Joshua Krueger #3042188
CRS/IDS 4910 – Conflict and the Construction of the
Other
Richard McCutcheon; October 24, 2011
Think Piece #5: To Join the Human Race
Even
if it is not identical to our internalized version, it is startling to catch a
glimpse of the doxa: the unquestioned assumptions of our thoughts and theories.
One is struck dumbfounded, yet also humbled, by the notion that J.A. Hobson’s
major critique of Imperialism, even with its bravery, is not at all against the
concept of inferior races,[1]
or how both T. E. Lawrence and Louis Massignon – men described by Said as
having “genuine empathy” – could not see another solution than dividing the
Arab world between France and England, “for
the Arabs.”[2] It
is not at all surprising then that colonists and their books authoritatively
declared natives as lazy, blind to the fact that these humans were defying
their subjugation.[3]
How can such beliefs, with their ties to power, be overcome?
Enter
Yeats, a poet presented by Said as a conscious warrior on a cognitive
battlefield. In the process of decolonization and the very real struggle for
land, Yeats’ work is in direct contact with the doxa of the settlers and their assumptions
to the land. In attempting to splinter it and remove the pressures of their beliefs
from the mind of his own people, Yeats forms the narrative in which the land
can begin to be recovered through the imagination.[4]
In the same mode as Yeats is Fanon, who writes not only of the direct physical
confrontation between settler and native, but of the doxa that links imperialism
and orthodox nationalism.
With
Edward Said’s guidance I agree that Fanon is more than an angry subaltern
rousing the masses for violence, and needs to be read as pushing past the phase
of national consciousness and “independence to the theoretical domain of
liberation.”[5] I
also agree that his final position is one that “bind[s] the European as well as
the native together in a new non-adversarial community of awareness and
anti-imperialism,”[6]
but Edward Said does not seem to mention his opinion on the necessity of
Fanon’s view of violence as “the synthesis that overcomes the reification of
white man as subject, Black man as object.”[7]
How can the movement towards liberation and mutual community continue without
smashing this reification? If so, must we follow Fanon into battle against
Empire in a “protracted political, cultural, and sometimes military struggle”?[8]
Though
this is an interesting question, it is a question that is afforded to me by my comfortable
place within the empire. Maybe the important aspect is not if there is physical
violence or not, but that there needs to be a struggle. Either way I am
intrigued to thinking holistically through the process of decolonization. As
Yeats provides a first step of impetus by unchaining the imagination, is the
next step liberating violence and national independence – both of which much be
eventually overcome – that builds up a people to the point that they can begin
the true process of liberation as equals with all races of the earth? Culture and Imperialism’s final chapter
is an excellent critique of compartmentalized identity and the nationalized
educations that build such identities, but are those identities not also a
necessary step to prevent oneself from being subsumed by the culture of another
nations?[9]
If this is true and we ignore it, is there a risk of pushing nations into
subordinate roles by demanding that they espouse nonviolence and temperance? Or
are these identities problematic enough that we can call into question the very
necessity of nation states? Either way, Edward Said’s work has shown me that I
can no longer afford to be an infant and depend on the antagonistic identity
that has been prepared for me, but that I must remove my fear and prejudice and
join the human race.
[9] Japan’s cultural
dependence on American despite its economic dominance is a good example
presented on pages 329-30.
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