December 17, 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a vegetable merchant from Sidi Bouzid (a small town 190 miles from the Tunisian capitol of Tunis) set himself on fire and sparked a revolutionary fervor across North Africa and the Middle East known in the popular discourse as the “Arab Spring.” This moment of self-immolation led to the fall of governments in Tunisia and Egypt, rebellions in Libya that overthrew the government of Muammar Gaddafi, the changing of leadership in Oman, Jordan, Lebanon, as well as Morocco, and a bloody civil war in Syria. But why and how did this event trigger such a chain of events throughout the so-called “Arab” world? What does Bouazizi’s act suggest to us about the place of the subaltern in historical and political discourse. Can the subaltern speak and effect political and historical change? We should see the subaltern as both an identity and the horizon of identity politics. As a voiceless identity the subaltern itself cannot speak, but individuals inhabiting the space of the subaltern are not overdetermined by that identity and can simultaneously occupy numerous subject positions. In this way, the “Arab Spring” demonstrates the potential of those occupying the space of subalternity to speak around the wall of subalterity and simultaneously the persistence of dominant economies of identity to reintegrate these irregularities back into their role as silenced, assimilated sub-others.
In her article “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Gayatry Spivak begins by identifying the field of subaltern studies as an explicitly anti-subjectivist/anti-humanist orientation of study in the spirit of Michel Foucault. She is critical of Western attempts to give pluralized accounts of subject effects, claiming that this is merely the illusion of undermining the Western subject while in reality reconstituting it as the basis of knowledge. She differentiates the problem of the subaltern studies project from its genealogical predecessors, such as Marx, Foucault and Deleuze, by claiming that their projects assume that the oppressed can know and voice their subjected conditions, an assumption which she believes perpetuates the silencing of subaltern consciousness by setting standards for its liberation which are alien to it. This forces us to ask: who has the permission/ ability to narrate? She denies that the aim of deconstructing the subject to recover the agency of the subaltern. We want to say the subaltern has agency but are unable to do so through the language of the subject. The idea that structure and history produce the subject must be rejected because in the subaltern there is no subject. Instead she recommends a radical autonomy without subjectivity. Using a framework outlined by Guha, she identifies four groups discussed in the subaltern discourse: 1.) Dominant foreign groups 2.) National native elites 3.) Local/regional groups, and 4.) The subaltern. The first two have a history and a voice; however the subaltern does not. The subaltern is an ideal. A deviation from the ideal is a “buffer” or rather a regional group which may have had a history once but which is being supplanted by the historical process of colonialism. These kinds of groups are remarkably heterogeneous; they might maintain their historical status in one locale and yet be part of the voiceless oppressed in another. Their contradictory, semi-historical identity thus provides an opening for the trace of subaltern consciousness to emerge. The problem is that we’re taking subalterity historically, but not only is subalterity not exhausted by history (nothing is!) it is constituted as resistance to (certain forms) of history. It is resistance to appropriations by alien historical narratives.
In his piece “Subject Scenes, Symbolic Exclusion, and Subalternity” Brian Carr attempts to locate the subjectivity of the subaltern through a critique of Louis Althusser’s notion of interpellation, i.e. that ideology, as embodied in institutions, constitutes the nature of the individual subjectivity since a given situation always precedes the individual. In other words, the individual is a product of and becomes a (re)productive social force. The subject is an effect of the “hailing” of an Other. This is a two-fold process where the Other recognizes the hailed as an individual and the individual acknowledges the call, recognizing his own subjectivity. Yet, what happens not only when the object of the hailing refuses to turn around but also when different calls are used? These questions, however, cannot be applied to the subaltern who is precisely the produced non-subject who has no say in the official discursive exchange. Subalternity is the exclusion from subject-hood. But, can interpellation produce this sort of disqualified subject? The production of the subject relies on compliance with the regime of power. Working within a Lacanian framework the subaltern lacks a place and can only be understood as psychotic. Interpellation, in the colonial context, though, as Chatterjee contends, is “destined never to fulfill its normalizing mission because the premise of its power was the preservation of the alienness of the ruling group” and therefore requires the reproduction of the colonized subject as ruled (Carr, pg. 29). Subalternity then is never to become “real,” merely symbolic. Therefore, Carr contends that discussion of the subaltern category requires a “reading of symbolic exclusion that is somewhere between the success of ideological interpellation (where a subject can speak) and total failure of symbolic constitution (foreclosure in the real)” (Carr, pg. 30). The not “real” subaltern is merely symbolically constituted and therefore not cast outside of symbolic exchange – this is merely a byproduct of our conceptual framework.
In his article “Managing Ecstasy: a Subaltern Performative of Resistance,” Samir Dayal applies categories of Lacanian psychology to the 19th century Bengali mystic Ramakrishna in order to demonstrate the possibility of a subversive subaltern performance which deconstructs the colonized subject while simultaneously restoring agency. Dayal no doubts recognizes the inherent danger which such a project faces of producing yet another objectified subaltern specimen for the dissecting gaze of the Western subject, so he qualifies this encounter by stressing the need for a dialectic between the particular and the cosmopolitan; it is “between” these two entrenched worldviews, between psychoanalysis and religious ecstasy, at their discrete points of (near) contact, wherein the (virtual) terrain of resistance is traversed. The subaltern consciousness is like a fugitive; if s/he can be pinned down within a single framework, s/he can be reintegrated back into the colonial scenery as silenced furniture. Through performative excess, however, the normally incommensurable horizons of the subaltern world are superimposed and deconstructed; psychoanalysis takes on mystical connotations far-removed from its “scientific” grounding, while Ramakrishna’s “holy madness” appears to be a managed, articulated economy of psychological phenomena. Such a study is deconstructive, rather than destructive: its point is not to efface all differences between psychoanalysis and mysticism, but rather to suggest that such limiting/demarcating categories do not capture the full scope of agency. The excess of activity, whatever cannot be strictly assimilated by categories, instead forms a liminal space of “either/or/neither/nor,” a space which can, in turn, be politicized for the agency of subaltern consciousness.
Properly speaking, Ramakrishna fits into the “buffer zone” which Spivak describes in “Can the Subaltern Speak?” He is a Brahmin, a regional elite, yet in 19th century Bengal, the authority of this identity was under siege. Herein lies the heterogeneity of the buffer zone: a regional elite, which was dominant in one region, could be dominated in another. The latter, of course, was Ramakrishna’s experience, and his turn towards tantric religious practice is interpreted by Dayal as an attempt to subvert a “socially acquiescent castration.” To do so, Ramakrishna develops an ecstatic performative of his relationship with the Hindu goddess Kali. He takes on the form of “Woman,” entranced by, and speaking through, Kali’s gaze. His practice can be contextualized within the larger scope of tantric practices, yet he purposefully exceeds these well-tried practices through his own idiosyncratic speech and performance. These excesses, while shattering the conventional horizons of tantric practice, are amenable to the Lacanian categories of jouissance and the gaze. Jouissance, roughly translated as bliss, is the answer to the Lacanian question “Che vuoi?” Encountering ourselves within the gaze of another, we are troubled by the enigma of the Other’s desire and so use fantasy to fill this (mis)apprehended absence within the other. Yet this psychoanalytic argument insists that it is through such fantasy that we learn to desire. From this perspective, Ramakrishna’s “excessive” performance can be understood as his management of the encounter with the Other’s jouissance; through “Woman,” he is able to dissolve his own precarious subjectivity within the Other’s erotic gaze while simultaneously experiencing the unbridled bliss of the secret revealed. In this state, he claims that “woman could finally be known in a way that no physical woman could be enjoyed.”
Ramakrishna’s act of subversion is situated within the dynamics of these two perspectives. While the Lacanian categories can be mapped onto the excesses of tradition, by doing so they become dislocated, shrouded in the incense and mysticism of the practices they are superimposed on. Dayal emphasizes that this resistant performative does not encompass the entirety of Ramakrishna’s being; in everyday life, he remains caught within a “phallocentric economy” of petty resentments and fearfulness towards real women. Nevertheless, Dayal mentions the Derridian concept of the “example” as something given for others by one who perhaps neither has nor is the example itself. In this way, Dayal presents “Ramakrishna” as an example of subaltern resistance, which extends well beyond the bounds of the flesh and blood lived experience of Ramakrishna himself.
The popular Western narrative regarding the Arab Spring suggests that new forms of social media like Twitter and Facebook facilitated the organization and activism behind the upheaval. This would play into the conventional narrative that political liberation can come only through imitation of the West. Critics have seen the supposed importance of social media in the uprising as proof of an emergent cosmopolitan middle-class, which has repudiated the religious extremism of the Mujahedeen in favor of Western style consumerism and political culture. Even the use of the term “Spring” implies a western influence over the discourse of the movement. The use of Western tools like Facebook and Twitter proves “their” Westernization.
Of course, in light of the re-emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the recent attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya these assumptions appear increasingly hollow and premature. Yet, the role of the Middle-Eastern middle-class (whatever that might mean) brings to mind questions about why the revolution occurred in some places and not others. We may recall how our authors emphasized the importance of buffer groups in creating discursive openings for the subaltern. What could be called the ascending Middle-East middle-class are certainly a heterogeneous group without political identity – an identity dependent upon their localized relationship with a given regime. Therefore, far from being the drivers of revolutionary sentiment, “they” represent the reconceptualization/appropriation of the revolution by the West. “They” utilize the tools of the West to express their desires to realize their true self-hood as Western subjects. It is co-optation of the revolution.
In other words, the revolutionary subaltern itself does not speak except through some regional/local elite, which is then understood only through a Western lens. As the story goes, it was through the transmission of videos via Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace that Bouazizi’s story caught fire across the Arab world. But what can this narrative about modernity and the Middle East really tell us about an impoverished, frustrated fruit merchant?
Perhaps Bouazizi’s case demonstrates a different kind of liminality from the class-based ones emphasized in our readings. Until he committed suicide, Bouazizi was indistinguishable from other members of the subaltern. He had no voice. However, in a moment of desperate performativity he appeared to gain a voice, the voice of self-immolation. The biography we receive afterwards is largely a recreation, working backwards from the performance. This would seem to indicate that he gains a voice only in so far as he could be appropriated by the West as spectacle. And yet this is perhaps not the case. The only way the Western discourse on Islam and about Islam can understand such an act is as the suicidal violence of a fanatic (i.e. a terrorist). In this familiar narrative the Muslim terrorist comes across as an object of fear because he refuses the West’s rational calculus of costs and benefits. We cannot reason with someone willing to kill himself and others. Therefore, he is excluded from the community of reason and denied a voice. The discourse of terrorism is typically applied when members of the subaltern manifest themselves as discrete objects for the Western gaze. When someone bombs an embassy, they are no longer anonymous, but rather an object to be known, feared, and, ultimately, eliminated. Yet they offer no challenge to the actual discourse of power because, as irrational, suicidal murderers, they can make no legitimate claims. The terrorist’s identity is not like the identity of a 9 to 5 worker but rather one that suffuses his entire being. Bouazizi, on the other hand, cannot be dismissed so easily; his suicide is a performance, like an act of terrorism, but it does not need the legitimation of Western fear to constitute itself. In other words, the terrorist requires authorization by the terrorized. It can be understood through its historical context, a historicity shaped by the power relations of colonialism, yet it cannot be exhausted by this history. No amount of historical data can comprehensively account for why someone at that moment would set himself on fire. He is uncapturable. Bouazizi, therefore, is a liminal figure somewhere between the discreet object of the terrorist and the undifferentiated subaltern.
Thus, like Ramakrishna, Bouazizi finds agency in the desubjectivication of the self. As part of the subaltern he is a subject without a voice. He experiences his subjectivity as part of the masses. Yet, through this act of self-destruction he becomes an object with a name, a face, a place. Bouazizi solicits the gaze of history by lighting himself ablaze in public. He calls out for the gaze of history. It draws the gaze of history upon him while simultaneously rejecting the subjectivity through which history must see him.
So, can the subaltern speak? By definition the answer is, “No.” The subaltern are the silenced, voiceless other of a narrative. But, the subaltern also forces “us” to reconceive how we think of politics. There is no liberation of the subaltern nor can the subaltern be removed. In other words, it can neither be liberated nor omitted because it is the silent, haunting specter within all narratives of identity, since there can be no identity (politics) without exclusion or othering. The privileged subject must confront the implications of the subaltern or else repeat the violence, which constitutes it. The “Arab Spring” is both the people inhabiting the subaltern attempting to escape its constraints and their forging of alliances of mutual affect rather than presocial, essential identity. There is also a simultaneous movement in the popular discourse to assimilate / reintegrate these events into a friendly package for the West. Attempts to call the revolutions across the Middle East “Twitter Revolutions” are just that - attempts to fit these moments into a comfortable narrative that suggests “they” are trying to be more like “us”.
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1. Does the Arab Spring have an effect on American identity? Does the possibility of this question reaffirm the subaltern’s silence?
2. Is the Arab Spring an instance of the subaltern speaking? Is its importance tied to its success or failure in bringing about lasting regime change? Can a revolution only be authentic if regime change lasts?
3. Was the Arab Spring an assertion of Arab identity or was it a revolt against the historiography of Arab identity?
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Bibliography:
Brian Carr (2001): SUBJECT SCENES, SYMBOLIC EXCLUSION, AND
SUBALTERNITY, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 6:1, 21-33
Samir Dayal (2001): MANAGING ECSTASY: A subaltern performative of
resistance, Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 6:1, 75-90
Gayatri Spivak Can the Subaltern Speak?
Watch this if you have time for two reasons: 1) Because we could ALL use a chuckle and 2) because Katt Williams is actually relevant :)
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/Htrjz6cFz1c
Though it is embedded in conversation about drug use and prostitution and peppered with profanity, the clip above contains a colorful articulation of concepts quite germane to our readings for today. As Spivak addresses the question, “Can the subaltern speak?” and our classmates ask about the state of the American identity in the wake of the Arab Spring, Katt Williams offers some insights.
“You can kill all them m---f---s. I don't have not one insurgent friend.”
Spivak writes of the process of epistemic violence as possibly consisting of both the constitution of the colonized subject as other and “also the asymmetrical obliteration of the trace of that other in its precarious Subjectivity” (25). There is no narrative that functions this way in American discourse about its relations with “Arab” nations more consistently than the dicsourse of insurgency. As Katt Williams illustrates, the use of the term in American mediated discourse identifies actors as other—as outside—and at the same time obscures their particularity—their humanity. According to Spivak, even those of us who might be interested in doing so can never fully access the consciousness of the “insurgent” because we can only approach them from within discourses couched in the epistemology of the elite. We cannot know the consciousness of the insurgent precisely because the insurgent has been rendered silent and Katt Williams would seem to argue (and YES I am actually taking this seriously), that the silencing that results from the epistemic violence can become the justification for actual, physical violence.
How does a string of uprisings sparked by a single act of (we guess) protest affect American identity? I start with the answer to the sub-question here. The fact that we ask this question is a pointer to the idea Spivak articulates early on in her work that there is a “possibility that the intellectual is complicit in the constitution of the Other as the Self's shadow” (24). This question gets back to the idea that even as we challenge the idea of the sovereign Subject, we are still, in some ways, committed to the preservation of the West as subject. Even as we try to consider the nature and capabilities of the subaltern, we must consider seriously if what may seem like an eruption of expression from the subaltern can substantively affect “American Identity.” But more telling than this question is, as our classmates have stated, the idea that we (America? The West?) did refer to the actions of the “other” mainly by the ways in which they utilized that which we conceive of as “ours.” (Twitter Revolution, etc). As our news reported the activities, we heard more references to the use of technologies commonly associated with the western world than we did about the people who used them. In this way, the individuals and their concerns and their lives were once again silenced. We connected with them in the ways that referenced us, but cannot access the consciousnesses that moved them toward the actions they took. We cannot ever explain why that first act occurred and can only seem to describe the acts that followed through the superimposition of our own understandings and values.
I think it is safe to assume that all our conversations about subalternity will unfortunately wallow in unbridled Westernness. Conceivably, if I could shut off the competing factions of my fragmented identity I could complete a coherent thought. I am a Western creation of a citizen in a not-so western body. My roots were an Alex Haley novel, now my family tree is a Facebook. Depending on the style of headgear I wear I can affectively look like a symbol of subversive resistance. Check out my avatar, it’s a little bit of Che Guevara dipped in Oakland Raiders. Thank God for Twitter because without it resistance would be futile. Allow me briefly to self-immolate…
ReplyDelete“The clearest available example of epistemic violence is the remotely orchestrated, far-flung and heterogeneous project to constitute the colonial project as Other. This project is also the asymmetrical obliteration of the trace of that Other in its precarious subjectivity” – Spivak 24-25
My subjectivity seems rather orchestrated and is most certainly precarious. It doesn’t take much to constitute a subject if you can find a way to fit it in the pretty little boxes. These little boxes make things realer for us and more predictable. The appropriation of me into a welcoming America was solidified by the election of a black president. Now my legitimacy hangs in the balance for the possibility of only one term. Where will my voice go then? Bill Cosby is too old and Lil’ Wayne is too high. Alaenor knows, maybe Katt Williams is the answer…^^^^^^^^^
This may sound like aimless ranting but I am making a serious point here. The opportunity for resistance and projecting a voice assumes that we all share the same stage. A subaltern’ s voice is as good as the intellectuals who translate it for them. I’m not sure if we can classify anyone as subaltern now because in so doing, we have voiced them into the conversation. We are hyper-networked to a point of ubiquitous immersion. What we constitute as central, as Other will be a discursive product. I think the fact that we discuss “Twitter revolutions” kind of proves that. I’m not sure if we can classify subalterns only by the terms of race, gender or religion. Are we not at this point all colonial projects even if we have participated in this self-colonization?
Alienation is not only the subject who is politically alienated from the warm bosom of the lavish and exceptional West. It is also the subject created within that plushness that stirs the immutable fire that is the dream deferred or the lie that can never be lived. This subject may self-immolate by discharging an automatic weapon in a public crowd. At this point this subject is as much of a threat as any Other ever discursively created. Being on the outside is a matter of feeling on the outside. The fringes that one drifts to are products of the imagination yet place the body in some very real circumstances. If we assume our conversations take center stage, then we can speculate about those we didn’t invite to the cocktail party. Of course then we would have to admit to our own brand of snobbery. Part of wrestling with these ideas about subjectivity is figuring out your own.
**Subalternity then is never to become “real,” merely symbolic.** -From the post above
ReplyDeleteIt's important to bear in mind that Spivak's primary targets are specifically European intellectuals, and she uses Marx, a European, to attack them. Even the celebrated Foucault and Deleuze are on the other side of the sharp line that divides "socialized capital" from labor. Spivak's first move is to differentiate the subaltern on these lines. Once it is firmly placed within the scope of "labor" in the international divide, there is no hope for reconciliation (as Dayal tries to advocate).
The second implication of Spivak's Marxist opening is to commit her essay to a steady-- as I perceive hostile, and merciless-- reductio ad absurdum by which the subaltern continually dwindles, or if you prefer, outpaces all attempts to define it or answer to it. It withdraws from every gaze, until, in the final gesture, it gives way to a deeper silence, the subaltern woman.
Carr does a similar kind of thing, just with theories instead of the direct anthropologist's gaze. He articulates the "symbolic" as the final realm of contestation. I think Spivak has in fact symbolized subalternity through a ruthless and unflinching negativity. Carr's ending seems a little embarrassed that he cannot provide a good answer after having dismantled so many earnest attempts (Althusser, Lacan, Pease, Zizek and others) to responsibly deal with subject-formation. Ultimately Carr cannot escape the crushing burden of the negative established by Spivak.
And Dayal's essay holds a curious position in relation to the others. I think two results follow from Dayal's attempt to reconcile the "West" with local or native "particularity." The one, more obvious, effect is that Ramakrishna bursts forward in his Proper Name, in his excessive subjectivity, a process reverse from Spivak's comparative austerity.
The second result I think is quieter but more profound, and may be Dayal's secret goal, or if not, at least his real accomplishment. And that is actually to reverse the priority between native Indian tradition and Lacanian psychoanalysis, where Lacan seems to catch a glimpse of the Tantric mystic! Lacan strives for an ecstasy in spite of himself, and this is why his apparatus is so "helpful" in "making intelligible" Ramakrishna's practice. I don't know if this is an unintended irony or part of Dayal's deliberate plan.
There is a lot more which could be said about these essays, but I want to return, in closing, to the "symbolic." Carr writes against Zizek that the symbolic cannot be reduced to the real, and therefore that the subaltern is not real, only symbolic. This, as I tried to argue, illustrates Spivak's method in "representing" (symbolically) the subaltern only by negation, given the violence of the Western idiom.
The real, then, would be an impoverished form of symbolic, and appeals to the real per Zizek and Lacan only misconstrue apprehension of the symbolic. "Can the subaltern speak?" by this statement is a trick question, designed to embarrass any vocalized "answer." It teases the scholars, Dayal included, but as a simple question cannot contain its own nihilism. Like Ramakrishna, Spivak performs a radical intrusion into Western discourse, one that has proven deeply unsettling, and like him, she exceeds the affective potential of any response. We are left with an astringent negative, one which we perhaps deserve in our discursive plenitude. Any question of "resistance" or "agency" I think is either redundant or beside the point. If "reflexivity" and resistance are the same, as Dayal suggests, then the purpose or effect can be justly found in reflexivity in the Western reader. And when Carr upbraids Terry Eagleton for a naive "humanism" (28), we cannot help but laugh and wince at the same time.
While I appreciate that Spivak is pointing out the arrogance of Western critics attempt to “give voice” to the subaltern, I also feel that she is complicit in the same form or arrogance. The simple phrasing of the question, “Can the subaltern speak?” implies that the problem is a condition of the subaltern. Instead, could the question not be: Who is deaf to the subaltern, and why? Furthermore and perhaps more importantly, does not having a voice, or not being heard equate to having no power. It seems that the connection between having a voice, speaking, and being heard as the basis for power is a very Western and modern (by the 200,000 year history of human civilization) idea. With the exception of the last few hundred years, there have been few, if any, cultures where the masses have any voice at all. Discourse that supported the dominant regimes has been almost completely restricted to the social and cultural elites. In any case, the implication seems to be the subaltern is powerless in the dominant regime. If we understand being truly powerless as being unable to affect, then I question the whole notion of the subaltern. If the subaltern is unable to affect the dominant regime, then the existence or lack of existence of the subaltern should make no difference and have no impact on the dominant regime. Yet, every group that could be identified as subaltern, whether they are poor women in India, fruit merchants in Tunisia, or slaves in the American South, served a vital role in the culture, without whom the social structure and ultimately the dominant regime would collapse. As such, the subaltern cannot be said to have no power. The power and importance of the subaltern may be denied, ignored, or unrecognized but it is there none the less. Which bring me to the case of the Arab Spring.
ReplyDeleteBouazizi’s self-immolation was, in one sense, the suicide of an individual. Of course, many individuals commit suicide every day without receiving much attention, let alone sparking a cultural revolution. What made Bouazizi’s act unique was the convergence of a few significant factors. First, it was public and, thanks to technology, recorded and easily disseminated. Second, and most importantly, enough people in that society could empathize with Bouazizi to be driven to share the video and act in response. Suicide can be overly simplified as the result of existing or believing oneself to exist in a condition where the pain of continuing to live exceeds the basic motivation of self-preservation. Generally, when most people (not directly connected to the deceased) hear about a suicide, the initial reaction is to wonder what events or conditions in that person’s life resulted in that decision. Even when we are aware of the material “facts” of the situation, we do not feel the impact of those conditions sufficiently to fully understand or condone the act. In other words, we are not sufficiently affected. We may sympathize, but we cannot empathize. However, in the case of Bouazizi, enough people in the culture could empathize with the feeling that life under the current conditions were so difficult that they exceeded the drive to continue living. They understood the society could no longer sustain the lives of an entire class of people. As such, the status quo was no longer an option. The dominant regime was an immediate and tangible threat to the bodies of a large segment of the population. This lead to a choice on a large scale, either change the regime or die.
Finally, our (the class, Americans, Western intellectuals) understanding the impact on America or the West is problematic and suffers from a similar arrogant myopia as the discussions of the subaltern generally. First, while the enabling technology of Twitter and Facebook may have been developed in the West, its impact on the Arab world is not by default Western. Regime change may have come in the Arab world at some point regardless of the facilitating technology. Furthermore, it would have happened if outsiders were observing or not. So what has happened may not be a change in Arab identity, as much as a change in American understanding of the Arab world. For several decades, even preceding the Iranian hostage crisis in the late 70s, the general American view of Arabs was as a nearly homogenous group of Muslim (non-Christian, therefore: not sharing our values) violent, culturally and economically under-developed group of people. They were slightly more advanced than African tribesmen depicted in Tarzan movies, but not much.
ReplyDeleteBy asking if this revolution was an attempt to be more like “us”, we miss that “they” have always shared “our” need for basic sustenance, clothing, shelter, and personal and family security because “they” are humans too. The core of the Arab Spring uprising was not about democracy, religion, or even the need to speak. It was about changing the culture to one that supports their continued existence as living bodies. As to whether that is authentic regime change, I can only say that any regime that fails to sustain large segments of its population is ultimately doomed to fail.
From our Western perspective, it is easy to claim that Bouazizi’s act was an example of the subaltern speaking. When faced with what seems to us (as outsiders looking in) like a ‘lost cause’ or a bleak outlook, we project our own ideas of dismal situations onto another group and recognize ourselves in it. The constructed subaltern group becomes like ‘us’ and we interpret their actions in terms of what we think we would do in a similar situation. But, how can we really know what Bouazizi’s intentions were when he set himself on fire? Did he mean to spark a revolution or was he simply escaping his impoverished and oppressed life (albeit in an extreme fashion)? Would he have been “speaking” if no one responded, if no one ‘listened’? In this sense, the subaltern’s “speaking” is contingent upon the response to it. We think we know what the act of setting oneself on fire is saying because we take the after effects and use them to assign meaning to the previous act.
ReplyDeleteOur interpretation works backward and operates from a privileged temporal position. We see what WE want to see and not necessarily what the subaltern individual intended.
In the case of the Arab Spring, Bouazizi’s voice relies on the construction of his subjectivity and by whom. We assume his act is evidence that he recognizes himself as a member of the subaltern group who will only be heard if he acts in the most extreme manner. Look at me. Recognize me. Know that I exist. Our belief that Bouazizi self-identifies in this manner “exploits the individual’s self-recognition for symbolic and ideological use” (Carr, p.23). Because setting oneself ablaze usually ends in the death of its performer, other groups are free to assign symbolic meaning in whatever fashion they choose. Further, the response assigns meaning to the subaltern’s act which may or may not be correct and by doing so silences the subaltern’s voice even more. The subaltern does not speak for itself. Members of the elite speak for it by interpreting the action to fit their own ideologies. The fact that the revolutions that exploded across the “Arab” world are attributed to Bouazizi’s act makes it an example of the subaltern speaking but it would not be an example if nothing arised from it. People take their own lives every day. Are all suicides the subaltern speaking? The answer is obviously ‘no'. The context surrounding the incident has to line-up in a particular fashion for us to consider it so. The individual, the circumstances, and the public response must fit a pattern that scholars (and perhaps members of the elite) have determined to be subaltern. When a deviation occurs in any of these areas, the interpretation of the subaltern speaking is affected although that does not mean that it will not fit the definition of the subaltern speaking. For the Arab Spring, one cannot help but ask how the interpretation of Bouazizi’s act would differ if he was a woman. Certainly the response to a woman setting herself on fire would be different. As Spivak recognizes, when the subaltern is female, she is “even more deeply in shadow…” (p.28).