Subject: Fighting with words
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 12:13:53 +0200


2nd July 2000

Dear PoCos,

I think I'd better clarify a few points which both Wolf and Michelle have
reacted to.

Firstly, Eurocentric or not, I've enough intelligence to see that if you
come over to a "first world" university and write papers or lecture on those
injustices hidden from people in the the rich countries then you are doing
something more useful than getting yourself thrown into prison back home for
20 years for opening your big mouth. Acting as a bridge between the
economically rich world and the economically poor world is a commendable
thing to do. My rhetoric on barricades was not aimed at bone fide scholars,
but at those who rant (I do not consider Michelle's e-mail as a rant, by the
way) and lash out in an irrational manner against everything around them,
while still enjoying all the fruits and safety of a western university
education or teaching post. I have seen poems on the internet which spit
blood at the West as if it is one huge plot to exploit the developing
countries.

What annoys me is the academics who have no intention of going back to their
original country and continuing to fight the (verbal) fight there. When it's
safe to do so, of course - it may never be. But after ten years in, say,
Cambridge, of course there is a dilemma. There's no job back home for
someone of your status as an intellectual and troublemaker, and by now
you're also considered a bit too westernised to fit in any more. In Europe,
on the other hand, you may be treated like a guru like Edward Said, or
condescendingly as "just another Third World scholar".

When I say "westernised", it always surprises me that most theorists about
matters involving the developing countries have indeed done their stint at
pretty exclusive European or North American universities, often using
European theorists to underpin their ideas. People like Gandhi, Nehru and
Kaunda certainly used to the fruits of the western system - but they went
back to build up something back home. (If I wanted to effect anything in
British politics, I would also have to move back to the UK to avoid charges
of bad faith.)

A magazine such as "Banipal", which I did my bit to promote yesterday, can
surely be a channel for people who want to get all these Eurocentrics you
incessantly talk about to understand how the Arab world thinks (if, that is,
there are common threads of thought throughout the Arab-speaking countries).
Also telling us Europeans about what it's really like in the rest of the
world is useful. What puzzles me is why the information is always wrapped up
in the pretty opaque language of those French and Italian theorists I
mentioned above (plus Bakhtin). I think that one day someone will do an
"Emperor's New Clothes" job on the overblown and inordinately complicated
and incomprehensible vocabulary and syntax which these theorists and their
disciples use to describe what are essentially quite simple ideas of mutual
influence between the metropolis and the developing countries. Are you
really only legitimate as a scholar in the "first world" if you lard your
pieces with "liminicity" and "heteroglossia"? Does all this really help the
poor blinkered Eurocentrics to understand the simple truths about culture in
Africa and Asia? Or is it just an academic ego-trip?

Incidentally, I admire the fact that Reinaldo Iturriza Lopez has written to
us in Spanish, assuming, quite rightly no doubt, that such a large language
should be read by large numbers of poco scholars. I shall refrain from
commenting on the theorists he mentions...

Best wishes,

Eric Dickens



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