Middle East/North African Lit discussion
This topic is about
In the Name of Identity
2019
>
Discussion of IN THE NAME OF IDENTITY: VIOLENCE AND THE NEED TO BELONG by Amin Maalouf
date
newest »
newest »
Why use any kind of label though?And yes..non white to is kind of divisive....
Why emphasize color at all?
Unless you are fighting for your rights or you are discriminated in the name of it..?
The Chinese were white – until white men called them yellowhttps://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinio...
Calling them white, in other words, was not based on simple perception either and had less to do with pigmentation than their presumed levels of civilisation, culture, literacy, and obedience (particularly if they should become Christianised).
Tamara wrote: "But doesn't that make it sound as if "white" is the yardstick by which all other races should be measured?"Yes, it does give the connotations that 'white' is the default condition against which other races are defined or measured. But it's not universally applicable, that's why I qualified my use of the term 'non-white' to refer only to those communities who are minorities in white-majority countries. The term would be rather meaningless if applied to people in countries where majority race is not white. Positive terms that emphasise nationality or ethnicity are always better to use.
Personally, I had no self-awareness of my race or skin colour as long as I lived in my home country. It was only after I travelled and spent time in the West as an adult that I became conscious of my ethnicity and colour (and religion). This experience added new layers to my sense of identity and sensitised me towards issues I had never thought about while growing up back home.
I was Pakistani by nationality, belonged to Saraiki ethno-lingual subgroup, and on the level of race I was Indic (not the same as Indian). But I was never 'brown' or 'non-white' or 'person of colour.' I became that only when I became a member of minority community in countries where these issues describe social and political faultlines. Being part of a minority is difficult business.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Calling them white, in other words, was not based on simple perception either and had less to do with pigmentation than their presumed levels of civilisation, culture, literacy, and obedience (particularly if they should become Christianised). "Exactly. 'White' as we understand today doesn't just refer to skin colour. It's an institutionalised term which refers to peoples of European Christian backgrounds against which others were defined during the age of colonialism. If we go by skin colour/shade alone, then countries like Turkey and Iran are full of 'white people.'
TrueIts a kind of leftover idea from colonialism,maybe?
When wherever they went ,Europeans tried to 'civilize' the natives...
But...is the usage applicable ,in that sense, now?with all the cultural intermixing ,I think..the use of white ,is different now ,is it not?
siriusedward wrote: "Why use any kind of label though?And yes..non white to is kind of divisive....
Why emphasize color at all?
Unless you are fighting for your rights or you are discriminated in the name of it..?"
Because ethnicity is real. It’s real to consumers, school systems, lenders, daters, marketers and cops. It’s real whether the rights being protected are mine or my neighbors’ or a stranger’s.
Yes..maybe I don't get it..because where I am from Ethnic diversity doesn't matter as most of us are from the same background,neither does skin color ,as were are all brown here ( unless it be the question of "fairest of them all" ) .. the language ,state,and religion is what matters more,I guess.And that is what is of more consequence as regards our identity.And of course ,gender .
I have read not much of the book, but the idea of identity in the book is very masculine. There is rarely any mention of gender as a factor in identity, is it me or anyone else feeling the same?
I suspect one of the reasons the term "black author" is used is because, in the history of world literature, there have not been any known literary achievements from sub-Saharan Africa. Other cultures obviously have a literary history, namely Europe, the Mediterranean, Persia, Russia, China, etc.
So when someone of African descent writes, it may even be a compliment to refer to him/her as a "black writer" to illustrate their achievement ...?
Top 15 recently published books by writers and poets from Sub-Saharan Africa – Media Diversifiedhttps://mediadiversified.org/2016/12/...
Early African Literature Anthology - Wendy Laura Belcherontrary to the general perception, the African literatures written before the twentieth century are substantial. Whatever limits can be imagined—in terms of geography, genre, language, audience, era—these literatures exceed them. Before the twentieth century, Africans wrote not just in Europe, but also on the African continent; they wrote not just in European languages, but in African languages; they wrote not just for European consumption, but for their own consumption; they wrote not just in northern Africa, but in sub-Saharan Africa; they wrote not just orally, but textually; they wrote not just historical or religious texts, but poetry and epic and autobiography; and they wrote not just in the nineteenth century, but in the eighteenth century and long, long before.
https://wendybelcher.com/african-lite...
Contrary*
The article validates what I said. The article says that:(1) One rationale for the non-existence of sub-Saharan literature is "texts written more than 200 years ago have not survived" -- but "we know they existed because travelers reported on them."
That tells us nothing. We don't "know" if there were any, and if they survived. There are apparently only alleged "reports" of travelers. And what kinds of "reports" and what kind of "travelers"?
Oh, by the way, anyone who has studied literature knows that the literature of Persia, Russia, China, Egypt, etc. etc. has survived for many centuries, some for millennia -- not just 200 years.
(2) Another rationale is "they were never published as books" ... but only "a few manuscripts" and "in obscure places."
Well, that's the point, isn't it? It's not a history of literature if there were just "a few manuscripts" which were never published as books, Again, that validates that there is no history of sub-Saharan literature.
(3) The third rationale is that "Very few texts have been translated into European languages".
Well, that's another point! If they were significant pieces of literature, they would have been translated into other languages. Also, to the extent any exist, they have not even been widely published in African languages.
(4) The fourth rationale is that Africa "has diverse people" ... which "has resulting in obscuring the literature of the continent and preventive productive comparative work". [misuse of the word 'resulting' is their error, not mine[
Perhaps the author of this article is not aware that the history of the rest of the world was not static, and that many empires came and went, were built and destroyed, and were conquered by different religious and ethnic groups, even by many who burned the literature of previous generations.
This fourth rationale seems to me to be an attempt at a disingenuous 'justification as to why there is NOT any African literature.'
These four convoluted 'arguments' validate what I said: There is no literary history of sub-Saharan literature. There's no point in putting this on the Procrustean Bed in the hope of stretching the truth. Why try to do so? The history is very clear.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Early African Literature Anthology - Wendy Laura Belcherontrary to the general perception, the African literatures written before the twentieth century are substantial. Whatever limits can be ima..."
Thanks, Reem, for responding on this point. I’m sufficiently disheartened and offended by it that I’m rendered speechless in an effort to engage respectfully.
No problem Carol. I actually wanted to post one more, but was interrupted earlier. Here it is:What exactly does ‘sub-Sahara Africa’ mean? | Pambazuka News
The widespread use of ‘sub-Sahara Africa’ makes no sense and is undoubtedly a racist geopolitical signature.
https://www.pambazuka.org/governance/...
Wow! When you don't like facts, you revert to accusations of racism. How sad.For the sake of those who may not know geography, the term sub-Saharan Africa has been a geographical term for centuries.
Also, for the benefit of others who don't revert to hatred to win an argument, here is one link on a geographic website:
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/e...
Mod
I have a great respect for you all and somewhere we lost the calm tune .
Personally I am not an expert in geographical terms or the history of literature so I can add nothing of my own but I found the following interesting thoughts about "The oral nature of African unwritten literature"
https://www.academia.edu/30821769/Rut...
https://books.openedition.org/obp/118...
For now , please let us switch to anther subject .
Charles wrote: "Wow! When you don't like facts, you revert to accusations of racism. How sad."As you can see, many participants in this thread have had lots of disagreements on a host of different issues but everyone has expressed their views with the respect and civility that is required in such discussions. I find your way of expressing your opinion unnecessarily harsh if not outright hostile. I don't think anyone has accused you of racism. You're entitled to your opinion but that is by no means the only one out there.
Speaking of which, the term Sub-Saharan African might have been in use for 'centuries' but the fact remains that it was coined and popularised by the European colonialists who labeled and divided territories on the map as they saw fit. The term did not, and does not, mean anything to the people who inhabit the 'sub-Saharan' African countries.
The same is true for geographical tags such as "Near East" and "Far East." Both were coined by the European colonialists. "Near" and "Far" to what? To the West. These terms were meaningless to the people who inhabit those lands.
Take the label "Asia." It is yet another example of colonial usage that has become popular and accepted worldwide. "Asians" never identified themselves as belonging to the Asian continent and didn't call themselves as such until the European colonialists did. They had smaller geographical identifiers based on empire, ethnicity, religion etc. This is because Asia is a multicivilisational, multi-religious, and multiracial behemoth of a continent and does not have a single identity like Europe. On contrast, Europeans identified themselves as Europeans for centuries because of civilisational, religious, and relative cultural homogeneity of the continent. Size also mattered, in both cases.
Personally, I don't like being called "Asian" because it means very little to me. I prefer to be identified with a label that is closer to my geographical origins. Being Indic or from the Indian subcontinent tells more about my ethnicity, culture, heritage etc than being an "Asian."
It is fine to use these labels to strictly refer to geography (but even that is not without controversy) but these labels are very misleading when you treat the corresponding regions as monoliths in spite of the diversity of nations, cultures, tribes, religions, languages AND literary traditions.
Great points Jibran!I am not an active member of this group as I am currently reading other books, but I do get notifications, and I do read them. There was no way that I could let this comment pass.
"Charles Sutherland I suspect one of the reasons the term "black author" is used is because, in the history of world literature, there have not been any known literary achievements from sub-Saharan Africa.
Other cultures obviously have a literary history, namely Europe, the Mediterranean, Persia, Russia, China, etc.
So when someone of African descent writes, it may even be a compliment to refer to him/her as a "black writer" to illustrate their achievement ...?"
I didn't comment. I just countered with a different viewpoint.
ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Great points Jibran!I am not an active member of this group as I am currently reading other books, but I do get notifications, and I do read them. There was no way that I could let this comment p..."
Thanks, Reem.
With regards the comment about 'black writers,' it isn't only black writers from Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa that are referred to as such, but all writers from the black community everywhere in the world have to deal with their work being seen through the prism of their race.
For example, acculturated black communities in countries like US, France, or the Caribbean have little to do with Africa except for their remote ancestry, but the fact of their race or skin colour is disproportionately highlighted in popular literary reporting than of any other race or ethnicity.
There is an assumption, even an expectation, that a black writer would only write about certain issues that relate to their race, heritage, and civil rights struggles and nothing besides. In other words, not just black writers, but non-whites are often not given the universality of thought and vision which is naturally assumed for white writers.
In the past women writers were treated in the same way and it was thought that they were only fit to write about romance, domestic issues, and now about gender politics but nothing that could hold up to the profoundest insights of the greatest of white male writers. That is a very myopic and parochial view of humankind and of the mysteries of literary creation.
I'm saying this as someone who loves so many dead white males and don't judge the quality of art by markers of race, nationality, and gender.
Jibran wrote: "I thought I was the only one who saw a problem with the term 'people of colour.' I have an intense dislike for it and I hope in time the mainstream recognises that it is in essence an exclusionary and patrnoising term and should be dispensed with. I much prefer the general term 'non-white' to refer to such communities in countries where they form a minority. "Well put Jibran, I feel exactly the same. People of colour is such a eurocentric term and its usage can sometimes come across as a lazy, unnuanced way of dealing with diversity. I find it frustrating if I am labelled as a woman of colour because the term has literally no significance in my life. Yes, I have non-European ethnicity but I like to be specific about that not just apply an arbitrary label of "colour" to define myself.
Also in a European, more specifically UK context, the use of the term is ironic because it completely erases intra-European diversity. What do people from Sicily and Stockholm have in common really? They don't even look the same.
As for the UK, Brexit is rooted in xenophobia and happened mainly because people were frustrated with the movement of immigrants from central and eastern Europe into the UK because of open borders. As far as I am aware, people from central and eastern Europe are considered European and white and not people of colour. There is definitely another power dynamic going on here. And yet you find all these "read more diverse books" lists in the UK that focus entirely on non-white populations and completely ignore the lived reality of minority (and equally othered) white populations within the country.
Edit: Wanted to add this "fun" fact that is very UK-specific. Back when I was at university I was invited to attend a black students meeting and I thought I had been sent the invitation by mistake but my Iranian roommate had received one too. A quick Google search revealed that the National Union of Students' Black Students group "represents students of African, Asian, Arab and Caribbean descent at a local and national level on all issues affecting Black students". I was raised in South Asia where my Indian nationality was a political identity really: it didn't explain how I was 1/4 Punjabi from what is now in Pakistan or part Kashmiri or part Goan or part Maharashtrian or part Bengali from what is now in Bangladesh (No one seemed to marry anyone from their own region in my family). Then suddenly I was just Asian when I moved to the UK. And at University I was a Black student. And now in this new woke Britain, I am a person of colour!
Jibran wrote: "ReemK10 (Paper Pills) wrote: "Great points Jibran!Jibran, I think you are probably right in your comments regarding all “black” authors being lumped together and it being assumed they are writing about issues of race. I encountered one notable exception recently. I read a wonderful book by Mike Gayle called “The Man I Think I Know.” I didn’t know anything about the book or author before reading it. It is the story of a friendship between two white British men. There is no discussion of racism in the book though it does deal with class issues and people with disabilities. I enjoyed the book so much that I looked up the author afterwards and lo and behold discovered he is black. Why was I surprised? I shouldn’t have been. Many white writers write books about black characters (Jodi Picoult, Ann Patchett, Anne Tyler, to name a few) and are very successful at rendering believable characters and poignant stories. (Interestingly, none of the reviews I read of Gayle's book mentioned the author’s race, but it was not reviewed by any “big name” venues).
In her excellent essay called, Required Reading and Other Dangerous Subjects, Amy Tan says:
“In the unstable arena of ethnicity and race, there is no common language everyone agrees on. It’s hard enough for me to determine what ethnic descriptors I use for myself. Do I refer to myself as a Chinese-American writer, an ethnic writer, a minority writer, a Third World writer, a writer of color? From person to person, and particularly writer to writer, these terms carry different emotional and political weight.
If I had to give myself any sort of label, I would have to say I am an American writer. I am Chinese by racial heritage. I am Chinese-American by family and social upbringing. …I must admit that “writer of color” is an expression I personally dislike, since, in terms of color, Chinese people have always been referred to as yellow, the color associated with cowardice, jaundice, bananas, Ping the Duck, and the middle-class Marvin Gardens in Monopoly. I’d much prefer a term such as “colorful writer,” which seems to refer more to the writing itself. Or how about “writer of a different flavor”? … ‘Writer of color’ is also an exclusionary term – you’re not a member if your skin is too pale, and yet you face perhaps the same problems as a writer if you’re Armenian-American or gay or lesbian or a woman. Whatever we minorities are called, as the result of common experiences, both bad and humorous, we often have an affinity with one another. We are segregated in the same ways.”
So, I think in sum that Zadie Smith is right and we need to stop identifying authors by arbitrary “colors.”
Priyanka Sofia wrote: "Jibran wrote: "I thought I was the only one who saw a problem with the term 'people of colour.' I have an intense dislike for it and I hope in time the mainstream recognises that it is in essence a..."One thing that struck me in your very pertinent comments was this point you made about “diversity in literature:”
“And yet you find all these "read more diverse books" lists in the UK that focus entirely on non-white populations and completely ignore the lived reality of minority (and equally othered) white populations within the country.”
I am almost afraid to write this but here goes. This MENA group is also guilty of excluding “white” writers from their list of “diverse” or (so-called) “multicultural” books. Make no mistake, I love the group and am an active member. But, I have often wondered why authors who claim MENA countries as their home, but are not born there, who write about MENA countries and characters, are excluded from the reading lists. This group is not alone in this exclusion. Many publishing houses and literary agents do the same. But, in my humble opinion, it is not only black or brown or white authors who can write about black or brown or white people respectively. In her excellent essay, Required Reading and Other Dangerous Subjects, Amy Tan laments,
“It disturbs me – no, let me amend that – it terrifies me when I hear people dictating what literature must do and mean and say. And it infuriates me when people use the “authority” of their race, gender, and class to stipulate who should write what, and why. The prohibitions come in many forms: You can’t write about lesbians unless you’re a lesbian. You can’t write about Native Americans unless you are at least twenty-five percent Native American and a registered member of your tribe. You can’t write about African-American or Asian-American males unless the portrayals are positive. You can’t write about Hindus unless you are a member of a lower caste. You can’t write about Latinos unless you still live in the barrio…”
This is just some food for thought for the group.
Niledaughter wrote: "Please everyone , calm down !I have a great respect for you all and somewhere we lost the calm tune .
Personally I am not an expert in geographical terms or the history of literature so I can add..."
Thank you, Niledaughter, for stepping in and reminding us of the importance of the oral tradition in literature of all cultures.
--------------------------
I particularly enjoyed Maalouf’s discussion of language and identity in Chapter 4 and this is one area where I totally agree with him. Maalouf regards “any attempt to separate language from identity as neither possible nor desireable.” He adds that, “Language is bound to remain the mainspring of cultural identity, and linguistic diversity the mainspring of all other diversities.” (p.132) Maalouf says, “It is essential that we establish clearly and without ambiguity, and that we watch over tirelessly, the right of every man to retain and to use freely the language which identifies him and with which he identifies.” This makes me think of an article I read the other day of a professor at a university in the States who reprimanded two Chinese students for speaking in Chinese in a dorm because she felt they should be speaking English at all times to improve their command of it. The general response was outrage at the professor and she was eventually obliged to resign her administrative position. Why shouldn’t the students be free to converse in their language of identity as long as they use English in class? Maalouf’s comments also bring to mind the common practice in the States these days of offering (over the phone, in the subway, in department stores) Spanish as an option in addition to English.
I have always been a proponent of people learning other languages in addition to their language of identity. A few years ago, when my university was considering eliminating certain classes in Russian, Italian and French I wrote a formal letter of protest. (Not sure if it was in part due to my letter and others, but the classes were retained in the end). When we learn a new language we also open ourselves up to new literature and a whole new culture. When I was in college, each foreign language had its own department. At my alma mater (SUNY Albany), all languages are now appropriately merged into the Languages, Literatures and Cultures department. I wish that all Americans would read and take to heart Maalouf’s statement that, “It will always be a serious handicap not to know English, but it will also, more and more, be a serious handicap to know English only.”
Maalouf believes that nowadays everybody needs three languages. He proposes a three-fold solution to our world’s problems of identity:
- Preserve the language of one’s own identity
- Make the teaching of English as a third language common everywhere
- Encourage young people to adopt a second language, not just European ones but also “Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and a hundred other languages more rarely studied.” I love his characterization of this second language, which would be freely chosen by the individual, as the “language of the heart, the adopted language, the language you have married, the language you love.” (p. 140)
Maalouf says that these three measures “constitute a wise policy for us to adopt if we want the fantastic current expansion in communications to bring us enrichment at all levels, rather than impoverishment, general mistrust and troubled minds.” I agree with him.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...It is striking to see how much of this goes back to the unresolved notions of personal & group identity in the modern world.
A situation that could have been handled easily was blown out of every sensible proportion by one's intransigence to accept the other's idea of identity.
Jibran wrote: "https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...It is striking to see how much of this goes back to the unresolved notions of personal & gr..."
I agree with you a hundred percent. However, the substitute teacher is no longer permitted to teach at any of the schools in the district. In other words, the school took corrective action.
The fact that the incident was reported on national news in the US indicates the prominence and importance given to an expression of personal and political identity--something that may not have happened in the not too distant past because the story would have been buried.
Middle East/North African Lit
Books mentioned in this topic
Samarkand (other topics)No Full Stops in India (other topics)
But doesn't that make it sound as if "white" is the yardstick by which all other races should be measured? Either you're white or you're not. It seems to me to carry negative connotations--as if to suggest there is a deficiency in being a "non" white person.
I much prefer a more positive term.