Subject: Re: Fighting with words
Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2000 14:12:20 +0100


Eric,

surely it is not always necessary to have absolutely the last word on every
topic

----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Dickens <eric.dickens-AT-wxs.nl>
To: postcolonial <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2000 11:13 AM
Subject: Fighting with words


> 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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