First of all a confession: of all columnists spouting their views in British mainstream media, I believe Johann Hari to be one of the best. His arguments are well researched and well made. Plus, his liberal (as opposed to left-of-centre) views are refreshing in a world where opinions of everything from the colour of Michelle Obama's clothes to piracy off the coast of Somalia are tainted by ideological petrification and intellectual sloppiness.
Which is why I was disappointed to read his piece on reality and the contemporary novelist this morning. Suddenly I realised that Hari's views are not much different from the British mainstream.
First of all there is the ridiculous assumuptions that "reality" is some how "over there" - in lands far away like India and Africa but not in the middle-class havens of London, Manchester, Glasgow. More problematic is the implicitly classist conceit that this over-there-reality must be about war/poverty/violence.
Then there is a more troubling aspect: Hari blithely describes the location of Arvind Adiga's new novel as "typical Indian city." While, this might sound like nitpicking to some but most Britons take great pride in explaining the uniqueness and difference of the various parts of their tin-pot island. Thus London is automatically assumed to be world apart from Manchester. And god forbid if you ever describe Glasgow or Edinburgh as "a typical British city" to either a Scot or an Englishman! Yet a country of over a billion people, seventeen official languages, every major religion can somehow be reduced to "typical". I would LOVE to know what qualifies as a "typical Indian city" - Mumbai? New Delhi? Guwahati? Hyderabad? Patna? But hey, the white man will establish the "uniqueness" of his location but "over there" is just all a "typical" massive (w)hole.
An aside here: If Adiga's first book's superficiality (most likely a result of an over-arching ambition to write the "Indian" novel rather than just a brilliant one) is any indication, it is precisely his short-hand rendering of the Said-ian "typical" Indian characteristics that make him such an "exhilirating" writer for the likes of Hari. After all, why complicate your life - and reading - with ideas, views, insights into the "non-typical" India or any other "over-there" that you would acquire from the likes of a Mahashweta Devi or an Amitav Ghosh? After all their litarary "reality" gets a little too uncomfortably confrontational for white British middle-class men with pretensions of liberality.
(Mind you - for those of you ready to jump down my throat - I am not saying that Hari is racist! Unfortunately all of us have racist assumptions, most of which we deny or are unaware of. And to paraphrase Ella Shohat, its the "unthinking" racism that is the most insidous and dangerous).
Then there is the glowing recommendation of Adiga's Boyle-like attempt to write like a "journalist" about what he doesn't know. Without even going into the merits of Adiga's research and its literary rendering, Hari's statement itself is problematic.
Having worked as a journalist in Latin America and Asia, I have despaired of far too many of these well-meaning journalists who "research" places they write about without ever bothering to learn the language, understanding the culture, or indeed caring about the context of the stories they email back to the publications back home. Worse still, all these purportedly objective journalistic accounts are not only deeply judgemental and flawed, they actively construct views, opinions of the "over-there" by elision and omission, and thus aid and abet trade, diplomatic and military policies that countries implement.
So journalists are hardly the benchmark of those who go out to learn and write about "reality." And while it has become fashionable to complain about the deterioration in journalistic standards in the past decade, Western "journalistic" standards were always deeply flawed when it came to covering "reality" in over-there-lands! In fact, novelists would be better served if they focussed on particular subjective realities, providing depth, context, integrity and compassion to their stories, rather than imitating the falsely objective, exploitative, limited viewpoints that journalism requires!
Finally, Hari's paean to the apparent resuscitation of the "realist" novel by Adiga (and I assume others of his ilk) is particularly grating. The "realist" novel was a product of a particular time, place and culture, all of which are part and parcel of Hari's cultural inheritance. However the realist novel was also an aspect of the intellectual imperialism that wreaked - and continues to wreak - as yet unacknowledged havoc on colonized cultures across the globe.
Realism may have served a particular purpose in Europe and America, but it represents a form of intellectual and creative colonisation beyond these geographical/political and cultural boundaries. For far too long, writers from Africa, Asia, Latin America were told to write in "realist" forms and forced to eschew non-realist, non-linear narrative traditions that their own cultures had developed in the centuries prior to colonization. "Realism" was enlightened, modern, intellectually superior to the non-linear, non-realist narrative traditions of Africa, Asia, Latin America, we were told constantly and consistently. Colonised writers took up the form, to prove they were as good as their colonial masters, to attain intellectual credibility and readership, to show the masters that they too "could"!! This is why Marquez, Borges, Rushdie had such an impact on their home cultures - they unshackled the novel from its colonial-realist shackles, demonstrating that "reality" could be narrated in myriad ways and not only the one foisted upon us by our former colonial masters.
For writers from postcolonial nations who are still struggling to overcome the far-longer lasting legacies of intellectual and creative colonisation, Hari's views are not deeply familiar but also depressingly common. Its just horribly disappointing to read Hari espouse them.
As I said at the beginning, Hari is one of my favourite British columnists and I look forward to reading his work. And yet this morning, I was forcefully reminded that just as electing a bi-racial president has not made America post-racial, overt professions of liberalism has not removed the "unthinking Euro-centrism" or the long standing cultural, intellectual, creative imperialism implicit in British public discourse.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
On writing, literature, politics: An Interview
The July 2009 issue of the ArtCiencia carries the text of an email interview that Dr. Nilanshu Agarwal conducted with me last year. The interview covers a host of topics including postcoloniality, literature, and writing.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The East, The West And Sex: Same Schpiel, Different Day
As an "eastern" woman who has lived nearly half her life in the "west," I can admit to a personal interests in debates that tackle issues of gender, race, colonialist history and sex. After all it is an immensely rich vein to mine for political, social, emotional narratives. So I was obviously intrigued by a book review emailed to me about Richard Bernstein's The East, The West, And Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters. After all, the book had been described as "provocative and intriguing," (NYTimes), and "wide-ranging and astute" (NY Review of Books).
Funnily enough, although the review got over 350 responses within 24 hours – much of them virulently racist and misogynist – the voice of the “Eastern woman” is missing - perhaps because the book (and the review) says little we haven’t heard from lovers, acquaintances, strangers.
I remember that I decided within three months of living in NYC as a teenager that I would never date two categories of men: one, those who professed an interest in India; and two, those who had travelled to India. The first, I had discovered, very quickly were looking for their personal fantasy of the "Kamasutra girl," an impossible female caricature who was at once intellectually inferior, psychologically submissive and sexually voracious. The second category of men, I admit, seems to be a vast generalisation at first glance. Yet I realised that those who had refused to sample the local flavours at an Indian brothel during trip - due to an innate sense of decency, social or moral qualms, or plain good old upbringing - still nursed the same fantasy: the afore-mentioned Kamasutra girl. They want the final souvenir of their travels East, sex with the Oriental fantasy!
Unfortunately, the first dozen pages of the book made me realise something worse: Bernstein is far worse than the two categories mentioned above. In addition to travelling and living in the “East” (primarily China) and holding his personal Oriental fantasy, he is also of the long line of apologists who attempt to explain their own deeply held beliefs about race, sex and power in apparently “rational” terms. While a quick re-read of Said/Fanon/Shohat would be enough to rebut pretty much every single word of this book, let me just point out a few of the not so “provocative” and long-held notions that Bernstein holds forth on:
1) Bernstein’s “East” – and his pathetic little diatribe against Said notwithstanding – is blithely explained as anything ranging from Morocco to Japan. (Note to white, male writers trying that old “I know better” argument against Said: they not only make you look idiotic, irrational, unlearned but also don’t work in the post-colonial era).
2) He conveniently constructs a dichotomy between so-called "Christian" culture and the "culture of the harem." Nice! Except not all of the “East” had harems! Moreover, and with classic sleight of hand, he implicitly includes "Jewish" cultures in the same "western" rubric, conveniently forgetting the far larger “eastern” Jewish populations. But to acknowledge that minor historical detail would not quite hold with the idealised, and politically expedient, notions of the “Judeo-Christian West” against the Eastern “culture of the harem.”
3) In his grand Orientalist sweep of the “East,” Bernstein must – and does – overlook some basic cultural facts that don’t quite support his personal fantasist agenda. While I will not speak for the grand “East” and focus only on India, his false dichotomy of Eastern “harem” vs Western “monogamy” requires him to skip not only the many monogamous cultures that developed in the "East" prior to the white man's “discovery” of the region(s), but he also pointedly refuses to acknowledge the various polyandrous cultures (such as that of the Himalayas). Guess the eastern woman with a harem of men does not quite fit the Orientalist fantasy of the submissive!
4) Another overt exclusion is that of relationships between “eastern” women and “western” men that do not fit his over-arching colonialist paradigm. Not surprisingly then, there are no “anecdotes” of the likes of Begum Samroo – the famed Witch of Sardhana – who rose thanks to her political acumen from a courtesan to the ruler of her own principality. After all, as the transformation of the courtesan to the nautch girl in India shows, and contrary to all pretensions of 20th century Euro-American feminism, the “west” could not until recently conceive of public roles for women that did not include sex-for-sale. And this is why Begum Samroo – with her series of European mercenary/lover-employees, and finally a French hired-gun-turned-husband – does not make it in Bernstein’s fantasy.
5) Perhaps the saddest and yet the most offensively Orientalist aspect of Bernstein’s argument revolves around the apparent lack of guilt regarding sex in “Eastern” cultures. Again, he conflates everything from Islam to Hinduism to Confucianism in one large monolith, betraying not only his firmly Orientalist agenda but also an incredible lack of knowledge and understanding. This is particularly sad because there is a grain of truth in Bernstein’s thinking: most non-Biblical traditions do not centre on notions of a fall from grace. Unfortunately, this argument is buried – quite properly – under Bernstein’s slipshod reasoning and sweeping generalisations, especially as he chooses to use this lack of sexual guilt as a handy excuse for the sexual exploitation of “eastern” women by “western” men: after all goes the unspoken rationale, why shouldn't a woman be exploited when she lacks the moral compass of her western female (Judeo-Christianic) counterparts!
If we consider solely the three pre-Islamic Indian traditions, Bernstein’s reasoning is demonstrated as half-baked and less than half-informed. Yes, the Hindu/Buddhist/Jain traditions attach no guilt to sex. Indeed, the Hindu goal of the four purusharthas includes kama (material and physical pleasure). Unfortunately this is not automatically a call to non-monogamous relations or indeed grounds for the “harem” cultures. What Bernstein conveniently ignores are the philosophical/moral rules that require the pursuit of kama to be about quality not quantity: the “East” may lack the Bible, but it has no trouble privileging the gourmet over the gourmand.
Finally, there is a far more troublesome aspect of Bernstein’s apologia: the ghost of Haditha haunts these pages, reminding the discerning reader (and more importantly, the Asian woman reader) that this same rationale has long led to, and justified, the rape, torture and murder of “Eastern” women. While Bernstein chooses to focus contemporary East-West sexual encounters on prostitution in Far East Asia, he conveniently ignores that the same thinking – non-western women as objects of fantasy and thus less than fully human – also continues to drive “western” men, especially Bernstein’s idealised virile, colonialist types, to the excesses we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that makes Bernstein’s book neither “enlightening” nor “provocative” but simply another in a long line of Orientalist apologia, based on half-truths and prejudices.
Funnily enough, although the review got over 350 responses within 24 hours – much of them virulently racist and misogynist – the voice of the “Eastern woman” is missing - perhaps because the book (and the review) says little we haven’t heard from lovers, acquaintances, strangers.
I remember that I decided within three months of living in NYC as a teenager that I would never date two categories of men: one, those who professed an interest in India; and two, those who had travelled to India. The first, I had discovered, very quickly were looking for their personal fantasy of the "Kamasutra girl," an impossible female caricature who was at once intellectually inferior, psychologically submissive and sexually voracious. The second category of men, I admit, seems to be a vast generalisation at first glance. Yet I realised that those who had refused to sample the local flavours at an Indian brothel during trip - due to an innate sense of decency, social or moral qualms, or plain good old upbringing - still nursed the same fantasy: the afore-mentioned Kamasutra girl. They want the final souvenir of their travels East, sex with the Oriental fantasy!
Unfortunately, the first dozen pages of the book made me realise something worse: Bernstein is far worse than the two categories mentioned above. In addition to travelling and living in the “East” (primarily China) and holding his personal Oriental fantasy, he is also of the long line of apologists who attempt to explain their own deeply held beliefs about race, sex and power in apparently “rational” terms. While a quick re-read of Said/Fanon/Shohat would be enough to rebut pretty much every single word of this book, let me just point out a few of the not so “provocative” and long-held notions that Bernstein holds forth on:
1) Bernstein’s “East” – and his pathetic little diatribe against Said notwithstanding – is blithely explained as anything ranging from Morocco to Japan. (Note to white, male writers trying that old “I know better” argument against Said: they not only make you look idiotic, irrational, unlearned but also don’t work in the post-colonial era).
2) He conveniently constructs a dichotomy between so-called "Christian" culture and the "culture of the harem." Nice! Except not all of the “East” had harems! Moreover, and with classic sleight of hand, he implicitly includes "Jewish" cultures in the same "western" rubric, conveniently forgetting the far larger “eastern” Jewish populations. But to acknowledge that minor historical detail would not quite hold with the idealised, and politically expedient, notions of the “Judeo-Christian West” against the Eastern “culture of the harem.”
3) In his grand Orientalist sweep of the “East,” Bernstein must – and does – overlook some basic cultural facts that don’t quite support his personal fantasist agenda. While I will not speak for the grand “East” and focus only on India, his false dichotomy of Eastern “harem” vs Western “monogamy” requires him to skip not only the many monogamous cultures that developed in the "East" prior to the white man's “discovery” of the region(s), but he also pointedly refuses to acknowledge the various polyandrous cultures (such as that of the Himalayas). Guess the eastern woman with a harem of men does not quite fit the Orientalist fantasy of the submissive!
4) Another overt exclusion is that of relationships between “eastern” women and “western” men that do not fit his over-arching colonialist paradigm. Not surprisingly then, there are no “anecdotes” of the likes of Begum Samroo – the famed Witch of Sardhana – who rose thanks to her political acumen from a courtesan to the ruler of her own principality. After all, as the transformation of the courtesan to the nautch girl in India shows, and contrary to all pretensions of 20th century Euro-American feminism, the “west” could not until recently conceive of public roles for women that did not include sex-for-sale. And this is why Begum Samroo – with her series of European mercenary/lover-employees, and finally a French hired-gun-turned-husband – does not make it in Bernstein’s fantasy.
5) Perhaps the saddest and yet the most offensively Orientalist aspect of Bernstein’s argument revolves around the apparent lack of guilt regarding sex in “Eastern” cultures. Again, he conflates everything from Islam to Hinduism to Confucianism in one large monolith, betraying not only his firmly Orientalist agenda but also an incredible lack of knowledge and understanding. This is particularly sad because there is a grain of truth in Bernstein’s thinking: most non-Biblical traditions do not centre on notions of a fall from grace. Unfortunately, this argument is buried – quite properly – under Bernstein’s slipshod reasoning and sweeping generalisations, especially as he chooses to use this lack of sexual guilt as a handy excuse for the sexual exploitation of “eastern” women by “western” men: after all goes the unspoken rationale, why shouldn't a woman be exploited when she lacks the moral compass of her western female (Judeo-Christianic) counterparts!
If we consider solely the three pre-Islamic Indian traditions, Bernstein’s reasoning is demonstrated as half-baked and less than half-informed. Yes, the Hindu/Buddhist/Jain traditions attach no guilt to sex. Indeed, the Hindu goal of the four purusharthas includes kama (material and physical pleasure). Unfortunately this is not automatically a call to non-monogamous relations or indeed grounds for the “harem” cultures. What Bernstein conveniently ignores are the philosophical/moral rules that require the pursuit of kama to be about quality not quantity: the “East” may lack the Bible, but it has no trouble privileging the gourmet over the gourmand.
Finally, there is a far more troublesome aspect of Bernstein’s apologia: the ghost of Haditha haunts these pages, reminding the discerning reader (and more importantly, the Asian woman reader) that this same rationale has long led to, and justified, the rape, torture and murder of “Eastern” women. While Bernstein chooses to focus contemporary East-West sexual encounters on prostitution in Far East Asia, he conveniently ignores that the same thinking – non-western women as objects of fantasy and thus less than fully human – also continues to drive “western” men, especially Bernstein’s idealised virile, colonialist types, to the excesses we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. And that makes Bernstein’s book neither “enlightening” nor “provocative” but simply another in a long line of Orientalist apologia, based on half-truths and prejudices.
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