Sreehul EM - Assignment 02

Culture and Imperialism: Introduction-Review

Edward Said is a Palestinian American literary theorist, prominent scholar and important figure in postcolonial studies. He was born in Jerusalem in 1935 and exiled to America in 1950s, and then was for many years he was America’s foremost spokesman for the Palestinian cause. His writings have been translated into 26 languages, including his most influential book, Orientalism (1978), an examination of the way the West perceives the Islamic world. Much of his writing beyond literary and cultural criticism is inspired by his passionate advocacy of the Palestinian cause, including The Question of Palestine (1979), Covering Islam (1981), After the Last Sky (1986) and Blaming the Victims (1988). In 1993 Said published his most comprehensive works on postcolonial study Culture and Imperialism, in 1994 Representations of the Intellectual. Said was described by journalist Robert Fisk as the Palestinian people’s ‘most powerful political voice’. Even though he was not supported for the Palestinian issues but also criticized the Arab and Muslim regimes who acted against the interests of their peoples. He died of leukemia in September 25^th 2003 at New York City.

   Culture and Imperialism was written in 1993, which shows Edward Said’s views on the formation of Western Culture as a result of imperialism. Said here argues about the emergence of the Western culture as a dominant power in the world during the 19^th century due to industrial revolution.

       About after publishing Orientalism in 1978, Said had a plan to write about the relationship between culture and empire. As an initial step, Said gave a series of lecture at Universities in the United States, Canada, and England in 1985 and 1986. It was from these lectures that the core argument of Culture and Imperialism is made on. Since Orientalism was presents the Western view of Islamic world, it is only limited to the Middle East and their issues. While preparing Culture and Imperialism, Said expanded the arguments in Orientalism to describe a general pattern of relationship between the modern Metropolitan West and its overseas territories.

Non- Middle Eastern materials such as European writing on Africa, India, parts of Far East, Australia, and the Caribbean; European effort to rule distant lands and peoples, and Europe’s special ways to represent the Caribbean islands, Ireland and the Far East are portrayed in this book Culture and Imperialism. There is always a notion prevailed that people of these countries are considered to barbaric or uncivilized one. Unlike the European’s these ‘barbaric’ people were rebellious and misbehaved, and they have to be ruled by the so called civilized people, ‘Europeans’.

In non-European world the coming of white man brought some sort of resistance. Said, mentions that Orientalism was a response to Western dominance and a great movement of decolonization all across the Third World. In the 19^th century there was several armed resistance against this Western dominance to establish nationalist identities and national independence. There were several active resistances happened against this imperial world and always had success in the end.

Culture and Imperialism was not only a sequel to Orientalism, but more than that there is something in it. In this book Said’s main focus is on the modern Western empires of the 19^th and 20^th centuries and how cultural forms like the novel influenced the formation of imperial attitudes, references and experiences. It is not only novel is important in this circumstances but its connection to the expanding societies of Britain and France is made as an objective of this study. Said called Robinson Crusoe as a prototype of modern realistic novel. He draws his argument particularly from this novel because he believes that “narrative is crucial to my argument here, my basic point being that stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity and the existence of their own history”.

     The main battle in imperialism is that over land; the authority and dominance over one land is always reflected in the narrative forms. The power to narrate or to block other narratives from forming and emerging is very important to culture and imperialism. Said argues that grand narratives of emancipation and enlightenment mobilized people in the colonial world to rise against the yoke of imperialism. As a result of which Europeans and Americans were stirred by these stories and their protagonists and tried to form new narratives of equality and human community. Said cites the word of Matthew Arnold who says that culture is each society’s reservoir of the best that has been known and thought. Culture is associated with words of great people and what they thought about culture, and sees ‘our culture’ in their perspective. This association or comparison with the best known notion of culture differentiates ‘us’ from ‘them’. Said says various version of definition to culture; as a source of identity, a sort of theater where various political and ideological causes engage one another, can even a battleground on which causes expose themselves to the light of the day and contend with one another…etc.

Said also adds that ‘One of the difficult truths I discovered in working on this book is how very few of the British or French artists whom I admire took issue with the notion of "subject" or" inferior" races so prevalent among officials who practiced those ideas as a matter of course in ruling India or Algeria. They were widely accepted notions; and they helped fuel the imperial acquisition of territories in Africa throughout the nineteenth century. In thinking of Carlyle or Ruskin, or even of Dickens and Thackeray, critics have often, I believe, relegated these writers' ideas about colonial expansion, inferior races, or "niggers" to a very different department from that of culture, culture being the elevated area of activity in which they "truly" belong and in which they did their ''really" important work”(p.14).

    The novels that Said choose to analyze in this book is because, these novels are estimable and admirable works of art and learning for pleasure seeking; and the challenge with the imperial process of which they were manifestly and unconcealedly a part; rather than condemning or ignoring their participation in what was an unquestioned reality in their societies.  Literature is, no doubt the mirror that faithfully captures and reflects the picture of culture. In Culture and Imperialism Said was looking for the imperialistic implications in the stories. He says that in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens “what Dickens for Pip, being Magwitch’s London gentleman, is roughly equivalent to what was envisioned by English benevolence for Australia.’ The Great Expectations was not written for the concern of native Australian accounts that of Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shrwe and Paul Carter's brilliantly speculative The Road to Botany Bay. In Dickens’s fiction, this is spoken for and inhabited by a hierarchy of metropolitan personages. On the other hand Hughes and Carter expand the attenuated presence of Australia in 19^th century British writing. Said believes that nearly all Dickens businessman, wayward relatives and frightening outsides have a fairly normal connection with the Empire.

      Said, and then talks about the great Victorian novelist Joseph Conrad and his criticism of Imperialism. Said discuss the novel Nostromo (1904) by Conrad, which is set in Central American republic, independent, but at the same time dominated by others because of its immense silver mine.  Said says that ‘for a contemporary American the most compelling aspect of the work is Conrad's prescience: he forecasts the, unstoppable unrest and "misrule" of the Latin American republics (governing them, he says, quoting Bolivar, is like plowing the sea), and he singles out North America's particular way of influencing conditions in a decisive yet barely visible way’ (17). It is ‘incomplete to read Conrad's great work simply as an early prediction of what we see happening in twentieth-century Latin America, with its string of United Fruit Companies, colonels, liberation forces, and American-financed mercenaries’ (17). Said says that Conrad is the precursor of the western views of the Third World which can be seen in the works of novelists like Graham Greene, V.S.Naipaul, and Robert Stone, of theoreticians of imperialism like Hannah Arendt and of travel writers, filmmakers, and polemicists whose specialty is to deliver the non-European world either for analysis and judgement or satisfying the exotic tastes of European and North American audiences. The imperialist character of both Europe and United States (which come supreme after the fall down of Russia) criticized throughout works Conrad and above mentioned authors.

           Joseph Conrad seems to be saying, "We Westerners will decide who is a good native or a 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." This is in effect' what Americans have felt about their southern neighbors: that independence is to be wished for them so long as it is the kind of independence we approve of. Anything else is unacceptable and, worse, unthinkable’ (18).

     The world has changed now. Metropolitan Europeans and Americans confront with large number of non-white immigrant populations in their countries and asking their narratives to be also heard. The point of this book is that to mention the overlapping experience of Westerners and Orientals, the interdependence of cultural terrains in which colonizer and colonized co-existed and battled each other through projections as well as rival geographies, narratives, and histories, is to miss what is essential about the world in the past century.

     Said says that ‘If you were British or French in the1860s  you saw, and you felt, India and North Africa with a combination of familiarity and distance, but never with a sense of their separate sovereignty. In your narratives, histories, travel tales, and explorations your consciousness was represented as the principal authority, an active point of energy that made sense not just of colonizing activities but of exotic geographies and peoples. Above all, your sense of power scarcely imagined that those "natives" who appeared either subservient or sullenly uncooperative were ever going to be capable of finally making you give up India or Algeria. Or of saying anything that might perhaps contradict, challenge, or otherwise disrupt the prevailing discourse’(20).

      One of imperialism's achievements was to bring the world closer together, and although in the process the separation between Europeans and natives was an insidious and fundamentally unjust one, most of us should now regard the historical experience of empire as a common one. The task then is to describe it as pertaining to Indians and Britishers, Algerians and French, Westerners and Africans, Asians, Latin Americans, and Australians despite the horrors, the bloodshed, and the vengeful bitterness.

    Through Culture and Imperialism Said tried to analysis the various novels of that period and further develops the relationship between culture and empire. As Said says ‘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 societies, shaping and shaped by that history and their social experience in different measure. Culture and the aesthetic forms it contains derive from historical experience, which in effect is one of the main subjects of this book’.(21)

       Said also mentions that he was included several empires like Austro- Hungarian, the Russian, the Ottoman, and the Spanish and Portuguese. Further says that these Empires domination in several countries have been either benign or any less imperialist. Why Said give much focus on British, French, and American imperial is that it has a unique coherence and a special cultural centrality. Narrative plays an important part these Imperialist countries to impart their imperial characteristics over others. Said’ message through this book is that imperialism is not about a moment in history, it is about a continuing interdependent discourse between subject peoples and the dominant empire.

References

Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New york: W.W.Norton and Company, Inc, 2001.

Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. New : Vintage Books, 1994.

Priyanka.V.S ASSIGNMENT II

CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM BY EDWARD SAID

                               

            The  introductory part of Culture and imperialism starts with the elaboration of the relation hip between culture and empire which become to clear in the name of writing Oriental-ism. Said says that the lectures that had he taken in the universities in the United states  Canada and England in 1985 and 1986 made the core argument of the present work. The argument that he put forward in the book Oriental ism such as history, anthropology and area studies ,were limited in Middle east. So through this book Edwards said is trying to describe the general pattern of relationship between the modern metropolitan West and its overseas territories.

            The European writing on Africa India parts of the far East Australia and the Caribbean these Africans and Indian discourse and some of them has been called as Middle Eastern materials .he says that the what are sticking in this discourse are the rhetorical figures one keeps encountering I their description s of the mysterious East as well as the stereotypes about the African mind.

 And Said says that what he actually avoid or not included in the text Orientals is that the response to western dominance in the end of the great movement decolonization all across the Third world. In the places such as Algeria , Ireland  and Indonesia their we can see not only armed resistance but also cultural resistance almost in every field such as in the political; realm whose common goal was self determination and national independence.

 The general worldwide pattern of imperial culture and historical experience of resistance against empire explained in this book is to emphasize what in rather general way I have called culture. He means culture as two things first one it means the arts of description , communication and representation that have relative autonomy  from the economic , social and political realms and often exist in aesthetic forms an of whose principle aim is pleasure.

            In this book he is actually focusing the modern Western empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuary. And he is actually doing based on making a study on novel and he give an example Robin Crusoe is a prototypical noel and certainly it is about the Europeans’ who creates a fiefdom for himself on distant non European island. And he says hat the recent criticism s concentrating on the narrative fiction and giving small important to the position in the history and world of empire. And the readers of this book will immediately  find the story and what explorer and novelists say about strange regions of the world and thus the readers also become the part of the colonized and people use t assert their own identity and existence of their own history. And Edwards says says that the main part of imperialism is overland. This includes the who had the right to settle and work on it , who kept it going , who won it back, these all issues were reflected , contrasted and even decades the time of narration according to one critic nation themselves are narrations. The power to narrate other from forming and emerging is very important to culture and imperialism. The other  important fact is that the grand narratives of enlightenment mobilized people I the colonial world to rise up and throw off imperial subjection in the process many Europeans and Americans also stirred by these stories and their protagonist ad thy too fought for new narratives equality and human community.

            Second most important thing is that the culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element , that is the concept of Mathew Arnold put in the 1860 s. He believed that cutely palliates if it does not neutralize aggressive urban existence. And he says that when we are reading Shakespeare or Dante e fling sometimes  our self and also culture is associated with it culture also and this differentiates “us” from “them” always with some degree of xenophobia. In this sense culture plays its role as identity, as we seen in the returns to culture and tradition. These returns accompany rigorous code of intellectual and moral envious that are opposed to he permissiveness and hybrid. This will produce verities of religious and nationalist fundamentalism in the formerly colonized world.

            This second culture is a form of theater were various political and ideological causes engage one another. Then his that our student of each and every country who are taught to red their national classics before they read others are expected to appreciate and belong loyally often un certainly .now the problem of culture is it entails not only the venerating one’s own culture but also thinking of its as somehow it  is now differentiated from everyday world. then he speaks that while his writing he found that the British and French artist took this issue in the notion of subject, or inferior races is so prevalent among officials practiced those ideas a notion to rule india or Algeria. and this helped a lot for imperialism to rule. So in this context culture can be consider as the protective enclosure. Through his study he connects the pleasure and profit a with imperial process of which they were manifestly a part rather than condemning or ignoring their participation  in what was unquestioned s that reality in their octet, here he suggests  that what we learnt about this hitherto ignored aspect actually and truly enhances our reading and he elaborates this concept with the most renown novels  Dickens’s  Great Expectation is about self delusion. after reading this work we can find that the entire novel is about  the history of British fiction and also the another novels such as The fatal Shore and The Road To Botany Bay are also dealing with the history of whit’s and history of Australia.

             Carter through has work exploits the history  of Australia in an another way. But Great Expectation was not written with anything like history of Australia like Carting and Patrick White did instead he didn’t form a return” to metropolitan space which all Dickens fiction testifies. So on the one hand interpreters like Hughes and carter expand on the relatively attenuated presence of Australia in nineteenth centaury British writing and earned integrity of an Australian history that become independent from Britain’s in the twentieth centaury. Thus  even dickens settles the difficulty with Australia and another structure of attitude ad reference emerges to suggest the Britain trade ad travel through Orient. In and all the Dickens characters like businessman have connection with empire . but we began to give important to this is for years only. This imperial era  found as shadowy or embodied in the nineteenth centuary but in the work of Conrad , Kipling,Guide and maintain a central area of concern. Canards ‘Notramo” is set in the center of central American republic independent and dominated at the same time  outside interests through his work Conrad actually shown the life and the ruling of people in his land. Conrad  ironically sees the imperialism of the  tome silver min’s British and Americana doomed by its own perception and impossible ambitions what Conrad is seeing is the ruling of British and wat he don’t find is the alternative to this cruel tautology. This limitation in vision are so important in the part of Nostrum as its character and plot. The problem is that the concept “we” and ‘them”. And this effect is actually presented in the American that felt about their neighboring southern neighbors. So he Edward Said that Conrad was anti imperialist and imperialist and we can consider him as a creature of his own time. The sayings like making the world safe for democracy the united states government is still unable  to perceive such implication and they already know that it is not going to happen because of their selfish thought. Conrad actually portrait all this in his novel.the works such as The Quiet American or A Bend in he River  are so in debtor Conrad's anti imperialist irony in Nostrum argue that the surest of world s significant action nd life is in the west whose representatives seem at liberty to visit their fantasies and philanthropies upon a mind deadened third world. When history or culture began to speak every other things became unimportant with out the west. But  Conrad rote his work in the time of imperialism ad and all the prominent figures who understood the reality have portrayed it in their works after decolonization. Then he says that this world have changed since Conrad and Dickens in ways that have surprised , then he says that the point in his book is that the such populations and voices have been thanked the globalized process set in motion by modern imperialism, and for the first time that the history of imperialism and culture is studies as in a separate distinct. And he says that their has been disturbing eruption of separatist and chauvinist discourse far from invalidating the struggle to be free from empire  this cultural problem prove the validity of fundamental interactions energy that animate the wish to be independent. The only way to understand this energy is through history. So in this book historical an geographical range is influenced in high level.

            Imperialism culture was not invisible not conceal its worldly affiliations an interests and there is sufficient clarity in the culture’s major lines for us to remark the scrupulous nations recorded there and also how they have made that much attention. And Through Said's reading he is actually focusing on much possible individual works to read them first as a great product of the creative or interpretative imagination and then to show them as a part of relationship between culture and empire. Said doesn’t believe that authors are mechanically determines by ideology, class or economic history but authors believe ein the history. Culture and  aesthetic  forms are derived from the historical experiences. and he confirms that we cannot grasp historical experience by list or catalogs and no matter how much you provide by way of coverage . that he is actually saying is hat  about the British , French and American Imperial experience is that it has a unique coherence and a special cultural centrality. And narrative works deals most important part in the study of imperialism. He than speaks about the next section which deals with three ideas that is idea of overseas rule  and jumping beyond adjacent territory to very distant lands. Has a  privileged status in these three cultures. Next he says that in this book he speaks about the past and present of “us’ and “them”. After the cold war when the United States has emerged as the last superpower. To live in that situation means the intellectuals with background in the Arab world a number of quite particular concerns an all of such incidents are reflected in this book. and then he says that “we’ are exceptional and not imperial not about to repeat the mistake of earlier powers a disclaimer that has been routinely followed by making the mistake as witness the Vietnam and gulf wars. And in the last section he shares his hope that the history of the imperial adventure rented in cultural terms might therefore serve some illustrative and even deterrent purpose. Through methods he trying to show two forces together , this is by no means the aggrieved colonized people from criticism. As any survey of post colonial states will revels the fortunes and misfortunes of nationalism. Now what is happening is that the emergence of a new intellectual and political conscience.  This is the second concern that he writes this book.

             Then he says that we are sill inheritors of style by which one is defined by the nation which turns derives its authority from supposedly unbroken tradition. in this text he is actually speaking about the truthiness of we, ours and them. Then he says that his second argument is fully sensitive to the reality experience , partly because of empire all culture are involved in one another none is single and pure all are hybrid, heterogeneous , extraordinarily differentiated and un monolithic. And he say that extraordinary cultural diversity the united states is and will surely remain coherent nation. The same is true of the other   English speaking countries. and he says that one is all better is to explore history rather than repress or deny it adjective reason. the last point that Said want to make is that this book is an exile’s book for objective that the had no control, because he belongs to the two culture and without completely belonging to the other. 

Anu N Govind, Assignment 2

  

Culture and Imperialism

                 Culture and Imperialism are two terms that are interdepended. During the colonization the European culture was widely acclaimed in the non- European world and their imperialist culture were forced upon us. Culture is the part of imperialism. During the colonization the culture of the colonized people gets oppressed. Edward Said look upon the culture and imperialism in a different perspective. When he published the orientalism he thought about the relation between the culture and empire. The text culture and imperialism which was published in 1993.Through this text Said tries to build a relation between culture and imperialism.

“My method is to focus as much as possible on individual works, to read them first as great products of the creative and interpretive imagination, and then to show them as part of the relationship between culture and empire.”

In this text he talks about many texts and then he creates a connection between the text and the Imperialism. In this text Edward said argues the impact of the main stream culture mainly the European novelist on nineteenth and early twentieth century on colonialism and imperialism. There always has a tradition in the European world that to degrade the cultures the third world countries. Many of the European novelist represent the African, Carribean, Indian culture are as some kind of barbaric culture. The striking notion that created about the east was ‘Mysterious East’. There was a  distinction in the European world that Third world countries are not like the European world. The third world countries people mainly understood of violence and misbehave. So the Europeans decide they have to be ruled.  Along with that culture resistance also had happened during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in Algeria, Ireland, and Indonesia. Through this text Edward said discuss the imperial culture in the wide pattern and cultural resistance, nationalist culture.

  In the beginning said tries to look upon the word ‘culture’ in the ‘Culture and Imperialism’. According to the Edward said ‘Culture’ is

“First of all it means all those practices, like the arts of description, communication, and representation, that have relative autonomy from the economic, social, and political realms and that often exists in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aim is pleasure.”

Edward said believes that the literary text which published during that time also a factor in widening the imperial attitude and imperialistic culture throughout the world. Edward Said explains imperialism as a “ he practice, the theory, and the dominating of the metropolitan centre that rules a distant territory”.

Imperialism is originated during the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. The England and France were the country which dominated all over the world. The first world war and the Second World War also paved the way for imperialism in the world.

Edward Said point out that the novel ‘Robinson Crusoe’ and described it as ‘prototypical modern realistic novel’ about a European which conquering a non-European world. The text ‘ Robinson Crusoe gave a particular importance to the creation of empire. Edward Said says that there is influence of the narrative in imperialism and colonization.

“stories are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say about strange regions of the world; they also become the method colonized people use to assert their own identity and the existence of their own history”

The story of the land and who colonized it, a who owned it are represented in the narrative. During that time the Europeans held a power in narrative. The text which published during that time also talks about colonization.

“The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism”

There are also certain narratives which talks about the emancipation from the colonizing. In that narratives the narrator cast off the imperialism. The protagonist in these narratives are fighting for the nationalist culture, equality , and for human community.

   The Second form of culture was, according to Mathew Arnold,

“culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element, each society's reservoir of the best that has been known and thought”

Mathew Arnold talks about the culture as a pure kind of thing and it should be refined and in perfect manner. Mathew Arnold says that the text of Dante Shakespeare which is the form of narrative which highlighted their culture. There culture are refined form of thing and developed through these narrative. The culture of Europeans were considered as high culture and they began to consider other cultures as barbaric. In the second sense culture is a thing which the political and ideological cause one another. Culture is something which inherited in the text of their own nations. Through the text of Shakespeare, dante their form of ‘high culture’ was defined. Like, through the text of their nations also inherited their national culture. While colonizing the colonized world were conscious about the high culture. The Europeans were considered the culture of the third world countries were barbaric. They introduced the text like Shakespeare or Dante as high form of culture. The writers like Ruskin Bond, Thackeray, Carlyle are relegated the other cultures and they think about the so called “refined culture” and they considered it as ‘High culture’. These writers were degraded the other cultural form. The main intention of the colonization was the based on the profit and looting the gold and the precious items from the nation.

   In the novel ‘Great expectations’ by dickens, most of the dickens novels were dealing with metropolitan function of the British. The other books are Robert Hughes's magisterial The Fatal Shrwe and Paul Carter's the road to botany bay. These novels are not only story but an a history of colonization in Australia. During the eighteenth century Australia were established as one of the penal colony which criminals were transport into the Australia. These are planned moves to create a colony in Australia. The novel ‘Road to botany bay’ also talks about the same instance and colonization of Europeans in Australia. The text ‘ Great expectations also showing a imperialist attitude  and about the imperialist culture. Most of the dickens characters have a secure and normal connection with the empire.  

  By the arrival of Conrad, Kipling, and Gide, and loti during the nineteenth century also paved the way for the imperialism. In the novel Conrad’s ‘Nastramo’ which set in the independent central American republic also talks about the imperialism and their form of high culture. In the novel ‘Holroyd’ by Conrad also talk about the imperialism which they are high cultured people so they are bound to lead the others. Conrad were represented as the forerunner of western views of the third world which we can find in the novelists like V.S Naipaul, Robert stone, Graham Greene and theoreticians of imperialism like Hannah Ardent who gave analysis of non-European world and praising the European culture. Conrad is one these kind of writer who view the world through the eyes of the western man and write novel in that perspective. Conrad never look upon the other cultures and the other way of life and histories. In his novel the dominant was the western way of life and west power to dominate all over the world. He considered the form of culture as a barbaric kind of culture and he has no idea about the third world countries culture and the way of life. He believed that anti-imperialist movement was a corrupted movement. The novel ‘Nostromo’ and the characters in the novel Gould and Holyrod are the elements of the imperialist attitude. According to Conrad,

“We Westerners will decide who is a good native or a 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”

Conrad was one of the creature of the western world who praising and degrading the Third World Cultures. He considered the third world Countries were people have to be directed by them and they should be dominated by them. Apart from Conrad V S Naipaul’s ‘A Bend in the river’, Graham Greene’s ‘The quite American’ are also the text who widely spreading the imperialist attitudes. In the novel ‘ Nostromo’ by Conrad in which he against the anti- imperialist movement, he argue that the source of the signification of the world action and life is in the west. According to this view they think that there is no life history and culture in the other parts of the world to speak without representing the west.

  After a certain time they began to think about representing of  the  west. They were conscious about the irony of the Conrad view of Non-European world. After the decolonization the non- European writers like Frantz Fanon, Amflcar Cabral, C.L.R. James, Walter Rodney, after the -novels and plays of Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garda Marquez, and many others deconstructed the western world view upon the non-western world.

          The world has changed after the time of Conrad and dickens, the voice of minorities began to hear. The imperialism has changed to a new type. The flow of people into the European countries has creates a new kind of imperialism. After the imperialism the people began to flow into the European countries and now mixed group were living in the European countries other than the whites. So the concept of the imperialism has deconstructed. One of the main achievements of the imperialism is all the worlds unite into one even though there is a distinction between the West and East. Even though the concept of the imperialism had gone, the Europeans gave still gave education to the new generation as their culture is refined and pure than the other.

 Edward said adopted the method of analysing the text as aesthetic product first and then built the connection between the text and the empire. Even though there are many imperialist countries Said discussed only about the British, French, and American. During this narrative also played their part and they have wide history about the narratives. Apart from the other imperialist countries British, America, and France have a culture of centrality. America came to be Imperialist country after the Second World War during the second half of the twentieth century.

          The text culture and imperialism is talking about the history of the imperialism and its also about the eastern world. After the cold war, United States emerged as the supreme power the imperialist force began to rise same as the resistance towards the imperialism.  After the orientalism by said it had made big impact in the Arab countries Lila Abu-Lughod's Veiled Sentiment.r, Leila Ahmed's Women and Gender in Islam, Fedwa Malti-Douglas's Woman's Body, Woman's World are widely discussed. Like the voice of the minorities that is the voice of the third world country should hear.

  After the cold war the United States emerged as the supreme power. During the nineteenth century the cultural resistance has increased same as the imperialism raised. In the United States itself they began to distinguish people into nativism and separatism. The united States has never considered the culture of other people. Western Imperialism and third World Countries are mutually dependent but they discriminate based on the culture. According to them culture is not monolithic and it cannot be integrated into one. According to said culture is monolithic and culture is not a particular term for west. After the cold war, the United States began to think about their identity in the world. During the time of the colonization itself there is concept in the west that ‘us’ and ‘them’.  According to the Edward said there is no concept of ‘us’ and ‘them’. American identity is the identity that the Americans were conscious about, there is large flow of immigrants into the most of the European world now there is mixed than a unique culture.  they consider the others are nomadic and they don’t belong to their culture. According to the Edward Said there is no unique culture in the world. All cultures are involved each other and inter dependent. No culture is pure and impure, all kind of culture is hybrid, homogenous and extra ordinarily differentiated.

The situation of the contemporary modern America is of modern Arab World. The modern American school is teaching about the uniqueness of their culture and tradition. This will cause another episode of imperialism throughout the world. Even though there are many immigrants in the America they are separating their culture and the immigrant culture. According to Said culture should not separate it should be unify into one whole. Every culture is mutually influenced so there is no concept of the unique culture. In the contemporary society there is multi culture in every country, so culture is monolithic.

Through this text ‘culture and imperialism’ Edward Said discussing about impact of the literraty text in the imperialism. Many texts of dickens, Conrad are widely discussed about the imperialist attitudes. This text also discuss about the book which deconstructed the concept of western view of the East. According to Edward Said culture is not a unique neither for East nor for West. Every form of culture is mutually influenced and involved each other. There is no uniqueness to the culture.

 

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.     

Silpa Scaria Assignment - 02

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 19^th and 20^th 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