In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon raises the concern that in the process of decolonization, nations are faced with the threat of failing to make systemic changes to the colonial goverment and merely replacing the white leaders with “natives”. In Culture and Imperialism Edwards Said further examines how the process of decolonization involves a constant struggle with the colonized ideology. Said argues that the first struggle in decolonization is for land, and the second is for ideological freedom. This is more difficult than it seems because the decolonized people’s struggle for an independent identity and culture needs to include their history as an oppressed group. Said’s description of the fluidity of culture highlights why determining an independent identity (which is often required to fight colonialist ideology) is so difficult:
Cultures are not impermeable; just as Western science borrowed from Arabs, the had borrowed from India and Greece. Culture is never just a matter of ownership, of borrowing and lending with absolute debtors and creditors, but rather of appropriations, common experiences, and interdependencies of all kinds among different cultures. This is a universal norm. (217)
In my Gender and Women’s Studies class we’ve been discussing the idea of using an interesectionalist approach to understanding people’s situations (ie being careful not to over-generalize individual’s experiences — looking carefully at class, gender, sex, nationality, race, etc. to understand situations.) Though I realize the importance of this, I have struggled with the alienating and isolating view of human experiences which this creates. I think Said’s suggestion for the ways decolonized people should understand their experience offers a solution.
Said argues that decolonization creates “dangers of chauvinism and xenophobia (“Africa for the Africans”) [which] are are very real” (214). The solution to this problem, Said suggests is when decolonized people see their own history “as an aspect of the history of all subjugated men and women, and comprehends the complex truth of his own social and historical situation” (214). This offers a critique to the intersectionalist approach to understanding ones situation. In addition to looking at all of the complex factors which led to a groups experience, it is also necessary to situate this experience within a larger context. This same idea comes up in Said’s discussion of the native peoples ability to revise western narratives. One of the main means of resistance which Said highlights is the idea of “writing back.” Citing Salman Rushdie’s work as an example, Said explains how this consists of, “disrupting the European narratives of the Orient and Africa, replacing them with either a more playful or a more powerful new narrative style” (216).
Broad Resistance
26 October 2009 · 9.14 am · by qwertyuiop
Categories: reading responses
Tagged: response
4 responses so far ↓
william // 27 October 2009 at 12.43 am
Rewriting history with a more global perspective in mind is crucial to Said’s thesis that there is an escape from the chauvinism and xenophobia that result from the rigid nationalism in place after violent revolution. It’s interesting to note how much Said relies upon the notion of the nation as an imagined instead of real community. Only when people recognize that the nation is not real can anything positive begin to come out of decolonization. As it is, westerners continue to think of their national culture as the best culture, and in some way, feel a nostalgia for the age of imperialism because only then could they fully impart their culture to others. In addition, as you have pointed out, the problems with the nationalism of recently decolonized nations is that national unity is often founded on separating oneself from all of those who are different, on a politics of exclusion.
meg // 27 October 2009 at 1.43 pm
“Said argues that the first struggle in decolonization is for land, and the second is for ideological freedom.”
I think in addition to the fluidity of culture the second struggle is also very related to one of the things Fanon discusses, mainly that a bourgeois culture can arise within the colonized nation that maintains the colonizing ideology even after the physical presence of the imperialist country is gone.
I’m a little confused about “the alienating and isolating view of human experiences” which is created by taking an intersectionalist approach to understanding people. It seems to me that by making sure to include all aspects of people’s identities, you would achieve just the opposite. But then, I don’t have a perfect idea of what intersectionalism is, so perhaps you could clarify?
jori // 27 October 2009 at 4.58 pm
I also was interested in the point that Meg brought up about “alienating and isolating view of human experiences.” I think that if you look more narrowly at human experiences (ie through a race/gender/age) lens, then you might start to see more differences that connections between individuals. There may be more group identity within these different subgroups of gender, race, etc, but it may be harder to unite under one “humanist” agenda. I have a hard time deciphering what is more important: To work towards finding commonalities between all people, OR to look more closely at the needs to certain groups and find commonalities within those smaller sub-communities. ?
qwertyuiop // 27 October 2009 at 7.50 pm
Hey Meg,
I agree that understanding the complexity and specificity of an individual’s experience is very important, but I think it’s most valuable as a first step. If the process ends there it seems to rather dangerously continue the “us/them” dichotomy that allowed for and encourage colonization. Looking the the specificity of experiences needs to be followed by a search for common experiences and alliances with the rest of humanity…