GOPIKA.S , ASSIGNMENT 2.

INTRODUCTION TO CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM

Edward Said is one of the most important figures in postcolonial discourses and theoretical discussions. His work ‘Culture and Imperialism’ (1993) is considered as a sequel to the famous Orientalism. It appeared as a collection of essays that discuss the connection or relationship between culture and imperialism. It surveys the general trends in society from 18^th to 19^th century to reach at some conclusions. Said considered the work as an extension or expansion of his argument in Orientalism, to understand ‘a general pattern of relationship between modern Metropolitan West and its overseas territories’. 

Though the work expands the idea discussed in Orientalism it is not a sequel of the work. It expands the focus of study to wider areas than the one in Orientalism which limits the study to Arab world’s engagements with the west. Said points that the same efforts of European world to rule distant lands and people forms basic material here too. However, the discourses discussed here are characterized by the rhetorical figures which recur in its descriptions of the ‘mysterious East’. These narratives and discourses have played crucial part in disseminating the notion of early civilizations and its descendants as barbaric and uncivilized people. This provides the western world the notion of ‘White man’s burden’.

In the introduction Said discusses mainly the relation of Imperialism and culture. He points out that culture is not an innocent entity which is free from the clutches of imperialist projects. Culture and its products are also highly made use of in the project. He further talks about the role played by narratives especially novels in this. Another point he discusses is the idea of ‘identity’. How it is created and what are the determining and influencing factors. He also explains the interventions of imperialism in creation and defining identity.

In the introduction Said argues that the Non- European world got acquainted with resistance movements with the coming of Imperialism. Imperialism had always been a dynamic process where the European imperialist powers and non-European natives confront regularly. The movement of decolonization that covered whole of the Third World nations was a reaction to the Western domination. Said identifies the role played by imperialist powers in creation of the national spirit and movement in third world as a part of these resistance. Along with armed resistance against domination, there were also considerable efforts of cultural resistance as well. These efforts got manifested as an assertion of cultural identities and creation of parties and associations whose common aim was self-determination and national independence.

Said explains his idea of culture in the introduction to the work. It broadly corresponds to ideas for him. One is the notion that it represents all those ‘practices like arts of description, communication and the like that have relative autonomy from the economic, social and political realm’. It often exists in aesthetic form and enjoys relative autonomy. In that sense culture includes both popular lore and the specialized fields and the principle aim of such a culture is pleasure. He further opines that cultural forms like novel plays crucial role in developing ‘imperial attitudes, references and experiences.’ He illustrates this argument with the help of his analysis on the novel, Robinson Crusoe. This novel is considered as a prototype of modern realistic novels and it talks about a European who creates a ‘fiefdom’ for himself on a distant land. According to said this predicts a spirit that was  prevalent latent during the time. Thus, narratives are highly important in the whole project of imperialism.

‘Stories are at the heart of what explores’.

In imperialism said had explained about the idea of ‘other’. This process of ‘othering’ was the point from which the Europeans define themselves. They always define them with reference to the oriental. In the introduction to Culture and Imperialism, he expands this idea and opines that narrative is used as a method by the colonized people to assert this identity and existence of their history.   

 Said echoes a critical comment that, ‘nations themselves are narrations’. He uses this to elucidate his point that creation and controlling creation of narratives are important in cultural imperialism.  He points out how the grand narratives about emancipation and enlightenment proved to be the impetus for the process in colonial world.

The second implication culture has for Said is that, it is a concept which includes ‘every refining and elevating element’s of every society. He loans Matthew Arnold's idea of culture being ‘each society’s reservoir of the best that has been known and thought’. Another important idea proposed by Said is about the associations of culture with State and Nation and the results of this.  Such association further deepens the othering process. It widens the divide between us and them. This kind of association finally ends up in culture becoming source of one’s identity. These many a times become combative ones and accompany religious and moral fundamentalism in formerly colonized nations. The recent ‘returns’ to tradition can be seen as a result of such associations. The very contemporary occurrences in India of growing religious fundamentalism can also have an influence of similar associations. A very grave problem associated with this is that this trend opposes the philosophies like hybridization and multiculturalism in a society.

When read in such a perception culture can be considered as a sort of 'theater' where ‘various political and ideological causes engage one another’.  Such a notion of culture estranges it from everyday life and instead entails a veneration of one’s own culture. This notion in a way normalizes many cruel practices as cultural performances. This makes it difficult even for experts to identify the prolonged cruelty of such practices on one hand and to understand poetry, fiction and philosophy of society that engages in such activities. The imperialist strategy of projecting the unknown as exotic is made easier with this notion of culture.   

Another problem with such a notion of culture is that it functions as a protective closure. The above mentioned idea of culture checks one’s politics and association of culture with politics. It rejects the argument that culture too has politics since this idea projects culture as the elevated refined entity.  Said explains that he had always maintained distance from such an approach to culture. He points out that the analysis of art works, novels that he did in the book is to look beyond the pleasure and profit that they provide. To look deeper in to the imperial process of which they manifestly was a part. Thus, in short through the analysis Said is trying to trace the politics operating within this narrative and to explore how they provide momentum and support to the process of imperialism.

He begins by referring to Dickens’s Hard Times. There he points about the representation of Australia, the white colony of the punished. He compares it with the works The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes and The Road to Botany Bay by Paul Carter. These works show different perspectives in their representation of the place. None of the major European writer’s works include the notions or issues of the ‘subject’ or the ‘inferior’ races or community prevalent.

 The penal prohibition experienced by Dickens’s character to return to metropolitan space is imperial too. This is a reference to the imperialist attitude to the other who does not belong to that spatial notion of civilized metropolitan. Nineteenth century saw the advancement of industrialization and a related boom in global relations and trade. Thus, Britain’s imperial intervention found new tools of trade and travel which they employed over orient. This again is seen in Dickens’s work. Before nineteenth century the Empire was not prominent presence in the narratives, but from the century onwards it became the central concern in these narratives. This can be seen in the works of writers like Conrad, Kipling, Gide and many others.  Said identifies these works as predictions of the later happenings in the third World. They project the attitude of the imperialist masters towards the non European distant lands. Another category of writers (including V.S. Naipaul, Graham Greene and others), theoreticians, travel writers present the non European world in such a manner that they are subject to analysis or satisfy the exotic taste of the European world. Said also mentions about the Latin American countries and their representation in these literature. He is trying to make the point that the general attitude towards Third World is that of domination. The attempt is to neglect the history of these nations and to induce in them the notion that the Western imperial world is the one that created an existence for them. There is an attitude of tautology deeply ingrained in these writings. To quote Conrad’s own words from which Said refers to in the introduction:

“We westerners will decide who is a good native or bad, because all natives have sufficient existence by virtue of our recognition. We created them, we taught them to speak and think, and when they rebel they simply confirm our views of them as silly children duped by some of their western masters”. 

These lines explain well the imperialist attitudes towards the other. Further the discussions of Nostrum also reaffirm this attitude. That the nations outside the western metropolitan have no existence or history of their own.

In a later period, after the decolonization, the intellectual and moral turn resulted in the works of many colonial writers like Frantz Fanon, who voiced the spirit of the formerly colonial world. This projected the irony existing between the two versions. These writers made monumental imprints in the literary domain, to mention few, Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, and Marquez. The prejudiced representation of non European world is not only the westerners work but also many writers from the third world have crossed to the other side to side such a notion but in a different idea.

The present world has changed drastically from the time of Dickens and Conrad. The need of the time is to find alternatives to deal with the imperialist attitudes. This can be the identification of the culture and tradition of the Third World, a tolerance to provide space for their voice with an openness not obscured by the imperialist prejudices and stereotypes.

Globalization and changes in the modern world has contributed to the flux of the communities. Immigrations and travels between different nations dissolve the compartmentalized notions of the imperial and the subjected. The presence of different culture in a geographical space once tortured by the imperialist domination in itself is a new shift that demands modern ways of representation. One of the achievements of the imperialist projects as projected by the dominating groups is that it brought the worlds closer or together. But here also the difference between the two groups is maintained. Though the modern works identify the empire as the integral part of the histories of both communities, the politics of this shared element of history is different.

One of the major objectives of the book Culture and Imperialism, as explained in the introduction is read literary works as great works of artistic expertise as well as testimonies of imperialist relation with culture. Said also proposes his belief that authors and writers are very much part of the active process of manufacturing of one’s history and social experience.  To quote Said:

“I do not believe that authors are mechanically determined by ideology, class or economic history, but authors are, I also believe, very much in the history of their social experience in different measures.”

According to Said the book also examines culture and aesthetic forms it derive from history. Thus, the project Said envisions is to explore the representations of the historical conditions of a period in the cultural products of the time. It engages with the lived experiences and intervenes in the thinking process of the mass.

He also makes it clear that the observations he made in the books regarding the imperial atmosphere prevalent in the selected Third World country provide a taste of the larger scene. These has a ‘unique coherence and a special cultural centrality’.

Is selection of imperial experience of British, America and French was based on this reason. In addition to this, they also share the colonial control of overseas territories.  His personal acquaintances with these nations and the shared characteristic of a systematic operation of imperialism of Britain and France also influenced his selection.

From the reading of the introduction it informs about the notion of empire and culture. Imperialism is a dominant politics that disseminate the idea of inferior and subjection to the colonized community. The interesting observation Said discussed in the introduction, which in fact forms the central objective of the work is the association of literature, especially narrative with the imperialist project. His idea of culture is also discussed in the section which interrogates the general notion of culture being an autonomous entity free from the ideological and political affiliations of the society of which it is a part. Said examines culture and its aesthetic forms like novels as one of the tools for the imperialist control to initiate. Through the narratives of the western writers which project the prejudices and stereotypical notions about the non European world, the exotic estranged idea of the imperial world is normalized. The novel according to Said is a perfect reflection of the dominant ideological and political trends of a time. This is explained through the attitude towards the representation of non European lands in the works of western writers like Dickens and Conrad. Only a minority among the western writers considered the issues of the subject in their writings. Western literature made the non western a spectacle for their aesthetic pleasure. This enhanced their political ends by inculcating a sense of subjugation, at least to an extend in the non European world. However, the encounter between the two, the dominating and the subjected was never silent. There were always tensions and friction. Said argues that imperialism was the stimulus that brought the sense of resistance in the third world or colonized nations. The imperialist project was to neglect the histories and culture of the third world and to provide a westerner’s version of historiography to them. This was part of the project that was supported in later years through the trade relations. But this attempt faced a strong counter voice in later period of nineteenth century with the works or writings of pot colonial writers like Fanon. The years after the decolonization provide space for their voice. Also more interaction between cultural groups facilitated by the migrants’ communities also enhanced this.

The essay is of importance even to the present times, the very contemporary happenings of related to the refugee flow to Europe can be understood from a different angle related to this. The role of author as a participant in the creation of history of a nation and its associations are also critically examined in the piece.

The introduction gives insights that inform the reading of any literary piece. It argues that more that the pleasure associated with any literary piece there is an obscured politics and ideology that it side.