With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial...

I'd really like to find and read "Notes on the English Character" because I think it would shed a lot of light on A Passage to India at least in terms of ethos. I think this essay's included in the collection Abinger Harvest but I can't even find snippets of it online, alas.

So uh, I actually had a chunk to post before I realized, thanks to your posts, that I'd read Fanon's "The Negro and Language" as opposed to "On Violence". Brilliant. Anyway. Violence is specular rather than diffuse. This polemical tract wasn't enlightening as much as it was refreshing; I think it reaffirmed what we already knew/studied/suspected, without mincing words. The act of consuming (or consummation, even) is central: the colonists want to possess and perpetrate while the colonized masses want to eradicate and replace. Nietzsche, Wagner and Hitler all had something in common: they looked upon leadership as sexual mastery of the "feminine" masses. This rape, I think, underpins the reading. Colonization or decolonization: it is merely a power struggle. Reading A Passage to India throws up various parallels: 'You're superior to them, anyway. Don't forget that. You're superior to everyone in India except one or two of the ranis, and they're on an equality.' You can't deny the racism inherent in colonialiam by corollary, the violence inherent in colonialism. In Zadie Smith's article, Furbank calls Forster the "great simplifier". Both the text and the reading assigned this week ARE simplified; let's recall Fanon's easy dismissal of the colonial world as a "compartmentalized" world. He proceeds to divide that world into two to (I really think) better facilitate his theory that the colonial world is "a Manichean world" in which, of course, violence reigns. There is a certain implicit violence in smashing the colonized to smithereens, by laying their moral code flat on a rock and taking a hammer to it. That is what Fanon means by absolute evil, that values are, in fact, "irreversibly poisoned and infected as soon as they come into contact with the colonized." We see this stain rearing its ugly head in A Passage to India. Best example for me? "Like most Orientals, Aziz overrated hospitality, mistaking it for intimacy, and not seeing that it is tainted with the sense of possession." Seriously, this made me sad guys.

I think it was Fielding who persisted in wanting to see Adela, citing the reason that 'on the off-chance of her recanting before you send in that report and he's committed for trial, and the whole thing goes to blazes' to the Police Superintendent. Fielding wanted to ask her himself, because he believes in Aziz, because she is "among people who disbelieve in Indians." Just a few lines before, the Police Sup had paternalistically said "when an Indian goes bad, he goes not only very bad, but very queer" and proceeded to remind Fielding that the "psychology here is different." Ergo, Fanon's binary system is at play in Forster's novel too, in addition to the babel that association with the Other invariably produces.

I think it was Nadia who posted on the aesthetics of violence. It is both ironic and intriguing to me that we're essentially debating how the relation of masters and slaves should be consciously aestheticized this week. Forster wrote, using a character as a mouthpiece that there is no such person in existence as a general Indian. I really liked that line, and though I find him no Naipaul, I think A Passage to India really reaffirmed the sentiment that all representations of India are ultimately autobiographical. There wasn't anything particularly Indian in the text (colonial and racist, yeah), even the nationalist struggles were shunted in the back, but a lot of Forster shone through. In conclusion, violence induces ruptures, entices with the promise of transgression of boundaries, and when inflicted, paves the way for modernist aesthetics, because modernism was a response to the chaos of our world, our answer after having been exposed to reinterpretation and acceleration and existential, dare I say it, angst to alienation, loss, absurdity and meaninglessness. Individual subjectivity tends to glomp to solidarity and the intimacy of violence is a primal bond. This revolutionary consciousness is present in both Fanon's reading and Forster's (albeit muted/incarnated in another form as evinced by the ending) novel.

regardless of race, language or religion

Much has already been said about how the modernist aesthetic re-enacts a form of violence upon narrative and textual means of representation and understanding. I’d just like to point out a further relationship between violence and aesthetic systems that struck me while reading Fanon (and thinking about Auerbach). Fanon writes that colonized masses “intuitively believe that their liberation must…and can only be achieved by force” (33).

Inhabiting as they do a pervasive structure in which colonial dominance (in economic, cultural and political fields, as described by Fanon) prevent the subject from confronting the coloniser as an equal, the outright rejection of such structure seems to be the only means available for levelling the playing field. In PI for example, Aziz knows the result of his trial has already been foretold; his legal, social and cultural standing are more than enough to ‘prove’ his guilt. On the other hand, physical violence, in all its bloody reality, represents not only a rupturing of these oppressive structures, but also allows the battle between coloniser/colonised to be fought in a kind of primordial state of pure physicality, a kind of lacanian Real where social constructions and the (false) inequalities that they bring are abolished. An oblique reference to this can be seen in Adela’s observatin of the punkah, whose “strength and beauty…[and] physical perfection” is likened to a go’ d in contrast to the “cultivated, self conscious and conscientious” Assistant magistrate opposite him (205). Physical violence, in other words, provides the interface where men can meet as equals and reverse the stifling hierarchies that colonialism spawns. ( I was actually thinking of Pahlanuik’s Fight Club, which might help demystify what I think has been a rather convoluted paragraph)

The idea of equality drew my thoughts back to Auerbach, who also described the aesthetics of modernism as possessing an equalising impulse. I posted earlier that I disagreed with Auerbach regarding modernism’s ability to represent an unprejudiced and universal sort of “common humanity. But it strikes me now that the modernist aesthetic, like violence, attempts to locate a space that is free from imposed systems and representational biases. Thus, modernism too promotes a sort of equality: Not only reexternal differences in individuals disregarded in favour of ‘common’ interior processes, but also, ordinary and nondescript people are seen as being equally worthy of representation. My grammar goes awry – a sign of sleepiness – and shall just end by saying that equality provides a common thread by which violence and modernist aesthetics can relate to one another

Fanon's pen is mightier than your sword

What struck me, and disturbs me, about Fanon’s “On Violence” is the aggressive style and tone that he adopts in writing the chapter. The words he uses are very harsh and violent and Fanon doesn’t mince his words, attacking and driving home his point again and again. Perhaps he meant for his readers to be disturbed by his style, and to think about the points he raised. Fanon definitely had an agenda in mind when he wrote this, and I think he does achieve it as far as anti-colonialism goes; but whether it still resounds with readers today I’m not too sure. Perhaps for those who share a similarly violent de-colonization background in their fight for independence (which brings to mind all those Southeast Asian histories that I studied in JC—remember the Vietnamese and the Burmese?), but coming from a Singaporean background, the violence he portrays doesn’t strike a strong chord in me, probably because what we’ve studied is Singapore’s rather mild de-colonization process (even the fight with the communists pale in comparison with what Fanon portrays here). Yet, keeping in mind that Singapore didn’t have it all that bad, I had to control my discomfort over his writing and finish the reading. I must say that Fanon’s work is rather revolutionary in itself (which reminds me of Aziz’s poem that Godbole liked the most), and after reading the chapter, I had to go and search for some background information of him out of pure curiosity.

What interested me was that he was ‘born into a mixed family background: his father was the descendent of African slaves, and his mother was said to be an illegitimate child of mixed race’ (from Wikipedia, not the best source to cite from but oh well) and he himself was a victim of racism from the French which formulated his entire anti-colonialism framework. I was also struck by his uneasy relationship with the French language, which he wrote in Black Skin, White Masks, ‘To speak . . . means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization’ (17-18); for Fanon, as was what we’ve previously discussed, the adoption of the colonizer’s language is a violence done to oneself because in doing so, he has absorbed the French’s culture and way of thinking which then conflicts with and alienates his blackness. So, since his article was originally written in French, his presentation of anti-colonial sentiments in a particularly violent style in the colonizer’s language is interesting because in doing so, he is performing violence towards the colonizer using their own language and words rather than using an ethnic language. In “On Violence”, what is more fascinating is his avocation of the peasants as true revolutionaries because ‘it has nothing to lose and everything to gain’ (23) as opposed to other classes because the peasants are the only ones who don’t see any improvements in their situations whether the country is colonized or de-colonized. Considering the plight of Third World countries in the world today, I’d say Fanon’s observation is a rather sharp and sound one.

The biggest nugget I took away from this chapter is the idea of ‘absolute violence’ and the belief that violence begets more violence, but the only way to end it all is absolute violence which destroys everything, leaving behind a clean and blank slate. Only then can the world truly move on from the endless cycle of violence done to and done onto.

On another note, I wonder how much of this reading constitutes Fanon’s voice, and how much of it is the translator’s? Because I’m quite sure some things were lost in translation, and I can’t help but question if we will gain a different sense and understanding in reading the original rather than the translated. Alas, I don’t know French so I guess I’ll never know.

-Yuen Mei-

Intellectual Violence

In "On Violence" Frantz Fanon writes that "during the struggle for liberation, when the colonized individual touches base again with his people, this artificial sentinel is smashed into smithereens. All the Mediterranean values, the triumph of the individual, of enlightenment and Beauty turn into pale, lifeless trinket...Those values which seemed to ennoble the soul proved worthless because they have nothing in common with the real-life struggle in which the people are engaged." (11) It's clear that the process of colonization inflicts on its subjects violence of an intellectual nature, on top of the physical. To colonize is to impose the colonizer's value and ideological systems onto the colonized, so as to ensure a totality of control. Not only are subjects to be physically controlled and managed (with policing systems and violence) but they are to be persuaded into their own subjectivization through an interpellation into their colonizer's value systems. As such, the colonized subject both ensures and reinforces his own colonization--much as the Indian upperclass does in A Passage to India. They are to be convinced that the colonizer's ideals and values are superior to their own, and therefore a valid basis for colonization in the first place.

We see an example of the imposition and manipulation of values on an individual and not national scale with Fielding and Aziz, when the former tries to persuade Aziz not to sue Miss Quested for her money. Aziz persists in his irrational preference for Mrs. Moore over Miss Quested even when, as Fielding points out, "Miss Quested anyhow behaved decently this morning, whereas the old lady never did anything for you at all, and it's pure conjecture that she would have come forward in your favour." (209 of my Borders edition) Aziz responds with "'Is emotion a sack of potatoes, so much the pound, to be measured out? Am I a machine? I shall be told I can use up my emotions by using them, next.'" And eventually, Fielding is able to manipulate Aziz successfully by raising "a questionable image of [Mrs. Moore] in the heart of Aziz, saying nothing that he believed to be untrue, but producing something that was probably far from the truth." (215) Fielding believes that it is logical and fair to let Miss Quested off the hook for what she has sacrificed in telling the truth in court. But Aziz's feelings and actions are motivated by irrational emotional impulses, such as his love (and Orientalization--hence, idealization) of Mrs. Moore whom he had met only three times, and his lack thereof for Miss Quested.

My point here is, that there is clearly a mismatch in what is valued and upheld in the colonizer and colonized societies, and that colonization intends to bypass and totalize this difference as part of its mechanism in an act of violence. Certainly, value systems differ as a consequence of the standard of living and level of progress of the respective societies. While white societies look to values such as freedom, individual choice and so on, because they have attained a certain level of affluence which allows them to look beyond everyday bread and butter issues, colonies are usually in a backward stage of development which correspondingly impedes this development in value systems. (Although whether what works for white colonizers necessarily would work for colonized subjects remains to be seen of course.) I've often personally experienced this divide, when on my exchange in Canada, I'd have discussions with Europeans about how things like freedom of press and expression, individual will and political freedom can be insignificant in light of more immediate pressing needs such as the economic and social demands on the individual of living in a competitive and populous country such as China. Of course, they didn't get me and I didn't get them but at least I tried!

In A Passage to India, we do see a reverence or at least a respect for the Indian culture and what its people value. The message of the novel seems to amount to a compromise, that peoples and societies differ and while we may never reconcile these differences, we can agree to disagree. It's very clear in both the novel and Fanon's essay that colonization is a propagator of conflict, division and violence that would never allow such compromise.

Intellect and the Violence Capital

Reading the last ten chapters of Forster’s Passage to India and Fanon’s On Violence, I could not help but notice that even after minor triumphs and victories in the resistance of the colonized against the colonizers, the intellectuals relapse into a mode of complicity with the oppressors. Escaping the direct rule of the British in Chandrapore to a state of autonomy, Mau, ruled by a Rajah and advised by the British, Godbole and Aziz remain shackled to the whims of British “advice” on developing education and administration.

Fanon explains how the educated Native traverses the “good versus evil” space of the Manichaean colonial world. This “colonized intellectual” does not make intellectual gains by assimilating the oppressor’s culture and education, but merely “pawn[s] some of his own intellectual possessions”(13). By having the colonizers’ intellectual training, such a colonized individual moves upwards into a middle-ground between the colonizers and the colonized. Aziz and Godbole likewise perform such a role as described by Fanon. They find their existence incongruent with the masses, and yet not really British. Aziz thinks “I am an Indian at last”, but at the riverside celebrations he finds himself detached and watching afar with Ralph Moore. Godbole experiences a collective belonging with the Indian masses at the Temple’s ceremony of Shri Krishna’s birth, yet reverts to a sense of an “individual clod”(282). Both characters’ sense of individualism is described by Fanon to be the effect of hegemony by the colonizer (11).

Does such intellect then give the educated Native a false sense of representation? In his angry ranting throughout On Violence, Fanon seems to be aware of such a painful truth that the end of it, he is representing the rights of his land and his people in the language of the colonizers. The fact that he can only put through his argument eloquently in French is another violence that is within his own class, within himself. While Fanon describes the colony as a “compartmentalized world” that is “divided in two” and inhabited by different species”(5), this may be the linguistic violence that sets the educated Native apart from his brethren, apart from the cultural and physiognomical differences dividing the colonized space into three general compartments of the savage Native, the educated Native and the White man.

This then leads on to how the middle compartment of the educated Native acts as a damper to the resistance of the savage Native against the colonizers. Fanon describes the educated Natives to be opportunistic and self-preserving. Yet, such capitalist leanings are less evident in Aziz and Godbole. Sure enough, Aziz has to mind the upbringing of his children Godbole has to earn his keep, but their bourgeoisie ambitions and the need to represent the colonized become a violence in the Self of the educated Native.

But one thing is for sure, that the fragmentation of the colonized social strata prevents the pooling of resources for resistive violence. Fanon describes the capitalist colonizers’ vast violence capital to be overwhelming and seemingly infinite, as compared to the Natives’ primitive and puny violence capital. Short of an all-out attrition war, the resistances of the colonized by violence seem doomed before any action. The mediating, negotiating educated Native class functions to prevent that apocalyptic attritional suicide, as well as the continued pipeline to the siphoning of violence capital from the colony to the metropolis. This leeching is described by Fanon to be how “Europe’s well-being nad progress were built with the sweat and corpses of blacks, Arabs, Indians and Asians”(53). The tax collection and trade in Forster’s colony space serve as the parallel to such transfers of capital.

Thus, the control and usage of violence capital and hegemonising of educated Natives can be seen as a form of capitalist enterprise. In fact, more important than the economic measures to derive the dollars and cents from the colonies, colonial powers are seen to be economizing the values of the violence capital to retain the power politics of the colonization machinery, as such strategies ensure the continued profitability of controlling the colony.

- Weiquan