I look suitably asian

Since everyone’s having so much fun with language, like Kelly I’d also like to relate a personal anecdote that some of you might have heard before. I was in a certain university in the US last summer, where a friend and I decided to enrol in a course of American film and lit. During the first lesson, the lecture handed out a (disturbingly long) reading list, peered down at our distraught faces and said with great kindness, “I won’t mind if you two can’t read English as well as the rest of the class”.

!!!!!!!!
(Of course my friend and I looked convincingly Asian and therefore, non-white, and therefore subjected to a mild form of the sort of experience that Fanon writes about).

Moving on, I’d like to examine Fanon’s quote on pg 18: “A man who has language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language…mastery of language affords remarkable power”. This reads very much like the kind of argument that the local government put forth when they first embarked on English education back in…errr…very long ago. In the colonial framework, language was one more divide along which the coloniser/ colonised could be dichotomised in order to perpetuate colonial difference, not only through the difference in articulation, but the corresponding intellectual ability it implied. To address a native “exactly like an adult with a child” is not only to dismiss him as inferior, but to forever exclude him from “the world expressed and implied by that language” – the colonial world of reason, rationality, progress, intelligence, technology, etc etc.

Prof Lim in my Asian American Lit class once referred to the language as ‘cultural currency’ – meaning that the English language, specifically has a very real value in a global culture that is increasingly becoming an English one. To speak today of a global culture, and global Englishes, for that matter, seems to me to imply a rupture in the entanglement of language and culture. We can probably all agree intuitively with the idea that English has cannibalised ‘local’ or ‘indigenous’ cultures through its sheer pervasiveness (my Chinese sucks) but I would like to question how viable this view is today. If English has been claimed by all culture and ethnicities and whatnot, I don’t believe it can still be seen as the carrier of a single (colonial) culture. The difference, I feel, between Fanon’s experience and ours (Singapore’s) today is the sense of confidence we (or at least) I can bring to my use of English.

(Seeing as it is the last post, I have been rather liberal with wordcount, which is 418. Please excuse :)

"Your English Very Good!"

Fanon writes, “this self-division [behavioral differences of the Negro] is a direct result of colonialist subjugation”.

The relationship between power and language is evident in this article. The perpetuation of a dominant language and the “desire” to master the dominant language suggests the desire to be on equal footing with a “master”. The idea of a dominant language suggests to us a form of neo-colonialism.

“The Negro of the Antilles will be proportionately whiter… in direct ratio to his mastery of the French language”. We don’t have to look so far to understand where Fanon is coming from. Our local education system instills the importance of the English language right from the start- fail English and you fail to communicate, you are left behind (quite literally for some- being “retained” and repeating certain levels of their education). Mastering English becomes not a source of becoming "whiter" over here but rather, becoming a “model” citizen and becoming part of a dominant culture/community that is imagined, preferred and perpetuated by certain political entities.

A rule of difference is hence coded in language. Within our current globalized context, the impression of many is that one needs to speak English in order to assume a better position to the First-World countries. MNCs, trade and business relations are vastly communicated in English [or if need be, an English translator in the negotiations]. One could argue that even the Tiger Economies of Asia fall back to communicating through the “common” medium of English.

However, a recent observation of language and power and its relationship to the economies can be seen in the increased attention given to the Chinese Language and Arabic Language when places like China and Dubai are becoming increasingly important economic entities. But I think we're still far away from Mandarin or Arabic usurping the English language. The point for my ramble here is that language of the dominant economic power/s is that which people strive to assume in order to be on an "equal" position.

To speak English is thought to be understood and to be part of the global culture. The irony is this: the global culture we so fondly talk about in transnational texts, the idea of an increasingly shared culture, a breaking down of barriers and being a citizen of the world isn’t all that “globalized”. Many things are still coded in the English language and by extension, “First World” ideals and values. [Sidenote: Maybe this is why the French and Japanese are so averse to the English language]

I’m not against the use of English as a common language [after all, I am an English Literature student]. But if “to speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization”… just whose culture and civilization are we assuming?

On Fanon and Forster

I don’t know if I’m the only one not at all impressed by the overtly “brimstone and fire” tone Fanon employs in his essay, propounding “On Violence” so violently and definitively. I found his essay quite a pain to read in fact, in part due to the awkward direct French translations in the essay, but largely because of his ironically dictatorial, absolutist tone that I feel would not have been out of place in the dialogue of Foster’s colonial officials as they discussed Indians and why they act they way they do. I think what this essay really lacks is substantiation and examples, particularly in the first part to back up his claims, so it makes it hard to trust and agree with. But in fairness and not to quibble too much, I did feel that he did raise some thought-provoking issues that served as a springboard in my process of thinking about the novel.

Some ideas I had while reading the essay: I was struck by the point made by Fanon on page 7 concerning the “use of zoological terms” (7) by the coloniser in order to “dehumanise the colonised subject” (7). I was instantly reminded of Forster’s descriptions of the English in the lead-up to the trial of Adela, where Forster subtly animalises them, hence turning the tables on the colonisers, particularly in the court trial scene, where Major Callendar “growls” (221) and where there is a cool contrast between the behaviour of the English who are less than dignified in their behaviour in court and that of the Indian barrister, Amritrao, to some extent Das the Magistrate and notably the Untouchable (proletariat figure) manning the punkah, who is likened to a “god” in that chapter. Rather than a clear-cut binary, Forster breaks down the Manichaean dualism that colonialism has built up through his portrayal of the “colonised subject”, “colonised intellectual” and the coloniser. Therefore, I would like to suggest that Forster’s text be seen as part of or in and of itself a decolonising force, in this rejection of the dualisms that colonialism thrived upon.

Another thing that struck me about Fanon’s essay was definitely his take on the issue of violence and retaliation of the colonised upon the coloniser. I found the perspective on the concerns of “bread and land” (Fanon 14) worthy of some attention as it reminded me what I’d learnt at A level history about the starving Russian proletariat in the aftermath of the Russian Rev, as “bread and land” became scarce and exorbitantly priced. From what I barely remember of A level history (4 yrs ago, so bear with me), the aftermaths of both the French and Russian Revolution were marked with economic disasters that disproportionately disadvantaged the proletariat rather than the bourgeoisie as they continued to serve their own individual economic needs. Therefore, it could be said that it was a replacement of the monarchical/ imperial classes with another power-hungry class at the top and in fact really no revolution after all. I get this sense therefore that Fanon is implying the same idea for the colonialized intellectual classes and suggests therefore that physical violence is the only means for the repressed (psychologically, socially and economically) colonised subject to totally counter traces of colonialism. Mere anarchy is the answer for Fanon.

Side note: This also led me to think about Singapore as a post-colonial country. We did after all gain our independence from the "colonialist" via the negotiations and leadership of the "colonial intellectuals". The British colonisers left a legacy of many things in Singapore that have come to be historicised in our Singapore history as boons of our colonial past, global trade capitalism being one of them. And as we all know, this has been carried on by our political leaders, motivated by what else but economic prosperity. "...today the national struggle of the colonized is part and parcel of an entirely new situation. Capitalism..." (26) So concerning this "struggle", is Fanon then suggesting we take up our pitchforks (more like bbq skewers) to rid ourselves fully of colonialism? Hmmm....

The Severed British Net

Hi all,

In the spirit of discussion/treating this blog as a forum for the exchanging of ideas, I would like to respond to Samantha's post for my entry this week, partly because the quotes she used in her entry were precisely what jumped out at me too.

Samantha states, 'I think we've undergone that same kind of ideological colonization through 'english-style education', and are still trapped in it today to a certain degree.'

Dr Koh, in reply to Samantha's post, wrote 'I wonder, so what do you think of the 'educated Indian class' vis-a-vis the Raffles schools and boulevards of Singapore? Does it indeed 'contaminate', or does it create a subservient class?'

My response to this is that the two outcomes offered, 'contaminat[ion]' or the 'creat[ion of] a subservient class', are too restrictive- I would like to propose that a third outcome, that can be seen in the context of Singapore, is possible: that another step towards the evolution of a national identity is taken.

Unlike Samantha, I do not think that the existence of current Singapore roads with British names indicates that we are still caught by the British 'net', but that they are instead simply markers of our colonial past. I do understand the discomfort one may feel from the knowledge that the memory of the oft-exploitative British remains today (street names, statues, school systems, etc). However, I feel that re-naming the streets Lorong Merlion just so that it is distinctly Singaporean (opening Pandora's box- what is 'distinctly Singaporean'?) results in a sort of historical amnesia, where we deny the fact that we were once a British colony. I think these vestiges of British influence are, while sometimes frustrating, essentially a part of Singapore today. In fact I could perhaps go so far as to say that the very fact that these British markers still exist encourage me in a warped way. They show that Singapore has progressed- insecurities no longer plague one enough to feel 'Alamak, British reminders everywhere, cannot cannot, must be nationalistic'. This sort of nationalism is, to me, unthinking and extreme; I am encouraged that we can today look at these roads and influences and feel secure in our identity as Singaporean, even if that means we remember that we were once a British colony.

Perhaps I come to this with a personal agenda- I am Peranakan, and since taking Prof Holden's module on Singapore Literature in my first year, I have felt a push to interrogate my own 'Singaporean-ness' like never before. We learned about how the Peranakans benefited pretty well from being under British colonial rule (as compared to other locals). They were often middle-class locals who took most easily to English customs, including the English language, and were often in civil servant positions. Effectively, they were people strategically used by the British to further their interests in the region, perpetuating the Anglicization of the country through local help. After learning about this in greater detail, I started seriously questioning how 'authentic' of a Singaporean I am- after all, my first language is the language of the colonizers. I can't say I fully understand my position still, but I have at least gotten to the point where I realize I cannot rail against the fact that my forefathers were arguably un-Malayan/Singaporean, that they belonged to a class that was created by the British for British ends. Bemoaning this would be unproductive and denying it means the denial of fact. I think that it is more productive instad to acknowledge this past and accede that the British left some of their entrails behind (sorry for the hantu penanggal image) even after Singapore attained independence. And that even whilst this may be true, we can simultaneously assert that these remnants in no way diminish our credibility as an independent nation, and as a country with a national identity that is constantly re-imagined.

As a side-note, I suppose this is why I am so interested in post-colonial, especially Singapore, literature- it (arguably) acts as aspirin for the colonial hangover.

Please let me know if anyone has any thoughts. I should also probably say that I'm not usually this 'RAH RAH GO SINGAPORE'.

Thanks!

-Kelly Tay