an African diasporic connection. In Cuba, as in Brazil, the ritualized violence of social inversion is an important allegory of national culture. According to Jossianna Arroyo, both Cuban and Brazilian national culture is found in spaces where creole masculinity is performed.

…es un discurso sobre la necesidad de hacer un performance de la supervivencia del más fuerte y del más apto. La masculinidad se funda, entonces, a partir de la articulación de la ansiedad de subvertir espacios sociales y negociar las divisiones raciales y de género, y de obtener la libertad.” (Arroyo 177)

Arroyo points out that the performative and violent concept of masculinity in the Americas is represented through the often criminalized and carnavalized creole performer.

Creating a linkage between the similar images of embodied culture in Cuban and Brazilian tradition has meant that the Cuban capoeira group, Caiman Capoeira, has made a conscious decision to define its practice as a cultural expression rather than as sport, even though capoeira in Cuba was first registered as an official sport and as a martial art under the Federación Cubana de Artes Marciales, which is a subdivision of Instituto Cubano de Deporte (INDER). After the revolution in 1959, the right of the population to practice sports took a central place in the imaginary of Cuba and INDER was created to regulate all sport activity within the country. In 2008, La Escuela Superior de Educación Física, “Comandante Manuel Fajardo,” which was created in 1961 as the school to train and graduate professionals in physical education, began to teach capoeira as part of its curriculum. It now organizes community projects in Havana and in the neighboring provinces of Pinar del Rio, Matanzas, and Ciego de Ávila.

However, even though there is a central governmental institution (INDER) given the duty of promoting capoeira in Cuba, focusing on capoeira as culture rather than sport allows Caiman Capoeira to access funds and visibility as a cultural group through the Cuban Ministry of Culture and through the Brazilian Consulate in Cuba (both of which provide more access to prominent cultural [and touristic] performance spaces than would be available solely through INDER). Capoeira as culture is parlayed into a resource for accessing and debating rights and capital among capoeiristas on an island where culture is a powerful economic resource.

Ultimately, the way and the extent to which a cultural identity is performed in the minds of a public and a governing body have dramatic effects on policy, capital flows, and the extent to which a people’s way of life is to be performed.  This point is articulated in George Yudice’s The Expediency of Culture when Yúdice argues that what is considered cultural, as well as the very concept of multiculturalism, has become a resource in the sense that they are endowed with near-quantifiable values, and that the value imposed on the cultural by an audience has a direct effect on how culture is performed (1). Yúdice’s linkage of cultural practice with political and economic access foretells Cuban capoeiristas interest in performing Brazilian capoeira as an expression of a cultural linkage between Cuba and Brazil. While capoeira’s arrival in Cuba may not be a diasporic experience, the imaging of this linkage of Brazilian capoeira to Cuban soil is elaborated through the diasporic experience of the Black Atlantic where performative acts of resistance are part of cultural survival tactics of those affected by the slave trade. They are, thus, expressions that can be both Cuban and Brazilian simultaneously and increase practitioners’ cultural clout within the Cuban performance space.

When enslaved Africans arrived in the New World, their direct connection to their countries of origin was cut off. When the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1850, memory and oral tradition became paramount in communicating these individuals’ sense of their past and their history. Furthermore, they adapted to their new social environment, adapting people from other ranks of society and incorporating other worldviews into those of their own.  The process of transculturation, the malleability of culture to fit the local context, is ever-present in the capoeira game.[3] Cuban capoeirista Daniel says, “We respect the Brazilian culture and we mix it with what we are able to get here in Cuba” (Daniel June 30, 2012). In practice, this means players construct berimbaus out of local bamboo wood, sew their own abadá (uniforms), or cut and dye their own chords at capoeira batizados[4] that they organize without the direction of a Brazilian mestre. Such an attitude embodies these fundamental ideas of transculturation employed in the New World.

Even though no Brazilian mestre has ever come to Cuba to teach classes formally for any extended length of time and although Cubans face limitations in access to the Internet, a tool usually utilized by capoeiristas abroad to exchange information about the sport, the capoeira community in Cuba is training regularly, expanding their presence on the island and developing a style of play that is unique to Cuba. We often think of Cuba mostly as an exporter of cultural traditions, since the Afro Cuban musical traditions based around the beat of the clave are at the basis of so many Latin musical rhythms. Also, because of the isolationist position of the Cuban society exacerbated by the US embargo, we often think of Cuban culture as developing independently from the same global influences on popular culture that are common throughout the world. But while the processes of this consumption may happen under different parameters, Cubans are constantly consuming popular culture from abroad and making it their own.  There is no such thing as a fixed or static national cultural identity, especially when this culture comes in contact with imaginings of an outside eye.  What does arise is a connectedness between cultures, identification with a set of imagined cultural norms, and a self-understanding that is negotiated within the overlapping of the convergences. In discussing these convergences, one member of Caiman capoeira said the following:

I see many comparisons between Brazilian culture and Cuban culture because of the African influences. It is a mixture that comes directly from Africa. It makes me think about how cultures so far away from one another could have so much in common. They are different, but the essence is the same. The ideas about trying to get energy out of the earth, for example, are the same. (Haisa July 1, 2012)

Uprooting and transplanting a cultural form is followed by compromise, sharing, and ultimately a transformation into a new cultural whole based on the conglomeration of various cultural traditions within a new territorial space. Fernando Ortiz explains this process through transculturation, a complex process of cultural transmission and diffusion. Fernando Ortiz’s classic work Cuban Counterpoint emphasized individual agency in selecting parts of dominant discourse and reworking this discourse into something new (1947: 102-103). Meanings are always adapted to fit the local context. While Fernando Ortiz’s work is cited as a fundamental text for understanding Cuban culture, it is important to note that his social and intellectual links with Europe and other parts of the Americas meant that his definitions of Cuban culture were in a transnational dialogue. There are many comparisons between the theoretical arguments of Ortiz who aimed to systematize the geographic origins of Africans in Cuba with the work of ethnographer Raymundo Nina Rodrigues in Brazil, for example. “Assim, o conhecimento etnográfico dos africanos vindos escravos para o Brasil, o qual não me consta tenha sido tentado antes de meus estudos, projeta larga e intensa luz sobre todos estes fatores, conferindo a cada qual uma fisionomia histórica justa e racional” (Rodrigues 70). The works of Raymundo Nina Rodrigues in Brazil and Fernando Ortiz in Cuba theorize “un sujeto masculino ‘de color,’ delincuente, excesivo y atávico” who is an important figure in defining nation in the respective countries (Arroyo 19). These founding ethnographers, who were so important in recording cultural performances seen as being “Brazilian” or “Cuban” respectively, communicated that the tastes, sounds, smells, and dances produced by the African Diaspora were paramount to creating and defining national identity. This was especially the case in terms of performances in which the black (and especially the mulatto) body used creativity to escape, at least during the space of the performance, his marginal position (Leo 29-47).

The modern discourse surrounding the globalization of capoeira emphasizes that changes in capoeira over time and place should not be viewed as a lack of authenticity but as an active, inevitable, and pervasive social tool by which culture becomes expedient, recreating the idea of bodily performance as a tactic to escape a marginal position. Following this logic, capoeiristas in Cuba, whose “communitas”[5] was once defined solely by their Cuban cultural expressions, have entered into a global context and are redefining definitions of culture and authenticity. This speaks to changes in gender and racial norms among practitioners globally, in which females and white practitioners can also embody the allegorical figure of cunning and resistance that had previously been associated with masculine creole identity. And it also explains how Cuban capoeiristas imagine their connection to capoeira and to Brazil not through a lived connection to a mestre, but through using creative malleability as a survival tactic, an expression consistent with their own social contexts.

As a physical manifestation of how Cuban and capoeira identity combine, Cuban capoeirista Daniel decided to get a capoeira tattoo on his forearm to mark the importance of capoeira in his life. But, he emphasized that the tattoo needed to highlight the Brazilian cultural tradition that he loved (capoeira) as well as the centrality his own Cuban identity and, inevitably, the Cubanness of the capoeira that he practiced. He designed a tattoo of a berimbau, the central musical instrument in capoeira, made not from the traditional beriba wood customary of berimbaus in Brazil, but from bamboo, the wood that Cuban capoeiristas have available to fashion their own berimbaus. The design of the tattoo has a Cuban flag wrapped around his berimbau, symbolically highlighting the importance of the local in the practice of Brazilian capoeira. (Daniel June 7, 2012)

Francisco, another Cuban capoeirista, explained that learning about the history of capoeira deepened his own connection to his Afro Cuban heritage. He described that he received the book Fundamentos da Malícia from a visiting student from Mexico and, after he understood the concept of malícia in capoeira, it motivated a deeper spiritual connection to similar concepts and practices in Cuba. As an example of how malícia becomes interpreted within the Cuban context, I remember the first time I met Francisco (who is now one of the instructors of capoeira at the Escuela Superior de Educación Físcia). We were playing capoeira in front of the arts and crafts market, Mercado de San José, in Habana Vieja. This market is very similar in concept to Mercado Modelo in Salvador, Bahia, and the capoeiristas in Havana often go there on the weekends to perform rodas, the circular space where the capoeira game is performed, for tourists and locals alike. Before we played, Francisco made a special signage with his fingers on the ground at the foot of the berimbau that he would later tell me was for his muerto (the spirit of a deceased, enslaved Cuban) that protects him during the roda. For Francisco, Cuban cultural traditions that were born of a similar Afro Atlantic experience are what drew him to develop such a strong passion for capoeira. His Cuban muertos, he said, protect him during the roda and guide his movements. He confessed he also secretly hides his resguardo, his protective charm from the Cuban Palo Monte religion, before entering any roda. (Francisco June 9, 2013)

What Francisco’s story represents is that Cuban capoeiristas can hold a cosmic view that approximates to both the historical setting of capoeira in Brazil and to their own lived Cuban experiences. While most practitioners would agree that capoeira as it is practiced today is a secular event and that any connection with spiritual practices, such as Candomblé or Catholicism, are indirect, rodas often begin with an invocation that explicitly gives praise to God (Deus) and many songs refer to saints and deities, both Christian and African (Lewis 14).  Brazil, and Salvador in particular, was (and is) home to many different religious traditions that intertwined in practice. Capoeira, according to Mathias Röhrig Assunção, was an important part of this uneasy coexistence during its formative years (116). Francisco’s understanding of the malícia in capoeira, the secularized understanding of how cunning has a greater spiritual significance, is often difficult to discern and describe to foreign capoeira players, the most common transnational manifestations of capoeira being in Europe and the United States. Globalization has made it common to see an American, French, German, or Italian make the sign of the cross before entering into the roda or even to touch the ground to make reference to the African ancestry of capoeira, even though it is likely that this is not part of the student’s own personal history. These foreign practitioners are following the codes of the ritual as they were taught, passed on via oral tradition from mestre to student, and then appropriated, creating a new spiritual significance to the capoeira ritual within the global context. For Cuban students, however, these codes and rules were not taught by a mestre but are often a manifestation of their own lived understanding of the relationship between the secular and the sacred understood through similar slippages in Afro Cuban manifestations of culture such as abakuá or rumba, for example. In fact, these elements of deep play in the Cuban capoeira game are becoming less visible in capoeira even in Brazil due to inevitable globalization and commodification as capoeira and culture itself becomes farther removed from this defining historical past. However, the ritualized understanding of malícia continues to be the key element of any capoeira game. In Cuba the ginga flows from Cuban experiences of performances of cunning and social inversions.

Embodying Malícia with Cubaneo

An Italian capoeirista who was living in Havana for six months in 2012 had the following to say about Capoeira in Cuba:

For what I have seen of capoeira in Cuba, people have a lot of feeling. I have seen capoeira in Brazil, in France, in Italy, and in Sweden. Sometimes people have a lot of financial possibilities to buy a berimbau, but they don’t even play it well. They don’t have the “sandunga” (swing), as they say in Cuba. And here the fact that Cubans have music in their blood means that it comes easier to them. They sing and they sing in rhythm. They play and they play with rhythm. If the music isn’t good the energy isn’t born. But here with very little they make marvelous things happen. We need to help them a little, right?  Send them things. Because they have the talent, the swing, and the malícia… (Vilma June 23, 2012)

According to Floyd Merrel, “Malícia is a little bit of ‘malice’, but with a sly, clever, ingratiating roguish gesture. It involves awareness of what’s going on under the surface appearance. Malícia is cunningly putting something on someone before she does it to you…The slaves developed malícia into a carefully honed instrument by means of which to generate subversive acts against their masters. Malícia became their way of coping with life, a way of life, the heart and soul of which is found in capoeira.” (Merrel 2005: 280)

Just like the upside-down aú and bananeira movements, capoeira is a microcosm where elements of power, prestige, politics, and existence are turned on their heads. Only the most cunning will survive. Literally and figuratively, the capoeirista has made these capoeira movements his weapon. The capoeirista is playful, but also very careful. Your opponent may smile in your face as he pulls your feet out from underneath you. In doing so, the capoeirista embodies this subversive behavior learned as street smarts for those born into colonial systems of servitude. Roberto Da Matta comments that “malícia” and “jeitinho” (finding a way to make something happen when there are no resources available) are characteristics of the Brazilian national psyche (204).

These traits of the national psyche are also true in Cuba and are, thus, naturally incorporated into the Cuban capoeira game. Although making resources out of nothing is not in and of itself revolutionary and, in fact, is characterized by making changes to better individual social situations without changing the status quo, it is representative of the politics of the everyday. It turns the average individual into a heroic figure resisting dominant oppression with creativity and skill. Representing the common man as an heroic figure is at the basis of Che Guevara’s conception of the “new man” put forth in “Socialism and Man in Cuba” (1965) through which Guevara called for the average man to use his creativity and spontaneity to battle the repressive systems of capitalist embargoes. Today, post-Special period, the “new” new man in Cuba questions this very institutional discourse; the common man looks at the unfulfilled promises of what was supposed to be a bright future, and uses the same social cunning to question the official Cuban discourse, citing the frustration of accessing the limited resources available to them in an outdated Socialist system.

Capoeiristas in Cuba talk about connecting to capoeira because it is an escape from “la lucha diaria,” literally the daily struggle for survival. Capoeira songs and movements are filled with irony and double meanings, incorporating the concept of malícia that is often so hard for foreign students to grasp because it cannot be taught, but must arise from its own social context of marginalization. For Cuban capoeiristas, a similar cultural language of metaphors and riddles are employed daily to deal with the difficulties of living through moments of scarcity caused by the political climate and/or the effects of the US embargo, using humor, metaphor, and performance to assert presence and identity.  Thus, the same concepts of malícia are at the heart of the Cuban psyche, only under a different name. For Cuban capoeiristas who have not had direct contact with Brazilian mestres or Brazilian cultural contexts, the idea of malícia, with its connections to spiritual powers as well as its ability to make something out of nothing, is interpreted through a Cuban understanding of cunning and street smarts known as cubaneo. In the Cuban context, inventing ways of survival or getting around the system when there does not seem to be any visible solution has become an important cultural marker of Cuban identity.

According to Pérez-Firmat,

Rather than naming un estado civil, [la cubanía] cubaneo names un estado de ánimo, a mood, a temperament, what used to be called a ‘national character’…Its frame of reference is not un país—a political entity—but un pueblo—a social and cultural entity… Cubaneo, finds expression in all of those habits of thought and speech and behavior that we know as typically criollos—the informality, the humor, the exuberance, the docility…” (Firmat-Pérez 4)

Cubaneo is a term to refer to a loose repertoire of gestures, customs, and vocabulary that mark Cuban national character. Works such as Jorge Mañach’s Indagación del Choteo (1928), Calixto Massó’s El carácter cubano (1941), and José Muzaurieta’s Manual del Perfecto Sinvergüenza (1922) are the best-known studies exploring the ways that Cubans invent a vocabulary of informality and humor towards living and survival. Unlike cubanidad or cubanía, which are born out of legal documents and governmental decrees of nationality, cubaneo denotes membership in a cultural community (Ibid). This cultural community and way of using methods of informality, gestures, and street smarts as survival tactics denote a similar understanding to the Brazilian malícia. Playing capoeira in Cuba then becomes an act of ritualizing cubaneo.

Capoeira and Baile de Maní

As such, capoeira is not a foreign practice to Cubans who have grown up with similar corporal gestations in which movement, music, and sacred energies are in dialogue. In explaining how learning about the history of capoeira has revealed similarities between Cuba and Brazil Minhoca said, “Santería and Candomblé. Here [in capoeira class] we learn about both of the religions and the drum rhythms for both” (Minhoca June 30, 2013).

In Los Bailes y el Teatro de los Negros en el Folklore de Cuba Fernando Ortiz writes,

…la danza [afrocubana] es originariamente un fenómeno dialogal, de magia o religión; por los efectos psíquicos de la danza y por la relación de su dinámica con los conceptos de la trascendencia de la acción sacromágica” (Ortiz 1951: 75).

Similarities in the institutional structures of colonialism in the Americas shaped the cultural sphere. Cuba became the largest producer of sugar after the Haitian Revolution of 1804. And in Brazil, sugarcane production was the largest earning crop in the slave plantations of Northeastern Brazil, especially in the states of Bahia and Pernambuco. Plantation systems as well as urban spaces in slave-holding societies in which slaves and poor, marginalized freedmen would congregate for social and financial reasons became places of creativity and performed resistance. Benítez-Rojo describes how the Caribbean (and I would argue that Northeastern Brazil can be included in this description) share a cultural history related to the structures of the sugar cane plantations. “The powerful machine of the sugar plantations attempted systematically to shape, to suit to its own convenience, the political, economic, social and cultural spheres of the country that nourishes it until that country is changed into a sugar island” (72). The Casa Grande became the basic structuring model for society and was a space for the generation of new cultural practices (Mwewa 153). The plantation system and slavery created the need for cultural acts of resistance in order to keep African (and indigenous) cultural traditions alive. These cultural performances that had their roots in systems of oppression created on plantations made their way to the cities through rural to urban migration.

Whereas in Brazil, capoeira was one of the products of the plantation system, making its way to urban centers when free Africans and Creoles moved into marginalized communities known as zungus, Cuban solares were parallel collective urban housing spaces for the poorest of the poor that also harbored cultural forms of resistance. Rumba, for example, is said to have “flourished in urban and rural settings where Cuban workers of all colors and occupations [gathered to share] their Creole heritage in music and dance…where free blacks gathered to communicate their feelings or comment on their struggles and enslaved Africans were permitted to congregate after work”  (Daniel 17). Musical synchronization between the drumbeat and the dancer is seen in the “rumba brava” or the “rumba de solar” just as it is in capoeira, for example.

Not only have Cuban capoeiristas brought up the connections between the cultural settings of rumba and capoeira and the importance of these practices in the performance of national identity, but playing capoeira has caused a new interest in a Cuban martial art that seems to have faded out of modern-day practice in Cuba: baile de maní. Maní, also known as Bambosá, was an African-derived acrobatic combat game that is rumored to have been widespread in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Cuba, especially in the central areas of the island such as in Matanzas, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus, and on the outskirts of Havana. These were all areas known for their sugar cane plantations. Fernando Ortiz documented one of the few detailed descriptions of maní in the 1930s in the neighborhood of “Los positos” in Marianao. This, interestingly, is also one of the last written documentations of baile de maní. Ortiz defined it as “consisting fundamentally in boxing, during which the player who is dancing tries to knock down one of the various participants, who remain on the defensive, and form a circle around him” (Ortiz 1951: 161).

El juego de maní consiste fundamentalmente en un pugilato, durante el cual un jugador que está bailando trata de abatir con un fuerte golpe a puño cerrado a uno de los varios participantes que están a la defensiva, formando un corro a su alrededor…Los maniseros iban descalzos, desnudos de la cintura para arriba y con calzones cortos o subidos a la rodilla; sin armas, insignias ni otro adorno que algún pañuelo de colores colgando de un ancho cinturón de cuero que les protegía el vientre. (IBID)

Mathias Assunção highlights its comparisons to the game of capoeira.

Despite its likely West African origins, maní offers a number of important parallels with capoeira, both in its formal aspects (played in a circle, with similar instruments, strikes embedded in a basic rhythmic movement) and its cultural meaning (multiple social functions, corresponding to the various modalities of the game, the role of ‘witchcraft’, and the importance of deception” (Assunção 63).

The origins of maní, like capoeira, are steeped in myth. It is possible that the name comes from Mani-kongo (King of the Congo Empire), which, according to Fernando Ortiz (1951: 160-161), is what the powerful freed blacks from the Congo region would call themselves.[6] Ortiz proposes that both rumba and maní are attributed to the Ganga, located in what are today the Sierra Leone and Liberia regions of West Africa. There are similarities between the two terms baile de maní and gangá maní, which is a term used to describe the dances of the manis, a group of people who migrated to Sierra Leone in the mid-sixteenth century (Ortiz 1951:164). Argeliers León supports this idea that baile de maní may be of bantú origin from the Congo region in his ethnographic study of Cuban folkloric traditions in “Del Canto y el Tiempo” (León 67-68).

Just as in capoeira, maní responded through lyrics to the game being played. The instrumentation of maní was usually two or three drums and an agogô.  Mathias Assunção makes the interesting observation that, although the berimbau is considered to be the iconographic instrument of capoeira, the first documentation of capoeira does not include the berimbau (7-8). The instrumentation of maní is actually very similar to capoeira as documented in the well-known engraving “Jogar Capöera-danse de la guerre” (1835) by Johann Moritz Rugendas, which is one of the earliest recorded visual representations of capoeira.[7]

There was also much exchange between players and musicians in both folkloric practices. For example, the leader of the musical line in maní was the cajero drummer. The cajero was supposed to mark a hard hit during the game with a hard hit of the drum. If the cajero missed the hit or was behind, he was taken off the instrument and put into the ring to be taken down. Similarly, different rhythms on the berimbau in capoeira mark a different style of game to be played. Whereas in capoeira, the circle of players surround a game of two capoeristas who battle in the middle, in the maní game, all men forming the circle could throw a hit. In both cases, however, the act of playing became an allegory of the physical violence one must avoid outside of the ring and a ritual for survival of the fittest.

Like capoeira, el baile de maní did not have a set choreography. Players would perform acrobatic punches and kicks to the rhythm of the music within a circle of other maniseros. In both practices players were noted for the surprise attacks that they performed on their opponents and the games were based in techniques of defense rather than attack. Yet, there are violent accounts of both maní and capoeira to the death.[8]

The spiritual worlds of maniseros and capoeiristas also hold parallels. The maniseros often used wrist bands or hid makutos in their belts, powerful charms prepared to help protect them and aid in their opponent’s defeat. In a parallel context, patuás, believed to ‘close the body’ and protect the owner from bad spells, were very popular historically among capoeiristas in Brazil (Assunção 118). Finally, although both were solitary fights, players often formed collectives. In Cuba, for example, one sugar cane plantation could challenge another plantation in maní games (Ortiz 1951:165). Capoeira is famously associated with maltas, Afro Brazilian gangs that would protect one another and battle rival gangs as well as the local authority.

The embodied performance of these cultural affinities parlays into powerful redefinitions of both Cuban and Brazilian culture. Maní was a Cuban folkloric practice that had all but disappeared since Ortiz’s last known documentation of it published in 1951. Today, however, capoeiristas in Havana are rediscovering it in their personal narratives explaining the Cuban connection to Brazilian capoeira. Since Cuban capoeiristas do not have mestres that are shaping their styles of play, they look towards and incorporate Cuban folkloric practices into the swing of their play. It is not uncommon to see movements from rumba or abakuá, for example, in a capoeira roda in Cuba. Players have also mentioned that they are incorporating the steps of baile de maní as part of their cubanization of capoeira. But, maní is not a contemporary practice in Cuba. This means capoeristas are reinterpreting what they imagine baile de maní must once have been like and applying that idea to their capoeira games. The interpretive powers of a Cuba-Brazil hybrid capoeira experience are actually resulting in a revival, or, at least, a rethinking of a Cuban cultural tradition that had been almost all but forgotten.

The capoeirista and the Íreme

Capoeira culture is also being incorporated into performances of Cuban cultural traditions. The way in which I first became involved with the capoeira community in Cuba is a particularly interesting example to illustrate this point. On November 27, 2011, I went to a march in honor of five Abakuá members who were killed in 1871 trying to defend eight medical students executed by the Spanish firing squad for allegedly desecrating a Spaniard’s grave; this was in the time of Spanish colonial rule when tensions between Spanish-born peninsulares and Cuban-born criollos were high. The yearly procession in honor of the 19^th-century medical students departs from the University of Havana and goes across town to La Punta del Prado where there is a statue in honor of these martyred medical students.  However, what is rarely mentioned in the commemorating event is that, along with these eight medical students, five black men also died that day trying to defend the students’ rights. These men were Abakuá members, a male initiatory secret society, who take oaths of lifelong loyalty to one another.

Abakuá Society[9] was founded in 1836 in La Regla and members, descendants of the Calabari cabildo, historically took a rebellious stance against Spanish colonial rule and slavery. As a mutual-aid secret society, Abakuá culture and lore has been transmitted orally and, though Abakuá lore has become ever-present in Cuban popular culture to represent the rebellious and anti-colonial aspects of Cuban culture, much of its meaning remains uninterpreted by outsiders. (Miller 161)

On the day of remembrance of the execution of the 19^th-century medical students in 2011, I did not actually go to the main procession leaving from the University of Havana, but to an alternative event, organized by the Abakuá Association of Cuba, that met in front of Editora Abril in Havana Vieja. I had heard of this event through the rumba circles where I had been studying dance, many of whose drummers and dancers were, themselves, Abakuá members. One of my dance partners was scheduled to play the part of one of the íremes for the march. The íreme, often referred to as the diablito ñañigo, is one of the principal figures in the Abakuá ceremony, representing an ancestral spirit from the other world that dances in typical Abakuá fashion for the duration of the ceremony.

When intellectuals and Abakuá members Orlando Gutierrez and Ramón Torres Zayas began their speeches, instead of beginning the event accompanied by the coro de clave of the abakuá or the beat of the Ékue drum (the ritual drum through which Tánse, the divine fish whose capture supposedly led to the creation of the abakuá society in Africa, and through which the voice of God is said to reverberate), the ceremony opened with the berimbau of capoeira. That was the first day that I met Cuban capoeira instructors Libre and Cobrinha, instructors for the group Caiman Capoeira. Libre played berimbau and sang capoeira songs to lead the event as Cobrinha answered the refrains and called for the crowd to join in.

The Brazilian berimbau opened a public event honoring the Cuban tradition of abakuá and its heroes, which is very significant given the strong markers of specifically Cuban creole culture that commemorate this particular day. Abakuá rhythms are in the basis of most Cuban music, including the rumba guaguancó rhythm, which is the symbol of Cuban national pride. So why was it that if there were Cuban drummers present, the organizers chose the berimbau to introduce the event as well as to be the musical accompaniment during the poetry reading? Purposefully or not, the berimbau, as a symbol of capoeira and, thus, an Afro Brazilian performance of cultural resistance against a dominant colonial system, brought a sense of universality to the specifically Cuban abakuá ceremony that day. The abakuá martyrs became martyrs of a whole cultural process that went far beyond the confines of Havana and linked the creole experience in Cuba to the rest of the Diaspora, sharing an historical experience in slavery and creative resistance across the black Atlantic.

After the berimbau, speeches, and poetry readings, the procession began down Prado Avenue led by two iremes. When the íremes finally arrived at the statue in honor of the medical students, the crowd watched as these íremes danced across the monument and the capoeiristas in the group began to organize a small roda off to the side. I watched in awe as I saw the movements of the íremes and the movements of the capoeristas blend into one.

Cuban capoeiristas overcome obstacles and pool their resources to reproduce capoeira a lo cubano. Players are transforming culture into a form of social capital within their own cultural context. Capoeira in Cuba embodies an experience of social inversion and performative resistance that was developed over centuries of Afro Atlantic exchanges. Though it is a Brazilian expression of national identity, capoeira blurs lines of nationality when localized into the Cuban context, creating a performative dialogue between observable Cuba-Brazil cultural affinities—of both past and present.

All photos are copyrighted to Annie Gibson, the author of this article.

The post Rediscovering lo cubano Through Capoeira in Cuba appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

Confrontés au questionnement sur leur expérience à Bali, une des îles les plus connues de l’archipel indonésien, plusieurs artistes brésiliens et européens ont exprimé avoir vécu un sentiment bouleversant à un moment de leur voyage. Nous avons observé que ce moment de bouleversement résulte d’un choc entre une image ou une idée préalablement établies sur l’île et la réalité rencontrée lors du voyage concret.  Dans le but d’examiner ce bouleversement causé par le voyage et l’environnement balinais, ainsi que le repositionnement cartographique opéré par la chercheuse[1] même, nous proposons la réflexion de cet article. Elle fait partie de nos recherches doctorales liées aux enjeux interculturels autour du topeng balinais. Le noyau de cette recherche est la rencontre d’un certain nombre d’artistes brésiliens et européens praticiens de théâtre avec une forme spectaculaire balinaise, le topeng. Ces rencontres ont apporté des problématiques plurielles, car ces artistes vont percevoir cette forme étrangère à eux, le topeng, selon leurs propres histoires et cartographies personnelles.

Le topeng[2] est une forme de spectacle balinais[3] masquée. Selon l’occasion et le lieu de représentation, le topeng peut avoir des dimensions rituelles (wali) ou de pur divertissement (bali-balihan). Les variantes dédiées au divertissement sont le topeng panca (cinq), joué par plusieurs acteurs, et le topeng prembom (mélange) qui amalgame le topeng et d’autres formes théâtrales. Le topeng wali cérémonial était traditionnellement joué par un seul acteur. Il est nommé topeng pajegan, aussi appelé topeng sidhakarya ou topeng wali.

Le topeng est à la frontière entre le rite religieux et  la forme spectaculaire narrative. À travers une succession de masques, l’acteur-danseur, ou les acteurs-danseurs, mettent en scène les histoires de leurs aïeux, en créant par là un lien avec la société contemporaine balinaise. La visitation mythique des ancêtres a lieu en dialogue avec le présent. Au moyen de ses personnages comiques, le topeng est lieu d’enseignement philosophique et religieux, de commentaire social et d’affirmation de la généalogie d’un clan par le biais de l’humour. Dans le topeng wali, la fonction rituelle et cérémoniale est exercée par son dernier personnage, le Sidhakarya. Du point de vue du comédien, une représentation de topeng combine des danses complexes, de l’improvisation verbale qui demande une grande habileté du comédien et l’exécution de pratiques rituelles liées à la cérémonie principale.

Avec le flux grandissant de touristes dans l’île, progressivement, les Balinais vont commencer à chorégraphier et à présenter des danses basées sur des transes de possession d’usage essentiellement sacré. En 1971, un séminaire nommé « Danse sacrée et profane » est organisé par le LISTIBIYA, la Commission d’Évaluation et Promotion de la Culture[4]. L’objectif est de délimiter dans l’ensemble les formes balinaises les frontières entre le sacré, le séculaire et le profane. Tel le balinais, l’indonésien ne connaissait pas ces termes et les néologismes de base latine sont alors créés : sakral et provan. Une classification est alors établie entre les formes wali (sacrées), bebali (cérémoniales) et bali-balihan (séculières). Le rapport entre le lieu de représentation et le temple (pura) révèle énormément sur la sacralité de la forme.

Dans cet article nous essaierons d’exposer premièrement deux exemples de bouleversements à l’égard de l’Autre concernant le choc entre les imaginaires fictionnels auparavant créés, dans les exemples de Roberta Carreri, comédienne de l’Odin Teatret et Ana Teixeira, metteur en scène de l’Amok Teatro. Ensuite, nous parlerons d’un bouleversement géographique vécu par Felisberto Sabino, professeur à l’Université de São Paulo. Finalement, nous exposerons comment le parcours de voyage du Brésil à la France et de la France à Bali, a provoqué un bouleversement profond dans notre cartographie personnelle. En tant que chercheuse et comédienne, nous nous sommes impliquées dans l’analyse du déplacement cartographique qui a été opéré dans notre imaginaire grâce à ces successifs voyages. De ce fait, nous voulions exposer les contradictions originaires de cette confrontation.

Ainsi, avant d’aller à Bali, tous ces artistes avaient une idée mentale et particulière de ce que pourrait être cette île, ces formes spectaculaires et son contexte religio-culturel. Ces artistes voyageurs avaient également une image ou plutôt un imaginaire fictionnel de Bali. S’y rendre pour un voyage d’études, même s’il était initialement restreint au contexte de l’apprentissage d’une danse, a signifié pour eux la confrontation de cet imaginaire antérieur avec l’expérience du réel de l’environnement balinais.

À propos de la création d’images sur Bali

Au long du siècle XX, des voyageurs européens et nord-américains ont produit un ensemble diffus de récits de voyages, de travaux anthropologiques, de clichés photographiques et de films sur Bali. Cet ensemble important de registres commence à être créé à partir du début de la présence coloniale néerlandaise à Bali et de la conséquente ouverture de l’île au tourisme[5]. Depuis ce fait, la présence de touristes, dont des artistes divers, ne va pas cesser d’augmenter.

Depuis le début de l’exploitation coloniale néerlandaise, le rôle des artistes étrangers, admirateurs ou apprentis des arts balinais, a été très significatif, voire fondamental, dans la promotion et dans le faire connaître de l’île au monde. Leurs œuvres écrites, photographiques et filmiques ont fortement collaboré à la diffusion d’un imaginaire « paradisiaque » de cette île aux dieux, ou aux démons, selon le goût et la préférence du chroniqueur :

Parmi les visiteurs, il faut accorder une considération particulière à la petite communauté d’étrangers qui séjournent à Bali au cours de l’entre-guerres. Des artistes et des intellectuels pour la plupart – sans oublier une poignée de commerçants – ces résidants étrangers constituèrent l’avant-garde aussi bien que la caution culturelle du tourisme élitaire de l’époque coloniale. À ce titre, leur rôle fut de médiateurs entre Bali et les touristes, non seulement en accréditant et en diffusant l’image de l’île comme paradis en Occident, mais encore et surtout en identifiant la société balinaise à sa culture – réduite en circonstance à ses manifestations artistiques et cérémonielles. Leur influence sur les modalités de la mise en tourisme de Bali s’est exercée de plusieurs façons. (Picard, 1992 : 30)

Cependant, la vulgarisation des images de Bali et de ses habitants n’a pas été faite exclusivement par le biais de ces voyageurs étrangers. Au long du siècle dernier, le flux de déplacements d’artistes balinais à l’étranger est également considérable et débute dans le contexte des Expositions Coloniales. D’ailleurs, le plus célèbre témoignage d’une forme spectaculaire balinaise dans le champ théâtral européen et américain est certainement celui d’Antonin Artaud, « Sur le Théâtre Balinais », présent dans son ouvrage Le Théâtre et son Double. Il a été écrit après sa visite à l’Exposition Coloniale de 1931, à Vincennes, en France.  D’un côté, ce texte est l’expression du bouleversement visionnaire d’Antonin Artaud devant cette troupe balinaise[6]. Il s’agit d’une expérience révélatrice qui lui fait découvrir une forme théâtrale qu’il identifie comme métaphysique, active sur le plan physique. Le théâtre balinais vu à Vincennes est pour lui le seul contact avec Bali à partir duquel il élabore sa pensée sur l’Orient et le théâtre oriental :

En fait, ce fut pour Artaud le seul contact avec l’Orient comme territoire concret, certain, des sources, puisqu’il n’a jamais fait le voyage vers l’Orient, que ce soit en Chine ou au Tibet dont il a toujours rêvé et que, comme il le dit lui-même, il aurait très bien pu faire à la place du voyage au Mexique. Or c’est à partir de là qu’Artaud développe toute une réflexion beaucoup plus vaste sur l’opposition Orient-Occident dans Le Théâtre et son Double, car il a parfaitement bien pressenti – à travers cette brève mais fulgurante découverte – qu’il y avait là une pratique de signes impliquant une culture autre (…) (Borie, 1989 :167)

La lecture des textes d’Antonin Artaud, « Sur Théâtre Balinais » et « Théâtre Oriental et Théâtre Occidental », est commune à plusieurs artistes de la scène, dont ceux analysés dans cet article[7]. Pour les pratiquants de théâtre, ces textes restent une première approche de Bali. Conséquemment, ils induisent à la création d’un « récit fictionnel » de Bali. Telle démarche nous a été très clairement exemplifiée par le témoignage de Felisberto Sabino :

Ma première référence de Bali ne vient pas de cette recherche actuelle. Elle est antérieure, de mon époque d’étudiant de théâtre. Elle vient du Théâtre et son Double d’Artaud. Alors, à partir de cela et de la manière dont la question artaudienne est pensée ici au Brésil, tout cela m’a amené à un imaginaire… J’ai créé une « histoire » de Bali à partir de ce qu’Artaud a écrit. J’avais un Orient idéalisé, tant son côté culturel, quant sa vie quotidienne. (Coelho et Sabino, 2012)

Parmi les éléments de ce « récit fictionnel » de Bali, l’affirmation de l’opposition entre le théâtre « oriental et occidental » a été particulièrement assimilée par les artistes interviewés et par des artistes de la scène en général. Dans le cas des brésiliens, il nous semble que ces catégories n’ont pas encore mérité une problématisation adéquate. Nous reviendrons à ce sujet plus loin dans cet article. Puisque dans la réflexion artaudienne, « l’Orient » est le territoire des sources et du mystique et les formes scéniques « orientales » matérialisent ces caractéristiques, dans « une sorte d’architecture spirituelle » (Artaud, 1964 : 67). Le vécu de la présentation des Balinais lui a ouvert un champ vaste pour la réflexion conceptuelle de ce qui serait le « théâtre oriental » :

(…) his writings on the Balinese and Cambodian dances are among the most alluring fictions of the « oriental theatre » that have ever been written. Fictions, I emphasize, because Artaud’s essays are neither historical accounts nor systematic descriptions of what he saw it is unlikely that he knew the differences between kebyar, djanger, legong, and baris they are his envisionings of an « impossible » theatre. It is essential to keep in mind when discussing Artaud’s attitude to the « oriental theatre » that « The stimulus (of the Balinese and Cambodian dances) could just as well have come from observing the theatre of a Dahomey tribe or the shamanistic ceremonies of the Patagonian Indians » one could add the traditional dance-theatres of India like kathakali and chhau « what matters is that the other culture be genuinely other: that is non-Western and non-contemporary.» (Artaud 1976, xxxix) What concerned Artaud was not the Balinese theatre as such but the « oriental theatre » – a term he created to evoke a magical storehouse of ancient rhythms and gestures shared by diverse theatres from the East. (Bharucha, 1984 : 3)

Telle que nous l’évoque Rustom Bharucha, la réflexion artaudienne va conduire les artistes d’influence européenne à percevoir les formes scéniques d’Asie d’une manière homogène, tel un grand ensemble, en effaçant les différences fondamentales qui existent entre elles. Deuxièmement, elle renforcera une ligne de pensée qui conçoit une opposition ontologique entre l’Orient et l’Occident et qui se prolonge jusqu’à nos jours. Par exemple, Antonin Artaud place ce théâtre hors du domaine du texte et par cet aspect il s’opposerait inévitablement au théâtre dit « occidental ». Cependant, la place du discours oral dans la plupart de formes scéniques balinaises est fondamentale. Dans ces formes plusieurs sources textuelles sont employées. Le gambuh se sert du Malat, un recueil d’histoires du prince Panji, le wayang wong adapte le Ramayana pour la scène et le wayang kulit utilise comme base de son discours les histoires du Ramayana et du Mahabharata. En outre de se nourrir de ces deux épopées, l’acteur-danseur du topeng articule les textes du Babad, chroniques généalogiques des clans balinais, dans ses improvisations.

Sous le choc du réel de la scène balinaise

Roberta Carreri découvre le théâtre balinais dans le cadre de l’ISTA – International School of Theatre Antropology, une école itinérante dirigée depuis 1980 par l’Odin Teatret. Son premier voyage à Bali date des années 90. Le sentiment de bouleversement qu’elle y éprouve est justement lié au choc entre un contexte imaginé et le réel de la scène balinaise :

Je vais dire une chose qui peut être provocante. Mais j’ai connu le théâtre balinais en Europe, dans le contexte de l’ISTA. Cela signifie que j’ai vu le spectacle sur une scène qui était très propre avec un fond noir. C’était magnifique de les voir, car ils étaient tellement différents du contexte qu’ils sortaient vraiment. Et puis quand je suis allée à Bali, ce qui m’a frappé c’est le grand contexte, le monde. L’univers dans lequel ils bougeaient était tropical, tout à fait en harmonie avec eux. Mais la scène était très pauvre et très rough, très dure. Elle n’était pas soignée. Et cela m’a frappé beaucoup, parce que je pensais que tout l’aspect religieux demandait aussi un sol comme celui du théâtre Noh, bien poli. Tandis que là, non, c’était la terre ou le ciment. Je ne voyais pas cet endroit comme plein de possibilités. Je voyais quelque chose de dur. (Carreri et Coelho, 2012)

Premièrement Roberta Carreri a été frappée par l’harmonie entre l’environnement balinais et les comédiens. Cependant, le fait de ne pas rencontrer l’image qu’elle avait créé pour le lieu religieux balinais la bouleverse davantage. Il faut préciser qu’à Bali un grand nombre de présentations se déroulent à l’intérieur des temples et en concomitance avec des rites divers. En outre, les temples sont en plein air. Nous pouvons discerner la déception générée par son expectative envers la scène balinaise. Son témoignage nous est révélateur, car Roberta Carreri exprime clairement l’attente que cet ensemble couramment nommé « théâtre asiatique » ou « théâtre oriental » soit uniforme. De ce fait, la tendance des artistes est d’uniformiser l’espace scénique du temple balinais et celui du Noh japonais, car il s’agit dans les deux cas d’un « théâtre oriental » et parce qu’il s’agit d’une forme spectaculaire liée à un contexte religieux. Ce label est justement le symptôme d’une généralisation.

La différence entre assister à un spectacle balinais en Europe et dans son environnement d’origine est également soulignée par Roberta Carreri :

Et pour moi c’était une grande différence de voir une troupe balinaise faire ce spectacle dans un théâtre en Europe, et de les voir faire ces représentations à Bali. C’était vraiment le temple de Batuan. Peut-être que tu l’as vu, non? Je n’arrive pas à le penser comme un temple. C’est un temple, bien sûr, mais où nous faisions nos répétitions, c’était un endroit très brut, pas magique. Il devenait magique quand les acteurs, les danseurs et les musiciens commençaient leur performance. (Carreri et Coelho, 2012)

La brutalité du sol en ciment du lieu où se déroulent simultanément les présentations de topeng et les prières des balinais lui provoque un sentiment d’étrangeté. C’est en apercevant ce sol brut couvert par les restes d’offrandes défaites, pas magique, selon ses mots, qu’elle se rend compte de la singularité du terrain balinais. Ce sentiment d’étrangeté lui a permis de percevoir l’altérité. En outre, le spectacle balinais présenté en Europe ne lui offre pas la dimension de la culture balinaise comme le fait celui réalisé in loco.

Pour Ana Teixeira : Ce n’était pas une légende

Issue de la rencontre entre une danseuse brésilienne, Ana Teixeira, et un comédien français, Stéphane Brodt, l’Amok[8] Teatro est une compagnie de théâtre très active au Brésil[9]. Pendant plusieurs années Stéphane Brodt a été comédien du Théâtre du Soleil. Il avoue que son regard envers les formes spectaculaires d’Asie a été fondamentalement façonné lors de ses années de travail de cette compagnie. L’influence d’Ariane Mnouchkine est flagrante. Selon son propre ressenti, le pont qui l’amène à l’Asie est celui construit par Ariane. Tant Ana Teixeira que Stéphane Brodt font référence à un événement qui les a profondément marqué lors d’un voyage à Bali. Voici le témoignage d’Ana Teixeira :

Alors, vous me demandez qu’est-ce qui peut avoir transformé ou « bouleversé » mon parcours… Je dirais qu’il y a eu un événement spécialement marquant. C’était lors d’une cérémonie, dans une maison. Il s’agissait d’une cérémonie post enterrement, pour les morts, et plusieurs choses y avaient lieu. Il y avait un théâtre de marionnettes, il y avait des masques, des jeux. Il y avait tellement de choses, même des coqs ! Il y avait un peu de tout ! Tout d’un coup nous avons entendu quelqu’un frapper sur une boîte: tac, tac, tac, tac… C’était un manipulateur qui jouait un spectacle de wayang kulit devant personne. Cela m’a touché énormément ! Il n’y avait personne et néanmoins c’était merveilleux. Mais personne ne le regardait. Il le faisait pour les dieux vraiment. Ce n’était pas, disons, une légende. Il faisait cela vraiment pour les dieux. Cela m’a beaucoup marqué, car cela donne uns sens complètement différent à l’acte théâtral. Cette expérience, évidement, est imprégnée en moi jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Je crois que c’est ce qui est le plus imprégné. (Coelho et Teixeira, 2012)

Ici, le moment de bouleversement est très précis et son souvenir demeure très vivant. Ana Teixeira est frappée par la confirmation d’un fait qu’elle jugeait de l’ordre du fictionnel, une légende. Elle savait que l’on pouvait rencontrer à Bali une forme de « théâtre sacré », dans les formes de spectacle liées à des cérémonies religieuses. Cependant, l’image de ce qui serait ce « théâtre sacré » était loin de ce qu’elle a vécu concrètement. Il y a une distance entre ce qui est imaginé et l’événement concret. Possiblement, l’image floue et générale qu’elle avait de « théâtre sacré », tout en coup, de manière inespéré, s’est cristallisée devant elle sous la forme de ce dalang[10] joueur de wayang kulit lemah[11].

Le retour à l’enfance brésilienne : le voyage à Bali, voyage au passé

Felisberto Sabino est professeur de théâtre de marionnettes et de formes spectaculaires traditionnelles brésiliennes à l’Université de São Paulo, au Brésil. Les folguedos brésiliens, tels le bumba-meu-boi et le maracatu[12], sont un de ces intérêts de recherche préférentiels. Il est autrement frappé lors de son premier voyage à Bali en 2011. Le bouleversement chez Felisberto Sabino est lié à un rapport particulier entre étrangeté et familiarité. Il éprouve un choc géographique intense, un mélange entre voyage concret et voyage dans le temps :

Je suis de Minas Gerais, j’ai grandi là-bas et j’ai environ 50 ans. Alors, quand je suis allé à Bali… je parle des villages moins centraux. Il y a là-bas un certain rapport dans la campagne, dans les rapports familiaux, dans les relations entre les gens, qui m’a beaucoup rappelé une région de Minas Gerais, la zone Est. Cela m’a beaucoup rappelé la Vallée du Jequitinhonha, un endroit que je fréquentais enfant. (…) Ils vivent dans un espace-temps qui est le XXIème siècle, mais en même temps je me suis senti dans mon enfance, dans les années soixante-dix, à Jacinto (village). Le voyage m’a offert cela, une certaine brésilité (brasilidade)… Et moi, je n’avais jamais imaginé pouvoir être proche de cela à Bali… (Coelho et Felisberto, 2012)

L’environnement balinais provoque en lui un vrai voyage « à la madeleine de Proust ». L’odeur de la fleur de frangipanier, omniprésente dans les offrandes balinaises, l’a embarqué au Brésil, à l’État de Minas Gerais de son enfance :

Alors, c’était tellement bizarre. J’étais là-bas et les choses qui m’ont semblé étranges n’étaient pas les choses exotiques, mais mes celles de tous les jours, les choses que j’avais déjà éprouvé une fois dans ma vie, dans un autre lieu, dans une autre époque. Cette connexion m’a fait faire un tour en moi même. Les choses exotiques, les bâtiments, la température du lieu, les costumes, ces choses que l’on trouve normalement bizarres, ces choses-là ne m’ont pas semblé étranges. Je les avais déjà vu, ou je les attendais. Mais marcher dans une rue sans éclairage, par exemple, cela m’a emmené dans les années 60. C’était comme si j’étais chez moi. (…) Alors c’est cela qui était le plus drôle : je suis allé de l’autre côté du monde pour sentir des choses que je ne sentais pas depuis si longtemps, dans un pays censé être différent… (idem)

Felisberto Sabino perçoit à Bali un lien insoupçonné avec le Brésil. Il est déconcerté par cette connexion et par la contradiction qui s’établit. Il se voit en tant qu’occidental, mais il se sent plus proche de Bali que de la France européenne. Intuitivement, guidé par son ressenti personnel, il suggère cette approximation inattendue :

Cela était très bien et c’était très différent de ce que j’ai vécu en Europe. Dans ce sens-là, je me suis senti beaucoup plus proche de Bali que de l’Europe. Et c’est étrange, car Paris est occidentale et pour ceux qui font du théâtre c’est une référence très forte. (idem)

Nous avons eu un ressenti proche de celui de Felisberto Sabino, lors de notre premier séjour à Bali en 2008. C’est en exposant cette expérience que nous essaierons de comprendre le processus qui nous a fait redessiner notre cartographie personnelle du monde.

Une cartographie personnelle redessinnée grâce aux voyages

D’une manière similaire à celle décrite par Felisberto Sabino, notre parcours de voyage du Brésil à la France et de la France à Bali a provoqué un bouleversement profond dans notre cartographie personnelle. L’affranchissement successif de ces frontières nous a permi une vision du monde sous une perspective absolument nouvelle.

Le terme « cartographie » est ici employé dans le sens que lui confére la Géographie contemporaine. Outre le fait de designer la science qui étudie et qui créé des cartes géographiques, la cartographie est pensée en tant que théorie cognitive de la représentation du monde. Elle est également perçue en tant que théorie sur les technologies à travers lesquelles la complexité du monde réel est réduite à une représentation graphique. Ainsi les images sont projetées pour que l’on puisse s’approprier intellectuellement le monde (Lévy, 2003 : 135).

Cependant, nous parlons d’une cartographie personnelle. De ce fait, nous supposons que nous avons tous une représentation imaginaire du monde dans nos esprits. Telle qu’une carte, cette représentation est dessinée par nos réflexions et par l’assimilation de la pensée des autres sur le monde. Ainsi, notre point de vue personnel et notre lieu d’énonciation sont cruciaux pour la configuration de cette carte. D’une certaine manière, cette représentation nous guide dans nos contacts avec l’Autre. Par le biais d’un exemple personnel, nous allons exposer la manière dont s’est opéré ce changement de lieu d’énonciation et par conséquent, de cartographie personnelle.

Après avoir fini la Licence en Théâtre à l’Université Fédérale de Minas Gerais au Brésil, nous avons déménagé en France pour poursuivre nos études à l’Université Paris 8. Notre première intention à l’époque était également de poursuivre une recherche pratique dans le champ de masques théâtraux, démarche que nous avions commencé auparavant au Brésil.

En arrivant à Paris, nous avons participé à un atelier de topeng, à l’ARTA, Association de Recherche des Traditions de l’Acteur à la Cartoucherie de Vincennes. À l’époque de ce premier atelier, nous étions simplement fascinées par les masques du topeng et par la pratique avec ceux-ci. Nous avons fait un deuxième atelier de topeng à l’ARTA, avant de nous rendre concrètement à Bali. Cette forme scénique avait été choisie comme sujet de master. Avant le premier voyage à Bali, en 2008, nous nous sommes consacrées à la lecture de textes disponibles en anglais, français et italien sur le topeng. Six mois après la soutenance de notre premier travail écrit sur le topeng, nous sommes allées à Bali pour continuer nos études pratiques de cette forme scénique.

Ce séjour a provoqué un grand bouleversement pour quelqu’un qui attendait un lieu exotique. Pendant la période vécue à Bali, nous avions continuellement la sensation ambiguë de familiarité et d’étrangeté auprès de cette île. Le climat tropical, la végétation luxuriante, le riz à la table, les fruits, les gens accueillants et d’autres aspects nous ont fait nous sentir chez-nous. Plus qu’en France où nous habitions et où nous pensions partager une même « occidentalité », en outre un fond culturel de base occidental. En même temps, la culture balinaise s’avérait extrêmement différente de la brésilienne.

À Bali, une confrontation continuelle a eu lieu entre ce que nous attendions, ce que nous avions lu et l’expérience que nous éprouvions sur le moment. Pendant quelques mois, à côté de l’apprentissage de la danse, nous accompagnions les répétitions de gambuh au village de Batuan et les présentations de topeng. Nous étions logées chez une famille autochtone, ce que nous a permis d’assister à plusieurs cérémonies aux temples de l’île. Nous avons vécu intensément la vie quotidienne des villages d’Ubud, Peliatan et Batuan, situés à l’intérieur de l’îIe.

Progressivement au cours de ce voyage, nous avons compris que ce qui était exotique pour les auteurs européens et américains, décidément ne l’était pas pour nous. Notamment, nous percevions que la notion d’exotisme était couramment employée à partir d’un lieu d’énonciation unique. L’exotisme serait présent dans ce qui ne correspond pas aux formes « occidentales ». Même si les auteurs contemporains n’emploient pas explicitement ce mot, la notion « d’exotisme » est implicitement présente, déguisée par celle de l’esthétique du divers. Puisque le divers, l’autre, est encore placé comme étant le non-occidental dans le discours écrit dominant. Pour cela, nous attendions aussi de Bali un lieu « exotique et particulier ».

C’est dans ce conflit entre ces « lieux d’énonciation de l’exotisme » que nous  avons pris conscience d’une certaine confusion dans notre point de vue antérieur à ce premier voyage à Bali. Nous avions automatiquement emprunté une perspective « occidentale », sans nous rendre compte de la complexité liée au lieu d’énonciation brésilien. Ce lieu d’énonciation troublé est révélé aussi par la difficulté à définir un placement cartographique du Brésil dans un monde divisé par le binôme Orient / Occident.

Parallement à nos recherches doctorales, nous avons informellement demandé quelle serait la place du Brésil dans cette carte qui divise le monde entre l’Orient et l’Occident. Cela a été fait en Europe à des audiences diverses. Pour la plupart des auditeurs non-Brésiliens et non-Latino américains, la réponse était claire. Le Brésil ne fait pas partie de l’Occident. Il est dans un ailleurs géographique, tel l’Afrique. Une minorité d’auditeurs a évoqué le fait que les métropoles brésiliennes comme São Paulo et Rio de Janeiro sont plus occidentalisées. Quelques-uns hésitaeint, sans savoir exactement, quelle réponse donner. Cependant, dans le sens commun, le Brésil n’appartiendrait pas à l’Occident.

De la perspective brésilienne, il est intéressant de noter qu’il existe un Orient et un Occident et que nous faisons partie de ce dernier. Les Brésiliens, particulièrement l’élite universitaire, absorbent un point de vue « occidental » lors des rapports envers les cultures asiatiques et cela est spécialement vrai dans les champs du Théâtre et de la Danse. Interrogés sur la place du Brésil dans ce binôme Orient versus Occident, Ana Teixeira et Felisberto Sabino sont unanimes: ils le placent dans l’Occident. Nous avons demandé à Ana Teixeira quelle était la place du Brésil dans le contexte de ce binôme :

D’abord, je crois que dans notre histoire politique il y a un mouvement plus important et conscient de se voir. Je dirais que pendant beaucoup de temps je voyais le Brésil en tant qu’Extrême Occident, pas en tant qu’Occident : très imprégné de la culture nord-américaine, avec une économie ultra capitaliste, libérale. (…) Je crois qu’aujourd’hui on se voit plus lié à l’Afrique… D’ailleurs, on la localise où ? Occident ? Orient ? L’Afrique est toujours mise en tant que continent totalement à part qui ne se situe dans aucun endroit de la planète. Alors, je pense qu’aujourd’hui, la conscience de la culture africaine au Brésil est considérablement plus importante qu’il y a quelques années. C’est l’impression que j’ai. Les gens prennent plus conscience aussi de leurs différentes racines : arabe, ibérique, européenne, africaine, amérindienne. Le Brésil essaye de comprendre son identité, indépendamment d’une identité européenne. Et je remarque que même du point de vue de la géopolitique internationale que le Brésil a un autre rôle aujourd’hui. (…) Depuis quelques années, le Brésil se place de manière plus indépendante, parlant par lui-même, il n’est pas toujours aligné avec les Américains. Il se voit constitué de différentes cultures et ces cultures-là sont valorisées. Pendant beaucoup de temps, seule la culture européenne était valorisée. Aujourd’hui non. (…) Finalement,  je ne saurai pas te répondre “c’est comme ça”. (Coelho et Teixeira, 2012)

Ana Teixeira aperçoit l’Afrique dans un non lieu dans cette carte. Le Brésil serait un « Autre Occident ». Felisberto Sabino appréhende cette question de manière similaire à celle d’Ana Teixeira :

En fait, je parle de mon expérience. Je crois que le Brésil est à la fois dans et hors de l’Occident. Dans un certain sens, il est dedans, comme si l’Occident était un vêtement, une peau, plus à l’extérieur, Mais si l’on va à la chair, je crois qu’il n’y est pas, car nous avons quelque chose… … Je ne sais pas si c’est lié à la forte influence indienne, africaine… Nous sommes occidentaux, mais pas comme des européens. Je pense que l’influence de la culture indienne et africaine a été déterminante pour notre contradiction, cela nous a apporté des choses, nous avons un rapport corps et esprit, plus proche de cette dimension du sacré qu’un européen, qu’un français. C’est un ressenti. Je n’ai aucun argument scientifique. Je suis dans le domaine de l’impression, de la perception. Je crois que nous sommes “Occident” mais d’une autre manière. (Coelho et Sabino, 2012)

Ana Teixeira et Felisberto Sabino, ainsi que d’autres Brésiliens, ne réalisent pas le fait que cet Occident « officiel » ne considère pas le Brésil comme un pays occidental. Dans le champ théâtral, le Brésil est encore vu comme un pays « d’ailleurs ». Cette valorisation des matrices formatrices du peuple brésilien, évoquée par Ana Teixeira, nous semble cruciale pour une réflexion profonde sur rapport identitaire brésilien. Les travaux des anthropologues tels que Darcy Ribeiro, nous aident à saisir cette identité sous une perspective plurielle et continentale.

Par ailleurs, ce modèle de conception du monde élit deux pôles et crée des territoires marginaux. Même si nous considérons les théories critiques de l’Orientalisme, depuis les travaux de Edward Said, où la construction européenne de l’Orient est analysée, nous devons également considérer les territoires qui sont mis à part. La question se pose encore si nous divisons le monde entre Occident et non-Occident, comme il est coutume chez les théoriciens postcoloniaux.

Nous mettons en question le point de vue brésilien envers l’Orient, car la majorité de l’élite universitaire de ce pays continue à emprunter ce binôme Orient/ Occident pour dessiner la cartographie du monde. Et de ce fait à se penser et à s’identifier en tant qu’occidentale. Par conséquent, des perspectives “européennes et nord-américaines” sont empruntées pour penser l’Asie. Selon Heloisa Toller Gomes, les questions sur l’altérité et l’identité ont été toujours complexes au
Brésil :

Considérés comme “les autre” de l’Europe, avec leur population fréquemment vue comme sous-race par les visiteurs et les observateurs étrangers, les Portugais ont dupliqué contre leurs colonies la discrimination et le mépris qu’ils ont senti de la part de l’Europe “plus civilisée” à leur endroit. On ne s’étonnerait pas que la question de l’altérité soit remplie par des complexités très particulières.

Les spécificités du colonialisme luso brésilien ont dessiné les traits structurels de notre formation populationnelle, culturelle et idéologique, par conséquent de notre construction identitaire.[13] (Gomes, 2006 : 4)

À ce sujet, cet article a proposé l’exposition de cette contradiction de l’identité brésilienne. Nous pensons qu’une problématisation collective à ce sujet et un ajustement de perspective sont urgents et indispensables pour une réflexion plus approfondie sur nos appartenances et nos identités multiples.

The post Le voyage en tant que dessinateur d’une nouvelle cartographie de la chercheuse. appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

Panning through the dismal space of out-of-service garbage trucks against a dreary city skyline, the opening scene of The Salt Mines (1990) introduces us to Sara, a self-identified Latina transvestite working as a prostitute in New York City. A diamond in the rough with goldilocks hair similar to Farah Fawcett of the 1970s, she is presented as both a seasoned veteran of the streets and a mentor to Gigi and Giovanna, two other transvestite prostitutes whom we also meet in the film. As an image of grace surrounded by the squalor of poverty, disease, and death, Sara is also an image of queer defiance, seemingly unfazed by her physical environment and oppressive life experiences as an exile from Cuba and a refugee of the Mariel boatlift. One year later in the follow-up film The Transformation (1995) we meet Sara again; only this time, Pastor Terry Wier is our medium to her life, or rather, death as a woman and “born again” into a man. Sara is now Ricardo, transformed by his devotion to the Christian faith and teachings of a heteronormative lifestyle.

While the Salt Mines follows the unique lives of Gigi, Giovanna, and Sara as they make a home among the salt deposits used by the New York Sanitation Department to clear away snow in the winter, The Transformation centers on Sara’s new life as Ricardo, undergoing the transition in order to be “rescued” by a conservative Christian ministry after discovering she is HIV positive. As seen in these documentary films, how is it possible that, in the space of cinematic time, what once was an image of queer defiance – Sara in The Salt Mines – becomes the epitome of queer catastrophe and Christian fundamentalist triumph, as embodied in Ricardo in The Transformation?

Figure 1. Sara in The Salt Mines (left) and Ricardo in The Transformation (right).

Viewed side-by-side, The Salt Mines and The Transformation charts a series of dynamic ambiguities and continual movements across differences of race, gender, sexuality, class, and religion. Moreover, as a genre of film intended to record and interrogate aspects of reality, the latter documentary does not offer a “picture perfect” conclusion to Ricardo’s new life as a born-again Christian who is happily married to the woman of his dreams. Rather, it ends with a brutally honest moment in which Ricardo, now physically impaired by the onslaught of the AIDS virus, reveals his desire that if he still had a choice, “I would choose to be a woman.” Concluding on a somber affect that leaves viewers stunned at Ricardo’s self-confession, The Transformation challenges the notion of fixed, visible, and transparent identities, as captured in The Salt Mines.

When making the films, directors Susana Aikin and Carlos Aparicio utilized a style of documentary that allowed viewers to deduce their own conclusions of what is seen on screen, free from stylistic choices of music, interviews, scene arrangements, or voice-over narrations. Known as the “observational mode” of documentary, this perspective helps to demonstrate the role of documentaries as instances of discourse rather than “window[s] on unscripted, undirected, unrehearsed, and unperformed realit[ies].”[1] Nevertheless, I would argue, the force of these films stems from the fact that they remain narratives grounded in some version of actuality and experience, involving social actors as opposed to stock characters. By engaging the visual texts as offered in these films, this essay explores the incongruities that exist between reality and representation.As separate texts, The Salt Mines and The Transformation also offer distinct examples of what Donna Haraway terms “situated knowledges,” where each film holds a distinct and partial point of view—rather than a disembodied objectivity—that provides a more nuanced account of information constituting a specific context or environment.[2] The questions these documentaries raise are thus linked and different: while The Salt Mines looks at an exceptional group of transvestites in order to question the precarious nature of queer kinship formations in public spaces, The Transformation follows the new Christian life of Ricardo (Sara in The Salt Mines) to demonstrate and document the forceful nature of ideological state apparatuses—to borrow Althusser’s term—in constructing and maintaining the dominant norm of cisgender heterosexuality. In using Cynthia Fuch’s description of the self-conscious representations of documentary conventions, The Salt Mines and the Transformation ultimately map “a constellation of anxieties about queer expression, verification, and representation by complicating traditional links between visibility and identity and, in particular, by insisting that race, gender, class” – and, I would add, religion – “are inextricable from sexuality in any conception of identity or reality.”[3]

Technique for Visibility: Queer Reframing in Observational Documentary

In Reframing Bodies: AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image, Roger Hallas (2009) examines a corpus of queer films and videos made between the mid-1980s and the early 2000s in response to the AIDS epidemics in North America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. While he does not incorporate The Salt Mines or The Transformation as films within his body of “queer AIDS media,” Hallas’ use of the term reframing is particularly useful for my analysis of the two documentaries. Hallas explains how his archive of queer AIDS media radically reframes not only how viewers perceive HIV/AIDS but also the spaces in which they circulated.[4] As these films are “neither mere ideological critiques of the dominant media representation of the epidemic nor corrective attempts to produce ‘positive’ images of people living with HIV/AIDS,” their importance lies in the ability to document both the individual and collective trauma of AIDS. As he clarifies further:

This discursive act required a sustained dialectical tension between directly attesting to the medical, psychological, and political imperatives produced by AIDS and contesting the enunciative position available to people with HIV/AIDS in dominant media representations, which had consistently subjected their speech to either a shaming abjection or a universalistic humanism. Moreover, the dialectical dynamic of these works reframed not only the bodies of the witnesses seen and heard on the screen but also the relationship of such represented bodies to the diverse viewing bodies in front of the screen.[5]

In line with Hallas’ description, The Transformation highlights the specific capacity of documentary to “bear witness” to the historical trauma of AIDS, as evidenced by the circumstances that inform Sara’s decision to become Ricardo. However, unlike the films analyzed by Hallas that also document the culture of care emerging from the queer community’s response to the epidemic’s effects of illness, death, and loss, The Transformation does not incorporate AIDS activism or any type of political mobilization against queer discrimination. Rather, and more tellingly, the film attest to the ways in which dominant discursive regimes, as depicted through Pastor Terry Wier’s use of religious rhetoric, have the power to shape queer bodies into “right” subjects. In using Althusser, to what set of interpellating calls does Sara respond?

Because Aiken and Aparicio reframe the discourse on AIDS within narratives of the ordinary and everyday versus through sensationalist accounts, The Salt Mines and The Transformation must also be understood as falling within the observational mode of documentary filmmaking. In Bill Nichols’ influential study (2001) of contemporary documentary film, he identifies six types, or modes, of documentary. While his classification scheme recognizes the performative mode as particularly salient for social groups who have been historically shunned from the lens of the camera, it is the observational mode of documentary that is at play within Aiken and Aparicio’s films. Arising from technological innovations of the 1960s that made possible mobile lightweight cameras and portable sound recording equipment, observational documentary allows the viewer to get an intimate and immediate sense of individual human character in quotidian life. As Nichols elaborates further the perspective of observational documentaries:

We look in on life as it is lived. Social actors engage with one another, ignoring the filmmakers. Often the characters are caught up in pressing demands or a crisis of their own. This requires their attention and draws it away from the presence of the filmmakers. The scenes tend, like fiction, to reveal aspects of character and individuality. We make inferences and come to conclusions on the basis of behavior we observe or overhear. The filmmaker’s retirement to the position of observer calls on the viewer to take a more active role in determining the significance of what is said and done.[6]

From Nichols’ description, viewers of both The Salt Mines and The Transformation see and hear firsthand the daily struggles of Gigi, Giovanna, and Sara – ranging from material conflicts between Gigi and Giovanna over feminine articles of clothing and hormone injections to better “pass” as women, to the internal struggles of Ricardo as he questions his decision to transition for communal and social belonging outside of his former life in the streets as Sara.

The social commitment of observational documentary is wholly apparent, then, given the presence of the camera “on the scene” that records daily events and lived experiences in the historical world. However, “this also affirms a sense of fidelity to what occurs that can pass on events to us as if they simply happened when they have, in fact, been constructed [and edited] to have that very appearance.”[7] This constructed nature ultimately demonstrates the power of the queer moving image to simultaneously depict the historical world as it participates in the fabrication of the historical world itself. Given this assertion, how do we read the representations of Gigi, Giovanna, and particularly Sara: are they agents of their own reality, or is it the artistic choices of the filmmakers themselves that makes conceivable the agency (or lack thereof) we see on film?

The Salt Mines: Who Are The Salt People?

The Salt Mines is the first of two documentaries about the lives of Gigi, Giovanna, and Sara, three Latina transvestite prostitutes living among heaps of snow-melting salt, pieces of scrap metal and debris, and broken-down garbage trucks converted into makeshift homes in an area cordoned off by the Sanitation Department of New York. As the camera provides a glimpse into the everyday and internal realities of these three transvestite women – covering their distinct personal histories of family abandonment, experiences of coming out, and their decline from drugs to prostitution and vice versa – the viewer encounters images of abjection depicted through non-normative bodies, subjects who are spatially and socially confined to the lower rungs of society. While the film chronicles the relations among the three close friends as they navigate the evening streets of Manhattan to support their ongoing drug addictions, it also provides the viewer a glimpse into the varied community of homeless people they inhabit “The Salt Mines” with, affectionately known as “The Salt People.” From J.R., a male-identified crack addict, to Ruben, a black gay male whom we later learn develops AIDS through prostitution, The Salt Mines depicts a community of exiles who cling to each other for mutual aid and support. “In a culture which appears to arrange always and in every way for the annihilation of queers,”[8] as Judith Butler reminds us, The Salt Mines is depicted as a safe haven for outcasts of mainstream society. This is most evident through the statement of recently unemployed Bobby, another member of this shunned community, who emphatically declares:

[I] got laid off. [I] used to see people who stayed at The Salt Mines and decided to stay with them. Our lifestyles are different, you know? They go out, they hustle. As far as tricks, selling your body, that’s not my thing. [However] I don’t condemn them… because they’re my friends right now. As far as I’m concerned, they’re my family.

By “offering a window into understanding the ethics of association and sociality between strangers and anonymous individuals who, through recurring encounters, become familiar with each other,”[9] the use of observational documentary creates an intimacy among the viewer and the community of The Salt People projected on screen, thus making their cinematic experiences a part of historical reality.

Ranging from George Chauncey’s (1994) seminal account of “vice” districts in Manhattan that illuminated urban gay life and culture in New York City from 1890-1940, to Nayan Shah’s (2011) recent study of intimate relations among transient male laborers in the United States and Canada at the turn of the twentieth century, The Salt Mines draws attention to queer kinship formations absent in conventional accounts on poverty, homelessness, and prostitution in New York City. Moreover, despite the difference in medium from Chauncey and Shah’s written historical texts, the use of film nonetheless reveals the way “people manipulate the spatial and cultural complexity of the city to constitute neighborhoods and community despite the interference” of outside agencies and institutions.[10] Specifically, an analysis of Gigi, Giovanna, and Sara’s testimonies provides a rich picture of the cultural terrain on which they navigate, a space often intruded by people malevolent to queer identities and by born-again Christians “benevolent” to “saving” transgender people through the healing power of Jesus Christ.*

Dressed in a black leather jacket and faux denim jeans with thinly sculpted eyebrows, Gigi provides the first testimony into a day in the life of “living in the salt.” While her narrative speaks strongly to the everyday struggles for food, clean water, and protection from the elements, I want to focus on two aspects of her story that stress the precarity of transgender lives within public spaces, as well as the identification she makes of being and feeling like a woman.

First stating that “life in the street [prostitution] is miserable and it’s more so for us because we are also living in the street,” Gigi goes on to provide an example of avoiding a certain city block notorious for bodily violence, particularly the shooting of transvestite prostitutes with pellet guns. Additionally, she explains her move from the salt deposits to making a home inside the spaces of dilapidated garbage trucks because of persistent police surveillance. These two examples lend weight to the film’s importance in highlighting otherwise hidden histories of queer lives that are silenced and erased by a society dominated by heterosexual and gender normative regimes of power. The Salt People, even in their abjection, are ultimately seen as beings that threaten the greater social order and thus warrant government control and suppression.

This assertion is most poignantly demonstrated at the end of the film where the removal of salt by plows in the winter stands in as a metaphor for the destruction and disintegration of queer public spaces and culture, as described in such works as Samuel Delany’s (1999) Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. In speaking to the urban center’s redevelopment for the safety and well-being of tourists and families, “the city… instituted not only a violent reconfiguration of its own landscape but also a legal and moral revamping of its own discursive structures, changing laws about sex, health, and zoning, in the course of which it has been willing, and even anxious, to exploit everything from homophobia and AIDS to family values and fear of drugs.”[11] As Gigi acts as a tour guide to The Salt Mines, showing the viewer the barbed wire fence erected around the now-abandoned space she once called home at the conclusion of the film, the documentary functions as a piece of evidence to demonstrate the impact of state and government repression in the lives of The Salt People. Within the space of New York City, as the film alludes to, individuals like Gigi, Giovanna, and Sara are not allowed nor welcomed to exist in their difference as transvestite prostitutes of color.

In terms of Gigi’s discussion of identifying as a woman, she speaks candidly to the camera about her revelation, at the age of 13, of feeling she was “a woman encased in the body of a man.” The viewer soon learns that this identification is what leads to her exclusion and loss of support from her family, led by her mother’s lack of acceptance of what Gayle Salamon calls the “felt sense” of the body that Gigi experiences.[12] Moreover, the viewer watches as Gigi becomes teary-eyed when speaking about the admiration she holds for her father, a man who accepted his child’s identification with something other than their assigned gender at birth. We thus empathize with Gigi’s affective loss and longing for her father’s love.

What this provocative scene highlights is the way Gigi explores what it means to be embodied and the subsequent costs, consequences, and sacrifices of living out that embodiment. In discussing Gigi’s felt sense of the body versus her bodily materiality, it is useful to invoke Salamon’s summary of the connection psychoanalyst Paul Schilder makes between the two via the body image:

We only have recourse to our bodies through a body image, a psychic representation of the body that is constructed over time. The body image is multiple (any person always has more than one), it is flexible (its configuration changes over time), it arises from our relations with other people, and its contours are only rarely identical to the contours of the body as it is perceived from the outside. … Thus our sense of the body image, the postural model of the body, is a sedimented effect without a stable reference or predictable content, since it may be different in form and shape, moment to moment, through each new iteration.”[13]

As understood from this description, the (trans) body is a site that encompasses an abundance of materiality and meaning that denaturalizes gender—the presumed binary categories of male and female—as a self-evident or natural fact. Far from being a biological given, the body, according to Schilder, must always be understood as contextually situated and formed, in relation to other bodies and to the world writ large: our bodies and the genders they inhabit are malleable. This assertion is not one held by Gigi’s mother, whose lack of recognition of gender’s constructed nature causes her eventual rejection of Gigi and her subsequent alienation from the family. Despite Gigi’s fear of not being able to see her father as he aged toward death—a father who accepted her transition but was unable to sustain a paternal relationship because of his wife’s disapproval—the documentary ultimately frames Gigi’s embodiment of a female subjectivity as more than enough reason to sever immediate family ties.

As Salamon quotes Schilder to further explain how “changes in the body-image tend immediately to become changes in the body,”[14] the viewer recognizes this on screen with the use of hormone injections by Gigi and Giovanna to better “pass” as women. Conspicuously absent from this scene, however, is Sara, whom we later learn is staying at the Terminal Hotel at the end of the film. Given this conclusion to The Salt Mines, it then comes as a surprise when The Transformation presents us with Ricardo, the formerly homeless transvestite prostitute once known as Sara. As Gigi abruptly responds to this turn of events: “To hell with that man business… to me he’s always a woman!”

I now turn to a reading of the film to analyze the power of Christian rhetoric that informs Sara’s transformation to become a cisgender, heterosexual man we are confronted with on screen. Ultimately, Ricardo’s presence in the second film speaks to the shaky grounds on which observational documentary can capture “reality” as experienced in everyday life.

The Transformation: The Interpolating Calls of the Christian Church

The opening scene of The Transformation, the companion piece to The Salt Mines, resembles that of an expository film more so than an observational documentary, as narration takes precedence over the images on screen that influences viewer perception of what is taking place. Within the introductory frame we are presented with a photo album held open by two white hands: on the right side of the album we recognize a black and white photo of Sara, while on the left side we see another black and white photo of a person assumed to be male, given the cues by their gender presentation in posture, demeanor, and clothing. As the camera focuses on these two photos, we hear the voice of Pastor Terry Wier, whom the viewer learns is the one holding the album. Speaking contemptuously about Sara’s life on the street as a prostitute and transvestite, he then reveals to the viewer that the photos we are looking at are of the same person: Sara is now Ricardo – with the help of Terry’s Dallas ministry of born-again Christians – who, in his life as the former, was missing an aspect of his identity that did not make him a whole person, and thus is the reason why he ended up on the streets. As Terry states, “[Ricardo] never knew what it was to be a man.”

Terry’s opening narrative introduces a moral and ideological perspective that sets up the chronological sequence of the documentary, which chiefly follows the life of Ricardo as a churchgoing and married man in Dallas who has renounced his gender presentation as female, as well as his homosexuality, for the sake of a life espoused in biblical scriptures. The Transformation also exposes the power at work through the personhood of Terry, whose missionary goal of “saving” transvestites and drag queens through offerings of shelter and monetary assistance comes at a deep price: the renunciation of their queer identity in order to become subjects of the Christian Church and to experience the redeeming grace of Jesus Christ. By highlighting the point of view of Ricardo’s new life from two distinct yet interrelated narratives, The Transformation raises provocative questions regarding gender identity and the strive toward self-determination. Given the film’s conclusion with Ricardo’s painful disclosure of wishing he could once again become a woman, the piece ultimately questions whether authentic conversion and representation of queer subjectivities can be achieved, respectively in the life of Ricardo/Sara and within the medium of documentary film itself.

Up until the concluding five minutes of the film, the camera provides a perspective of Ricardo that presents him in what seems to be a genuinely cheerful and happy demeanor. Here the documentary records and acts as evidence of Ricardo’s transformation into a cisgender and heteronormative man by accomplishing what are considered “milestones” within American society. From tying the knot with Betty, another member of Terry’s church in Dallas, to moving into a new home to start a nuclear family, the viewer listens to Ricardo’s chilling words of appreciation and gratitude for contracting AIDS, the virus that “enabled” him to lose any semblance of Sara and that brought him within the fold of the Christian Church. As he relates in a rather charismatic tone: “I thank God that I have AIDS. If I hadn’t found out I was HIV positive, I wouldn’t have come off the street and I wouldn’t have devoted myself to God. I am not a fanatic: I just love you the way God loves me… and it doesn’t matter if you are a hooker or a crook because I’ve been there before.”

Ricardo’s chilling statement stands in direct contrast to such “AIDS as punishment” narratives espoused by prominent conservative religious leaders like the late Jerry Falwell,[15] as well as to results from a 2013 survey that revealed fourteen percent of Americans believing AIDS might be God’s punishment for “immoral sexual behavior.”[16] By reframing the narrative so that AIDS becomes the divine catalyst to a life off the street and a life free from Sara, Ricardo produces a discursive and material subjectivity aligned with the fundamentalist beliefs espoused by Terry Wier’s ministry. Here we are reminded of Schilder’s assertion that “there is no question that our own activity is insufficient to build up the image of the body.”[17]

Ricardo’s narrative and new subjectivity as a born-again Christian is further supported by the filmmakers’ inclusion of interviews with Jim and Robby, a church couple from Terry’s ministry whom the viewer learns provided shelter and mentorship to Ricardo on the “correct” ways to be a man. These interviews further support Schilder’s statement that the body image is something that is flexible and can arise out of relations with other people, considering the responsibility placed upon Jim and Robby in helping to “discipline” Ricardo with male mannerisms – for, as Jim proudly relates, “If something needs fixing, it’s generally fixed by the man. … So I started showing him how to do things, showing him how to do a little yard work, things he had never done before.” This statement automatically creates a binary model of gender in which masculinity is defined by what it is not, which is embodied in all things that are weak, submissive, and incapable – or, stereotypes of what it means to be feminine. Here Robby speaks for Ricardo by saying, “He had a heavy desire that no one would look at him and see any kind of female mannerisms or traits. He worked at it very hard.” She goes on further to state: “He never believed he could be anything ever different than a homosexual… Then all in a sudden he had a desire for women that he never had before. You know, a helpmate, a wife. He couldn’t believe that the Lord could do that for him. And when he met Betty that was it. It was history from there.”

I include this quote to highlight the gross conflation that Robby makes between gender and sexuality, in which sexuality replaces something that is really a critical issue of gender for Ricardo. In Susan Stryker’s (2004) commentary on the relationship between trans and gay and lesbian studies in “Transgender Studies: Queer Theory’s Evil Twin,” she rightly asserts that

… all too often transgender phenomena are misapprehended through a lens that privileges sexual orientation and sexual identity as the primary means of differing from heteronormativity. Most disturbingly, “transgender” increasingly functions as the site in which to contain all gender trouble, thereby helping secure both homosexuality and heterosexuality as stable and normative categories of personhood. This has damaging, isolative political corollaries. [18]

While the exploration of this question is beyond the scope of this article, are such “damaging [and] isolative political corollaries” symbolized through Ricardo’s regret and eventual death at the end of the film?

Turning now to Terry Wier’s role in the documentary, The Transformation characterizes him as the pastor Ricardo/Sara relies on for guidance (read: material and financial support) after discovering he is HIV positive. Terry, in describing the significance of his ministry for the “salvation” of transvestites and prostitutes, justifies his missionary work through constant appeals to biblical scriptures. Specifically, he invokes Bible verses that speak to the similarities that exist between transgender individuals and eunuchs in biblical narratives, who he states are people “born without the desire for the opposite sex” and who are “upheld to a higher standard within the Kingdom of Heaven.” Here he cites Matthew 19:12 to self-righteously state: “Satan says you are either a man, woman, or gay. God says you are either a man, woman, or eunuch.” This leads him to conclude that, given their privileged status in the afterlife, transvestites should rejoice in their temporal suffering – because in a theology of sanctification through suffering, earthly trials will lead to greater glory in heaven.[19]

This example is just one out of the many instances throughout the film in which Terry’s appeal to Christian fundamentalist rhetoric justifies his patrolling of queer identities. In God Hates Fags: The Rhetorics of Religious Violence, Michael Cobb (2006) describes Christian speech as a forceful entity, describing religious rhetoric as a secure form of language:

Its semantic security reveals something unique about religious rhetoric, at least in the United States: there’s something about Western religious language – mostly white Anglo Protestant Christian religious language – that makes one feel its importance for reasons well beyond the actual content the language communicates. This seemingly inherent social conservatism of religious language guards, if not creates, a nation that does not want to have its foundational social organization, the family, substantially and systematically changed or challenged.[20]

Cobb’s analysis helps to demonstrate how Terry’s use of Christian theological discourse becomes the complicit actor in some of the worst forms of social coercion and injustice seen in the documentary, evidenced by Ricardo’s regret at becoming a man at the end of the film.

Moreover, theologian Dale Martin provides the most striking critique of Christian fundamentalists (as represented by Terry, Jim, and Robby) who use theological discourse to justify oppression. Martin states that such Christians fail to understand the simple concept that the Bible does not speak:

When people talk about “what the Bible says,” they are using a metaphor that has confused them into thinking that the Bible actually exercises its own agency in “telling” people what to do. … Real knowledge of the text of scripture and the history of Christian churches shows that opposition to [LGBT] Christians and their full inclusion in the church is motivated not by loyalty to scripture and tradition but by prejudice and discrimination.[21]

Given Terry’s use of the Bible as a “rule book” to sustain a life of Christian morality for Ricardo and the transvestites he proselytizes in the streets of New York, its contemporary use as an epistemological foundation for ethics is ultimately what informs the walking away of queer individuals from any type of organized religion. Consequently, “Why does Ricardo stay?” becomes a key question for viewers at the end of the film, when it is revealed that Ricardo’s story is selfishly used for fundraising efforts by Terry’s church to build a live-in program for transvestites, drag queens, and other gender variant people to “free themselves” from sin. As the documentary concludes with a follow-up with Ricardo a year after the film’s initial recording, we hear his final words in the film:

I repented for my past life and now when I think about everything I lived, I get very emotional. [However] I remember some of it as beautiful because the real truth is that I enjoyed it… If I still had the choice, even if I could change my life right now – even now that I have my wife and everything – I would choose to be a woman.

This stunning revelation signals a moment in the documentary when viewers are left to question the “success story” of Ricardo’s transformation. While having the capacity to become a woman, he feels as if the choice is no longer an option. How come? According to Gigi, it is because the material and social sacrifices to become Sara (i.e., renouncing his chosen “family” of the Church and access to medication for AIDS) would be too heavy of a burden to bear. As she states: “Finding out he was HIV+ affected his mind: he grew afraid of dying alone in the street. The church as the only way out, the only chance he had to take care of himself because in the street, it would have been impossible.” The Transformation thus leaves its viewers with a lingering and haunting question: does Terry’s ministry really “save” Ricardo?

Conclusion: Reflexivity and Documenting Subjectivity

When questioned about Ricardo after filming The Transformation, co-filmmaker Susana Aikin reflects:

I think there are many layers in what happened to Ricardo. There was a material layer where he basically transformed from a very marginal social person to an integrated social being into our mainstream society. I think also that he went through a spiritual change in the sense that he learned to appreciate himself better as a human being. … But in terms of whether he became a straight man, I think we’re talking about very shifty things here, and I think the film speaks for itself.[22]

Presented with Aikin’s acknowledgement of the “shifty” nature of Ricardo’s identification as a born-again Christian and a newly straight man, the documentary ceases to be purely observational. Rather, it becomes one that is reflexive in nature, as Aikin and Aparicio ask the viewers themselves to see documentary for what it really is: a construction and/or representation. As Nichols explains the “reflexive mode” of documentary: “Rather than following the filmmaker in his or her engagement with other social actors, we now attend to the filmmaker’s engagement with us, speaking not only about the historical world but about the problems and issues of representing it as well.”[23] As the filmmakers provide space for the viewing audience to come to their own conclusion of Ricardo’s life, we are allowed to question how The Salt Mines and The Transformation represent the historical world, “as well as to what gets represented.”[24]

Furthermore, as both films function as politically reflexive documentaries, The Salt Mines and The Transformation permit us to engage and reframe “our assumptions and expectations about the historical world more than about film form.”[25] Such visual texts call social conventions into question; so while the former film involves most of the aspects of observational documentary, it also seeks to produce a heightened consciousness about the marginalization and policing of queer public life and sexuality in the contemporary world. It counters the prevailing tropes of transvestite prostitutes with radically different representations and displaces them with innovative forms of queer kinship relations despite the hardships of poverty, illness, and death that define homelessness in urban spaces. In terms of the latter documentary, The Transformation challenges entrenched notions of the goodwill of Christian missionary work and serves to give name and face to what was once before invisible: the oppression and destruction caused by Christian fundamentalist rhetoric. Specifically, Ricardo’s painful transformation acts to support a new way of seeing, a distinct perspective on the social order created when “the code of the penetrator”—to use Robert Goss’ term to describe people who employ a heteronormative reading of the Bible—is taken to be the literal word of God in all matters of the secular.[26]

Although this article has detailed the lives of Gigi and Sara/Ricardo as (re)presented on screen, I would like to conclude with a final comment on the transformation Giovanna undergoes between the two documentaries for the encouraging implications it has for the future. Like her two close friends, Giovanna’s presence on the streets is defined by drug use and prostitution, but with one major difference: we also learn of her dreams to escape the confines of The Salt Mines, replete with “a job and a home that [she] can go to. To be looked and be treated like a regular human being. It’s simple.” As she bluntly questions, “It’s not too much to ask for, is it?” While such dreams exist as phantasms in the first film, the second documentary demonstrates those visions becoming a reality. Here we meet Giovanna again; and while she goes through a similar transformation to Ricardo, her change is not one of becoming a man through the saving grace of Christianity. Rather, it is a transformation to live fully as herself – a woman living at home with her mother and sister, two individuals who respect and understand Giovanna’s “felt sense” of the body.

Taken together, the narratives of Gigi, Giovanna, and Sara/Ricardo, as stated by Paige Johnson, “point the way to a different understanding of how bodies mean, how representation works, and what counts as legitimate knowledge, all of which are epistemological concerns [that] have material consequences for the quality of transgender lives.”[27] Ultimately, The Salt Mines and The Transformation provoke viewers to achieve a heightened state of consciousness regarding the precarity of queer kinship formations and non-normative bodies. They stimulate the viewer to make a critical assessment of not only how trans lives are visually depicted but also how trans lives are lived, and how they can survive, in the historical world. By making visible the “stuff” of social reality that contributes to the policing of The Salt People and the disciplining of Gigi, Giovanna, and Sara/Ricardo, the documentaries give a sense of what we understand reality itself to have been, of what it is now, or of what it may become for transgender lives.

The post “To Hell with that Man Business!”: Gender Anxieties in The Salt Mines and The Transformation appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

In fact these organizations’ omissions help us understand precisely what is illiberal about them. Probing the Egyptian experience of Copts and Shi’tes as well as the nexus created between the human rights complex based in Washington DC, local civil society organizations, the media and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF), it is found that Copts and Shi’tes have their voices muted. This discursive lacuna is created despite what these community leaders have been fighting against, largely because of the role of ‘activists’, some from those communities, who continue to play by the ‘human rights agenda’ to advance their own gains and ostracize their communities further. This pits those community leaders against a niche of activists who utilize the ‘human rights agenda’ to continue to gain access to Western media and reformulate identity based on a Rights Based Approach (RBA), that internationalizes such conflict and identity formulations.

Again the phrase ‘human rights agenda’ has positive connotations that espouse equality and inclusion but in fact is nothing more than a mechanism of exclusion that is apologetic to US power. In fact, as will be shown, some community members and ‘activists’ have had their voices hidden for their decision to speak out against the interests of those who define and dictate what the ‘human rights agenda’ is—in this case US policy towards the transition in Egypt. This is a clear demonstration of how the ‘human rights agenda’ is exclusionary. This paper first surveys the discursive field and episteme in which the appropriation of RBA’s, individualism and liberal discourse creates the ‘Coptic cause’ by looking at how Egyptian and Coptic actors appropriate these analytics. Secondly, it moves on to show how these discourses are used at the international level in controlling, serializing and influencing power relations in Egypt.  This paper ends by asking if those who attempt to modify and alter the discourse from within and ‘recapture’ Western notions of human rights, ‘activism’ and advocacy, can escape the subjectivity of Western discourse and accrue gains. Can Western discourse on human rights be recaptured to augment RBAs so that they are not exclusionary? This paper shows how Western RBAs pick up such issues in order to further US hegemony under the guise of said ‘liberalism’.

‘Activism’

As was the case for most segments of society, Copts participated in the lead-up to the June 30^th 2013 protests as well as the protests themselves that overthrew Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Though this was the focus of most Western analysts and think tanks, focusing on Copts’ ‘activism’ against the MB and former President Morsi, few questioned or problematized said ‘gaze’ of Copts and their ‘activism’.[4] Indeed a minor grammatical change denotes a different Cartesian power plane; Coptic ‘activism’ is not synonymous with Copts’ ‘activism’. However by conflating the two Western analysts would have us believe that ‘Coptic’ ‘activism is unitary, uniform and representative of the majority of Copts under the rubric of human rights. The problematic gaze of ‘activism’ and ‘social movements’ creates a binary by bringing ‘activists’ and human rights organizations that do ‘advocacy’ to the frontline of the debate. This occurs by making them the authority on Copts and Shi’tes. Thus they speak, debate and designate what these ‘issues’ are. These activists and ‘rights’ based agendas serve as effective mechanisms in perpetuating the ‘Coptic question’ and ‘Shi’te issue’ and the discussion of their ‘integration’ in society, most often in the form of quotas. This is as opposed to the sidelining of the ‘Coptic question’[5] during instances of mass societal participation in protests, which usually happens by claiming that protests are harmonious and filled with people from all walks of life, thus collectivizing subjectivity and sidelining any grievances that other segments of society may have. Viewing Coptic ‘activism’ as synonymous with protests encourages the idea of campaigning for rights and the consolidation of democracy.

Similarly, on January 25^th 2011, throughout the Mohamed Mahmoud clashes of 2011 and in other instances of mass protest, there is emphasis on ‘equal participation’ by all segments of society to highlight that Egyptian society does not suffer from problems that affect Copts distinctly. Usually these protests are called for, organized and include activist participation.

In this regard ‘activism’ is an escape valve for delaying much needed discussion surrounding the issue of Copts, Shi’tes inter alia. This happens either in chorus with other protests in which this is used as an indicator of harmonious coexistence, or independently when showcasing the need to fight for ‘rights’ based issues. Thus the binary is two-fold: either there is a complete denial of the problem during instances of mass protests and a simultaneous celebration of the harmony among protestors from all walks of life; or an alternative reactionary discourse that perpetuates the ‘Coptic question’ or the ‘Shi’te issue’ by talking about the need for ‘integration’, ‘citizenship’, and ‘equality’. The latter is often conceived through mechanisms such as an electoral quota or quotas in state bureaucracy. This pluralism hides more than it integrates; it displays all identities merely within the categorization of ‘protestor’ or ‘activist’ as an unmediated and un-negotiated fixation that negates any grievances. This is how the sidelining of the ‘Coptic question’ occurs. Statements such as “Copts protected Muslims as they prayed in Tahrir Square”,[6] an incident that became the object of fixation by Western media, become mantras that espouse and delineate boundaries of power along an axis of ‘activism’ solely. By increasing this ‘gaze’ a host of other issues are omitted.

This form of ‘activism’ and ‘solidarity’, as the Western media propagates, falls into the hands of a few individuals. Ihab Ramzy, Mamdouh Ramzy (no relation) and Ramy Kamal join the chorus of those who make a niche for themselves in ‘Coptic activism’. In continually calling for side issues such as a quota for Copts in legislative elections they show their previous ties: Ihab Ramzy was elected in Minya on the list of the Party of Freedom, a former NDP party (the party of the former regime of Hosni Mubarak) while Mamdouh Ramzy, the former MP responsible for the statement that “the Shoura council [the upper Legislative chamber] has been wronged for the past 30 years”[7] was in fact the MB appointee to the Shoura Council who had to endure the theatrical performance in condemning the attack on the Coptic Cathedral under Morsi’s tenure. After that statement, Mamdouh gave himself the title of ‘special papal advisor’. Ihab Ramzy has given himself the same title. The Coptic Pope then issued a statement[8] saying he has no advisors and nobody speaks in his name or the Church’s and went on to reprimand Ihab privately for continuing to host conferences such as the Sonesta conference,[9] which called for an electoral quota for Copts. Ihab has continually been sidelined after the Pope’s reforms, which have brought to the Church new lay voices to Episcopal hierarchy.  Ramy Kamal joins the cohort of both Ramzys in breaking away from the Maspero Youth Union (MYU), the original organization that was born out of the ‘Maspero Massacre’ by Military Police. He went on to found the ‘Maspero Youth Foundation for Development and Human Rights’ and is quoted by Western think tanks[10] under another purported capacity as organizer of the ‘Free Copts’ movement and debates issues of ‘Coptic activism’ for a Western audience in a manner that is detached from reality on the ground. Ramy’s activism spree joins other ‘activists’ who seem to be bent on muting and overshadowing the MYU. During November 2013 some decided to commemorate the Maspero Massacre at a time when the original Maspero Organization, MYU, decided to cancel that year’s proceedings. This was done to avoid associating with newfound MB disdain for the Armed Forces, and instead be content with a Church service in Muqattam, Cairo. However ‘activists’ decided to protest in a show of irony that left MYU’s proceedings underreported and not covered.[11] That is why the quota, a non-issue amongst most Copts (who seem to have settled this in 1923),[12] has encapsulated DC think tanks that continue to make generic one size fit all approaches to “appoint Coptic elites,”[13] arguably what Mubarak used to do. In fact Ihab Ramzy has made the same demand with respect to the Egyptian bureaucracy[14] because it is beneficial to him and a small oligarchy of pro-Mubarak elites. Proponents of ‘activism’ seem to romanticize modernist citizenship empowerment approaches that are both ahistorical and narrow.

Church reform: swimming against the tide of activism

Western analysis that laments the need for civil society is imposed based off the academic transition paradigm. This very analysis dislodges organic change happening on the ground, which goes unreported by virtue of this ‘gaze’ and cooptation of Western media and its nexus with think tanks. Earlier in June the Coptic Orthodox Pope, Tawadrus II, approved the Church councils law. These laws in effect decentralize churches by having a council made up of laymen that rule it at each church, with a papal representative making up 1/3 of it while the remaining 2/3 are elected.  This creates a local electorate for each church. A standard 50%+1 is required to reach decisions. Yet Western think tanks and media seem fixated on the fact that the state’s authoritarianism permeates into the Church and that it similarly needs a ‘revolution’, ‘activism’ and ‘(Coptic) civil society’.[15] It is deeply ironic that a post-Westephalian notion of direct democracy was missed by these very Western academics.

This is at a time when the previous laymen’s council has been frozen off pending new elections for it. The Pope has also struck down the first hurdle for inter-Catholic and Orthodox marriage while continuing on ecumenicalism at the national level in Egypt. This fundamental shift in lay-clerical relations has left figures such as Mamdouh, Ihab and other former Coptic figures that enjoy(ed) the status of elites in a precarious position. This is in contrast to earlier rigid attitudes by the previous Pope Shenouda III towards horizontal and vertical power structures within the different confessions and inside the Coptic Orthodox Church. These two examples of reform break such power structures and make it difficult for the previous elites to wield a monopoly on Church-civil society relations within the classic ‘state-civil society’ paradigm, it is thus ignored and unreported.

In some of Egypt’s new parties Copts have risen to the ranks of Vice President (VP); examples include the Social Democrat’s Ihab el Kharat, Fredy Bayady and several others. This is a different structure that manages to contest previous power economies that conventional old powers such as Ihab and Mamdouh Ramzy fail to make gains inside of, especially post 2011 in Egypt. This is to be added to other new forms of participatory gains. Minister of Environment Laila Iskandar’s new Zabaleen initiative[16] is an example of how the Coptic community has made participatory gains that fall outside first wave approaches of equality and legislation. The Zabaleen initiative is a small unannounced and unknown victory because it falls outside the scope of classic ‘citizenship’ empowerment, subsequently outside the Western media and think tanks’ gaze. The initiative involves Egypt’s previously outlawed ‘Zabaleen’ Coptic community[17], a garbage collecting and recycling community in the area of Manshiyet Nasser, a poor-middle income informal housing area, that has felt the brunt of the previous government’s neoliberal authoritarianism.[18] The government continually clamped down on the community and its informal housing, specifically by granting garbage collecting contracts to foreign multinationals; euphemism for neoliberal concessions. Not only did this not solve the problem but it outlawed the collection of garbage by this community, despite it having achieved higher rates of recycling than the new multinational and keeping its profit margin within Egypt and not abroad. At one point the government clamped down on them after the spread of the H1N1 virus, colloquially named ‘swine flu’, because most families had a side business of pig farming. This was despite the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring that there was no risk of transmission of the virus through pigs. It represented a clear signal of the government’s continued neoliberal clampdown. The new Minister of Environment, however, has reinstated the Zabaleen community and for the first time given them a government legal umbrella in cooperation with the ministry. Iskander’s NGO, which she started before her ministerial post, not only advocated for the participatory inclusion of this community, but also helped in teaching them new recycling techniques. This reversal and termination of garbage collecting contracts to foreign multinationals is a direct omission made by virtue of the ‘human rights gaze’ towards Egypt.

Shi’te ‘activism’

The Shi’ite community in Egypt faces the same problems stated above: the issue of ‘universality’ and the host of interventions it invites as well as the problematic gaze of ‘activism’. Those who highlight Shi’ite suffering as synonymous with their ability to publicly celebrate Ashoura do so as part of a ‘human rights agenda’ of ‘religious freedom,’ yet no one has bothered to ask how Shi’tes want to celebrate or practice their rituals and whether it is far from the ‘religious freedom’ mantra espoused by Western civil society, a mantra also espoused and internalized by local civil society in Egypt. The fact that we know far less about Shi’tes in Egypt than other groups is likely due to the fact that they are only focused on around the time of Ashoura, as well as because of the Western gaze towards their ‘activism’ (defined as their right to publicly celebrate Ashoura). It is no surprise that community leaders have said that there are no official plans to go the Al Hussein mosque and that the media in fact has created problems for them, thus making it a more difficult time than it usually is. Continued fascination by individual decisions to go and commemorate Ashoura in Al Hussein has received vast media coverage because of the purported title ascribed to those quoted in the stories as ‘activists’.[19] The binary ‘activism’ creates is readily observed here with major Shi’te communities denying any intention of commemorating Ashoura as these activists would have the media to believe. While Shi’tes do call on the authorities to allow them to practice more openly, the media portrayal of ‘Shi’ite activists’ going to clash with the Salafis and police forces are only false and counterproductive. Any observer of the Shi’te community knows that they celebrate quietly, predominantly in rural Egypt and the urban Delta such as in Mansoura at many smaller shrines, which, while sometimes closed around Ashoura, tend to be open most of the time. In that regard the fascination with ‘Shi’ite activism’ hides more than it tells us about a community that for obvious reasons will remain unwelcoming to current approaches. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) should not approach the Shi’ite community with a ‘universal’ rights based agenda that would seek to make them a sui generis community, while they specifically highlight that their festivities and rituals are not recognizably different from mainstream Sunni Muslims. There are no visible self-mutilating rituals as practiced in the Gulf and Iran, Shi’te community leaders have constantly said that Egyptian Shi’tes are no different than Egyptian Sunnis, particularly in the call for prayer, adhan, and their rituals.[20]

The constitution as a false panacea

The core issue around the Constitution that I will focus on is the decision to ignore the Church’s push for an amendment of article 3,[21] despite it being unclear what they would stand to gain from it. The Church virtually pushed for this amendment alone, but an acute focus over the Shoura Council, affirmative action and the question of a quota dominated instead. This comes from the influence of media, civil society and think tanks. The source of this focus and its reason will be elaborated on later. Such ‘activism’ seems oblivious to the political economy map of power relations outlined previously. There is also the underestimation of the removal of article 219, an article that defined Islamic jurisprudence and equated it with legislation. According to some jurisprudence, this would have institutionalized and formalized the designation of non-mainstream Islamists as second tier citizens and turn Egypt into a theocracy. The Church knows only too well, as witness to the article 2 debacle with the late President Anwar al-Sadat,[22] that the problem of discrimination, despite some new think tank reports,[23] lies not in what is inked on a piece of paper called a constitution, but beyond that.

Here it could be useful to draw on feminist movements as an example. Many postcolonial feminists have critiqued the problematic approaches and assumptions inherent in first wave feminism and its liberal, individualistic theories and praxis. This is usually in the form of pro-activism policies, lobbying for legislative reform as a panacea and ignoring societal stigmas. This same process can be seen with regards to ‘activist’ groups and movements in Egypt; most are enamored with legislation as a panacea. Let us also not forget the near silence on part of many key players who have ignored the Church’s purposefully leaked internal memo expressing deep frustration towards the sluggish pace towards removal of article 219 and stonewalling on article 3 inter alia. It is telling that only Ahmed Harrara, one activist amongst the many groups, picked up on this leaked memo in an interview with TV talk show host Mahmoud Saad.[24]

Lastly, no one has bothered to look at the process of discussion internally for the Church and in the constituent assembly rather than at the outcome. While most constituent assembly members know this is a temporary constitution, media reports have either sought to overemphasize the Church’s stance on voting to keep the Shoura but ignore the battle for article 3, or emphasize the military tribunals article. While all state institutions and Salafis seem to be supporting such a restrictive article, which allows the trial of civilians in military tribunals (under cases that involve civil-military disputes), it hardly seems to make sense to expect the Church to take on yet another frontal battle. Victims of violence against Copts seem to be unable to garner justice either in civil or military tribunals. This is hardly an issue likely to be resolved by civilian judiciary or a constitution. Anyone familiar with the episodic violence against Copts in the 80’s will know that all too well. It is precisely because it falls out of the Western ‘gaze’ of human rights that it becomes unknown; context is a luxury for some which Copts have not been afforded because of omissions made by virtue of the ‘human rights agenda’. The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) issued a report that attested to this shortcoming, an increasingly sidelined nuance missing amid the loud activist-driven ‘No to Military Trials’ campaign:

The judiciary, particularly sitting judges, does not often hear cases of sectarian violence, and it is extremely rare for such crimes to be referred to trial. On the other hand, the Public Prosecutor’s role in dealing with the violence is shameful: although Egyptian law gives that office the prerogatives of investigating judges authorized to conduct immediate, independent investigations to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice using evidence of their crimes to protect society from lawbreakers, the Public Prosecutor’s Office tends to aid the security establishment in imposing “reconciliation” procedures, even when these are against the law—for example, accepting reconciliation in felonies, which is not permitted by Egyptian law. At other times the Public Prosecutor conducts investigations for show that lack all evidence, which means that either the perpetrators are not identified or they are acquitted if they are referred to trial. As such, impunity is the norm.[25]

Therefore the ‘No to Military Trials’ campaign also has a problematic gaze that seeks to universalize its cause and victims, citing that Copts too suffer from military trials, such as the case with Maspero. This clearly shows they can even politicize mourning for their own civil society ends. The ‘No to Military Trials’ initiative, while important, assumes that all victims are treated equally and unjustly before a military court, but what about those who are treated unjustly before civilian judiciary as reported by EIPR?  In this case, the ends are making the civilian judiciary the domain of ‘reform’ approaches as if it functions for the most part equally for Copts, Shi’tes and other heterodox societal segments that fall outside the modern conceptualization of the ‘citizen’.

Forward

Perhaps the most immediate and tentative conclusion of the process now is that such a ‘transition’ paradigm, or ‘transitional justice’ seems bankrupt and unable to express current realities past a Western focus.[26] This divides issues into two factions, those that need ‘reform’ and deserve institutional focus and those that by association encourage ‘activism’. The latter are issues that are classified as ‘low-level’ politics that are not prioritized in a transition paradigm and should work themselves out after democracy has been ‘consolidated’. However this consolidation negates how in a ‘transition’ such questions are open ended and ongoing power struggles. This firmly excludes participatory approaches to addressing the discourse that binds and controls Copts and Shi’tes. It also ignores how it formulates Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) subjectivity as a project of modernity that is equally blind to such issues. Particularly notable is the spectrum of CSOs that fail to understand or comprehend that the Church is between a rock and a hard place, and that in fact, it has been between a rock and a hard place for almost the entire modern history of Egypt and will continue to be. Nominal allies such as civil society, with the examples of Ihab and Mamdouh Ramzy whose efforts accentuate the plight of Copts rather than ‘empower’ them, adhere to modernist discourse that propose ‘citizenship’, ‘empowerment’, and ‘activism’; buzz words not only on social media but for all those who undertake low-level CSO work or ‘democracy’ promotion (a similar ruse for intervention). In fact this continues to be the talk and focus of the US State Department.

Take Hillary Clinton’s inaugural 2011 ‘religious freedom report’ speech, given not surprisingly at a think tank—the same think tank whose previous ‘gaze’ and recommendations were criticized: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.[27] Clinton remarked:

Now meanwhile, Egypt is grappling with these challenges as it navigates its unprecedented democratic transition. And during my recent visit, I met with members of the new government, including President Morsi, and representatives from Egypt’s Christian communities. Religious freedom was very present behind closed doors and out in the streets. President Morsi has said clearly and repeatedly, in public and private, that he intends to be the president of all the Egyptian people. He has pledged to appoint an inclusive government and put women and Christians in high leadership positions. The Egyptian people and the international community are looking to him to follow through on those commitments. Another important aspect of Egypt’s transition is whether citizens themselves respect each other’s differences. Now we saw that capacity vividly in Tahrir Square, when Christians formed a circle around Muslims in prayer, and Muslims clasped hands to protect Christians celebrating a mass. I think that spirit of unity and fellowship was a very moving part of how Egyptians and all the rest of us responded to what happened in those days in that square. And if, in the years ahead, if Egyptians continue to protect that precious recognition of what every single Egyptian can contribute to the future of their country, where people of different faiths will be standing together in fellowship, then they can bring hope and healing to many communities in Egypt who need that message.

In this regard Hillary Clinton’s comments affirm the vanguard role attributed to activism: during moments of mass protest the ‘harmonious’ exhibition of national unity, or to be more blunt the lack of violence, is used as a marker of citizenship that hides the otherwise unwanted realities; participatory gains, class mobility or critique of the ‘universality of rights’ and citizenship in general. Such critique would arguably criticize the foundations upon which most Western states are built and would infringe on high-level politics and US interests; it would be unwarranted for the US to embarrass Egypt over such an issue. But this is key, its performativity and claim to be moved by such an issue, such as the ‘universality of religious freedom’ is false. This exhibition of liberalism is also used hypothetically-“in the years ahead”- meaning that the US will monitor, advocate and recommend the practices. Thus a transition paradigm[28] is quintessential to serializing, locating and identifying key performance indictors, ones that have not been locally ascribed or agreed upon. Indeed it is quite telling that the US failed to pick up on the incidence of the police attack on the Egyptian cathedral. Clearly that does not fit the narrative in which “Tahrir Square’s…unity” is espoused. Hillary Clinton continues:

As we look to the future – not only in Egypt, not only in the newly free and democratically seeking states of North Africa and the Middle East, but far beyond – we will continue to advocate strongly for religious freedom. This is a bedrock priority of our foreign policy, one that we carry out in a number of ways [emphasis added]. Earlier today, the United States did release our annual International Religious Freedom Report. This is the fourth time I’ve had the honor of presenting it. It comprehensively catalogues the official and societal restrictions people around the world face as they try to practice their faith, and it designates Countries of Particular Concern that have engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom. This report sends a signal to the worst offenders that the world is watching, but it also provides information to help us and others target our advocacy, to make sure we reach the people who most need our help. In the Obama Administration, we’ve elevated religious freedom as a diplomatic priority. Together with governments, international organizations, and civil society, we have worked to shape and implement United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18.[29]

The discursive performance here of the widening of a religious freedom agenda that encompasses the Middle East without mentioning Israel; is a spatial designation of power. These remarks should make us pause for a number of reasons. Religious freedom is taken as the bedrock of US foreign policy. This assumes a liberal universality to it which it endows the ‘free’ world with the duty to help others while evoking universal declarations such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In doing so the US gains a foothold, not just universally, but exceptionally in the Middle East as Clinton remarked. It is only here we understand the crucial role that civil society plays to affirm not so much a ‘rights based’ agenda as much as a US agenda. But is this really the bedrock of US foreign policy? Or is part of an exclusive gaze in the Middle East? Does Saudi Arabia fall in the same category equally? Take Paul Sedra’s important words when discussing the nexus of US foreign policy and the plight of Copts with respect to DC based think tanks:

What I find disturbing is the alacrity with which particular US political forces have taken up the cause of anti-Christian persecution, notably over the past decade, just as the “war on terror” has gained so much momentum. And perhaps unsurprisingly given these political links, “persecution experts” have, much like their counterparts in the ‘terrorism expert’ industry, tended to find their way to particular think-tanks in Washington.[30]

The discursive performativity being exercised here is reminiscent of NSC-68 during the Cold War where the communist “threat” was hailed in such a way that religious freedom was designated to be the bedrock of US foreign policy. NSC-68 paved the way for intervention and rollback of communist regimes, and this new policy arguably does the same. Sedra continues commenting on the nexus of the human rights complex in Washington, DC:

…Arguably the leader in this regard is the Hudson Institute, which houses the Center for Religious Freedom under the directorship of Nina Shea. According to the Hudson Institute’s website, the center “promotes religious freedom as a component of U.S. foreign policy by working with a worldwide network of religious freedom experts to provide defenses against religious persecution and oppression.” Despite the emphasis in this description on a ‘worldwide network,’ a quick scan of op-eds by Center staff reveals that the geographic scope of their concern is substantially narrower: The vast majority of the articles concern the Muslim world, and among them, Egypt features most prominently.[31]

In this regard the Muslim world is the equivalent of the ‘free world’ during the Cold War that “needs” protecting and guidance. In the Cold War the free world needed protection, contemporarily the Muslim world needs a partner for its ‘democratic transition’. In this regard think tanks have their work equally distributed between those who white-wash ‘Islam’ as democratic and call for engaging Muslim leaders under the guise of ‘democratic support’, such as Mohamed Morsi, much to safeguard US interests, and by association legitimate him as Hillary Clinton did as a proponent of “minority rights”.[32] It is because Hilary Clinton has uttered it that it has been taken to be the truth. Meanwhile, other think tanks such as the Hudson Institute work on ‘minorities’ and turn their ‘cause’ into a pressure card. Thus ‘causes’ become intervention mechanisms much the same as “minority rights” can be. This gives the US the cozy place of arbitrator. A function of pluralism and ‘advocacy’ is that it creates the performativity of ‘choice,’ meaning that when the US goes to Egypt it has a host of ‘issues’ to select from. This becomes one of them and is activated to their liking. Sedra continues:

… Why would American conservatives take a particular interest in sectarian tensions in Egypt? As is well known, in recent decades, evangelical Christians in the United States have moved increasingly rightward in political orientation. At first glance, it would appear that Christian conservatives are moved by the plight of fellow Christians like the Copts. In practice, however, these Christian conservatives are moved to a still greater extent by Israeli protestations of insecurity. Given their track record of unstinting support for Israel, and relative disregard for the plight of Palestinian Christians, the focus on Egypt’s Copts emerges as a function of ‘Realpolitik’ rather than ideals.[33]

Realpolitik indeed. That is the very part of deconstructing the nexus of ‘activism’, ‘advocacy’, ‘social movements’ and the nexus with think tanks and foreign policy. All come together to hide and mask apologia to politics of a lower-level, but one that is crucial nonetheless to US presence in the region. More recently the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF), a “bipartisan” and “independent” body tasked with fighting for the “values of our [US] nation”,[34] held a joint subcommittee hearing on human rights abuses in Egypt. Coptic Bishop Angaleos, USCRIF Vice Chair Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, and Samuel Tadros of the Hudson Institute (the same one in question in Sedra’s article), as well as a host of other ‘experts’ testified. These ‘experts’ are also part of the illiberality that Said spoke of: they are orientalist ‘experts’ of the same kind that create knowledge apologetic to US power. However before continuing it is important to analyze the US State Department statement on the passing of the 2012 constitution:

The future of Egypt’s democracy depends on forging a broader consensus behind its new democratic rules and institutions. Many Egyptians have voiced deep concerns about the substance of the constitution and the constitutional process. President Morsi, as the democratically elected leader of Egypt, has a special responsibility to move forward in a way that recognizes the urgent need to bridge divisions, build trust, and broaden support for the political process. We have called for genuine consultation and compromise across Egypt’s political divides. We hope those Egyptians disappointed by the result will seek more and deeper engagement. We look to those who welcome the result to engage in good faith. And we hope all sides will re-commit themselves to condemn and prevent violence. Only Egyptians can decide their country’s future. The United States remains committed to helping them realize the aspirations that drove their revolution and complete a successful democratic transition. Egypt needs a strong, inclusive government to meet its many challenges.[35]

This omits and fails to mention how the constituent assembly was dominated by the MB and its allies, required no 67% threshold to pass an article (if there was no 67% approval the first time then during the second vote all that was required was 57%) and how Morsi passed a constitutional declaration that immunized the assembly against court rulings that dissolved it. It also negates to mention the violence against protesters in the enthusing battle after the constitutional declaration, a process that was far from democratic particularly when you see that the MB strongman Khairat al Shater, Deputy General Guide, claimed that “80% of protesters [were]…Copts”.[36]

Compared with Zuhdi’s recent testimony, the 2012 State Department statement on the constitution is almost identical, pro-status quo and seeks to highlight the positive aspects of the 2013 constitution while saving face for the State Department’s statement on the 2012 constitution. In that sense the USCRIF is a discursive self-correcting tool for the US, and perhaps only in that light can it be called a ‘bedrock of US foreign policy’ in so as much as it maintains its ‘gaze’ on the region and remedies previous US foreign policy hiccups. But what is most interesting is how Zuhdi posits the plight of Copts, Baha’is, Shi’tes, Sufis and even Jehovah’s witnesses, as well as Jews in Egypt. This pluralism serves to discursively create a foothold and make the issue universal, despite clear messages from perhaps all those segments of society that they do not wish to identify themselves with the US. The statement by Shi’te leaders discussed previously is perhaps the most indicative. As for Jews, a similar statement has been made to that effect in which Magda Haroun, the head of the Jewish community in Egypt said “I don’t want anything from France or any country…Eastern Jews are not like Western Jews and their rituals are different”, thus trumping any semblance of universalism.[37] But its mention by Zuhdi means it exists, and as such it is an issue that can be activated; creating the foundational discourse of ‘religious freedom’. His testimony is ahistoricized and hides the colonial legacy of Jehovah’s witnesses and their arrival to Egypt by way of American missionaries.[38] Zuhdi concluded it by saying “[F]or the sake of stability and security, and because of Egypt’s international human rights commitments, the United States government should urge Egypt to choose this pathway to democracy and freedom.”[39]

The link between security and the “pathway to democracy and freedom” reads directly out of the neo-neo IR debate between neo-realism and neo-liberalism. This is correlated with Samuel Tadros’ testimony of the Hudson Institute, clearly more informed: “[O]n the national level, the scarce Coptic representation that existed in the government further declined.”[40] A clear correlation with Ihab Ramzy’s demand and continuation of ‘activism’ based discourse and a human rights agenda that is top-down. Though Tadros has a more historicized approach one cannot shake off Sedra’s remarks and the use of an Egyptian native informant by the Hudson Institute in such a setting before the House Foreign Relations Committee. Again it is not so much a function of who advocates for what, rather than who advocates for whom and is used to prove legitimacy.

Finally Bishop Angaleos’ testimony sought to counter both testimonies. He started by talking about Copts’ historical standing since the 7th century and how ancient law still governs society, mentioned the attack on the Coptic Cathedral under Morsi, the impunity of the Maspero Massacre, the rights of Shi’ites and contextualized Morsi’s “democratic credentials”, or lack there of. Lastly Angaleos gave a different view to transitional justice than is conventionally found, arguing:

Finally, the model of reconciliation that is called for is one that must be built upon prior criminal acts being investigated and accordingly dealt with, and future ones being subject to a stringent rule of law; only then will Egypt be able to live true reconciliation and work towards a common future.[41]

He also affirmed that Copts “absolutely negated accusations of their reliance upon and loyalty to foreign powers or negatively-perceived domestic authorities.”[42] Neither  Zhudi nor Tadros mentioned this point; on the contrary, Angaleos sought to counter all claims that Copts need US assistance while Zhudi and Tadros created the conditions and rhetoric that makes US intervention welcome. It is however unfortunate that a member of the Coptic clergy continued to see salvation within a rights based agenda. Though this is an internal debate among the Coptic community, particularly the more nuanced ‘movements’ such as the MYU, few realize that those who hold the keys of defining what is and is not part of the rights agenda are not those affected by or those whose “rights” are being violated. Some however have offered to fight and contest that meaning. Angaelos’ testimony shows an attempt at recapturing that discursive space. It is however unlikely that a discursive battle can be one where a rights based subjectivity is maintained while changing the power economy that is so firmly entrenched with Western civil society, be it in the West or Cairo, the media, a transition paradigm and incumbents in both the US and Egypt. Angaelos’ plea is apparent:

More recently, an incident in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Minya evokes experiences of the persecution faced by Christians in the Dhimmi period centuries ago. In this incident, two men, Emad Damian and his cousin Medhat Damian, were killed by Islamists in the Assiut governorate for refusing to pay a jizya tax. In the current day and age, and in the context of the ongoing process of democratisation in Egypt, such an incident should be unthinkable, yet it is indicative of the reality lived by some Christians in certain parts of Egypt on a daily basis.[43]

Indeed the contradiction is readily made apparent, but can be drowned out on account of several other factors and “gains” towards democracy. A case in point is the US State Department Egypt Country Report on Human Rights Practices. The 2012 report lamented:

…progress in moving towards accountability for civilian security forces compared with the previous year. The ENP [Egyptian National Police] adopted a code of conduct in October 2011, and in July the government established the Civil Rights Defense Committee to examine issues relating to the use of force by security services during the 2011 revolution.[44]

Yet the report failed to mention that this was decorative “reform” designed to placate local CSOs who issued a report highlighting the failure of Morsi to refer anyone to trial through this committee, its vast shortcoming in makeup, its lack of agenda, and non-conclusive investigations it undertook.[45] Furthermore, the report wrongfully claims the constitutional declaration was cancelled amidst increasing ‘advocacy’ by the opposition; failing to ignore that its effects remained firmly in place. Morsi issued another constitutional declaration to annul the previous one, but it included an article that gave immunity to the previous constitutional declaration’s effects. Thus the main goal, to pass the constitution without judicial review, was accomplished by preventing the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) from convening to issue a ruling to disband the constituent assembly. Later the SCC would issue the ruling disbanding the constituent assembly, but after the draft constitution went to a referendum and was passed. The ineffectual reform seems to have achieved its primary goal of addressing a Western audience.

Conclusion

When it comes to the issue of Copts and the Shi’a this hard hitting axiom seems more relevant than ever: the more you know, the less you know. Looking forward, Coptic ‘activism’, and ‘activism’ in general is likely to remain dominated by demands unrepresentative of those on the ground, and continue to be blind to issues of Copts and Shi’tes except when they are attacked, particularly with regards to Shi’tes. Why do these ‘activists’, ‘social movements’, and NGOs continue to occupy this role that has been assigned to them by liberal rights based discourse? A tentative conclusion points towards the fundamentally Western makeup of the state as conceived in a neoliberal world. For most issues to be addressed, lobby groups become essential components of the state, and the more organizations there are the better, much à la pluralism. In this regard Steve Fish’s words about the misgrievances of liberalism and pluralism as smokescreens for liberal inoculation are on mark.[46] As an immediate remedy there should be grassroots based approaches of participatory development, such as the Zabaleen initiative that serves to tackle neoliberal agendas. Such initiatives, which are combated by rights based agendas, are a practical step towards fighting neoliberalism. With the events in Egypt so firmly grounded in a ‘transition’ paradigm, it is no surprise that Western notions of development translate economically to neoliberalism and politically to ‘activism’.

The post False Ideas About ‘Activism’ in Egypt and the Case of Egypt’s Copts: Outside the State and Within the Economy of Power appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

« Notre activité suppose toujours l’intelligence d’autres personnes ; une bonne partie du bonheur humain consiste à ressentir des états d’âme étrangers. Le sens historique permet alors à l’homme moderne d’avoir présent à l’esprit tout le passé de l’humanité ; grâce à lui, l’homme franchi les limites de son propre temps et plonge son regard dans les civilisations passées » (William Dilthey Le monde de l’esprit, Paris, éditions aubier, 1947, p. 319)

Introduction. Définir une actualité[1]

Dans son essai sur Qu’est-ce que les lumières de Kant, le philosophe Michel Foucault définit la modernité non comme une période chronologiquement déterminée, mais comme un certain  « mode de relation à l’égard de l’actualité »[2]. Si elle est une attitude singulière déterminée par une certaine épistémè, alors la pratique patrimoniale qui s’y développe doit pouvoir être caractérisée comme telle[3].

La question du patrimoine renvoie en fait à trois caractéristiques essentielles de toute actualité, qui sont relativement peu étudiées par Foucault : le rapport au passé, au futur et au territoire. Si une des problématique centrale de toute épistémè est son rapport à l’autre, elle ne renvoie pas nécessairement à celle de la norme étudiée par Foucault, mais également d’un côté à ce que l’historiographe François Hartog nomme un régime historicité[4] et en même temps à ce que l’on pourrait appeler une topographicité. L’enjeu est de considérer les limites extérieures, historiques et géographiques de l’actualité, ainsi que les logiques identitaires qui y président.

1. La forme patrimoniale du patrimoine : inclure le passé dans le progrès

Définir le patrimoine comme moderne, ainsi que le font la plupart des historiens, implique que son rapport au passé soit fondé sur l’idée de progrès qui caractérise l’épistémè moderne[5]. Cette idée peut-être définie comme l’intégration dans une totalité des évènements passés considérés comme étant l’histoire du présent dont ils sont les éléments[6]. Il ne s’agit pas de suggérer un évolutionnisme empirique mécanique, mais de voir comme le fait par exemple Kant dans les évènements passés compris depuis le point de vue du présent des raisons de croire en la réalisation d’un idéal moral qui est la finalité de l’espèce humaine[7]. Une telle conception implique deux conséquences : le fait que le présent ne soit pas la répétition du passé, et que celui-ci soit déterminé comme irrémédiablement passé et la mise en avant du présent sur le passé.

Ces exigences correspondent aux valeurs que l’historien de l’art Aloïs Riegl nomme respectivement d’ancienneté et historique qui peuvent être considérées comme caractérisant le patrimoine. Le monument ancien marque le temps écoulé, et inscrit la séparation radicale entre le présent et le passé[8]. Au contraire, le monument historique intègre le passé au présent. Chaque évènement passé est reconnu comme stade antérieur de l’activité présente de sorte qu’il est intégré à l’histoire du présent[9]. Selon la logique de la culture matérielle, le monument dit quelque chose de son milieu historique d’origine qui peut-être compris au présent dans la mesure où il est compris à travers un cadre d’interprétation lié aux intérêts et préoccupations présentes.

Le passé est rendu disponible[10] pour le présent et c’est dans cette mesure qu’il peut être connu[11]. Sans cette valeur, les monuments ayant une valeur d’ancienneté resteraient dans une étrangeté radicale. Il est possible de considérer que, pour que les marques de destruction soient reconnues comme telles, il faut qu’elles le soient de quelque chose d’identifié comme ayant eu un état achevé avant sa destruction[12]. Pour que la ruine renvoie à une dégradation, elle doit d’abord renvoyer à cet état. Si la valeur historique peut exister sans la valeur d’ancienneté, la réciproque ne semble pas vraie. C’est en ce sens que le muséologue Jean Davallon conclut à une complémentarité qui caractérise la démarche patrimoniale, même s’il remarque une hésitation de Riegl à ce sujet[13]. La démarche patrimoniale ne serait pas dominée par la valeur d’ancienneté[14]. D’un côté, l’élément patrimonial porte les marques du passé et, en même temps, il est compris au présent. C’est cette démarche qui caractérise d’une manière générale toute prise en charge d’une « vraie chose »[15] par ce que le philosophe Jean-Louis Déotte nomme la suspension muséale[16]. En ce sens, s’il obéit à des procédures et a des pratiques différentes, le musée s’inscrit dans la même historicité que le patrimoine articulant rupture et intégration du passé. L’organisation des musées d’histoire reproduit largement l’intégration des différents éléments dans la totalité linéaire de la progression chronologique jusqu’au présent dont ils font partie de l’histoire[17].

Cette dialectique entre ancienneté et historicité reprend la logique de la connaissance historique telle que l’a théorisée l’historien Michel de Certeau. Il montre que l’historiographie établit dans le même temps un travail de séparation et de connaissance dans la mesure où elle est connaissance d’un passé définitivement et irrémédiablement révolu[18]. Il semble que ce soit également la logique du patrimoine caractérisé à la fois par sa détermination comme provenant d’un passé révolu et en même temps comme appartenant à l’histoire du groupe social qui le reconnaît comme tel. Cette dialectique peut sembler consubstantielle à l’idée moderne de progrès supposant à la fois que les évènements passés soient séparés de l’actualité, afin d’établir une différence entre les différents stades du progrès, et qu’ils s’y intègrent, afin de les comprendre comme moments du progrès.

Si la logique patrimoniale se distingue de la logique historienne dans la mesure où elle ne prétend pas produire une connaissance scientifique[19] et propose un savoir qui peut être seulement sentimental et non cognitif, les deux démarches s’inscrivent dans une direction commune[20]. Dans les deux cas, en tant que passés les évènements sont considérés comme objectivement déterminables, et en tant qu’historiques ils peuvent être intégrés dans une chronologie totalisante menant au présent qui en est l’aboutissement.

Les évènements passés prennent sens par rapport au présent. L’historicité dans laquelle s’inclut l’activité patrimoniale serait essentiellement ce qu’Hartog nomme un présentisme dans la mesure où elle assume le fait que le passé soit subsumé par le présent[21]. Même dans sa dimension d’ancienneté, s’il marque une rupture, c’est cette rupture et les différences avec le présent qui définissent le passé comme tel, et non ses qualités propres. En un sens, le présent est étendu vers le passé qui s’inclut dans son histoire.

Cependant, pour Hartog, le présentisme ne caractérise pas la modernité, mais l’historicité qui lui succède.  Cette différence d’analyse semble venir d’une différence majeure entre son objet et le patrimoine – qui a en un sens fondé celle, théorisée par exemple par le sociologue Maurice Halbwachs et l’historien Pierre Nora[22], entre d’un côté l’histoire réputée rendre compte de ce qui se serait véritablement passé, et d’un autre côté la mémoire et le patrimoine jugés anachroniques parce que présentistes. Si Riegl analyse dès le XIXème siècle le savoir sur le passé induit par les monuments comme étant produit par les intérêts et le point de vue présent, la démarche historienne est au même moment dominée par l’historicisme. Ce dernier se caractérise, comme le patrimoine ou l’histoire présentiste contemporaine, par un rapport savoir sur le passé irrémédiablement passé[23]. La différence majeure est dans la prétention de l’historicisme à écrire ce qui c’est véritablement passé. Sont déduites du passé des règles historiques qui ont pour fonction d’instituer un élan créateur projetant le présent dans un futur qui s’il est incertain, est à construire pour poursuivre le progrès dont le présent ne serait qu’un moment au même titre que les évènements passés[24]. La démarche patrimoniale s’oppose à cette logique et correspond à une conception contemporaine de l’histoire[25]. C’est une telle démarche qui peut être qualifiée de présentiste[26] puisque, de même que celle du patrimoine elle subsume le passé dans le présent.

2. La forme commémorative du patrimoine : garantir un futur durable

L’historicité du patrimoine moderne ne serait pas le « présent au futur »[27] qu’y voit le muséologue Bernard Schiele, mais un passé au présent. C’est en fait à l’historicisme qu’il oppose la logique contemporaine présentiste du patrimoine, définie comme un « futur au présent »[28]. Il s’agirait d’un autre présentisme que celui de patrimoine moderne, mais sans qu’il n’y ait véritablement une rupture d’historicité selon une logique qu’il est possible de qualifier de post-moderne. Cette attitude est ce qu’Hartog considère comme étant celle de la commémoration dans laquelle le présent « se retourne en quelque sorte sur lui-même pour anticiper le regard qu’on portera sur lui, quand il sera complètement passé, comme s’il voulait prévoir le passé qu’il deviendra »[29]. Le présent s’historise et se patrimonialise lui-même[30]. Cela ne signifie pas un passéisme où le présent se tournerait vers le passé[31] car c’est le passé saisi au présent qui est commémoré.

La commémoration reprend la logique patrimoniale en produisant un savoir présent d’un passé révolu ; mais, dans la mesure où ce savoir est inscrit comme étant ce que le présent lègue au futur, elle semble s’inscrire dans l’historicité prémoderne correspondant à de que Riegl nomme la valeur monumentale du monument destinée à conserver le souvenir du présent tel qu’il est considéré par ses contemporains[32] de sorte que « le présent de la création s’inscrit, s’installe dans le présent de la réception »[33]. Le souvenir de la patrimonialisation est conservé dans la conscience des générations futures. Alors que le monument historique existe dans la mesure où il est considéré par ces générations futures comme témoin d’une époque sans que celle-ci ne l’ait érigé dans ce but, le monument monumental n’est pas destiné à être réapproprié dans un présent futur mais à perpétuer le présent. Si une telle prétention peut paraître illusoire dans la mesure où les monuments perdent leur signification avec le temps et sont oubliés s’ils ne deviennent pas des monuments historiques[34], il semble que se soit bien celle de la commémoration.

Cependant, la logique de la commémoration inscrit la valeur monumentale dans le présentisme de la valeur historique. Il ne s’agit pas simplement de maintenir le souvenir du présent dans le futur, mais de garantir que le patrimoine futur sera semblable à celui défini au présent[35]. Le monument ne s’inscrit pas dans la logique de l’historia magistra vitae, qui caractérise selon Koselleck l’historicité prémoderne[36] dans laquelle la monumentalisation du présent a pour fonction de servir de modèle aux générations futures selon une conception de présent comme répétition du passé. Il ne s’agit pas dans la commémoration d’éclairer le présent futur par un présent exemplaire, mais de perpétuer le présent. La commémoration s’inscrit dans une historicité présentiste. Un tel patrimoine a en quelque sorte une valeur historique inversée, tournée vers le futur plutôt que vers le passé. Il faudrait, pour comprendre ce phénomène ajouter une quatrième valeur à la typologie de Riegl correspondant à cette mise à disposition du futur pour le présent. L’orientation vers le futur ne signifie pas un futurisme où le présent ne vaudrait que comme moment vers la réalisation d’une promesse à venir, mais d’une prise en charge du futur par le présent qui serait responsable de la mémoire à venir. Le présent est orienté vers le futur, mais sans qu’il s’agisse d’un futurisme, dans la mesure où il ne s’agit pas de préparer un avènement à venir qui déterminerait absolument le présent[37]. Le futur est intégré dans l’actualité dans la mesure où l’idée de progrès suppose une responsabilité envers ce futur qui n’est pas totalement prévisible mais que le présent prépare.

Ce retournement du présentisme vers l’avenir semble être la marque d’une inquiétude face à l’avenir et d’une défiance vis-à-vis de l’idée de progrès[38]. Si cette crainte pouvait exister dès le XIXème siècle[39], elle semble plus alors fonder l’attrait romantique pour les ruines que le patrimoine. La commémoration fait de cette logique celle du patrimoine. Elle cherche malgré tout à le maintenir ou tout au moins à garantir que la conscience historique ne régressera pas, à défaut de continuer à évoluer dans le sens du progrès. D’un côté cette attitude s’oppose à l’idée moderne de progrès continu en arrêtant celui ci au présent et sans laisser ouverte la possibilité d’un avenir qui aura à se construire. L’idée de progrès se poursuivant est remplacée par celle de responsabilité envers le futur. Il s’agit par là de garantir le progrès déjà accompli en s’assurant contre une régression à venir. Si le présent est l’aboutissement du progrès passé, c’est le sauver que d’empêcher toute évolution ultérieure considérée comme ne pouvant qu’être une décadence qu’illustre la critique de la démarche patrimoniale contemporaine que propose Nora. La logique présentiste de la modernité, s’étend au futur contre la poursuite du progrès, mais pour maintenir le rapport au passé qu’il définit. L’historicité de la mémoire suppose une responsabilité aussi bien vis-à-vis du passé afin d’en maintenir une présence qui risque d’être oubliée et vis-à-vis de l’avenir afin de garantir la durabilité de cette présence[40]. L’enjeu est celui d’un patrimoine durable, non au sens où par exemple le rapport Brundtland[41] le définit comme réappropriation par les générations futures, mais au sens de la pérennité du progrès historique accompli et de la conscience de celui-ci.

Le développement contemporain du patrimoine correspondrait à la réaction contre le sentiment de perdre le passé que diagnostiquent un certain nombre d’auteurs critiquant le développement patrimonial au nom d’un rapport plus authentique et direct au passé[42]. Il ne semble cependant pas être, comme le considèrent la plupart de ces auteurs,  l’aboutissement d’une dissolution de l’histoire due à la modernité mais au contraire une rupture de la confiance moderne dans le progrès qui garantissait un certain sens du passé. Si c’est la croyance dans le progrès qui fonde le patrimoine moderne, ce serait au contraire l’angoisse de s’en détourner qui fonderait son développement contemporain[43].

La commémoration ne serait pas  consubstantielle au patrimoine, mais une des formes. Il faut donc distinguer une logique patrimoniale du patrimoine répondant à la confiance dans le progrès et une logique commémorative du patrimoine correspondant répondant à la perte de cette confiance. Si la pratique patrimoniale étend le présent sur le passé, la pratique commémorative l’étend sur le futur. L’historicité dans laquelle se développe le patrimoine n’est pas celle d’une actualité prise entre le passé et le présent, mais celle d’un présent omni-englobant déterminé par lui-même et déterminant aussi bien le passé que l’avenir : « nous ne cessons de regarder en avant et en arrière, mais sans sortir d’un présent dont nous avons fait notre seul horizon »[44].

3. La forme mondiale du patrimoine : inclure l’humanité entière dans la dynamique du progrès

Cette extension temporelle de l’actualité permet de définir une identité locale, c’est-à-dire une actualité qui ne soit pas seulement un moment temporel mais également un lieu géographique. Le patrimoine produit une identité des espaces en leur donnant une profondeur historique . Il dessine une géographie, qui est en fait une topographie car les différentes parties du monde physique sont qualifiées de manière différentielle pour en faire des espaces signifiants[45]. Est définie une entité symbolique par son histoire et non simplement par le constat qu’un groupe social y vit actuellement – ou plus exactement, dans la mesure où son actualité est étendue au futur et au passé, l’espace géographique de son existence actuelle est indistinctement lié à sa dimension historique[46]. Le patrimoine l’inscrit l’histoire dans l’espace[47].

Pour définir une attitude épistémique, il faut ajouter à la question des régimes d’historicité une autre dimension qui pourrait être qualifiée de régime de topographicité. L’espace de l’actualité par rapport aux autres espaces géographiques, c’est-à-dire en fait essentiellement comme étant culturel dans la mesure où la culture peut-être considérée comme une « prolifération d’invention en des espaces contraints »[48]. Ces rapports s’organisent en fonction de frontières physiques déterminant des espaces différenciés, aussi bien à l’extérieur qu’à l’intérieur de l’actualité. De même que pour l’historicité, la question est celle de la limite de ce qui est considéré comme l’espace propre et la manière dont des éléments extérieurs y sont inclus.

En l’occurrence, l’analyse du patrimoine renvoie à l’espace de l’occident moderne. Il s’est développé et a été théorisé en Europe et en Amérique du Nord. Or, de même que son actualité s’est étendue dans le temps, elle a une tendance à s’étendre dans l’espace. La conception kantienne de la modernité semble aller dans ce sens puisque le processus de l’Aufklärung tel que la présente Kant affecte ce qui constitue l’humanité de l’être humain en concernant tous les hommes, et que  la question du progrès historique est liée à celle du la globalisation par inclusion de toutes les nations à une actualité qui est celle des Lumières[49]. C’est le projet de la colonisation puis de la mondialisation, suivant celui de la Révolution Française et du 1^er Empire[50], que de propager et de faire partager le progrès par toute l’humanité. Ces politiques suggèrent que la mondialisation du patrimoine n’ait pas pour résultat une indissociation ou une  liquéfaction  des espaces identitaires[51] que critiquent un certain nombre d’auteurs, mais l’élargissement de l’un d’entre eux ayant subsumé les autres.

Il faut en fait sans doute distinguer deux logiques qui sont généralement perçues comme complémentaire mais qui obéissent à des topographicité différentes, même si elles ne sont pas exclues l’une de l’autre. D’un côté l’homogénéisation nationale des états modernes se faisant par l’imposition d’un patrimoine commun par la neutralisation ou la destruction des patrimoines locaux[52]. D’un autre côté la globalisation se faisant par subsumption des patrimoines nationaux inclus dans la narration totalisante d’un progrès qui est celui de l’espace occidental. Il ne s’agit pas de suggérer que les nations modernes n’ont pas subsumé un certain nombre de patrimoines locaux lorsqu’ils étaient compatibles avec l’homogénéité visée, notamment dans le cas des États-Nations construits par agrégats comme l’Allemagne[53], ni que la globalisation exclue la destruction de patrimoines inassimilables. Les logiques restent essentiellement différentes, puisque d’un côté il s’agit respectivement de ce que la science politique a nommé une libanisation et une balkanisation[54]. Cette opposition peut correspondre à celle des différentes manière de manager les dissonances du patrimoine qui, même si elles ne sont pas thématisées comme telles, définissent des modes d’existences topographiques différents[55].

Le patrimoine apparaît comme un outil d’homogénéisation nationaliste dans lequel une métanarrativité s’impose aux différents groupes sociaux[56]. Les différents patrimoines doivent s’inscrire dans une identité collective[57] fonction d’une histoire nationale préalablement définie. Le maintient de patrimoines locaux dépend de leur capacité à s’y intégrer ou à perdre leur spécificité et l’homogénéisation nationale passe par la représentation d’un patrimoine cohérent et légitime qui marque une identité durable ancrée dans l’histoire[58].

Si dans cette logique nationaliste le local se fond dans le national, il est également possible que le local se fonde sur l’universel. Il semble que ce soit dans cette seconde perspective que se constitue le patrimoine mondial. Au delà de leurs divergences, les espaces nationaux européens et occidentaux partagent une même actualité considérée comme universelle. Le géographe David Löwenthal suggère en ce sens que le patrimoine global tend à être l’extension de celui occidental[59]. Chaque mémoire particulière participerait à un mouvement de présentation universelle et chaque musée ou patrimoine serait en fait fragment de l’idéal d’un musée ou d’un patrimoine universel articulant les différentes spécificités locales comme éléments de la nature humaine[60]. Cela apparaît à la fois dans la prétention des grands musées à détenir des éléments de patrimoine renvoyant à des groupes sociaux éloignés et réciproquement la demande de rapatriement de ces éléments puisqu’ils appartiennent également à tous les hommes et non seulement à ceux qui les ont produits ou à ceux qui les ont conquis[61].

Il ne s’agit pas de nier les différences, mais de considérer ce qui dans la spécificité de chaque groupe social ou ethnique renvoie à leur humanité partageable et compréhensible par tous[62]. Cela apparaît particulièrement dans le cas des musées-mémoriaux de guerre et de génocides dont les atrocités sont présentées comme concernant tous les hommes et non seulement les groupes sociaux qui en ont été directement victimes en vertu d’une sensibilité commune[63]. En fait, cette reconnaissance de l’humanité de chaque homme est celle de son occidentalité, dans la mesure où il est possible de constater une certaine globalisation des formes patrimoniales prenant modèle sur celles occidentales et nivelant sur l’Occident les différentes sensibilités et conceptions culturelles de la mort[64] . Le patrimoine mondial serait un présentisme : l’étrangeté est comprise depuis une actualité qui l’intègre dans son champs d’expérience pour en faire son espace, de la même manière que le présentiste historique fait du passé et du futur ceux du présent. L’actualité est étendue au monde. Dans le même temps où se développe un doute vis-à-vis de la capacité du progrès moderne à se poursuivre dans l’avenir, se développe la confiance dans son universalité.

Conclusion. La forme dissonante du patrimoine : reconnaître des différents

Le patrimoine contemporain semble obéir à une dynamique omni-englobante ramenant l’étranger dans son histoire ou son espace. Dans la conception universaliste de la nature humaine tous les hommes peuvent se comprendre les uns les autres au delà de leurs disparités culturelles. Leurs rapports ne se font pas dans la confrontation des différentes spécificités mais par leur inclusion dans une actualité commune. De manière cohérente avec la conception kantienne, l’épistémè du patrimoine serait indissociable d’une condition politique et sociale dans laquelle tous les hommes se comprennent[65], suivant une logique que le philosophe Jacques Rancière nomme « la mésentente »[66]. La mésentente est une situation de communication incluant tous les individus d’un groupe social idéalement étendu à l’humanité entière. Ils se comprennent tous, de sorte que leurs différents sont des litiges et des discussions qui permettent d’inclure toutes les spécificités dans un discours commun universel. Pour Rancière, tout étranger finira par être inclus dans cette communication sans qu’il n’y ait jamais d’autre irréductible.

Cependant, comme le montre Déotte, la mésentente ne peut avoir lieu qu’au prix de la forclusion ou de l’exclusion de différents et de dissonances irréductibles dont les porteurs sont soit neutralisés soit exclus de la communauté[67]. Il montre que la perspective universalisante du progrès ne voit pas qu’il existe des différents interculturels où il n’y aura jamais de scène commune d’interlocution. Un certain nombre d’auteur attentifs à la persistance de dissonances malgré les prétentions universalisantes vont dans ce sens[68]. Serait  reconnu d’un côté en suivant le philosophe Walter Benjamin l’existence sourde de vaincus de l’histoire, et en même temps l’existence d’exclus échappant à ce qu’il est sans doute possible de qualifier d’ethnocentrisme[69]. Dans les deux cas, le présentisme du patrimoine signifierait au mieux la perte de l’historicisation de l’autre[70], au pire sa négation et sa destruction lorsque son autréité est irréductible.

Il s’agit en fait de reconnaître ce que le philosophe Jean-François Lyotard nomme des « différents », c’est-à-dire des dissonances qui ne peuvent ontologiquement se réduire et des étrangers qui ne peuvent ontologiquement être compris[71]. Une telle attitude postmoderne ne serait pas la liquéfaction générale achevant la modernité, mais au contraire le sursaut de ces « différents » culturels[72] la déstabilisant. Dans cette perspective, qui est celle du commentaire que propose Foucault de Qu’est-ce que les lumières?, la modernité occidentale ne serait qu’une épistémè possible parmi d’autres tout aussi légitimes et irréductibles[73]. Son hégémonie aussi bien temporelle que géographique serait remise en cause d’une manière que Foucault décrit lorsqu’il fait la critique de l’humanisme et de ses prétentions[74]. Considérer ainsi le progrès moderne, implique l’impossibilité de lui donner une dimension universelle légitime. Cette tentation est ce que Foucault nomme le « chantage à l’Aufklärung »[75] et qui semble correspondre à la triple logique patrimoniale, commémorative et mondiale caractérisant le développement contemporain du patrimoine.

Contre cette tendance, l’enjeu est de penser un patrimoine du différent qui aurait une autre épistémè, non pas universalisante mais différentielle[76]. Ce serait reconnaître que de générations en générations[77], et d’espaces sociaux en espaces sociaux[78], les hommes n’ont pas de langage commun, et qu’il y a une pluralité d’actualités ayant chacune son patrimoine[79]. La difficulté est, à l’heure de la mondialisation, à la fois de reconnaître des patrimoines irréductibles à toute universalisation et restant largement incompréhensibles au reste de l’humanité, tout en les diffusant et les intégrant au tourisme mondial[80].

The post L’actualité du patrimoine: Les formes d’extensivité historique et géographique de l’identité moderne appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

O conceito de viagem, de acordo com Caren Kaplan, Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement (1996), se transformou em uma referência a movimentos populacionais, bem como em uma metaforização de processos de questionamento identitários essencializados.   Nesse sentido, Kaplan parte do pressuposto de que a subjetividade moderna sempre valorizou a mobilidade e de que, se a viagem foi tão central para a constituição desta subjetividade, uma análise do deslocamento deveria se tornar uma prioridade para o discurso crítico da contemporaneidade (32). Tomando como pressuposto esta necessidade crítica, este trabalho tem como objetivo discutir as implicações do deslocamento transnacional no contexto da literatura brasileira contemporânea. Mais especificamente, a base para esta discussão está estruturada em dois romances: Viagem ao México (1995), de Silviano Santiago (1936 – ) e Berkeley em Bellagio (2002), de João Gilberto Noll (1946 – ).

Apesar de suas diferenças específicas, esses dois romances constituem a metáfora do deslocamento como um gesto de confrontamento de formações autoritárias, de identidade cultural e de sistema político. Em Silviano Santiago, o deslocamento aparece como um mecanismo de produção de conhecimento histórico sobre a formação cultural latino-americana. Nesse sentido, Viagem ao México funciona como revelador dos modos de resistência, assimilação e transformação do eu e do outro[1]. Esta recuperação histórica da formação discursiva latino-americana na escrita de Silviano Santiago constitui, portanto, uma representação do debate pós-colonial no contexto da América Latina, trazendo à tona uma dimensão teórica que pode ser considerada metanarrativa, a partir da nomenclatura de Linda Hutcheon (1988). Viagem ao México realiza uma discussão sutil e astuciosa das tensões em torno do projeto civilizatório Ocidental diante do desafio do encontro entre o euporeu e o latino-americano, bem dos próprios latino-americanos entre si.

No caso de João Gilberto Noll, a metáfora do deslocamento funciona como a representação de uma viagem aos processos subjetivos que constituem seus personagens, mas sem a dimensão histórica construída por Silviano Santiago em Viagem ao México. A viagem rumo ao espaço do outro torna-se o desencadeador de um processo de auto-análise, a partir do reconhecimento da diferença que constitui toda identidade.  A viagem em João Gilberto Noll é feita para conhecer o outro, que está fora do sujeito, mas que, em certo sentido, está nele próprio (Kristeva, 1991; Young, 2001: 425) [2].

Apesar dos traços distintivos presentes nesses dois romances, um elemento unifica essas duas performances representativas do deslocamento: dramatiza-se nestes romances o percurso de constituição dos sujeitos na/pela linguagem. É fundamental assinalar que tais gestos representativos revelam também uma reflexão sobre o próprio ato de narrar a viagem e o encontro com o “novo” e com a diferença. Esses dois romances brasileiros contemporâneos constituem suas especificidades, enquanto discurso literário, conscientes das implicações do eu na construção do outro e em busca de formações culturais menos autoritárias.[3]

I. Diálogos críticos com os modos de produção do outro

Viagem ao México (1995) é um dos romances menos conhecidos e estudados do escritor mineiro Silviano Santiago. O romance narra a viagem do poeta, ator, e dramaturgo francês Antonin Artaud (1896 – 1948), de Paris ao México, em busca de inspiração para o seu projeto de renovação do teatro francês. Nas primeiras páginas do livro, o leitor se depara com um sujeito da enunciação descrevendo um personagem envolto em um estado de decepção frente a sua realidade imediata. A França pós-primeira guerra mundial transparece nessas linhas iniciais do livro por meio de uma crítica da produção intelectual e artística do momento – especialmente o cinema e o teatro. Aponta-se também neste início meta-narrativo do romance para o debate sobre a função da arte na sociedade: arte como forma de propaganda ideológica versus arte como um processo de desautomatização da linguagem, nos termos em que a arte de vanguarda do início do século XX se pronunciava.

A ênfase sobre as implicações do deslocamento e a revelação da curiosidade em relação à cultura do outro é uma constante dentro da narrativa. A primeira referência ao título do livro acontece quando o narrador faz alusão ao desejo de Antonin Artaud de fazer uma viagem, de dar início a um processo de distanciamento de seu próprio país – daquele espaço sociocultural que lhe fora “destinado como pátria” (42), mas que, ao mesmo tempo, o “acolhera como um mendigo” (42). É talvez por causa desta sensação de desamparo que a necessidade do outro surge, revelada por meio da urgência da própria viagem, cujo intuito seria a chegada a outras terras, a possibilidade de “conhecer outras gentes” (42). Mas há também uma certa decepção pelo fato deste outro, que Artaud vai encontrando no decorrer da sua viagem, não ser tão diferente, pois “estes estrangeiros guardam muito da palatável e indesejada familiaridade europeia” (42). Esta passagem põe em debate a própria identidade latino-americana. Estou pensando aqui nas duas posições antagônicas que assinalam que uma parte da cultura latino-americana nada mais seria do que cópias corrompidas da cultura europeia. O outro posicionamento epistemológico entende a cultura latino-americana como um entre-lugar discursivo, um espaço em que as práticas culturais europeias teriam um locus de atuação, mas que tais práticas sofreriam as transformações e adaptações fornecidas pelas dinâmicas culturais locais (Santiago, 1978). É exatamente sobre este debate que Viagem ao México realiza o seu gesto discursivo.

Para efetivar este debate, em alguns momentos é possível perceber os signos representativos da viagem, do movimento, do encontro e suas implicações. Por este motivo, a enunciação do narrador estabelece uma diferença entre a constituição ontológica do marinheiro e do turista. O marinheiro, “amante do perigo” (43), estaria exposto ao “desenrolar do tempo” (43), inserido no contexto da “movência do corpo pelo espaço” (43). A identidade do marinheiro, nestes termos, não existiria mais. Ela teria sido substituída por um outro tipo de performance identitária: a do turista – aquele que viaja com tempo e espaço predeterminado. A viagem, neste tipo de performance, seria “uma vivência nos espaços repetitivos e monótonos do lazer” (43).

A performance do turista de maneira alguma é a de Artaud. A viagem que o Artaud ficcionalizado realiza, num “tempo-espaço comprimido” (43), é resignificada a partir de uma analogia com a “massa de pão fermentada” (43). A massa-sujeito “continua a ser o que era, mesmo depois de inchada e passar pela metamorfose do forno” (43). O forno funciona aqui como um símbolo de um espaço que refaz a formação cultural anterior do sujeito. O produto desta viagem transformativa, “depois de perdido a força extensiva do fermento” (43), revela-se a partir do ganho de um outro tipo de substancialidade: a massa ganha “a forma de um manjar dos deuses” (43). Este é um tipo de discurso que, em certa medida, alinha-se à representação da viagem como um mecanismo de autoconhecimento e de transformação pessoal que é muito enfatizado também por João Gilberto Noll, em Berkeley em Bellagio. Este seria um ponto de intersecção entre os dois modos de representação da viagem dos dois escritores aqui discutidos, resguardadas as diferenciações específicas que os constitui.

“Ser peregrino do meu próprio destino” (45) – eis o mote do viajante aventureiro (nômade, vagabundo). “A terra mexicana” – espaço do outro por excelência – configura-se numa espécie de mapa que guiaria o sujeito rumo ao cumprimento de seu destino. Que destino seria este? O posicionamento ético do intelectual no contexto sócio-político da primeira metade do século XX. No seu espaço de origem, o Artaud reconstituído por Silviano Santiago vivencia as dificuldades do intelectual que necessita do “dinheiro alheio” para fugir da situação de “eterno passageiro de ônibus”, ou deixar de ser um sujeito andarilho, a “carregar de um lado para outro (…) o peso dos ossos, da carne, das vísceras” (45). Para o tipo de produção cultural que o teatro de Artaud tem a oferecer para a sociedade burguesa francesa, a ideia de sucesso material é uma variável difícil de atingir. O seu teatro não encontra uma recepção de massa que possa transformar as suas condições concretas de vida. O artista vive, desse modo, o dilema de produzir um teatro crítico da sociedade burguesa às custas do financiamento desta mesma sociedade. No contexto da narrativa criada em Berkeley em Bellagio, como se verá mais adiante, o dilema dos modos de sobrevivência do viajante intelectual volta a ser tematizado, desta forma dentro de um ambiente econômico e cultural de início do século XXI e informado por questões relativas à globalização cultural e ao domínio do sistema capitalista como modelo econômico hegemônico dentro das sociedades ocidentais.

No caso de Viagem ao México, portanto, Silviano Santiago representa o debate político-ideológico que atormentou os artistas modernistas. A discussão em torno do papel social da arte promoveu a reformulação de projetos estéticos em função de valores éticos de cunho mais pragmático. Na primeira fase do projeto estético do Surrealismo, está implícita uma concepção de arte e sobre o papel do artista que colocava-o em franca oposição à arte burguesa, esta última baseada na transparência mimética da realidade, e colocando sobre os ombros da arte a responsabilidade de eleição do espírito humano, na melhor tradição platônica ocidental. Atacando diretamente a linguagem na qual se formatava tal projeto estético-ético, os críticos vanguardistas pressupunham que o modo de confrontar esta cosmologia estaria na desarticulação do seu mecanismo de produção: a própria linguagem que constrói arte e conhecimento. A linguagem é reestruturada para que, a partir de uma movimento de autoconsciência, o homem passe a ter mais compreensão dos processos envolvidos na enunciação dos discursos de saber. Este é um projeto de revelação dos mecanismos internos de articulação da linguagem, por intermédio da desautomatização do seu uso. Havia neste projeto, portanto, uma necessidade de criação de gestos culturais e artísticos que tomassem o interlocutor de ‘surpresa’ e o colocassem em ação de reconstituição das possibilidades de sentido – que já não estariam mais disponíveis a priori. Aciona-se, dessa forma, a responsabilidade do interlocutor na construção de um possível sistema de referência que dê sentido a ‘sua’ própria leitura do mundo. É comum, neste contexto, a sensação de se estar perdido em meio a um ambiente que só fornece estímulos, os mais diversos, mas que não proporciona mais uma narrativa teleológica.

Este é o dilema do artista de vanguarda situado numa linha fronteiriça entre a liberdade do indivíduo e os constrangimentos simbólicos impostos pela sociedade. O seu gesto estético, seu posicionamento como agente social e/ou artista está informado pela angústia do pertencimento. A sensibilidade do artista de vanguarda não abre mão do contato social, pois é desta relação que ele pode contactar o outro; mas, paradoxalmente, este encontro relacional gera expectativas conflitantes em ambas as partes. Tomando-se o teatro como metáfora, nos deparamos com o dilema da relação dialética entre o que está sendo representado (e como) e uma suposta audiência. Até que ponto a performance teatral pode romper com algum tipo de vínculo significativo (comunicativo) com a audiência? Qual o limite entre comunicar e não-comunicar dentro do jogo teatral? A discussão destas questões nos remetem para um domínio relativo à própria constituição da linguagem. O Artaud que Silviano representa teatralmente em sua ficção é um sujeito em busca de um outro verbo, ou melhor, um sujeito que viaja em busca de um modo de “comunicar” baseado no silenciamento do verbo escrito da História, e na tentativa de acionamento de um discurso, digamos, pré-simbólico, ou inconsciente.[4] Esta é uma viagem a um espaço semiótico, no qual os sentidos não estejam ainda estruturados; é um espaço no qual a audiência não seja uma passiva receptora de sentidos ‘caducados’, apresentados em novas roupagens para dar a impressão novidade. Talvez por isso, a viagem de Artaud-Silviano não seja tanto em função da revitalização da palavra estruturada linearmente, mas uma tentativa de resgate do poder significativo do próprio movimento, da imagem e do silêncio como potencialidades discursivas.

Viagem ao México representa, assim, uma aventura semiótica que não apresenta uma bússola ou um mapa. A liberdade, tanto para o autor, quanto para a audiência é um elemento crucial neste processo. Mas o estado de liberdade, como vieram a nos revelar os existencialistas, pode ser angustiante. É talvez pela constatação desta angústia que Sartre supõe que a liberdade seja – antes de tudo – responsabilidade. Uma responsabilidade sem um sentido moral estrito, mas entendida como a necessidade de participação ativa dos sujeitos em relação aos desafios éticos e estéticos com os quais ele irá se deparar neste encontro com o outro em sociedade. Esta liberdade também não significa qualquer falta de constrangimentos ou a impossibilidade de realizar concessões – na falta destes elementos, a liberdade ganharia um aspecto egocêntrico (senão, egoísta), oposto ao projeto sartreano. O Artaud de Silviano passa boa parte do seu percurso tendo de lidar com os constrangimentos econômicos e sociais por causa da ‘escolha’ que faz ao produzir um tipo de teatro de vinculação com o semiótico, dentro de uma sociedade burguesa que valoriza a dimensão produtiva do simbólico. A liberdade de que fala Sartre (e que Silviano dramatiza em Artaud) advém de uma capacidade do sujeito de articular os elementos disponíveis na sociedade com o propósito de construir um modo de compreensão que não mitifique a realidade, que não transforme os indivíduos e seus projetos em commodities, e que desarticule a engrenagem de qualquer sistema de automatização do sujeito e de suas práticas.

II. Viagem ao centro do universo pessoal

Berkeley em Bellagio é um dos romances mais importantes do escritor gaúcho João Gilberto Noll. Lançado em 2002, o romance chegou a ser finalista do Prêmio Portugal/Telecom e, juntamente com o anterior Bandoleiro (1985), e o posterior Lorde (2004), constitui uma espécie de trilogia que tematiza o deslocamento dentro do espaço cultural das Américas e as implicações epistemológicas e políticas destes escontros. Berkeley em Bellagio narra a história de um escritor brasileiro convidado para passar uma emporada na Universidade de Berkeley, na Califória, como professor de literatura brasileira. Durante este período como professor, o narrador precisa também escrever um romance, como parte das responsabilidades assumidas com as instituições que patrocinaram a sua viagem. Em sua passagem por Bellagio, na Itália, o narrador dá continuidade ao processo andarilho e desenraizado que alimentará uma escrita informada por impressões subjetivas da experiência de deslocamento.

A metaforização da viagem em João Gilberto Noll funciona como a representação de um movimento de descoberta existencial, no qual o sujeito tem como projeto o ‘descobrimento’ de si mesmo (em sua dimensão filosófico-existencial). Por este motivo, sua prosa apresenta um tom e uma estrutura textual que revela uma subjetividade em busca de auto-consciência. Não é à toa que em boa parte da produção literária de Noll o elemento auto-biográfico, disfarçado, seja um fator fundamental. O seu texto é construído na superfície da pele do próprio enunciador, ou seja, a fronteira entre o narrador e a experiência existencial do autor é intencionalmente fraturada. Em Berkeley em Bellagio (2002) e Lorde (2004), por exemplo, a narrativa nasce a partir de fatos reais acontecidos na vida do escritor, mas que passam a ser ficcionalizados. Este processo de ficcionalização dos eventos não se dá por meio da valorização dos fatos exteriores, mas constitui-se no limite entre os discursos literário e filosófico, na medida em que a viagem ao centro do universo pessoal é desencadeadora de uma teorização sobre o próprio self. Como afirma James Clifford (1989) relativamente ao termo grego theorein:  “The Greek term theorein: a practice of travel and observation. [...] Theory is a product of displacement, comparison, a certain distance. To theorize, one leaves home” (1)[5]. É o deslocamento espacial que desencadeia o processo de reflexão que percebemos na obra de Noll. Por esse motivo, seus narradores parecem mais interessados em teorizar sobre si mesmos do que construir narrativas explicativas sobre o outro, a não ser que este outro represente um domínio inconsciente do próprio sujeito da enunciação. Mesmo que em alguns momentos o narrador teça comentários sobre uma exterioridade de uma topologia espacial e cultural, tais comentários são imediatamente confrontados a um gesto auto-reflexivo de discussão das próprias motivações que constituiram tais enunciações. Se a viagem é geradora de novos posicionamentos epistemológicos, cabe perguntar aqui: Que tipo de conhecimento é possível produzir a partir do encontro com o diferente? Ou mais: em se tratando das formas de aquisição/produção do conhecimento, como colocar a questão sobre os modos através dos quais conhecemos? Estas não são problemáticas articuladas apenas por Noll, elas aparecem também na escrita de Silviano Santiago.

O componente fundamental para se esboçar qualquer tentativa de discussão das questões apontadas acima é a própria linguagem, que passa a ser dramatizada neste processo de construção/produção de conhecimento.  Uma das primeiras dificuldades com que este sujeito em viagem se depara é com a própria língua: a falta de habilidade lingüística para se adaptar ao novo espaço, a diversidade de códigos culturais, e até mesmo as dúvidas existências do personagem principal, etc. Esses componentes percorrem toda a escrita desta viagem e fornecem um quadro para a reflexão sobre o projeto ético e estético do narrador. O tipo de dramatização que o narrador-nômade reconstrói (pelo menos nas obras em questão) funciona ao mesmo tempo como uma metáfora, em um contexto de deslocamentos humanos em que os sujeitos deslocados têm pouco ou quase nenhum controle sobre as suas escolhas: a impressão que se tem é que tais sujeitos são escolhidos, ou submetidos a um processo migratório definido pelas dificuldades em seus espaços de origem e pelas possíveis oportunidades no novo lugar de destino, ou pela constituição formal que seus desejos ganharam. As dificuldades que estão presentes na representação do deslocamento para o espaço do outro, do não familiar, em Berkeley em Bellagio são também de ordem econômica.[6]

As atribulações da viagem para os sujeitos “sem altas formações acadêmicas” (16), desempregados e “sem endereço fixo” (16) não se iniciam somente com a chegada no novo espaço, elas começam no momento mesmo da autorização para a viagem. A ‘odisséia’ do sujeito moderno – pelo menos desses sujeitos dos países em situação periférica no contexto global – exige o enfretamento de atribulações advindas dos mecanismos de controle migratório impostos pelos países mais desenvolvidos. Do lado de quem tenta iniciar a viagem, ficam as marcas de um processo de autenticação: é preciso se provar e preencher os requisitos necessários. Nos primeiros momentos do drama encenado em Berkeley em Bellagio, o narrador se apresenta como um sujeito com nenhuma ou muito pouca disposição para enfrentar o processo de aprendizagem do novo, revelando a dificuldade de construir um aparato adaptativo para a vida neste novo espaço.

A dificuldade com a aquisição de uma nova língua(gem) chega a se transformar numa paralisia de quem “se cansava antes da hora”, ou de quem “parecia estagnado desde que viera para um país do qual não falava a língua” (12). O fato de, no seu trabalho, o narrador não necessitar interagir com seu alunos em uma língua estrangeira (o narrador  está trabalhando como professor de cultura brasileira em Berkeley, CA) dá-lhe um mínimo de possibilidade de interação, mas sem o conhecimento do código lingüístico e cultural  do outro para mediar as conversas mais informais e os conhecimentos pessoais, ele acaba “mantendo uma distância gentil de seus alunos” (12). É interessante notar que esta sensação de isolamento, de não pertencimento e paralisia da vontade não é privilégio somente do sujeito deslocado espacialmente. Mesmo alguns alunos, falantes nativos da língua e conhecedores das práticas locais, também são representados como desconectados de vínculos mais profundos uns com os outros ou com a própria vida: “ninguém no fundo dava a impressão de estar em gozo com a vida” (12).

Por este motivo, o narrador-autor faz uma análise crítica em relação ao desejo que mobiliza tais alunos em seu curso, bem como apresenta uma consciência bastante cética em relação à sua missão de professor de cultura brasileira e do impacto desse ensino em pessoas de cultura e realidade tão distintas. O ceticismo da sua percepção está ancorado na incompreensão sobre a real motivação e interesse dos alunos em relação a uma realidade tão diferente, e que se efetua em torno do contato com aqueles “quadros de miséria [da realidade brasileira expressa nos materiais que ele utilizava em suas aulas] afastados de seus cotidianos principescos” (19). O narrador está colocando em discussão os limites do próprio processo de compreensão: o que significa compreender/encontrar o outro? Na sua visão cética, a relação de sujeitos tão diferentes, no contexto acima apresentado, não passaria de um jogo de sedução e de simulação, cujo objetivo está além – ou aquém – da possibilidade de um conhecimento empático do outro (e principalmente de uma tomada de posição para a transformação dos mesmo quadros de miséria testemunhados no curso). A partir da visão de mundo impressa na voz do narrador de Berkeley em Bellagio poderíamos concluir que a complexidade do mundo globalizado deixaria os sujeitos inseridos num processo de impotência em relação a uma possível mudança no quadro de miséria global  ou – no mais das vezes também – inseridos numa rede de relações de poder na qual todos participam e contribuem para a sua manutenção – inclusive o próprio narrador.

O drama do enfrentamento do cotidiano – e a sua negação, por intermédio da viagem – é um aspecto recorrente para os personagens de Noll. A “prática do convívio” (10) com outras pessoas, a existência em torno de um “endereço seguro” (10) são situações que ao mesmo tempo que atraem, também assustam. A atração poderia ser perfeitamente entendida pelo viés da necessidade do ser humano de formar relações e pela necessidade de proteção – instintos de sobrevivência. A repulsa poderia advir daquela sensação de exílio, de não pertencimento que poderia se desenvolver e ganhar força com o deslocamento geográfico, fator que forçaria o indivíduo a sentir-se ainda mais estranho em relação ao ambiente que o cerca. Para Said (1994), a semente desta subjetividade já estaria presente no indivíduo desde antes do deslocamento geográfico. Said nos fala de que provavelmente o intelectual exilado tenha sido desde sempre este sujeito afastado de um imaginário mainstream em seu próprio país de origem. Nesse sentido, uma das performances visíveis do intelectual na sociedade capitalista pós-industrial seria o do outsider. Noll representa um sujeito que anda à margem das situações que preenchem o cotidiano da maioria das pessoas. Seus narradores são andarilhos nômades, sem ponto fixo de partida ou de chegada.

Esse comportamento andarilho proporciona à vida uma  “aparência” de liberdade, cujo paradoxo é a produção também de uma sensação de impotência. Este sentimento talvez seja derivado do fato de estes sujeitos não apresentarem vínculos significativos com a vida. A vontade de poder, pulsão fundamental da existência produtiva, aparece nessas obras enfraquecida. A viagem, nesse sentido, se coloca como uma tentativa de realimentar esta debilitada vontade de poder. O deslocamento em viagem abriria novamente (ou imporia, já que a vontade se apresenta tão indolente) um certo compromisso, algum tipo de vínculo com algo ou com alguém. A viagem passaria a ter a função de proporcionar pequenos projetos de engajamento, desencadeadores de um produto: neste caso o livro – mas com um ‘dizer’ pouco e diminuído, registro dessa aventura escassa, algumas vezes lírico, muitas vezes cético, outras tantas vezes irônico.

Entretanto, a vontade não está completamente desprovida de força. Em alguns momentos surgem projetos para além da rememoração de acontecimentos que geram a escrita de seus livros. É possível testemunhar um sujeito que se esforça para construir um engajamento ativo e prático com o mundo. É nesses momentos que vemos surgir a consciência de um sujeito que revela com clareza que “não adiantava se lembrar…precisava mesmo era ir à ação” (11). Mas a ação que este sujeito tenta efetuar tem curto fôlego. Seu projeto de revitalização da vontade e da ação está diretamente relacionado com a sua própria escrita – coisa de raro interesse: “testemunhar nessa língua a todos que pudessem se interessar pela sua vida. Quase ninguém naquela terra, era verdade”. (12) O espaço do outro, lugar atual do itinerário volátil deste sujeito, não proporciona a estabilidade necessária para o enraizamento de um projeto de existência de produção em massa. Não há, portanto, o estímulo do reconhecimento da experiência cultural idêntica capaz de despertar o interesse pelo que este sujeito teria a oferecer a partir da narrativa de sua experiência pessoal.

O próprio João Gilberto Noll, ao falar sobre Berkeley em Bellagio, faz referência ao fato de que seus personagens são seres contemplativos e que a sua narrativa busca revelar o interior de indivíduos que preferem a contemplação à ação. Seus personagens são também inadequados para um mundo que acelera cada vez mais o cotidiano. Nesse sentido, o livro forma aquilo que Noll mesmo chamou de:

(…) uma reflexão sobre o nosso tempo. Eu não estava interessado em fazer uma crônica a respeito dos costumes e da cultura de Berkeley ou Bellagio. Minha preocupação era falar sobre o brasileiro na condição de estrangeiro e, a partir disso, abordar a mundialização. (Zaccaria, 2).

É nesse processo de representação da contemplação que nos deparamos com um sujeito que se põe a “olhar mais para dentro” em busca de sentimentos que pudessem provocar “a noção mais antiquada de uma comunidade”. Comunidade que, se observada a partir da ótica de Zygmund Bauman (2003), fragmentou-se dentro do projeto de modernidade das sociedades pós-industriais, e que, por isso mesmo, deixou suas marcas na formação dos sujeitos contemporâneos. Paradoxalmente, diante desta fragmentação dos vínculos comunitários tradicionais, há também um desejo de restauração de novos laços afetivos. A escrita que revela tal desejo, portanto, se move em ritmo quase nostálgico a fim de “reacender a atmosfera idealizada da infância” (22). A memória passa a ser a responsável pela constituição de um suposto conhecimento de si que não abre mão do único elemento concreto possível, não mais de ser reconstituído, mas sim reinterpretado: os traços fragmentados do passado. Este é um vasculhamento da memória – viagem ao interior do sujeito – no sentido de refazer o percurso reconstitutivo dos momentos de sínteses dos desejos que o constituirá, criando identificações que estiveram coladas às “imagens de filmes e gravuras” (22) de uma infância irrecuperável. O sujeito está, portanto, numa viagem em busca de uma identidade perdida na poeira do tempo.

O que traz o sujeito como resultado dessa viagem interior? O que é recolhido nesta viagem? Qual o seu lucro ou a moeda de troca que faça valer a viagem e pague seus custos? O que o sujeito traz consigo como souvenir desta viagem não tem valor de troca. Ao contrário, são memórias de eventos e lembranças que muitos fazem um exercício racional para reprimi-las. No caso do narrador de Berkeley em Bellagio, o que vem à superfície da consciência são fragmentos de eventos marcados pela dor e pelo castigo, como se percebe numa passagem que rememora a adolescência do narrador:

Ao ser pego abraçado a um colega no banheiro, abocanhando a carne de seus lábios, alisando seus cabelos ondulados, ele era o culpado – já o colega, não, nem tanto; ele sim, apontado como o que desviava o desejo de outros jovens das “metas proliferantes da espécie” (23).

O resíduo dessa memória é o sentimento de dor provocado pelas formas de repressão e autoritarismo da cultura patriarcal: a dúvida presente sobre aquilo que lhe fora imposto como erro, mas que “ainda não tivera tempo de notar dentro de si” (23). O ‘souvenir’ da viagem só pode ter algum valor para o próprio sujeito, quando transformado em nova forma de percepção do passado e como forma de produção de um novo conhecimento de si – uma nova concepção (gestação) de sujeito. Para nós, leitores, esse quadro só pode ter algum valor como uma espécie de ‘pedagogia’ filosófica do ser, nos termos em que Deleuze e Guatarri entendem o processo de reflexão filosófica: “pedagogy of the concept” em oposição a um tipo de conhecimento estruturado em torno de uma “encyclopedia of the concept”. (Deleuze e Guatarri: 12).

III. Considerações Finais

Uma das rotas narrativas da ficção contemporânea brasileira, e em muitos casos também a latino-americana, tem tematizado a viagem como metáfora das mudanças que ocorrem no processo de constituição do sujeito em um mundo globalizado. Neste artigo, os romances Viagem ao México, de Silviano Santiago e Berkeley em Bellagio, de João Gilberto Noll foram discutidos como dramatizações de um modelo de deslocamento tanto físico como epistemológico. De acordo com Diaz-Zambrana (2005), o debate colocado pelas narrativas que tematizam a viagem e o deslocamento se constitui a partir da dificuldade que o sujeito contemporâneo encontra para definir as coordenadas e os valores que guiarão seus percursos em um mundo “pós-utópico” e globalizado. A viagem como motivo literário estaria fundamentada, portanto, na interação frustrada com o espaço circundante e na busca de novas formações identitárias para este sujeito contemporâneo. Nesse sentido, a expressão contemporânea da viagem radicalizaria o gesto de questionamento simbolizado pelo deslocamento e confrontaria os discursos hegemônicos constituidores das identidades individual e cultural (Diaz-Zambrana, 153). Seguindo esta mesma linha de raciocínio, os personagens de Noll e Santiago nos romances discutidos neste artigo representam exemplarmente esta sensação de desconforto propulsora do deslocamento.

As noções de espaço, de casa e de pertencimento articuladas nos dois romances são apresentadas de forma fragmentária, perdendo, portanto, a sua unidade ontológica e reificadora. O desaparecimento da noção arquetípica de casa, ainda segundo Diaz-Zambrana, ocorre nas narrativas contemporâneas por meio da implosão simbólica do eu, que sucumbe na crise de confrontação com o outro. Entretanto, apesar da fragilização do eu provocada pela perda da segurança, estes viajantes nômades continuam o seu périplo acidentado. Eles são configurados como personagens imigrantes, fugitivos, vagabundos, enfim, seres melancólicos que experimentam a distopia do mundo contemporâneo. (Diaz-Zambrana, 154).

No universo ficcional configurado por Viagem ao México e Berkeley em Bellagio, o deslocamento subjetivo desafia os limites das noções de identidade cultural até então constituídas para a existência dos personagens. Nesse sentido, a relação com o outro, descoberto no deslocamento, gera transformações, que segundo Julia Kristeva, em Strangers to ouservels (1991), produz angústia e resistência, porque força o sujeito a encarar sua própria condição de estrangeiro no espaço da linguagem que constitui o seu senso de identidade. Este predomínio de um percurso em busca de liberdade e novas formas de expressão que caracteriza o intinerário dos personagens dos romances discutidos constitui um modelo narrativo não teleológico, que não determina um fim pré-determinado para tal deslocamento. A pulsão que mobiliza tais personagens se revela pela vontade de aventura e pela esperança de constituição de uma rota cultural alternativa, desestereotipada e menos autoritária, na qual se possa compartilhar com outros  – vagabundos leitores – os percalços desse caminho sem garantias que é o encontro com a diferença e com a própria literatura.

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Après son succès  à Beijing, Mao Zedong a vu dans le Tibet une région stratégique pour la Chine à la fois sur le plan politique et économique. En 1950, il a donné l’ordre à l’armée de la libération populaire d’« entrer par la force militaire au Tibet进军西藏 ». A la différence des explorateurs européens du continent africain ou des conquistadors de l’Amérique latine, les masses de colons chinois  pénétrèrent sur le territoire tibétain dans un but politique précis: intégrer le Tibet au sein de la grande famille chinoise ; tel était le pari de Mao Zedong.

Le pays de neige apparaît très lointain et mystérieux dans la présentation historique qu’en donnent les Chinois. Le mariage de deux princesses chinoises avec des princes tibétains en 640 et en 710 a donné naissance à un légender[2] empreint de mélancolie et de tristesse. On y cite les noms des montagnes et des rivières croisées par les deux  héroïnes chinoises sur la route du mariage, soulignant ainsi la longue distance semée d’embûches qui sépare la Chine du Tibet. Pays fort grand[3] et difficile d’accès, le Tibet a très justement été baptisé le « toit du monde »[4]. Comme l’écrit le géographe chinois Xu Huaxin, la peur n’épargne personne dans cette géographie, car les oiseaux eux-mêmes ne peuvent en volant traverser les montagnes[5]. En réalité, avant 1950, le peuple chinois manque de véritables connaissances sur le Tibet, ainsi que sur l’Histoire de la relation entre la Chine et le Tibet.  Ce n’est qu’à partir de 1950 que le peuple chinois commence à croire, à cause de la propagande gouvernementale, qu’il faudrait faire évoluer le système politique tibétain, que le Tibet constituerait une partie sous-développée de la Chine, et, que le peuple chinois exercerait sur les Tibétains misérables un pouvoir libérateur.

Afin de réaliser son projet d’immigration chinoise au Tibet, Mao Zedong  fit construire deux routes menant au Tibet: l’une partant de la province chinoise du Sichuan au sud-ouest de la Chine, l’autre du nord-ouest. Un seul ordre : surmonter toutes les difficultés, quel que soit le risque physique ou matériel. Durant quatre années, des milliers de soldats et de techniciens chinois, ainsi que les prisonniers de guerre, qui ne sont pas habitués à vivre en haute altitude, mais aussi des paysans tibétains s’attellent sans relâche à une tâche titanesque : 430 ponts sont construits, 3781 tunnels percés et ouverts dans 14 montagnes au-dessus de 4000 mètres. Enfin, en 1954, une route de 2416 kilomètres de long  relie la province du Sichuan au Tibet, tandis que, parallèlement, 2122 kilomètres carrossables conduisent désormais de la province du Qinghai à Lhassa. Selon les ouï-dire, chaque kilomètre de route avait été tracé au prix d’une vie humaine[6]. Dès lors, le Tibet entre dans une période de son histoire « particulièrement sombre »[7].

Face à ces obstacles géographiques, Mao Zedong avait besoin de convaincre le peuple chinois du bien-fondé du projet colonisateur afin d’obtenir le soutien moral et matériel nécessaire à la conquête du monde tibétain. Alors que des milliers de soldats chinois sacrifiaient chaque jour leur vie à son ambition, l’encouragement psychologique était d’une nécessité capitale. La propagande avait donc pour tâche d’éduquer le peuple sur le Tibet et d’inciter son héroïsme révolutionnaire. .

 Entrée et installation dans le Monde tibétain

I. L’apologie de l’héroïsme révolutionnaire en poésie

L’héroïsme est la caution par excellence de la colonisation. Mais l’héroïsme loué par la littérature chinoise coloniale au Tibet au début des années cinquante du siècle dernier n’est pas celui de Daniel Defoë ou de Joseph Conrad. C’est avant tout un outil de propagande pour asseoir une autorité et un moyen de cultiver massivement le sentiment identitaire sous le sceau de la Révolution.  Le PCC (Parti Communiste Chinois) au pouvoir avait besoin de convaincre le peuple chinois qu’il s’engageait dans une bataille plus ardue encore que la Longue Marche, la Guerre sino-japonaise ou le combat contre le Guomindang (l’ennemi de Mao), une bataille plus difficile encore que la guerre de la Corée du Nord contre les Américains. La mort de milliers de soldats et la destruction d’une civilisation avec laquelle, depuis des siècles, la Chine avait rarement entretenu des relations de voisinage ne pouvaient se justifier que par l’idéal politique, lequel venait d’ailleurs de permettre au PCC d’unifier la Chine tout entière. L’héroïsme révolutionnaire  était d’ailleurs mobilisé pour la première fois durant la Longue Marche, entre octobre 1934 et octobre 1935, sous le commandement de Mao Zedong, lorsque les trente mille soldats de l’Armée rouge traversaient à pied les vingt-cinq mille kilomètres des onze régions chinoises, endurant d’innombrables épreuves afin d’échapper à l’ennemi lancé à leur poursuite. Le Grand Timonier composa alors de nombreux poèmes qui exaltaient le courage des soldats et les incitaient à franchir les obstacles les plus insurmontables. Toute l’adresse du poète consistait à métamorphoser sur un mode romantique les difficultés rencontrées : les hautes chaînes montagneuses se transformaient en fines vaguelettes de la rivière, les pics élevés devenaient de petites mottes de terre[8]. Le masque des métaphores venait à bout de tous les dangers et cette culture de fanatisme idéologique devint une arme puissante pour faire avancer l’armée en marche vers le Tibet. Le PCC tira gloire de cette réussite à peu de frais : « manger du millet et tirer avec le vieux fusil » suffisait « pour conquérir le Monde »[9]. L’héroïsme révolutionnaire à lui seul renversait les montagnes et menait le soldat jusqu’à l’oubli de sa souffrance sous les ordres de Mao Zedong.

L’héroïsme révolutionnaire chinois fait éclore des poèmes de forme libre ayant recours à la langue du peuple. Ils constituent à eux seuls l’essentiel de la littérature chinoise des débuts de la Chine communiste à partir de 1949 : ce sont des outils de propagande idéologique qui faisaient l’éloge de Mao Zedong et du PCC, un critère esthétique et édifiant au service de l’éducation du peuple de la Nouvelle Chine : que chaque lecteur soit fier de vivre sous le nouveau régime[10]. Lors de l’entrée au Tibet, ce type de poème sert également de support médiatique ; d’une part, il encourage l’héroïsme des soldats, d’autre part, il influence l’ensemble de la population chinoise dont il sollicite la confiance et le soutien. C’est pourquoi le poème du jeune officier Gao Ping a été diffusé dans toute la nation dès sa première publication en 1952. « Percer la Montagne de  moineau » devint l’un des poèmes les plus cités dans le pays et fait partie des plus connus dans le répertoire contemporain du PCC. Après sa première édition à Beijing dans le numéro 5 de a revue littéraire L’art de l’armée de la libération [11], organe du PCC, ce poème a été immédiatement rediffusé dans de nombreuses autres revues, puis transformé en chanson populaire. C’est l’emblème glorieux de l’héroïsme des Chinois lancés à la conquête du Nouveau Monde tibétain.

Gao Ping n’avait que vingt ans lorsqu’il participa à la construction de la route vers le Tibet. Inspirées par l’héroïsme révolutionnaire, les trente-deux strophes de son poème en vers libres proposent l’image d’un Tibet qui refuse de se laisser pénétrer, telle cette « montagne du Moineau/ depuis des lustres inhabitable/ dont les oiseaux mêmes ne peuvent atteindre le sommet», car  « Il neige sans cesse des années durant/ le sol gèle jusqu’à trois mètres de profondeur/ les rochers se mettent en travers du chemin ». Ainsi, les lecteurs chinois découvrent l’hostilité d’une nature avec laquelle leurs soldats doivent quotidiennement composer. Le poète réussit à communiquer la force héroïque des soldats au service de la Révolution et à faire partager leur détermination à conquérir non seulement le Tibet, mais aussi la nature elle-même. Car la réalité de la colonisation commence par l’aventure périlleuse d’une route qui dompte le paysage en le faisant plier sous la volonté de l’homme : « Construire la route de Chine au Tibet/ c’est une étape-clé/ l’armée de libération populaire/ veut absolument trouer la montagne/ la montagne du Moineau est très haute / moins haute que notre esprit/ les pierres sont très dures / moins dures que notre volonté »[12].

Les autorités encouragent la composition de tels poèmes écrits à la gloire des héros de la conquête du Tibet. Yang Xinghuo est une jeune diplômée en chimie ; à vingt-six ans, elle abandonne ses activités scientifiques pour se consacrer au panégyrique de la sinisation du Tibet. Bientôt une poète militaire célèbre en Chine, elle est toute dévouée à la propagande colonisatrice, et ses strophes brillent comme des enseignes idéologiques : « grimpe n’importe quelle montagne/ tu es soutenu par l’esprit du parti/ traverse n’importe quelle rivière/ n’est-ce pas? » Yang Xoinghuo exploita toutes les formes littéraires pour servir la sinisation du Tibet : elle publia aussi des nouvelles, des ouvrages en prose, une pièce d’opéra et un scénario, et elle composa des paroles de chansons. La Chine, le PCC, l’idéologie, la fierté de parti, la patrie, la nation et le haut plateau sont autant de leitmotivs récurrents d’une œuvre à l’autre. Yang Xinghuo exalte la fierté collective d’être le maître d’un pays occupé où la terre est désormais apprivoisée : « la rue de Lhassa couverte de goudron/ L’avenue de lumière/ j’y marche/ écarte mes bras/ si fière ! / La rue de Lhassa couverte de goudron/ L’avenue de lumière / j’y marche/ songe au temps de l’entrée au Tibet/ le petit sentier caché dans la tempête de neige ! ».

Ce n’est d’ailleurs pas une coïncidence si le « je» lyrique chez Yang Xoinghuo ressemble au promeneur solitaire de la poésie romantique, bien qu’il exprime également la nostalgie et la distanciation typiques plutôt de l’époque victorienne. Selon Erik Erikson, l’identité se conçoit chez l’individu comme un sentiment d’harmonie, le « sentiment subjectif et tonique d’une unité personnelle et d’une continuité temporelle » au sein de la société. Il est d’abord et avant tout question d’inspirer le sentiment héroïque de l’identité chinoise révolutionnaire. En effet, les analyses nuancées d’Elleke Boehmer révèlent les similitudes entre l’époque de conquête chinoise du Tibet et la période victorienne en Angleterre, quand, à la fin du dix-neuvième siècle, le peuple britannique, s’intéressant davantage aux conquêtes territoriales de l’impérialisme anglais, avait soif de partager la gloire des colons. La poésie, la chanson et toutes les formes de jeux linguistiques qui portent  les rêves de l’impérialisme[13] se mettent alors à satisfaire le besoin d’admirer les héros au sens fort du terme. À l’époque où les Chinois cherchaient à entrer au Tibet, que les médias chinois nomment la période de « l’avancement forcé »,[14] un service collectait les comptines composées par les soldats sur le lieu du chantier, puis les diffusait pour fabriquer de nouveaux  héros,  les jeunes Chinois recrutés au bord de la route menant au Tibet. La poésie occupe une place de choix dans la littérature chinoise à cette époque où l’on assiste à l’efflorescence de tout un corpus propagandiste[15].

 2) L’implantation douloureuse en terre tibétaine dans le récit     

Viser la campagne pour révolutionner le pays était également la stratégie militaire de Mao Zedong pour conquérir la Chine à dominante paysanne. D’une part, la majorité de la population se trouve à la campagne ; d’autre part, c’est la terre qui fournit les ressources de survie. Dès leur installation sur place, les soldats chinois avaient comme objectif une « mission civilisatrice » qui consistait non seulement d’un devoir militaire, mais aussi d’un devoir agricole, celui de faire exploiter les terres cultivables par les paysans tibétains. A partir du moment où s’entame cette nouvelle étape de sinisation, la forme poétique attire moins l’inspiration des colons.

Sous l’égide de Beijing, la littérature coloniale changea d’objectif : l’éloge de l’héroïsme révolutionnaire est remplacé par la volonté de défaire le système politique ancestral par la transformation de la mentalité des Tibétains à l’intérieur du pays.  La forme poétique, qui est, de par sa nature même, lyrique ou épique, s’avéra être peu adaptée à l’argumentation que requiert un tel objectif. Le roman du pouvoir et le roman du devoir y suppléeront. Très tôt, les colons chinois empruntent l’écriture romanesque réaliste qui est caractéristique des littératures coloniales. Jean-Marie Seillan distingue globalement quatre sortes de roman dans la littérature coloniale[16] que l’on retrouve également dans la littérature coloniale chinoise: le roman du pouvoir, le roman du devoir, le roman du savoir et le roman de l’avoir. Apparaissent surtout chez les écrivains colons de la première génération ces deux premières catégories où il est question de s’imposer et de s’enraciner en territoire tibétain.

Le premier roman colonial chinois au Tibet s’intitule Nous semons l’amour[17]. Ecrit par un officier de vingt-six ans au Tibet, Xu Huaizhong, la fiction traite de l’actualité vécue par les colons chinois qui s’y implantent. Unissant trois protagonistes, tous des colons chinois, l’intrigue amoureuse se déroule dans un service du développement technologique agricole à la campagne tibétaine. L’introduction dans le récit  du représentant du PCC local, un personnage important, a lieu le 1er octobre, date de la commémoration de la naissance de la République Populaire de Chine décrétée par Mao Zedong en 1949. Lors de ce jour de fête nationale, le représentant du PCC, qui est le directeur chinois du district nommé par le gouvernement à Beijing, inaugure auprès des paysans l’usage d’outils chinois pour labourer la terre. La démonstration symbolise bien sûr la prise de possession de la terre tibétaine, en même temps qu’elle signale la construction d’une nouvelle puissance politique chinoise. De sa propre main, le représentant du PCC sème des graines sur un lot de terre vierge. Planter des graines chinoises dans la terre tibétaine, utiliser les outils chinois sur la terre tibétaine, cela signifie l’implantation dans le pays au sens propre comme au sens figuré.

Le premier amour semé dans le roman est celui que le directeur chinois, qui incarne l’ordre politique du PCC, porte à sa fille ainsi qu’à tous les habitants de son district, à l’égard de qui il fait preuve d’une attachement paternaliste. Notamment, il demande à sa fille de travailler d’abord comme observatrice de météo, puis comme infirmière et, enfin, comme institutrice dans une école pour enseigner le chinois aux enfants tibétains. Aussi met-il son amour paternel au service de la sinisation du Tibet. Le second amour semé dans le roman est celui éprouvé par une spécialiste chinoise du pâturage, dont l’objectif est de changer radicalement le mode d’alpage tibétain. Se prenant pour la maîtresse des lieux, la Chinoise demande aux bergers de quitter leur vie nomade pour se sédentariser dans le bourg. Face à ce personnage de jeune intellectuelle chinoise, l’auteur crée la figure du nouveau travailleur en campant dans le service Lei, un jeune technicien chinois. Malgré qu’il n’ait pas étudié à l’université, celui-ci s’applique à la recherche d’une nouvelle sorte de blé convenable à la géographie du Tibet, et ses découvertes permettront d’obtenir une belle récolte. L’amour de l’intellectuelle et celui du technicien se conjuguent donc pour faciliter simultanément le contrôle des habitants et la culture de la terre.

Voilà trois personnalités, trois sortes d’amour soi-disant bienfaiteur, formant les trois composants que la grande nation chinoise apporte à la nouvelle société coloniale du Tibet. Le référent colonial, qu’il se rapporte à une expérience directe de l’auteur ou à celle de ses lecteurs, fait appel à une mythologie–au sens barthien du terme–des revendications essentialistes, greffée sur une idéologie selon laquelle un peuple supérieur en intelligence et en innovation saurait réinventer une culture déjà vieille de plusieurs siècles[18]. La réussite de la fabrication du mythe politique consiste à conquérir  la confiance des lecteurs chinois qui croient désormais en la force de la pensée de Mao.

En dénonçant  la cupidité et la cruauté des colonisateurs, Elleke Boehmer indique qu’au début de l’installation coloniale, la véritable nature de cette entreprise politique et économique se cachait derrière des actions de charité auprès des indigènes[19]. De même, au Tibet, le PCC s’érigea en sauveur du peuple autochtone: pour cela, il substitua à la notion traditionnelle de la souffrance, sa propre conception idéologique de l’héroïsme. En 1956, pénétrant les campagnes tibétaines par la force militaire, les Chinois entreprennent une réforme agraire de grande ampleur, qui sape les fondements de la société tibétaine traditionnelle.  Historiquement, ce n’était pas la première fois qu’une armée étrangère arrive sur le territoire tibétain, mais aucune n’avait jamais pu y demeurer. Parvenue enfin à Lhassa après avoir sacrifié des milliers de vies chinoises, l’armée du PCC ne voulait pas revivre l’expérience de ses précurseurs. La possession prolongée du Tibet nécessitait encore une nouvelle forme d’héroïsme pour s’y implanter durablement.

En créant dans ses nouvelles galeries de jeunes Tibétaines révolutionnaires, très jolies, mais très pauvres, l’officier chinois Liu Ke[20] s’apitoie sur le destin des paysannes. Selon la vision qu’en donne le PCC, ces femmes—, soit abandonnées par leur mari, soit violées par les riches propriétaires—, souffrent de conditions de vie provoquées par le système colonial sans avoir conscience de l’origine de leurs malheurs. Elles s’y résignent parce que la religion tibétaine traditionnelle enseigne aux croyants que la vie n’est que souffrance. Sous la plume de Liu Ke, des Tibétaines prennent en main leur destin en devenant membres du PCC. Grâce aux bons soins des communistes chinois, certains protagonistes féminins choisissent d’émigrer vers une ville chinoise, promesse d’une vie meilleure. Prenons le cas de Yang Jin : au début, c’est une fillette joueuse et pleine de vivacité. Soudain, à l’âge de cinq ans, Yang Jin perd son père qui part en abandonnant sa famille, qu’il laisse désormais sans nouvelles. La mère, belle et fragile, est obligée de travailler pour survivre. Violée par un riche méchant, elle meurt et l’orpheline devient une esclave. Mais habitée par l’espoir de retrouver son père, Yang Jin demande aux Chinois de l’aider. En contrepoint de cette intrigue, la description du visage de l’héroïne est lourde de sens. D’abord sale et laid, il devient progressivement beau et radieux au fur et à mesure que Yang Lin échappe à sa triste condition. Enfin, métamorphosée par la joie, l’héroïne part étudier en Chine puis revient au Tibet comme fonctionnaire : son visage rayonne alors de bonheur.

Le cruel processus dont les protagonistes féminins de Liu Ke sont victimes se déroule sur le même arrière-plan politique que celui où se trouvent les Tibétaines de Yang Jin. Les critiques littéraires à la solde du PCC approuvent : « nous sommes contents de voir que le peuple tibétain peut désormais vivre heureux dans la nouvelle Chine » affirma l’un de ses dirigeants en 1962[21]. Il s’agit sans doute aucun de récits au service du pouvoir et du devoir.  

Le passage de l’identité héroïque à l’identité personnelle souffrante

Dans les années soixante-dix, trois paysages littéraires coexistent au Tibet : la littérature tibétaine d’expression chinoise de la première génération, celle de la seconde génération en pleine éclosion et la littérature coloniale chinoise. Ces trois littératures manifestent chacune un vif intérêt à décrire la complexité du monde tibétain. Dans un climat de liberté d’expression relative, ces trois visages de la littérature s’influencent et s’attachent à satisfaire la curiosité des lecteurs, principalement des Chinois. Cependant, c’est la littérature chinoise coloniale qui a la prééminence. A la fin du XXe siècle, elle regroupe deux catégories d’auteurs dont la première comprend d’anciens colons arrivés au Tibet au début de la colonisation ; ayant participé à la destruction de l’ancien Tibet, ils sont profondément attachés au Nouveau Monde qu’ils construisent. La deuxième catégorie se constitue par contre de la deuxième génération des écrivains colons chinois, majoritairement de jeunes diplômés de l’université. Contrairement à leurs aînés, ils sont plus sensibles à la liberté de penser et de vivre. Ils sont attirés par les paysages et le mode de vie au Tibet. L’usage qu’ils font de la première personne du singulier favorise l’expression de sentiments individuels. Ils ont plus de difficulté dans le contact avec les Tibétains, car ils ne sont pas comme leur aînés les constructeurs du Tibet sinisé, mais plutôt des consommateurs du travail accompli, il leur manque le sentiment de sacrifice et ils ne partagent pas le traumatisme de voir des milliers de morts sur la route entre la Chine et le Tibet.

 1) L’expression du mal-être personnel 

Les colons chinois de la seconde génération vivent une période de changement. La disparition de Mao en 1976 a été décisive pour la renaissance de la littérature chinoise[22]. Parallèlement, la Chine est de plus en plus traversée par divers courants de pensée occidentale ; ceux-ci sillonnent davantage les œuvres littéraires qui sont autant de sources de réflexion et d’inspiration pour les Chinois. En découvrant le Tibet, beaucoup se rendent compte que la réalité ne correspond pas aux informations officielles. Loin de la modernisation, les conditions de travail et d’existence sont rudes. Cependant, avec l’appui du gouvernement colonial local, ces représentants d’une autre culture extérieure[23] fondent la deuxième génération de la littérature coloniale au Tibet. Elle choisit d’exprimer les sentiments personnels et là réside sa grande différence avec la génération précédente. C’est alors la déception qui domine, le sentiment d’exil, la pénibilité de la vie quotidienne, la difficulté de s’acclimater à ce pays de haute altitude… la souffrance individuelle devient ainsi le thème majeur traité par cette deuxième génération de colons. Le « je » colonisateur est en effet accablé de mélancolie, de tristesse et d’angoisse.

Alors qu’à la même époque, la littérature en Chine dénonce les souffrances vécues durant la Révolution culturelle, les auteurs colons au Tibet privilégient le poème lyrique jusqu’à la fin des années quatre-vingt. En 1983, la revue officielle Littérature tibétaine en chinois crée la rubrique « Poème de la Neige sauvage » pour publier un grand nombre de leurs productions.

A l’instar de la génération précédente, les nouveaux poètes suivent les ordres du Parti si l’on en croit la force d’autorité qui émane de cette métaphore solaire[24]:

• Le soleil dit: je t’appelle
• Ta première réponse est sans motivation
• Quand tu entends le mot(Tibet), la force revient
• Le soleil t’encourage
• tu peux devenir un très bon coureur
• Le soleil te dit : tu peux être un très bon acteur et un très bon cheval
• Le soleil te dit, va de l’avant. 

Malgré le contexte politique et la diversité des régions dont ils sont originaires, les poètes souffrent unanimement du mal du pays, et s’interrogent sur la réalité d’une sinisation efficace car, au bout de trente ans de présence chinoise, le Tibet ne s’est guère modernisé. Alors, le poète Zang Qing exprime avec désespoir son aspiration à la vie moderne: « Mon cœur ne veut plus continuer ce vieux rêve trouble/ Je veux être un sifflet éclatant et faire de mon cœur un pont reliant le passé et l’avenir »[25].

Le poète reconnaît que la ténacité de la vie tibétaine quotidienne le séduit. Cependant, l’attrait est moins fort que l’espoir d’atteindre les objectifs communistes, puisque « De l’autre côté de la montagne enneigée, se construit déjà un monde merveilleux qui fait rêver et amasser du bonheur »[26]. Séduit par ce monde, le poète demande au crépuscule de faire s’envoler les bergers vers la mère patrie: « Sorti de la mémoire chagrine, l’espoir s’envole d’un battement d’ailes »[27].

Les souffrances endurées quotidiennement par les Tibétains mettent Zang Qing particulièrement mal à l’aise. Même s’il soutient le PCC au pouvoir au Tibet depuis 1951, il appelle à une amélioration plus nette des conditions de vie du peuple tibétain. Bien que Zang Qing demeure, dans le fond, l’un de ces jeunes diplômés chinois ne sachant pas réaliser le socialisme dans les campagnes tibétaines, il déplore cette situation dans le recueil intitulé La rivière noire[28]. Selon la critique de Liu Zhihua[29], cette série de poèmes est représentative de l’angoisse de toute sa génération. Dans ses soupirs exprimés sous forme interrogative, le poète montre qu’il est enfermé dans une spirale sans issue : le mythe que les Chinois ont tenté de créer au Tibet n’est plus crédible ; il faut édifier un nouveau mythe, souhait intense mais peut-être vain. En mettant l’accent sur le passé du Tibet, Zang Qing donne l’impression de plonger son âme dans les errances de l’isolement.

Nombreux sont les auteurs chinois qui, comme Zang Qing, souffrent de se perdre dans la steppe[30]. La couleur noire évoqué dans le titre de ce recueil rappelle un passé lourd d’obscurantisme. Dans le présent, aussi, malgré les multiples couleurs des drapeaux de prière, le progrès n’apparaît pas. Dans les cinq parties du recueil, intitulées la légende, la géographie, la sensation, la vallée et le lyrisme, certaines strophes se présentent comme des flammes brûlantes. Le poète n’a pas le droit de reculer dans son engagement politique, mais la poésie met du baume à son amertume, elle se présente comme étant l’unique moyen de se consoler. C’est pourquoi, dans le dernier texte, le poète emporte son secret : il continuera à avancer et laissera l’eau de la « rivière noire » noyer son cœur. Ayant déjà senti dans l’eau la pourriture et l’angoisse mortifère, il accepte cette fatalité. Alors, avec l’ironie amère des désillusions, il conclut sa série de poèmes en s’accordant un visa tibétain de soixante-sept ans.

Par contre, les poèmes de Ma Lihua démontrent la supériorité de grand Han, les Chinois, qui, venant de l’extérieur, défient dans la solitude l’immensité de la Nature[31]. « Du bout de cette route jusqu’à l’autre bout, avance à l’appel de l’époque, couvert des traces de l’époque/ je suis jeune, pur et plein de vie/ sans souci, sans crainte, ignorant, naïf/ nous avançons vers le plateau tibétain laissant nos chansons joyeuses…/ le vent emporte nos âmes vers nos pays natals » [32]. De façon plus intime et plus poignante, les poèmes militaires de Yang Xianmin mêlent la force de l’héroïsme à la nostalgie de l’exilé : «Je veux utiliser la pointe de mon fusil pour enlever un bout de l’arc-en-ciel/ je suis certain qu’un jour, il reliera mon pays natal et le pays étranger…Un vent violent efface la couleur fraîche de mon nouvel uniforme / ah! Où est la plus douceur de mon pays natal? »[33] De plus, empruntant l’image d’une déesse, les strophes de Yu Si révèlent le conflit entre la souffrance du mal de pays et l’identité militaire au Tibet : « elle est enfermée dans par les montagnes/ qui peut l’apporter pour le pays? /lointain, qui ente sa voix? /mourir en souriant pour la gloire de notre époque » [34]. Le poète de la première génération Gao Pin rejoint le sentiment de ses cadets comme l’indique l’un de ses vers écrits en 1988 : « Le Tibet est le synonyme de la souffrance »[35].

a) Le mal du pays

Cela dit, les jeunes colons chinois ont également recours à la prose pour exprimer leurs sentiments. Une sorte de nouvelle-reportage commence à paraître, offrant un paysage narratif très varié et personnalisé[36].

Le court roman de Sun Dannian, une Chinoise immigrée au Tibet, porte un titre emblématique de la thématique qui le parcourt : Maladie de nostalgie du pays natal. La souffrance de l’exilée est exprimée sans ambages, dès son entrée dans la chambre rustique qui lui était imposée à Lhassa. La description du décor laisse deviner que la narratrice ne désire guère se tarder en ce lieu pauvre, sombre, monotone, perdu, triste et rustique. Dès la première page, le lecteur s’interroge sur les raisons qui ont poussé la narratrice à accepter la proposition du gouvernement de rester cinq ans, huit ans, voire plus au Tibet. Depuis deux ans déjà, elle s’y est installée et n’a pas vu le temps passer. Elle se trouve dans un état de confusion, la vie n’a concrètement pour elle aucun sens. De toute manière, n’est-elle pas emportée comme une feuille au gré du vent ?   Elle demeure apatride et n’a trouvé aucun endroit où s’enraciner. La souffrance singulière qu’évoque la narratrice a pour origine la quête d’un lieu où se poser de manière définitive. Le « je » narratif manifeste un sentiment finalement aux antipodes de l’héroïsme. L’arrivée au Tibet ne chante plus la gloire du PCC mais pleure la souffrance de l’individu perdu.

De même, l’œuvre de Li Yaping révèle une souffrance directement liée à l’idéologie de la sinisation en racontant la tragédie d’une héroïne chinoise, Jiang Ying, au Tibet.[37] Diplômée en médecine, Jiang Ying s’installe en 1953 avec son mari dans l’ouest du Tibet, où tous les deux travaillent à l’hôpital. L’auteur décrit d’abord la souffrance d’une mère qui doit élever ses trois enfants en se contentant de les voir une fois tous les deux ans. Le cas de Jiang Ying est généralisé chez les colons chinois installés au Tibet : ils souffrent d’être séparés de leurs enfants éduqués en Chine. Le sujet relève d’une préoccupation collective mais, rarement traité dans la littérature chinoise au Tibet, il semble tabou. La souffrance de Jian Ying en tant que mère se double d’ailleurs de la douleur d’une épouse : au cours de la Révolution culturelle, son mari, un pédiatre brillant, calomnié par ses propres collègues de travail, a fini par se jeter dans un puits. Il est interdit à Jiang Ying de protester ni de montrer son chagrin, ni même de revoir, pendant trois ans, ses enfants restés au pays natal. Avec une ironie acerbe, l’auteur raconte les efforts de la malheureuse pour devenir membre du PCC ; depuis 1956, elle travaille d’arrache-pied pour en être digne ; et pourtant, elle devra attendre vingt-sept ans pour être enfin acceptée, juste avant de mourir. Le véritable objectif de ce « reportage » littéraire est donc de rendre hommage aux nombreux colons chinois au Tibet qui ont sacrifié leur vie à l’application scrupuleuse de l’idéologie de la sinisation.

Le triste sort de Jiang Ying invite aussi tous les colons chinois vivant au Tibet à méditer leur propre destin. La nouvelle « Apparition de la lune »[38] explique la souffrance des amoureux éloignés l’un de l’autre, comme celle d’une paysanne chinoise et d’un militaire qui perdra la vie en faisant son service au Tibet. Le roman Raison pour le Tibet publié en 1998[39] aborde bien ces mêmes difficultés émotionnelles en racontant le service de quatre diplômés d’université qui ont signé un contrat de huit ans. Les raisons de leur souffrance sont multiples : l’éloignement familial, une santé qui se dégrade, la crainte de décevoir le gouvernement si le contrat n’est pas respecté. A la lecture de leur quotidien, on en conclut que la vie des Chinois au Tibet n’est que peine perdue car les personnages du roman sont obligés de sacrifier leur jeunesse à l’idéologie : le Tibet est un paradis pour les touristes, mais l’enfer pour les Chinois immigrés[40]. Comment se situer quand on est une immigrée comme Li Die ? Lorsqu’elle est en vacances au pays natal, elle perd ses points de repère ; au Tibet, elle ne sent pas chez elle ; où donc demeurer ? Quelle est sa véritable identité ? Les doutes l’assaillent à la rendre malade. La question de l’identité se pose chaque jour et la Chinoise du Tibet est impuissante à maîtriser la situation.

Le manque d’amour

Vivre au Tibet, c’est vivre sans amour pour la plupart des Chinois immigrés selon les textes littéraires de cette époque, où la souffrance de ne pas pouvoir aimer ou de ne pas pouvoir être aimé est un thème fréquent. La nouvelle intitulée « Bise du pays de neige »[41] évoque cette carence chez les jeunes soldats, isolés par des milliers de kilomètres qui les séparent de leurs proches, coincés dans les hautes montagnes enneigées. La visite d’une stagiaire dans une poste à la frontière vient troubler ces militaires qui n’ont pas vu de femme depuis au moins deux ans. Durant les trois jours qu’elle passe parmi eux, la jeune ne leur pose qu’une seule question qui pique le cœur de chaque soldat comme une aiguille : As-tu une amoureuse ? Le jour de son départ, la jeune stagiaire donne un bisou à chaque soldat, ersatz dérisoire face à un manque d’amour cruel.

Plus près de nous, et selon une appréhension toute tchekhovienne du manque d’amour, la nouvelle « Sentiment prouvé »[42], publiée en 2004, montre que le besoin d’amour va parfois jusqu’à mettre le protagoniste dans un état psychologiquement anormal. Guo Min, diplômé de l’université, se porte volontaire pour investir sa jeunesse et sa compétence dans l’exploitation de la plus grande mine de bronze au Tibet. Il s’installe donc dans la ville de Chang, où il ne craint ni le manque des légumes frais et de dentifrice, ni l’éloignement de sa famille. A l’université, il collectionnait les conquêtes féminines et ce séducteur ne peut imaginer travailler dans un endroit où il n’y aurait pas de femmes chinoises. Sur la route de l’exil, il rencontre une Chinoise Tian Xin, sa future collègue dans la mine. Comme elle est la seule Chinoise à sa disposition, Guo Min séduit immédiatement Tian Xin qui se sent fière et heureuse, car durant les quatre années qu’elle a passées à l’université, aucun garçon ne s’est intéressé à son physique disgracieux. Rapidement, Guo Min tombe malade et Tian Xin passe ses nuits à jouer aux cartes avec les hommes. Tous les jours à 21h15, Guo Min attend le retour de Tian Xin. En vain. Quelques mois plus tard, Guo Min est sans nouvelle de Tian Xin qui vit déjà avec un autre homme. Guo Min attend toujours le regard fixé au plafond de sa chambre rustique qu’il se met soudain à aimer. Un jour, un collègue lui téléphone et lui annonce, tout ému de la nouvelle, que les dirigeants ont décidé de faire venir une vingtaine de jeunes Chinoises diplômées à la mine, mais Guo Min a déjà perdu le goût de vivre; il meurt en regardant le plafond de sa chambre solitaire du Tibet.

La nouvelle identité: l’aventurier et le chasseur de trésors

Les parents éloignés de leurs enfants et le célibataire en mal d’amour ne sont pourtant pas les seules figures à exposer les difficultés rencontrées par les colons chinois au Tibet. Dès 1988, dans la nouvelle « Toile sans peinture »[43], où Liu Wei met en scène un groupe de personnages, il s’agit encore de jeunes diplômés chinois vivant à Lhassa, mais ceux-ci y sont attirés par le goût de la découverte personnelle. La ville est un théâtre où les personnages vivent à leur manière, décalés. Xinye, le personnage central, un peintre chinois, vit à la mode occidentale. Comme ses amis, il est attiré par l’exotisme tibétain : objets divers, ancienne monnaie, sculptures en argile, et il s’intéresse tout particulièrement, comme eux, aux squelettes tibétains utilisés pour les rites funéraires. Chaque rencontre entre Xinye et ses amis est l’occasion de comparer leurs collections. Avec fierté et un certain sens de l’aventure, ils racontent chacun à leur tour comment ils ont déniché leurs trésors.

L’auteur introduit alors dans l’histoire des Tibétains opposés à la modernisation afin de montrer à quel point ils sont aujourd’hui sinisés. Il y a d’abord la Tibétaine primitive dont Xinye fait sa petite amie. Puis, un jeune Tibétain Jia Cuo à qui Xinye apprend la peinture. Leur relation est celle nouée entre un maître et son élève. Mais il existe une incompatibilité entre les personnages. Jia Cuo apparaît encore plus « rustique » que la petite amie de Xinye, comme le montre la scène où Jia Cuo fait l’amour en se trompant de partenaire. La nouvelle s’apparente à une fresque aux images crues et, pour les corser encore un peu plus, Liu Wei joue sur les registres sensoriels en associant des odeurs douteuses à l’évocation des paysages. Le comportement des deux « Tibétains » qu’il côtoie au quotidien met en évidence la souffrance de Xinye ; elle est certes atténuée par sa passion pour les objets singuliers, mais les colons chinois ne sont-ils pas présentés comme écartelés entre l’envie de posséder toutes les richesses du Tibet et les ravages psychologiques d’un séjour prolongé dans un pays où ils ont du mal à s’adapter, dans lequel ils ressentent immanquablement les affres de l’exil ?

Le court roman Fureur[44] présente une autre manière de compenser la douleur de vivre loin de sa culture d’origine au Tibet. Le narrateur, un Chinois migrant sans diplôme qui raconte son histoire à la première personne, a pour seul objectif de s’enrichir matériellement en arrivant au Tibet. En deux années à peine, il tue un homme pour son argent, se cache dans le nord-ouest du pays, devient le chef de la mafia chinoise, ouvre une maison close et y fait venir des jeunes femmes chinoises—, même des diplômées de l’université—, et il réunit des délinquants chinois pour attaquer les convois et les touristes, après avoir pris soin de corrompre la police locale. Pour éviter les complications, il demande de ménager les autochtones. Les péripéties du récit guident le lecteur au cœur d’un Tibet troublé par des malfaiteurs chinois : on n’y trouve plus de relents de la propagande qui invite à construire un autre Tibet moderne.  

Le Tibet sous la plume des Chinois de Chine

Depuis l’installation du pouvoir du PCC au Tibet, le pays en neige est à la fois un sujet politique auquel  les instances du pouvoir doivent répondre et un sujet exotique pour les intellectuels n’ayant pas l’occasion d’y vivre. Traiter le sujet du Tibet et s’inspirer de ce lieu sont considérés comme étant des assurances de l’innovation tant au niveau du contenu qu’au niveau de la forme, et son traitement thématique répond bien à l’attente des dirigeants chinois. Voici l’exemple de trois  écrivains chinois célèbres : Zhang Xiaotian, Wang Meng et Su Yang ont chacun publié un court roman sur le Tibet sans véritablement y habiter.  Dans le roman de Zhang Xiaotian qui s’intitule Ouverture d’un document secret,[45] l’héroïne, Ge Yilan, est surnommée « la libératrice sexuelle ». Après une vie d’échecs successifs aux  U.S.A., cette Chinoise part pour le Tibet qu’elle considère comme l’endroit le plus pauvre du monde, un enfer aux antipodes du paradis américain. Elle devra y vivre pour expier l’une de ses fautes : avoir trompé son mari qui s’est plongé alors dans l’univers de la drogue. Souffrir parmi les Tibétains qui endurent eux-mêmes une vie rude depuis les temps les plus reculés lui apporte de l’apaisement, non sans orgueil. Car, si elle a échoué dans son rêve américain, elle atteint une espèce de rédemption en s’imposant une vie de souffrance au Tibet.

L’ancien ministre de la culture et de la propagande, Wang Meng, raconte une trajectoire inverse. En janvier 1985, il publie dans la revue officielle Littérature du peuple[46] son roman Vent du haut plateau. Inspiré par un voyage de quelques jours au Tibet, ce texte raconte les mésaventures d’un couple chinois. Issu d’une famille aisée, Long Long n’a aucun projet de métier : il passe son temps à rêver d’une vie moderne. Grâce à la richesse de son père, il ne manque pourtant de rien jusqu’à ce qu’il tombe amoureux de Xiao Li qui avait quitté la ville pour s’installer à la campagne pendant la Révolution Culturelle, répondant ainsi à l’appel de Mao Zedong encourageant tous les diplômés à être rééduqués par les paysans. Durant cette période, Xiao Li vivait selon les préceptes d’un fanatisme idéologique et avait donné naissance à un enfant hors mariage. Long Long s’éprend de cette femme de quatre ans son aînée dès leur première rencontre. Il décide de tout abandonner et de partir, avec Xiao Li, vivre parmi les Tibétains. Celle-ci souhaiterait plutôt s’installer aux U.S.A., mais avant d’y aller, elle veut bien vivre avec les Tibétains pour connaître l’expérience de l’extrême pauvreté, pour mieux goûter par la suite au paradis américain. Aller au Tibet est aussi une manière de suivre la politique du gouvernement et d’aider les pauvres Tibétains à sortir de leur souffrance. Le père de Long Long, haut fonctionnaire du gouvernement central, n’approuve pas la décision de son fils et considère qu’il se berce d’illusions, sinon de snobisme. L’influence de Wang Meng, à la fois homme de lettres et homme politique, a beaucoup contribué à la diffusion du thème tibétain.

Chez d’autres écrivains, le Tibet apparaît également comme un purgatoire. C’est en 1984 que Su Yang publie, dans le premier numéro de la revue littéraire officielle Le contemporain, son roman intitulé Le pays natal. Il y est question d’un jeune et brillant médecin nommé Bei Tianming. Sa femme, une amie d’enfance, est atteinte d’un cancer. A cause de sa maladie, elle a quitté les U.S.A. pour retourner dans son pays natal. Après une séparation d’une vingtaine d’années, Bei Tianming et la jeune femme font un mariage heureux. Malheureusement, le jeune homme se retrouve veuf. Vivre seul lui est une souffrance insupportable, mais il ne peut pas accepter l’amour d’une autre femme car, lorsqu’il postule pour être chef de service, les autres critiquent sa vie privée. Pour trouver une issue à cette situation, il décide alors d’aller au Tibet où il vivra dans le dénuement complet et s’infligera la souffrance physique de la pauvreté qui pourra peut-être apaiser sa souffrance morale. L’intérêt de cette histoire ne réside pas uniquement dans le destin du personnage, mais aussi dans la solution que l’auteur envisage pour lui. Su Yang présente le Tibet comme un bagne pour les Chinois, mais, n’y ayant jamais vécu, son roman ne propose qu’une échappatoire imaginaire pour ceux qui ne trouvent pas d’autre issue à leur vie dans leur pays d’origine.

Dans l’esprit de ces trois écrivains chinois contemporains, le Tibet constitue un endroit hostile. Ainsi, chaque fois qu’un personnage se trouve dans une situation inextricable, le Tibet, pays de haute altitude à l’oxygène raréfiée, devient un refuge infernal mais incontournable, d’autant plus qu’au-delà de la souffrance, il offre un dépaysement magnifique.

Xu Mingxu, critique littéraire chinois immigré au Tibet, dénonce chez ces trois écrivains un manque de respect à l’égard des intellectuels chinois qui vivent au Tibet—, ou encore à l’égard de tous les jeunes Chinois venus en ces lieux dans le but louable d’aider à la construction d’un pays moderne[47]. Xu Mingxu souligne par ailleurs les lacunes de ces textes d’écrivains qui connaissent mal la réalité de la vie au Tibet. Selon lui, les personnages dans leurs œuvres n’ont été créés que pour suivre la mode et  rejoindre les lecteurs. Il leur reproche de négliger la nouvelle génération intellectuelle chinoise vivant au Tibet qui, en lisant de telles fictions, n’y retrouvent que des ratés, des hommes en quête de refuge ou des utopistes. En fait, le propos de Mingxu sont provoqués par une réticence à être mis sur le même plan que les protagonistes de ces trois écrivains. Il se présente comme le porte-parole de tous les intellectuels chinois vivant au Tibet, et il indique clairement que ni lui ni ses confrères ne connaissent la souffrance et les difficultés auxquelles sont confrontés les personnages romanesques. Même s’il insiste aussi sur les rudes conditions de vie dans l’environnement tibétain, et s’il reconnaît que les Chinois vivant au Tibet souffrent au quotidien, il affirme que son départ pour le Tibet n’était pas motivé par des troubles personnels.

L’opinion de Xu Mingxu ne fait guère l’unanimité. Depuis les années 80, d’autres auteurs d’origine chinoise vivant au Tibet dénoncent la souffrance engendrée par l’idéologie héroïque et par les difficultés de vivre au Tibet. C’est le sujet principal de cette littérature, dite « littérature chinoise coloniale au Tibet ». Les auteurs s’attachent à décrire les coutumes et les paysages tibétains, mais, saisis par la peur de s’éloigner de la vie moderne, ils expriment aussi leur angoisse et leurs doutes. Ces jeunes Chinois immigrés au Tibet, ne peuvent renier leur devoir politique[48]. C’est alors que leurs œuvres deviennent une sorte d’exutoire, destiné à leur permettre de manifester leurs sentiments personnels et également à leur servir de réconfort où ils s’appuient sur l’interprétation idéologique du passé tibétain.

Conclusion

Née du but politique d’occuper une terre étrangère et difficilement domptée, et œuvrant au service de l’idéalisme colonial, la littérature chinoise coloniale au Tibet enregistre principalement la souffrance de la vie quotidienne et les difficultés psychologiques des colons chinois. Cependant, elle sert aussi comme un outil de révélation  du sentiment personnel opposant l’héroïsme fanatique du PCC, surtout sous la plume des écrivains de la seconde génération. Que le lecteur favorise la poésie ou la prose,  il ne peut s’empêcher de ressentir de la pitié pour les milliers des colons chinois ayant sacrifié leur vie à l’idéologie politique. Cette littérature finit par devenir en elle-même une ressource de survie : les auteurs chinois plus récents s’identifient étroitement donc à une écriture personnelle. Mais, somme toute, les aspects éthiquement douteux de la « mission civilisatrice » chinoise engendrent une souffrance qui finit également par humaniser ceux qui y participent.  Avec orgueil, les auteurs chinois recourent à la poésie, à l’écriture romanesque, tout à la fois consolatrice et utilitaire, pour exprimer les périls de la vie quotidienne, l’isolement du travail, la séparation des proches—, enfin bref, la nature de leur épreuve. Dans leurs œuvres, requêtes et suppliques se mêlent aux descriptions, aux plaintes et aux démonstrations d’affection. En ce sens, la littérature chinoise coloniale n’est plus simplement un outil au service de l’héroïsme idéologique, mais un miroir où se reflète la souffrance inconsolable dans la colonisation au Tibet.

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