Who will define Civilization?

Joshua Krueger #3042188

CRS/IDS 4910 – Conflict and the Construction of the Other

Richard McCutcheon; September 26, 2011

Think Piece #2: Who will define Civilization?

How does one respond to the writers of colonial reality; to the ones who have been fed oppression and mercilessly respond with the truth? As a reader, watching the moral authority of my own civilization buckle as if it was the backs of those it has oppressed, I am filled with wonder and despair. Frantz Fanon calls for a complete reconstruction of the political and economic imagination and my feeble attempts to retain some handle on my reality through reasonable and balanced conduct is already countered by the words: “For the native, objectivity is always directed against him.”[1] My desire towards action is halted by my creeping thoughts that force me to compare my own independent beliefs against the indoctrination of the native bourgeoisie towards the system of western values. To Fanon, we are both complicit in defending the status quo by unconsciously pushing the conflict towards our own needs and sources of power, rather than for what is right. While I would prefer, because of my own personal taste and educational training, that conflicts should be lessened and even resolved, my guilt and horror paralyzes my mind to critically engage and all I can do is avert my eyes and agree with Fanon’s psychology of the native. In this place of deception, all that matters is bread and land; the native knows this and knows that the only way to get such concrete realities is through concrete actions. Therefore, there will be violence. 

                While I distress over the ease with which I can stray from my upbringing as a Mennonite pacifist, I cannot argue with the truth-tipped quotes presented by Aimé Césaire. Is there any more scathing attack to the western liberal than to be unhumorously compared to Hitler? To be shown in my own thoughts and education how racist even my indignation is. I confess that until this moment I did not understand that I too despised the “humiliation of the white man” more so than the “humiliation of man” as such.[2] Césaire pulls the curtain fully away to show that the great figures of the west are nothing more than barbarians and hypocrites, especially in comparison to the real black race who are “civilized to the marrow of their bones!”[3]

                How then did I come to believe these things? Did I choose to start believing in the invention of the “barbaric negro,”[4] or is my deterioration a necessary result of the manufactured “keel of evil and of mystery stabilizing the ship and course that is Western history?”[5] As Michael Taussig’s article explains, the production of rubber in the Amazon required the use of torture and terror – possible through colonization – to create the context of abstract labour necessary for capitalism.[6] For such a process to be sustainable in the human psyche, the Other needs to be constructed in a way that justifies and sanctifies the abuser. Maybe my entire being is only an extension of this unholy trinity between capitalism, racism and power.

                I find myself asking the question that has been asked before me: “What sort of understanding – what sort of speech, writing, and construction of meaning by any mode – can deal with and subvert that?”[7] With the storm of guilt hovering above me, how do I begin the process of cutting out the precepts of my identity – nevertheless the identity of a culture – that make it impossible to encounter the Other in any meaningful way? Or is it my responsibility, with fear and trembling, to step aside and humbly accept the role that my culture has forced upon the rest of the world and let the Other create the definition of civilization.

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[1] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1961), 77.

[2] Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 3 http://www.rlwclarke.net/Theory/SourcesPrimary/CesaireDiscourseonColonialism.pdf (Accessed September 22, 2011).

[3] Ibid, 11.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Michael Taussig, “Culture of Terror--Space of Death: Roger Casement's Putumayo Report and the

Explanation of Torture,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26, No. 3. (1984): 470 http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0010-4175%28198407%2926%3A3%3C467%3ACOTODR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4 (Accessed September 22, 2011).

[6] Ibid, 479.

[7] Ibid, 470.

Imperialism and Madness

The following is called a Think Piece. It is a 600 word paper that I will need to write each week for a class called Conflict and Construction of the Other. This week's readings was A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Because of the limited word count, I took some liberties with assuming that the reader had already read the material. I will probably post my Think Piece's here because they should be polished writing and they might be interesting to check out. I welcome any questions or constructive criticisms.

Joshua Krueger #3042188

CRS/IDS 4910 – Conflict and the Construction of the Other

Richard McCutcheon; September 18, 2011

Think Piece #1: Imperialism and Madness

The books A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad both deal with the issue of imperialism. Reflecting on the effects of imperialism, both books have strong themes of deception and unreality. They both show how deceptive language and unchecked power allow a type of madness to take place; a madness that becomes normalized because it is constructed and supported by the manmade power of imperialism.

                As a removed native of Antigua, Kincaid is the only one able to see the madness that dominates the island. Even her vision is incomplete though, because she can only call on the language of her oppressor; the language that can “contain only the goodness of the criminal’s deed.”[1] From this subverted position, Kincaid still manages to seduce the reader by placidly wondering how a refrigerator can electrocute a man, or how a food importer can lend money to a government, while at the same time stating the stupidity of having a Minister of Culture, or forcing the reader to examine the connection between slavery and Hotel Training School. Kincaid shows us that these absurdities are accepted only because they exist. Just as the Barclay brothers might be visionaries for switching from physical slavery to economic slavery or how the nation of Switzerland can be considered neutral because it only deals with benign commodities such as money and time, reality is warped by power and ideas – for both the colonisers and the local inhabitants – that are then judged by fictional measures. Striding confidently with its military power, this madness is shielded through the imposed values of development and GDP.

                In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the theme of madness is personified in the character of Kurtz. Kurtz, a man who decorates his dwelling with the heads of those who resist his rule, is more than a simple character though, and his madness must be dealt with in the context of the madness around him. It would be tempting to simply take Conrad’s fantastical description of the Congo and write off Kurtz’s deterioration as a result of the impenetrable jungle and savage people of Africa, but this position ignores the madness that Kurtz is formed in. In fact, Kurtz’s madness is at least in part an exemplification of the savageness of the Company, and ultimately imperialism. As we follow Marlow’s journey towards Kurtz, we are struck by the “high and just proceedings” of imperialism. [2] These include the chaining of black ‘criminals’ and the digging of a hole “connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do,” along with the exceptional waste of human and material resources.[3] As the journey continues, the stupidity shifts to direct madness at the further inland Central Station where there is no more need for deceptiveness or false language to cover up the “desire to get...where ivory was to be had.”[4] In this context, the character of Kurtz is more than just a man but the result of the idea of imperialism put into a pressure cooker. “All of Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” in more than just the cosmopolitan sense; the mood of Europe, namely that “we must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings,” is stored in Kurtz’s being and becomes the catalyst for his madness. [5] It is only when Kurtz is forcibly removed from the manmade context that nurtures his delusions of moral and racial superiority that he realizes the horror of his actions.

                Neither of these books claims that the people who began the great game of civilizing the world were necessarily crazy, but they do point to the fact that madness is linked to the quest. One does not need to be mad to take up the seductive ideas presented by imperialism, but one does need to twist reality in order to sustain them. It is only once this madness is normalized – through the construction of an alternate reality legitimized by power – that the benefits of imperialism can be imagined.

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[1] Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988), 32.

[2] Joseph Conrad, Ed. Robert Hampson, Heart of Darkness (Toronto: Penguin Books, 2007), 19.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid, 29.

[5] Ibid, 61.

A Poem

I do not normally read a lot of poetry. In fact, the only motivation I have ever had for reading poetry is the notion that girls like guys who read and memorize poetry. But I stumbled across this one while I was reading a magazine called Geez. I post it here because the poem changed the way I was breathing. It may not do much for you, but it hit me where I am at right now, shifting through adventures and everyday life.

In Light of This, As I’ve

Lived on Board This Boat

By Johanna Skibsrud

It was, then, the way I like it best:

made, as I was, by weather, so aware.

By the contrast of the sun and cold,

each so separate on my skin.

It’s nearly always like that.

In the excess or the absence of a thing that I

appreciate it best. The way I wish I always

could. By plunging myself deeply into it, I mean,

and taking up within it, all the space I can.

Looking back, it’s just, there always seems to be more

room within each moment than, originally, I’d thought.

So that it’s only, then, in retrospect, that I

explore each moment, truly; only then take that great pleasure,

and that’s so sad.

That I do that – and, I do.

Imagine my moments, as I first possess them,

to be so small that I just splash right through,

and don’t notice at first, or particularly,

the space available to me there,

which only later I realize I can fill.

In light of this, I want always to

live as I have lived on board this boat.

To be, always, like this: tired when I sleep,

hungry when I sit to eat, and when I love I want to love

as recklessly as this: when I’ve been,

in my loneliness, desiring.