INTRODUCTION TO CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM- ANALYSIS
Edward Wadie Said is a renowned
academician, political activist and literary critic who is Palestinian American
in origin. It was his conceptions and standpoints on the Eat West politics and
culture that made Said to grab a unique space in the social, political and
cultural realms of academics. The publication of the 1978 work Orientalism,
which created many ripples in most of the humanities disciplines, and is even
regarded as the magnum opus of Said’s career, further cemented his status as a
great academic and theoretician.
Culture and Imperialism, which includes
a collection of essays, is another important work of Said, published in 1993.
Considering the major themes and ideas put forward by the book, this can even
be considered as a sequel to Orientalism. Here as the title suggests, Said attempts
for an analysis and evaluation of the relationship between the very institution
of imperialism and culture. For this study, Said focuses on the time span
ranging from eighteenth century to twentieth century and the French, American
and British imperialist structures, which were the most prominent then.
Through
the introduction to Culture and Imperialism, Said helps the reader to get into
the text, by describing the background information, major ideas and themes to
be discussed etc. Said’s own lectures given in the universities of U.S, Canada
and Britain constitute the main argument of the book. In a sense the book is an
expansion of the notions proposed in Orientalism. Here also the existing patterns
of relationship between the “civilized” West and the “uncivilized” East are the
main concern. The stereotyping of the Eastern societies as mysterious, savage
and uncultured and thereby a justification of the invasions carried over them,
is a peculiar feature of the Western writings of the East and the African
countries. However against this dominant ideology subjected nations had raised
many resistances during the periods of invasions and colonization. They
organized armed and cultural resistances and highlighted their national
identities and spirit. Actually these movements could contribute a lot for the
attainment of freedom. Said likes to concentrates on these endeavors too, through
this book and says, “These two factors-a
general world-wide pattern of imperial culture, and a historical experience of
resistance against empire--inform this book in ways that make it not just a
sequel to Orientalism but an attempt to do something else.”
What
is common in both the books is a special emphasize to culture. Said also
attaches a particular importance the various cultural forms, and among them a
particular one is the genre of novel, which was especially prominent during the
19th and 20th centuries. According to Said novel, the
fictional narratives play a very important role in the formation of imperial
attitudes, references and experiences. The main battle of imperialism was over
the lands, and the nations themselves are sometimes narrations. For Said “the
power to narrate or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is
very important to culture and imperialism and constitutes one of the main connections
between them”.
Here
Said, observes certain important characteristics of culture. It is a concept
that includes a refining and elevating element and when it comes to be
associated with the nation or state it differentiates “us” from “them”. Various
political and ideological causes engage one another in culture. Then Said put
forward an important idea that, humanists find a problem of connections with
the aesthetic works of arts of the societies that promote slavery and colonial
and racial oppression. Then to illustrate the treatment of the other than West
geographies and civilizations, Said narrates the analysis of two eminent literary
works and the first one is a renowned novel authored by Charles Dickens, titled
as Great Expectations(1861).
Regarding the book Said says that, what he is going to elaborate on, is an
ignored and unacknowledged side of this estimable work of learning, and this
kind of a study would enhance the people’s reading and understanding of the
very book. The novel is primarily about self delusion, and the protagonist of
the novel is Pip. Here in the novel, it’s the character named Magwitch who
contribute to explain the novel’s imperialist perspective.
In the novel Magwitch
becomes unacceptable for the protagonist and for Said it’s the nationality of
the former which constitutes for this rejection. Magwitch is coming from
Australia, which is for the imperialists, a place used for the rehabilitation
of English criminals. According to Said, it’s this relation with the third
world Australia that makes Magwitch a negative figure and unfavorable being for
the hero of the novel. Dickens’ work also puts a notion that “subjects can be
taken to places like Australia, but they can’t be allowed a “return” to the
metropolitan space. In fact this single example precisely suggests the
roughness and wildness of the imperialist notions, which underlined the
characterization of this novel.
Another example Said
suggests to analyze the hidden imperialist agendas of the very genre of novel is
Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo(1904). The novel is set in the Central African
Republic. In Said’s opinion the most compelling aspect of the work, for a
contemporary American is Conrad’s prescience. The novel is also noted by the
U.S government’s sense of self congratulation and unconcealed triumphalism. The
tone of domination and power is present throughout the novel. Said says “
Conrad writes as a man whose Western view of non- Western world is so ingrained
as to blind him to other histories, other cultures, other aspirations”. In
promoting and propagating the Western sense of power and supremacy Conrad often
become blind to see the cruelty endorsed in that. The underlining notion of Conrad’s work is
like “We are the masters and you just obey”.
Yet in the opinion of
Said, through Nostromo Conrad incorporates both imperialist and anti
imperialist notions. Perhaps, it may be his great admiration for the works of
Conrad ( Said is actually Known for that), that made him to opine like this. For
Said, Conrad’s ideas promoted for “making the world safe for democracy”. He
allowed the readers to see that imperialism is a system. The notions promoted
through Nostromo influenced other writers like Graham Green and V.S Naipaul and
their works also tend to orate that “the world’s significant action and life is
in the West”, and the anti third world notions were propagated further. As far
as these notions and ideas were concerned the third world nations were like
those having no identity, no culture, no traditions and no civilization as
their own and hence they never deserved independence. For, Said, this kind of a
perspective itself is to be changed and the existence and identity of the third
world countries also are to be recognized.
Then Said elaborates on
the need for a historical understanding of the struggles occurred in the third
world countries. In most of the colonies and subjected states there occurred
constant struggles and resistance programs to gain freedom from the imperial
masters and these actually showed their heartfelt longing for independence. For
Said, their (the third world countries’) side and history are also to be
analyzed. But for the Europeans and the people of the West the subjects were
always a community of darkness and exoticism and darkness and under any
circumstances they never deserved freedom and sovereignty. The narratives,
histories and travel tales written by the Westerners are the evident testimony
for this notion.
In this work Said plans
a methodology which focuses on the individual works and thereby illustrates
them as a part of the relationship between culture and empire. In his opinion
the authors are not mechanically determined by the imperialist ideology,
instead they were actually shaped by the history and social experiences. Said himself
says that what he need the readers of this book to focus is on the historic
experience of imperialism put forward in it. Here he has omitted many
imperialist cultures like the Russian, Ottoman etc and restricted his focus
only to the French, American and British imperialist systems. The reason is
that for him the latter set possesses a unique coherence and a special cultural
centrality. Said puts out other to notions as the reason for this restricted
focus. The first one is that the idea of overseas rule is having a privileged
status in these countries/cultures. These three systems are so systematic in
nature and organization. Secondly these are the countries where Said was born, grew
up and lived while he wrote this book. Said also adds that while he was living
in these cultures, he was in fact trying to mediate them between his native,
Arab Muslim world.
Then Said mentions
about the policy formulations of America; its aspirations for a global
dominance and the urge to state we are exceptional before the other nations. He
states that his attempt is to show the forces of imperialism and resistance
together. He also attempts to criticize the Eastern notions of extreme
nationalism. The ideals of separatism and nativism are also to be seen as
threats. In the opinion of Said “Western imperialism and third world
nationalism feed off each other”. He further states “Culture is not monolithic
either, and is not the exclusive property of East or West”. The
The emergence of a new
intellectual and political conscience has also promoted Said to write this
book. The feminist works of writers like Leila Ahmed, Sara Suleri and Lira Lowe
have gone beyond the conservative and stubborn discourses of Orientalism and
Middle East nationalism and these have even succeeded in erasing the
significance of, even the controversial conception of binary oppositions. The
new alignments made across the borders, types and nations are the most important
threat to the notion of identity. During the nineteenth century identity became
a hallmark of the imperialist invasions and we are inheritors of a style where
is an individual is defined by his nationality. Then Said says about the
multiple dimensions of American identity. Then he again remembers of the
threats of extreme nationalism. In fact today such an idea seldom exists
because, due to the imperial influence no culture can as single and pure and
instead all are hybrid, heterogeneous and unmonolithic. But today we can see
the trend of injecting extreme nationalistic ideals into the educational arena
and thereby to the children, and for Said, this book is a corrective and
patient alternative to such uncritical forms of education.
Said concludes the introduction to Culture and
Imperialism by stating that this book is an exile book. Here he relates the
very book to his own personal experiences, where he confronted multicultural
circumstances. He also adds that the term exile is not used in a sad or
poignant sense, because “belonging on both sides of the imperial divide enables
you to understand more easily”.
Here through this
introduction Said is giving a worthy preface to his work “Culture and
Imperialism”, because it effectively presents the main ideas and concepts that
drew Said to write this book and his expectations and even suggestions for the
reception of the same. From the introduction it is evident that the book is
going for an expansion of the notions that dealt with in his Orientalism. It
also suggests that the content would be a bit more complicated and
sophisticated than the notions described in the previous book. As the author
himself asserts, though the book is not a sequel o to Orientalism, it is one to
be read definitely in the context of Orientalism. The central themes of both
the books could be traced to a common origin that of the basic clash between the
East and the West, but the thing is that here in this book only a peculiar
aspect of this clash is discussed. In fact for Said, this East-West clash and
the relations between culture and imperialism are things of personal importance
and involvement. Because he himself is a person who was born and brought up in
the multicultural circumstances. Said’s own real life confrontations with the
imperialist and third world notions actually attaches a sense of authenticity
and authority to this book.
The tone of Said’s
writing is also very relevant in this respect. Instead of a highly appreciative
account of the East and extremely ungrateful narration of the West, as one
expects from Said, he has employed a
balanced and objective tone and in the introduction there are even criticisms
against both East and West. In fact, in the light of all these it could be said
that, through this introduction Said, proves his worth in writing a book under
the title “Culture and Imperialism”.
REFERENCES
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New :
Vintage Books, 1994.
http://www.enotes.com/topics/culture-imperialism
https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modernism-modernity/summary/v001/1.3br_said.html
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Said
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/sep/26/guardianobituaries.highereducation
No comments:
Post a Comment