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Michael Herzfeld The Absent Presence: Discourses of Crypto-Colonialism PDF

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Preview Michael Herzfeld The Absent Presence: Discourses of Crypto-Colonialism

MichaelHerzfeld TheAbsentPresence:Discoursesof Crypto-Colonialism T he disciplines of social and cultural anthro- pology emerged from the ferment of West European world domination as instrument and expression of the colonial project. Although it subsequently turned against the practices and ideology of colonialism, it remains strongly marked by that historical entailment. Among themanyeffectsofcolonialismonanthropology, one in particular stands out: the fact that much of the discipline’s theoretical capital is palpably derived from ethnographic research done in the colonialdominions. TheDiscourseofHumanity: EchoesfromtheCrypto-Colonies While anthropology lays claim to global rele- vance, cultural groups that were never directly controlled by those colonial powers from which anthropology itself emanated (including coun- tries,suchastheUnitedStates,thatpracticedan internalformof imperialdominion)oftenseem suggestivelymarginaltothepredominantforms ofscholarlydiscourse. Within this broad spectrum of exclusion, TheSouthAtlanticQuarterly:,Fall. Copyright©byDukeUniversityPress. 900 MichaelHerzfeld anthropology displays two major, closely intertwined absences—one con- spicuous, the other furtive—from its theoretical canon.The conspicuous absence is that of modern Greece, the reasons rooted in the special kind of political marginality that has marked Greece’s relations with the West throughoutmostof itshistoryasanominallyindependentthoughpracti- callytributarynation-state.Whileitistruethattheextensiveproductionof ethnographicmonographsaboutpresent-dayGreecehasdonemuchtorec- tify the situation in recent years, it is only rarely that one encounters the countryin,forexample,introductorysocialandculturalanthropologytext- books—those photo-negative images of Western civilization introductory primers. The furtive absence is that of the classical Greek culture. It is furtive becauseitsheltersbehindthemultifarioussignsofapresence,whichmelts intoinsignificanceassoonasweattempttograspandidentifyit.Muchis madeoftherootsofanthropologyinHerodoteancuriosityandinAtticphi- losophy,butitisofaprohibitivelygenericcharacter.Thereseemstobesur- prisingly little that one could say with any confidence about the practical significanceofancientGreeceintheintellectualgenealogyofanthropologi- calthought,despiteaplethoraof bothcasualallusionsto,andspecialized invocationsof,ahypostatizedclassicalpast. Thesetwinabsencesspringfromacommonsourceintheconstruction of a discursive and geographical space called Greece. Greece tout court is almost always automatically assumed to be ancient Greece; the modern country,eveninitsowntravelbrochures,yieldstothecommandingpres- enceofahighantiquitycreatedinthecrucibleof late-eighteenth-century Aryanism—that same tradition of cultural eugenics that bred the Nazis’ ‘‘race science’’ and, at least in one controversial but persuasive historio- graphicreading,occludedbothSemiticandEgyptian(‘‘African’’)contribu- 1 tionstoEuropeanculture. AlthoughtheGermanphilologistsandarthistorianswhogeneratedthe neoclassical model of Greek (and more generally European) culture were notthemselvesmilitarycolonizers,theyweredoingtheideologicalworkof theprojectofEuropeanworldhegemony.Whilemuchrecentliteraturehas beendevotedtotheanalysisofthatprojectintheformofcolonialism,Iwant heretoinitiatediscussionofaratherspecificvariety—orperhapsitisanoff- shoot—ofthatphenomenon.Ishallcallitcrypto-colonialismanddefineitas thecuriousalchemywherebycertaincountries,bufferzonesbetweenthe colonizedlandsandthoseasyetuntamed,werecompelledtoacquiretheir TheAbsentPresence 901 politicalindependenceattheexpenseofmassiveeconomicdependence,this relationship being articulated in the iconic guise of aggressively national culturefashionedtosuitforeignmodels.Suchcountrieswereandareliving paradoxes:theyarenominallyindependent,butthatindependencecomes atthepriceofasometimeshumiliatingformofeffectivedependence. TwosuchcountriesareGreeceandThailand.Therearemanymore,and thevarietyamongthem—where,forexample,shouldweplacesuchdiverse entities as the former Yugoslavia, Japan, or Mexico?—and further explo- ration is likely to undercut the category of crypto-colonies, producing still finer discriminations. Nevertheless, these two cases, while geographically farapartandseparatedbyreligionandlanguage,displaysomecommonele- mentsthatatleastshouldservetoopenupdiscussion.Imostlyconfinemy remarksheretoGreece,buttheThaicasewillbeuseful—albeitinneces- sarilysketchyform—forbeginningtheprocessofcomplicatingthecategory ofcrypto-colonialismatitsverypointofgenesis. The strategy of building instability into the model right from the start in this way is entirely deliberate. It would be a strange irony were we, in an effort to transcend the binarism of colonizers and colonized, to gener- ateinsteadatripartitetaxonomythatwasnolessimpervioustothehugely diversecomplexitiesoflocalexperience.Greeceoffersafurtherprovocation thatwillhelpinmaintainingawarenessofsuchcomplexities,forthecountry hasauniquehistoricalrelationshipwithanthropology:itisassumedtobe theintellectualandspiritualbirthplaceoftheWesternculturesthatgener- atedthediscipline,anditsrelativeabsencefromtheanthropologicalcanon oftheoryisforthatreasonallthemorestriking.Thailandinthissenseis morelikesomanyothercountriesthathappennottohavespawnedmajor theoreticaltraditionsbybecomingparadigmcases,althoughbothThailand and Greece have been sites of important ethnographic research and con- siderable theoretical elaboration. But the Thai case provides n especially usefulfoilheretothatofGreecepreciselybecauseoftheremarkableparal- lelsthatappeartosubsistbetweenthetwocountries.Whilesomeofthese similaritiesdoundoubtedlyderivefromtheradiatingfalloutfromcolonial- ism,thehistoricalspecificitiesofthetwocases—includingtheirverydiffer- entrelationshipswiththeemergenceofthehumansciencesintheWest— willnotpermitanysuchsimplisticclosure.Othercountriesproduceother variationsonthisthemeofexclusionfromthetheoreticalcanon:Japan,for example,hardlyaweakplayerinworldpoliticsandeconomics(andacon- siderable imperial power in its own right not very long ago), nevertheless 902 MichaelHerzfeld exhibitscertainfeaturesofcrypto-colonialstatus,includingitscomparative 2 irrelevancetotheproductionoftheoryintheWest. Yetperhapsonefeature thatallthesecountriesshareistheaggressivepromotionoftheirclaimsto civilizationalsuperiorityorantiquity,claimsthatalmostalwaysappeardis- proportionate to their political influence.One begins to suspect that they havebeenplaced,orplacethemselves,onhighculturalpedestalsthateffec- tivelyisolatethemfromother,morebrutallymaterialformsofpower,and thatthisironicpredicamentisthedefiningfeatureofcrypto-colonialism. In suggesting that comparisons of this sort can be helpful, I am also extendinganargumentIhavealreadymadeabouttherelationshipbetween Greece and social-cultural anthropology: that both were products of the colonialist venture, being respectively a physical location and a discourse throughwhichthemoralsegregationoftheWestfromtherestoftheworld 3 was effected. Moreover, both Greek cultural politics and anthropologi- cal theory exhibit a progressive rejection of these presumptions over the pastseveraldecades.Localdiscoursesaboutthenatureofculture,civiliza- tion,andidentitythusbecomeimmediatelyandinterestinglycomparable toanthropologicalwritings,onwhichsuchdiscoursesoftendrawdirectly. Greece is certainly not the only country in which elites cultivated among thecitizenryadeepfearofbecomingtoocloselyidentifiedwithsomevague category of barbarians. But as the alleged inventor of the term barbarian itself,andastheallegedancestorofthemodernexponentsof‘‘civilization,’’ it serves as an intriguing locus of such concerns, particularly given the degreetowhichithasbeenamarginalandsubordinateplayerinthevarious projectsofEuropeanculturalpolitics. If Thailand, like Greece, holds a mirror to Western anthropological models, it is in some respects of a different sort. Here, we are looking at acountrythathaslongbeenregardedintheWestaspossessingadistinc- tiveculture.Butthatimageispartlytheoutcomeofsomecarefulimpres- sion management at the level of state-supported institutions, responding toperceivedthreatsfromtheever-colonizingWest(especiallyintheform ofBritainandFrance—twomajorsitesofanthropologicalemergence).For manyintheWest,Greecerepresentsthefirstfloweringof Indo-European languageandcultureonEuropeansoilfromrootstracedtotheSanskrittra- ditionsofIndiabutnowdeeplydomesticatedasWestern.InThailand,how- ever,despitethearrivalofSanskritandBrahmanismmanycenturiesearlier, the colonial powers threatened the independence of a Siam they encoun- teredasasiteofracialdifference.Thus,theusestowhichGreekandThai TheAbsentPresence 903 scholars,respectively,couldputtheevidenceofanancient,partiallyIndo- Europeanheritagewasnotthesame,becauseitdidnothavethesamerela- tionshiptothe‘‘Aryanist’’projectofEuropeanglobaldomination. MyconcernhereiswiththecuriousparadoxofGreece,atoncethecol- lective spiritual ancestor and a political pariah in today’s ‘‘fast-capitalist’’ 4 Europe, and with the uses to which internal elites put civilizational dis- courses to enhance their own power, at the cost of accepting the collec- tivesubjugationoftheircountrytoaglobalculturalhierarchy.Whilesuch processes have been well documented for colonies in the strict sense of 5 theterm—Indiaisanespeciallydramaticandwell-documentedcase —the modelofcrypto-colonialismsuggeststhatthishierarchywasnotconfinedto thecoloniesthemselves.TheThaicaseissuggestive,moreover,notbecause itmirrorstheGreeksituationexactly,butbecausethesimilaritiesthesetwo countries present do suggest that there may be some common elements, derivingfrompartiallycommonexperiences,inthewaysinwhichcrypto- colonies respond to that hierarchy by deploying a world-dominating dis- courseabout‘‘culture’’indefenseoftheirperceivednationalinterestsand specificity.Theyappeartoresistdomination,butdosoatthecostofeffective complicity—amodelthatmorecloselyapproachestheGramsciandefinition 6 ofhegemonythandomorerecentandcontroversialnotionsof‘‘resistance.’’ ThestrikingparadoxoftheGreekcasemakesitbothexemplaryofthese processes and yet also eccentric. Reminding ourselves of suggestive par- allels with Thailand will serve, at the very least, to rebut the temptation of reducing all crypto-colonialism to refractions of the Greek experience, althoughthelatterisextremelyrevealingoftheinternalcontradictionsthat models of European domination all contain. The very variety of crypto- colonialismsisthemarkofthemanywaysinwhichcolonialpowerhadto dealwithpersistentlocalideologiesandvalues,andtheproductionofcivili- zationaldiscourses—includingthatofanthropology—isanimportantpart ofthathistory.Anthropology,moreover,cannotaffordtoignoreitsownpast entailmentsinthesediscursiveprocessesif itisalsotomaintainitsclaim tocriticalpurchase. ARiskyComparison TherecenthistoriesofGreeceandThailandwouldcertainlysuggestboth strong similarities and equally striking contrasts. At first blush, the simi- laritiesseemtobedirectlyrelatedtointernationalrealpolitik,andsuchan 904 MichaelHerzfeld impressionwouldnotbesomuchinaccurateashistoricallyshallow.Both countrieslieatthesoutheasternpeninsulartipsofcontinentallandmasses inwhichtheyhavebordered,untilrecently,oncountrieswithaggressively communist ideologies—ideologies to which these countries’ official dis- courses oppose their own respective ‘‘national characters.’’ (Thailand also looks south and southeast to Malaysia and Indonesia, both of which have alsobeenthescenesofcommunistrevolutionaryactivityandfiercecounter- repression;GreeceonlyhasCyprustothesoutheastinitsimmediatevicin- ity,andhereGreece’sownroleisviewedbysomeinternalcriticsasaformof 7 culturalaswellaspoliticalcolonialisminitself.)Theprevailingculturaland politicaltensionsthatbothGreeceandThailandentertainwiththeirrespec- tivenorthernneighborshavedeephistoricalrootsthatpre-datethearrivalof avowedlyMarxistpolities.GreeceandThailand,however,bothservedU.S. interestsasstrategicpositionsinthecoldwar,andseemtohavemoreorless absorbedtheAmericanviewthatcommunismwasincompatiblewithcivili- zation;itisthislogicthathastosomeextentabsorbedthelocallyspecific featuresofearlierantipathies. TheGreekright-wingresponsetocommunismsucceededmoreorless seamlessly to preceding ideas about the country’s northern neighbors. Greek intellectuals had, since before independence, sought to identify Greek social atomism as a variety of ‘‘European individualism’’ in a man- ner that at one and the same time allowed them to argue both that their Slavicneighborswereuncivilizedcollectivistsandthattheirownpeasants andworkerswerespirituallycorrupt(becauseof‘‘Turkish’’influence)andso incapableofworkingcollectivelywithoutthestrongleadershipthattheelite 8 stood ready to provide. For Thailand the idea of freedom is certainly not aproductofthisEurocentricideology,althoughitsexpressioninnational discoursemayowesomethingtoit. Theironyofthisfreedom,however,isthatitindexesbothcountries’sub- jectiontoimportedmodels.TheGreekscelebratethe‘‘freespirit’’that‘‘lib- erated’’ them from ‘‘Turkish’’ (that is,Ottoman) rule and led them to pre- fer‘‘freedomtodeath,’’whilethenameprathetThai(‘‘landofthefree’’)was adopted at the height of an irredentist phase of modern Thai history par- 9 tially inspired by Italian and German fascist models. Those who dare to opposesuchmodelsare‘‘anti-Greek’’or‘‘un-Thai,’’andaresaidtolack‘‘cul- 10 ture’’—politismosinGreek,watthanathaminThai. Suchtermsarearchaic coinages,saidtobederivedfromancientGreekandSanskritrespectively. TheAbsentPresence 905 Although both were coined in their respective locales as marks of indige- nous pride, they are clearly both responses to external criteria of cultural excellence. InGreek,politismosmeansboth‘‘culture’’and‘‘civilization.’’Despitefre- quent invocations of a pastoral idyll, the internal-European answer to the 11 ‘‘noblesavage,’’ theEuropeanidealwasrootedintheideaofthecityand its accomplishments. In Italy, similarly, the ideal of civiltà remains a key 12 to urban cultural domination over the rural hinterland. But in Thai this equivalenceisnotsustained,andthatfactaloneshouldalertustoasome- what different dynamic, in which imitating the accomplishments of the West has meant having khwaamsiwilai (‘‘the quality of being civilized’’), whereas watthanatham (‘‘culture’’) might actually exclude the crass materi- alismthatsomeThaicriticsassociatewiththepollutingeffectsofWestern cultural influence.The Thai use of Sanskrit terms for lofty concepts pre- dates the European fascination with Sanskrit that supposedly began with Jones’s eighteenth-century explorations, and has deep roots in religious discourse,whereastheGreekterms,whilecertainlyintelligibletoanyone broughtuponadietofecclesiasticalGreek,wereactuallysecularcalques ontheculturalterminologyoftheEnlightenment.Theparallelbetweenthe twocountriesthereforedoesnotlieinasharedacceptanceofAryanisttheses emanatingfromthegrovesofGermanacademe,butratherinthefactthat bothgeneratedcivilizationaltermsintended,throughtheiraugustantiquity andculturaldignity,toearnthegrudgingrespectofforeignpowers. Thetermsiwilai,bycontrast,isunmistakablyaEuropean-inspiredcoin- ageinThailand,anditsideologicalimplicationshavetodowithwhatThong- chai Winichakul, adopting a metaphor developed by Mary Louise Pratt, describes as the ‘‘contact zone’’ that Thailand provides between local and invasivecultures—asituationthatrecallsthebufferzonestatusofGreecein 13 ‘‘themarginsofEurope.’’ Suchculturalambiguityfeedsonlocalizedforms ofotherness,ontowhichdominantpowersandtheirregionalagentsmap larger,globaldivisions.Amongthosesuspectedinbothcountriesofharbor- ingcommunistsympathiesweremembersofminoritygroups,somewith ethnic affiliations with neighboring and hostile nation-states. Even here, however,thereareimportantdifferences,showinghowculturalspecificities inflectsharedgeopolitics.InThailand,whiletheMuslimsofthesouthern- mostprovincesenjoyfullcitizenship,thehilltribesofthenorth—‘‘jungle 14 peoples’’ (chao paa) in Thai —have been denied full citizenship.Yet it is 906 MichaelHerzfeld thesepeoplewhomtheThais,inalocalizedversionof Victoriansurvival- ism,havesometimesrepresentedasembodyingtheconditionsfromwhich siwilaihaslongsincerescuedtheThaisthemselves. InGreece,thestatusofminoritiesisalsocomplex,althoughthecomplexi- tiestakeaninterestinglydifferentform.Muslimsarearecognizedreligious minority,asareJews—butwoebetideanywhocallthemselves‘‘Turks.’’The Greekauthoritiescountersuchself-ethnicizingtermsonthegroundsthat notallGreekMuslimsareculturallyTurkish,whichisinfacttrue:Pomaks speakBulgarian,whilethereareotherswhospeakAlbanianandotherlan- guages. But the state’s solution has been to deny the existence of ethnic minorities altogether, which means that those with potentially dangerous affiliationstoneighboringcountries—especiallyMacedoniansandTurks— findtheirethnicitycompletelysilencedbytheir(Greek)citizenship. At first sight one might deduce that this was the exact analogue of the situation facing the hill tribes in Thailand.Yet it is not so much the chao paa—despitetheirnoncitizenstatus—whoaretreatedassubversiveinThai- land; the authorities are particularly suspicious of southern Muslims of harboring separatist sentiments and equally suspect Chinese residents of supporting the communist cause. But they see the chao paa as instead representing the Thais’ own ‘‘primitive past,’’ a past to which energetic culturalregimentationwillnowbringtheseremainingpersonificationsof 15 Thailand’scollectivechildhood. IfthechaopaaarepotentialThaisinthe making, however, communists—and all who might be suspected of sym- 16 pathizing with them—are treated as irremediably ‘‘un-Thai.’’ In this last respecttheThaiand(pre-)Greeksituationshaveexhibitedsignificant convergence.HellenizationinGreeceandthequestforapan-Thaisiwilaiin Thailand,moreover,arebothaboutthecreationofastrong,centralizedcul- turalidentitydesignedtoprotectthe‘‘weaker’’membersofthenationfrom theimmoralblandishmentsofthe‘‘uncivilized’’and‘‘subversive.’’ To make sure that this crypto-hegemony was properly locked in place, moreover,localculturalandpoliticalleadershavewagedaggressivecentral- izingcampaignstohomogenizetheirrespectivenationallanguages.Here againweseenationalprideandculturalindependenceasamarkofpolitical dependence.ButwhereasintheGreekcasethemodelof‘‘purist’’(kathare- vousa)speech,whichremainedtheofficiallanguageofstateuntil,was constructedinemulationofWestEuropeanideasabouttheclassicalGreek language, leaving the local dialect of Athens to perish from neglect,Thai TheAbsentPresence 907 languagereformsseemtohavebeendirectedmoretohomogenizationand totheadoptionofaSanskriticvocabularythatwould—nonetheless—match thedemandsofacademicandphilosophicaldiscourseintheWest.Both,in otherwords,wereattemptstoemulatetheWest;buttheirrelationshipwith locallinguisticpracticeswasinterestinglydivergent. Onecommonfeaturespringsfromtheresentmentthateliteemulationof Westernmodelshasengendered.Bothcountriesare,significantly,hometo religionsinwhichmonasticismplaysanimportantrole,onethatisincreas- ingly,albeitthroughmarginalgroups(suchastheneo-Orthodoxmovement in Greece and reformist programs in Thailand), generating opposition to Western and materialist morals and models. Indeed, such reactions even turnagainsttheofficialrepositoriesofreligiousauthority;theneo-Orthodox complain about the ‘‘protestantization’’—at least in a formal, Weberian sense—oftheChurchofGreece,whilecriticismoftheSanghainThailand bygroupssuchasSantiAsokehassimilarlyattackeditsbureaucraticstruc- ture as well as its tolerance of corruption and materialism.While this is notthewholestory—otherreligiousdevelopments,suchastheDhamma- kayamovementandcertainlocalcults,haveappearedtosanctionmaterial- istconcerns—itdoesatleastsuggestthatonecommonreactiontocrypto- colonialismmaytaketheformofantimaterialistreligiousactivityinplaces 17 widelyseparatedbygeographyandculture. Such parallels, I suggest, are far from coincidental. If Thailand and GreecehadtomakemajorconcessionstotheEuropeanpowersinorderto maintainanysemblanceofsovereignty,internalculturalregimentation— thespacewheretheagentsofforeignpowersdisplayed,sotospeak,their ownagency—providedsuchdealswithafirmbase:theyestablishedapre- sumedcommoncodeofdiplomaticmorality,empoweringtheseeliteindi- viduals and groups to consolidate their authority, using culture as its pri- marymeasureandeconomiccoercionasitsmostcompellinginstrument. There were important differences at this level also, to be sure.Thailand, unlikeGreece,hadexistedasarecognizedsovereignstate,albeitinmuch 18 more fragmented form, for many centuries. Its monarchy was locally embeddedinreligioussystems,whereastheGreekkingshadtomakesym- bolic claims on a Byzantine crown that rang especially hollow in that the ancientByzantiumwasnowtheenemy’s—Turkey’s—mostimportantcity, Istanbul.TheGreekmonarchywasalwaysderidedasforeign,becauseitwas widelyperceivedtobeakeyagentofthecrypto-colonialprocess. 908 MichaelHerzfeld AnthropologyandtheQuestforOrigins:HellenismBound So Sanskrit was the bedrock; but Greece was assumed to be where it was thought to have erupted in a truly recognizable burst of European genius, individualism, and initiative. Such is the discipline’s implicit ori- ginmyth.Thisanthropology,moreover,isnottheanthropologia(thestudy of humankind’s role in the cosmos) of Orthodoxy, but the project of a 19 supposedly ‘‘superstition’’-free rationality. I have encountered informal, casual attempts to represent both anthropologies as fundamentally the same, just as there is a long history in post-Independence Greece of try- ing to prove that the ancient philosophers were the intellectual forerun- nersofChristianity,buttheseareafter-the-factversionsofthelong-standing Greekagonyoverhow(pagan)Hellenismand(Christian)Greeknessmight 20 be combined. Nor is the study of ‘‘ordinary people’’ (anthropi, classical anthropoi), with all their socially lubricating flaws and twists, the model for anthropology as it conceived itself until very recently. That model is severely neoclassical—as neoclassical as a nineteenth-century bourgeois Greekhouse,and,Isuggest,nocloserthanthattotheconceptualsystems ofhighantiquity. BecausetheGreekcaseallowsustoironizethehistoryofthediscipline soeffectively,anexplorationofthepeculiarlyunsatisfactoryclassicalgene- alogy of anthropology may be useful in assessing critically its role in the descriptionandanalysisofsocietyandcultureinThailand—or,indeed,in anyothercountrythatmightplausiblybecountedamongtheranksofthe crypto-colonies.Thisisnottoessentializethecrypto-coloniesandsoreduce themtoyetanothercaseofanthropologicalclassification.Itistousetaxon- omy to undo taxonomy, but always with an eye on significant differences thatwillalsomakeanygeneralizationsusefullyunstable.Itisinthisspirit that I propose the Greek case as offering a way into the disentanglement of a discourse that, while purporting to celebrate national independence, actuallyseemstofurtheritseffectivestrangulationatbirth. HistoriansandAnthropologists The usual institutional starting-point of anthropology as a discipline co- 21 incideswithE.B.Tylor’searliestuseofthewordin. Butunderlying assumptionsaboutWesterncivilizationappeartohavepushedtheorigins back to a far earlier date. Margaret Hodgen, for example, argued strongly

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sense—of the Church of Greece, while criticism of the Sangha in Thailand by groups such as Santi Asoke has . Greece.33 (Being an ethnographer of. Greece today provides a fine introduction to the problem, since one's inter-.
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