Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 18:07:38 -0400
Subject: RE: Fighting with words


I've refrained from responding to Eric Dickens in the past because, having 
grown used to receiving three posts a day from him, I didn't want to risk of 
stirring him to increase his output. But the timing of his latest post, 
together with the Said article and the report of the recent arrest at American 
University in Cairo, makes it impossible not to respond to one of his central 
premises. That is, I find it impossible to imagine why, of all possible 
targets available, he chooses to take aim at "third world" academics in "first 
world institutions." It's not simply a matter of acknowledging that some 
intellectuals can't simply "go home" again (the situation of Ngugi and 
Nasreen, it should be noted) and that for others the whole idea of "home" has 
become impossible (one thinks of Said, and possibly of Rushdie). Nor is it a 
matter of making the simple differentiation between these intellectuals and 
the opportunistic elites who too often hold power in post-colonial nations, 
those denounced by Said and Fanon and others--that is, even when it's not a 
direct choice between Oxford and a jail cell, it may be a choice between an 
environment in which ones ideas might circulate (and please note that here I 
am defintely not thinking of the West's pretense to possessing "freedom of 
speech" but rather to the perhaps utopian goal of the university as a 
discursive space) and relative silence. But isn't there also globalization 
itself?--that is, given the newly global dissemination of texts, hasn't it 
become more a matter of "it's not where you are, but where you're at," to 
paraphrase Paul Gilroy? Can cultural or political influence really be confined 
to one place at this moment (especially when one speaks of the internet, as 
Mr. Dickens does, or for that matter from it, as I am currently doing on my 
webmail account)? Is it really the case that teachers and scholars of 
postcolonial studies (and I agree with Joseph Flanagan that very few members 
of this list would recognize ourselves in Dickens' greeting to us as 
"postcolonialists") have no impact on "the real world" (whatever that is). Let 
me simply say that all of the people I know who study, teach, and publish in 
this area work damn hard, with very little institutional support or public 
recognition, pushing constantly against the racism, implicit or otherwise, and 
paternalism constantly encountered in one's students, colleagues, and bosses 
(I'm speaking here for the American context, but I dare say it may extend to 
other European and North American sites). And this is true regardless of where 
they are "from," which particular political struggles they associate 
themselves with, or where they are going. In other words, Mr. Dickens, I'm 
baffled as to why you would choose this group to harangue. Sure, lots of us 
need to learn more languages; some of us are workin' on it. Sure, lots of us 
need to be able to go beyond the British colonial context (although, with 
respect to the dominance of English in the field, surely this is also a 
symptom of the fact that we live in the American imperium, and that, to put it 
frankly, English language culture simply has a different impact on the global 
context that Dutch or German or even French language culture). And lots of us 
read and write theory; I'm with Terry Goldie on this one--the solution to 
"jargon" is not transparency, but greater access to what might be called the 
toolbox of theory (though I'm a bit hesitant about this terminology).

It's fun to play the gadfly, but I for one am growing a bit tired of feeling 
like a fish in a barrel (just to completely mix my metaphors). Widen your 
scope a bit, Mr. Dickens. And while your at it, it wouldn't kill you to read a 
few of the folks you criticize more carefully. Spivak has described her 
response when her students tell her, "The master's tools will never dismantle 
the master's house" (a statement that has been profoundly misunderstood): she 
replies, Yes, but that doesn't mean you don't have to do the reading.

Best wishes,

Tony Alessandrini



>===== Original Message From postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ====>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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Anthony C. Alessandrini
Assistant Professor of English
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242
(330) 672-1725
aalessan-AT-kent.edu



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