Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 13:31:56 -0500 (EST)
From: Ming the Merciless <scs7891-AT-is2.nyu.edu>
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Pedantic Postcolonial Point


On Fri, 22 Nov 1996 zhock-AT-ncte.org wrote:

>      Even if it were, cultural theorists, especially those who 
>      are not creative writers, have no right to make judgments on an 
>      individual's decision to use a particular language. Isn't that a form 
>      of imperialism?  Incidentally, Ngugi writes in Kikuyu and Kiswahili; 
>      there ain't no such thing as "Kenyan."
>         --Zarina Hock

fair enough - it's been a while since i was in his class, and i've never
been to kenya, so i'm sorry for forgetting the name of prof. ngugi's
chosen language.  and i'd be the first to admit that as an american born
person i do my own "creative" work in english, not chinese.  but i must
protest anyhow.  first of all, i don't think it's "imperialistic" of me to
complain about a trend towards the world-wide standardization of english
in literature.  coercive, whining, gripey, sure!  heck, maybe even
non-productive.  but how can it be imperialistic?  i'm not trying to start
my own empire!  i'd thought one of the points of joining this list was to
join in and help to develop a discourse counter to the hegemony left
behind by western imperialism.  if you think i'm doing it in a shallow
or incorrect way, then fine.  but if you'd call my argument imperialistic,
then i'd wonder how you conceive of certain power structures.
  
second of all, like i said, i do my own writing in english, so i myself
don't follow prof. ngugi's example.  but isn't it a little unfair to
characterize that as an "individual's decision to use a particular
language"?  i never decided to choose english over chinese, except when i
was in grade school and horrified that my parents were trying to send me
to chinese school.  i *had* to learn english:
	 b/c my parents had come to the u.s.,
	 b/c the u.s.was so rich,
	 b/c the west profited greatly from the economic, military, and
cultural inroads it made into africa, asia, australia, the americas.  
ngugi can write kiswahili, so he does.  i can't write in chinese, so i
don't.  but to say that's my individual responsibility sounds like
something out of _the book of virtues_.  ngugi makes his rationale clear:
why "english literature"?  why not "kenyan literature"?  cuz academics
need to make a living, maybe?  woolf in _to the lighthouse_ has a similar
point - mrs. ramsay's kids could go to school and learn sanskrit, or
hindi, or bengali, but what would be the point?  latin would get you
further in academia than hindi, nevermind that it's a "dead language".  

i do understand what you mean about writers developing new strains of
english to counter western hegemony, tho, and i'm not saying that's
useless.  i'm just trying to point out that to a certain extent, it's
making a virtue of necessity.  
 
sig
http://pages.nyu.edu/~scs7891



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