In an era of instantaneous communication and mass movements of people, the location and claiming of “home”—as a political and spatial idea, as well as an affective one—is an increasingly abstract and intimate endeavor. While in many ways we imagine ourselves and our communities as Benedict Anderson once proposed, we are also bound to tangible, physical places that bear witness to or shape such imaginings.  “Home” is often a negotiation of the imagined and the tangible, of the ideal and the pragmatic.

The complexities that underlie the concept of “home” form the foundation of this, the second issue of the The Postcolonialist. Many of the pieces in this volume engage the praxis of creating “home,” such as Celeste Liddle’s meditation on aboriginal feminist claimings in Intersectionality and Indigenous Feminism: An Aboriginal Woman’s Perspective, and Roland Alvarez’ discourses of LGBT spaces in Perú. Yet just as the world is seemingly most interconnected and in the process of vastly broadening the possibilities of “home,” we are also at our most atomized: As Indrani Mukherjee notes in Cartographies of Mass City-zenry, the rhythm of urbanity has at times displaced notions of national belonging, while Joy Hayward-Jansen’s Ibn Fadlan: Crossing Over and the Nature of the Boundary explores how movement, translation, and acculturation may be  vitally constitutive of the self and of one’s vision of the world. The ruptures and avenues of movement are particularly salient in today’s context, as mass economic migration and refugee crises provoke a fluid vision of identity and (be)longing. With each (re)encounter we recast and redeploy established understandings of culture and society, as Annie Gibson analyzes in Rediscovering lo cubano through Capeira in Cuba.

Displacements, marginalizations, and exclusions have long produced a sense of placelessness and estrangement, even within one’s own landscape and national borders. These ideas are unpacked by pieces such as Saddik Gohar’s Mapping the Jew in Arab Literature, which explores the construction of the Jewish subject in contemporary Arab fiction, while Yue Yue investigates Tibetan literature and the complex place of Tibetan culture within China in Le sentiment des colons chonois au Tibet dans la littérature chinoise du Tibet, both of which problematize and vindicate the creation of narratives. Indeed, our conceptions of “home” are intrinsically tied to both how we see who and what we are, and how we stake a claim to our physical spaces. The value and mythology we attach to physical space is approached in Rael Jero Salley and Jared Thorne’s Vistas, a visual exploration of landscape and belonging in South Africa, as well as in Silvia Spitta’s Ivy League Foundational Narratives and Academic Disciplinary Hierarchies, which challenges the spaces and groundings behind both institutions and disciplinary anchorings.

Throughout this issue, our authors seek to engage and place in conversation ways of seeing and claiming space across contested localities and national imaginaries, challenging along the way the means by which we make, unmake, and re-imagine a (de)colonial “home.”

The post Letter from the Editor: Locating “Sites of Home” appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

[H]e was considered the foremost of authorities on the Mexicans of Texas.  Hank Harvey had been born in New York City some sixty years before.  He had gone to grade school there and then worked in a delicatessen to make some money so he could come down to his dreamland, Texas….  After he had come to Texas with only a few years schooling, he resolved to become an authority on Texas history and folklore.  In a few years he had read every book there was on the early history of Texas, it was said, and his fellow Texans accepted him as the Historical Oracle of the State.  There was a slight hitch, it is true.  Most early history books were written in Spanish, and K. Hank didn’t know the language.  However, nobody mentioned this, and it didn’t detract from Harvey’s glory.

—Américo Paredes, George Washington Gómez:  A Mexicotexan Novel

What, then, does the de-colonisation of culture actually mean:  the recuperation of an essential culture that existed before the historical moment of colonisation, or the idea of admitting different histories to a complex and syncretic present composed of cross-cultural transfigurations?

—Iain Chambers, Migrancy, Culture, Identity

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“We Americans,” Walt Whitman wrote in 1883, “have yet to really learn our own antecedents . . . Thus far, impress’d by New England writers and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon ourselves to the notion that our United States have been fashion’d from the British Islands only . . . which is a very great mistake.”[1]  Whitman’s critique of the skewed understanding of the U.S. and of U.S. history viewed from the limited vantage point of the Northeastern seaboard remained pertinent well over a hundred years later. David J. Weber writing a history of the Spanish frontier of North America in the nineties found himself once again having to confront this seemingly intractable ideological stance. As he writes, “Although the United States has always been a multiethnic society most general histories of the nation have suggested that its colonial origins resided entirely in the thirteen English colonies.”[2] Little has changed in the intervening years. In fact, at no other time has the US turned its back on Latin America so long and so blatantly as today.

As a Latin American living in New England and teaching at Dartmouth College, it has been difficult if not impossible not to notice (and ponder) the intersection between colonial past and imperialist present that is so apparent here, and to which Whitman’s critique alludes. The “new” in New England of course refers us back to a colonial history still visible today in the quaint British-style towns with their “village green” and churches mapped onto indigenous cultures. The enormous pines that were cut down in the eighteenth century to make masts for the British Royal Navy have been replaced by forests of smaller, second or third generation growth trees, reminding the newcomer that the “new” also refers to a new understanding of nature.  The gloomy forests of long ago have given way to a “managed,” instrumentalized landscape.  The indigenous presence, erased from the landscape and re-situated on the margins of this society, has been displaced onto the symbols of the “college on the hill” where I teach:  as the kneeling Native American receiving “the Book” from a man of learning who occupies a central position (still central today, alas), and as the much-disputed “Indians” sign of the football team still adamantly worn by some students who mistake insult for resistance to change—or perhaps, even worse, intend it.

The College’s biblical VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO voices Dartmouth’s initial mission.  By turning existing indigenous cultures into a wilderness, it reproduces Columbus’s gesture three hundred years earlier, of claiming populated islands in the Caribbean for the Spanish Crown by planting a flag on their shores and whispering empire-building words into the wind. In the logo VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO, colonial past and imperial present intersect:  the British colonial subject, the subject created and interpellated by an empire, is in turn already intent on colonizing and/or Christianizing other subjects. Indeed, in the race between France and England for North America, evangelization (Catholic vs. Protestant) plays a crucial role.  As one of the historians of the College writes:  “The country able to win the allegiance of the Indians might ultimately gain the huge prize of North America.”[3]  Understanding this, Eleazar Wheelock’s lifelong goal had been that of founding a college where American Indians could be Christianized and hence also acculturated.  His goal however was not devoid of imperialist ambivalence:  Dartmouth College, previously known as Moor’s Indian Charity School, ended up being a missionary college where the future evangelizers of Native Americans were trained.  As one account of Dartmouth’s founding has it, “The Indian charity school, which he instituted in 1755, proved reasonably successful; quite a good many Indian boys came to it, and quite a good many English youths, also on charity, came there to prepare for college. Wheelock saw that if these English youths could be induced to become missionaries to the Indians, they might be of even greater worth than the Indians themselves.”[4] That is, Dartmouth fast became a college of paying white students and not a college for Native Americans.  In fact, shortly after its founding in 1771 as the “ninth of America’s Colonial institutions of higher learning and the last to receive its charter from the Crown of England,” the Trustees in Scotland and England were “adamant in their criticism that funds intended for the schooling of Indians were being spent for whites.”[5]  In a gesture which repeated Columbus’s infantilization of the natives of the New World—and which prevails to this day in representations of the colonial and/or so-called “Third-World” subject—Wheelock justified the derailment of funds destined to Native Americans by attributing his failure to the Native American worse-than-childlike “sloth” and total unconcern with the future. Despite his growing conviction about the futility of Christianizing and educating Native Americans and because he needed to gain economic support, Wheelock’s son was teaching twenty one Native Americans in Hanover by 1774.[6]  Indeed, because of father and son’s diplomatic and educational efforts among indigenous communities, Dartmouth was the only college that did not close during the Revolution irrespective of whether the tribes in the vicinity fought for or against the British and today prides itself on its annual Pow-wow and Native American Studies Program.

The story of Dartmouth’s founding poignantly illustrates three things: the intersection of and tension between the colonial and the imperial has to be read not only within the “new” of New England but also as the underlying ideological framework that shaped the establishment of the disciplines at Dartmouth.  Unlike the history of any Latin American country which saw a pre-Columbian, colonial, and independence period and which is now struggling to surmount that legacy while at the same time facing multinational neocolonialism, the U.S.—in little over a hundred years— effected the transition from colony to empire in its own right.  Partly because this transition came about so fast and partly because the “logic” of empire has dominated the present, the colonial legacy of this country, which includes the reach of Spain into most of what is today the U.S. is invariably by-passed with the one exception being to tell the foundational story of the thirteen colonies of the eastern seaboard. Wheelock’s dealings show the imbrication of education with politics or perhaps, better put, the fact that epistemologies are also always ideological—something we all know yet knowingly forget when we talk about the “Ivory Tower” or when we tell one another that academia is not the “real” world or—more seriously—when in our critical praxis, we overlook the fact that disciplines arise during different historical junctures and out of different political needs (i.e., Area Studies). Finally, the story of Dartmouth’s founding shows that the Caribbean and its complicated multi-imperial (Spanish, British, French, Dutch) colonial history were “present” in New England from the start. We must also not forget that Wheelock, also a key player in Dartmouth’s founding, was a Yale graduate and that Yale too owed its existence to the fabulous fortune its founder had made as a clerk in the East India Company and as governor of Madras.[7]  As with the official or popular history of the U.S. which erases the Spanish/Mexican colonial past of this nation, even in an Ivy League institution which would imagine itself as a near to perfect British copy, much like the relegation of the colonial and Antillean source of England’s wealth in Jane Eyre to the “attic,” the Wheelock household too, as recalled by a student, was notorious for its detestable “cookery.” Bad food stood in stark contrast to the fine “furnishings of the house, the linen sheets and pillow cases trimmed with lace . . . brought to Hanover by Wheelock’s wife, the daughter of a former governor of the island of St. Thomas.”[8]

Likewise, the “new” in New Mexico or in New Spain (Mexico) reproduces the colonial action of making the unknown known and the foreign familiar by mapping a past and a space left behind onto a here and now.  Spanish names such as California, Montana, La Florida, Los Angeles serve as an index of that previous Spanish and Mexican colonial presence just as the “new” in New England points to a former British colonial presence.  However, given the preponderance of a historiography and a dominant culture shaped from the bird’s eye view of the thirteen English colonies, the Hispanic and Native American subtext of the U.S. is deleted from that history despite the fact that ¾ of what is today the U.S. was once first a part of the Spanish Empire and then independent Mexico.  That historiographic and historical marginalization continues today in the form of racial and cultural discrimination.  Someone born with a Hispanic or Native American surname is denied full citizenship rights in the United States regardless of how many generations their family has been here and whether or not their family had been “here” before the U.S. acquired its present boundaries in 1848 and 1898—crucial years which saw the birth of the greatest empire of modernity.  The uneasy overlapping of two spaces and two times in the United States is perhaps best illustrated by the state of New Mexico’s 1990 decision to address the confusion between Mexico and New Mexico by issuing license plates that clarify:  New Mexico, USA.

As a Latin American academic situated between Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies, I was drawn, of course, to Fernando Ortiz and Angel Rama’s theorizations of transculturation as a way of countering top down models of acculturation or assimilation. And I find it more relevant to focus on the Americas hemispherically than I do to think of them in terms of discrete nations or to view the history of “Our America” in Martí’s famous formulation, in terms of this country’s English colonial history. However, I am constantly confronted with new generations of students that arrive at Dartmouth completely unaware of this country’s US Hispanic colonial legacy. While this lack of knowledge might be excusable in other parts of the country and among less educated classes, this is often the case with students hailing from the US Southwest—many of whom are Hispanic yet have never been taught that history. Increasingly too, as the country shifts ever more to the right and efforts intensify to literally whitewash its history, we are witnessing attempts to ban ethnic studies from universities in the Southwest—not to mention the “editing” of textbooks in Texas currently underway eliding the Spanish colonial period of US history. It might not be entirely hyperbolic, then, to assert that this country’s idea of the national has come to depend on the suppression of that Native American and Hispanic indigenous subtext giving the impression that “the English and Americans expanded west and south onto vacant lands, except for those held by a few wild aborigines.”[9] Largely because of these efforts, the fact that the greater part of the territory that is today the U.S. was once first a Spanish colony and then Mexico continues to be overlooked in the American popular imagination despite all the debates regarding multiculturalism, postcolonialism, and transculturation we are having across US academia.  Hence North Americans continue to celebrate “Columbus Day” as the day of “discovery” whereas Latin Americans celebrate October 12th as El Día de la Raza, that is, as the celebration of the birth of mestizaje or a new race and culture as a consequence of the conquest.

The kind of historiographical sleight of hand that creates a wilderness where there are many different cultures and peoples in fact is made possible when a whole Spanish and Mexican colonial legacy is erased turning all Hispanics into “wetbacks” just as the term “American” which until 1776 had referred to the indigenous population of the whole continent (e.g., Joseph François Lafitau’s Moeurs des savages américaines (1724) or Corneille de Pauw’s Recherches philosophiques sur les Américains 1768) came to designate “exclusively those who have “inherited” the right to the land:  the European colonists who, by shedding their blood on American soil and wrenching it from the hands of the British, believe to have established themselves as its rightful owners.”[10] Thus, all other Americans have had to adopt a minority status as evidenced by the special designations “Native” American or “Latin” American that also go hand in hand with stereotypical characterizations which arose as early as 1492. Since then, indigenous peoples have been seen either as friendly (read gullible and servile) natives or as savages/cannibals (read guerrillas today).[11]  That is, they are read as “others” whose difference is invariably weighed in negative terms and measured in terms of distance in space and time thus denying them contemporaneity or co-evalness. U.S. academia does little to contest this erasure in part because the disciplines in the U.S. have emerged in a colonial/imperial context. As Fabian points out, given that the temporal discourse of anthropology and of related disciplines “was formed decisively under the paradigm of evolutionism [and] rested on a conception of Time that was not only secularized and naturalized but also thoroughly spatialized…. ever since, anthropology’s efforts to construct relations with its Other by means of temporal devices implied affirmation of difference as distance.”[12]  Reflecting on this praxis Vine Deloria will write:  “To be an Indian in modern American society is in a very real sense to be unreal and ahistorical.”[13]  Today, even the term “Our America” coined by José Martí, the Cuban thinker who was so instrumental in criticizing increasing U.S. imperialism in Latin America already at the end of the nineteenth century and recuperated today by Mexican-American critics has been appropriated by the U.S. academy to designate the US exclusively.[14]

Along with this subalternization of Latin America and the Spanish and Mexican colonial era of the U.S. comes a hierarchization in academia, which mirrors the political, economic, and racial division of the world and which belies our belief in our academic independence.  In fact, the nineteenth century, as the modern/colonial period, is the moment in which European languages (English, French, and German) constitute themselves as the languages of modernity; Amsterdam replaces Seville; the “center” of Europe shifts away from the Iberian peninsula and Castilian and Portuguese; the languages of waning empires are relegated to a marginal position and came to be thought of as not well suited for “scientific and philosophical discourses.”[15]  It is no accident then, that the current debate in “postcolonial studies” is dominated by the English language:  the Indian subcontinent and Africa are “central” while there is hardly any mention of either Latin American colonial theories or the Spanish and Mexican colonial legacy of this country.  Superficially, the focus on British colonialism in India and Africa would seem to be attributable to the sheer intellectual prominence of thinkers like Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, and others. But the main reason is obviously the preponderance of English as a theoretical lingua franca. Thus  critics like many of us who fall into the new category of the “migrant” intellectual and who bring into the “center” problems of the periphery from which we stem as well an in-depth knowledge of two or more cultures, two or more languages, and hence an intrinsically transcultural critical practice do not always succeed in being heard.  That ex-centric knowledge has to be translated into English and Latin American intellectuals have until recently resisted the English-only bias of US academia. Given that publishers tend to translate more from the French, it should come as no surprise that the most important French intellectuals who are transcultural as well such as  Héléne Cixous, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Tzvetan Todorov, et al. all have been translated into English whereas prominent Latin American intellectuals have not until quite recently and only, seemingly, once the debate around colonialism and neocolonialism had waned.

In fact, there are prominent Latin American intellectuals both in the U.S. and in Latin America who have been intent on thinking about colonialism, imperialism and neocolonialism and who have applied these critiques to the US academy, yet they have not even managed to be incorporated into what we now know as “postcolonial studies.”  I am thinking of intellectuals such as Josefina Ludmer, José Martí, Roberto Fernández Retamar, Angel Rama, Nelly Richard, Edmundo Desnoes, Eduardo Galeano, Beatriz Sarlo, Rigoberta Menchú, Antonio Cornejo Polar, Edmundo O’Gorman, Leopoldo Zea, Paulo Freire­, Edmundo Dussel—to mention but a few—who have theorized Latin America’s troubled relation to the Colossus of the North, refusing to think in terms of “post” colonialism, and who have instead highlighted the processes of globalization and transnationalization as yet another guise colonialism has taken. Mabel Moraña, Enrique Dussel, and Carlos Jáuregui’s collection of essays including and reflecting on the contributions of these thinkers has achieved quite a lot in this respect but it seems that this volume has come too late in some ways, since the raging debate around questions of coloniality has largely been superseded by current debates on globalization and transnationalism.[16] The refusal of Spanish as a national and academic lingua franca is also to blame since the dominance of English will necessarily skew the discussion towards the English and American empires.

Indeed, Spanish—and by extension anything Hispanic such as Latino Studies—is relegated to a second-class position geopolitically as well as academically.  Thus, to advocate for multiculturalism and/or interdisciplinarity without also pushing for multilingualism is merely a superficial gesture and we end up in the ridiculous position of advocating a monolingual multiculturalism.  It is indeed ironic that the “English Only” movement arose precisely around the same time as the inception of NAFTA which we would have assumed, would have led to a much greater investment in language acquisition, particularly Spanish across the US. While that has indeed happened, and increasingly students enter college with 3-4 years of high school Spanish, that has been achieved thanks to students’ living in ever more bilingual contexts and despite the government’s disinvestment in schools across the nation and despite the fact that Spanish is still being called a “foreign” language. Indeed, as Mary Louise Pratt observed long ago, in the United States, to call Spanish, French, Cantonese, Italian, Japanese, Lakota, Navajo, Cree foreign languages is a misnomer (these are not “foreign” languages).[17]  Spanish, which has had a long and rich literary production before English became dominant in the U.S. is ideologically being made to become more foreign than ever by and in the publishing and film industries given the current practice of assuming an Anglophone audience.

In her introductory essay to the path breaking volume Cultures of United States Imperialism Amy Kaplan suggests there is a “denial of history” in the U.S., which cuts across English, American studies and history departments.  The pattern reproduced ad absurdum is the following:  “the absence of culture from the history of U.S. imperialism; the absence of empire from the study of American culture; and the absence of the United States from the postcolonial study of imperialism.”[18]  These “absences,” in fact, make it conceivable to talk about the U.S. as a world power and at the same time dismiss the notion that it is also an empire.  Yet in this edition too—which is crucial, even radical—from within the context of American Studies and English departments, Kaplan starts with Perry Miller’s conception of American studies on the banks of the Congo in an attempt to reinscribe and recuperate what Toni Morrison has called “an africanist presence” as subtext to the U.S. imaginary.[19]  While Kaplan’s attempt to reinscribe Africa at the heart of America is timely and welcome—especially in relation to the vindication of African-Americans—in so far as it avoids coming to terms with the Hispanic and Native American present and past of this country as well as the African, it again only reinforces what I have been arguing.  In fact, while trying to undermine the insularity of American studies which mirrors the insularity of a historiography based on/in New England, Cultures of United States Imperialism unwittingly reproduces the academic and linguistic hierarchy that literally makes impossible any kind of dialogue between American studies and Latin American studies.  Significantly only 5 essays out of 26 partially relate to Latin America. Yet an even lesser ratio prevails in most publications in this country since then whether academic or popular.  And while there were over three hundred movie theaters in the US showing Spanish language films, particularly Mexican films of the Golden Age in the 30s and 40s we would be hard put to find one anywhere in the US today.

While we pride ourselves, then, in the (apparent) breakdown of the insularity of the disciplines in the last twenty years—an era characterized by the development of multicultural and cross-disciplinary curricula—and hence once again potentially open to Bolton’s seminal idea of a “Greater America” we nevertheless have not managed to transcend the parochial historical vision criticized by Whitman. Whereas a Chicano performance artist like Guillermo Gómez Peña will argue that every encounter between two people taking place here today constitutes a “border experience,” the lack of a connection between the Spanish/Mexican colonial past of this country and its present Latinization is accompanied by the increasing rigidity of conceptions of the border as well as the literal transformation of a once fluid border into a new iteration of the Berlin Wall. Despite the fact, then, that “the signifier Latin American itself now refers also to significant social forces within the United States” [20] and that people do not tire of pointing out that New York is the largest Puerto Rican and Dominican metropolis and Los Angeles the second-largest Mexican metropolis (not to mention Chicago and other cities increasingly becoming Latin American centers in the heartland of the US), indeed, given the increasing Latinization of the US one would expect that it would no longer be possible to erase the Spanish/Mexican colonial legacy of this country —not to speak of the presence of Latinos. But that is unfortunately not so given the power of the media, the English only approach of the publishing industry, as well as the academic reproduction of archaic epistemological and disciplinary hierarchies. Symptomatic of these times, a senior administrator at Dartmouth College recently justified gross inequality in pay scales among male and female full professors at the College in the following manner: “Determining salaries varies by individual, … so the range of salaries among full professors is relatively large. …For example, computer science and economics will typically pay more than Spanish literature.” While he is stating the obvious, that he chose Spanish (and not French or German or even English) as his example for pay disparities across the disciplines is telling.

As is implicit in the theory of transculturation, we have to recuperate the past in all its fullness and radical heterogeneity in order to create the conditions for the possibility of finally establishing a true transcultural politics and epistemology. For, even if submerged and/or banished to the margins, our intellectual praxis should entail a mere shifting of accents, for colonization in effect only means “that dominant views of languages, of recording the past, and of charting territories become synonymous with the real by obstructing possible alternatives.”[22] Transcultural critics have therefore opted to study continuums such as Plantation America, the Black Atlantic, the Pacific Rim, and the indigenous continuum across the Americas as is perhaps best evidenced by Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead in which the Native American interfaces with the Latino on both sides of the border. This new hemispheric, transcultural and transborder understanding is of course undermined by the powers of globalization to continue all that 1492 has signified historically, culturally, and economically—only by other means. Indeed, as Masao Miyoshi argued in the nineties at the height of the debate around postcolonialism, our preoccupation with questions of post-colonialism and multiculturalism, look “suspiciously like another alibi to conceal the actuality of global politics [given that] colonialism is even more active now in the form of transnational corporations.”[23] He forgot to mention the actuality of global politics in US academia’s reproducing ad nauseam the epistemological biases that arose when the US transitioned from colony to empire and which lies at the heart of the disciplines here, now, still.

The post Ivy League Foundational Narratives and Academic Disciplinary Hierarchies appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

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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.

The post Mapping the Image of the Jew in Postmodern Arabic Fiction appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

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.

The place that I occupied in the world made itself apparent very early. The first time I experienced direct racism was in my first year of primary school when a fellow pupil called me a “black bum”[1] and I got in trouble for pushing her. Many incidents followed that point, throughout the schooling years. Some were blatant, but others were more subtle, such as a teacher informing my mother that I must have been “drawing attention” to myself when I’d complained about being bullied. I simultaneously encountered gendered comments that would make me feel uncomfortable. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be as strong and boisterous as the boys. I was supposed to like playing with Barbies and My Little Ponies, and enjoying the ballet classes I was enrolled in despite my other inclinations. In short, I felt continually limited and ridiculed by virtue of my race and sex and therefore considered the oppressions interconnected and to be contested together.

That’s how I continue to see it now. My responses to issues of gender are very much informed by my experience of race, and vice versa. My experience of structural forms of oppression was heightened due to these intersecting forms of oppression, and are particularly acute due to being of a working class background. Therefore, when it comes to Aboriginal feminism, I very much see our questions and tactics occupying the more “radical” end of the feminist spectrum. By radical, I am referring to streams such as socialist/marxist feminism, anarcha-feminism and radical feminism. I feel personally that the issue of race keeps me focussed on community rather than individual advancement, and therefore my feminism reflects this. Additionally, I seek self-determination as both an Aboriginal person and a woman, and therefore need to challenge the structures that negate this freedom. To borrow a quote from the Combahee River Collective Statement: “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression”. In an Australian context this carries a slightly different resonance due to the experiences of colonisation, but to decolonise from both a race and gender perspective is imperative.

I strongly believe that as Aboriginal women, whilst our fights are related to ongoing feminist struggles within other racially marginalised groups, they are not the same. By virtue of the fact that we are first peoples who have suffered under the process of colonisation within our own homelands, our struggles can be quite unique. Recently, for example, I was engaged in a markedly frustrating discussion on the concept of “fair skin privilege” as someone of a migrant background took issue to how I was utilising the term “black”. Fair skin privilege of course exists to an extent in an Aboriginal context, however the “Stolen Generations”[2], for example, highlight how limited this privilege has historically been. Additionally, migrant populations, whilst suffering marginalisation in Australia, also benefit from the displacement of Aboriginal people. Therefore there is a need to tell our own stories, and expand our own theories rather than simply drawing upon the experiences of others.

When I am highlighting why I feel a specific Aboriginal feminism is necessary, I tend to point to three formative elements that structure this need: the white patriarchy, the black patriarchy and “mainstream” feminism. As a point of oppression, the white patriarchy is self explanatory given its continuing historical legacy and political privilege. Aboriginal women feeling excluded by mainstream feminism is a topic that has been covered many times, most recently in an article by Kelly Briggs, which poignantly proposed that arguments regarding the lack of racial diversity in parliament are sorely lacking from mainstream feminism. Yet how the patriarchy operates within the Aboriginal community is not something that is discussed as often. It does have impact, even if the politics of race bind us. I am seeking to define how these elements play out in our communities more and more, because through better understandings we can build better and more inclusive movements that don’t leave the most vulnerable behind.

Many Aboriginal feminists have been rightly critical of mainstream feminisms in the past, due to lack of collaboration that centralized the individual over the communal, or the imposition of privileged viewpoints as if these were a universal experience for women. In addition, an “Orientalist” understanding that misread Aboriginal culture has sometimes been applied by feminists to cultural issues and practices that are ours to challenge. This is not because we necessarily perceive these things differently but rather, we need the space to interpret and challenge these things in our own communities. One example I like to highlight is the constant questions I receive from non-Aboriginal feminists regarding whether women should be allowed to play the didgeridoo, an Aboriginal wind instrument typically played by men. Considering the multitude of pressing issues that Aboriginal women face in Australia, a question such as this is not a defining Aboriginal feminist question, and the questioning of this cultural practice by non-Aboriginal women simply comes across as another act of imperialism. There is nothing to be gained for the feminist movement as a whole by non-Aboriginal feminists challenging these cultural practices; rather it just negates our rights of self-determination and indeed cultural ownership.

Over time, Aboriginal feminists (for example, Aileen Morton-Robinson in “Talkin’ Up to the White Woman”, 2000) have continued to highlight additional hurdles that they face due to the intersection of race and gender. Aboriginal women experience the issues that non-Aboriginal women experience due to the process of colonisation, but often there are additional complexities. For example, whilst equal pay is important for all of us, for many years Aboriginal people were historically not paid for their labour at all, and this acutely affected Aboriginal women working as domestic servants. Our wages were, in a lot of cases, held in trusts by the governments and therefore our “stolen wages” claims are ongoing many years later. “Victim blame” is something we face often, and indeed, a number of the Indigenous movements’ more conservative commentators tend to replicate these viewpoints. When we experience victim blaming as women, it is compounded by race to the point where Aboriginal women dying from domestic homicide at a rate ten times that of other women in Australia barely rates a mention. We tend to be subjected to the same issues of body shame and arbitrary and commercialised notions of beauty, but we are also judged on our skin tone and whether or not we possess certain features deemed to be tellingly “Aboriginal” (eg: a wide nose, deep-set eyes, etc). We can also experience fetishisation on the basis of our skin tones despite being mainly socially excluded because of them. In short, our experiences can add layers to feminist understandings and there are many ways in which a notion of a universalised women’s experience can exclude us or only tell part of the tale.

When it comes to the notion of a “black patriarchy”, I see this being perpetuated on two fronts. The first is through the patriarchal structures that we inherit through the process of colonisation by the mainstream culture, and the second manifests itself in our own community-based forms, through our traditional practices and how we view and deploy gender roles. To start with our internal patriarchy, it is always interesting to me when members of the Indigenous community argue that traditional societies had gender equality due to our understandings of gender complementarity, which presumes that the separate and set roles of men and women had equal importance in communities. This is not necessarily the case. From one side of this vast country to the other, different practices existed in different clan groups and therefore the experiences of “equality” for women via a notion of gender complementarity would have differed. If we state otherwise, then as black people we run the risk of universalising our own experiences similar to what mainstream feminism has been accused of doing. Secondly, gender complementarity has not been known to equal gender equality in many regions of the world. We have practices such as polygynous marriage that are arranged from birth, alongside norms such as specific forms of governance and punishment for women. At times, due to the fact that we (as Aboriginal people) are protecting family and culture in the face of ongoing colonialism, we lose the ability to critically examine our own practices because we are worried that anything perceived as negative will be used to further discredit us as peoples.

The patriarchy we inherited and in some ways continue to perpetuate from the dominant culture tends to manifest itself when we adopt external cultural practices and use them in ways that may enhance pride in Aboriginality but reinforce gender disparities. Examples of this are events such as the Miss NAIDOC pageants, which are based upon the idea that we need to celebrate the “beauty” of Aboriginal women. Beauty, as a concept, may be harmful to women as it often centralises the appearance of a woman as being her most important attribute. One of the points I made back when I first examined this in the above linked article was that we actually come from a culture that values age and wisdom, assigning great value to our older women. When it comes to beauty however, older women are almost completely excluded. Additionally, our women have been achieving highly in a number of fields for a long time; we have been obtaining tertiary education qualifications at a rate nearly double that of Aboriginal men. So why do we consider it important to celebrate the “beauty” of Aboriginal women whilst barely mentioning these wonderful achievements? The idea that something becomes empowering if it is community organised and run fails to examine what it is that we are instituting from the cultures of those we have been oppressed by, and if these are indeed worthwhile things to adopt. Without such questioning, we run the risk of merely contributing to the subjugation of our own rather than enacting true positive change.

It continues to be imperative to challenge the prevailing structures of power on the dual fronts of race and gender, both internally and externally. Australia, despite the rhetoric to the contrary, continues to privilege a very white and patriarchal culture in which exclusionary legacies, rather than being a source of shame, tend to be celebrated. I would even go so far as to argue that due to our complex history and culture wars, begun in the early 1990s then reinforced by the Howard government, we have gone backwards when it comes to being a space inclusive of race and gender. During the Howard years, Aboriginal people were continually rebuked for “focussing on the negative” when telling the true stories of what we have faced under centuries of colonisation. Women were told that fights for gender equality were “political correctness gone mad,” or otherwise not essential. Australia reflects this perspective today. Australia Day, which was of little importance to most of the population only a couple of decades ago, is now a day to drape flags across your shoulders and be “proud” at the cost of any acknowledgement of the true history of this day and what it has meant to Aboriginal peoples. ANZAC Day, which was also criticised because feminists drew attention to victims of war and rape as a tactic of war in particular, is again focussing on the “brave people who served our country” in the various conflicts. There is a need to challenge Australian historical narratives on a number of fronts, and Aboriginal feminists have an incredibly important role to play in this.

I strongly feel that Aboriginal feminism is going to continue to grow and develop. We have a number of incredibly strong Aboriginal women who are moving to the forefront of public discourse. A lot of them are unapologetic about their race and their gender, are highly educated, and ensure that they use these knowledges to continue educating and inspiring others. Through social media and online platforms such as blogging, their bodies of work continue to grow and circulate. The Internet offers a wonderful opportunity for those that have been traditionally denied a voice to claim a space. And claim it, we shall!

The post Intersectionality and Indigenous Feminism: An Aboriginal Woman’s Perspective appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

El haber sido miembro del Movimiento Homosexual de Lima (Mhol), una de las organizaciones gay/lésbica más antigua de Sudamérica[1] debería producir orgullo y satisfacción, pero ¿qué ocurre cuando dicha organización pertenece al Perú? Pues, se entremezclan muchas sensaciones y emociones. Claro, existe una sensación de orgullo hacia el movimiento, pues hablamos de una organización que viene trabajando por un poco más de 30 años, manteniéndose vigente en un contexto donde el tejido de las organizaciones sociales es débil y fragmentado. Pero también existe frustración debido a que después de todos esos años no se ha logrado ningún marco de protección por parte de los diferentes gobiernos frente a la comunidad LGBT. Contrariamente, lo que ha existido, existe y se halla institucionalizado en la cultura estatal es la negación sistemática y estructural de derechos hacia a esta comunidad específica. Esta situación lleva a cuestionar las estrategias, las acciones y la postura que el movimiento ha tenido frente al Estado.

Mientras son muchos avances y conquistas que se han producido en la región como en el caso de Argentina, Uruguay y Brasil, las reformas constitucionales de Ecuador y Bolivia, en relación al reconocimiento de derechos a la comunidad LGBT; el Perú se encuentra entre los países más homofóbicos, exactamente en el puesto 113 de 138 países evaluados, el peor puesto en la región Latinoamericana^[2]. Y claro, definitivamente el contexto homofóbico trae consecuencias tangibles en la comunidad LGBT, lo cual se evidencia a nivel cotidiano, económico, social y principalmente a nivel político, lo que se traduce en la inexistencia de políticas públicas LGBT inclusivas en el país hasta la fecha.

Sin embargo, no es que no exista ninguna política pública dirigida a la comunidad LGBT, sino que se debe mencionar la existencia de una exclusión deliberada por parte del Estado. Por un lado, existe una política pública por omisión (Béjar, 2011: 36), la cual se traduce en un comportamiento sistemático de negación de toda propuesta normativa enfocada en la comunidad LGBT. ¿Qué sentido tiene que en el censo de población y vivienda del año 2013 se omita literalmente a las parejas del mismo sexo que viven bajo un mismo techo, como si se consideró en Chile? Por otro lado, en el Perú, así como en la mayoría de países de la región andina, la principal estrategia de inclusión de la comunidad LGBT ha sido las políticas de salud pública, específicamente las relacionadas a enfrentar la epidemia del VIH y focalizada en ciertos grupos considerados en situación de mayor vulneración (Jaime: 2013).

Para tener una mirada de la situación, desde el primer reporte de Sida en Perú, la epidemia del VIH se ha concentrado en las comunidades de travestis, gays, hombres bisexuales y hombres que tienen sexo con hombres, alcanzando prevalencias de 24.3% en travestis y 17.1% en gays, que constituyen el 56% de casos nuevos, según reportes de la vigilancia centinela (CONAMUSA: 2011). Según Mhol (2012: 7) los servicios de prevención, diagnóstico y atención de ITS y VIH que brinda el Estado peruano alcanzan únicamente al 9.77% de las personas TGB/HSH (teniendo en cuenta el universo de 429, 489 personas), acciones para las que solo se destina el 3.2% del gasto nacional en VIH según el estudio de Medición de Gasto en Salud MEGAS (MINSA: 2012). Además, no más del 50% de personas TGB/HSH alcanzadas por dichos servicios han tenido acceso a una prueba diagnóstica de VIH. Así, aún en tiempos de acceso supuestamente universal y gratuito al tratamiento antirretroviral, cada día mueren tres personas por sida en el Perú. Mientras tanto, el desabastecimiento de condones y antirretrovirales es constante (Mhol, 2012: 7).

En relación a la violencia, el primer informe de derechos humanos de la comunidad LGBT en el Perú (Alvarez y Bracamonte: 2006) identificó que una persona LGBT moría cada cinco días; en la actualidad se ha identificado que cada semana muere asesinada una persona LGBT entre el 2006 al 2010, como expresión más extrema de la violencia sistemática y recurrente que viven las personas por su orientación sexual o identidad de género (Romero: 2011).

Frente a esa situación, el Congreso ha claudicado en su deber de sancionar los crímenes de odio. El proyecto de Ley 3584/2009-CR que proponía la Incorporación de los Crímenes de Odio en el Código Penal fue archivado por presión de los grupos antiderechos y las principales bancadas de ese entonces. En diciembre de 2011 se presentó el proyecto de Ley multipartidario 609/2011-CR contra Acciones Criminales Originadas por Motivos de Discriminación, que fue discutido en comisión y en el pleno en julio del 2013, pero que lamentablemente no fue aprobado.

Sobre el acceso a empleo y trabajo, si bien es cierto que dentro de la comunidad LGBT existen diferencias, resultado de variables como clase, raza, etnicidad, ingreso, pobreza, educación (Sardá-Chandiramani, 2008: 196-197), es bastante claro que la situación de estos sujetos es vulnerable si la analizamos desde la perspectiva del Decent Work, propuesta por la OIT (Ghai: 2006), ya que como es discutido por Ferreyra (2010: 208), donde es posible obtener trabajo fuera de la prostitución, no hay protección frente a la discriminación, como ocurre con los gays y las lesbianas que deben ocultar su orientación en sus lugares de trabajo por temor al despido. En el caso de las travestis, la situación es más cruda, pues la visibilidad intrínseca a la construcción de la identidad y el cuerpo las coloca en una situación de exclusión laboral, donde una de las pocas opciones es el trabajo sexual y otros oficios menores como la cocina, la cosmética y la decoración (Salazar y Villayzan, 2009: 12). Incluso, en el ejercicio del trabajo sexual, ellas buscan la oportunidad de ejercerlo en el exterior, pues éste se percibe como una buena oportunidad de hacer dinero, como ocurre con muchas travestis peruanas que migran hacia Buenos Aires, Madrid y Milán.

La respuesta desde el movimiento

Cuando comencé mi trayectoria en la lucha por mis derechos y los de mis compañeros LGBT, estaba aún en la universidad y fue el llevar un curso de género con la genial luchador feminista Gina Vargas, lo que inspiró en mí una serie de ideas, compromisos y, sobre todo, ánimos y entusiasmo por querer lograr un cambio sustancial. Claro, estando en tercer año de Sociología, tenía más interés en generar cambios a través de la investigación. Sin embargo, fue ya como egresado, cuando empecé a laborar en proyectos relacionados con la salud –específicamente en la respuesta al VIH/Sida– la incidencia política y la promoción de derechos, que entendí que la pura ciencia y la academia no podían entender ni pretender resolverlo todo.

Fue cuando mi entrada al Mhol significó –utilizando las palabras de Tito Bracamonte– el empezar a “contaminarme”, a conocer de primera mano las condiciones de vida de nuestros compañeros, sus luchas cotidianas, sus resistencias personales y comunitarias; a aprender y dialogar desde una posición horizontal entre ellos, incluso a divertirme y disfrutar de sus espacios, que luego se convirtieron también en míos. Ello trajo muchos aprendizajes y recompensas, personales la gran mayoría, pero también académicas y profesionales, pues nunca renuncié a ser un investigador, sino que ello empezó a cobrar un sentido más humano y conllevó un mayor posicionamiento político, desde una voz con identidad LGBT, dejando atrás nociones abstractas, desbordadas de contenido pero no desde una cartografía específica.

Desde entonces  me permito hacer “el viaje” de un lado a otro, aunque en algunos espacios académicos he sido relegado por ello, pero a estas alturas y valgan verdades no me interesa lo que la academia tenga que decir al respecto. Fue en mi estadía en una universidad holandesa donde experimenté la clara división que existe entre el activismo y el trabajo intelectual, y cómo el ser activista implicaba que en un salón de clase, una PhD alemana me mencione: “a claro, es que tú eres activista”, donde ese “ah claro” implicaba que ni mi trayectoria ni mi reflexión era suficiente para dialogar sobre la importancia de la identidad en los sujetos insertos en actividades de economía informal.

En Perú actualmente no es que exista –o en todo caso no le he percibido con mayor claridad- una división así, pues existe un diálogo entre ambos campos. Aquí es más frecuente que los activistas se relacionen con la academia, pues es uno de los pocos canales para visibilizar la realidad, a falta de uno formal e institucional por parte del Estado. Lo que existe en el Perú es un estamento o “realeza” académica, mayormente cerrada e instaurada en universidades y que funciona a través de la monopolización de contactos, cooperantes y el acceso a fondos para publicaciones frecuentes. Ellos, donde algunos sin ser parte de la comunidad, tienen licencia para constituir las voces de los sujetos y sus comunidades, incluso de representarnos en espacios internacionales donde se discuten temas desde epidemiológicos hasta de identidad, homofobia y derechos humanos. Sin lugar a duda sus discursos ejercen poder en la construcción de los otros, los subordinados, de la posibilidad de nombrarlos. Y claro, ellos son también la puerta de invitación para procesos de colonización del lenguaje, agendas sociales y políticas, representaciones, etc. Ello me recuerda que hace algunos meses atrás tomó lugar la organización de una “reunión informal” con profesores angloparlantes para dialogar sobre la situación de los estudios sobre sexualidad en el Perú, en donde se invitaba a personas relacionadas a la academia, activistas y grupos de investigadores. El número de asistentes fue muy reducido y pensé, claro, si hacen la acotación que la reunión será en inglés, ello ya desanima la participación de los colectivos existentes. Desconozco la intención real de dicha reunión, pero ¿por qué se asume un idioma que no es el nuestro para discutir sobre la situación de los estudios en sexualidad en el Perú? ¿no es bastante colonialista tener que discutir sobre el Perú en inglés, siendo además el punto central de la discusión?

Acerca del movimiento peruano LGBT, a estos tiempos, la geografía social y política de las organizaciones ha cambiado mucho, hasta inicios del nuevo milenio no eran muchas, y no tan intensa las relaciones entre unas y otras. Recuerdo además que existía una dinámica más enfocada en temas de no discriminación, unión civil y deshomosexualización del VIH/Sida en la capital, Lima, dominada mayormente por colectivos universitarios y jóvenes. Por otro lado, existía otra realidad en el resto del país de la cual no se conocía mucho: la situación de precariedad al interior de las regiones. Cuando se inician esos primeros contactos de activistas de Lima con organizaciones al interior del país, es que se descubren prácticas solidarias y de supervivencia en las regiones, dinámicas que constituían muchas veces el fin y motivo de las organizaciones, como las colectas o actividades de venta de comidas para recaudar fondos para la compra de medicamentos paliativos de compañeros enfermos por causa del VIH o para la compra del ataúd y el nicho de los que iban falleciendo, claro está, en una época pre acceso gratuito a los medicamentos anti retrovirales.^[3]

Y es a partir del 2000, en el marco del Primer Encuentro Nacional de Líderes LGBT, que las distintas organizaciones inician un proceso de reconocimiento y diálogo, en donde a partir de las necesidades de las regiones se reincorpora en la agenda política el tema de la prevención y atención en salud.  A partir de ahí y con el intensivo apoyo de la cooperación internacional es que ahora existe un número significativo de organizaciones y algo de interrelación entre ellas. Recuerdo que hasta hubo en algún momento los esfuerzos por construir bloques regionales y que derive en la existencia de un Frente Nacional, pero que no tuvo suficiente empuje ni ánimo para lo que constituye –a mi entender– una carrera de largo aliento. Ello se podría comparar en visión al proceso que existe en Brasil a la hora de elegir representaciones federales y nacionales y la construcción de agendas integradas, democráticas y construidas desde las bases sociales.

Los actores y sus vicios de importancia

Los recursos financieros de la cooperación internacional han alentado y promovido el incremento de organizaciones, el activismo social, político y cultural, para generar cambios favorables en la normativa, acceso a mejores servicios de salud, educación, empleo, entre otros. Además se buscaba que en ese proceso se fortalecieran y sobretodo se perfilaran nuevos liderazgos, lo que era importante para un necesario proceso de renovación, y sobre todo para enfrentar lo que en un mediano futuro ya era casi evidente: la disminución o ausencia de fondos de la cooperación internacional y la eternamente ansiada autosostenibilidad de las organizaciones.

El Fondo Mundial de Lucha contra el Sida, la Tuberculosis y la Malaria es el cooperante en VIH, Sida y empoderamiento de comunidades gay y travestis que más ha invertido en el país, a través de proyectos nacionales que integraban al Estado y a la sociedad civil (principalmente a través de ONG responsables de la ejecución de las actividades en coordinación con las instancias estatales), lo que se denomina public-private partnership projects. El Fondo Mundial  entendía que el fortalecimiento organizacional era necesario para la respuesta al VIH y por ello sus acciones incluían desde financiamiento para conformar legalmente a los colectivos, cursos de capacitación hasta alquiler de espacios para su funcionamiento operativo. Sin embargo, dada las características de estos programas, cada año el cooperante reducía los fondos conforme el Estado debía de aumentar su contrapartida, situación que nunca ocurrió, pues el Estado nunca asumió ni política ni presupuestalmente la transferencia real de los programas, hecho que se refleja en que hasta la fecha existe nula inversión en programas y/o políticas dirigidas a nuestra comunidad. Además, actualmente el Perú es considerado un país de ingreso medio, por lo que ya no es  elegible para los programas del Fondo Mundial, salvo algunas convocatorias especiales dirigidas a poblaciones vulnerables específicas.

Aparte de ese contexto, se tiene un movimiento LGBT fragmentado, con pocas coordinaciones inter regionales y nula proyección de un plan político nacional. Más bien se tiene una comunidad donde algunos actores que han tenido la posibilidad de estar involucrados en las direcciones o presidencias de sus organizaciones, mandos medios de coordinación o responsables de actividades relacionadas a la administración de los centros comunitarios financiados por proyectos de Fondo Mundial, se han convertido en dueños y señores de algunas organizaciones en el país. Más aún, algunos de ellos han desarrollado un perfil ególatra, con espíritu autosuficiente, arrogante y compulsivamente mediáticos, pues desean ser la cara visible y protagonista del todo el movimiento LGBT en el país, pero que no tienen la capacidad de convocatoria e interlocución para que la gran mayoría se sume a las reivindicaciones políticas.

¿Por qué aquello último? Al interior del movimiento LGBT, las carencias económicas, políticas, organizacionales por un lado y  la fragmentación y falta de solidaridad política por otro, han debilitado su capacidad para incidir a favor de derechos. A nivel nacional, no es que exista una red articulada de organizaciones LGBT ni la promoción de la misma por parte del Estado, sino un grupo humano diverso, atravesado por la pobreza, discriminación, exclusión y marginación. La interseccionalidad de clase, raza y género, produce una “comunidad” fragmentada, donde son mayormente algunos del sector medio y pobre quienes se visibilizan, organizan y demandan, mientras que los “otros blancos, clase media-alta” desarrollan un bajo nivel de solidaridad e indignación, y más bien un alto nivel de indiferencia, debido a la no percepción de discriminación, pobreza y exclusión por sus mejores condiciones de acceso a recursos (educación, empleo, salud, etc.)

Explicando mejor, diría que una buena parte de la clase alta y media de personas LGBT -la cual enfatiza lo masculino sobre lo femenino y sus valores, se considera blanca o con matices que aspiran al blanqueamiento- no participa de las demandas, o incluso contra argumenta en la cotidianeidad frente a las reivindicaciones de la comunidad LGBT organizada, pues aquello es de indígenas, negras, mestizas, afeminadas, travestis, pobres, machonas y escandalosas: “Yo nunca he sufrido de discriminación, voy dónde quiero y si puedo pagar nadie puede discriminarme”, “eso del activismo es para los cholos escandalosos y pobres, yo nunca he sufrido de discriminación”, por mencionar algunos ejemplos. Y a la vez, otra buena parte que pertenecen a la mayoría empobrecida, indígena, travesti, afro, mestiza, no participa o no le interesa dichas reivindicaciones, pero por otras circunstancias que más bien se encuentran dentro de una racionalidad más enfocada en cubrir necesidades inmediatas y evaluar el costo-beneficio de dicho involucramiento.

No es que no exista movimiento y activistas en el Perú, sino que éste es un híbrido pequeño, que se encuentra en el medio o en la intersección de los grupos de clase baja, media y alta. Claro, compuesta por sujetos con compromiso de cambio, voluntad política y capacidad de indignación; sin embargo, este proceso no se encuentra exento de los vicios de distinción y diferenciación racial, clase y género, lo que genera tensiones al interior de los mismos. Analizando, queda claro la existencia de micro relaciones de poder, basada en categorías que funcionan como capital social y simbólico: la raza, el género y la clase. Estas relaciones pueden ser casi invisibles, se reproducen de manera tan sutil en diferentes espacios o se han asumido como cotidianas o normalizadas, que hace complicado tomar conciencia de ellas para cuestionarlas y transformarlas. O claro, algunos se logran servir de ellas para mantener su hegemonía dentro del feudo, pero que, además, no es sino el espejo del racismo, sexismo y clasismo que existe en nuestra sociedad.

¿De dónde viene la importancia? Acercamientos al enfoque interseccional

Un punto importante, clave para dar respuesta a muchas preguntas ligadas a nuestra compleja sociedad marcada por la desigualdad social; la cual ha devenido en cliché, pero más en forma que en contenido, es acerca de los rezagos de nuestra experiencia colonial, la que generó e instauró una sociedad estamental, dividida en estados con acceso diferenciado a la riqueza, la educación, el ejercicio de profesiones oficios, y que hasta estas últimas incluso eran heredadas de padres a hijos.

La comunidad LGBT no escapa de este último argumento, y es justo lo que podría explicar la configuración y distribución del poder entre las organizaciones y al interior de las mismas, atrapando algunas veces a sus liderazgos en personificaciones despóticas y líderes caudillistas.

Teniendo en cuenta aquellos argumentos, me atrevo a afirmar que las organizaciones de base comunitaria en general y las LGBT en especial, son sensibles a convertirse en pequeños feudos, en donde en vez de construir y reproducir los valores y principios que se esperan alcanzar en la sociedad, se instauran más bien relaciones de poder, las cuales se hayan instrumentalizadas desde la dieta y el refrigerio para atender el taller de capacitación hasta la membresía, y el viaje con todo pagado a la capital o al extranjero. Por ello, es que a veces en las reuniones orgánicas se cuelan ciertos susurros, pero que muchas veces están silenciados por temor a cuestionar la autoridad, “porque es siempre él (ella) es la que viaja para los talleres, congresos, encuentros”.

Definitivamente esto produce una fragmentación a interior de las organizaciones.  Cuando los liderazgos empiezan a tener conciencia de los relativos beneficios que tienen por ser el delegado, el presidente o el representante es que empieza a operar un proceso nocivo: la distancia con las bases y los principios, y más bien el matrimonio con el poder. Y aquí se desliza una pregunta curiosa, ¿es el cargo el que corrompe o la personalidad de los liderazgos? ¿O es la conjunción de ambos que detonan en liderazgos importantes pero verticales, impositivos y berrinchudos? Pues me ha tocado observar a líderes con la tarea de bloquear o aniquilar y expulsar a potenciales líderes, claro más jóvenes que ellos, que pueden hacerle sombra; y más bien incentivan y promocionan a quienes ayudan a expandir o reproducir su poder a través de una actitud servil, “sus hijas”^[4], nada más simbólico y estructural en una sociedad estamental.

En general son sólo algunos y no la gran mayoría de los activistas que reciben el privilegio de acceder a información y conocimiento técnico, pero éste al mismo tiempo se convierte en un recurso de mucho poder. Sobre todo en grupos con mayores desigualdades como la comunidad travesti. Por ejemplo, el acceso a información (epidemiológica, propuestas de proyectos de la cooperación, presupuestos de inversión pública, convocatorias para capacitaciones y talleres) puede verse hasta como un privilegio, un recurso que las puede colocar en una posición jerárquica frente a las otras.

Tampoco creo que las organizaciones LGBT deban funcionar desde una lógica partidaria ochentera ni noventera, que no es lo mismo a que las organizaciones tengan alguna adscripción partidaria o con alguna ideología en particular. Y entiendo esa lógica basada en prácticas de disciplinamiento partidario como “el cierre de filas”, el cual muchas veces sólo favorece la continuidad de relaciones serviles, jerárquicas, la defensa de intereses netamente egocentristas, y la protección de los líderes “importantes”, pero verticales y autoritarios.

Si ya la comunidad LGBT es objeto de negación de derechos, si en el Perú nuestra comunidad es excluida de las pretensiones inclusivas del gobierno actual y lo más probable es que así siga siendo en un futuro medio, ¿por qué reproducir esas mismas negaciones y jerarquías hacia el interior del movimiento? ¿Por qué se mantienen esos feudos –el cual ya no es sólo el espacio de la organización, sino todos los campos sociales y simbólicos que se vinculan con ella–, donde se asienta que una es más bonita que otra, que ésta es más blanca que aquélla, que ésa tiene más recursos que todas las demás?

Por supuesto que una configuración estamental al interior del movimiento produce sus propios “privilegiados importantes”, el político y el académico se convierten en categorías exclusivas para denominar a los otros –que repito son la gran mayoría– ignorantes, apolíticos, y hasta traidores, convirtiéndose en una actitud tendenciosa y que termina generando diálogos entre unos cuantos y no entre todos que conforma la base social y comunitaria.

Además, es cierto que entre los diferentes feudos dialogan, pero también bajo intereses que a veces son irreconciliables, lo que no ha ayudado en nada en la generación de frentes amplios y nacionales en base a objetivos comunes que enfrenten además problemas comunes como la discriminación, el reconocimiento de las uniones civiles, la falta de acceso a educación, empleo, salud integral y los crímenes de odio. Para ello se requiere una revolución primero al interior del movimiento, que quiebre dichos privilegios, que democratice los recursos y que rompa con las líneas de sucesión por nacimiento, a “mis hijas”.

La dilatación de una transformación efectiva, hace que el movimiento esté a merced de los vicios generados por la estructura estamental y también de los discursos externos que pretenden homogenizar la lucha comunitaria en todo el sur global, a partir de teorías foráneas, academicistas y desarrollistas que no han tenido ningún logro efectivo. Ello implica que haya una revitalización de las apuestas de transformación que partan de las propias racionalidades o cosmovisiones LGBT del país, basadas en sus propias voces, posicionamientos geopolíticos, sus políticas del cuerpo, sus economías emocionales, y sus tejidos afectivos, y que pueda dialogar en un contexto sur-sur y que interpelen las teorías hegemónicas del norte, en donde incluso el estado pueda brindar su apoyo en los procesos de diálogo con ellos. Solo así se podrá trazar una estrategia políticamente situada no abstracta, totalizante y homogenizadora, sino con cuerpo, rostro y nombre(s) propios(s).

Definitivamente no queremos un sumo pontífice, no necesitamos oráculos que concentren y centralicen el conocimiento y los recursos, que reproduzcan verticalidad y que conviertan el discurso de la asistencia técnica en una herramienta de asistencialismo y dependencia perversa. Tampoco necesitamos de herramientas de otros contextos ni copiar sus realidades. En la actualidad se requiere desjerarquizar y desmantelar el aparato de privilegios de aquellos liderazgos y sus vicios, así como las relaciones entre los miembros al interior de las organizaciones. Sólo renovando el diálogo entre pares de manera horizontal, se podrán involucrar a diferentes actores que tendrán el derecho de ser importantes y líderes, elegidos por la propia comunidad y respaldados principalmente por sus bases y no por las ONG’s, la cooperación o el propio Estado; pero eso sí, identificando muy bien esas micro relaciones de poder, revertiéndolas en relaciones democráticas e inclusivas.

The post Las fallidas transformaciones al interior del movimiento LGBT en el Perú: una interpretación crítica desde la perspectiva interseccional 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.

Francisco Zamora Loboch[1], o “Paco” para los que lo conocen, es uno de los escritores más conocidos de Guinea Ecuatorial. Nacido en 1948 en la isla guineana de Annobón, su vida ha sido profundamente marcada por el paso de su patria por el dominio colonial español, la independencia, la dictadura, y la diáspora. Aunque llegó a España para emprender estudios universitarios en 1968, la toma del poder por Francisco Macías Nguema obligó a miles de sus compatriotas a exiliarse, así convirtiendo en permanente la estancia de Zamora en España. En 1979, el sobrino de Macías, Teodoro Obiang, se convirtió en presidente, lo cual confirmó aún más la imposibilidad de que Zamora volviera. Desde entonces, Zamora se ha establecido como periodista en Madrid. Ha trabajado para varias publicaciones a lo largo de los años, especialmente como especialista del deporte para el diario As. Sus obras literarias, las cuales comprenden ensayo (Cómo ser negro y no morir en Aravaca, 1994), poesía (Memoria de laberintos, 1999; Desde el Viyil y otras crónicas, 2008); y novela (Conspiración en el green, 2009; El caimán de Kaduna, 2012), enfrentan temas urgentemente importantes como el papel del nacionalismo en una tierra marcada por la tensión étnica, la pobreza, y el terrorismo estatal; la experiencia del exilio en el antiguo poder colonial; la pertenencia de una nación africana en la comunidad hispanohablante global; y el papel del humor a la hora de promover el cambio social.

El 28 de mayo, 2013, Paco se sentó conmigo en su despacho en Madrid para hablar de su vida y de su literatura.

*****

Martin Repinecz:                ¿Puedes hablar un poco de cómo llegaste a España y de cómo llegaste a ser escritor?

Francisco Zamora Loboch:               Bueno, pues escritor ya lo era desde niño. Tengo un poema que lo describe. En Annobón, no había mucha gente que supiera leer por aquella época. Cuando el barco correo llegaba, los hombres y mujeres mayores siempre acudían a los chicos, a los jóvenes, que sabían escribir, para escribir las cartas. Entonces a partir de allí empecé a escribir, que estaba bien porque estaba muy bien remunerado. Quiero decirte que, cuanto mejor escribías las cartas, más ñames tenías, más plátanos tenías, incluso pescado tenías, etcétera. O sea, de allí empecé a escribir, o bueno, más que a escribir, a saber la importancia de lo que es la escritura.

Bueno, y en cuanto a llegar a este país, cuando era joven como tú, al parecer era tan listo y tan inteligente como tú–¡la gente se creía que era yo listo e inteligente como tú!

FZL:               Y me dieron una beca, por lo cual llegué aquí para estudiar ciencias económicas. Pero al poco tiempo me di cuenta de que lo que realmente me atraía era el periodismo. Y me pasé a periodismo.

MR:                ¿Y eso era en los años ’60, no?

FZL:               Más bien ‘70. No me eches tantos años; no seas capullo.

MR:                ¿Y cuándo empezaste a escribir creativamente?

FZL:               Creativamente también ya en Guinea empecé a escribir poesía, cuando tendría 17, 18 años. E incluso antes, porque de niño aprendí muy pronto a leer; creo que a los tres años ya sabía leer, o a los cuatro.

MR:                ¿Tu padre también era poeta?

FZL:               Mi padre era poeta y maestro de escuela. Entonces, pues, para mí descubrir la lectura de los tebeos, o los cómics, como se llaman ahora, fue un mundo muy gratificante. Pero también era problemático porque ahora mis hermanas mayores me recuerdan lo mucho que me reía de ellas porque ellas no sabían leer. A los seis, siete años, todavía yo decía, “pero esto, ¡¿cómo puede ser?!,” y tal. Entonces obviamente empezaba a meterme en problemas, pero de risa; yo siempre me he reído mucho de los ignorantes.

FZL:               Pero como los ignorantes siempre tienen más fuerza, siempre te acaban hundiendo de un golpe, o de una hostia, o de una cosa así. Entonces, bueno, sí, en Guinea empecé a escribir, y al llegar aquí, sufrí, como es natural, una transformación de todo lo que había escrito, que era sobre palmeras, e historias y movidas. Y al llegar aquí, gracias a Dios, me encontré en la escuela de periodismo, en las aulas y tal, a gente muy crítica con respecto a la política, la historia, etcétera. Tuve mucha suerte en ese sentido porque el ser crítico, y el decirte “¿qué es eso de las palmeras, y de los cocoteros?”, y tal, te obliga a ponerte al día. Y a la vez que escribes en los periódicos, te vas dando cuenta de que el regionalismo no tiene ninguna razón de ser si no tiene su proyección en un árbol común de cultura. No se puede andar por ahí toda la vida hablando de ancestros, de grutas, de palmeras, de cocoteros; no, no, no. Hay que integrar todo esto, como diría un cierto músico brasileño, dentro de una cultura común.

MR:                Y cuando eras pequeño en Annobón, ¿qué textos estaban disponibles para ti? ¿Mencionaste los tebeos, no?

FZL:               ¡Cómics! Capitán Trueno; Jabato; Mortadelo y Filemón; lo que había de aquella época. No leí ningún libro interesante, si es lo que tú quieres saber.

¿Si ya leía a Dickens? No. En absoluto, mi cultura se limitaba a los cómics: al mundo de Capitán Trueno, al mundo del Jabato, al mundo de Mortadelo y Filemón, del Guerrero del Antifaz, como cualquier niño español.

MR:                ¿Y del Western también, no?

FZL:               Ah sí, por supuesto; mi padre tenía muy buenas novelas del Oeste, pero no me las dejaba leer. Pero buscaba y conseguía. Y además, coincide que ha salido una historia hermosa en estos años con los autores del Western. No sé si habrás leído de cómo los autores represaliados por el franquismo se refugiaron en las novelitas del Oeste y de misterio y de crímenes para sobrevivir, y firmaban con pseudónimos como Clark Karrados, como Silver Kane. El único que firmaba como él era Marcial Lafuente Estefanía. Ese momento me coge completamente. Por entusiasmado, no por presumir  de grandes lecturas. Ahora, cuando ingresé en el Instituto de Enseñanza Media en Santa Isabel, en Malabo, o en Clarence, que tiene los tres nombres…[2]

MR:                O sea, perdón, ¿tú te fuiste de Annobón en cierto momento?

FZL:               Sí, claro; mi padre era maestro y cuando le destinaron a Santa Isabel, ya me fui para allá. Y entonces, dos o tres años después, ingresé en el Instituto de Enseñanza Media. Cuando estuve en el Instituto de Enseñanza Media, ya empezaron a autorizar a los chicos negros que podían entrar, porque antes era una institución sólo destinada a los chicos blancos. Entonces a partir del año ‘58, cuando se declara que Guinea Ecuatorial es una provincia, igual que Albacete, entonces ya podíamos entrar a los institutos. Entonces allí es cuando me encontré con profesores competentes que me enseñaron quién era Juan Ramón Jiménez, quién era Cervantes, quién era esto y aquello, etcétera. Y es cuando entré en contacto con la literatura de gran tamaño, y empecé a leer en serio, sobre todo a Juan Ramón, me lo leí bastante; Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer; en fin, todo lo que se leía en aquella época. Y me acuerdo perfectamente cuando leí Platero y yo, que me quedé impresionado de cómo se podía escribir tan bien. Y por supuesto, los poemas de Juan Ramón Jiménez, aunque luego no haya influido mucho en mí, pero esto te llena de cultura, ¿no?

MR:                Sí, definitivamente. Incluso cuando tu escribías cartas en Annobón, ¿escribías en castellano?

FZL:               En castellano, en castellano. Si no, ¿qué misión tenía? De Annobón, sólo se puede

ir a Santa Isabel, o a Fernando Pó, o a Bioko, o a Malabo.[3] Ese era el itinerario vital del annobonés. El annobonés iba para trabajar en Malabo y volver para construir su casa, etc. Entonces, no teníamos otro panorama, y seguimos sin tenerlo. O sea, el ideal del annobonés es poner los pies en la tierra de los bubis,[4] acumular dinero o elementos de material para construir una casa de piedra, o una casa de cemento, etc.

MR:                ¿Puedes hablar un poco más de la identidad de Annobón? ¿Cómo la gente en esa isla siente su identidad annobonesa con respecto a la identidad equatoguineana?

FZL:               Los annoboneses se sienten annoboneses; mucho, mucho, mucho. Hombre, yo creo que nos sentimos guineanos por los bubis. La relación entre Annobón y la isla de Bioko, o la isla de Fernando Pó, como se llame, siempre ha existido. Porque como te he dicho, era nuestro vínculo para saber lo que pasaba en el mundo, para poder comprar, para poder usar una cosa que se llama dinero, para tener relaciones con la cultura blanca. Entonces, claro, a partir de allí, cuando se junta con el continente, no hay ningún problema. Al fin y al cabo, vas a estar en África. Hagas lo que hagas. Esta es una cosa que desconocen los africanos, que es que al fin y al cabo, va a ser África.

MR:                ¿Pero ustedes se identifican más bien con los bubis que con los fang?[5]

FZL:               Sí, claro que sí. El trato entre Annobón y los fang es de hace cuarenta, cincuenta años. En cambio el trato de los annoboneses con los bubis ha sido secular. No íbamos al continente, íbamos a la isla en busca de oportunidades. Allí están los bubis. Pero es un crisol, la capital, que forman bubis, españoles, y otros. Lo que significa ser una capital. Pequeña, pero una capital al fin y al cabo.

MR:                ¿Y cómo era para ti la experiencia de vivir en Santa Isabel [present-day Malabo]?

FZL:               ¡Por supuesto! allí conocí a los amigos de toda la vida, a los que serían mis amigos, que eran todos unos maleantes. Mi padre llevaba además un reformatorio de menores. Con lo cual, imagínate, un chico de mi edad, ¡la cantidad de desalmados, delincuentes, golfos! Toda mi vida he estado entre golfos, golfillos, ladrones, mangantes! ¡Eran mis amigos!

FZL:               Y además de los que incorporé en el instituto, también hice muchos amigos en una experiencia semi-fascista, que era la OJE, la Organización Juvenil Española, cuando llegué a España en el 62-63. Pero esa OJE era una obra de Franco, y decían que le llamaba Franco la obra más mimada, o una cosa así. Servía para que los chicos guineanos de 14, 15, 16 años, pudieran venir a la península, a España, a integrarse con los otros chicos españoles. Con lo cual, claro, ¡tu universo cambió en dos o tres viajes! Era tremendo, porque de la discriminación racial de Guinea, de la supremacía del blanco sobre el negro, llegas aquí y dices, “¿Qué cojones? ¿Y esto? ¡Yo soy igual que estos tíos!” Los tíos esos te tomaban el pelo, tú les tomabas a ellos, te integrabas en un día, en dos días, en fin. Entonces, la OJE jugó un papel muy grande a pesar de ser una organización fascista de la juventud de Guinea Ecuatorial de aquella época porque le permitió salir del ambiente colonial y disfrutar del ambiente español. El enriquecimiento de esta experiencia semifascista, parafascista, etcétera–¿te puedes imaginar, con el uniforme azul y caqui?—nos sirvió a nosotros para despertar de un mundo colonial aletargado. Además, a toda una generación: no era yo, eran cientos de críos los que veníamos en verano aquí a los campamentos de la OJE. Con lo cual, pues, aunque Macías[6] acabó con toda esta gente, algunos se han salvado.

MR:                Entonces, cuando viniste a España para empezar la universidad, ¿pensabas volver a Guinea?

FZL:               Sí, por supuesto; no tenía ningún interés por quedarme; todo el romanticismo que yo podía tener para este país ya se había agotado a los 18 años. A los 18 años ya me lo conocía todo.

MR:                Y con la OJE, ¿tú venías a Madrid?

FZL:               Ah, no; es que eran experiencias increíbles para un chico nacido en Guinea. Con 15 años, te dejaban en Cádiz en el barco. Te dejaban el dinero suficiente y un mapa, y te decían dónde debéis estar en tal día. Con lo cual, teníamos que buscarnos la vida, o caminando, o en autostop, o como fuera para llegar a estos sitios, claro. Imagínate la experiencia que coges en los años ’60 y pico por aquí. Yo me acuerdo una vez que llegamos a Galicia porque el campamento era en Galicia en un lugar que se llama Sada, en una playa famosísima. Llegamos allí los seis guineanitos con nuestros macutos y tal, y el jefe dijo, “Bueno, hoy vamos a hacer una paella.” Teníamos allí el arroz, pedimos una paellera, y empezamos a hacer allí el arroz, y se acercaron unas señoras. “¿Qué hacéis?,” dicen. “Vamos a hacer una paella.” “¿De dónde venís?” “De Guinea.” “¿Desde cuándo hacéis paellas?” Le decimos, “no, es que…” y dicen, “mirad, hijos: sois muy jóvenes; estáis muy bien, muy guapos. Iros a bañaros. Tranquilamente disfrutad de Galicia. Cuando vengáis, no os preocupéis, que nosotros os preparamos la paella.” ¡Wooooow! Y cuando volvimos, aquella era una paellerona, una fiesta.

MR:                Entonces, ¿dijiste que viniste a estudiar economía pero luego cambiaste a periodismo, no?

FZL:               Sí, en la Complutense.

MR:             ¿Y estabas en la universidad cuando Guinea se independizó?

FZL:               No, yo estaba allí [en Guinea], en la plaza de España, pero no sé cómo se llama ahora.[7] Yo estaba aquel día.[8]

MR:                Ah, ¡te acuerdas del día! ¿Qué pasó exactamente?

FZL:               Bueno, después de aquello, a los dos meses o así, ya me vine a España. Y luego llegó lo de Macías: lo de los asesinatos, y la brutalidad, y todo eso, pero todo eso lo pasé aquí. Luegó se organizó alguna cosa para regresar, pero fracasó; todos los intentos que hicimos fracasaron. También éramos muy ingenuos; no creíamos que el dinero era importante.

MR:            O sea, en los primeros años, ¿estabas involucrado en movimientos políticos?

FZL:               Sí, siempre lo he estado.

MR:                Vamos a hablar por un momento de tu carrera de periodista. Puedes hablar un poco de como llegaste a ser periodista del deporte en particular?

FZL:               Ah, sí, porque en una ocasión estuve hablando con uno de mis maestros, y yo estaba obsesionado con Guinea. Entonces me dijo que no me obsesionara demasiado con esto, y que me dedicara a hacer periodismo. Primero, porque tenía que subsistir, y segundo, porque no me tenía que etiquetar demasiado. Entonces, siempre he ido alternando una cosa con otra. Pero sobre todo, para mí, donde he escrito lo mejor es el mundo del deporte porque de pequeño he sido muy buen deportista. Eso sí que es verdad, sí. He hecho velocidad, baloncesto, vallas, por supuesto jugar al futbol.

MR:                Tu última novela, El caimán de Kaduna, es sobre el fútbol. ¿Supongo que tu experiencia reportando sobre el fútbol te ha ayudado mucho a escribirla?

FZL:              Sí. El diario As me ha enviado prácticamente a todos los campeonatos de fútbol de África. En el mundial de Alemania,[9] se clasificaron cuatro o cinco equipos africanos, así que yo tuve que recorrer todos esos países africanos contando cómo se veía el mundial allí. En la Afrocopa de Ghana,[10] estuve. En la de Egipto,[11] estuve. En la de Angola,[12] estuve. Y luego estuve en Suráfrica ahora para el mundial.[13]

MR:                Y cuando estuviste en todos esos países, ¿conseguiste establecer contacto con otros escritores africanos?

FZL:               No, estaba trabajando como un loco. Porque es que tienes que rellenar todos los

días dos páginas de periódico. No tienes tiempo para nada. No da tiempo más que comer malamente. Pero es el mejor momento para visitar esos países. Ves la explosión nacional, la depresión nacional, ves gente que no tiene nada que ver con el fútbol criticar el fútbol. Además, la organización no suele ser muy sofisticada. Aquí si enseñas la credencial, te mandan a otro sitio, y de allí tienes que ir a otro. Pero allí no. Yo prefiero ese caos. Está más entretenido.

MR:                Entonces, volviendo a la literatura, ¿los primeros textos literarios que publicaste eran poesías, no, que salieron en la antología de Donato?[14]

FZL:               Precisamente, en la antología de Donato, no. Entre los intentos de buscar fondos para luchar contra Macías, sacamos unos libros que llamamos literatura guineana, o una cosa así que no me acuerdo. allí empezaron a salir los primeros escritos.. .Ahora creo que se han cumplido unos 25 años desde aquellos primeros escritos que sacamos Donato, yo y esta gente.

MR:                ¿Y qué te parece, en general, el proyecto de crear una literatura guineana? ¿Te parece importante etiquetarla de esa manera?

FZL:               Sí, me parece importante etiquetarla de esa manera porque de esta forma, la gente que leemos en español nos daremos cuenta de que ahora mismo, el español tiene tres patas, si no cuatro. Una pata  que es la española normal: Madrid; Sevilla; la península. Otra pata es Sudamérica;  y la otra es África. Entonces es importante para nosotros que se distinga como tal. Tú, como buen americano, sabes que hasta que una cosa no le dan nombre, no toma visibilidad. Y no puedes hacer un movimiento. Es bueno, no es malo.

MR:                ¿Te parece que los escritores guineanos están obteniendo más visibilidad?

FZL:               Las universidades les están dando visibilidad.

MR:                ¿En España también?

FZL:               No, en España no. Los americanos. Cada vez que me llama un estudioso americano, soy incapaz de decirle que no, porque sé que están haciendo un esfuerzo valioso, y gente como Justo Bolekia, Ávila Laurel, Donato Ndongo Bidyogo, [15] saben la dependencia y el agradecimiento que les debemos a los americanos. A los estudiantes americanos. Porque se han tomado muy en serio lo que se está produciendo con sus tesis y sus estudios. No hay universidad americana donde no se sepa algo de lo que se produce en Guinea Ecuatorial. Y eso es gracias a ellos, no a España. En España, nos ningunean. No han tomado dimensión exacta de que un pequeño país llamado Guinea es la embajada del español en África. Y si la tienen, les da igual. Pero coño, un continente que habla mil millones de idiomas, ¿que tenga un promontorio dedicado al español? ¡Aunque sea escribir con el culo! Que es verdad que a veces digo, joder, esta novela está escrita con el culo, o este poema no tiene nada de interesante, pero ¡es en español!

FZL:               Y España, y el Instituto Cervantes y las instituciones deberían tomar un poco más de conciencia de lo que está ocurriendo. Porque es que no sabes además la cantidad de gente que escribe en Guinea, un montón.

MR:                ¿Como es la situación para los escritores en Guinea Ecuatorial?

FZL:               No sé, porque no vivo allí. Pero supongo que debe ser frustrante porque no tienen lectores. El gobierno guineano no hace mucho por ellos. Como decía Ávila Laurel, “escribir en Guinea es como ser esquiador en el Sahara.”

MR:            Sí, eso imaginaba.

FZL:               Sí.

MR:                ¿Puedes contarme un poco sobre tus próximos proyectos literarios?

FZL:               Estoy preparando un libro de poemas. Quiero entitularlo “Azul español.” “Azul español” es sobre la lengua, la religión, y la relación poética entre mi España y mi Guinea. Por un lado, el azul representa el uniforme de los falangistas, del régimen. El himno falangista decía “cubre tu pecho del azul español.” Pero luego también hay un poema de Juan Ramón Jiménez que dice, “todas las tardes el cielo será azul y placido.”[16] Este “azul y placido” me encanta. Y me parece una cosa muy sugerente. He empezado a escribirlo pero no tengo mucha prisa.

MR:                Muy interesante. Como  última pregunta, ¿has pensado alguna vez volver a Guinea Ecuatorial?

FZL:               ¡Sí, claro! Tengo que enseñar a los chavales a jugar bien al fútbol, que creo que lo están haciendo mal. Y también les puedo enseñar a jugar a vóleibol, y también les puedo enseñar a jugar a baloncesto. Y si no quieren los guineanos, lo puedo hacer en Annobón. No pasa nada.

MR:                Pues muchas gracias, Paco.

FZL:               Nada, hombre. ¡Son dos o tres cañas que me vas a pagar ahora, cabrón!

The post Laberintos de memorias: Una conversación con Francisco Zamora Loboch 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.

One of the many things I appreciated while reading the book is the clear highlighting of the role that the Rwandan and Ugandan governments played, particularly the personal involvement of the two dictators, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni, in the war in DRC. Their motives, their modus operandi, the people they used, the ideologies they espoused, as well as the support they continue to receive from their American allies, is well documented via interviews, reports, articles and a previous book on the DRC. In fact, the involvement of these two countries is so deep that the chapter on the war in DRC begins with a compelling account of living conditions in pre-genocide Rwanda, moves on to the genocide itself, and the retribution of revengeful Rwandan soldiers deep in the forest of DRC, massacring Rwandan Hutu refugees, as well as DRC citizens.

The role of mineral riches is also very well presented. At first, the mineral trafficking was indeed a financial means of sustaining the costly hunt for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and other international armed groups, but quickly, smuggling riches out of the DRC became an end in itself. This burgeoning economic activity encouraged the mushrooming of faction after faction in corners where State authority could not be enforced.

Mining activities were conducted either through artisanal mining (rebels) or through direct contracts with the government (such as Angola buying a diamond exploitation monopoly for the derisory price of $20 million). Once opened, this door could not be closed and at various levels national and international political leaders and warlords used resources from DRC to fill their own pockets as well as fuel the war.

As the author moves toward interpreting the situation, the passivity of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) (later MONUSCO) is particularly worth reading about. While their mission to protect civilians and enforce peace was clear in their mandate, they stood by, “observing” as hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians were massacred in Ituri, South Kivu, and North Kivu. This, and the tacit blessings of the US, UK and other actors of the so-called international community, was captured quite well and in great detail by the author.

In an extraordinary tour de force, the author packs 550 years of Congolese history into the first forty pages. However, this account of the DRC’s history should have focused more deeply on those elements that have led to the current crisis instead of the personalities of the key players. It is notable that the DRC’s history is not the only reason for state failure and ongoing unrest in certain regions.

While the book is rich in information, dates and places that are very familiar to those living or working in the DRC might confuse a reader who is unfamiliar with past and present events in the DRC, and may erroneously reinforce the false perception that the DRC crisis is a conflict so complex that it cannot be resolved or understood. The book would have benefited from more maps and illustrations for the non specialized reader. It does not appear, for example, that different regions of the country experienced war at different times. The Eastern city of Bukavu for example has been at peace since 2004 while its northern sister, Goma, was under M23 siege in 2012. The CNDP/M23 episodes affected the southern part of North Kivu, leaving provinces like Katanga, Bas Congo, Kasai or Bandundu very far from that conflict.

As with many books written about the DRC, the presence of Congolese heroes who have worked tirelessly in the field to influence the national and international agenda seems missing. The book seems primarily about the roles played by international actors in the Congo, and less about the Congolese people themselves. They are presented either as either passive victims or naïve pawns used by foreign powers to conduct their criminal agendas on DRC soil. The unity of all Congolese parties during the struggle for independence has been minimized. The peaceful and non-violent demonstrations that brought down the Parti-Etat, organized by the Catholic Church, and the relevant political opposition have not been emphasized. When the author covers the Intercongolese Dialogue in Sun City, he fails to demonstrate the role played by civil society. Even when he mentions the denunciation of Rwanda and Uganda by international bodies, the author does not acknowledge the roles of Congolese whistle blowers, lobbyists and activists both inside and outside the country in shaping the Congolese political landscape, forcing the UN and European countries to name Rwanda and Uganda as instigators, and to take measures against them.

At times the Congolese actors are painted in black or white terms, and the social and political contexts under which they took certain decisions are not readily evident, despite the contextual relevance at the time. As an example, on page 95, in 2002 Joseph Kabila is already presented negatively when many Congolese still believe that it is the failed checks and balances in the DRC institutions, inherited from previous regimes and not addressed by the Sun City dialogue that changed him from a peacemaker into the authoritarian leader he now is. The overemphasis of the leaders’ ethnic origins was unnecessary in cases where tribal affiliation played a minimal role. It is easy to simplify situation of the DRC by grouping actors based on tribes, and it could even be misleading in some instances to think in terms of tribes when other interests were at stake.

Despite this, however, the work is a must-read for all who seek to understand the different factions and involvements in the DRC, and how the fate of the DRC is linked, in general, to the stability of the region, or lack thereof. Rather than being more broadly about development, diplomacy or economics, Deibert is principally focused on the engagement of national and international actors in the DRC security landscape and the ensuing complicity in mass murder that armed forces have perpetrated on the DRC soil. After encountering all the difficult facts presented in the book, the reader faces an important question: “Now what?” Now that we know about what happened, what comes next? Now that we have learnt about the despair, what hope do we have for the DRC?

The post Book Review: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Between Hope and Despair (Michael Deibert, 2013) appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

The well-known artist’s warmth, kindness, and humility caught me by surprise. I was younger by nearly six decades, but he patiently listened all the same as I introduced myself, and briefly explain that I was in South Africa to work in the arts. A glimmer of a smile appeared on the face of the elder artist as he offered some words about the art scene in his Cape Town. When he finished, he nodded and turned toward a waiting friend. He then paused and turned back, saying: “Here, take my card and we’ll talk some other time. I’d like you to come visit and see my artwork.” Turning the card over in my hands. For a moment my young self was surprised to find only a street address and telephone number; my reflex was to look for an email address to which I could write. When I looked up again, Clarke’s spry frame was heading into the theatre. We just met, and Clarke’s warmth went beyond a simple welcome as he invited me to share his vision of South Africa.

Before continuing, I should note the stimulus for my meditations here is Clarke’s passing in April of 2014. Born in 1929 in Simon’s Town, The Group Areas Act moved him to Ocean View in 1973, and he lived and worked there until his passing. Clarke is best known for his paintings and prints of the daily life of Cape communities, but for decades he also quietly produced collages, handcrafted concertina books and poetry.

Clarke’s biography is astounding. The artist was relocated in the forced removals from Simon’s Town to Ocean View. He began his artistic career as part of community arts programs, and his sense of community and he maintained his commitment to public arts programs and social engagement, for many decades. Whereas most other now well-known artists of colour fled South African oppression, Clarke remained in the country. For instance, Gerard Sekoto thrived in France while Clarke survived in Cape Town. Clarke has engaged notions of ‘space’ for many years. The artist’s commitment to live and produce from his home base is a decision that is both personal and political.[1] It was from South Africa that Clarke developed and nurtured global community. These networks are both physical and conceptual, and the artistic engagement motivated active dialogue with artists internationally, among artists of colour in particular.

Since Clarke’s transition, several thoughtful eulogies have appeared. Emile Maurice marks the artist’s status as ‘elder statesman’ while Mario Pissaro is more direct in his description: “Peter Clarke was, indeed is, a giant.”[2]These authors (and others) offer broadly panoramic surveys of the different modalities in Clarke’s life and artwork, and Pissaro is especially attentive to the criteria and modes of interpretation that are employed to historicize Clarke’s activities. Indeed, it is difficult to overstate Clarke’s impact on histories of South African visual art.

Clarke’s work has appeared in several major exhibitions that solidify the artist’s relevance on both popular and critical levels. Clarke had been exhibiting work since the 1950s, and in 2011, Patricia Hobbs and Elizabeth Rankin produced a major retrospective exhibition and book on Clarke’s work. The venue of the South African National Gallery and its production by Standard Bank Johannesburg makes the project a definitive comment on Clarke’s oeuvre. In 2013, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town held an exhibition and produced a catalogue of Clarke’s work, and in the same year Riason Naidoo and Tessa Jackson curated the first major exhibition of Clarke’s artwork in the United Kingdom at INIVA.[3]

In this brief reflection I shall be adopting a less panoramic viewpoint, and setting aside some important insights relayed by others, for example, Clarke’s mood that day in 1956 when he decided to be a full-time artist, or the specific ways in which the German Expressionist art movement influenced the artist’s style. Instead, I shall be focusing upon more theoretical issues in Clarke’s history and reception.

I would like to introduce Clarke’s unique position as an artist, including his impact on the development of critical discourse over decades. The artist’s long life afforded him reciprocal vantage points, shaping a historically informed awareness of the present day. Within the scope of this brief essay, I can do little more than gesture at the wider context that I believe to be necessary in formulating Clarke’s impact. I should say my tactic is to give some weight to what this impact might mean as a demonstration of visual culture in South Africa, of looking and being looked at, of spectacle and spectatorship, and the staging of the quotidian. I also make no apology for discussing the essential drama of black life, and what any of this has to do with the quintessential modernity of Clarke’s practice. I hope this viewpoint will provide an alternative way of framing the biographical picture that others have, quite rightly in my view, judged to be important.

Peter Clarke

My attempt to reflect on the vibrantly beautiful pictures of Clarke’s oeuvre immediately refracts in the glare of South African historical fact. The advent of Apartheid in 1948 merely ‘hardened’ a model for white minority rule in Africa that derived from nineteenth century British colonial policies—including the removal of African families from their farms; segregating spaces in cities; restrictions on mobility, sexual freedom, and economic rights of non-white South Africans, including the Pass Laws Act of 1952, which formalized the mandatory reference book identity document.[4] The catalogue for Clarke’s 2013 exhibition “Just Paper and Glue” points to this history; the second page pictures Clarke’s identity document issued in 1989, complete with photograph and biographical details. As a collage element, the inclusion of this fragment points to the legacy of the legal, psychological and social effects of the colonial era. What is more, it underscores the longstanding impact of these effects on daily life and interactions between people, going so far as to shape the space of imagination.

Space is materially and conceptually paramount in Clarke’s artwork, and the artist addresses the concept through a variety of media. Early pictures included views of his surroundings in Simon’s Town and the ocean shoreline. Clarke’s catalogue of landscape paintings provides literal examples of the artist’s concern with space. Clarke notes: “One idea, one project I’d like to see take shape is: I’ve always been interested in space, you know, space, space, space, and also in what happens in space, a space like this…”[5] The consistent genius in Clarke’s “space of imagination” may be its ability to depict and metaphorize at once. Gavin Younge picks this up with an incisive observation about Clarke’s “Haunted Landscape” (1976), describing it as a picture that represents a ‘landscape of the mind.’[6]

In an artwork made in gouache and collage titled “Afrika which way” (1978), the landscape view is interrupted and blocked by a white wall covered in graffiti. The space is divided in thirds, against dark grey clouds, in the upper left and right, a blue sky at dusk mingles with magentas, purples and blues. Hovering in the upper right of the scene, above the dividing wall, a setting vermillion circle is collaged over the clouds and placed above the wall. This picture is overtly political—the graffiti references Africa’s liberation leaders including Amílcar Cabral, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta and Julius Nyerere – and attacks the Cold War that was tearing southern Africa apart. Clarke comments:

Among the various laws that were put into place by the apartheid government was the Group Areas Act, whereby they would remove black people out of town in order to create separation between one group and another. So that people in Simon’s Town, people who had been there for a very very long time, people who’s parents had been born there, grandparents and so on and so on, they were given this order that they would have to move out, and they were in fact moved out of town… And so I became interested in this thing about graffiti, protest, space.[7]

A black dog trots along the fence as if to exit the scene, and in the vibrant, warm hued foreground, a young black man holds a birdcage from which two white doves fly. In this landscape, text and collage are in the mid-ground—at the center—of the image.

The iconography of these details matter to the (un-isolatable) formal properties of Clarke’s artwork, yet here my move is to establish some procedures to trace a relationship between Clarke’s longstanding admixtures of picture and text, visual practice and community outreach, and a courtship with conventional visual forms of European modernism as it consistently appears with local and necessarily black African (and Diasporic!) subject matter. This brief essay will only preview the wider context necessary in formulating such an issue. Here I give some weight to specific, if diverse points, but place the main emphasis on understanding the overall logic that links Clarke’s oeuvre to vital moments, concepts, meanings, and historical legacies.

From the fifteenth century the region posed an environmental conundrum to Europeans. From the early, dismissive assessments of the Portuguese to the Dutch colonizers of the region from 1652 to 1799, to the British controllers from the nineteenth century, the form and concept of the landscape was a problematic inheritance, as much so as the indigenous populations found therein. The Cape came to be populated by a mixture of indigenous inhabitants and colonists that spoke European languages but—because of unique cultural exchanges and makeshift colonial lifestyles—refused to act out the modes of life expected of them as ‘Europeans’. After 1880, the region was propelled into industrialization and by the geopolitics of imperialism transformed into an autonomous, modern society.

Closely related to the geopolitics of industrialization was the emergence of aesthetics, an attempt to develop a consequential science of appearances and imagination. The practice mediated the emergence of the modern representation, and initiated a shift in art away from the poetic tradition of classical mimesis toward “abstraction” and “non-representation.”[8] This is the bare minimum we need to note that to think about ‘landscape’ and ‘environment’ is to be concerned with describing “something there,” which is one among many questions of representation, the same methods that mediate the construction of imagined communities, nations, and personal identities. Geographic territory defines national identity through two distinct ways of understanding: internally, how the national community is imaginatively linked to the land; and externally, how the community is delimited in relation or in contrast to other groups in proximity.[9] Put another way, there is a direct link between space, land, territory, community and identity.

During the twentieth century, the preoccupation with finding some kind of psychic accommodation with the land became a defining feature of white South African nationhood. Apartheid’s ‘hardened’ model for white minority rule in Africa extended nineteenth century British colonial policies that included the removal of African families from their farms; segregating spaces in cities; restrictions on mobility, sexual freedom, and economic rights of non-white South Africans—black people—of various skin colours. Fred Moten insists the history of blackness is testament to the fact that objects can and do resist such debilitating restraints on the imagination, and Clarke’s visions provide specific examples.[10] Clarke’s artwork offers ways of seeing how race and power have been legitimized and naturalized by everyday practices and experiences. Here, the basic point is that ideas about space and place are embedded in and produced by modern and transnational networks of knowledge and discourse, and Clarke’s wisdom allows us to see this movement.

In returning to “Afrika Which Way,” herein is a demonstration of visualizing landscape to invoke space, but also to use of text and collage as forms that execute disruptions of the established order. Clarke states this plainly:

I’m interested in recycling of materials, trash, leftovers, etcetera. I like to think in terms of the world being cleaned up and so I am doing my little bit for the process by making use of stuff that should be dumped, or is dumped and then retrieved, and so on. So I’ve made lots of use of collage… so its making use of waste materials in other words… what else?[11]

Collage in the usual meaning involves the pasting on of scraps that originated beyond the studio, in the store or on the street. The French noun coller means literally to glue or to stick. Collage method impacted the formation and elaboration of the art historical style known as Cubism. There was composite imagery before the twentieth century, but the appearance of collage in European modern art was substantially new.[12] Collage is linked to notions of indecency, paradox and perplexity—as “impurity by any other name,” and this technique of pasted paper had a special and profound part to play in the expression of the Modern sensibility in Europe and beyond—a sensibility tuned to matter and “capital” in the modern city.

Returning to historical fact: early papiers collés heralded in the Spanish artist Picasso’s involvement with “African art.” Picasso’s surrealist and cubist works are described as representations of representation. They are, like language, structured by means of arbitrary signs ‘circulating’ within a system of opposites. In collage, even when the imported object is still whole (a newspaper clipping, for instance), it has to join another surface where it does not strictly belong. Things happen in this transfer. A new relationship is enacted between the ‘low’ culture of newspapers and magazines, and the ‘high’ culture of professional art. This relationship is ‘inappropriate’. The collage method, then, delivers visual and conceptual encounter. Indeed, something happened in the explosive encounter between the European artist and the Trocadéro museum in Paris where non-Western artifacts were displayed and stored.

The collage method pulls the viewer in different temporal, conceptual and material directions when looking at the picture. This matters to Clarke’s artworks because this perspicacious feature articulates a vibrant modernity—of the discarded, unwanted, or overlooked as much as that which is kept, cherished or convenient. Collage in the fine arts allows viewers to see that it is somewhere in the gulf between the bright optimism of the official world and its degraded material residue, that many of the exemplary, central experiences of modernity exist. The fissures that open from a foreclosed universality, a refusal of humanity, a heroic but bounded expression, is black creative production.

Clarke’s use of collage and text begin to extract a new horizon of possibilities from within the moral and epistemic contours of a “postcolonial” present. Clarke inserted himself into the evolving discourse of modern African art during the 1960s.[13] Whereas Picasso used collage to escape narrative imagery, Clarke fills his scenes with text and signifying marks, situating them in space.[14]  Such a process that orients and situates our selves in space while coming to know the surrounding environment seems indispensible to the recognition of the self as a self.

Modernity’s fragments, some suggest, are its history, its residue, what is left over when consumption has ended for the day, when trading and exchange have ceased and the people have gone home. The production of blackness is a feature of the extended movement of modernity’s specific upheaval. It is a strain that pressures the assumption that personhood (personal biography) is the equivalent of subjectivity.[15] Put another way: since the colonial era, black South Africans have been portrayed as commodities who spoke—as laborers who were commodities before, as it were, and the abstraction of labor power from their bodies continues to pass this material heritage on, across conceptual divides that separate slavery and “freedom” in time and space.[16] These ideas may be placed in metaphorical relation to an artwork Clarke describes:

I have a feeling that in a space like this, If there is an air current coming in from that window or another source, and then another, and there is a current coming in from somewhere else, like over there, what we can’t see is what is happening with these particular streams of air. I have a feeling that if colour could be introduced into these streams, different colours, it would be visible, we would be able to see what was happening in these different streams, we would be able to see movement.[17]

Clarke’s work offers an opportunity to see movement in our aesthetic-political present. On the one hand, it asks what is demanded of a practice of postcolonial, postapartheid creativity. On the other, it asks what postcolonial creativity’s demand on this present ought to be.

Assuming, as I do, that the answers to these queries are not transparently self-evident and not adequately covered by the dominant vocabularies of the art historical, cultural and political realms we currently inhabit, Clarke’s artworks are one way of beginning to formulate responses to such questions.[18] Clarke’s oeuvre prompts us to see movement, to ask how, and with what conceptual resources, do we begin to extract a new yield, a new horizon of possibilities, from within the moral and epistemic contours of our present moment, and beyond.

The post Peter Clarke: Meditations on Space, Place and Movement 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.

*****

“To my compatriots, I have no hesitation in saying that each one of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld… a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world” (Nelson Mandela, 1994).

Vistas is a visual project about landscape featuring paintings by Raél Jero Salley and photographs by Jared Thorne.

The artwork focuses on land, farm, territory and ways of seeing in contemporary South Africa. Vistas is interested in land’s relationship to culture, and the exhibition appears with the legacy of the Native’s Land Act of 1913 in mind.

Salley’s paintings approach landscape from different directions. ‘To landscape’ is an active process of making space into place. It involves intersections between historical, aesthetic and concrete forms.

Thorne’s photographs question the ways in which the contrasting demographics of the neighboring Western Cape suburbs Kraafontein and Brackenfell depict the new South Africa.

In articulating a post apartheid vision of the South African landscape, the exhibition challenges romanticized visions of the ‘Rainbow Nation’, and seeks to provoke questions how such visions and views have expanded or collapsed.

By juxtaposing paintings and photographs, Vistas highlights practices of visual representation while looking toward the boundaries, horizons and possibilities of contemporary landscape.

The post Vistas: A Visual Project by Raél Jero Salley & Photographs by Jared Thorne appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

Writing in 1961, on the eve of both Algeria’s independence and his death, what will become his seminal work, Les damnés de la terre, Frantz Fanon characterizes the colonial world as two zones or compartments opposed to each other in their very nature. He describes that the one zone, is “strongly built…all made of stone and steel. It is a brightly-lit town; the streets are covered with asphalt”. He continues in the same temperament with the added bonus of naming the inhabitants: “The settler’s town is a well-fed town, an easy-going town; its belly is always full of good things. The settlers town is a town of white people, of foreigners.” While on the side zone; that of the negro or native “is a place of ill fame, peopled by men of evil repute. They are born there…they die there; it matters little not where, nor how. It is…without spaciousness; men live there on top of each other…the native town is a hungry town, starved of bread, of meat, of shoes, of light…a crouching village…of niggers and dirty arabs.”

Consistent with Fanon, French-Algerian existentialist, Albert Camus writes in 1953: “Poverty increases insofar as freedom retreats throughout the world and vice versa…The oppressed want to be liberated not only from their hunger but also from their masters.” Fanon’s sheer description of the geopolitical disparities – one of affluent existence and another of desolation, outlines not only colonial structural differences as such, but how the very orchestrations, determine experiential and existential realities. Fanon also notes that these cartographic domiciles produce inequalities, differing subjectivities and are self-cancelatory. The settler looks, from the hills of his well-lit town, with scorn and pomposity at the degenerate plight of the colonized native. The state of the desecrated existence of the colonized gives and sustains the colonizer’s humanity. Which is to say the symbolic weight of the colonizing being is constructed by and through the defilement of the colonized subject. The very well being of the master is the causal connection to both lack of freedom and the hunger that characterizes the colonized subject.

So there is something intrinsically relational between place and being. The common dictum that we are made by our dwellings becomes relatively plausible. The colonial machine produces subjects according to spaces. The designated colonial spatial positions, literary or figuratively, are built with their inhabitants in mind. Frank Wilderson III bolsters this point when he says: “Here the Absence of cartographic Presence resonates in the libidinal economy in the way Black “homeland” (in this case, the Ciskei) replicates the constituent deficiencies of Black “body” or “subject.” The Black “homeland” is a fated place where fated Black bodies are domiciled. It is the nowhere of no one. But it is more—or less—for “homeland” cartography suffers from a double inscription. The “homeland” is an Absence of national Presence drawn on the Absence of continental Presence; a Black “nation” on a Black “continent”; nowhere to the power of two.”

French philosopher Alain Badiou explains that when Marx argues that the proletariat has no being; he means it has no political presence. In the world Fanon diagnosed to have been characterized by “compartments” the logic is the same: “you are rich because are white, and you are white because you are rich.” This differential becomes the ‘dividing line’ as Seyki Otu would call it that separates between political and apolitical subjects. The color of one’s body determines the space and experience one aught to have – one’s access to life itself. This unrepresentability of others doesn’t mean, as Badiou also argues, that these others don’t exist – they do, however paradoxical their form of existence might be. This form of appearance, with all its formal presence as living bodies, “if we consider the world’s rules of appearance, the proletariat does not exist.” If the political subject aught to live in a place of decent living, spacious, secured and brightly lit streets, as a la settlers’ place, the apolitical subject, deserves can be found in nightmarish zones of depressive poverty, unsanitary streets and squalor like townships, shacks and favelas. Thus in this case the relation between place and people, land and native, colony and colonized or ghetto and blacks, is tautological. That is when one sees a black person automatically one sees a tableau vivant of township life.

Wasn’t this the intended mission of the 1913 native land act, to reduce blacks to nonexistent entities by dispossessing them off their land, labour and being? Today we live through the cracks of a legacy of colonial dispossessions. Even though there are no instruction boards designating separate amenities and laws that insist on the humiliation of the blacks, the lingering face of suffering remains unabashedly racialised. Thus the places in which blacks stay in the post 1994 situation remain to bare the already anciently prescribed “zone of nonbeing.” Though there are relative changes in the successive generations of black dwellings, from homeland to city, and the various types of settlements in city life, what has changed is neither the racialised colonial settlement nor its still degrading conditions. However, what has changed is the proximity of these spaces, getting closer and closer to places of employment – white spaces. More than the convenience for the working population to be closer to work, these proximities instead of showing an imaginative rupture from colonialism, force us to still re-read Fanon’s wager. This is because the “line” Fanon spoke about becomes over-emphasized and the two realities, wedged. Or rather the so-called inclusion of the black subject into the democratic plane, shows its fallacious mendacity. The black rather becomes in this arrangement included as excluded. Its inclusion doesn’t rupture with the structural exclusion of the colonial enterprise, but seeks to blur it or render it obsolete and natural.

There are many such spaces where the opulent towns stare in their cold gazes the “yelping noise” of black poverty. This pattern can be argued to repeat itself in the standard official ideological move of ‘reconciliation without justice’ between the oppressed and oppressor. Whereas before bodies were separated not only from entering the same spaces and entrances, but also were barred from meeting physically. In the age of multiracial South Africa the exteriorities of legal sectarianism has vanished but the core problematic which reproduces racially structured inequalities has remained intact. This game of corporeal meeting was at the heart of the 2010 soccer world cup state propaganda. The juxtapositioning of apartheid separation and post 1994 ‘rainbowness’ were used as psychological strategies to create a false consciousness of an imaginary leap into a different moment. That is, it cemented the assumptive idea that a rupture with our colonial past was made. This revelation is merely a superficial gesture of concealment of the rapacious structurally necessary inequalities.

Curators like Okwui Enwezor in the early years after 1994 were quick to pronounce how art could show the lingering binaries – of excluded/included, black/white etc., however one aught to ask whether art actually did this? Or whether the art world was any separate from this ‘compartmentalized’ world? Sport and other cultural activities were and still are hopefully propagated as conduits that will close the dichotomy while the very dichotomizing machine persists in its usual project. The antinomies of post apartheid South Africa still need us to raise the old uncomfortable questions of ‘the system’, the settlers/natives, the land, exploitation, white supremacy and so forth. It is burdensome to talk of freedom while bondage is still the burning reality amongst the oppressed. It remains problematic to talk of the rainbow nation or the biblical phrase of ‘love thy neighbor’ if the architectures of adjacent neighborhood is overdetermined by the persistence of undying legacy of inequality and systemic differentiality. In fact the recent explosions and mass protests, including the scandalous pota pota (shit spilling) riots in Cape Town CBD are indicative of the persevering nature of anti-black racism as a structuring logic. They become not only clues of an either vanishing or nonexistent liberated country, but also rather the safe existence of colonial legacy as a spectral force in a different form. They urge us to ask questions about dignity and security. They ask us to mark some distance from the misleading romanticization of the ghetto and glory that comes with suffering. Most importantly they must encourage us to say “no!” Or as Fanon would say: “There is a zone of nonbeing, an extraordinarily sterile and arid region, an utterly naked declivity where an authentic upheaval can be born.”

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« 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.

“I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

- Langston Hughes

*****

Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, tenth-century Arab writer and envoy of Abbasid caliph Muqtadir, explains that The Book of Ahmad Ibn Fadlan 921-922 “tells of all he saw in the lands of the Turks, the Khazars, the Rus, the Saqaliba, the Bashghirds and others, their various customs, news of their kings and their current status”[1] (3). More ethnographic than official, Fadlan’s travelogue poses intriguing departures for both medievalists and postcolonialists seeking to deconstruct European discourses of Otherness and narratives of both subject individuation and modern development. Ibn Fadlan’s travelogue gives evidence of a non-European medieval sensibility already attuned to constructions of exoticism and Orientalism, of cultural translation and acculturation, and of tourism and migration. Oft referenced for its early insights into Viking culture and burial practices, Fadlan’s text remains largely a historical artifact outside the scope of Anglophone literary studies.[2] That Fadlan has been hitherto overlooked in literary circles is unsurprising; medieval literature in the West has traditionally assumed a European center and a European gaze. That Richard Frye’s 2005 Ibn Fadlan’s Journey to Russia is marketed as the first ‘complete’ English translation of Fadlan’s text demonstrates glaring omissions in the medieval archive.

As postcolonial studies has gone great lengths to challenge and revise European subjectivities, literary and historical archives, and modernities, medievalists have begun to find postcolonial models useful for understanding the movement and subjectivities of the Middle Ages. Akin to the ‘transnational turn’ in postcolonial studies, the ‘postcolonial turn’ of medieval studies is in concert with anxieties around periodical, disciplinary, and national borders. This turn, which I understand to be a reconstituting of relationships between the Middle Ages and modernity and the pre-colonial and the postcolonial, coincides with the mobility of global capitalism, complex negotiations of national identities, and the transnational nature of language and literature. Inasmuch as Edward Said and Fredric Jameson have forced scholars to redefine ‘modernity’ in concert with the postcolonial and neocolonial worlds, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s 2000 edited work, The Postcolonial Middle Ages, and Kathleen Davis and Nadia Altshul’s 2009 edited collection, Medievalisms in the Postcolonial World: The Idea of ‘the Middle Ages’ Outside Europe, compel scholars to reconsider the “middle.” Cohen, Davis, and Altshul, along with their constituents, debunk the false characterizations of the “medieval” as a fixed Euro-Christian identity and the Middle Ages as “hard-edged alterity,” a dark, innocuous, staging ground in the trajectory towards modernity (Cohen 4).

If postcolonial studies has had success in shifting medieval positionalities, the current transnational moment should prompt us to expand the temporal limits of the postcolonial archive. The tremendous momentum of globalization and traveling cultures initiated by international trade, migration, re-mapping of national boundaries, and technology gives evidence for the porosity of national, cultural, and temporal borders. While postcolonial studies may traditionally be interested in a certain ‘national’ historical moment, neither the colony nor the nation-state can be utterly abstracted from its pre-colonial past. Medieval texts like Ibn Fadlan’s give evidence of early confrontations between East and West and developing representations of transnational trade, movement, and identity negotiations. Not unlike postcolonial and transnational texts, Fadlans’ text reflects anxieties about difference, the risks of migration, and the development of identity against an exoticized Other, a process so endemic to the modern and global world.

Though this project claims nothing as comprehensive as the aforementioned collections, it does seek to intercede in a direction of medieval literature that troubles the boundary between temporalities, territories, identities, and histories in hopes that we might open up new temporal alliances and fresh territory for postcolonial studies.[3] Inspired by Stephen Clingman’s 2009 The Grammar of Identity, James Clifford’s 1997 Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, and Mary Louise Pratt’s 1992 Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, I consider how river crossings specifically orient Ibn Fadlan’s 10th century travel narrative’s intimate negotiations with Otherness. His narrative not only poses an alternative locus and direction for the medieval gaze but also exemplifies the “middle’s” continued structural and thematic investments in issues of border mediation often deemed so characteristic of our postcolonial, transnational, and global positionalities.[4] I argue that through the river motif, Ibn Fadlan’s text enacts a series of complex boundary crossings as a means of geographically and textually mediating what Cohen calls the “intimate alterity”of the Other.[5] As neither utterly monstrous nor essentially familiar, the ‘difference’ Ibn Fadlan encounters poses problems of physical and textual translation made most manifest through Fadlan’s river crossings. In Clingman’s terms, the river, as the site of navigation, is also the site of transformation and, relatedly, transmission (22). Because “intimate alterity” collapses the distance between monstrous and man, the river becomes a space of both intersection and production. In other words, even as the river separates Ibn Fadlan from the foreign Other he encounters (the Bashgirds, the Bulghars, and the Rus), it configures a “contact zone”which produces anxiety even while allowing for proximity.[6]

Ibn Fadlan’s text is, of course, part of a larger collection of eastern and western medieval travel narratives that grapple with the ‘wholly Other’ in terms of representation, identity, and locatedness. We see similar productions of spectatorship in the writings of other medieval travelers: Abu Hamid, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Marco Polo, and Ibn Battuta. However, Ibn Fadlan’s narrative contributes to the medieval conception of the Other in particular ways, as it is more concerned with the mediation of Otherness than with the identity formation of the subject. For Fadlan, the river marks the physical and epistemic distance between himself and the foreigners he meets. There is a boundary there, but one that can be crossed, however treacherous. His focus on these geographic crossings makes plain that the text is no bildungsroman. Providing scant detail about his internal world, Fadlan stubbornly resists the narrative of one-directional subject formation. Neither is his an even or direct journey from the known to the unfamiliar. The text, rather, charts a halting narration—one that ebbs and flows in its movement towards contact with an unknown Other in an unknown land.

“I’ve Known Rivers”

Thus far I have attempted to position Fadlan as part of a larger conversation that examines the Middle Ages as unbounded, a “contact zone” revealing the ‘always-already’ inextricability of temporalities made disparate. In such a context, Fadlan’s rivers function as the contact zone for the “intimate alterity” of the medieval and point to its trans-historical, trans-literary present. As readers, we cannot extricate the Jayhun, the Yaghindi, and the Jayik rivers of Fadlan’s text from the Homer’s Acheron, Conrad’s Congo, or Hughes’ mighty Mississippi. Though alternately poised as territorial, periodical, or cultural boundaries, rivers reach both ways: backwards to the Greeks and forwards to Europe and the Americas. Almost uni-directional, the river as both geographical feature and literary symbol resists beginning and end. Poised in the midst of a large body of literary crossings spanning millennia and oceans, Ibn Fadlan floats uneasily in the contact zone, always-already in between and in motion.

It is the river’s very ‘middleness’ that makes it an apt representation of both the text’s placement within a longer historical/literary trajectory and Fadlan’s anxiety about coming in proximity with the Other. Simultaneously demonstrating that literary history (medieval, modern, postcolonial) is always in flux, the river reveals that identity is equally mobile and mediated. In only fifty-three pages of manuscript, the text records twenty-three river crossings: the Jayhun, the Yaghindi, the Jam, the Jakhsh, the Udhil, the Ardin, the Warsh, the Akhti, the Wabna, the Jayikh, the Jakha, the Arkhaz, the Bajagh, the Samur, the Kinal, the Sukh, the Knunjulu, the Uran, the Uram, the Baynakh, the Watigh, the Niyasnah, and the Jawshir. While Fadlan does not rehearse every crossing in detail,he provides three longer narrations at the crossing of the Jayhun, the Yaghindi, and the Jayikh rivers that emphasize the difference between ‘here and there’/ Self and Other, the complexities of narrating the place of contact, and the anxieties of being in proximity. Fadlan, like Homer, Conrad, and Hughes before and after, suggests that the crossing is at times both otherworldly and otherwordly—dangling somewhere in the periphery of both place and language. For, in the middle of the current, the traveler is caught between the riverbanks, curiously fixed within the margins of territory and location.

While Fadlan’s first fording, of the Jayhun, reveals much about constructions of Otherness, the text elides the actual moment of contact. Profoundly emphasizing both the dislocation of the subject and deferral of narration, Fadlan’s difficulty in crossing mimics his difficulty in accessing the unknown. Refusing to annunciate the actual event, the text stages a physical and psychosocial transference that either occurs outside the boundaries of the text or never actually occurs. Oddly silent about both the nature of the inhabitants and the experience of crossing, Fadlan’s copious details regarding his mission’s three-month delay, the severity of the winter freeze, and the extensive preparations necessary to cross the river illuminate the ineffable and perhaps illegible point of contact. The reader literally has access only to what occurs on the edges and thus learns more about the nature of the boundary than the actual crossing of it. That Fadlan cannot or does not translate the corporeal ‘slap of oars on water’ but does narrate the intensity of the climate, signifies that transmission and mediation are often displaced. It is not that mediation or contact exists outside of language but that Fadlan’s physical proximity to the Other produces a textual anxiety which renders the moment of contact unnarratable.

Textual deferral or absence connotes an epistemic displacement realized through the geographic materiality of the river and its limitations. The cold codifies the hard-edged alterity of the Other while illuminating Fadlan’s persistent anxiety of and desire for mediation. He explains that the ice was “seventeen spans thick” and was “solid and did not crack,” creating “cold and hardships” that forced them to stay in Jurjaniya by the banks of the Jayhun river for over three months (Fadlan 8). Noting that even his beard froze, he characterizes Jurjaniya as “a land which made us think a gate to the cold of hell had opened before us” (Fadlan 8). The ice presents a physical boundary that animates the psychic distance between self and Other, marking both difference and proximity. His emphasis on the river’s depth and the ‘solidity’ of the ice accentuates the perceived distance between Fadlan and the Jurjaniya and the limitations inherent in crossing over. No arbitrary association, Fadlan’s chronicling of the cold is more than a symbolic manifestation of ethnic difference. In his 1992 publication, “Barbarians in Arab Eyes,” Aziz Al-Azmeh ably articulates that medieval constructions of racial ‘othering’ in the Arab mind do not imitate Anglo-European models but, rather, follow what he calls an ethnology “governed by a natural-scientific ecological determinism” (6). Azmeh intones:

Briefly stated, medieval Arabic culture followed the Greek conception of the inhabited world as consisting of seven latitudinal zones that began slightly north of the equator and ended in the realms of perpetual darkness in the north. Beyond the zones (aqalzm, from the Greek klimata) human habitation was not possible, and within their boundaries the nature of the changing environment prescribed different temperaments to the inhabitants. The four primary qualities of dryness, humidity, heat and cold, attached to the four elements, entered into four combinations that yielded the basic somatic humours of blood (hot and humid), phlegm (cold and humid), bile (hot and dry) and atrabile or black bile (cold and dry). Embryonic growth was the result of the “cooking” together of these four humours. (6)

Discursively coded in the medieval mind in terms of geography and biology, Fadlan’s careful chronicling of coldness and its effects on the body codifies the Otherness that he cannot articulate and reiterates that he is not like them. The river, the cold, and the ice, are both sites of deferral and agents of textual production.

Fadlan’s anxiety about the Other is as much about desire as it is fear. If we think of the river as producing Otherness, it is through that very production that Fadlan can make contact. Both boundary and conduit, the river enables mediation even as it forecloses understanding. Returning to his description of the Jayhun river valley as “a land which made us think a gate to the cold of hell had opened before us,” Fadlan signals that his anxiety is mitigated by wonder (8). For ‘to wonder’ is to fear and to desire. James Montgomery rightly notes that Fadlan’s interests are largely anthropological; thus his is not an overtly supernatural or fantastic tale like others from the period (6).[7] That Fadlan uncharacteristically invokes the marvelous or “heavenly” here, even through metaphor, seems indicative that the text is attempting both to cross into a different space of desire and to insinuate that strangeness is not wholly foreign. While it is unclear whether or not the “gate” references a specific location in the Islamic afterlife, Fadlan attempts to make what is foreign, familiar. The wondrousness suggests an unknown and, thereby, ‘marvelous’ locale which contextualizes his desire, however unconsummated, for making contact.

The river, however, allows for contact even as it imposes limits. Thus, while the text may eschew all physical and epistemic mediation between Self and Other, it does reveal a space of contact engendered through empathy. While the intemperateness of the boundary suggests the rigidity of difference, it enables Fadlan to come in proximity with the other. Thus, if the river designates on the one hand a material and natural limit imposed upon the travelers, it alternately marks the empathic possibility, however difficult, in crossing epistemic boundaries.  Because he can occupy a shared space with others, Fadlan can experientially intuit what it might mean to be that Other.  Consequently, the language of the text indicates that the narrator is coming in closer contact with his subject (moving from exterior to interior, from outside observer to inside participant) even while the climate itself prevents him from truly crossing over. Just by being in proximity, he is able to empathize with the Other. Noting both the social isolation induced by the extreme weather and the corresponding generosity that individuals show towards even their inferiors in the face of such “rough and violent wind,” Fadlan imagines Otherness without facilitating a direct, personal encounter (8). Understanding “how the intense cold made itself felt in this country” through shared experiences (“my cheek froze to the pillow” and “my beard [….] was a block of ice”), Fadlan laboriously approaches the place of contact (9).

The textual shifts that occur within this description reflect Fadlan’s empathic capacity and the text’s epistemology of negotiating individual and cultural difference. Understanding the boundary to include both the space of contact (the river, the ice) and the territory around it (the river bank, the Jurjaniya), the text shows traces of subtle linguistic/narratological movement. Through a series of narrative cues, the passage indicates a developing intimacy between narrator and Other. Regarding the generosity of friends, the narrator reports: “In this country, when a man wishes to make a nice gesture to a friend and show his generosity, he says: ‘Come to my house where we can talk, for there is a good fire there’,” (Fadlan 8). The narrator relates this anecdote without affect; the voice is flat and objective; an outsider’s perspective. Both the “man” and the “friend” are unnamed: abstract generalities rather than specific individuals. The narrator’s positionality changes, however, as the passage progresses: “I was told, in fact, that two men set out with twelve camels to load wood in the forest, but they forgot to take flint and tinder with them” (Fadlan 8-9). The speech tag “I was told” reframes the narration as conversation, indicating greater intimacy between narrator and subject. While the ‘telling’ has initiated some kind of personal exchange between individuals absent in the former example, Fadlan is still merely the receiver. Remaining in the passive voice, the text reiterates that Fadlan has not initiated transmission. By the end of the passage, however, the narrator is no mere interviewer; rather, as witness to the story he claims: “In truth, I saw [my emphasis] the earth split and great crevasses form from the intense cold. I saw a great tree split in two from the same cause” (Fadlan 9). As Fadlan’s experience of the cold facilitates greater understanding, the textual movement from unmediated reporting, to passive voice, to first-person narration and active voice reveals a renegotiation of his relationship to and familiarity with the Jurjaniya inhabitants. Though he may yet be an outsider, the narrator textually and experientially closes the distance between Self and Other.

If the text follows a current leading from outsider to insider, from Self to Other, the concluding preparations for the Jayhun river crossing reveals Fadlan’s sincerest attempt thus far in imagining the experience of the Other. Fadlan closes this account with a lengthy description of his company’s meticulous preparations to protect their bodies from the weather. He methodically records:

When we saw the reality with our own eyes, however, we realized that it was twice as bad as we had been told. Each of us was wearing a tunic and over that a caftan, on top of that a cloak of sheepskin and over that again a felt outer garment, with a head covering that left only two eyes visible. Each of us wore a plain pair of trousers and another padded pair, socks, horse-hide boots and over those boots, other boots, so that when any of us mounted a camel, he could hardly move because of all the clothes he was wearing. (Fadlan 9-10)

Fadlan’s rigorous cataloging surely brings to mind multiple literary genres: Greek epics, medieval romance, and nineteenth century African-American literature chart an indirect trajectory in which clothing functions alternately as badge and as disguise. For both armament and disguise have the potential to erase difference through performance. As Achilles’ shield may substitute somewhat for his weakness, Fadlan’s “caftan,” “sheepskin,” double-layered “trousers,” and “horse-hide boots” may compensate for Fadlan’s foreignness. By donning their dress, Fadlan embodies Otherness.

The physical and narratological boundaries imposed upon the text delineate the site of difference between the Self and the Other, even as they illuminate the thorny and sometimes perilous process of mediation. Thus, though the previous moments give textual evidence that the traveler may close the distance between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ the text suggests that the mediation of that distance is never secure. While Fadlan does narrate the following two crossings explicitly, the passages reiterate the dangers characteristic of the boundary. At the rivers Yaghindi and Jayikh, which separate the territories of the Ghuzz, the Bajanak, and the Bashghirds, Fadlan’s company faces significant loss. At the Yaghindi he reports:

They took poles made from a wood called khadank [sic] and used them as oars. They continued to row like this, while the water carried them and they spun around, until we had crossed. As to the horses and the camels, they called them with loud cries and they swam across the river. It was essential to get one of the companies of men-at-arms over the river first, before any of the caravan crossed, so that they could form an advance guard to protect the others in case the Bashghirds fell on our people while they were crossing. (22)

The text intimates that the crossing is more legible here than at the Jayhun: both river and creature have agency. Yet, the crossing is ever beleaguered by the threat of contact. Again the river constructs a boundary that is replete with anxiety about and desire for the place of contact. At the crossing of the Jayikh, only one page later, Fadlan chronicles, “I saw a leather boat overturned in midstream and those who were in it drowned. Many of our men were carried away and a certain number of horses and camels were drowned. It cost us great efforts to get across that river,” (23). As in the crossing of the Jayhun, Fadlan use of the speech tag, “I saw,” indicates the nearness of the narrator to the subject. Participant rather than mere audience, it is Fadlan’s very nearness that heightens the danger in the crossing. We might expect, in other words, that the closer one comes to the zone of contact, the greater the risk to the Self.

The Final Passage

What, then, is the nature of contact, we might ask? Risk. In Fadlan’s every movement across, the “alterity” of the Other becomes more intimate. The traveler ultimately risks becoming an inhabitant. James Clifford concludes the first chapter of Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (1997) by reframing how we think of the “travelling anthropologist,” describing his practices as following:

My point, again, is not simply to invert the strategies of cultural location, the making of ‘natives,’ which I criticized at the outset. I’m not saying there are no locales or homes, that everyone is—or should be—traveling, or cosmopolitan, or deterritorialized. This is not nomadology. Rather, what is at stake is a comparative cultural studies approach to specific histories, tactics, everyday practices of dwelling and traveling: traveling-in-dwelling, dwelling-in-traveling. (36)

Clifford’s insistence that cultural studies develop a new model for study corroborates transnational studies’ instincts that neither “home” nor the “village” nor the “native” nor the “traveler” occupies a static location. Rather, movement across physical, social, and textual boundaries keeps identities in a perpetual state of mediation and formation. Thus, Fadlan is always-already in transit. But I believe we can extend Clifford’s injunction; redefining “home” and “native” requires that we also redefine “specific” literacies as well as “histories” (36). Thus, if texts like Fadlan’s might work to deconstruct the rigidity of literary history, they must also serve to blur the lines between the darkness of the Middle Ages and modernity.

I began this project under the auspices that the Middle Ages has achieved a new cogency (or at least an alternate identification). Postcolonial practices and assumptions have opened up the medieval world as one that is intimately connected to both modernity and the postcolonial. But, as Ibn Fadlan experiences, contact and understanding do not occur along a linear trajectory; as I think Cohen would corroborate, the Middle Ages is producing the postcolonial to the same degree as the postcolonial may refigure the “middle.”

Shortly before the text concludes, Fadlan records the elaborate funeral rites of a Rus (Viking) noble man. Fadlan’s focus, curiously, seems to be the slave girl who volunteers/is chosen to accompany her master to the afterlife. As aforementioned in this piece, critics and historians relish the account for its insight into early Viking culture, burial practices and beliefs, class distinctions, and gender roles but have perhaps occluded its equally useful interstices for understanding the text’s historical/periodical positionality. Fadlan’s fascination with the ritual is reasonable—the funeral seems oddly more of a human sacrifice than a celebration of the dead. Though there are many generative readings to be made regarding the agency of the slave girl, in terms of this project I am more interested in the final crossing that the text seems to prefigure. If the text ultimately performs the complex negotiations implicit to the contact zone, the mediations between Self (Fadlan) and Other (slave girl/the Rus) and the multifarious dangers, anxieties, and desires encountered along the boundary, the funeral stages the ultimate act of ‘crossing over’. The preparations of the body, the collection of food (fruit, basil, bread, meat, and onions), the sacrifice of animals (a dog, two horses, two cows, a cock, and a hen), the copulation between slave girl and masters, and the drinking of nabidh, all mimic Fadlan’s gathering of boats and arming against the cold. For, death, the text suggests, is the ultimate Other, the ‘familiar foreignness,’ and ‘intimate alterity’ undergirding each point of contact.

Yet, there are larger forces at play here, beyond the subjective experience of the Self. Part of Fadlan’s captivation with the funeral is in the spectators’ anticipation of the beyond. Shortly before the slave girl’s death, the crowd repeatedly hoists her up to look over what “looked like the frame of a door,” (Fadlan 52). Fadlan records the interpreter’s translation of the girl’s statements: “‘The first time they lifted her up, she said: [“There I see my father and my mother.”] The second time, she said: “There [I see] all my dead relatives [sitting].” And the third time she said: “There [I see my master sitting in] Paradise and [Paradise is green and beautiful.] There are men with him and [young people, and he is calling me.] Take [me to him….]”’” (52). While Fadlan faithfully and without commentary transmits the girl’s statements, we are unsure of what Fadlan sees. Similarly poised as Benjamin’s “angel of history” looking back while being propelled forward, both slave girl and writer envision a future history that always-already exists. If we consider the text as looking into a future literary trajectory, we see that that future “paradise” contains the new and the old, the middle and the modern and the post.

The post Ibn Fadlan: Crossing Over and the Nature of the Boundary appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

Track Two diplomacy pertains to policy oriented discussions that are non-governmental, informal and un-official in nature, but which are quite close to governmental agendas and often involve participation of the people who are close to governmental quarters and influential in policy matters, such as retired diplomats, retired civil and military officials, public figures, and policy analysts. On occasions it may also involve the participation of government officials in their private capacities.

The concept and practice of ‘Track Two’ diplomacy as a conflict resolution and conflict prevention approach originally emerged during the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union.[2] Since then, it has been used as an important tool to advance the dialogue process among parties in dispute in many conflict zones across the globe, for example Israel-Palestine, Northern Ireland—Great Britain, India-Pakistan, and so on. The Track Two process is a more comprehensive and broader approach, encompassing a variety of non-official dialogues between members of adversary groups or nations which aim to develop strategies, influence public opinion and organise human and material resources in ways that might help to resolve conflict. The exponents of Track-Two diplomacy value the psychological and cultural awareness associated with the Track-Two dialogues in addressing the human aspects that are appropriate in a workshop setting and in similar activities, but which tend to create difficulties in official processes. The agenda of Track-Two work is fluid and responsive to the psychological and systemic barriers to conflict resolution, thus overcoming them. Moreover, Track Two proponents are of the view that such unofficial initiatives broaden the range of participation in the dialogue process among the antagonist groups, allowing consultation with parties that need to be represented but are not officially involved. In fact, it is now quite widely recognised by Track One diplomats that it is unlikely that modern day conflicts can be resolved without the cooperation of Track Two diplomacy, as it helps in easing the various barriers between adversarial groups.

Given its focus on both fostering relationships and on strengthening civil society, Track Two is especially useful with regards to India and Pakistan. India-Pakistan relations have been intricate and strained following independence from British colonial rule in 1947. It is a well-established fact that over the last six decades both nations have remained at logger-heads with each other, primarily because of the political dispensation of the Jammu and Kashmir problem[3]. The two countries have always used their substantial resources to outwit  each other, economically, diplomatically and militarily. Three full-fledged wars in 1947, 1965, and in 1971, the first two explicitly over the Jammu and Kashmir issues, were fought between the two countries.  In addition, there have been a number of serious but localised military confrontations, for example, Operation Meghdoot (1984), Operation Brasstracks (1986), and a small-scale war at Kargil (1999). During the rest of the time, the relationship can be at best characterized as a state of Cold War or Cold Peace. The relationship between the two states came to its lowest point in 1989-90 with the eruption of militancy in Kashmir. It was believed in India that Pakistan had a direct role in supporting cross-border militancy first in Punjab and then in Kashmir, creating a dangerous and explosive situation in the region. Simultaneously, the two nations sought nuclear parity. It was subsequently late in 1998 that both India and Pakistan exploded nuclear devices; on 11 and 13 May at Pokhran and 28 and 30 May at Chagi in 1998, respectively.

The failure to achieve substantial progress on issues confronting the two countries made a strong case for unconventional diplomacy, particularly in post-1990 situation when violence in the state of Jammu and Kashmir became a medium of asserting political will. Prevailing tensions between the two nuclear states became a genuine cause of alarm to the international community and for citizens of the two states, each with much to lose in an escalated conflict. It was in this context that the Track Two initiatives began to be mobilized and used to influence the relations between India and Pakistan in a positive direction.

The first prominent Track Two initiative between India and Pakistan was the Neemaran dialogue that took place under the auspices of the United States Information Services (USIS) in 1990 and was later joined by American foundations and German nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Its first meeting was held in Neemrana Fort in Rajhasthan, India in October 1991. The group was comprised of former diplomats, former military personnel, media persons, NGO workers and academics from India and Pakistan. Since then, there has been a significant increase in the number of Track Two initiatives between India and Pakistan. Of late, some new such initiatives have started, such as the Chaophraya Dialogue, the WISCOMP annual workshop, the Pugwash Conferences, Ottawa Dialogue, and so on.  There exist more than twelve highly institutionalised Track Two groups, as well as over twenty other people-to-people exchange programmes operating between the two nuclear powers[4], with both external and internal funding.

However, given its western origin there have been varied views and opinions vis-à-vis the role and relevance of Track Two diplomacy in the South Asian Context. Critics generally argue that the various non-official dialogues-particularly Track Two initiatives-have largely remained confined to the quasi-official realm with a few retired government officials, both civil and military, dominating most of the activities. The situation becomes further complicated as most of these people have represented their governments at some point in time, and thus they tend to adopt positions very similar to those of their governments once the core issues come to the fore.[5] Furthermore, given the prolonged hostile atmosphere between India and Pakistan, questions and queries over the role and relevance of Track Two dialogues have intensified. The ‘track two’ activists, however, hold the view that it is a useful and effective conflict management mechanism. For instance, it has led to increased understanding and a prevention in escalation of tensions. Moreover, it may help resolve on-going disputes by preventing the emergence of new disputes, as well as build confidence between the parties involved. A general consensus has evolved among many scholars and peace practitioners that the Track Two diplomacy between India and Pakistan has been able to:

• Facilitate the track one dialogue process between the two countries
• Keep the channels of communication open even during the times of crises at the official level
• Effectively break down the stereotypical and enemy images of each other
• Expand the peace constituencies across the border

Just a few years back, it was taboo in both India and Pakistan to discuss peace and reconciliation with each other. Contrary to that, the situation has significantly changed. Government as well as civilians on both sides of the border have recognised the pros and cons of peace and conflict. There is a very strong realisation among civil society groups operating on either side of the border that the costs involved in maintaining animosity against each other are much higher than any gains from the current hostile situation. At a time when the relations between India and Pakistan have lurched from crisis to crisis, Track Two has been able to sustain an element of unbroken engagement. For example, immediately after the Kargil crises [6]in late 90’s, when the interactions at the official level completely ceased to exist, several dialogue processes through Track Two and other unofficial means were in progress to prevent exacerbation of the situation. Similarly, after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, despite complete suspension of official diplomatic relations, many Track Two initiatives were pursued by the two governments to ease tensions and resume a state of normalcy.

Conclusion

Despite some of the limitations and constrains within which Track Two diplomacy operates, it has been an important medium to explore new policy options between India and Pakistan. It has acted as a platform upon which to have discussions about many contentious issues such as Kashmir’s political dispensation, demilitarization of the Siachen glacier, and cross border terrorism. It has been helpful in bringing down the psychological barriers, bridging the cultural differences, promoting mutual trade and developing an atmosphere conducive to the betterment of the region. Furthermore, the bilateral Track Two dialogue processes have also played a pivotal role in bringing key issues to the forefront and applying intellectual capacity and civil activism to broad policy stalemates where the state has essentially failed. While non-official diplomacy should not be a panacea for the mistrust amassed over decades of hostility, it provides a unique opportunity for the citizens of India and Pakistan to prevent the bitterness of the past from tainting the future. The future role of Track Two in South Asia may be minimal without a concurrent improvement in relations at the official level, as a sustained multi-faceted dialogue will help build confidence and prove constructive for both sides’ perceptions of one another. This in effect will ease domestic tensions and hostility and pave the way for enlightened political action.

The post Track-Two Diplomacy between India and Pakistan: A Study in Diplomatic Overture appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

This project is also about reimagining marginalized beings, social positions, and places as ‘liminal spaces’ that are in constant processes of cultural translation, or ‘moving across.’ Starting from Victor Turner’s (1967) concept of liminality as an “interstructural situation” in a society of “structure of positions” (93), we approach liminal beings and places not as in a ‘passage’ that leads to more stable structural positions, as in rites de passage, but as contingent spaces that appear, disappear, reappear, and travel around between cracks of structures, resisting any concrete definitions or developmental progress.

The Centipedes consists of nine short stories initially written in Korean by Woo, Yun Jin alluding to folk tales and current social issues in South Korea, which were then translated to English by Mathew Bumbalough, a self-taught translator who lived in South Korea for six years working for the US Army and Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. Each story was written either from the perspective of a marginalized entity (e.g. a parasite, pet, bug, elder, widow, and the deceased) or in relation to a peripheralized place (e.g. an old rental house, outskirts of a large city, and internal spaces of human and non-human bodies). These stories are connected to each other by some mention of centipedes, alluding to Korean folk tales where centipedes having the ability to transform their appearances at will. Because of this, these narratives could be read as an entity reappearing in different bodies or shapes. The following text shows the translation process of Specimen, one of the nine stories, from Korean to English with words in red indicating how changes were made.

• 표본
• 한국구비문학대계 (韓國口碑文學大系) 8-3, 1981
• 분야: 구비 전승 언어/문학
• 유형: 설화
• 채록지: 경상남도 진주시 수곡면 사곡리 식실마을
• 제보자: 박순악. 68세, 여성.

• 옛날 어느 마을에 과부가 살았다. 혼자 살기가 외로워 검은 닭을 키웠는데, 그럭저럭 자라 알을 낳기 시작했다. 암탉이 알을 낳으면 과부는 늘 닭을 몰아내고 알을 가져다가 삶아먹곤 했다. 6년째 되는 어느 날, 닭이 갑자기 죽었는데, 그 날부터 과부의 배가 불러오기 시작했다. 과부는 이상한 생각이 들어서 의원을 찾아가 진맥을 하고 약을 먹고 용하다는 사람을 찾아다니며 약초를 달여먹었으나, 배는 점점 불러왔다. 아이를 낳고보니 잘생긴 사내아이였다. 아이는 무럭무럭 자랐고, 총명하고 재주 많은 것으로 동네에 소문이 자자했다. 하루는 아이가 책보따리를 메고 서당에 가는데, 마침 그 근처를 지나가던 스님이 이상한 것을 보게 되었다. 아이가 집을 나와서는 담 위에 책보따리를 놓고 지붕 위로 올라가더니, 큰 지네가 되어서 살살 용마루로 기어들어가 눕는 것이었다. 깜짝 놀란 스님이 줄곧 지켜보니, 저녁이 되자 지네가 용마루에서 기어내려와 다시 사람으로 둔갑을 하여 보따리를 메고 집으로 들어가는 것이었다. 이를 본 스님은 다음 날 힘센 편수 대여섯과 기름을 한 가마니 구해 과부의 집으로 찾아갔다. 스님은 과부에게 자초지종을 설명하지 않고 그저 시키는 대로 해보면 이유를 알 수 있으리라고 했다. 영문을 모르는 과부는 겁이나 할 수 없이 시키는 대로 마당에 가마솥을 놓고 기름을 부어 끓이기 시작했다. 스님은 편수 대여섯에게 사다리를 놓고 용마루로 올라가 지붕을 걷어내고 집게로 지네를 잡으라고 주문했다. 기운 센 편수들은 기와 아래 숨어있던 커다란 지네를 집어 내려와 끓는 기름에 삶아버렸다. 지네가 죽고 나자 스님은 과부에게 자초지종을 이야기했다. 과부는 지네로 변한 닭이 아들행세를 하면서 자신을 잡아먹으려고 했다는 이야기를 믿을 수 없었다. 과부는 차라리 자신이 죽는 것이 나았을 것이라며 울었다. 울다가 눈물이 더이상 나오지 않자 과부는 우물에 뛰어들었는데, 그 후로 그 우물에 붉은 지네가 들끓어 마을 사람들은 큰 바위로 못을 막았다.

• Specimen
• An outline of Korean Oral Literature, 3 August, 1981
• Field: Oral Transmission/Literature
• Type: Narrative
• Location: South Kyongsang province, Jinju City, Siksil Village in Sukokmyeon, Sakokri
• Narrator: Park Sun-ak, Age 68, Female

• Once upon a time there was a widow that lived in a village. There was a black chicken living alone with her and one day it started to lay eggs. The widow would always go and find the hen once it laid eggs and take them away a to boil the eggs to and eat. After six years the hen suddenly died and from that day the widow got very hungry. The widow had a strange idea and went to a clinic to find a person to give her an examination and medicine, she took a lot of herbs and slowly her stomach became fuller. Then she had a handsome baby boy. The child grew up quickly and his cleverness was the gossip of the neighborhood village. One day the child got his book bag and went to go to school but it just so happened that a passing monk saw something strange. The child put his book bag on the wall and crawled up on the roof and became a big centipede and began creeping around, finally resting on the crest of the roof. The surprised monk watched until dinner when the centipede crept back down, became a boy, took up his bag and went back inside. The next day the that same monk that saw all this went to the widow’s house and brought six strong rice cakes and oil in a rice sack. The monk didn’t explain the details of what he saw to the widow but just said that he had his reasons she would understand if she watched. The widow didn’t know understand what he was talking about but trusted him and brought a kettle out into the yard where she started to boil the oil. The monk told her to bring the rice cakes up the ladder and catch the centipede with forceps. The widow lured it down with the rice cakes and then threw the hug centipede into the boiling oil. As soon as the centipede died the monk told the widow what happened. The widow couldn’t believe that the chicken turned into the centipede and impersonated a boy and tried to eat her???? child was impersonating the chicken and by catching the centipede, it was like she was eating herself*. The widow said she would have rather died, and then started criedying. She cried out all of her tears and then threw herself into a well, after which the well swarmed with red centipedes and the villagers had to block it up with a stone.
• *The widow saw the eggs were like the chicken’s children, and then she realized she was boiling her own child like she did those eggs.

Among other liminal entities in this project, we draw specific attention to the role of the translator as an ethnographer, or a cultural mediator. Ritva Leppihalme (1997) takes note of the discourse on how translators are often culturally marginalized as producers of mere copies of original texts in their traditionally “invisible” roles (18). Ironically, however, through this ‘translation’ project, it became clear that culture is not something that can be stabilized as “text” to be “read” and “moved across” into another language without any changes of its “original” meaning. The very act of textualization and translation of languages turned out to be already entangled with the complex processes of culturally interpretative decision-making. Culture turned out to be segments of lived experiences and relations that do not compose a coherent whole but resonate and overlap in a multitude of layers. “Moving” something, whether text or culture, from one place “across” to another proved to be a social performance of bringing attention to particular interpretations since the movement is always an embodied experience.

One of the nine stories, Specimen, ‘translated’ to a paper collage. Paper, fabric, plastic bag, glue, 30′x8”

The collage inserted into a book. Virtuous Women: Three Masterpieces of Traditional Korean Fiction. Translated by Richard Rutt & Kim Chong-un. Korean National Commission for Unesco. 1974.

After these translation processes, the stories were “translated” again to paper collages by Woo in collaboration with Bumbalough as an attempt to find a way to perform this ethnography more affectively (see figures 1 and 2). These collages were then remade into a large number of small prints by Woo, which were inserted into library books in and outside of Bloomington, IN USA (see figure 3). By inserting the unendorsed narratives into places where official records of history and culture are archived, The Centipede seeks to become ‘liminal spaces’ in which unheard narratives and unspoken feelings reside, breed, and leak out to the sanitized surface of the everyday. By borrowing others’ territories of knowledge and narratives, these strange intruders may disturb the spatial order of knowledge from within it.

In order to produce a large number of “centipedes,” the collages were remade into small prints and inserted into library books on relevant subjects like immigration and foreign policies. Total five stories of the nine were remade into prints with several different kinds of paper. The Herman B. Wells Library, Indiana University Bloomington.

Five stories of the total nine were remade into prints with several different kinds of paper. Books were chosen based on the relevancy of their subject matters to each story. The Herman B. Wells Library, Indiana University Bloomington.

Artist Statement (Woo, Yun Jin)

My body is not mine. I listen to the sound of floating strangers who make up my body. They move around in a system, and jump from body to body in their invisible trajectories. They are bacteria, fungus, viruses, and parasites that connect bits of me to bits of you. In their world, nothing is alone. Everything is connected. We overlap. My art lives like these secrete intruders. I reappropriate public spaces and systems in order to produce and circulate my work, similar to how viral or parasitic vectors borrow their hosts’ metabolism or biological cycles. Rather than producing more, I choose to re-produce or ‘para-produce,’ altering existing relations of matter and perception. As floating strangers in a system, my artworks appear, disappear, and reappear through others’ discoveries and involvements.

All photos copyrighted to Woo, Yun Jin (http://wooyunjin.com).

The post The Centipedes: Liminal Narratives Traveling through Others’ Bodies appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

The open-ended question – with the last digit intentionally left out – fills the final screen of Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s most recent film, Le Président (2013).  The question refers to the political tenure of the president of Cameroon, where the film has been banned at all locations, including at L’Institut Français Cameroun (IFC, The French Institute). The IFC plays an important role in providing a venue for film screenings in Cameroon, particularly since the closing of Yaoundé’s movie theatre, Abbia, in 2009. Around the time of the release of Le Président, another Cameroonian filmmaker, Richard Fouofie Djimili, was abducted and tortured for eleven days, allegedly in response to material in his film, 139… The Last Predators (2013, watch the trailer here). Djimili’s fictional film focuses on a 139-year dictatorship in an unnamed African country. According to Times Live, shortly before the filmmaker’s abduction, a friend of Djimili’s received a text message that read, “Tell your friend Richard Fouofie he is digging his own grave. His film is part of a destabilization plot that has already been unmasked. If he wants to play the patriot, he will be decapitated. Victory is near.” Reporters Without Borders has documented other cases of harassment, censoring and imprisoning of Cameroonian artists and journalists. On 6 November 2012, President Paul Biya celebrated 30 years in power and Bekolo has quipped that when Biya was minister in 1962, “Barack Obama was one year old.”  It is in this political context that Bekolo’s film explores a fictional African president’s last days in power.

Bekolo is troubled by and committed to transforming what he has called the “image problem in Africa”: The misrepresentation of African cultures and peoples in international media and film, which continue to present the subcontinent as solely poverty-stricken, HIV/AIDS-ridden, war-riddled, corrupt and failing. Bekolo works to alter this image by addressing the roots of dominant stereotypes. These ‘image problems,’ he argued in a video interview with David Murphy at the Africa In Motion film festival in Scotland in 2012, are founded in ‘reality problems.’ Seen in this light, Le Président is Bekolo’s intervention in the Cameroonian ‘reality problem.’ The film is an invitation to reinvent the present by revisiting the past. It challenges viewers to conceive of a new reality for the country upon the demise of the current president, Paul Biya (1933-), who has been the president since 1982.

In an interview for SlateAfrique, Bekolo explains, “It is the first time that a movie removes a President. Cinema always arrives afterwards, to tell us [about] the Arab Spring for example. Where was cinema before? Cinema must be forward thinking, open new doors and make the revolutions. I do not want to tell people what happened. I want to inspire those who will make it happen.” In this sense, the film is an anticipatory conversation of a coming political moment, one that poses the question: What will come about in the power vacuum of Biya’s eventual absence?

The film is set a few days before the presidential elections, the next of which is scheduled to take place in Cameroon in 2018. When the president mysteriously disappears, TV reporters speculate his absence and political prisoners discuss possibilities for the future. Through a series of intimate conversations including the fictional president’s internal monologues, dreamscapes and quiet life moments, Bekolo explores a president’s awareness of the approaching end of an era. This unadulterated access to the president’s intimate spaces challenges facile representations of the African dictator, namely those representations popularized in western films of a uniformly dangerous, irrational, womanizing, war criminal. So often in western films African presidents are reduced to tropes and are only seen through the gaze of the white hero. The Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond and Machine Gun Preacher exemplify this tendency. Bekolo’s Le Président is instead an artistic exploration of the inner life of an ageing patriarch, a man who dreams of a rendezvous with his deceased spouse, and speculates upon the violent means of his eventual demise. “Has my chauffeur been hired to assassinate me?” He contemplates as he grapples with the destructive political policies that he has implemented.

What struck me the most about the film, in fact, was Bekolo’s humanizing of the ‘African dictator.’  Cameroon’s president rarely speaks publicly and is seldom seen, other than in the seemingly infinite campaign posters, billboards and fliers on prominent display across the country. With thirty-one years in power, it is little surprise that Jo Wood’ou, the Canal-D reporter in Bekolo’s film (a local news channel that follows the events in the film, based on Cameroon’s TV station, Canal2) comments, “no man votes for the president.” Wood’ou’s comment both naturalizes the president’s lifetime in power and simultaneously hints at the state’s repression of the democratization movement in the 1990s and the history of election rigging. As Wood’ou traces his life stages, he sardonically notes that Cameroon has had the same president throughout each stage.

It is the president’s deceased spouse, Jeanne (most likely inspired by the life of Jeanne-Irène Biya, Paul Biya’s first spouse who died in July 1992), who offers the most genuine and scathing criticism of the president’s lifetime of power. It is before her that he is most shamed. He admits to her, “I don’t know anymore… I got lost along the way.” Indeed, women play central roles in Bekolo’s films, including the protagonist known as ‘Queen of the Hood’ in Quartier Mozart (1992) and the two vampire sex workers, Chouchou and Majolie, of Les Saignantes (2005). In each instance, it is the woman who reveals or fights against the tendency of masculine power to corrupt. Likewise, in Le Président, Jo Wood’ou turns to the women who operate the country’s communications via call boxes (umbrellaed, street-side stands where customers can pay for cigarettes, candies and telephone calls by the minute) for knowledge of the president’s whereabouts after his disappearance. The women who manage the call boxes, Wood’ou declares, are the ‘pulse’ of the country.

Lost before Jeanne, the president contemplates, “I feel like I am advancing towards an ocean or a desert… and I don’t recognize anything.” He gets out of his luxury car in the middle of the dense rainforest and begins to walk. The president returns to his village and seems awed by his surroundings. We see him eating les bâtons de manioc (boiled cassava, rolled into lengths and steamed in banana leaves) beneath an open-air roadside stand. Later, Jeanne laughs at the thought of him eating sandwiches, a food associated with foreignness, particularly the French former colonial power.  Food becomes a symbol for the distance that he has imposed between himself and his village, his people and his country land.

The film begins and ends with footage of benskiners (motorcycle taxi-men, also spelled bend-skin and bendskin) on the crowded roads of Douala, Cameroon’s industrial capital. The striking figure of the young benskiner at the conclusion of the film weaves in and out of traffic with careless ease, stretching, looking backwards and taking his hands off the throttle. This benskiner is striking in his orange-framed sunglasses, signifying the spread of a globalised hip-hop culture where the young people are known colloquially in Cameroon as les yo(s).

The benskiner is a complex symbol of resistance to state power, and adaptation to a lack of road infrastructure and resilience in an economy that would otherwise exclude him. He is a youthful, masculine figure who challenges authority.  Indeed, in Cameroon, the unification of benskiners has created a significant political force in urban and semi-rural areas. This political force has been one reason behind the banning of motorcycles in wealthy and administrative quarters such as Bastos in Yaoundé. The government has repeatedly tried to crack down on benskiners in Douala with sanctions and imposed tax payments but benskiners are notorious for their disrespect of such sanctions and are quick to mobilize collectively. By allocating such a prominent space for the benskiner in the film, Bekolo draws upon this powerful resistance force as an illustration of the fracturing of authoritarian power on-the-ground.

Yet, while the figure of the benskiner features so prominently, he is simultaneously silenced in his anonymity throughout the film. This silencing lends itself to alternate (and less empowering) interpretations of the Bekolo’s focus on the benskiner. Is he meant to illustrate the fatality of young people (particularly young men) in Cameroon, as he speeds in and out of vehicles with no apparent care for his own life? Is the beginning scene, which captures the traffic of a main thoroughfare, meant to show the chaos or misdirection of life and politics in the post-colony? I cannot help but wonder what the benskiner would have said in response to the film’s final question, “When will it end? 1982-201?” had he been asked.

A glimpse of the concerns of the youth comes through during the interaction between a well-known Cameroonian rap, hip-hop artist, Valsero (a.k.a. Le Général) and the film’s president. In the conversation, Valsero addresses the perpetual joblessness of Cameroon’s so-called ‘lost generation’ – those born in the 1980s onwards, as the country’s economy, politics and educational system suffered from the IMF and World Bank-imposed structural adjustment programs. The resulting economic stagnation and withdrawal of the Cameroonian state produced the context in which benskiners flourish. Valsero’s well-known songs Lettre au Président and Ce Pays Tue Les Jeunes voice the frustrations with corrupt political powers and an aging political body that marginalizes the youth, many of the same issues that are central to their conversation in the film. “I am young and I am strong and I am not dead,” Valsero sings at one moment in the film, pointing upward toward the future, toward the ancestors and toward a moment that might harbinger a recognition of the youth’s powerful potential; this in a country where forty per cent of the population is under fourteen years old (U.N Statistics Division, Country Profile for Cameroon 2011). Yet the (re)turn to Valsero – a man in his mid-thirties – as a voice for the youth is itself a powerful reflection of the state of politics in Cameroon, where even alternative voices (I am thinking for example of the long-time opposition leader Ni John Fru Ndi) are hesitant to cede power to younger generations.

Bekolo’s portrayal of the president is forgiving, complex, comprehensive and hopeful. The film provides an important counter narrative to the forecasts of potential political conflict and even genocide for Cameroon’s near future. It is the film’s honesty and lack of condemnation that makes its banning so unfortunate, illustrating the disparities between Cameroon’s real life political climate and the imagined space of the film. We have a sense that the president of the film, so reflective near the end of his political life, might have been grateful for the humanizing depiction offered by Bekolo in Le Président.

Note:  Le Président is banned in Cameroon but can be streamed from BuniTV. Watch the trailer here. 

The post Review of Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s “Le Président” 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.

The post Narrativas de Deslocamento na Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

This paper is an attempt to read how Peri Rossi narrativizes this in her rendition of urban space. It is a space under the continuous surveillance of the town planners and managers (the Panopticon), while at the same time a critique of such spaces created and deployed to ”hide” the dehumanized faces of targeting thinking subjects (Heterotopia).[2] This is real space, and not an imagined one (utopia/dystopia) engineered for wielding power and control over the lives of citizens. Thus the most important point to reckon with is that this urban space is articulated neither as any linearity of causal relationships, nor in the sense of any binary oppositions such as “centre/periphery”; rather it is configured as performative so that the agents of surveillance and control who remain invisible are rendered exposed. The perception of the analogy between a Google earth view and this narrative, in this context, is very significant and politically charged and fits into the Foucauldian notions of the Panopticon. The sentry who keeps watch on the tower of the prison is now substituted by the new technology of digital surveillance systems enabled by Google Earth.

Now let us consider that while urban spaces have been known to be highly gendered, what about the cyberspace? Early colonizers, hackers and navigators of cyberspace had imagined it as virtual and hence as genderless, bodiless, raceless and without borders. Though this myth is no longer valid, we still find that urban planners who design corporatized infrastructure for smooth and efficient mass transit have increasingly striven towards creations of real space copied from Google Earth view cyberscapes, rendering irrelevant any difference markers and ironing them out into mere cyborgs. Imagining genderless, raceless and desexualized bodies is a copy of an imagined virtual space which pretends to be safe, without any risks and immediate consequences. Thus Peri Rossi’s cities are nameless global cities, which tease out the aesthetics and the politics of “inclusive social care” and “disparate economic competition” in neoliberal democracies. They are inhabited by nameless and rootless global citizens who navigate through unknown waters like blind and drifting mechanized dolls (one can’t help remembering Kafka’s Metamorphosis or Borges’ Ficciones) almost directionless, thus invoking the myth of the Ship of the Madmen, which is also a title of an earlier collection of stories by Peri Rossi. How are such spaces produced? There is a process of gentrification of elite centres (Rama’s proposal); however the rest is mapped out as a global friendly network based on the model of the designs of “optimal efficiency” flattened out graphically on available Internet stencils.

The maps that now govern our “globalised” world suggest a world in which public spaces are increasingly privatized, in which poverty exacerbated by neo-colonial and neoliberal economic practice pushes more and more people to migrate, only to find themselves criminalized as “illegal” aliens by those who guard “legitimate” access to nation-states. Shall such maps be reproduced in cyberspace? What recourse—what lines of flight, what type of travel, what practices of resistance—can be made in cyberspace for protest, justice, or alternative realities? (Lane 129)

It is no wonder then that global cities, increasingly privatized spaces, are nodes of global circuits through which there is a unidirectional flow of capital across the different ‘scapes’:. financescapes, technoscapes, ethnoscapes and mediascapes. To all of this I add ‘netscapes’ and ‘cyberscapes’. These comprise space as a process produced through which deterritorialization is implicated in South-North or East-West movements (exile, diaspora and migration). Such circuits may also be facilitated by cultural items for example; the hamburger, the sandwich or English cream. The overlapping and crossing over of these different ‘scapes’ implicate a new kind of economics and politics of exchange as local modes are woven into global neo-liberal systems. The city, instead of the nation, negotiates a new proposal for city-zenship in terms of its claims on the occupants of its spaces.

At the limit, this could be an opening for new forms of “citizenship.” The city has indeed emerged as a site for new claims: by global capital which uses the city as an “organisational commodity”, but also by disadvantaged sectors of the urban population, frequently as internationalised a presence in large cities as capital. The de-nationalising of urban space and the formation of new claims by transnational actors, raise the question, whose city is it? (Sassen 146-147)

Peri Rossi’s stories critique these urban architectures of order and power engineered to render mute any thinking subject. At the same time a nomadic kind of ethos is evoked to conceive of the states of cities inhabited by anonymous “men and women who float on air suspended in huge time and space” (Peri Rossi 71); transit and disorientation feature in these stories articulating anxieties of mobility and the disorder they produce. Peri Rossi’s city is such a space, richly carved out in text in ‘Los desarraigados’[3], negotiating these situations of spatial tropes on the one hand and of their subversion thereafter. This story maps the urban space from within the deep waters of the entire global space. The sense of not belonging is played out again and again like a poetic refrain. Heterotopias have stretched and extended their borders across global neoliberal spaces. The subjects do everything like eating, sleeping differently, they wake up in hotel rooms forgetting the name of the city they are in. Their condition of lack of rootedness makes them always vulnerable to suspicion though they themselves might feel that their mobile condition is a privilege; however when they are blown off, they are blown off more easily. The poetic evocation of their temporality as floating signifiers in a virtual space evading any conceptual or material form is significant. Metaphoric nomadism is portrayed with brush strokes of fluid idiom.

A menudo se ven, caminando por las calles de las grandes ciudades, a hombres y mujeres que flotan en el aire, en un tiempo y espacio suspendidos. Carecen de raíces en los pies, y a veces hasta carecen de pies. No les brotan raíces de los cabellos ni suaves líanas atan su tronco a alguna clase de suelo. Son como algas impulsadas por las corrientes marinas, y cuando se fijan a alguna superficie es por casualidad y dura sólo un momento. En seguida vuelven a flotar y hay cierta nostalgia en ello. [Peri Rossi 71][4]

Very often men and women afloat in the air can be seen walking down the streets of the great cities in suspended time and space. They lack roots in their feet, and at times even lack any feet. Roots don’t grow out of their hair either, nor do suave ropes tie their trunk to some kind of ground. They are like algae adrift through the ocean currents and when they stick to some surface, just by chance, they last only a while. Soon after they begin to float again and there is some nostalgia that remains. [My translation].

A zooming in closer to land renders visible a citizenship (as a belonging to a nation/community with rights and responsibilities) getting reduced to a “membership” programmed into the internet game, and thus submitting to the rules of the game such that any scope of her/his subjectivity as thinking and feeling agent is completely muffled out. One is easily reminded of the distracted viewer/reader as compared to the contemplative one in the beginning of the last century. Now we have the distracted, bodiless, genderless and raceless entities that move unthinkingly.[5] This is how citizens experience the spaces of global cities, which are engineered to “deliver development”. Infrastructural facilities network these spaces both materially and virtually so that citizenship as a “privilege and as agency” is produced, deployed and displayed as mass/crowd for smooth navigational controls following pre-meditated moves on the designs of the internet game for management of mobility. Such activated circuits, sometimes so fast that they are like an adrenal rush though Peri Rossi’s narrative, seem to move like slow turtles as passengers aboard a plane who can’t feel the speed. The Foucauldian conception of the Panopticon plays out here in its prime peak instant.[6]

Similarly in Peri Rossi’s “La grieta”[7] one small banal (thinking) hesitation of the subject’s move sets off a pandemonium ripple effect in the order of mass transit in a railway station. The grammar of the urban space management cannot accept even the most insignificant incorrect punctuation mark. The hesitating man becomes an unpardonable morpheme before the official syntax of a global network as he doesn’t remember, for a brief moment, whether he was going up or down the stairs of the over bridge. Whether an outsider or otherwise, the occupants of the global cities are anonymous passersby; their conditions of continuous movements constitute the global circuits which sustain the movement of the different “scapes” as mentioned above. The provisionality of their situation highlights the provisionality of their identities in terms of race, colour and gender. Exile is a general condition of all, as is their anonymity. They are the mass people.

El hombre vaciló al subir la escalera que conducía de un andén a otro del metro, y al producirse esta pequeña indecisión de su parte (no sabía si seguir o quedarse, si avanzar o retroceder, en realidad tuvo la duda de si se encontraba bajando o subiendo) graves trastornos ocurrieron alrededor. La compacta muchedumbre que le seguía rompió el denso entramado – sin embargo, casual – de tiempo y espacio, desperdigándose, como una estrella que al explotar, provoca diáspora de luces y algún eclipse. [266]

The man hesitated while going up the stairs which led from one station to the other of the   metro, and thanks to this brief moment of hesitation on his part (he didn’t know whether to   move on or stay, to proceed or regress, in fact he doubted whether he was climbing up or going down the staircase) serious disturbances occurred around there. The compact crowd that followed him broke the dense network, however casual, in time and space, scattering like a star, which on explosion, provoke a diaspora of lights and some eclipse. [My translation].

The staircase becomes a metaphor of a conduit in the network and discounts any articulation of passion by its occupants. The corollary is that any irrationality disables the efficiency of the conduit. Both the conduit and its occupants (the crowd) are vulnerable to a breakdown given their game plan kind of structures. The protagonist is just one in a crowd whose identity becomes irrelevant. Gender, ethnic, racial and even bodily confusions are played out as fragmentary and as borderless as language itself. The entire discourse of a smooth efficient network with its connectivity, communicability and reliability is critiqued. In a mass transit system, gendered entities are disoriented, bodies are disintegrated as wigs; dentures, glasses and fashion accessories fly off from their assigned places.

Hombres perplejos resbalaron, mujeres gritaron, niños fueron aplastados, un anciano perdió la peluca, una dama su dentadura postiza, se desparramaron los abalorios de un vendedor ambulante, alguien aprovechó la ocasión  para robar unas revistas del quiosco, hubo un intento de violación, salto un reloj de una mano al aire y varias mujeres intercambiaron sin querer sus bolsos. [266]

Perplexed men slipped, women screamed and children were crushed, an old man lost his wig, a lady her denture, the cheap items of a mobile salesman got scattered, someone got an opportunity to steal magazines from a kiosk, there was an attempt to rape, one watch flew out of someone’s hand and many women involuntarily exchanged their purses. [My translation].

The text thus exposes the porous borders that draw the global urban maps imagining safe, civilized and equally accessible spatial tropes. The guards immediately take charge to set everything in order.

El hombre fue detenido, posteriormente, y acusado de perturbar el orden público. El mismo había sufrido las consecuencias de su imprudencia, ya que, en el tumulto, se le quebró un diente. Se pudo determinar que, en el momento del incidente, el hombre que vaciló en la escalera que conducía de un andén a otro (a veinticinco metros de profundidad y con luz artificial de día y de noche) era el hombre que estaba en el tercer lugar de la fila número quince, siempre y cuando se hubieran establecido lugares y filas para el ascenso y descenso de la escalera. [266-267].

The man was detained and charged with having disturbed public order. He himself had suffered the consequences of his recklessness because, in the tumult, he broke a tooth. It could be established that at the time of the incident, the man who hesitated on the stairs that   led from one platform to another (at twenty five meters depth, lit with artificial light by day and night) was the man who was in third place row number fifteen, provided they had established rows and places for the ascending and descending the staircase. [My translation].

The narrative thus renders exposed how the city is a Panopticon. The security personnel knew exactly where this man was at the instant of his momentary hesitation which jammed the smooth functioning of this manufactured spatial apparatus. However, the cityscape with its fluid boundaries is recast almost immediately like an elastic matter ready to play its next game. But the odd man who peoples this space is unbendable as he begins gazing at the crevice on the wall. The crevice works like a metaphor for a break, yet it is also one that continuously draws the attention of the man. There is break in coordination between the state machinery and its subjects. The panoptic city hence continues to interrogate him. His answer is always the same: that he’d forgotten whether he was going up or down the staircase; that perhaps it did not really matter; that he had his right foot lifted and that a crowd was present ahead and behind, and for a moment he didn’t know! There was thus also a break between the man’s memory and his own body. The city and his body become analogous tropes of control and unitary perfection, which fail momentarily because of loss of memory. Ironically, he also reflects on the fact that the staircase was an artefact used to go up or down, antithetical actions. The crevice thus articulates a counter-narrative critique of the unitary perfections of a cityscape and its inhabitants.

The complete breakdown of communication between the man and the officer is a blotch on the entire paradigm of control by the state and its allies. This breakdown is located in a complex in-between-ness, as it works both ways. The officer’s interrogation cannot extract a satisfactory response from the man while the man too, as he spoke, continued to be distracted by the growing size of the crevice on the wall, which was grey or green. The only answer he claimed about the crevice was that it was a literary artefact. The crevice as a literary artefact also metaphorizes break and discontinuity, between language and silence as also between desire and reality. The growing crevice on the wall symbolizes a point of spatial critique and intersection of the panoptic, which breaks. It is at this point that the man’s mind drifts off towards conceptualizing the “spatialization of culture” as he reckons with the difficulty of grasping reality in terms of its time and ‘direction’, “si no hay continuidad, equivale a afirmar que no existe ninguna realidad, salvo el momento” (270) [“In the absence of continuity, you have to accept that no reality exists apart from the present”, [My translation]. Further down he says, “La altura en que estuviera colocado decidía, en este caso, la direccion.” [270] [“The direction was determined, in this instance, by the level at which the eye was situated. {My translation}]”  The narrative that follows is clearly reminiscence of an Internet game space.

Es curioso que el mismo instrumento sirva tanto para subir como para bajar, siendo en el fondo, acciones opuestas – reflexionó el hombre, en voz alta….un minuto antes de la vacilación – continuó – , la memoria hizo una laguna. La memoria navega, hace agua. No sirvió; quedó atrapada en el subterráneo. [270].

Its odd that the same instrument is good for going up and down-at heart two antithetical actions,’ the man thought aloud…A moment before hesitation ,’ he continued, ‘a gap opened in my memory. Memory can drift, spring a leak. Mine got stuck in the underground, it was no use.’ [My translation].

This momentary loss of a working memory is not amnesia but a ‘literary device’ and ‘una grieta inesperada’ or ‘an unexpected crack’ (271), like a hung Internet space. The citizen transiting this space had difficulty seeing as “solo una abstraccion nos permitía saber, cuando nos sumergimos, si la corriente nos desliza hacia el origen o hacia la desembocadura del río, si empieza o termina” (271) [‘when submerged, only an abstraction allows us to know whether the current is taking us to the source or the outlet of the river, to where it begins or ends’ {My translation}]. Like the Internet game space, there are neither beginnings nor endings, or rather they are just provisional and are meant to score a point. The foot, half raised, halted due to uncertainty. ‘No hay ningún dramatismo en ello, sino una especie de turbacion.’ [271] [‘There was nothing dramatic about it, just a kind of confusion.’{My translation}] The foot is narrated as a fragment of the body of the man, which is disabled due to a brief gap in memory resulting in confusion, not an epic hero who strives to change the world. He barely manages to survive it. It almost reads like the cursor on the computer screen, which can’t move because the computer is hung. The analogy of the real space with the virtual one only serves to highlight the nature of this spatial contour as heterotopias. Heterotopias are spaces, which exist in all cultures but function differently as per situations of each culture. They are such spaces which are real spaces but relate to/juxtapose with utopias and real spaces of both geophysical and virtual types. They are manufactured and artificially put in place and include for example prisons, asylums, zoos or gardens which are either forbidden or privileged spaces. Peri Rossi’s city-as-home, fits in as a heterotopic space which groups together citi-zens as members who have had to be permitted into “accommodation” in order to be subjected to control and surveillance. Such permissions are granted under conditions of a pre-figured, strict systemic grammar of behaviour and anyone who does not follow this grammar is coolly picked out to ‘cleanse’ the space and put it back in order. So this odd man, who invests in “thinking” can’t possibly belong to this order.

It is interesting for us, at this point to make note of the writer’s brief biography.[8] She is an Uruguayan who has lived in exile since 1972 in Franco’s Spain, in Barcelona. She was expelled again in 1974 for anti-fascist activism, after which time she took refuge in Paris for nine months. She then married and moved back to Spain. In an interview with the famous Mexican writer, Carmen Boullosa, she explains her experience of exile and abandonment thus.

This second exile lasted some nine months. It wasn’t only exile; the problem was that the dictatorship had revoked my citizenship, and then I had no   documents. I was, in fact, stateless and clandestine in France, which put me in a state of acute anxiety.

… … … …

I appealed to the brotherliness of my Communist comrades in Spain, and I found a husband. We were brave, because only the church could marry people, and divorce didn’t exist. I entered Spain secretly, and I found a leftist priest to marry us, and obtained Spanish citizenship. Luckily, my husband was gay. (The Artiste’s Voice)

Peri Rossi’s feeling of rootlessness and statelessness as a Uruguayan political exile also overlaps with a kind of economic abandonment of neoliberal agendas in her home country. Add to this the fact that she is gay herself and thus when the interviewer asks her if patriotism is an undesirable factor, she responds

I completely agree. But, if I tell you this, it’s because I put myself in the place of people who love their homeland. In other words, here, when they ask me, “What are you more, Spanish or Uruguayan?” I say, “I am a citizen of the world.” In any part of the world, I defend the same things. I lived in Berlin where I defended the same things. When I arrived here, I fought against   Franco, just like I would have fought for Allende, if I had been in Chile. But that doesn’t mean that all countries are the same to me. The ones I feel a kinship with are those in which justice, and human and animal rights are defended. That’s the true homeland. (The Artistes’ Voice)

Yet in post-Franco Spain she maintains that her favourite past time is playing games on the Internet, and not reading literature or seeing good movies.

There you have it! I believe that knowledge is uncomfortable, and when I want to amuse myself, I play games on the Internet. I don’t amuse myself with music, movies, or paintings. When it comes to those things, I actually suffer.   But suffering is also a type of knowledge. A biology book can seem very entertaining to me. I don’t ask that it be well written. I do ask that it provide information. I always demand that literature be written well, because that’s what pertains to literature, correct? (The Artistes’ Voice)

The point here to be noted is that in spite of what Peri Rossi claims, we do see how her experience with internet gaming as amusement has perforated into her literary disposition, which she believes only nurtures itself from her knowledge as suffering. On the contrary, amusement and suffering contribute equally. In another interview she says the following regarding her last collection of short stories, Habitaciones.

En los dos últimos años, al mismo tiempo que poesía, había escrito varios relatos, de temas y extensión diferentes. Cuando los leí, me di cuenta de que algunos se desarrollaban en habitaciones cerradas: una celda de prisión, la habitación de un psiquiátrico y varios hoteles. Tenían otra cosa en común: reflejaban el mundo estrictamente contemporáneo del capitalismo salvaje, con sus numerosos artilugios de comunicación – celulares, Internet, congresos, pantallas- pero no había verdadera comunicación. Había prisa, pero incomunicación, soledad, y poca esperanza. Es un tema que me fascina: en el primer mundo, la mayor cantidad de aparatos de comunicación, las personas se tocan menos, conversan menos, comparten menos.

Para ser escuchados, pagan al psicólogo, y para ser tocados, al masajista. Pero no son culpables de esta manera de vivir; la responsabilidad la tiene esta fase del capitalismo financiero, salvaje y destructivo. Esta transformación del mundo a principios del s. XXI me inquieta y la observo con la imparcialidad de una cronista. (Entrevista a Cristina Peri Rossi.)

During the past two years, I had written several stories as well as poetry of different themes and extension. When I read, I realized that some were developed in closed rooms: a prison cell, the room of a psychiatric, a hospital and several hotels. They had another thing in common: they strictly reflected the contemporary world of unbridled capitalism, with its many communication gadgets – phones, Internet, conference halls and displays, but there was no real communication. There was rush, isolation, loneliness, and very little hope. It is a subject that fascinates me: in the first world, the greater the number of communication devices, the less they talk, the less they actually play and the less they share.

To be heard, they pay the psychologist, and to be touched, the masseur. But they are not guilty of this conduct as the responsibility lies with this phase of financial capitalism, wild and destructive. This transformation of the world at the beginning of s. XXI makes me restless and I watch it with the impartiality of a reporter.) [My translation]

What she talks about here with respect to communication is also true of commuting through mass transit systems. What she talks of here with respect to closed spaces becomes relevant also with respect to public spaces. These are the heterotopias designed, derided and deployed to stupefy citizens as subjects and to “colonize” them in newer ways. There is no scope of any talking nor hearing, nor any touching or of sharing. However, only a hung space enables screaming, or a pinching, or a molestation, or a near rape amidst the confusion of violence, indifference and deafness. It is only in the hung space where “gender” plays out as pervert hysteria so that the ‘he’/ ‘she’ seems to disentangle themselves out into shameful prominence. Hybridity of peoples and their bodies, spaces and idioms and the uselessness of mechanical movements, driven to patterns of banal everyday gaming, thus render mute any scope of agency, whether as a collective or an individual. Only the crowd, anonymity and exile feed into nomadic global conduits of irrelevant/imagined economic and political “stances” of a culture of predatory ‘management’ system of neoliberalism constantly under the surveillance of a police state. The police state, however, is also fraught with the same risks of routine prescriptive moves, blind to any difference of any ‘literary device’

The post Cartography of Mass City-zenry in Global Netscapes in Cristina Peri Rossi’s Short Stories ‘Los desaarraigados’ [‘The Uprooted’] and ‘La grieta’ [‘The Crevice’]. appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

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.

The post Souffrance ou héroïsme ? : Le sentiment des colons chinois dans la littérature chinoise au Tibet appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

Francisco Zamora Loboch[1], or simply “Paco” to those who know him, is one of Equatorial Guinea’s best-known writers. Born in 1948 on the Equatorial Guinean island of Annobon, his life has been profoundly marked by his country’s passage from Spanish colonial rule, to independence, to dictatorship, to diaspora. Although he came to Spain to study at university in 1968, the ascent of Francisco Macías Nguema’s brutal regime forced thousands of his compatriots into exile, thus making Zamora’s Spanish sojourn permanent. In 1979, Macías’ equally ruthless nephew, Teodoro Obiang, assumed the presidency, further cementing the impossibility of Zamora’s return. Zamora has since established himself as a journalist in Madrid. He has worked for several publications over the decades, most notably as a sports editor for As. His literary works, which include essays (How to be black and not die in Aravaca, 1994), poetry (Memory of Labyrinths, 1999; From the Viyil and Other Chronicles, 2008); and novels (Conspiracy on the Green, 2009; The Caiman of Kaduna, 2012),  examine such pressing issues as the role of nationalism in a land marked by ethnic tension, poverty, and state terror; the experience of exile in a former colonial metropolis; the contested belonging of an African nation in the global Spanish-speaking community; and the role of humor in bringing about change.

On May 28, 2013, Paco sat down with me in his Madrid office to talk about his life and his literature.

*****

Martin Repinecz:                            Can you talk a bit about how you came to Spain and about how you became a writer?

Francisco Zamora Loboch:                           Well, I was already a writer as a child. I have a poem that describes it. In Annobon, there were not many people that knew how to read in that period. When the mail boat came, the older men and women always depended on the kids, on the young people, who knew how to write, to write the letters. So from then on, I began to write, which was good because it was very well paid. What I mean is that, the better your letters were, the more yams you had, the more plantains you had, you even had more fish, etcetera. So I began writing then, or rather, I began to know the importance of what writing is.

And in terms of coming to this country, when I was young like you, it seemed I was as smart and intelligent as you–people believed that I was smart and intelligent, like you!

FZL:                           And they gave me a scholarship, so I came here to study economics. But after a while I realized that what really attracted me was journalism. So I switched to journalism.

MR:                            And that was in the ‘60s, right?

FZL:                           More like the ‘70s. I’m not that old; don’t be a jerk.

MR:                            And when did you begin to write creatively?

FZL:                           Even in Guinea I began to write poetry, perhaps when I was about 17 or 18. And even before, because as a kid, I learned to read very early; I think that I could read even at three or four years old.

MR:                            Your father was also a poet?

FZL:                           My father was a poet and schoolteacher. So, for me, to discover reading tebeos, or comics, as they are now called, was a very gratifying world. But it was also problematic because now my older sisters remind me how much I would laugh at them because they didn’t know how to read. At six or seven, I would still tell them, “how is it possible?”, and such. So obviously I began to get into problems, but of laughter; I have always laughed a lot at the ignorant.

FZL:                           But because the ignorant are always stronger, they always end up bringing you down by hitting you, or beating you up, or something like that. So anyway, yes, I began to write in Guinea, and when I arrived here, I underwent, naturally, a transformation of everything I had written, which was about palm trees, and similar things. And upon arriving here, thank God, I found people who were very critical with respect to politics and history, etcetera, in the classrooms of the school of journalism. I was very lucky in that sense because for others to be critical and tell you, “What is all this stuff about palm trees and coconut trees?” and such, forces you to get with the times. And as you write in newspapers at the same time, you begin to realize that regionalism has no raison d’être if it doesn’t have its projection in a common tree of culture. One cannot simply spend one’s life talking about ancestors, about caves, about palm trees and coconut trees; no, no, no. One must integrate all these things, as a certain Brazilian musician would say, in a common culture.

MR:                            And when you were small in Annobon, what texts were available for you? You mentioned comics, right?

FZL:                           Comics! Captain Thunder, Jabato, Mortadelo y Filemón; whatever there was from that period. I didn’t read any interesting books, if that’s what you’re asking.

FZL:                           Was I already reading Dickens? No. Not at all; my culture was limited to comics; to the world of Captain Thunder, the world of Jabato, the world of Mortadelo y Filemón; of the Guerrero del Antifaz; just like any Spanish child.

MR:                            And Western novels as well, right?

FZL:                           Ah yes, of course; my father had very good Western novels, but he didn’t let me read them. But I looked for them and found them. An in addition, it so happens that a beautiful story has come out in recent years about Western authors. I don’t know if you have read about how the authors that were persecuted by the Franco regime took refuge by writing Westerns, mysteries, and crime novels to survive, and they would use pseudonyms like Clark Karrados, like Silver Kane. The only one that used his own name was Marical Lafuente Estefanía. I am very taken by that moment. As an enthusiast, not to show off my readings. Now, when I began studying  at the Middle School in Santa Isabel, or Malabo, or Clarence, since it has three names…[2]

MR:                            Pardon, you left Annobon at a certain point?

FZL:                           Yes, of course; my father was a teacher, and when they sent him to Santa Isabel, I went there too. So two or three years later, I began studying at the Middle School Institute. When I was at the Middle School Institute, they started to allow black children to enter, because before the Institute was only for white children. So starting in the year ’58, when Equatorial Guinea was declared a province of Spain, just like Albacete, then we [black children] could also attend the Institutes. That is when I found myself with competent teachers who taught me who Juan Ramón Jiménez was, who Cervantes was, who other writers were, etcetera. And that is when I came in to contact with great literature, and when I began to read seriously, especially Juan Ramón, whom I read a great deal; Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer; in short, anything that people read in that period. And I remember perfectly when I read Platero y yo, that I was impressed at how one could write so well. And of course Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poems, even if he didn’t influence me much later on, but this fills you with culture, don’t you think?

MR:                            Yes, definitely. Even when you wrote letters in Annobon, you wrote in Spanish?

FZL:                           In Spanish, in Spanish. If not, what purpose did it have? From Annobon, you can only go to Santa Isabel, or Fernando Pó, or Bioko, or Malabo.[3] That was the vital itinerary of an Annobonese person. An Annobonese person would go to work in Malabo to build his house, etc. So we had no other panorama, and we are still that way today. In other words, an Annobonese person’s ideal is to set foot in the land of the Bubis,[4] to accumulate money or material to build a house of stone or a house of cement, etc.

MR:                            Can you speak a bit more about identity in Annobon? How do people on that island feel their Annobonese identity with respect their Equatorial Guinean identity?

FZL:                           The Annobonese feel very, very very Annobonese. I think that we feel Guinean because of the Bubis. Because the relationship between Annobon and the island of Bioko, or the island of Fernando Pó, however it is called, has always existed. Because as I have told you, it was our link to know what was happening in the world, to be able to buy things, to be able to use something called money, to have relationships with white culture. So of course, from Bioko, being connected with the mainland is no problem. At the end of the day, you are in Africa. Whatever you do. This is something that Africans don’t know: at the end of the day, it is going to be Africa.

MR:                            But the Annobonese identify more with the Bubis than with the Fang?[5]

FZL:                           Yes, of course. The contact between Annobon and the Fang is of the last forty or fifty years. By contrast, the contact between the Annobonese and the Bubis is many centuries old. We didn’t go to the continent, we went to the island in search of opportunities. That is where the Bubis are. But it is a melting pot, the capital, which is formbed by Bubis, Spaniards, and others. What it means to be a capital. A small one, but still a capital at the end of the day.

MR:                            And how was the experience of living in Santa Isabel [present-day Malabo] for you?

FZL:                           Of course! There I met my life-long friends, those who would become my friends, who were all a bunch of ruffians. My father was also in charge of a reform school for young people. So imagine, a kid my age, surrounded by so many scoundrels, delinquents, crooks! My whole life I’ve been around crooks, rascals, thieves, freeloaders! These were my friends!

FZL:                           And in addition to those I met in the Institute, I also met many friends in a semi-fascist experience, which was the OJE, the Spanish Youth Organization, when I came to Spain in ’62-’63. But that OJE was a work of Franco, and people used to say Franco called it his pet project, or something like that. Its purpose was so that Guinean teenagers, at age 14, 15, or 16, could come to the peninsula, to Spain, to integrate with other Spanish kids. So of course, your universe changed in two or three trips! It was amazing, because from the racial discrimination of Guinea, from the supremacy of whites over blacks, you come here and you think to yourself, “What the hell is this? I am just the same as these guys!” They would pull your leg, and you would pull theirs, and you would be integrated in a day or two. So the OJE played a very great role despite being a fascist organization of the youth of Equatorial Guinea of that period because it allowed them to leave the colonial environment and enjoy Spain. But certainly, the enrichment of this semi-fascist, para-fascist experience—can you imagine, with the blue and khaki uniform?—enabled us to wake up from a sluggish, colonial world. And it was a whole generation: it was not just me, but hundreds of kids that would come here in the summer to the OJE’s camps. Although Macías[6] finished off all these people, some saved themselves.

MR:                            So, when you came to Spain to start university, did you plan on going back to Guinea?

FZL:                           Yes, of course; I had no interest in staying; all the romanticism that I might have had for this country had been exhausted by the time I was 18. At 18, I knew it all.

MR:                            And with the OJE, you would come to Madrid?

FZL:                           Ah, no; they were incredible experiences for a kid born in Guinea. At 15, they left you in Cádiz in a boat. They would give you just enough money and a map, and they would tell you where you had to go and what day you had to be there. So we had to figure it out, either walking, or hitchhiking, or however we could to get to these places, of course. Imagine the experience you would get in the ‘60s around here. I remember one time we went to Galicia because the camp was in a place called Sada, a very famous beach. Six of us little Guineans arrived here with our satchels and whatnot, and the leader said, “OK, today we are going to make a paella.” We had the rice, we asked for a paella pan, and we started making the rice, and a couple of ladies approached us. “What are you doing?”, they said. “We are going to make a paella.” “Where are you from?” “From Guinea.” “Since when do you make paellas?” We told them, “No, it’s just that…”, and they said, “Look, sons: you are very young; you look great, very handsome. Go for a swim. Enjoy Galicia in peace. And when you come back, don’t worry, because we will make you a paella.” Wooooow! And when we came back, that was a huge paella, a party!

MR:                            So you said you came to study economics but then you switched to journalism, right?

FZL:                           Yes, in the Complutense.

MR:                            And you were at university when Guinea became independent?

FZL:                           No, I was there [in Guinea], in the Plaza de España, although I don’t know what it’s called now.[7] I was there that day.[8]

MR:                            Oh, you remember the day! What happened exactly?

FZL:                           Well, after that, about two months later or so, I came to Spain. And later came everything with Macías: the murders, the brutality, and so on, but I was here while that was going on. Later, we organized a few plans to return, but they failed; all of our attempts failed. We were also very naïve; we didn’t think money was important.

MR:                            So, in the early years, you were involved in political movements?

FZL:                           Yes, I always have been.

MR:                            Let’s talk for a minute about your career as a journalist. Can you speak a bit more about how you came to be a sports journalist in particular?

FZL:                           Ah, yes, because on one occasion I was talking with one of my teachers, and I was obsessed with Guinea. So he told me not to be so obsessed with it, and that I dedicate myself to journalism. First I had to subsist, and second, I shouldn’t label myself too strongly. So, I have always been alternating one thing with the other. But above all, in my opinion, where I have written the best has been in the world of sports because as a young man I was a great athlete. That is definitely true. I did track, basketball, hurdles, and of course soccer.

MR:                            Your last novel, El caimán de Kaduna, is about soccer. I assume your experience reporting about soccer helped you to write it?

FZL:                           Yes. The newspaper As has sent me to practically all the soccer championships in Africa. In the World Cup in Germany,[9] four or five African teams classified, so I had to go to all those African countries to report how the World Cup was seen there. I was at the African Cup of Nations in Ghana.[10] And at the one in Egypt.[11] And at the one in Angola.[12] And then I was in South Africa recently for the World Cup.[13]

MR:                            And when you were in all those countries, did you manage to establish contact with other African writers?

FZL:                           No, I was working like a madman. Because you have to fill two pages of newspaper every day. You don’t have time for anything. There is no time for anything except to eat badly. But it is the best time to visit those countries. You see the national explosion, the national depression, you see people who have nothing to do with soccer criticizing soccer. In addition, the organization isn’t usually very sophisticated. Here, if you show your press pass, they send you to a different place, and from there you have to go somewhere else. But not there. I prefer that chaos. It is more entertaining.

MR:                            So, going back to literature, the first literary texts you published were poems that came out in Donato’s anthology?[14]

FZL:                           Not quite in Donato’s anthology. Amidst the attempts to search for funds to fight Macías, we published a few books that we called Guinean literature, or something like that; I can’t remember. That was how the first writings started to come out.  Now I believe it’s been 25 years since those first texts that Donato, I and others published.

MR:                            And what is your opinion, in general, of the attempt to create a Guinean literature? Do you consider it important to label it that way?

FZL:                           Yes, I consider it important to label it that way because in this way, those of us who read in Spanish will realize that right now, the Spanish language has three legs. One is Spain: Madrid; Seville; the peninsula. Another leg is South America, and the third is in Africa. So it is important for us to be distinguished as such. You, as a good American, know that until something is named, it has no visibility. And you cannot make a movement. It is good, it is not bad.

MR:                            Do you feel that Guinean writers are obtaining more visibility?

FZL:                           The universities are giving them more visibility.

MR:                            In Spain too?

FZL:                           No, not in Spain. The Americans. Every time an American scholar calls me, I am unable to tell them no, because I know they are making a valuable effort, and people like Justo Bolekia, Ávila Laurel, and Donato Ndongo Bidyogo[15] know the dependence and the gratitude that we owe to the Americans. To American students.  Because they have taken what we are producing very seriously with their theses and their studies. There is no American university where people don’t know something about what is being produced in Equatorial Guinea. And that is thanks to them, not to Spain. In Spain, they don’t give us the time of day. They haven’t fully understood that a small country called Guinea is the embassy of the Spanish language in Africa. And if they have understood it, they don’t care. But damn, for a continent that speaks a zillion languages to have a special part dedicated to Spanish? Even if the writing is shit! It’s true that sometimes I think to myself, geez, this novel is crap, or this poem has nothing interesting to it; but it’s in Spanish!

FZL:                           And Spain, the Instituto Cervantes and the institutions should be more aware of what is going on. Because you can’t imagine the number of people that write in Guinea; a ton.

MR:                            What is the situation for writers in Equatorial Guinea?

FZL:                           I’m not sure, because I don’t live there. But I suppose it must be frustrating because they don’t have readers. The government doesn’t do much for them. As Ávila Laurel said, “Writing in Guinea is like being a skier in the Sahara.”

MR:                            Yes, that’s what I imagined.

FZL:                           Yes.

MR:                            Can you tell me a bit about your upcoming literary projects?

FZL:                           I am preparing a book of poems. I want to call it, “Spanish Blue.” “Spanish Blue” is about language, religion, and the poetic relationship between my Spain and my Guinea. On one hand, blue represents the uniform of the Falangists, of the regime. The Falangist hymn said, “cover your chest in Spanish blue.” But then there is also a poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez that says, “Every afternoon the sky will be blue and placid.”[16] I love this “blue and placid.” And I think it’s a very intriguing thing. I have started writing it but I am not in a hurry.

MR:                            Very interesting. As a final question, have you ever thought about returning to Equatorial Guinea?

FZL:                           Yes, of course! I have to teach the kids to play soccer right, because I think they are doing it badly. And I can also teach them to play volleyboll, and I can also teach them to play basketball. And if the Guineans don’t want to, I can do it in Annobon. No problem.

MR:                            Thanks so much, Paco.

FZL:                           No problem, man. That’s two or three beers you’re going to buy me now, pal!

The post Labyrinths of memories: A conversation with Francisco Zamora Loboch appeared first on The Postcolonialist.

******

The West, as the representative model of order and stability in the international system, surveys the possibilities of peace and conflict in potentially significant geo-strategic zones. The West as the global policeman is also seeking potential allies that can help regulate and facilitate access to resources. An election in a postcolonial country is an important barometer in making these calculations, and therefore a subject of intense surveillance by the West. Elections in a postcolonial country come under the gaze of the West usually if it is with regards to a former colony ravaged by warfare and subject to the reconstruction efforts of the West.

The West is often involved in sending election monitors to supervise elections in these countries. But this year the elections in India, an independent country with a vibrant democratic system, has gained unprecedented visibility and is the subject of intense debate in the West.[1] The ongoing trauma of postcolonial experience has come alive during the current elections in India. Newspaper and academic articles introduce this subject with numerical citations on the size of the electorate (814 million) and are keen to label the political system as a stable ‘democracy’ in order to weigh in on the significance of an election in a postcolonial country.[2] These enormous figures and political labels on legitimacy help attract the attention of Western audiences by helping to focus their gaze on a far away landscape and give a sense of importance to the subaltern.[3]

These elections have made visible in an unprecedented manner the agony of a painful colonial legacy that the nationalists tried to subvert. The old and dirty colonial legacy of divide and conquer, playing upon distrust between the Hindus, the Muslims, the Sikhs and many others continues as  these are now regarded as ‘vote banks’ for parties contesting elections. Take for example, the two main political parties: the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) issues a majoritarian appeal to the Hindus to unite, and the Congress woos the Muslims as a minority that needs to be protected by a secular force. Sonia Gandhi, the current president of the Congress party has made deliberate efforts to reach out to the Muslim clergy to ask them to mobilize popular support in their constituencies in support of her party.[4]

The legacy of a colonial education too has had visible effects on the electorate. In order to establish its own ideological supremacy, colonial education deliberately castigated any nationalist attempts to foster an alternative ideology such as Hindutva as inferior, subversive and a threat to modernization.[5] The imported ideologies of liberalism and communism have been taught for generations, but any engagement with indigenous ideologies such as Hindutva is actively discouraged and dismissed as rabid. This has generated an atmosphere of fear and suspicion that has little patience for investigating the factors that have encouraged the BJP to resort to Hindutva, and the impact of electoral politics on this ideology. The BJP is repeatedly attacked as a divisive and anti-secular force trying to rewrite history in a manner that will split the country and undermine its democratic institutions. These insecurities and fears became most visible with the unprecedented act of a college principal issuing a special message on the college website and sending official emails to students in a deliberate attempt to influence their decision to vote a day before the polls opened.[6]

The subaltern has tried to thwart these colonial legacies of ‘divide and rule’ and colonial education through the civilizing catharsis of a written constitution with its antidote of secularism. This helped the subaltern gain recognition as a sovereign state within the international community. It is respect for this constitution that is now being reiterated by the established political parties as they try to temper and discipline new political parties such as the Aam Admi Party (AAP) entering the political fray. The lack of respect for constitutional procedures has generated concern about impending anarchy should this party come to power. In an act of frustration or in an effort to propose an alternative identity that is capable of even questioning this constitution, Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of this political party did not even hesitate to proclaim himself an anarchist.[7] This rash proclamation sent alarm bells ringing through the corridors of power both within the country and overseas. The strong backlash has now compelled Kejriwal to retract and issue a statement that he is committed to working within the modalities of the Indian constitution.[8]

These experiences have created a paradox where a postcolonial country is on the one hand applauded for being a vibrant democracy while on the other there is an embedded sense of fear, trepidation and uncertainty among the political pundits. At regular intervals alarmist trumpet calls alert the West to the unpredictability of the outcome of these elections and the future political trajectory of this country.[9] The seriousness of these dangerous threat perceptions is complemented by the old game of caricature and stereotyping. This strategy of deploying political cartoons is claimed by the West to have been introduced to the illiterate Orient that only with the help of simple visuals could learn to appreciate politics and political humour.[10] This strategy has now gained much popularity and traction in Indian culture and politics. The Oriental stereotypes of the ‘pandit’ and the ‘mullah’ created by the West are now regenerated and reinvigorated to lampoon political candidates and their religious affiliations. The caricature of Baba Ramdev in his saffron robes is a case in point.[11] The satirical intonations and depictions of ‘Madame Sonia’ as a gesture towards her Italian ancestry invoke loud laughter from mass audiences attending public rallies.[12]

Similarly other ideological tropes such as Fascism, Nazism and ghettoism are being evoked as threats to the much vaunted secularism and feminism.[13] The sly civility in the evocation of these particular tropes should not blind us to the politics behind their careful deployment. The politics of engaging and educating the West in its own language about other locales is based on a subtle assumption that the West can only comprehend violence if the subaltern willingly partakes and shares a vocabulary familiar to the West, crafted in its own experiences of epistemic violence. Any narration of suffering can be of sustained interest only if it finds resonance in the West. The universality of experiences of suffering and any struggle against them can only be described in a language of human rights as a standard of civilization sourced from the West.[14] So immersed is the subaltern in her Western experiences of learning and conceptualization that there is little need to pause or any attempt to articulate these experiences in local terms such as the need for sadbhavna (goodwill towards all)  or satyagraha (sacrifice and penance). The articulation of these concepts by some politicians that escaped the Western fount of learning still imparted in missionary schools in the Orient is dismissed as nonsensical.

The acute sense of vulnerability and shame that is experienced by the subaltern now  scrutinized by the West is couched in assurances of a predictable foreign policy and ministers treading the beaten old path regulated by an elephant bureaucracy.[15] The clerks under a colonial regime were always the acclaimed loyalists and in a post-colonial India their briefings to the elected candidates would secure their proper adaptation and adherence to the international protocol. These assurances mimic the confidence of a new post-colonial intellectual and political elite that in the immediate aftermath of its new found independence is eager to demonstrate to the West its capability to govern in a responsible manner.  In this election as soon as the manifesto of the BJP suggested a possibility of revising India’s nuclear doctrine this was taken very seriously by the West.[16] The party leadership had to issue an immediate clarification of adhering to a no-first use policy. These gestures are representative of a desire to assure and appease the West by the postcolonial elites that no matter which political party comes to power India will not make any radical changes in its nuclear policy.[17] These practices continue as exercises demonstrating the rational mind of the subaltern.

As the elections are being constested these facile attempts at mimicry to reconcile and assure the West that we will be rational and steer the beaten path in our foreign and economic policy continue unabated and find a place in leading academic and journalistic publications in the West. Regular assurances are issued that India will not deviate from the path of neo-liberal economic reforms and will maintain the status-quo vis-à-vis its neighbours and the West.[18] Political candidates are evaluated in terms of their relationship with the US and China as two powerful economies interested in doing business with India. The US is still ambivalent about issuing a visa to Narendra Modi, the BJP candidate, but has not hesitated in making overtures by sending its ambassador for a private meeting with him.[19] The hesitation of the West to embrace an electoral frontrunner renders Modi a more palatable candidate to non-Western countries such as China that have expressed much faith in his ability to do business and improve relations.[20]

The postcolonial trauma of the subaltern is unending. It is only in moments of crisis such as these elections that it becomes visible with such force. The ritualistic exercise of an election will run its course. But how will the subaltern sustain the gaze of the West? How will the subaltern escape the violence of being subject to the West’s scrutiny and discipline? Will the subaltern continue to suppress its need to question the divide and rule politics taught by the colonizers? Will the subaltern keep aspiring to the ‘superior’ status of the modernized and condemn as inferior any conversation with its own remnant ideological strains? Will the subaltern cling to the constitution as its only recourse to any demonstrated capability to reason and govern? The spectacle continues, and the West is for the time being mesmerized.

Postscript: Narendra Modi is now India’s Prime Minister-elect.

Photo credit: Al Jazeera English via Compfight cc

The post The Spectacle of Indian Elections and the West appeared first on The Postcolonialist.