Vineet -
"Those who are conquered always want to imitate the conquerer in his main charecteristics - in his clothing, his crafts and in all his distinctive traits and customs." - Ibn Khadun
Khushal Sir - That's what WE have been doing. Our journey from Sanskrit to Urdu and then to B' English and now THE American one...
Vineet - Absolutely...Though some of it may not be pure imitation but cultural miscegenation...Ibn Khadun, i think, forgot to mention 'violence'...The conquered always imitates the 'violence' of the conquerer..No wonder, in most postcolonial states dictators have mimicked their colonial masters in execution of violent acts....they treat their subjects jz as colonial masters did...!!!!!
Muzzafar - so that is the secret of nehru's energy!!
Deep - i have been wondering about this for quite some time now...one of the stratergy to organize a rebellion is to project the culture of the conqueoror in somewhat lesser stature than one's own culture..the idea is to build pride in the native and give him moral courage to resist oppression and if possible fight back.we can draw eamples of such strategies across the board- from gandhi to malcom x . imitation may be a dominant trait among certain native classes who benifits under the opression. eg- the clerical class in india who beniffited from the english education. often after a successful overthrow of the regime there is a radical de-imitation/reversal that takes place. the pol pot's rebellion is a chilling reminder!
in my opinion Ibn Khadun's words should not to be taken entirely in negativity. imitation may also mean progress.eg- developing scientific attitude, banishing superstitions and inhuman practices,etc. u rightly pointed out 'cultural miscegenation', which happens after two cultures have come in contact for a while. but cultural misgenation like biological miscegenation often gets shunned by both the cultures for being illegitimate. sufi saints and mulattos in brazil are often on the same boat!
the part about imitating violence is interesting. often whn there is a change in power/rulers the framework of power remains unchanged and the means of conducting violence passes on unchanged to the next administration. the struggle for police reforms in india demonstrates how rigid these structures can be.
Vineet - Muzzafar bhai..egjactly!!!!!!!!! Itty Abraham sketches out much better the secret of Nehru's 'Energy', but u were spot on to point it here.
Deep, Like always, ur observations are prudent. The point about 'strategy of the colonized', I think, is debated by most postcolonial theorists and most of them take the line that u have taken. Most of them too argue that their is both 'mimicry' and 'difference' in the behaviour of the colonized. Partha Chaterjee, in fact, makes a similar claim as u do - that the colonized mimics the material aspect of the colonizer, but in the spiritual/metaphysical content, the colonized seeks to project himself/herself not only independent of but also superior to the colonizer. The colonizer accepts the material superiority of the colonized and tries to challenge it through espousal of a spiritual superiority. Though, I am still debating whether this is a consciously chosen strategy or it is something that is rooted deep in the psychology of the colonized. I am not sure, but may be u would explain it better.
Second, another problem that we cn talk about here is that while we agree that the colonizer shows his/her spiritual superiority, where does he/she take inspiration from? In case of India, it is history that frames our moral/spiritual universe. So to tackle the Western Colonizer, the Indian Colonized could speak from the standpoint of civilizational heritage and loudly proclaim the superiority of Indian ethos to the West. What happens in case of Africa? Epistemic violence of the colonizer ensured that history was effaced from Africa. In fact, Africa was deemed to have no civilization, no history before the colonized came. The whole movement of 'negritude' that Malcom X, Leopold Senghor, Frantz Fanon associated themselves with had no historical connotations. They merely talked about the difference/ superiority of their skin (and thus their morals)...no history used here.So is there a universal template around which the colonized builds his/her discourse or their exists a 'plurality of discourse here. Also, We also need to ask deeper questions about what is it that informs 'moral superiority' - History, culture, skin, discourse, practice... I don't know.
Deep - Beautifully articulated vineet...coming to ur first point, the choice of strategy of the colonized-all strategies are rooted in psychology! jervis in another context makes it quite clear that the choices we make or rather the options we think that are available to us are conditioned by our biases. but the moot question is 'whether all the colonized share the same psychology??' we can argue to some extent that the exploitation of the colonies do share some symmetries but this cannot in itself be insightful enough on the colonizer-colonized relationship and the shaping of colonial memories. The creation of the psychology of the colonized will need some more contemplation! Haven’t read anything on it so far..U may take the conversation forward from this point.
The second question is of much interest to me. I believe that the colonized adapt a two-pronged approach in their strategy, one for the domestic population and the other for the international audience. The differences in their strategies only differ in the tactics used to invigorate their masses whereas there lays a symmetry in their international approach. For example- on one hand, the Indians used the spiritual/ civilization argument whereas negritude relied on using disclosures to expose the chains of slavery and the myth of racial inferiority propagated by the whites and internalized by the blacks.. But in the international arena both of them used the arguments of equality, liberty, sovereignty, etc. to justify and legitimize their struggle. Anti-colonial struggles as much an internal struggle as it is an external one. These struggles also demolished a widely prevalent system-colonialism/imperia
this may look somewhat like the 'boomerang effect' we read abt in the advanced paper in our 1st M.Phil semester.
*p.s.
it may be little unfair to say that negritude totally rejected history because they did talk about Africa being the 'cardle of human civilization' and raised embarassing questions in the Church about Jesus being coloured rather than white wid blue eyes..
Vineet - You are right Deep in pointing out that the colonizer-colonised relationship is not same everywhere. In fact, Asian and African experiences ( If i can, for simplicity, homogenize these sub-categories for a while) of colonialism were quite different. In case of Asia, as i wrote earlier, there were clear imprints of older civilization which could not be completely effaced by the colonizer. A 'non-civilized east' was difficult to justify. Therefore, the tendency here was not to 'humanise' but to 'masculinise'. The Eastern civilizations were declared feminine, underdeveloped, passive and stagnant. There was a conscious effort at highlighting and 'inferior-ising' the feminine aspects of these civilizations. The template, in case of Africa, however, seems different. As i said earlier, the epistemic violence ensured that Africa was deprived of any civilizational imprints. More so, the colour of the skin provided the bodily manifestation of African difference. And this difference was articulated as difference of human-beast. African was not feminised, but 'beastized'. Even today, 'negro' in colonial terms represents bestiality. Think of the sexual symbolism attached with a 'negro', it smacks of 'bestiality'.
So I think, all colonized can not have the same responses to colonialism because their experiences have been markedly different.
Your second point about internal-external strategies of the colonized is very valid. But I think both of us are also generalising to some extent the strategies of the colonized. I fact, one can find very different set of responses from the colonized. While, one way is a recourse to national jingoism that declares self as superior, the second is to mimic the colonizer and try to outsmart him in his own parameters. The first is visible in the writings of nationalists and rightists like Bankim Chandra and Savarkar. Japan would be a perfect example of the second tendency. However, both responses involve mimicing the colonizer.Remember, the colonized learns the vocabulary of nationalism from the colonizer only. There is another approach which could be gleaned from the writings of Gandhi and Tagore in Indian case. While they of course highlighted the spiritual richness of the native culture, there approach to the colonizer was one of assimilation and not relativization. There approaches, ideas and methods were domestically inspired rather than external imported. I admit a better articulation was warranted here, but I guess it was just a rudimentary thought.
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