Introduction to Postcolonial Theory: Departing from ‘Points of Departure’

The task of writing a reaction and summary to An Introduction to Postcolonial Theory has allowed me to go back and reflect on my initial impressions prior to enlisting CL 123 as a determinant subject for pursuing a graduate degree in comparative literature. It dawned on me that my understanding of postcolonial theory has always been leaning towards what is obvious and simplistic. Postcolonial to me then meant after the end of colonization in areas which are formerly under the colonial control of the West.

One cannot be faulted though for having such a simplistic view about what postcolonial theory is. After all, this literal understanding of what is postcolonial stems from derivation of words to acquire meaning; such that ‘post’ is understood as a prefix of ‘after’ and ‘colonial’ is characterized as ‘a territory under the complete control of a state’. In my view, the entire debate about the scope and definition began the moment ‘post’ was attached after the word ‘colonial’ to describe the study of colonial discourse.

 For one, the prefix ‘post’ directly entails a complete end of colonization which then implies that the period of European colonial control and domination is entirely over. However, as what the authors of the introductory reading emphasize, the “persistence of colonialism” is, up to now, still apparent through indirect economic, political, and cultural control of Western powers over its former colonies. In this sense, colonialism has not actually left us, but has merely evolved in a more deceptive form known as neocolonialism, a phase of imperialism that aims to globalize capitalism. As Gayatri Spivak puts it, “we live in a postcolonial neo colonial world”, which means that colonialism is still with us – fully present, ever-changing, and deceptively pervasive.

Although it is determined that the attachment of ‘post’ to ‘colonialism’ makes the definition of ‘postcolonial’ problematic, there is absence of an alternative term to describe the complexity of history and diversity of experiences in different areas which are subject to colonial control. It is a clear misfortune that there is a limit to what our language can actually define or describe. As such, it is quite understandable, in my view, that the term postcolonial is used to describe the entire study of colonial discourse, provided that if asked ‘when is the postcolonial?’ the answer should altogether include the “then” (colonial), “now” (postcolonial), and “not quite yet” (neo colonization). 

From what I understand in the introductory reading, the “in-betweenness” of the postcolonial period is exactly what characterizes it as an “anticipatory discourse” that incessantly searches to describe a condition that does not yet exist or has not yet come into being. With this, it is important to emphasize that the role of postcolonial discourse is for the “reflection and illumination” of colonial, postcolonial, and neocolonial subjects as well as their resistance against the dominant colonial forces in these historical periods. 

Moreover, it should be remembered that even with such broad periodization of postcolonial history, our understanding of postcolonial terminology can still remain problematic because some literary critics attempt to generalize the answers to when, where, who, and what is postcolonial. To generalize the complex and ambiguous experiences of colonial subjects is to miserably fail in seeing the different histories and conditions of colonization in various parts of the globe. The attempt to generally define and describe the colonial situation is impossible given the subjective experiences of colonial subjects and the complexity of their histories.

In attempting to know when is postcolonial, we are faced with the fact about the incompleteness and unevenness of postcolonial period. In attempting to locate the where is postcolonial, we are presented with the complexity in the shift from the idea of nation state to transnationalism. In attempting to answer who is the postcolonial, we are faced with “unsettling identities” of colonial subjects who are faced with the task of recovering and creating their own identities.

Lastly, in attempting to answer what is postcolonial, we are presented with the impossibility of defining an ever-changing term which, according to Spivak, is “never consistent with itself”. As long as colonialism continues to remain elusive, our understanding of what is postcolonial will remain to be uneven and incomplete. However, it is reassuring to know that the role of postcolonial discourse in the academe is to contribute in our understanding to reflect, recognize, and resist colonialism in all its mutated form.

Source: 

Childs, Peter; Williams, Patrick. Introduction To Post-Colonial Theory. London : Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1997.

Seneca: On Love and Nature

(An excerpt of my rapid impulse to write spontaneously this morning, the complete and more polished work will be sent to the person whom I address this piece for.)

 On Love and Nature

No, I'm not feeling fine, I still carry the heavy pains of disappointment and fear. You know how I hate talking about feelings, primarily because I consider containing emotions, in the form of words and explication, as a futile exercise of the heart. 

But for now, out of necessity, I guess I have to elaborate what I feel (which is not my usual practice) -- because, as you claim, we do not read each other's thoughts and do not step on each other's shoes, hence we need to voice out all that we think. 

The Cycle of Flaws (and things better left unsaid)

So what happens when you found the slightest strength to raise your concern towards a disappointing behavior and yet the other person is as forceful as you are to continue denying the existence of his flaws? What do you do? At first you insist, then he argues, and you just let things pass. You sleep with disappointment for a long time and wait until the day comes when the entire situation again recurs. As a result, your annoyance resurfaces, and your disappointment increases as you contemplate that you should have distanced and even shielded yourself, even before, from someone's intentional or unintentional lapses.

I do not kid you when I said that there are things ought not to be explained -- especially by chatty reasoning and argumentations because, at the end of the day, nobody wins and we go back to our solitary selves pushing for our "rightness" on things. Sorry, but I will ask you that I may be allowed to be a bit philosophical in my explanation. I know I always fail at making my thoughts comprehensible, but I would appreciate if you will spend time on re-reading and reflecting on things I seldom talk to you about. 

You see, many people fail at understanding because they do not use their inner sensitivity to gauge the concealed meaning in words. Sometimes, they also do not enjoy walking in the shoes of the writer and thus lose interest to think harder, beyond words, for the sake of clarity and understanding. So here goes my attempt to be talkative.

Connection Beyond Words (and the metaphor of "soul")

I believe that people, if they are meant to form any kind of relationship, must share "connection" that is devoid of words and physical gestures. That shared connectedness must emanate from the fact that, by nature, they are destined to share each other's being. That is true for people you consider as friends, lovers, and others you held deeply within. Most of all, it is true for the person you are considering to be your "life partner". 

In our lifetime, I believe that it is merely by luck that we find these people who "share our soul" so to speak. I used the word "soul" as a metaphor because the understanding between two people transcends beyond our own humanity. Some years back, I remembered how I wrote about fate and love as something that "which, if at all, we rarely find in our lifetime". In that sense, I am lucky to find, for now, that one instance where I met a fateful "soul" who crossed inside and wholly understood my being.    

That fortunate "sharing of the soul" I only once experienced with a long time friend. Things might have been very different right now, but what makes me cling to the friendship is that until now, whenever I look back at my past, I never fail to say, "those were the best years of my life". Those were great times because even without words, someone could finish my thoughts and share my sorrow. Talking was not a requirement to know that the other person feels awfully ill inside and that it only requires the meeting of eyes before we burst into laughter. I have to truthfully say that, I have yet to feel an experience that would surpass the feeling of ultimate familiarity with other people's inner being. In those days, sharing of the soul was not about the exchange of words but of sharing experiences, pain, and incomprehensible laughter.   

Attaining the Ideal (and us)

I do not know if it's right to say that I also expect that level of "soul sharing" to also be present between us and demand that it becomes more profound in an intimate, loving relationships like ours. Thing is, I do not think we have quite achieved that higher level of connectedness. I always look for that when we're together, but it seems futile to hope that one day, you will be able to completely understand my inner being without so much words to waste. There are too many distractions we need to address day by day -- whether we're together or far away. 

But in all fairness to us too, I do not think we have spent much more time completely alone together and share ourselves wholly. Yet if we finally do, could I expect to achieve this meeting of the soul, this higher level of understanding between us? And what if we can't attain the ideal? What do I do? Runaway, just like I always do, from people who do not share my understanding of things? Or should I wait for the grace of time and expend my energy, to discover the art of learning more about someone in the metaphysical sense?

On All things Effortless (and the concept of "wavelength")

We can laugh about this, but my insistence on the unnatural idea of "effort" kicks into this conversation. My view that -- "things that are deemed to be natural should require the least amount of effort (or better yet, effortless)" -- is ultimately reflected at how we look at nature. In the natural course of things, a leaf falls into the ground not only because of the frailty of the twig that holds it, but also because it completely surrenders to gravity, nature, or love. One need not exert effort in shaking its branches to let it fall. It is part of the natural scheme of things that a leaf shall fall because it has to let go of itself, naturally. 

Now, translating this natural occurrence into human relationship is comparable to two human beings who have the "same wavelength", so to speak. Indeed, the term wavelength is a natural idea in physics, being "the distance between two points in the same phase in consecutive cycles of a wave". We can compare the idea of wavelength to human relationships where it is possible that two people, who may be separated by distance, to have mutual understanding about each other's being. Still, in all fairness to both of us, our similarities on how we perceive a good and proper life is mutually shared. But I daresay, that is not entire picture of a relationship. 

Sharing the same "wavelength of the soul" requires better understanding of each other -- without constant reprimand, without constant reminder, and without endless talks on how to actually feel the emotions of another person. In fact, this is reflective sometimes, on my annoyance whenever people say "I'm sorry to hear about what happened" towards another person. I feel that the phrase could mean separating yourself from what the other person feels and, in a way, you subconsciously feel better about your own situation. Instead of saying how sorry you are about one's condition, wouldn't it be more reassuring if you just sit by silently beside the person, without a single word spoken, and share his misery? I think this is the opposite essence of the mantra, "misery loves company" -- in that way at least, you are able to place yourself on how the other person actually feels. 

Losing Meaning in Words

How I long for people to just feel each other's presence! I long to witness that moment when one actually reaches for the same wavelength -- without saying anything because words, in itself, do not have pure intentions, in the same way that raw thoughts and inner feelings have. The moment you convert feelings into words, it loses its natural form -- that is why we have poets who, with all their might, try to capture emotions in its purest form through poetry, but still couldn't quite make sense of an experience. This process makes writing more powerful than speaking because of internal communication and because of the time spent thinking about words closest to the thought. Composing words, as they are, is an attempt to physically manifest thoughts, but it is not the actual and pure thought you held deeply. Meanings are concealed in words and it is only through sensitivity that we can unlock its true intention and significance.

Now, going back to the nature of "wavelengths", it may seem that I am only painting an ideal picture of what relationships should be. But why should I not when lifetime companionship is what is at stake here. You see, I only want to experience being with someone who holds a complete understanding of myself, in the same way as I hold a complete understanding about who he is. This understanding, I demand, should be devoid of words and lengthy explanation and thus require utmost sensitivity of feelings towards one another. It does not take constant reprimand and reminder to fully understand what the other person is feeling. One can gain complete understanding through sensitive observation and careful examination of our differences and similarities, as it is already given that both of us have different cultural orientation and life experiences that molded us to who we are now.
(Some very personal paragraphs are deleted.)

Letting Myself Fall (like a leaf)

You know, there is greater wisdom for people who insist that they are right but just keep to themselves and wait for their rightness to manifest in the future... there's greater wisdom in that, than those who argue in high pitch sounds about their correctness. You should care about what other people think because it means you are sensitive and you care how they might feel. (I caution you to separate this from voicing opinions on politics and social issues. These ideas are solely about thinking before you blurt out your words in whatever forms -- be it may in the form of jokes, serious opinion, or burst of anger.)

All of these can be attained by inner reflection and sensitivity, which someday, I hope we will both attain and eventually share. I know you might insist on its impossibility but experience, as well as important insights on nature, tells me that it's possible. I only insist on the natural meeting of both our soul and being -- because I believe that it is ONLY when I feel us sharing and meeting at the same wavelength that I can completely let myself go, like a leaf surrendering to the a bigger force of nature or love. If not, then I expect you to, one day, go back to these meaningless rants -- and understand beyond words -- why, in the long run, I did not let myself fall. 

On Voltaire's Candide: soon, I shall cultivate a garden

Voltaire's novel, Candide, was surprisingly an easy read. I loved the fantastic plot and the humor I get in every chapter. Since my computer is not conspiring with my impulse to write, I'm gonna give a quick overview of the book. 

Basically, it's a battle between optimism and pessimism as a world view. Dr. Pangloss embodied optimism through his philosophy that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" -- that is, everything that happens in the world, even mankind's suffering, is part of God's "grand" plan.

But with the events witnessed by Candide -- rape, murder, disease, earthquake, betrayal -- he came to conclude that optimism is simply "a mania for insisting that everything is right when everything is going wrong." 

On the other hand, pessimism is characterized in the person of Martin, an extremely cynical scholar who accompanied Candide is his travels. Martin believes that God has abandoned the world in his view that "man was born to live in either the convulsions of distress, or in the lethargy of idleness".

Like a balloon with a broken string: Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicle

After a month of reading this book (always before I get to sleep), I finally conquered Murakami. Conquering in the sense that many ideas from his other works became more familiar to me.

First, what I like about the author is that he understands women -- actions and overall psyche. The theme about the complexity in the mind of a woman appeared both in Norwegian Wood and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. For instance, in one of the passages, May Kasahara pointed out how girls just like to be mean for no reason at all. Just like that: the mood for nothing. I know many women understand this and Murakami spelled it out for us. 

Anyhow, I'm not going to give a review of the book. It would take me hours to summarize the plot of the 600-page novel. But what I need to say is that the feeling of loneliness never leaves me when I read Murakami's work. It's how he presents his characters as ordinary people -- so ordinary that it makes you ask if there's ever a meaning to our fleeting existence. This inner self is just too chaotic, too complex to understand.. and yet there's the outer world that demands order and normalcy from us. 

I am sure there's Toru Okada or May Kasahara in any one of us. For instance, my understanding of the self   was expounded by May Kasahara. I could relate about her grim views of the world and her preference to see ducks than people as they come "flapping through the air and land on the ice, but their feet slide and they fall over. It's like a TV comedy!". Ah, that happiness that arise not from being with people but from observing nature -- from seeing creatures who do not know us or couldn't care less about us! Like May Kasahara, I do wonder what ducks think "deep down inside, about ice and stuff." 

But you can't know everything. You are placed in this world to know people which is almost impossible to do. As May Kasahara pointed in this question:

"Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?" 

I share her skepticism. I also share her confusions about the future:

"So you're going to stay here a while longer?", I asked 

"I think so. I might want to go back to school after enough time goes by. Or I might not. I might just get married -- no not really" She smiled with a while puff of breath. "But anyhow, I'll stay for now. I need more time to think. About what I want to do, where I want to go. I want to take time and think about those things." 

"Tell me, Mr. Wind Up Bird, did you think about those kind of things  when you were my age?" 

"Hmm. Maybe not. I must have thought about them a little bit, but I don't really remember thinking about things as seriously as you do. I guess I just figured if I went for a living in the usual way, things would kind of work themselves out all right. But they didn't, did they? Unfortunately."

It was a good one month read. I must admit that the middle chapter about historical parts bored me a bit. I also thought that the ending of the complex plot was not as "neat" as Marquez's (of course Murakami is never comparable to Marquez). BUT! I'd like to commend Murakami for bringing up that inexplicable loneliness n every one of us, even those who are "living in the usual way" like Toru Okada. 

And so, I'll end this post with few of my favorite quotes from the book: 

"I'd be smiling and chatting away, and my mind would be floating around somewhere else, like a balloon with a broken string."  

"Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things."  

"To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all."  

"It's not that either one is better," he said. After a brief coughing fit, he spat a glob of phlegm onto a tissue and studied it closely before crumpling the tissue and throwing it into a wastebasket. "It's not a question of better or worse. The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there is no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness. 'I am he and/ He is me:/ Spring nightfall.' Abandon the self, and there you are." 

Adele's Music: "Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead"

It's not everyday that I get moved by a musical performance. The great thing about music is that it transcends emotions to any kind of listener.

I'm so touched with this performance by Adele.. so moved by the song.. coz.. i don't know..i think..i thought to myself, gosh I must have sung same song if.. if I wasn't too careless tsk... That fact I guess moved me.. and I wept with her.