HBES4803

POSTCOLONIAL
STUDIES
Christopher Lloyd De Shield

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Project Directors: Prof Dato’ Dr Mansor Fadzil
Prof Dr Widad Othman
Open University Malaysia

Module Writer: Christopher Lloyd De Shield

University of Malaya

Moderators: Dr David CL Lim

Open University Malaysia

Selina Marie Rogers

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Open University Malaysia

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First Edition, December 2012

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM), December 2012, HBES4803
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means
without the written permission of the President, Open University Malaysia (OUM).

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Table of Contents
Course Guide ix-xvi

Topic 1 Introducing Postcolonial Studies 1

1.1 Postcolonial Studies and You 2
1.2 Assessing Scope 3
1.3 Introducing V.S. Naipaul and The Mystic Masseur 6
1.4 Continuing Legacies of Colonialism 7
1.5 Postcolonial Studies Closer to Home 10
Summary 10
Glossary 11
Self-test 12
References 12

Topic 2 V.S. Naipaul, Tone, Theme and Voice in Postcolonial Studies 13

2.1 Chronology of V.S. Naipaul 14
2.2 V.S. Naipaul & the Island of Trinidad 17
2.3 NaipaulÊs Background 20
2.4 Plot Summary 21
2.5 NaipaulÊs Themes 21
2.6 Voice and Tone 22
Summary 26
Glossary 26
Self-test 27
References 27

Topic 3 Slavery and the Colonial Encounter 29

3.1 First Encounters in the Novel 32
3.2 Slavery and the Middle Passage 34
3.3 Slavery, the Middle Passage and The Mystic Masseur 39
Summary 42
Glossary 43
Self-test 43
References 43

Topic 4 Legacies of Colonialism: Language 44

4.1 Creoles, Pidgins and Dialects 45
4.2 Colonial Attitudes to English in The Mystic Masseur 49
4.3 The Role of Standard English in The Mystic Masseur 55

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4.4 Language in the Mystic Masseur 56

Summary 58
Glossary 58
Self-test 58
References 59

Topic 5 Postcolonial Resistances: Myth and Hypocrisy 61

5.1 Colonial Hypocrisy 62
5.2 „The White ManÊs Burden‰ 66
5.2.1 The Myth of the Lazy Native 68
5.3 Identity and Nationality: Anti-colonial Naipaul? 70
5.4 Myth and Hypocrisy in The Mystic Masseur 71
Summary 72
Glossary 72
Self-test 73
References 73

Topic 6 Neocolonialism 74
6.1 Anti-colonial to Neo-colonial 75
6.2 Good Nationalist, Bad Colonialist? 76
6.3 Neo-colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism? 79
6.4 Pitfalls of the Term Post-colonialism 81
6.5 Leadership and Cronyism in the Mystic Masseur 81
6.6 Neocolonialism in Malaysia? 84
6.7 The "Post" in "Postcolonial" Versus the "Neo" in "Neocolonial" 85
Summary 85
Glossary 85
Self-test 86
References 86

Topic 7 Postcolonial Issues 1: Exile and Identity 87

7.1 West Indians in England 88
7.2 The Paradoxical Pleasures of Exile 88
7.3 Exile in The Mystic Masseur 91
7.4 Exile and Identity 92
7.5 Exile and the Malaysian Writer 93
7.6 Conclusion 98
Summary 99
Glossary 99
Self-test 99
References 100

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Topic 8 Postcolonial Issues II: Hybridity 101

8.1 NaipaulÊs Roots/History as Curse 102
8.2 History as Blessing 104
8.3 Creolisation 108
8.4 Colonial Ideas of Hybridity and Race 109
8.5 Hybridity in The Mystic Masseur 111
8.6 Hybridity in Malaysia 112
Summary 115
Glossary 116
Self-test 116
References 117

Topic 9 Postcolonial Themes: Tourism and the Postcolonial Environment 118

9.1 Environmentalism and Geography in Early Postcolonial 119
Writings
9.2 Naipaulian Style and Scene in The Mystic Masseur 120
9.3 The Colonial Legacy of Conservation 122
9.4 The Postcolonial Environment in The Mystic Masseur 123
9.5 Tourism and Colonialism 125
Summary 128
Glossary 128
Self-test 129
References 129

Topic 10 Postcolonial Studies and Naipaul in Review 130

10.1 The Significance of Small Islands 131
10.2 NaipaulÊs Trinidad 132
10.3 Naipaul and the Critical View 133
Summary 135
Glossary 135
Self-test 135
References 136

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vi  TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

COURSE GUIDE

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)
 COURSE GUIDE  ix

COURSE GUIDE DESCRIPTION

You are advised to read this Course Guide thoroughly. The guide outlines briefly
what the course is about and how you can work through the course material. It
also suggests the amount of time you would need to spend on learning activities
in order to complete the course successfully.

INTRODUCTION
HBES 4803 Postcolonial Studies is a course offered by the Faculty of Education
and Languages, Open University Malaysia (OUM). This is a 3-credit hour course
which should be covered over 8 to 15 weeks.

COURSE AUDIENCE
HBES 4803 is a core course in the Bachelor of English Studies (BEST) programme.

As an open and distance learner, you should be acquainted with learning

independently and able to optimise the learning modes and environment
available to you. Before you begin this course, please confirm the course material,
the course requirements and how the course is conducted.

STUDY SCHEDULE
It is a standard OUM practice that learners accumulate 40 study hours for every
credit hour. As such, for a three-credit hour course, you are expected to spend
120 study hours. Table 1 gives an estimation of how the 120 study hours could be
accumulated.

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x  COURSE GUIDE

Table 1: Estimation of Time Accumulation of Study Hours

STUDY
STUDY ACTIVITIES
HOURS
Briefly go through the course content and participate in initial discussion 3
Study the module 60
Attend 3 to 5 tutorial sessions 10
Online participation 12
Revision 15
Assignment(s), Test(s) and Examination(s) 20
TOTAL STUDY HOURS ACCUMULATED 120

LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
1. enumerate fundamental objectives and motives of postcolonial studies;
2. relate the general scope of the field;
3. expound on the relationship between fiction and the discourses of
postcolonial studies;
4. cite major thinkers, writers, and theorists recognised in the field and
describe their intellectual contributions;
5. offer critical comments and evaluate the work of a major author for
postcolonial studies, V. S. Naipaul, (especially, but not limited to, his early
novel, The Mystic Masseur);
6. expound on the legacies of colonialism and how they affect us today in
Malaysia and abroad.

COURSE SYNOPSIS
The ideology of imperialism and the practice of colonialism have violently·and
irrevocably·altered the course of history. The fact of colonialism has
transfigured both the physical and cultural worlds of diverse peoples and places
often to the point of decimation. More than this, imperialism continues today,
and the effects of past colonisation linger.

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Two grand guiding questions will frame this module, remember them:
1. What do responses and resistances to these imperial forces look like?
2. And how can we approach and evaluate the cultural formations that
emerge as a result of colonialism?

While this module is wrapped around V.S. NaipaulÊs text The Mystic Masseur,
we will also be looking at a diverse range of literature, art and other cultural
works to explore these questions. We will supplement our appreciation of the set
text and these cultural works with the facts of colonialism: statistics, historical
studies, maps, the latest academic findings and primary documents. The study
of such cultural works to understand and critique imperialism and colonialism is
known as Postcolonial Studies and it forms a large and sprawling discipline
whose borders are expansive, inclusive, fluid, and contested.

By doing this module, you will be entering a massive ongoing conversation with
people of diverse backgrounds from all continents of the world. Speaking,
responding, arguing, concurring·some voices are polite, others rude; some talk
in turn, others all at once; some voices are very aware of what has already been
said, and by whom, others speak out of a great deal of ignorance, or worse,
pretend that what they say is new. What else is academic work but a massive
multiple conversation?

Topic 1 introduces learners to the massive scope of colonialism by offering an

account of its legacies and revealing the ways it re-configured the entire world.
Topic 1 develops a fundamental concept: that effects of colonialism can and do
linger on to the present day. It suggests that we can better grapple with todayÊs
problems and issues by understanding important historical formations. It also
suggests that postcolonial fiction offers a most productive space to debate these
issues.

Topic 2 introduces learners to V.S. Naipaul as a writer especially significant for

postcolonial studies. It looks at NaipaulÊs biographical details and the history of
his Caribbean island home, Trinidad. Topic 2 asks students to familiarise
themselves with the geography of the postcolonial world and relate an authorÊs
themes, tone and voice to his/her social concerns.

Topic 3 discusses colonial first encounters to help students understand some of

the processes by which European domination began and some of the reasons
behind the ethnic makeup of many postcolonial countries today. At the end of
the topic, learners encounter important terms to know in postcolonial studies.

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Topic 4 complicates earlier topicsÊ accounts of colonialism by highlighting some

of the more ambivalent legacies·i.e. those that can be seen as positive or partly
positive developments for the post-colony. This topic foregrounds languages a
tool that can be used in service of·or against·colonialism. It introduces
learners to famous debates by postcolonial thinkers on this topic.

Topic 5 reveals colonialism as a hypocrisy of enlightened Europe. And highlights

the disconnect between colonial rhetoric and colonial methods. In particular, it
looks at the effects of colonial education in the colonies and gives examples of
colonial myths. It relates these topics to the special satirical force of NaipaulÊs
portrayal of colonial politics in the Caribbean.

Topic 6 introduces the concept of neocolonialism as it is used in postcolonial

studies. It encourages learners to locate instances of this concept in Malaysia, the
Third World in general, and finally, in NaipaulÊs Trinidad.

Topic 7 describes some of the pros and cons of exile for, especially, postcolonial
writers. It shows how exile sometimes paradoxically reinforces oneÊs identity and
explains the cultural predicament of West Indians, who had little sense of a
„pure‰ indigenous culture with which to contrast English culture. It ends with a
challenge, asking learners to recognise the dangers of asserting a single,
immediately accessible past culture as if culture is not dynamic and changing.

Topic 8 discusses the concepts of hybridity and creolisation. It shows how

historically negative colonial connotations of the words have been transformed in
postcolonial studies so that the term now refers to something far more creative
and positive. It discusses this with NaipaulÊs own unique view resulting from
his experience of fragmented history.

Topic 9 relates the importance of environmental concerns to postcolonial studies

and shows how early writers and thinkers in postcolonial studies were involved
in environmental concerns. Crucially, it critiques the conventional and false idea
that environmental consciousness concerns only elite citizens of Europe or
America.

In Topic 10 students recap the module by first dealing with some criticisms of
Naipaul. Engaging the main ideas of the previous topics through critical
perspectives on Naipaul allows them to challenge these criticisms using the new
knowledge they have gained by doing the module.

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TEXT ARRANGEMENT GUIDE

Before you go through this module, it is important that you note the text
arrangement. Understanding the text arrangement will help you to organise your
study of this course in a more objective and effective way. Generally, the text
arrangement for each topic is as follows:

Learning Outcomes: This section refers to what you should achieve after you
have completely covered a topic. As you go through each topic, you should
frequently refer to these learning outcomes. By doing this, you can continuously
gauge your understanding of the topic.

Self-Check: This component of the module is inserted at strategic locations

throughout the module. It may be inserted after one sub-section or a few sub-
sections. It usually comes in the form of a question. When you come across this
component, try to reflect on what you have already learnt thus far. By attempting
to answer the question, you should be able to gauge how well you have
understood the sub-section(s). Most of the time, the answers to the questions can
be found directly from the module itself.

Activity: Like Self-Check, the Activity component is also placed at various

locations or junctures throughout the module. This component may require you
to solve questions, explore short case studies, or conduct an observation or
research. It may even require you to evaluate a given scenario. When you come
across an Activity, you should try to reflect on what you have gathered from the
module and apply it to real situations. You should, at the same time, engage
yourself in higher order thinking where you might be required to analyse,
synthesise and evaluate instead of only having to recall and define.

Summary: You will find this component at the end of each topic. This component
helps you to recap the whole topic. By going through the summary, you should
be able to gauge your knowledge retention level. Should you find points in the
summary that you do not fully understand, it would be a good idea for you to
revisit the details in the module.

Key Terms: This component can be found at the end of each topic. You should go
through this component to remind yourself of important terms or jargon used
throughout the module. Should you find terms here that you are not able to
explain, you should look for the terms in the module.

References: The References section is where a list of relevant and useful

textbooks, journals, articles, electronic contents or sources can be found. The list
can appear in a few locations such as in the Course Guide (at the References

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section), at the end of every topic or at the back of the module. You are
encouraged to read or refer to the suggested sources to obtain the additional
information needed and to enhance your overall understanding of the course.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
No prior knowledge is required.

ASSESSMENT METHOD
Please refer to myVLE.

COURSE MATERIALS
Primary Text

Naipaul, V.S. [1957]. The Mystic Masseur. London: Penguin

References

Ball, John Clement. (2003). Satire & the Postcolonial Novel: V.S. Naipaul,
Chinua Achebe, Salman Rushdie. London: Routledge.

Bawer, Bruce. (2002).„Civilization and V.S. Naipaul‰. The Hudson Review.

371·384.

Bhattacharya, Baidik. (2006). „NaipaulÊs New World: Postcolonial

Modernity and the Enigma of Belated Space‰. NOVEL: A Forum on
Fiction. 1(1) Spring. 245·267.

Eastley, Aaron. (2009). „V. S. Naipaul and the 1946 Trinidad General
Election‰. Twentieth-Century Literature.55.1 Spring 2009. 1·36.

French, Patrick. (2008). The World is What it Is: The Authorised Biography
of V.S. Naipaul. New York: Knopf.

Mains, Susan P. (2004). „Teaching Transnationalism in the Caribbean:

Toward an Understanding of Representation and Neo-Colonialism in
Human Geography‰. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol.
28, No. 2, July. 317ă332.

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Mann, Harveen Sachdeva. (1989). „V. S. Naipaul: A Materialist Reading‰

Modern Fiction Studies. Volume 35, Number 2, Summer 1989, pp.
389-391 (Review).

Nunez-Harrell, Elizabeth. (1978). „Lamming and Naipaul: Some Criteria for

Evaluating the Third-World Novel‰. Contemporary Literature. Vol.
19, No. 1 (Winter, 1978). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 26-
47.

Ormerod, David. (1968). „In a Derelict Land: The Novels of V. S. Naipaul‰.

Contemporary Literature. University of Wisconsin Press. Vol. 9, No. 1
(Winter, 1968). 74-90.

Said, Edward. (1980, May 3). „Bitter Dispatches from the Third World‰. The
Nation. 522·525.

Sood, Diya. (2007). „Empire, Power, and Language: The Creation of an

Identity in V.S. NaipaulÊs The Mystic Masseur.‰ Ateneo. Vol. XXVll
Num. 1 junio. 93·101.

TAN SRI DR ABDULLAH SANUSI (TSDAS)

DIGITAL LIBRARY
The TSDAS Digital Library has a wide range of print and online resources for the
use of its learners. This comprehensive digital library, which is accessible
through the OUM portal, provides access to more than 30 online databases
comprising e-journals, e-theses, e-books and more. Examples of databases
available are EBSCOhost, ProQuest, SpringerLink, Books24x7, InfoSci Books,
Emerald Management Plus and Ebrary Electronic Books. As an OUM learner,
you are encouraged to make full use of the resources available through this
library.

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Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Topic  Introducing
1 Postcolonial
Studies
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. offer an account of the legacies of colonialism;
2. describe colonialism as a force that re-configured the world;
3. discuss some legacies of colonialism affecting speech and thought
today in Malaysia and elsewhere;
4. enumerate on postcolonial fiction as a space for debating issues in
our society (especially, The Mystic Masseur); and
5. relate postcolonial studies to a major modern writer of English
letters (V. S. Naipaul).

 INTRODUCTION
Colonialism is a policy whereby one nation acquires full or partial political
control over another country, occupies it with settlers, and exploits it
economically. Malaysia was a colony of Britain, and so were many other
countries around the globe (Kenya, India, Jamaica, Australia etc.). But Britain
was not the only colonising power operating in the world (Malaysia itself has
experienced at least four different imperial powers), and the legacy of
colonialism goes much deeper than simple extraction of resources for the benefit
of the colonial „motherland„.

So what does it mean to be postcolonial? How has colonialism affected you, and
does it still affect you today? In this first topic, you will explore some of the
legacies of colonialism·those effects, still observed today, that are the result of
past and present domination imperial European powers had over the rest of the
world. You will also take a look at different ways this history of colonialism
affects the way you think and live today.

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2  TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

1.1 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES AND YOU

What relevance do past historical events like colonialism have for the modern
Malaysian? One good indicator for the significance of colonialism for Malaysia
can be seen in the many (sometimes ridiculous) attempts made by those in
positions of power to change history or declare only particular versions of that
history as valid or invalid.

Consider the recent „debate‰ over MalaysiaÊs status as a former colony (Kee,
2011). Do you remember or are you aware of any part of this so-called debate?

While the British called Malaysia a protectorate and not a colony, they ruled and
dominated it in much the same way as any other colony. People argue over such
abstract things as the historical status of Malaysia as a colony, and they do so
from various ideological standpoints, because they know history to be relevant
for contemporary political discourse and decision-making. This particular debate
is rather silly (if Malaysia was never a colony then why do we celebrate
Merdeka?!), but it is still instructive because it concerns the disconnect between
what Malaysia was in name and what it was in practice; what the British said
they were doing and what they actually did are two different things.

In this case, history was poorly (or craftily and disingenuously) stated by certain
parties for a political end or purpose. These arguments against understanding
Malaysia as a former colony were made primarily to discredit the claim made by
a political opponent that communists fighting against the British in Malaya were
being patriotic while the colonial police officers, in opposing them, were by
default in the service of the British (and, in hindsight, unpatriotic).

Farish A. Noor makes a useful declaration in his commentary on the debate

(Noor, 2011). Although he called it a „waste of time, inane and counter-
productive‰ he still found time to intervene with comment of his own. According
to Farish A. Noor, the term for such manipulation of historical writing is
„revisionist obfuscation‰. That is, these attempts to bend history to oneÊs own
purposes are designed to confuse and control people and politics today.

This example demonstrates the power history has over current events and
demonstrates how colonialism impacts even political discourse. But colonialism
impacts far more than this and its influence can be found even in the subjects of
our daily conversations, our thoughts, behaviour and actions.

Postcolonial studies is all about understanding and coming to terms with the facts of
colonialism; it is about becoming aware of, critiquing and going through and beyond

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 TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  3

the lingering effects of colonialism to reach that condition known as modernity.

Fundamentally, postcolonial studies is about eliminating ignorance, learning about
ourselves and our past and how best to tackle the problems of the future.

1.2 ASSESSING SCOPE

Postcolonial Studies is large. Too large, some might say, because when we
consider vast·and vastly different·regions of the world, we inevitably simplify
or reduce the complexity of these places and cultural formations. For some
people, Postcolonial Studies should be about keeping this complexity alive, and
maintaining differences between regions; the danger lies in making every place
the same place by thinking of them in the same way.

But postcolonial studies has to be large, in part, because imperialism·with its

handmaiden colonialism·has affected the whole world. The first thing we will
need to do in this module is to investigate this claim.

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4  TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

ACTIVITY 1.1

Examine the map below to see the parts of the globe that have been
directly affected by European colonialism:

Figure 1.1: European Colonialism A.D. 1500ă2000

Source: Allen, J. (2010). pp 120ă121

According to the map, how many continents have been affected by

European colonialism?

This map does not show how many territories changed hands over the centuries.
In fact, most colonies began under one European power and switched again to
another as the powers in Europe battled for dominance.

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 TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  5

ACTIVITY 1.2

Follow the link to an interactive map online that can help you answer
the following questions. Right click on the map to zoom in and see
more detail:

<http://www.mhhe.com//socscience/polisci/rourkeflashmaps/map7
3.swf> Complete the following tasks to aid your examination of the
map:

1. Trace a line from Andalucía (Southern Spain), through the Canary

Islands, and on to the Bahamas archipelago.
This is the first journey of Christopher Columbus to „The New
World‰ and the beginning of Spanish Colonialism.

2. Notice PortugalÊs colonies in the New World to the East of Spain.

After Columbus, Spain and Portugal decided to divide the newly
discovered lands among themselves with the Treaty of Tordesillas
(before knowing much at all about them). They drew a line on a
map separating SpainÊs from PortugalÊs lands and sent many
more expeditions.

3. Can you find German and Italian colonies?

The other European powers were not happy with Spain and
Portugal claiming all this land as their own. Unfortunately not
many nations were rich or powerful enough to contest these
claims. Those few European nations that did have the resources
and power to do so, decided not to oppose imperialism, but to
make colonies of their own instead. What followed was a bitter
struggle to control lands all around the world.

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6  TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

4. Can you find the one modern nation-state in Africa that was not
colonised by a European power (even though it was still invaded,
at one point, by Italian forces)?
Africa was especially hurt by colonialism. At a conference in
Berlin in 1884, European powers carved up Africa and served it to
themselves; especially callous was the Belgian King, Leopold II,
who claimed a huge section of the African continent and, it is not
too harsh to say, allowed the rape of land and people.

5. Which European power colonised the most-and most diverse-lands?

Britain eventually came to dominate the World, dwarfing even
Spain, in terms of the size and strength of its colonies. It was
SpainÊs increasing riches and power (which came about from its
exploitation of colonies) that made Britain both envious and
nervous and provided the imperative for British colonialism.

6. Find Dutch Guiana.

This province is now present-day Guyana and Suriname two
independent nations. Britain made a deal with the Netherlands
and swapped Suriname for New York. We will think about the
„Discovery of Guiana‰ by English adventurer Walter Ralegh later
on in this unit.

7. What about the two continents not included on this map as having
been colonised·Europe & Antarctica? Have they been?
To answer that question, in Europe, just think about Ireland,
Scotland and Wales, not to mention the events leading up to WWII.
As for Antarctica, to this day, at least seven countries maintain
territorial claims there. Check it out for yourself.

1.3 INTRODUCING V. S. NAIPAUL AND THE

MYSTIC MASSEUR
Accompanying and supplementing your exploration of postcolonial studies in
this module is the novel The Mystic Masseur written by the Trinidad-born and
British-residing novelist V. S. Naipaul. V. S. Naipaul is a good author through
whom to explore postcolonial studies for several reasons.

For one, Naipaul is a writer of great experience having travelled and observed
many societies and countries all around the globe. The reason this makes him a
good author to consider in conjunction with postcolonial studies is not simply

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 TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  7

because he travelled or has world experience, but because he travelled especially

to those countries of the former British Empire (postcolonial states) and the
third-world. He has lived in Kenya and travelled in Africa, also to India, several
Islamic states, and even Malaysia. He has written about his travels to these
places, often treating them in what appears to be blunt, unsparing description.

NaipaulÊs personal or autobiographical information is also characteristic of

postcolonial themes. Naipaul traces his ancestry to India but his family is from
Trinidad. How did East Indians get to the West Indies? Many were brought over
as indentured servants after slavery was abolished and given hard labour to do
under horrible conditions. We will explore these types of transplantation of
peoples in later topics. Naipaul moved to England early in his career, which is
also characteristic of postcolonial peoples, who sometimes migrated to the
„motherland‰ in what some have called „reverse colonisation‰.

But also good for our purposes, is that NaipaulÊs work is often heatedly
discussed. In fact, among postcolonial circles, he is a controversial author. For
example, the celebrated academic Edward Said, whose work is seminal for
postcolonial studies (especially Orientalism (1978), which you will encounter
later), is very critical of the tone and voice Naipaul takes in his writing. Critics
like Edward Said feel Naipaul is not fair and too harsh or pessimistic when
describing, as he does, the problems and defects of postcolonial and so-called
third-world societies. They say he is not fair because he criticises and satirises
these societies (even, Trinidad, where he was born) but fails to really consider or
criticise the underlying causes for these problems, such as colonialism.

The Mystic Masseur (1957) is an early work by Naipaul that satirises Trinidadian
society during the time of nationalism and upheaval among postcolonial societies
world-wide. The novel is quite funny; but is it ok to poke fun and laugh at the
struggles of a tiny third-world nationÊs attempts to grasp modernity? In this
module we will attempt to appreciate the bookÊs many dimensions: the tragic,
the comic, and the seemingly banal, or ordinary.

1.4 Continuing Legacies of Colonialism

Colonialism did not always operate large scale (as in the subjugation of whole
countries and the transplantation of peoples). Sometimes it could operate quietly
or more subtly. This does not mean that these subtle effects are any less
dangerous or powerful. In fact, it is this quiet, creeping, insidious quality of
colonialism·that which infiltrates your thoughts and actions ideologically or
subconsciously that are, arguably, more devastating. What are some of the

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8  TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

legacies of colonialism that can be found in your social environment and context
in Malaysia?

Colour Prejudice
Colour prejudice exists on a continuum. At the extreme reside hate groups,
ethnocide, slavery and blatant ethnic or cultural racism. Perhaps less
immediately destructive but no less shocking are instances of discrimination,
racial profiling, institutionalised racism, and discrimination according to
perverse internalised standards of beauty.

In the context of The Mystic Masseur, the setting of which is Trinidad, there are
at least three major racial groups: Blacks, East Indians and Whites. There is also
some mixing of these groups, but at the time of The Mystic Masseur each kept
mostly to its own. At this time, there existed a general sentiment that Blacks and
East Indians existed at the bottom of the social hierarchy and therefore Whites
and everything British was afforded the image of wealth, high culture and
sophistication.

In the Caribbean, colonial overseers would actively promote and maintain this
perception by promoting lighter-skinned people to higher posts. This state of
affairs is called stratification of society (society is ordered by colour almost
exactly like caste system dominated pre-modern Indian society).

Read the following passage from The Mystic Masseur:

My foot was hot and swollen, and getting more and more
painful. ÂSo what we going to do?Ê I asked.
ÂDo?Ê my mother said. ÂDo? Give the foot a little more time.
You never know what could happen.Ê
I said, ÂI know what going to happen. I going lose the
whole damn foot, and you know how these Trinidad doctors
like cutting off black people foot.Ê
(Chap. 1)

In this first passage we can clearly see how Naipaul uses comedy, specifically
dark humour to illustrate the stratification of society by race or skin colour. The
narrator jokes about the disenfranchised position he occupies at the bottom of the
social ladder (he feels that coloured people do not enjoy the same rights and
privileges white people have). His concerns would not matter much to the
powers that be. By extension we see that people in privilege would not think
twice about destroying the poorer personÊs livelihood.

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 TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  9

But Naipaul does not simply side with the narratorÊs point of view. In fact,
Naipaul ridicules the ignorance and awkwardness of both the rich and poor in
colonial society, and the pretentions of both high and low society. Consider this
next passage from The Mystic Masseur:

The dinner was a treat for the photographers. Ganesh came in dhoti and
koortah and turban; the member for one of the Port of Spain wards
wore a khaki suit and a sun helmet; a third came in jodhpurs; a fourth,
adhering for the moment to his pre-election principles, came in short
trousers and an open shirt; the blackest M.L.C. [member of the
legislative council] wore a three-piece blue suit, yellow woollen gloves,
and a monocle. Everybody else, among the men, looked like penguins,
sometimes even down to the black faces.

(Chap. 11)

But what is happening in the second passage? Is Naipaul guilty of colour

prejudice in describing the guests like this? What is the point of calling attention
to the skin colour of the dinner guests and their mostly awkward clothing?

Naipaul here reveals how British styles and traditions, while they make no sense
in the tropical Caribbean setting, are still imitated by people trying to look
sophisticated and important. Because these people have taken up British customs
and culture, everyone feels it is only British style and custom that is supreme,
and everything else falls short. All such people succeed in doing, according to
Naipaul, is to look foolish. This is an important idea that many theorists of
postcolonial studies have written extensively about. We will return to this idea in
subsequent weeks.

ACTIVITY 1.3

Take another look at the M.L.C. dinner scene in The Mystic Masseur
(Chap. 11) paying close attention to the comments made by „the man
in jodhpurs‰ and „Mr. Primrose‰.
1. What other instances of colour prejudice does Naipaul provide
in this funny but really sad (tragicomic) scene?
2. What does Naipaul mean or suggest about Trinidad society
whenever he has characters using derogatory words and
phrases like Âblack as hellÊ and ÂniggerÊ?

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10  TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

1.5 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES CLOSER TO

HOME
What about colour prejudice as a legacy of colonialism in Malaysia? Does it exist?
LetÊs think about how this more subtle form of colour prejudice exists, even
today, in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, consider cosmetics advertisements on television that subscribe to a

particular concept of beauty that teaches fair (or white) to be more attractive than
dark skin. Some beauty products actually suggest that they can make the user
more popular by lightening their skin tone.

Can you think of a product that promotes this view?

ACTIVITY 1.4

Take a look at this Fair & Lovely product advertisement on YouTube

and/or find another one on your own.

Fair & Lovely http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvq9RRNHsYM

1. Note both the explicit (outwardly or openly stated) and implicit
claims being made by the advertisement. What does it say it can
provide; what does it suggest it can provide?
2. Now explain briefly how the assumptions made in this
advertisement (i.e. its ideology) might be considered a „legacy
of colonialism‰.

 The guiding questions for this module on Postcolonial Studies are:

1. what do responses and resistances to colonial or imperial forces look
like?
2. how can we approach and evaluate the cultural formations (especially
literature and the work of novelists like V.S. Naipaul and his The
Mystic Masseur) that emerge as a result of colonialism?

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 TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  11

 Spanish Colonialism is generally agreed to have started with ColumbusÊs

travels to the New World.

 The Europeans, convinced of their superiority, and motivated by greed,

committed many crimes against humanity.

 European powers jostled for dominance and fought over territory all over the
world.

 Colonialism affected all spheres of social and cultural life and we can assess
this through literature by using postcolonial methods of reading.

Imperialism a policy of extending a country's power and influence

through diplomacy or military force
Colonialism a policy whereby one nation acquires full or partial political
control over another country, occupies it with settlers, and
exploits it economically
Colony a country or area under the full or partial political control of
another country, typically a distant one, and occupied by
settlers from that country.
Postcolonial a method of working through the legacies of colonialism
(good and bad)
Ideology a particular world-view often unconsciously held; those
assumptions that are taken for granted
Discourse a set of ideas, assumptions and biases that manifest in
speech, thought, and action.
Colour prejudice discrimination against people by skin colour
Disenfranchised deprived of power; marginalized
Stratification arranged or classified according to layers (social class, race,
gender etc.)

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12  TOPIC 1 INTRODUCING POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

1. Name three different European colonial powers and a few of the territories
that each one came to control.
2. Which continent was almost totally reconfigured by colonialism?
3. How can colour prejudice be considered a legacy of colonialism?
4. Give an example of this colonial mentality that continues to exist in
Malaysia today.
5. If history concerns things that have happened in the past, why do we still
fight over it?
6. In what country do the events of The Mystic Masseur take place?
7. Why is V. S. Naipaul a good writer to use when thinking about Postcolonial
Studies? Give one reason.

Ahmad Fuad Rahmat. (2011, Sept. 12). We were a British Colony: A Response to
Zainal Kling. Malaysia Today. Available online <http://malaysia-
today.net/mtcolumns/special-reports/43390-we-were-a-british-colony-a-
response-to-zainal-kling> [Accessed 14 May 2012].

Allen, John. (2010). Student Atlas of Anthropology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kee Thuan Chye. (2011, Sept. 17). „Time to Reclaim our True History‰. Malaysia
Today. Available online: <http://malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/guest-
columnists/43522-time-to-reclaim-our-true-history> [Accessed 14 May 2012].

Noor, Farish A. (2011, Sept. 12). „Toying with History Again in Malaysia‰. The
Malaysian Insider. Available online <http://www.themalaysianinsider.com
/sideviews/article/toying-with-history-again-in-malaysia-farish-a.-noor/>
[Accessed 15 May 2012].

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Topic  V. S. Naipaul,
2 Tone, Theme
and Voice in
Postcolonial
Studies
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. recognise the Caribbean, and locate Trinidad on any world map;
2. identify important events in Caribbean colonial history with relation
to Trinidad;
3. relate NaipaulÊs biography and family history to his subject matter
and themes;
4. interpret the disruptive economic and social forces that shaped the lives
of Trinidadians of all backgrounds in colonial times; and
5. distinguish between tone, theme, and voice in NaipaulÊs work,
especially The Mystic Masseur.

 INTRODUCTION
As mentioned in Topic 1, this course investigates Postcolonial Studies through
the lens of a postcolonial text: V.S. NaipaulÊs The Mystic Masseur (1957). Topic 1
(Section 1.3) very briefly introduced V.S. Naipaul as a writer particularly suitable
for Postcolonial Studies. In this topic we will pursue this claim further by doing
two things: first, we will take a closer look at Naipaul as a writer·understanding

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14  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

his biographical background, noting major themes and settings of his work, and
engaging some of the critical appraisals of his work. And second, we will
consider the novel more broadly·noting the basic plot, style, and tone of the
work as a whole.

In later topics, close readings of the novel and various specific scenes will
illuminate general postcolonial themes. But for now, we should start by looking
at Naipaul the writer and the novel, The Mystic Masseur, more broadly.

2.1 CHRONOLOGY OF V. S. NAIPAUL

Year Event

1932 Born, Vidyadhar Surajprasad Naipaul: 17th August, in Chaguanas,

Trinidad; 2nd of 7 children·one brother and five sisters; son of Seepersad
Naipaul, journalist, grandson of a Hindu indentured labourer, a Brahmin.
1950 Arrives in England to go to Oxford University on a Trinidad Government
Scholarship.
1951 Suffers depression at Oxford.
1953 Father dies; Naipaul gets degree in English from University College,
Oxford.
1954 Moves to London with six pounds; works at a cement company for ten
months; works at B.B.C. as editor of „Caribbean Voices‰.
1955 Marries fellow Oxford graduate Patricia Ann Hale.
1957 The Mystic Masseur published.
1958 The Suffrage of Elvira published.
1959 Miguel Street published. The Mystic Massuer re-published. Receives
Somerset Maugham Award (for Miguel Street) and the Llewellyn Rhys
Memorial Prize for The Mystic Masseur.
1961 A House for Mr. Biswas published.
1962 Travels to India.
1964 An Area of Darkness published.
1966 At University of Kampala, Uganda.
1967 The Mimic Men published.
1969 The Loss of El Dorado published.
1971 Moves to cottage in Wiltshire, England. In a Free State published.
1972 Lecture tour of New Zealand. Publishes The Overcrowded Barracoon.
1977 India: A Wounded Civilisation published.
1978 Teaches as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University.
1979 A Bend in the River published.
1981 Among the Believers published.

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 TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  15

1987 The Enigma of Arrival published.

1990 Knighthood, (now Sir V. S. Naipaul). India: A Million Mutinies Now
published.
1994 A Way in the World published.
1996 January: Patricia Hale dies; 18 April: marries Nadira Alvi.
2001 Receives Nobel Prize in Literature from the Swedish Academy.
2002 The Writer and the World: Essays published.
2003 Literary Occasions: Essays published.
2007 A WriterÊs People: Ways of Looking and Feeling published.
2008 Patrick French publishes „The Authorised Biography of V.S. Naipaul‰
called The World is What it Is.
2010 The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief published.

ACTIVITY 2.1

1. Name four events you feel would be most significant for

NaipaulÊs life.
2. Which decade was most productive for Naipaul in terms of
writing output?
3. Which years might have been the most stressful for him?
4. Can you see any progression in the themes Naipaul chooses to
write on (judging from the titles) over the years?

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16  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

ACTIVITY 2.2

Where in the world is Trinidad?

Figure 2.1: Where in the World is Trinidad?

Source: Wikimedia Commons

South America links up to North America via two routes. Central America
joins the Sothern and Northern Hemispheres from Colombia through
Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua until you reach Mexico. The other route
is submarine: down the shallows of the Atlantic from Florida to the Bahamas,
past the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico onto the Lesser Antilles: a
chain of small islands that forms an arc all the way down to the South
American coastline. The last island of this chain is actually, or geologically,
part of the South American mainland. It is called Trinidad.

- continued on next page

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 TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  17

- continued from previous page

Answer the questions below:

1. Do you see the two routes by which South America links up to

North America?
2. Find Cuba, Haiti, and Florida on the map.
3. Why do you think Trinidad is considered Caribbean rather than
South American?

2.2 V. S. NAIPAUL & THE ISLAND OF

TRINIDAD
V. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad, and raised and educated there up to Sixth
Form level. He left after receiving a government scholarship to study at Oxford
University in England. You might assume that a Caribbean writer like Naipaul
might feel out of place in England and desire to return to his "native land". While
Naipaul did in fact feel some longing for home at points during his study, his
ambition was such that he did not want to go back to Trinidad. Colonial Trinidad
was, for Naipaul the aspiring writer, an oppressive society. Naipaul wanted to
escape Trinidad. As he says:

„I always knew that there was a world outside. I couldnÊt accept that
with which I grew up·an agricultural, colonial society. You cannot get
any more depressing or limited. [...] I wanted to escape Trinidad. I was
oppressed by the pettiness of colonial life and by (this relates more
particularly to my Indian Hindu family background) the intense family
disputes in which people were judged and condemned on moral
grounds. It was not a generous society·neither the colonial world nor
the Hindu world. I had a vision that in the larger world people would
be appreciated for what they were·people would be found interesting
for what they were.‰ (Tejpal, 1998).

Naipaul wanted to be a writer (in the romantic sense of the word) and to make it
in England, the so-called Motherland. His ambition was such that Naipaul
eventually began to actively reject the land that formed him·so much so that he
became defined by that rejection (French, viii). In 1983, an interviewer asked

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18  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

Naipaul, „You were born in Trinidad?‰. „I was born there, yes.‰ Replied
Naipaul, „I thought it was a great mistake‰ (Levin, 33).

Many critics take issue with NaipaulÊs rejection. In doing so, they fail to consider
how NaipaulÊs opinions might be ironic. Is it at all really possible to reject your
homeland and the cultures that made you who you are today? Naipaul ridicules
his place of birth and declares that nothing can come out of there; at the same
time, Naipaul comes from there and bases some of his most highly acclaimed
books on the experiences of East Indians and the scenes of Trinidad. Eventually
he wins the Nobel Prize and Trinidad can boast that it has produced a Nobel
Laureate.

NaipaulÊs rejection of his homeland of Trinidad for the cosmopolitan world of

London, England can be understood in terms of postcolonial studies as a
rejection of the "periphery" for the "centre". For centuries now, Third World, non-
Western, and postcolonial regions of the globe have been considered peripheral,
insignificant, and unimportant while Western metropoles (major cities) and
regions were considered central, important, and significant on the world stage as
they directed much of what happened.

NaipaulÊs rejection of his homeland is an attempt to matter, to be significant on

the world stage. This does not mean that Naipaul merely wanted to become
English. No, he wanted to become a writer immune to the attachments and
ideologies of those around him of whatever state, race or creed. In the words of
one critic, „Naipaul reverses normal perspectives and denies readers at the centre
their protective detachment‰ (Ray, xii).

NaipaulÊs criticisms of his homeland only express his desire that Trinidad, and
other so-called Third World regions the world over, earn their place in the
universal culture of the world. In other words, for Naipaul, if a society is not
capable of critical self-assessment or self-criticism, then it is not a mature society.

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TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  19

Figure 2.2: Trinidad & the Caribbean:

Source: „Map of the Caribbean Sea and its Islands‰. Wikimedia Commons

ACTIVITY 2.3

1. What is ambiguous about TrinidadÊs geographical location?

2. Naipaul has blamed the size of Trinidad for what he perceives as
its inconsequence. At the same time, Naipaul is a great writer
who comes from there; is this ironic or simply contradictory?
Explain.
3. Why do you think the little islands of the Caribbean were so
fought over during the colonial period?
4. If these islands were struggled over and played so consequential a
role during the colonial wars, can we truly call them peripheral, or
insignificant?

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20  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

2.3 NAIPAUL’S BACKGROUND

To understand NaipaulÊs background we must be familiar with large portions of
world history, much of it dirty. After slavery was formally abolished across the
British empire in 1834, cheap labour was needed for sugar-cane plantations. The
white plantation owners looked to India, especially Calcutta and Madras, from
where malnourished Indians were shipped for work. The British owned much of
the land in North India and many thousands of dislocated, landless peasants
there lived in great poverty. One way to escape these poor conditions was to ship
yourself all the way across the oceans to the Caribbean, to work as an indentured
labourer.

V.S. NaipaulÊs grandparents were both brought over from India to Trinidad, his
maternal grandfather escaped death because he was identified as a Brahmin
useful for his knowledge of Sanskrit. He was taken away from the shovel gang
and eventually led pujas or ceremonies for the Indian population.

In the next topic you will learn more about colonial horrors such as slavery and
its close relative, indentured servitude. It is useful to know some facts about
NaipaulÊs early childhood. According to Patrick French, NaipaulÊs biographer,
„in popular legend in 1930s Trinidad, Indians were depicted as poor, mean,
rural, heathen, aggressive, ethnically exclusive and illiterate. This, then, was the
rough world into which Vidyadhar Naipaul was born‰ (13). After the world war,
former colonials, who fought on behalf of Europe and America, were themselves
inspired to fight for their own liberation. Blacks were inspired by people like
Marcus Garvey, Indians too were stirred by GandhiÊs freedom movement. These
leaders helped pressure the Indian government to end indentured servitude of its
nationals in 1917 (French, 13).

By that time 144,000 people had already been sent to Trinidad. From 1925, there
was some elected representation on TrinidadÊs Legislative Council. At the time of
V. S. NaipaulÊs birth, the population of Trinidad was just over 400,000, of whom
one-third were Indians, employed as agricultural labourers, merchants, spirit-
vendors, clerks and shopkeepers (French, 13). You will encounter some of these
unforgettable characters in the novel.

For Naipaul, there is an inner contradiction or dilemma. In order to become a

great, world-renowned writer, Naipaul had to leave Trinidad. But it is the
writing that explores what he left behind including, childhood memories, street-
life in Trinidad, etc., that is most celebrated and considered great.

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2.4 PLOT SUMMARY

The Mystic Masseur is NaipaulÊs first published novel (although written earlier,
Miguel Street was not published until after The Mystic Masseur). It is a political
satire that charts the transformation of Trinidad from an agricultural colony to a
democratic state by tracing the unlikely career of Ganesh Ramsumair, a failed
schoolteacher and phony masseur (who nevertheless believes firmly in his own
greatness). In time, Ganesh achieves that greatness he so believes in and is
recognized as a great mystic, successful entrepreneur, and a celebrated
Trinidadian politician.

But GaneshÊs rise is full of irony. This irony provides much of the humour in the
book. And knowing something of NaipaulÊs biography is key to appreciating
some of this irony. It is easy to see the masseur/charlatan Ganesh as a caricature
or shadow of the author. Just like Ganesh, Naipaul has an early sense that he was
to be great: „Is a hell of a thing... I feel I make for something big, yet I canÊt see
what it is.‰ (Chap. 7).

When we look carefully at GaneshÊs rise we see that it is prompted not by noble
goals or righteous convictions but by simple greed and pride. Ganesh impresses
people by the size and thickness of his books, not by their content. He persuades
people of his mystic powers by the quantity of inscriptions and religious icons in
his house, and he attracts attention by crude publicity. His political convictions
change not for reasons of deliberation but as a result of a petty affront. For all of
these reasons, we find that Ganesh is not an representative character (i.e., he does
not represent any one particular person in real life), but he draws on truthful
elements of many people, the author included. Ganesh is an amusing and highly
ironic character because Ganesh isnÊt really out to con and trick people·he may
be a phony but he is a real phony; he „honestly believes all the phony junk he
believes in‰ (Bawer, 372).

2.5 NAIPAUL’S THEMES

It will be important to distinguish between NaipaulÊs themes, tone, and voice in
this section. Theme, tone and voice are all literary terms or devices that affect the
way we understand the narrative and the story as a whole.

Theme is a general or abstract summary of the central or dominant idea or

concern of a work. It answers the question, „what is this work about?‰ So, what
is the theme of The Mystic Masseur?

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22  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

The answer is colonialism, certainly, but also, dereliction and escape (think about
the characters who all want to get somewhere else and who are trying to fix or
change their situation), or decay and disappearance (Ormerod, 76). David
Ormerod, a critic of postcolonial fiction, for example, sees The Mystic Masseur as
a comic treatment of the theme of dereliction and escape.

The Mystic Masseur conflates the apparent isolation of Trinidad with the
isolation and remoteness Ganesh feels from the things that really matter. To
correct this, Ganesh tries to escape, but his futile attempts are largely comical. He
buys books in bulk, tries to write books (which he pretends people are after him
for), and most importantly sets himself up as a masseur and a spiritual healer. As
David Ormerod concludes, „Ganesh escapes, but the conclusion is fantasy and
his political success, besides being a wry commentary on the absurdities of
charismatic leadership, reads like some ideal wish-fulfillment dream‰ (78).

ACTIVITY 2.4

Answer the following two questions by finding examples of the

themes mentioned above.
1. What examples of the theme of dereliction/decay can you point
out in the opening chapters of the novel?
2. What are some references to colonialism in the opening
chapters?
3. Do you agree that the themes above are central to the novel?
Why?
4. Can you think of another theme, in your own words, that might

2.6 VOICE AND TONE

Throughout The Mystic Masseur, Naipaul adopts a dry, dead-pan voice
(narrative style and point-of-view) that serves to make the absurd parts all the
funnier. NaipaulÊs matter-of-fact narration in the novel is often described as wry
(dry and ironic). Sometimes this irony is absurd and funny; sometimes it is
humorous but hurts. Here are two instances:

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 TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  23

Amusing irony

He never saw Leela again until the night of their wedding, and both he
and Ramlogan pretended he had never seen her at all, because they
were both good Hindus and he knew it was wrong for a man to see his
wife before marriage.
(Chap.4)
Tragic irony

Leela continued to cry and Ganesh loosened his leather belt and beat
her. It was their first beating, a formal affair done without anger on
GaneshÊs part or resentment on LeelaÊs; and although it formed no part
of the marriage ceremony itself, it meant much to both of them. It meant
they had grown up and become independent. Ganesh had become a
man; Leela a wife as privileged as any other big woman. Now she too
would have tales to tell of her husbandÊs beatings; and when she went
home she would be able to look sad and sullen as every woman should.

The moment was precious.

(Chap. 4)

ACTIVITY 2.5

1. Why did Ganesh and Leela have to pretend they had not seen
each other if they actually had?
2. Why did Ganesh beat Leela if it was not out of anger?
3. Why did the beating mean so much to both of them?
4. How are these two passages examples of irony?
5. What is the difference between these two examples?

The tone is the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and theme.

What is NaipaulÊs tone in The Mystic Masseur? Take a look at the passage below
and try to describe the tone you find there. Remember, tone is an attitude toward
the subject. What, for you, seems to be the authorÊs attitude toward the subject of
the following passage?

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24  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

For more than two years Ganesh and Leela lived in Fuente Grove
and nothing big or encouraging happened.

Right from the start Fuente Grove looked umpromising. The Great
Belcher had said that it was a small, out of the way place. That was
only half true. Fuente Grove was practically lost. It was so small, so
remote, and so wretched, it was marked only on large maps in the
office of the Government Surveyor; the Public Works Department
treated it with contempt; and no other village even thought of feuding
with it. You couldnÊt really like Fuente Grove.
(Chap. 5)

ACTIVITY 2.6
1. Why donÊt other villages even think of feuding (competing) with
Fuente Grove?
2. Do you find this passage a) funny or entertaining b) sad and
depressing, or c) sad but humorous?
3. Can we really say that the author is roundly pessimistic about
his subject?
4. Is there anything positive or hopeful about the account?
5. What part of the description do you find most intriguing? Why?

In the passage above we might call NaipaulÊs tone deprecatory (insulting or

uncomplimentary). More than many authors, NaipaulÊs themes and tone have
been scrutinised and criticised. Many critics take him to task for his tone, others
defend him precisely for it. Literary critic Edward Said, for example, argues
that Naipaul "allowed himself quite consciously to be turned into a witness for
the Western prosecution" (521). Consider his take on Naipaul; rather than
celebrate NaipaulÊs tone as refreshing, Said is painfully worried about it:

Edward Said on Naipaul:

The possibility of anger, desperate bewilderment and bitter sarcasm
has always lurked in NaipaulÊs work, because the possibility derived
as much from his compromised colonial situation as it did from what,
as a result, he wrote about. His subject was extraterritoriality·the
state of being neither here nor there, but rather in-between things that
cannot come together for him; he wrote from the ironic point of view
of the failure to which he seems to have been resigned.
(Said, 522)

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 TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  25

ACTIVITY 2.7

1. According to Said, what is the theme or central idea of NaipaulÊs

work?
2. What, again according to Said, is NaipaulÊs attitiude or tone
towards his work?
3. Does Said approve of NaipaulÊs themes or methods? Why?

The reviewer Irving Howe, on the other hand, is enthusiastic about NaipaulÊs
tone. He says, „[Naipaul is] free of any romantic moonshine about the moral
claims of primitives or the glories of blood-stained dictators‰. Howe believes
Naipaul does this „without a trace of Western condescension or nostalgia for
colonialism‰ (Said, 523).

What are we to make of NaipaulÊs tone if it is one that seems to sneer and scoff at
his homeland? Is it fair or a cheap-shot on the part of a native? Let us take a look
at what Naipaul says of himself:

How can the history of this West Indian futility be written? What tone
shall the historian adopt? [...] The history of the islands can never be
satisfactorily told. Brutality is not the only difficulty. History is built
around achievement and creation; and nothing was created in the
West Indies (Naipaul, The Middle Passage, 29).

ACTIVITY 2.8

1. What does Naipaul mean by „historianÊs tone‰?

2. Can history be written in different „tones‰?
3. Why do you think Naipaul believes the islandsÊ history cannot
be satisfactorily told by writers?
4. Do you agree with him?

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26  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

 Trinidad is a small island nation off the South American continent that
identifies with the Caribbean.

 The Middle Passage, slavery, sugar plantations and indentured servitude are
colonial legacies that shaped who and what Trinidad is today.

 V.S. Naipaul, although choosing to leave his homeland, is no less formed, in

large part, by his experiences growing up there.

 Disruptive economic and social forces shaped the lives of Trinidadians of all
backgrounds in colonial times, Naipaul is no exception

 Sometimes NaipaulÊs tone seems to mirror Western condescending

paternalism especially in his satirical novels.

 Other times NaipaulÊs tone is critical attempting to honestly document the

challenges facing his characters.

Peripheral outside and insignificant

Centre a place of activity or the focus of interest, important
(central)
Condescending looking down upon something much as a father looks
paternalism disapprovingly upon an unruly child
Voice a general description of a writerÊs narrative style and point-
of-view
Tone the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject and
theme
Theme a general or abstract summary of the central or dominant
idea or concern of a work
Wry dry and ironic

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 TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES  27

1. Name three major features, demographic, economic, and/or political about

Trinidad at the time of NaipaulÊs childhood.
2. How did he get to England, and why England over any other country?
3. Why didnÊt he want to return to Trinidad after he had left?
4. Where is Trinidad in the World? Locate it on the nearest map.
5. Why do many critics have a problem with NaipaulÊs tone, especially his
books on the third world?
6. Describe, in your own words, something of NaipaulÊs style, themes or tone.
7. If Naipaul were to write a novel set in Malaysia, what do you think the
response to it would be like? By the government? By the reading public?

Bawer, Bruce. (2002). Civilization and V. S. Naipaul. Hudson Review, 55(3), 371-
84.

Fraser, Robert. (2000). Lifting the Sentence. Manchester: Manchester University

Press.

French, Patrick. (2008). The World is What it Is: The Authorized Biography of
V.S. Naipaul. New York: Knopf.

Levin, Bernard. (1997). V.S. Naipaul: A Perpetual Voyager. In F. Jussawalla (Ed.),

Conversations with V.S. Naipaul. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Naipaul, V.S. (2001). The Middle Passage: Impressions of Five Colonial Societies.
London: Picador.

Ormerod, David. (1968). In a Derelict Land: The Novels of V. S. Naipaul.

Contemporary Literature. Winter 9(1), 74-90.

Ray, Mohit K. (2004). V. S. Naipaul: Critical Essays. New Delhi: Atlantic.

Said, Edward. (1980, May 3). Bitter Dispatches from the Third World. The
Nation, pp. 522-525.

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28  TOPIC 2 V. S. NAIPAUL, TONE, THEME AND VOICE IN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

Tejpal, Tarun, Jonathan Rosen, and V.S. Naipaul. (1998). The Art of Fiction. The
Paris Review. No. 154. Available online
<http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1069/the-art-of-fiction-no-
154-v-s-naipaul> [Accessed 14 May 2012].

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Topic  Slavery and
3 the Colonial
Encounter
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. cite some other colonial first encounters;
2. outline some of the processes by which European domination
began;
3. identify some colonial legacies in Malaysia that persist till today;
4. intepret reasons for the ethnic makeup of many post-colonial
countries; and
5. explain important concepts that developed out of colonialism.

 INTRODUCTION
How do you imagine the first encounter between European explorers and the
natives of the so-called New World?

As we saw in Topic 1, Christopher ColumbusÊs first journey to the Americas is

generally taken to be the start of (European) colonialism. But even though
Columbus was the first European to meet with the natives of the Caribbean there
were many other „first encounters‰. European explorers came upon wondrous,
never-before-seen creatures, people and cultures again and again, and reports
were sent out about strange and wondrous lands and people so that more and
more explorers went out to claim lands discover new things for their kings and
queens. The Amerindians too, were amazed by the bizarre men who had washed
up on their shores and entered their lands.

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30  TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER

In this topic we will briefly consider a few colonial encounters and the lasting
consequences these meetings had for the nations concerned. We will also explore
some more legacies of colonialism that persist to this day, specifically those
legacies that followed the slave trade and the shipment of peoples across the seas
for labour. And we will think about NaipaulÊs own ethnic background and the
history behind the mostly Indian characters he portrays in the Caribbean island
of Trinidad.

Because these events happened a long time ago and to people with whom you
are not familiar, it may be difficult for you to think about what such an encounter
between people would have been like. The historical distance of the event is
great. One helpful way of approaching these encounters is through pictures or
images. But, in looking at these images we must be careful not to take them as
fully truthful or fully representational. Remember, the people who made these
images subscribed to prejudices and ideologies of their own!

ACTIVITY 3.1

Examine the image below and answer the questions that follow:

Figure 3.1: America, ca 1600. Engraving by Theodore Galle after a drawing

by Stradanus (Jan van der Straet) ca 1575
Source: BritishMuseum.org

- continued on next page

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 TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER  31

- Continued from previous page

1. Explain in two or three sentences your first reaction to seeing this

drawing.
2. How does the European contrast with the American in terms of
physical appearance (clothes, expression, actions, and
accoutrements)?
3. Why, do you think, America appears surprised and not Vespucci?
4. What are the two figures roasting in the background?
5. What kinds of animals are seen in the picture?
6. What do you think the artist was trying to suggest about the two
civilisations by showing these differences in appearance?

GalleÊs engraving is useful for postcolonial studies in that it reveals a particularly

significant historical encounter. This image depicts the encounter between
Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer from whom the Americas gets its name, and a
native American. The artists who did this drawing and engraving were not there
when it happened, of course, so this encounter is strictly a fictional
representation. The artists might have done a drawing of Christopher Columbus
(who encountered the Taíno) or Hernán Cortés (who encountered the Aztecs)·
both significant first encounters; but instead they chose Amerigo Vespucci
probably because in doing so, Vespucci might represent Europe, with the native
woman representing America. Thus, we might conclude that the artists are more
interested in making a statement about the civilisations in question rather than
give a faithful representation of the historic encounter.

Indeed, trying to locate the very first encounter between Europe and America is
not really any more important than thinking about the many other first
encounters that happened repeatedly between European and American groups
in the decades after Columbus. This image, which is obviously drawn from the
European perspective, is useful for thinking about this repeated encounter. Keep
it in mind.

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32  TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER

3.1 FIRST ENCOUNTERS IN THE NOVEL

Now letÊs move to the novel The Mystic Masseur and read carefully and closely
the narratorÊs first encounter with Ganesh:

But nothing had prepared me for what I was to see inside GaneshÊs
hut⁄ I had never before seen so many books in one place. ⁄
ÂIs my only vice,Ê Ganesh said. ÂOnly vice. I donÊt smoke. I donÊt
drink. But I must have my books. And, mark you, every week I going
to San Fernando to buy more, you know. How much book I buy last
week, Leela?Ê
ÂOnly three, man,Ê she said. ÂBut they was big books, big big books.
Six to seven inches altogether.Ê
ÂSeven inches,Ê Ganesh said.
ÂYes, seven inches,Ê Leela said.
(Chap.1)

ACTIVITY 3.2

What parallels can you find between the colonial encounter of Vespucci
and ÂAmericaÊ and the (post)colonial encounter between the narrator
and Ganesh? LetÊs read the passage more closely by asking some
probing questions.
1. Did you find the scene of the novel funny?
2. The narrator, the narratorÊs mother, and the taxi driver are so
impressed by the inside of GaneshÊs hut because of all the books it
contains. Why is it so impressive for them?
3. It is obvious, from the passage, that Leela and Ganesh have
practiced this show of counting all the books they have before.
Ganesh is happy to get more books, yet he calls it a „vice‰, why?
4. Ganesh brags a little about the size of the books he buys (some are
thicker books). What does this tell us about why Ganesh buys
them?
5. What does having all these books do for GaneshÊs image?
6. A little later in the chapter the narrator reveals the power of the
books in GaneshÊs hut. Find the passage and say what the
narrator was prepared to do after seeing all those books. Was his
faith and trust well-founded?

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 TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER  33

Books are an important part of The Mystic Masseur. Books are a symbol of
knowledge and power. In order to pull off the part of being an educated and
wise person, Ganesh acquires a lot of books·it does not seem to matter much to
him, or his mostly uneducated audience, what types of books these are; Ganesh
measures his collection by quantity and thickness, not by content.

ACTIVITY 3.3

Compare GaneshÊs position with that of some Malaysians today:

1. Is it not true that government, clerical or administrative positions
(where one must wear suits and ties, etc.) have more prestige in
the eyes of most Malaysians today than other equally (if not more)
honourable work, such as farming, or even teaching?
2. Would you say that there is prestige afforded to government and
clerical positions, regardless of what one actually does at these
jobs?
3. Sometimes, power dynamic comes into play when we encounter
behind-the-desk bureaucracy (marriage registrar, driving license,
hospital bureaucracy, etc.). Would you agree that this type of
power relation that exists between people, who are supposed to
serve the public, is partially a legacy of colonialism?
4. Think of the position of the British in Malaysia as administrators.
How is the prestige afforded to the British in this capacity related
to the prestige afforded to government officials in clerical
positions today?

Up to now, the centres of knowledge production and government administration

are ultimately based overseas, in England, because Trinidad is still a colony. A
major step forward for Ganesh and the country as a whole would be to have the
capacity to produce knowledge·original works tailored to the concerns of the
nation and produced by native inhabitants.

Colonialism had such an impact on society however, that attempting to uplift the
nation intellectually is a difficult and confusing task. To appreciate why this is so,
we will have to explore one of the most horrific legacies in the history of
colonialism: slavery.

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34  TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER

3.2 SLAVERY AND THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

With slavery, whole continents were impoverished in their relationship with
Europe. Africa, South America, Southeast Asia, Central America and the
Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, to name a few, all suffered under colonialismÊs
displacing and replacing of people. Humans were but one of the many resources
taken from these places which allowed Europe to develop and become very, very
wealthy. Racism, a natural by-product of colonialism, was not the cause of
slavery but it played a large part in justifying it. The legacy of racism and the
history of slavery are two of the most significant legacies of colonialism.

ACTIVITY 3.4

Which of the following famous companies and institutions has its

roots in Slavery? (Hint: it is a trick question!)

So, is it:
(a) The Bank of England?
(b) The British Museum?
(c) Cadbury Chocolate?
(d) Tobacco Companies like J & F Bell? or
(e) Botantical Gardens like the Chelsea Physic Garden in England?

You guessed it.

All of the above companies and institutions have links to slavery. The Bank of
England profited immensely from the slave trade, financing the tradersÊ
expeditions and providing them credit on their shipments. Museums all around
the world, as well as the scientific botanical gardens, owe substantial portions of
their collections to wealthy individuals who donated their personal collections,
as does the British Museum. Many of these wealthy individuals got rich off the
slave trade. The Cadbury brothers bought the rights to produce their own milk

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 TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER  35

chocolate from Sir Hans Sloane, a plantation owner who observed locals in
Jamaica mixing chocolate as a medicinal drink. He brought his milk chocolate
recipe back to England along with many other artefacts he recovered while
overseeing several plantations in the Caribbean worked by slave labour
(Sheller, 12-16).

Who were the slaves?

The slaves were Africans transplanted overseas in a process called the

Transatlantic Slave Trade which lasted over 400 years!

At the same time, on the East coast of Africa, Arab and African traders were
trading in slaves too.

Figure 3.2: Slave Trade Routes

Source: slavevoyages.org

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36  TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER

It is estimated that over 11 million people were taken as slaves in the

Transatlantic Slave Trade. Millions died en route before ever setting foot in the
„New World‰. The lives of the surviving slaves, but also the lives of generations
of later descendants would be negatively impacted by this drawn-out and
horrific event. This makes it one of the worst abuses in human history.

We can see how it affected Africa which lost many people and resources to
colonial abuses and still has not recovered from the effects today.

SELF-CHECK 3.1

1. How long did the Transatlantic Slave Trade last?

2. Where did slaves come from?
3. What were they traded for?
4. What work were slaves forced to do?

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 TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER  37

ACTIVITY 3.5
Assessing the Slave Trade

Use data from the table and timeline below to answer the following
questions relating to Slavery: (Follow the link and open the tab for the
interactive timeline:

[http://slavevoyages.org/tast/assessment/estimates.faces] courtesy of
Emory University project on slavery)
1. What were the main European countries involved in the slave
trade?
2. Which year recorded the highest number of transported slaves?
3. Why would slave trading spike so near the abolition of slavery?
4. Why does the transport of slaves continue after the slavery is
officially abolished?

Figure 3.3: Timeline of the Number of Captives Embarked and

Disembarked per Year
Source: „slavevoyages.org‰. Emory University.

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38  TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER

ACTIVITY 3.6
How did Slavery Work?

Traders exchanged European goods for African slaves that they then
sold to the Americas. The traders used the money they made to buy
raw materials (sugar, coffee, cotton, tobacco, etc.) to sell back in Europe
This scheme was hugely profitable and traders became filthily rich.
Britain came to dominate in this trade.

Figure 3.4: The Transatlantic Slave Trade routes

Source: slavevoyages.org

Trace the journey of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, indicating what the slave
trader did at each stop.

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

 TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER  39

3.3 SLAVERY, THE MIDDLE PASSAGE AND

THE MYSTIC MASSEUR
But Africans were not the only peoples trafficked. Indentured servants of many
different races made the journey across the seas. They replaced African slaves
after slavery was abolished. And while they were supposed to be paid, many
were not much better than slaves while they worked to pay off the costs of their
own transportation.

In fact, slavery could be described as an economic machine that „produced no

fewer than ten million African slaves and thousands of coolies (from India,
China, and Malaysia)‰ (Benitez-Rojo, 9). It produced mercantile capitalism (the
modern economy based on credit, interest and trading), industrial capitalism
(poorer countries produce raw materials, richer ones manufacture goods,
maintaining a dependent relationship), African underdevelopment (African
resources, including humans, stolen, crippling development potential), and the
populations or demographics of postcolonial states like Trinidad in the
Caribbean which counts East Indians, Blacks, and Whites in its census (Benitez-
Rojo, 9).

Think about the ethnicity of Ganesh Ramsumair. How did East Indians get to
Trinidad, making it what it is today? In The Mystic Masseur, in Trinidad, many
so-called East Indians can trace their genealogy back to indentured servants and
other early economic migrants. What was life like for these first migrants, the
ancestors of Ganesh (and Naipaul himself)?

For this, let us return to the encounter with Ganesh:

It was a long drive to GaneshÊs, more than two hours. He lived in a

place called Fuente Grove, not far from Princes Town. Fuente
Grove·Fountain Grove·seemed a curious name. There was no hint
of water. For miles around the land was flat, treeless, and hot. You
drove through miles and miles of sugar-cane; then the sugar-cane
stopped abruptly to make room for Fuente Grove. It was a sad little
village on the edge of the narrow lumpy road.
⁄Our taxi-driver shouted, ÂAi!Ê
ÂOi! I is Beharry. ⁄ ÂIs the pundit you looking for, not so?Ê
The taxi-driver said, ÂNah. We come all the way from Port of Spain
just for the scenery.Ê
Beharry was not prepared for this incivility.‰

(Chap. 1)

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40  TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER

ACTIVITY 3.7

1. What do you make of NaipaulÊs description of the scenery of

Fuente Grove and the surrounding area?
2. Why did Naipaul mention the miles and miles of sugar-cane
surrounding Fuente Grove?
3. What do you think is the main occupation of the people living in
the village of Fuente Grove?
4. Why does Beharry take the taxi-driverÊs statement badly when it
reads literally as a compliment?
5. What does the taxi-driver really mean?
6. What do you call this type of literary device (that the taxi man
uses in his speech)?

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 TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER  41

ACTIVITY 3.8
Read this excerpt from a poem by the award-winning Guyanese writer
David Dabydeen then comment on its portrayal of coolie indentured
servants. (The poem is in Creole, an English-based dialect spoken by
[Guyanese] natives of the Caribbean.

Poem Translation
Wuk, nuttin bu wuk Work, nothing but work/ Morning
Maan noon an night nuttin bu wuk noon and night nothing but work/
Booker own me patacake Booker* owns my cunt/ Booker
Booker own me pickni. owns my children/ Pain, nothing
Pain, nuttin bu pain but pain/ One million thousand
Waan million tousÊne acre cane. acres cane/ O since I was born ă
O since me baan·juk! juk! juk! juk! stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!/ So sun in my
juk! juk! eye like thorn/ So Booker searches
So sun in me eye like taan deep in my flesh/ Because Booker
So Booker saach deep in me flesh owns my arse/ And Booker owns
Kase Booker own me rass my cutlass/ But IÊm done with
An Booker own me cutlass· cursing, God let me not curse any
Bu me dun cuss ⁄ Gaad leh me na more/ Corn in my finger, corn in my
cuss no mo! foot-bottom

Caan in me finga, caan in me foot *Booker is the name of a white slave

battam⁄ owner
Source: Dabydeen, David. (1984). „Song of the Creole Gang Women‰. Slave
Song. Dangaroo Press, p.17.

This poem communicates the visceral experience of plantation slavery

and indentured servitude to the reader. The harsh images and crass
words and the orality of the Creole language effectively convey the
rough life of the plantation worker. Read the excerpted stanza aloud a
couple times to get feel of the sound and then explore the meaning by
answering the following questions.
1. The slave woman complains that her life is comprised of nothing
but work. What type of work is she doing?
2. In what way(s) does Booker, the white overseer or plantation
owner, also own the slave womanÊs body? What about her
children?
3. Why does the woman ask God to help her not curse any longer?

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42  TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER

What peoples were brought over to Malaysia during British colonialism here?
Keep that question in mind, because the Caribbean presents many interesting
comparisons and contrasts to Malaysia when it comes to the status of their
postcolonial populations. And we will take a look at these too.

In the next topic we will talk about the racial or demographic make-up of
Malaysia, and some of the insights, problems and intellectual tools postcolonial
studies brings to the table when discussing such issues. For now, let us conclude
this topic.

As in topic one, we see that our historical experience of colonialism has not
simply disappeared into thin air, but has continued on to the present in the form
of certain legacies. We can trace contemporary practices in our country today, to
the colonial-era period. One of the most obvious legacies can be seen in the
populations of our country, that is, the demographic make up. But there are less
obvious ones too, such as the power dynamic seen in the way government
officials run the country. Both of these issues will return in later topics. What you
have learned now is the historical foundations for these contemporary dynamics.
Foundations in colonialism, slavery, racism, and exploitative economics that
postcolonial studies must deal with.

 A colonial encounter is a meeting between civilisations of the West and the

pre-colonial world

 This encounter is "repeated" in interactions between peoples under a power

dynamic (one party exploits its position of power over another).

 Europe occupied this power position for many centuries and the effects of
this power grab linger.

 Commodities were shipped from different continents to fund Europe.

 Slaves were one such commodity.

 Indentured servants came over to the New World via the Middle Passage.

 Trinidad (and Malaysia) are the product of such global interactions.

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 TOPIC 3 SLAVERY AND THE COLONIAL ENCOUNTER  43

Slavery The state of being a slave

Racism The belief that all members of a race have the same
qualities specific to that race
Transatlantic Slave The horrible trade across the Atlantic of African slaves.
Trade
Indentured Servants Workers who had to pay off the cost of their bond
Historical Distance The difficulty of understanding past contexts
Colonial Encounter The meeting of the colonising civilisations with the native
civilisation wherever or whenever it occurs

1. What is a "colonial encounter" as defined in this module?

2. Give three historical examples of a colonial encounter. Use names of any
individuals involved.
3. How did Europe amass much of the wealth that helped it maintain
dominance in trade, finance, and economic and cultural sectors?
4. Name three commodities transferred between Europe, Africa, and the
Americas in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
5. Discuss this question: Did racism cause slavery or did slavery cause
racism?
6. Name one legacy of the colonial encounter that exists in Malaysia today?
7. Name a legacy of the colonial practice of slavery and indentured servitude
that you can see operating in Malaysia today.

Benítez-Rojo, Antonio. (1995). The Repeating Island. Durham: Duke University

Press.
Dabydeen, David. (1984). Song of the Creole Gang Women. Slave Song.
Mundelstrup, Denmark: Dangaroo Press.
Sheller, Mimi. (2004). Consuming the Caribbean. London: Routledge.

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Topic  Legacies of
4 Colonialism:
Language
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. appreciate some of relatively positive legacies of colonialism
alongside its horrors;
2. debate or defend language as a tool that can be used in the service
of or against colonialism;
3. define a Creole, and comment on the development and emergence
of new languages in the colonial setting; and
4. relate the several famous debates by postcolonial thinkers over the
politics of language.

 INTRODUCTION
The effects of colonialism linger to the present day. So far, we have investigated
this claim by looking at colour prejudice and racism·some of the worst legacies
of colonialism. If you had not taken postcolonial studies you might have thought
that the root cause of slavery was racism. But many postcolonial scholars
subscribe to the idea, articulated by the Trinidadian scholar and statesman Eric
Williams, that „slavery was not born of racism: rather, racism was the
consequence of slavery‰ (7). This way of thinking helps us concentrate on the
unjust systems that are the real problems we need to address and correct.

But not all of colonialismÊs legacies are categorically evil. In this topic we will
consider one legacy of colonialism that many have argued is as much a blessing
as it is a curse. We are talking about language.

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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  45

4.1 CREOLES, PIDGINS AND DIALECTS

In order to approach this topic, let us start with the novel. Just what language do
the characters speak in The Mystic Masseur? Let us listen in to a snippet of their
dialogue as presented by V. S. Naipaul:

ÂYou and me is one,Ê Ganesh said, still a little breathlessly, breaking

into pure dialect. ÂGod! Hear my heart beating. Only you and me see
it because you and me is one. But, listen to something I going to tell
you. You fraid the cloud, but the cloud fraid me. Man, I been beating
clouds like he for years and years. And so long as you with me, it not
going to harm you.Ê
The boyÊs eyes filled with tears⁄ ÂI know you is a good man.Ê⁄
ÂTomorrow is the day.Ê
ÂWhat day?Ê
ÂIt coming to get me tomorrow.Ê
ÂDonÊt talk stupidness. It coming tomorrow all right, but how it could
take you away if you with me?Ê
ÂIt saying so for a year.Ê
ÂWhat, you seeing it for a whole year?Ê
ÂAnd it getting bigger all the time.Ê
ÂNow, look, man. We must stop talking about it as though we fraid it.
These things know when you fraid them, you know, and then they
does behave like real bad-johns. How you getting on at school?Ê
ÂI stop.Ê

(Chap.7)

In this excerpt, where Ganesh attempts to heal a boy from a haunting spirit,
Naipaul presents some sustained dialogue. It is not written in Standard English,
and yet we can understand it. In Trinidad, as in many places all over the
Caribbean, the locals speak an English-based dialect called a creole.

When two or more languages come together, in order to understand each other,
the people must use bits of each otherÊs language to make a pidgin. When the
children of these pidgin-speaking persons grow up having pidgin as their mother
tongue or first language, a creole language begins to form.

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46  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

ACTIVITY 4.1
1. Choose two sentences from the passage above that are not in
standard English.
2. Write the sentence down as Naipaul does.
3. Then, translate it into Standard English following Standard
English grammar and usage rules.

Naipaul had to make a compromise when writing The Mystic Masseur, on the
one hand Standard English is not the main language of his characters, a couple
Trinidadian dialects of English would be. In order to be authentic he would have
to have his characters speak that, but in order to communicate to a greater
audience and more readers, Naipaul has to translate, anglicize (convert to
English), or tone-down the Trinidadian creole dialect. This way we can
appreciate the cultural and linguistic differences of Trinidad and still be able to
fully understand what the characters are saying.

But even inside Trinidad, different registers are used. Ganesh, like most people in
Trinidad, and the Caribbean, can code-switch. He does this because one style of
speech might be better for a certain situation than another. In other words,
Ganesh can, and does, adapt his speech to suit the occasion:

His speech became flexible. With simple folk he spoke dialect. With
people who looked pompous or sceptical or said, ÂIs the first time in
my life I come to anybody like you,Ê he spoke as correctly as possible,
and his deliberate delivery gave weight to what he said and won
confidence.

(Chap.8)

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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  47

ACTIVITY 4.2
1. Do you think Naipaul made the best decision in compromising the
Trinidadian dialect? Yes, or no? and why?
2. The narrator uses the word „correctly‰ to describe GaneshÊs
speech when talking to pompous or sceptical people. What does
the narrator mean by „correct speech‰?
3. Why does Ganesh use dialect (Trinidadian creole) to speak to so-
called „simple people‰?
4. The narrator gives us a good definition of the term „code-
switching‰ in this quote. He described it as "flexible speech". In
what way is it flexible?

ACTIVITY 4.3

Malaysia is a very different case from Trinidad. In Malaysia there is an

official or national language called Bahasa Malaysia. In Trinidad the
official language is English regardless of the dialect spoken on the street.
1. How many languages do you speak?
2. Which do you consider your „mother tongue‰?
3. Is it necessary for a country to have a national language?

One country that famously does not have an official or national language is the
United States of America. The USA does not have a national language, and while
most people speak English there, there are more and more people today who do
not, getting by speaking other languages, such as Spanish, instead.

Very often, Europeans introduced their languages into the countries they
colonized. Sometimes they meant to do so, other times they tried not to do so and
it happened anyway. Let us look at the colonial policy of divide and rule as it
pertains to language. Slavemasters were always on the lookout for rebellion.
They did not want the slaves or other workers to unite against them, as they
knew they would if given the chance because conditions were horrible for such
workers. In order to prevent them from organizing, the colonial slavemasters and
plantation owners divided people up so that in any one group, different
languages were spoken. This prevented the workers from communicating with
one another and therefore planning against the slavemasters.

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48  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

ACTIVITY 4.4

Look at this poem by Marlene Nourbese Philip about the power and
politics of language and answer the questions that follow:

Source: Marlene Nourbese Philip. „An extract from ÂDiscourse on the Logic of
LanguageÊ. in Susheila Nasta (ed.) Motherlands: Black WomenÊs Writing from
Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia. 1991. (pp xi·xii)

1. How does the poem indicate that there are three different voices?
2. What is the difference between a mother and a father tongue?
3. Do you have a father tongue?
4. Which voice do you think represents the imperialistic colonialist?

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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  49

- continued from previous page

5. Which voice represents the native person having experienced
colonialism?
6. What conclusions can you draw, from this poem, about the
power of language in colonialism?

This idea of English, or any European language inherited through colonialism,

being a foreign thing, distanced from native concerns and native expression, is a
powerful one in postcolonial studies. Look at how Naipaul ridicules the use of
English by the colonized. Seen through NaipaulÊs the Mystic Masseur, while
colonized people can and do use European languages to accomplish certain
goals, they only appear ridiculous when they mimic or imitate Europeans and try
to use it for everyday language.

4.2 COLONIAL ATTITUDES TO ENGLISH IN

THE MYSTIC MASSEUR
In The Mystic Masseur, Naipaul explores the colonial attitude toward Standard
English and its dialects. For characters like Ganesh and Beharry, only Standard
English is able to communicate highly sophisticated ideas, but they are
embarrassed to use it and so only use it for very formal occasions·this indicates
how fully they have absorbed this colonial mentality.

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50  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

ACTIVITY 4.5
Listen to GaneshÊs attempt to convince his wife to talk to him only in
„good‰ English.

Like many Trinidadians Ganesh could write correct

English but it embarrassed him to talk anything but dialect
except on very formal occasions...he perfected his prose to
a Victorian weightiness [but] he continued to talk
Trinidadian, much against his will.
One day he said, ÂLeela, high time we realise that we
living in a British country and I think we shouldnÊt be
shame to talk the people language good.Ê
Leela was squatting at the kitchen chulha, coaxing a fire
from dry mango twigs. Her eyes were red and watery
from the smoke. ÂAll right, man.Ê
ÂWe starting now self, girl.Ê
ÂAs you say, man.Ê
ÂGood. Let me see now. Ah yes. Leela, have you lighted
the fire? No, just gimme a chance. Is „lighted‰ or „lit‰,
girl?Ê
ÂLook, ease me up, man. The smoke going in my eye.Ê
ÂYou ainÊt paying attention, girl. You mean the smoke is
going in your eye.Ê
Leela coughed in the smoke. ÂLook, man. I have a lot
more to do than sit scratching, you hear. Go talk to
Beharry.Ê

(Chap.5)

1. Why does Ganesh want to speak in Standard English?

2. Why is he embarrassed to speak using Standard English?
3. What happens when Ganesh tries to get Leela speaking English
and not dialect?
4. What does this tell us about the ability of English to express,
simply and immediately, the ordinary things of their daily lives?
5. How does this passage comment on the place of English in
Trinidadian society?

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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  51

In the course of many debates over the issue of language, at least three basic
positions have emerged:
1. Many postcolonial writers have tried to fight European languages by
insisting on using their own native language (if they have one) or some
hybrid form (if they do not have another) different from the language of the
colonizer.
2. Other postcolonial writers accept the use of European languages despite
the destruction of native languages, saying that they can be tools used to
articulate native concerns.
3. Still others have championed the use of European languages, saying
languages like English, do not belong to England anymore, and so anyone
can use them as he or she pleases.

Now that we know the basic arguments, which one do you think V. S. Naipaul
subscribes to as the author of the Mystic Masseur?

ACTIVITY 4.6
Take a look at these particular quotations. Then match these
statements by famous postcolonial writers to their respective
ideological positions:

„...we can't simply use the language the way the British
did; it needs remaking for our own purposes. Those of us
who do use English do so in spite of our ambiguity
towards it, or perhaps because of that, perhaps because
we can find in that linguistic struggle a reflection of other
struggles taking place in the real world, struggles between
the cultures within ourselves and the influences at work
upon our societies. To conquer English may be to
complete the process of making ourselves free.

--Salman Rushdie. Imaginary Homelands

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52  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

„Writers should have a sense of roots, national identity

and pride in their language. Says Camus, ÂMy language
is my motherland.ʉ

--Muhammad Haji Salleh

„I believe that my writing in Gikuyu language, a Kenyan

language, an African language, is part and parcel of the
anti-imperialist struggles of Kenyan and African peoples.‰

--Ngugi Wa ThiongÊo. Homecoming

„English is no longer the exclusive language of the

men who live in England. That stopped a long time
ago; and it is today, among other things, a West
Indian language. What the West Indians do with it
is their own business.‰

--George Lamming. The Occasion for Speaking

„Those of us who have inherited the English

language may not be in a position to appreciate the value
of the inheritance. Or we may go on resenting it because it
came as part of a package deal which included many other
items of doubtful value and the positive atrocity of racial
arrogance and prejudice, which may yet set the world on
fire. But let us not in rejecting the evil throw out the good
with it.‰

--Chinua Achebe. The African Writer and the English

Language

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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  53

The education system carried the „contours of an

English heritage ⁄ that had very little to do, really,
with the environment and reality of the Caribbean‰.
„What English has given us as a model for poetry is
the pentameter‰ but „the hurricane does not roar in
pentameter‰

--Edward Kamau Brathwaite. Nation Language

„Colonial conquest ... ironically left our continent

with a short list of lingue franche that have been
appropriated to AfricaÊs own ends.‰ French and
English have become „adjunct African languages
by rightful appropriation‰.

ăNadine Gordimer. Status of the Writer

...for a writer in Malay, whether he is a Malay or a non-

Malay, he has to reinvent the language. All the more so
for Indians and Chinese. For a Chinese, when we write in
Chinese, we cannot pretend that nothing has happened
and try to write Tang poetry. So for us to write in
English, we are exiled three times, culturally and
spiritually from China, culturally from the indigenous
Malay culture and then writing in English. We cannot
claim that it is a tradition. I would say we have
appropriated the language. So, in a way, it is a much
more interesting medium to work with, to work with the
language against the tradition.‰

--Wong Phui Nam

„The English language is nobody's special property.

It is the property of the imagination: it is the
property of the language itself.‰

--Derek Walcott

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54  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

- continued from previous page

Look at the basic arguments on language listed in the following table.

Where would you place various postcolonial writersÊ statements in
terms of their ideology? Use the following table to roughly categorise
their statements presented below by writing their names in the
appropriate column.

Against For
Position The colonizerÊs The colonizerÊs The colonizerÊs
language cannot language can express language does not
express authentic, native concerns if belong to him
native concerns in you use it creatively. anymore. Use it
postcolonial societies. Use it with purpose. freely.
Do not use it.
Writers

To understand NaipaulÊs own position, consider this passage from an essay on V.

S. NaipaulÊs writing:

For Naipaul, the English language cannot always clearly translate West Indian
experience. Once when visiting a friend in Guyana, he was „overwhelmed by
the strong scent of a flower that flooded him with memories of his „old days‰ in
Trinidad‰ (Nunez-Harrell, 35). He asked his friend for the name of the flower. It
was Jasmine: „I smelled it as I walked back to the hotel. Jasmine, Jasmine. But the
word in the flower had been separate in my mind for too long. They did not
come together‰ (Naipaul, Jasmine, 25).

Why does Naipaul feel that the word for the flower and his own memory of the
flower do not match?

For Edward Kamau Brathwaite, this same problem happens to Caribbean

children in school when asked to write poetry about snow or daffodils (there are
no such things in the Caribbean). These things exist in the mind and are the stuff
of poetry, not reality. This is why Naipaul is perplexed. For Brathwaite and
others (see the table about language argument), a language is very much related
to the relevance of your ideas to the nation.
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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  55

4.3 THE ROLE OF STANDARD ENGLISH IN

THE MYSTIC MASSEUR
For Naipaul, as clearly seen in The Mystic Masseur, the English language is unable, in
certain instances, to serve as the vehicle for communicating the West Indian
experience. Think about IndarsinghÊs pathetic attempts to connect with his largely
peasant constituency while wearing strange clothes and speaking the KingÊs English:
Indarsingh came in an Oxford blazer and Swami, as organizer of
the Bhagwat, introduced him to the audience. ÂI got to talk English to
introduce this man to you, because I donÊt think he could talk any
Hindi. But I think all of all you go agree with me that he does talk
English like a pukka Englishman. That is because he have a foreign
education and he only just come back to try and help out the poor
Trinidad people. Ladies and gentlemen ă Mr Indarsingh, Bachelor of
Arts of Oxford University, London, England.Ê
Indarsingh gave a little hop, fingered his tie, and,
stupidly, talked about politics.
(Chap. 11)

Or take a look at the absurd attempts by Beharry and Ganesh to converse on

profound matters, not by talking on anything particularly significant, but by
simply using „correct English‰. Their language quickly becomes emotionless and
dull, signifying nothing:
Beharry was enthusiastic. ÂMan, is a master idea, man! Is one of the
troubles with Fuente Grove that it have nobody to talk good to. When
we starting?Ê
ÂNow.Ê
Beharry nibbled and smiled nervously. ÂNah, man, you got to give
me time to think.Ê
Ganesh insisted.
ÂAll right then,Ê Beharry said resignedly. ÂLet we go.Ê
ÂIt is hot today.Ê
ÂI see what you mean. It is very hot today.Ê
ÂLook, Beharry. This go do, but it wonÊt pay you hear. You got to
give a man some help, man. All right now, we going off again. You
ready? The sky is very blue and I cannot see any clouds in it. Eh why
you laughing now?Ê
ÂGanesh, you know you look damn funny.Ê
ÂWell, you look damn funny yourself, come to that.Ê
ÂNo, what I mean is that it funny seeing you so, and hearing you
talk so.Ê
(Chap. 5)

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56  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

ACTIVITY 4.7
1. What exactly does Beharry mean when he complains that there
is „nobody to talk good to‰ in Fuente Grove?
2. How would you translate into Standard English the phrase „it
have nobody to talk good to‰?
3. Why does Beharry need time to think before composing a
sentence in English?
4. Is Beharry translating his thoughts into English rather than
using it organically?
5. Naipaul suggests that the English language is unable to
adequately represent the West Indian reality of Beharry and
Ganesh. Do you agree that it is so unable?
6. What does Beharry find so funny about Ganesh when he speaks
ÂcorrectÊ English?
7. Why do you think Ganesh is embarrassed by using ÂcorrectÊ
English?

4.4 LANGUAGE IN THE MYSTIC MASSEUR

Language is important in the novel The Mystic Masseur. For one, although the
major characters in the novel identify as Indian, their homeland is multi-lingual
with each dialect and tongue occupying certain social strata and commanding
certain connotations and resonances. Adapting to the new land, changes
inevitably occurred for the people of Trinidad. For Ganesh, English became a tool
with which to impress people, and Hindi is a language he could bargain and win
people over with. Having these tools at his disposal allows Ganesh to take the
opportunities that present themselves and to succeed as a confidence man. But
just as the new tool has its benefits, certain things begin to be lost. As Naipaul
records in his Nobel lecture:

The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired

about nothing. I was just old enough to have some idea of the Indian
epics, the Ramayana in particular. The children who came five years
or so after me in our extended family didn't have this luck. No one
taught us Hindi. Sometimes someone wrote out the alphabet for us to
learn, and that was that; we were expected to do the rest ourselves.

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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  57

So, as English penetrated, we began to lose our language. My

grandmother's house was full of religion; there were many
ceremonies and readings, some of which went on for days. But no one
explained or translated for us who could no longer follow the
language. So our ancestral faith receded, became mysterious, not
pertinent to our day-to-day life.
We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had
left behind.

(Naipaul, Nobel Lecture 2001)

The creole that emerges in Trinidad serves a vital cohesive force. While the
"pure" languages of India, Africa, and Europe descend upon the Caribbean, what
happens inside is a radical process of creolisation which develops into a unique
form of expression that is beautiful in its own right. Some people criticise
Caribbean creole as being simply, "bad english", but the ability of practitioners to
code-switch and the inability to express certain unique and creative phrases in
the same way in English, points to something larger than simple failed mimicry.

What these critics do not admit is the irrelevance of the English literary tradition
to the West Indian novel. As Naipaul says, „the English was mine; the tradition
was not‰ (Jasmine, 26). One of NaipaulÊs achievements in writing the novel The
Mystic Masseur is to have written an accessible and enjoyable book on an
international level which effectively communicates its ideas via the expressive
vehicle of creolised dialogue. To do otherwise would have been, in certain ways,
inauthentic. As a novelist of the former British colonies, English is NaipaulÊs
medium of communication, and the eighteenth-century British novel, his
inherited literary tradition. Both legacies pose potential problems for the writer.

English may be a legacy of colonialism, but for postcolonial writers it is not

simply that; postcolonial writers are constantly bending the language to their
own purpose. More than this, and what Naipaul fails to realise, is that European
and colonial values are not the only standard for measuring the worth of
literature. Therefore, what is needed is a reassessment of literature based on
other, not-necessarily European criteria. Some say Naipaul fails to accept this and
continues to judge and ridicule from a Eurocentric position detached from
Caribbean life. But his books such as The Mystic Masseur suggest otherwise, by
reserving explicit judgement in the end despite laughing at the characters.

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58  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

 Although English is the official language in Trinidad, some different

languages are spoken, including Hindi.

 An English-based Creole is the most popular form of speech in Trinidad.

 Naipaul uses this creole to make his narrative authentic and convey
information in a way Standard English cannot.

 Language is one of the legacies of colonialism that is both beneficial and a

curse.

 Many postcolonial writers have struggled over the decision of whether or not
to use a colonial language.

 National languages, including creoles, are important for postcolonial

cultures.

Creole A mother tongue formed from the contact of two

languages through an earlier
Pidgin A grammatically simplified form of a language
Dialect A particular form of a language specific to a region or
group
Code-switch The ability to switch between two different forms of a
language or languages fluently
Divide and rule Separate into parts the better to conquer each

1. How does focusing on racism as a consequence of slavery (and not vice-

versa) help us understand and fight this social phenomenon?
2. Why canÊt we say all the legacies of colonialism were categorically evil?
Name two or three that, in your opinion, were partially beneficial for the
future postcolonial nation.
3. What is a Creole language and how does it form?

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 TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE  59

4. Why would not "Manglish" be considered a creole?

5. What languages are spoken in Trinidad and among whom or to whom are
they spoken?
6. What does it mean that GaneshÊs speech was "flexible"?
7. Is it in the interest of Colonial administrators to teach colonials standard
English or preserve their native tongues?
8. Why is it hard to preserve a "native tongue", other than English, or other
European language, for many peoples in the Caribbean?
9. What are the perceived associations that people in Trinidad assign to
speakers of Standard British English?
10. Which ideological position do you side with when it comes to writing in a
European language from the position of the postcolony? (See the writersÊ
positions in 4.4).

Achebe, Chinua. (1993). The African Writer and the English Language. Morning
Yet on Creation Day: Essays. London: Heinemann, 91-103. Available online
at
[http://chisnell.com/APEng/BackgroundNotes/Achebe/tfasubaltern.rtf]
(Accessed 30 May 2012).

Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. (1993). History of the Voice. Roots: Essays in

Caribbean Literature. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 259-304.

Gordimer, Nadine. (1999). The Status of the Writer in the World Today: Which
World? Whose World? Living in Hope and History: Notes from our
Century. New York: Farrar Strauss & Giroux.

Hirsch, Edward. (1979). An Interview with Derek Walcott. Contemporary

Literature 20(3), 286.

Lamming, George. (1995). The Occasion for Speaking. In Ashcroft, Griffiths,

Tiffin (eds.). The Postcolonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 12-17.

Naipaul, V.S. (1972). Jasmine. The Overcrowded Barracoon and other Articles.
London: Andre Deutsch.

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60  TOPIC 4 LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM: LANGUAGE

Naipaul, V.S. (2001). "V.S. Naipaul - Nobel Lecture: Two Worlds".

Nobelprize.org. Available online at
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2001/naip
aul-lecture-e.html] Accessed (1 Oct 2012)

Nunez-Harrell, Elizabeth. (1978). Lamming and Naipaul: Some Criteria for

Evaluating the Third-World Novel. Contemporary Literature, 19(1),
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 26-47.

Philip, Marlene Nourbese. (1991). An extract from ÂDiscourse on the Logic of

LanguageÊ. In Susheila Nasta (Ed.) Motherlands: Black WomenÊs Writing
from Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers
University Press, xi·xii.

Quayum, Mohammad, A. (2006). On a Journey Homeward: An Interview with

Muhammad Haji Salleh. Postcolonial Text. 2.4. Retrieved from
[http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct].

Rushdie, Salman. (1991). Commonwealth Literature does not exist. Imaginary

Homelands. London: Granta, 61-70.

ThiongÊo, Ngugi Wa. (1995). The Language of the African Writer. In Ashcroft,
Griffiths, Tiffin (Eds.). The Postcolonial Studies Reader. London: Routledge,
285.

Williams, Eric. (1944). Capitalism & Slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press.

Wong Phui Nam. (1987). Statement. In Kirpal Singh (Ed.). The Writer's Sense of
the Past: Essays on Southeast Asian and Australasian Literature. Singapore:
National University of Singapore Press, 215.

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Topic  Postcolonial
5 Resistances:
Myth and
Hypocrisy
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. identify the disconnect between colonial rhetoric and colonial
methods as a basic hypocrisy of enlightened Europe;
2. relate and assess the effects of colonial education on the colonies
and on non-European students;
3. give examples of colonial myths and offer reasons for the tenacity of
a certain „myth of the lazy native‰; and
4. interpret and defend the satirical force of NaipaulÊs portrayal of
colonial politics in the Caribbean.

 INTRODUCTION
Up to this point we have spoken a lot about the connection between what we do
and say and think today, and what we did and said and thought during the
historical experience of colonialism. The major idea that we have explored is,
simply, that the effects of colonialism persist until today. In this topic we will
move on by looking at actual responses to colonialism by early anti-colonial
writers and thinkers. To do this, we will turn to some foundational documents
for postcolonial studies.

Early responses to colonialism by colonised intellectuals often centred on the

hypocrisy of „enlightened‰ Europe. The problem for many of these critics of
European colonialism is that what the European intellectuals said differed from
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what they did. Various myths were used by colonial administrators to justify
what was obviously wrong or false.

5.1 COLONIAL HYPOCRISY

The first issue we will explore is the charge by many anti-colonial writers that
Europe (i.e. those influential leaders, administrators and policy-makers powerful
in Europe) was guilty of hypocrisy when it came to the colonies (its people,
creatures and natural resources). LetÊs look at the writing of Aimé Césaire who
gives us a powerful and poetic definition of colonisation:

What, fundamentally, is colonization? To agree on what it is not:

neither evangelization, nor a philanthropic enterprise, nor a desire to
push back the frontiers of ignorance, disease, and tyranny, nor a
project undertaken for the greater glory of God, nor an attempt to
extend the rule of law. To admit once for all, without flinching at the
consequences, that the decisive actors here are the adventurer and the
pirate, the wholesale grocer and the ship owner, the gold digger and
the merchant, appetite and force, and behind them, the baleful
projected shadow of a form of civilization which, at a certain point in
its history, finds itself obliged, for internal reasons, to extend to a
world scale the competition of its antagonistic economies.

(Césaire, 33)

This short passage, taken from CésaireÊs Discourse on Colonialism, is remarkable

for its hacking away all the false fruit of colonization to get down to the hard
kernel; it reveals colonization at the fundamental level. For Césaire, colonization
boils down to two aspects: appetite and force.

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ACTIVITY 5.1

Answer the following questions to help you analyse the excerpt.

1. What is evangelization? Why canÊt we say that colonialism is
fundamentally about evangelization?
2. What is philanthropy? Why canÊt we consider colonialism a
large philanthropic project?
3. Why does Césaire describe the decisive actors of colonialism as
„adventurer‰ and „pirate‰?
4. How do adventurers and pirates relate to appetite and force?

Consider GaneshÊs stint as a teacher in The Mystic Masseur. Despite all his good
intentions, Ganesh was unable to positively impact his students. When he
approaches the headmaster for help, the headmaster makes it clear that the school
does not value educating the students at all but only makes a show of learning.
The headmaster believes that the students, and therefore the people of Trinidad,
are and always will be, naturally inferior. Nothing could be taught to them.

When this idea of inferiority is extended to Ganesh, he rebels. Miller insultingly

says, „it have some people come from canefield and think they could teach, this
teaching is an art‰ (Chap.2). This is all the more insulting when we realise, with
dramatic irony, that Miller is blaming Ganesh as if he himself could do any better.
The fact remains that Ganesh gives up on teaching and observes Leep who tires
himself out trying to teach.

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64  TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY

ACTIVITY 5.2

Education in The Mystic Masseur

The headmaster leaned back in his chair and beat a ruler on the
green blotter in front of him. ÂWhat is the purpose of the school?Ê he
asked suddenly.
ÂForm—·Ê Ganesh began.
ÂNot·Ê the headmaster encouraged.
ÂInform.Ê
ÂYou quick, Mr Ramsumair. You is a man after my own heart. You
and me going to get on good good.Ê
Ganesh was given MillerÊs class, the Remove. It was a sort of rest-
station for the mentally maimed. Boys remained there uninformed for
years and years, and some didnÊt even want to leave. Ganesh tried all
the things he had been taught at the [TeacherÊs] Training College, but
the boys didnÊt play fair.
ÂI canÊt teach them nothing at all,Ê he complained to the headmaster.
ÂYou teach them Theorem One this week and next week they forget it.Ê
ÂLook Mr Ramsumair. I like you, but I must be firm. Quick, what
is the purpose of the school?Ê
ÂForm not inform.Ê
Ganesh gave up trying to teach the boys anything, and was happy
enough to note a week-to-week improvement in his Record Book.
(Chap. 2)

- continued on next page

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 TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY  65

- continued from previous page

Answer the following questions to better explore the implications of

this passage.
1. What is the difference between the verbs „to form‰ and „to
inform‰?
2. What is the headmaster suggesting about his school?
3. What does the headmaster suggest about the type of students he
has?
4. Why did the students remain in the class, without graduating for
years and years?
5. What does Ganesh do in the end?
6. Does GaneshÊs „solution‰ benefit the students at all?
7. What do you gather is the real purpose or effect of the school?

In this short school scene, we get a glimpse of life for children in the crowded,
poorer east side of Trinidad. Ganesh works at a government school charged with
the education of Trinidadians, but the headmaster is obviously unconcerned
about the welfare of his students. Why? The headmaster deems his students
inferior, not worthy of respect. Because he pre-judges them inferior, he does not
bother teaching them and because he does not bother teaching them they merely
reconfirm his suspicions. In this way, the teacher or headmaster creates what he
wants to find.

At the same time, however, the headmaster pretends that he has exhausted all
options in trying to teach the students, and that only he knows what the students
really need, that if it werenÊt for people like him the education of the people
would go to rot.

What V. S. Naipaul presents in this scene bears a striking similarity to the

colonial myth of the lazy native. According to this myth, colonialists were self-
less philanthropists that had to bear the burden of educating and civilising the
otherwise backward natives. This myth was used to justify much exploitation
and extraction of wealth all over the world.

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66  TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY

5.2 “THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN”

ACTIVITY 5.3

Study the following image and answer the questions

Figure 5.1: Civilising the ignorant native

Source: [The Journal, Detroit]. Wikimedia Commons.

1. Who is the soldier carrying and why?

2. What do you think it means that the way to the school lies uphill?
3. The way to the school is rocky and there does not seem to be a
clear path. What do you think this rocky way symbolises?
4. How does this image affect the way you consider African
natives?
5. How does it affect the way you consider White military officers?
6. If you could give this image a title, what would you call it?

The image you considered is an example of a type of rhetoric known as „the

white manÊs burden‰ that was used to justify the horrors of imperialism as noble,
honourable work. The colonial poet and writer Rudyard Kipling even wrote a
poem about it in response to the American take-over of the Philippines:

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 TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY  67

Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden, 1899

This famous poem, written by Britain's imperial poet, was a response to the
American take-over of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War.

Take up the White Man's burden-- Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed-- And reap his old reward:
Go bind your sons to exile The blame of those ye better,
To serve your captives' need; The hate of those ye guard--
To wait in heavy harness, The cry of hosts ye humour
On fluttered folk and wild-- (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, "Why brought he us from bondage,
Half-devil and half-child. Our loved Egyptian night?"

Take up the White Man's burden-- Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide, Ye dare not stoop to less--
To veil the threat of terror Nor call too loud on Freedom
And check the show of pride; To cloke your weariness;
By open speech and simple, By all ye cry or whisper,
An hundred times made plain By all ye leave or do,
To seek another's profit, The silent, sullen peoples
And work another's gain. Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden-- Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace-- Have done with childish days--
Fill full the mouth of Famine The lightly proferred laurel,
And bid the sickness cease; The easy, ungrudged praise.
And when your goal is nearest Comes now, to search your manhood
The end for others sought, Through all the thankless years
Watch sloth and heathen Folly Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
Bring all your hopes to nought. The judgment of your peers!

Take up the White Man's burden--

No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.

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68  TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY

Let us take a closer look at the third stanza of this poem:

Take up the White Man's burden--

The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.

The White ManÊs burden was the challenge of taking care of the natives despite
othersÊ questioning and the nativesÊ resentment for showing them the best way to
do things.
1. The second line of this stanza is contradictory: how can peace come
through savage wars? What does Kipling mean by this?
2. From the third stanza, what two philanthropic things does the colonialist
imagine he can do for the natives?
3. What characteristic of the native is most damaging to the colonialistsÊ
work?

5.2.1 The Myth of the Lazy Native

Why did the colonisers think of natives as inherently inferior?

A widespread myth circulating during colonial times was the idea that all natives
were lazy, indolent or stupid. Many thinkers have commented on this myth and
its origins, including a famous academic from Malaysia, Syed Hussein Alatas,
who wrote a book of the same title The Myth of the Lazy Native. Other notable
thinkers are Edward Said in his study Orientalism (1978) and Albert Memmi in
his book The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957).

Colonialists spread the myth so much that it became not only preposterous but
also contradictory. So why was it such a popular myth? Many who have studied
this myth have come to similar conclusions: colonialists perpetuated the myth
because it actually served colonialist interests. The logic behind this is contained
in the maxim, "weakness requires protection". If the colonialist could make it
seem that the natives were too weak to govern and uplift themselves, then this
would justify the imperial domination of land and people!

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 TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY  69

Can you think of a contemporary instance of this logic? Where in Malaysia might
we see one group or person justifying their domination over another because of
that person or groupÊs so-called weakness?

Take a look at the following analyses of this myth:

Albert Memmi (from The Colonizer and the Colonized, 1957):

„Nothing could better justify the colonizer's privileged position than his
industry, and nothing could better justify the colonized's destitution than his
indolence. The mythical portrait of the colonized therefore includes an
unbelievable laziness, and that of the colonizer, a virtuous taste for action. At
the same time, the colonizer suggests that employing the colonized is not very
profitable, thereby authorizing his unreasonable wages.‰

Edward Said (from Orientalism, 1978):

„Orientalism has been a sort of consensus: certain things, certain types of
statements, certain types of work have seemed for the Orientalist correct.‰

„[These] essential ideas of the Orient: sensuality; tendency to despotism;

aberrant mentality, habits of inaccuracy, its backwardness, etc. ... are distilled
into unchallenged coherence.‰

„Orientals were seen as problems to be solved; especially when their territory

was coveted.‰

Syed Hussein Alatas (from The Myth of the Lazy Native, 1977):
„European colonialism created an object ... the lazy native, who performed
a crucial function in the calculations and advocacies of colonial capitalism.‰

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70  TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY

ACTIVITY 5.4

1. In what way does the myth of laziness justify the coloniserÊs

privilege and the colonisedÊs destitution?
2. Why is it that, especially when their territory was desired,
Orientals were seen as „problems to be solved‰?
3. How does labelling the natives lazy help colonisers rule them?
4. Orientalism is an important concept defined by Said as a way of
organising information about whole peoples that enables those
in power to control them. Why do you think this concept was so
influential in postcolonial studies?

Albert Memmi goes on to say that because of this systematic labelling of natives
as lazy, even the most mediocre of colonialists can survive handsomely in the
colonies. This, he says, is why so few of these colonialists actually leave to
struggle for a living back home.

5.3 IDENTITY AND NATIONALITY:

ANTI-COLONIAL NAIPAUL?
Can we consider The Mystic Masseur an anti-colonial novel if it is an example of
postcolonial satire? Must we consider satire a genre that necessitates standing
aloof from society in order to merely laugh at it?

We need to remember that it was the political agitation of the 1940s (1946 is
noted at the end of Chapter 1 in the novel as the „turning point‰ of GaneshÊs
career) that opened the question of national identity, without which there would
be no West Indian novel at all, merely extensions of English literature. 1946 is the
year of the cane-cuttersÊ strike and the Trinidad Election; it is the year in which
Ganesh gave up the pretense of work and allowed himself to buoyed to the top
of the exploitative creme of the crop. Ironically, and sarcastically, it is when
Ganesh stops fighting for poor people·that is, when he stops doing his job of
representing the people·that he is rewarded by the colonial office and
eventually awarded M.B.E.:

Ganesh never walked out again. He went to cocktail parties at

Government House and drank lemonade. He wore a dinner-jacket to
official dinners.

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 TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY  71

In the Colonial Office report on Trinidad for 1949 Ganesh was

described as an important political leader.
In 1950 he was sent by the British Government to Lake Success and
his defence of British colonial rule is memorable. The Government of
Trinidad, realizing that after that Ganesh stood little chance of being
elected at the 1950 General Elections, nominated him to the legislative
Council and arranged for him to be a member of the Executive
Council.

(Chap. 12)

ACTIVITY 5.5

1. Read the section immediately prior to this one. In what ways is

this a sudden shift from GaneshÊs normal politics?
2. What happens immediately after Ganesh starts attending the
dinner parties?
3. Why did the Government of Trinidad (prior to independence) feel
that Ganesh stood little chance of being elected in the General
Election?
4. What happens to Ganesh immediately after giving a speech
defending English colonial rule in Trinidad?
5. What is ironic about the set of events depicted here?

5.4 MYTH AND HYPOCRISY IN THE MYSTIC

MASSEUR
The Mystic Masseur concerns the life of Ganesh Ramsumair and we follow the
turns and twists of his life in a small village for several chapters until, abruptly,
the political situation in Trinidad changes and GaneshÊs politics and ideologies
seem to violently shift in the opposite direction. Why was this? Was it because he
misread a heckler and gave a speech at an important strike despite being
ignorant of its purpose? What do you make of this sudden change? Does Ganesh
really have any motives, besides vanity or fame seeking?

Naipaul is famously dismissive of what he calls "protest literature" and he does

not believe that there was any plot or conspiracy on the part of colonial England
to intellectually stunt people in the colonies. Naipaul places the blame for Third
World ignorance squarely on the shoulders of the Third World itself.
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72  TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY

But at the same time, his satirical novel reveals, cuttingly, the injustices and
imbalances that occurred as status quo. As such, his satirical novel cannot help but
participate in the dismantling of colonial structures, revealing the concerns of the
dispossessed. As the Nobel Prize committee declared, Naipaul „united perceptive
narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of
suppressed histories". Naipaul was taken to task for being „totally detached in his
analysis of West Indian character‰ but celebrated for „his persistent use of West
Indian settings and characters‰, making him a „most influential artist for
establishing the West Indian scene as worthwhile subject matter for great literature‰.

Of course, today the importance of Caribbean literature is long established, but

NaipaulÊs work pioneered this acceptance and is still enjoyed today despite its age.

 Colonial authorities used official rhetoric to make their work sound noble.

 Sometimes this colonial rhetoric did not match the actions of officials. This
is called colonial hypocrisy.

 Colonial education had a peculiar effect on colonials. They were educated

according to foreign curricula and content.

 The „myth of the lazy native‰ was one of the most tenacious colonial
myths. It was used to justify foreign occupation and control of resources.

 Naipaul uses the force of satire to ridicule failed policies and hollow rituals
in the Caribbean.

Orientalism The discourse that explains an other for the person in

power and therefore controls that other.
Myth of the Lazy The Myth that colonial peoples, especially of the tropics,
Native were lazy or less industrious than Northern peoples and
thus less advanced.
Anti-colonial Fighting against colonial structures directly
White ManÊs Burden The task that white colonizers believed they had to
impose their civilization on the local inhabitants of their
colonies.

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 TOPIC 5 POSTCOLONIAL RESISTANCES: MYTH AND HYPOCRISY  73

1. Explain what Kipling meant by the term Âthe White ManÊs Burden‰?
2. Césaire did not have a problem with Western ideas, but took issue with the
hypocrisy of, especially, the so-called humanists of enlightened Europe.
What part did he find hypocritical?
3. Can satire·a genre that laughs at its subject-matter·ever be truly
postcolonial? Or does laughing at oneÊs fellow colonial subjects only hurt
the cause of those that work towards liberating them?
4. Why did Ganesh change his politics from exposing scandals to accepting
the lavish treatment of the elites?
5. Do you consider NaipaulÊs book, The Mystic Masseur detached or
unconcerned for the people of Trinidad?
6. Explain what is meant by the „Myth of the Lazy Native‰.
7. What are some of the effects of colonial education in, especially, tropical,
Third World nations?
8. In what ways did the education system of England confuse or retard the
progress of those persons living in the Caribbean who had never been to
Europe?

Alatas, Syed Hussein. (1977). The Myth of the Lazy Native. London: Frank Cass.

Césaire, Aimé. (1972). Discourse on Colonialism. (Joan Pinkham, Trans.). New

York: Monthly Review Press. (Original work published 1950).

Kipling, Rudyard. (1899). The White Man's Burden. The Internet History
Sourcebook. New York: Fordham University. Available online at
<http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/kipling.asp> (Accessed May 31
2012).

Memmi, Albert. (1967). The Mythical Portrait of the Colonised. The Colonizer
and the Colonized. (Howard Greenfield, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press.
(Original work published 1957).

Said, Edward. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Press.

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Topic  Neocolonialism
6
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. define the term neocolonialism;
2. relate neocolonialism to postcolonialism historically and
intellectually;
3. provide examples of neocolonialism in the Third World in general
and Trinidad in particular; and
4. describe instances of neocolonialism in Malaysia operating both
from within and without the country.

 INTRODUCTION
We have seen in the previous topic how colonial myth and hypocrisy were identified
and thrown back into the faces of the colonising oppressor. A good example of this
was seen in the work of Aimé Césaire (Activity 5.1). Early writings·e.g. Césaire,
Fanon, Du Bois, etc.·that protest the actions of colonisers are very influential in
postcolonial studies and are taken as foundational. The tactic of throwing the claims of
the colonisers back at them became a rhetorical and political strategy. In postcolonial
studies, this technique is probably best recognised in the clever title of an influential
postcolonial studies reader called „The Empire Writes Back‰.

However, if we donÊt read deeply and understand fully the objectives of these
early writers, there is a potential danger in framing things too simply. When we
look exclusively at the European coloniser as the agent of colonialism, we ignore
the many ways colonial exploitation can continue inside a country and among its
own natives. There is a danger of seeing only white, European, colonisers as
maintaining the machinations of colonialism. Unfortunately, natives, who
inherited the colonial systems of administration, ended up dominating, silencing
and threatening other natives, reproducing and sometimes even extending these
types of exploitation.

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 TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM  75

Colonialist representations often consider natives paternalistically and erase or

trivialise native representations and concerns. But native elites of a culture also
have the potential to operate in the same way. The language and thought of one
particular group of people, political class, or ideology is often elevated above that
of anotherÊs in postcolonial, independent countries in ways that mirror colonial
structures. The term that describes this particular phenomenon is neocolonialism.

6.1 ANTI-COLONIAL TO NEO-COLONIAL

Aimé Césaire cannot stand the hypocrisy of people who come to a foreign
territory under the pretence of religion, civilisation, and philanthropy but who
are really after economic benefit when all is said and done. As Césaire says in his
Discourse on Colonialism:

They talk to me about progress, about Âachievements,Ê diseases

cured, improved standards of living.
I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures
trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated,
religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed,
extraordinary possibilities wiped out.
They throw facts at my head, statistics, mileages of roads, canals,
and railroad tracks.
I am talking about thousands of men sacrificed to the Congo-
Ocean. I am talking about those who, as I write this, are digging the
harbour of Abidjan by hand. I am talking about millions of men torn
from their gods, their land, their habits, their life ă from life, from the
dance, from wisdom.

(Césaire, 43)

ACTIVITY 6.1
1. Césaire undermines each claim of the coloniser with a statement
on the cost of this so-called civilising mission of the colonisers.
What does Césaire feel is more important than the achievements
of the colonisers?
2. Who does Césaire, in effect, represent, or speak on behalf of?
3. Must the modern achievements of these colonisers always come
with the cost of many, many peoplesÊ lives?

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76  TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM

Revealing the exploiters in a postcolonial situation is part of the work of

postcolonial studies. But one danger that we must avoid when dealing with
postcolonial studies is that of unconditionally ascribing all virtue and honour
and righteousness to the "native", the local or the colonised culture for the mere
fact of being victimised.

Why is this a danger? Why not always ascribe virtue and honour to the
colonised? IsnÊt this justice?

Recall that the legacies of colonialism often linger on through to today. Elite
members of postcolonial societies often consolidated their power during the
struggle for independence and what is celebrated as a joyous victory for all
citizens in a postcolonial country may be a much more complicated situation and
a mixed blessing for the poorer or disadvantaged inhabitants of that country.
This is the situation presented to us with neocolonialism.

Some scholars continue to think about colonialism in binary terms (e.g. good
nationalist, bad colonialist). And some people continue to write about the evils of
foreign colonisers and agents but fail to criticise bad practices inside their own
country by their own leaders. Neocolonialism is a concept that helps us think
about this crucial element in postcolonial studies. Understanding neocolonialism
reveals that binary ideas that some scholars continue to voice are no longer
adequate today.

6.2 GOOD NATIONALIST, BAD COLONIALIST?

To illustrate the inadequacy of this binary way of thinking, let us consider the
infamous overthrow of the ancient Aztec empire in the 1500s. In that context, the
Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, was obviously the evil colonialist: he came
from European Spain bearing arms, converting peoples, raping women, stealing
gold. But if he is a clear villain, does that automatically make Moctezuma and the
indigenous Aztec people of Tenochtitlan the good guys?

Not quite. Something doesnÊt add up. How could Moctezuma and the Aztecs
(the supposed good guys) lose, when they vastly outnumbered Cortés and his
men (the bad guys)? In fact, the only reason Cortés could succeed in
overthrowing the Aztec empire is by setting the people against one another and
he was able to do so by exploiting MoctezumaÊs existing hierarchical order·an
order that was tyrannical and imperialistic also. Moctezuma was an emperor,
and as such, he supervised human sacrifices to the gods, demanded tribute,
conquered lands, and subjugated peoples.

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 TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM  77

This is emphatically not to justify the abhorrent colonisation of ancient Mexico

and the European subjugation of land and annihilation of cultures and peoples.
But this is to complicate the simple good vs. bad idea that sometimes pervades
facile analysis within postcolonial studies. Not everything colonisation brought
was bad. CésaireÊs rhetorical question is instructive here:

But then I ask the following question: has colonization really

placed civilizations in contact? Or, if you prefer, of all the ways of
establishing contact, was it the best?
I answer no.
And I say that between colonization and civilization there is an
infinite distance...

(Césaire, 34)

Keep that in mind when thinking about the general picture.

But concerning the specifics of the Aztec overthrow, we must realise that
emperors, by definition, make enemies. MoctezumaÊs enemies, other indigenous
Mesoamerican peoples, such as the Tlaxcaltec, joined forces with Cortés to throw
off the yoke of Moctezuma. Of course, Cortés also used a lot of crafty tricks
(some, like introducing the disease smallpox to the Americas, were even
unintentional) to pretend that he was a divine agent, but he could never have
toppled the entire Aztec empire without first inciting civil war.

Fast forward to the 20th Century, and take a figure like Che Guevara. Che
Guevara is acknowledged by many people as being a liberator of peoples under
imperialistic and fascist rule·his image is even (ironically) mass-produced and
sold as an invocation of pop protest. But his legacy is having developed guerrilla
warfare into a systematised form of resistance against imperialists. DoesnÊt
Cortés resemble Guevara in this way?

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78  TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM

ACTIVITY 6.2
Who was the real liberator?

Consider this quote by Wilson Harris comparing Cortés to Che Guevara:

„It is ironic that Cortés was a revolutionary of sorts·the

unwilling father of Latin American guerrilla action·when
he overthrew the tyranny of Montezuma. This is no apology
for the bestiality of the Spaniards·the rape of a people and
the sack of a culture. Yet in that sack is tied up the solipsistic
idealism of the old crusader and the new revolutionary.‰
(146·7)

1. How is the image of „bad colonialist and good native‰ in

postcolonialism too reductive and simplistic to be used today
given these examples?
2. Some African chiefs sold their own people (slavery was evidently
not morally reprehensible for some elite natives). But, in what
ways can we consider the African chieftains victims in this
situation?
3. Consider a trans-national worker in the finance or financial service
sector exploiting his own fellow citizens in the name of financial
gain on behalf of a multinational company. In what ways might
this type of exploitation resemble a neo-colonial structure?
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 TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM  79

- continued from previous page

4. In what ways might it differ? (See Question 3)
5. Meritocracy is a sham in some Third-World countries. Critics say
Naipaul laughs and blames victims, supporters say Naipaul has
clear view without distorting ideologies. In what ways, do you
think, NaipaulÊs satirical novel is a force for positive change in a
country like Trinidad?
6. What is it like in your country? Do people get jobs they deserve,
or is cronyism and corruption a big problem there? What is your
general opinion?

6.3 NEO-COLONIALISM, THE LAST STAGE OF

IMPERIALISM?
African theorists have been at the forefront of identifying this new, evolved
version of colonialism which has been labelled neocolonialism. The former
Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah·who was toppled in a coup with (it is
believed) CIA backing·noted how the European withdrawal from the colonies
did not end the imperial system but led to new and disguised forms that became
only more deeply entrenched.

Nkrumah noted how the „signature move of this neocolonial system is

systematically to uncouple power from responsibility, to remove or reduce all forms
of redress, and to promote the emasculation of all national states and their capacities
or even willingness to provide protection to their citizens‰ (Nkrumah, xi).

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80  TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM

Pablo Mukherjee gives us this example of neocolonialism in operation in India:

Figure 6.1: Kwame Nkrumah is an important early thinker of decolonisation, in

especially, the African context.

„When an Indian pesticide factory leaks lethal gas that kills and maims
thousands, its victims find out that it is owned by an American concern who are
not answerable to an Indian court and whose pitiful compensation offer is
deemed adequate by Indian politicians and judges (later discovered to be
ÂfriendlyÊ to the company) who are themselves unaffected by the accident ă such
is a portrait in miniature (each passing day yields a million different ones) of neo-
colonialism.‰(6)
1. Why isnÊt the American concern answerable to the Indian court?
2. How do so-called first-world countries get off the hook when it comes to
justice and social responsibility issues in the so-called third-world?
3. Is there any way the Indian victims of this companyÊs carelessness achieve
justice?

Troublingly, newer economic superpowers, such as China, are adopting some of

the same strategies of exploitation toward especially African countries much as
the colonial Europeans did. Can you think of instances in Malaysia where the
government and the law failed to protect its own citizens in the face of
belligerently wealthy interests or predatory multinational companies? Think
about palm oil plantations, or the recent Lynas rare-earth processing plant
debacle. How are these related to neocolonialism?

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 TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM  81

6.4 PITFALLS OF THE TERM

POST-COLONIALISM
Anne McClintock offers useful criticism of the term postcolonialism. She has
trouble with the implicit suggestion that colonialism is over, or done with. Here,
she presents one example of the continuity of imperialism today, in the practices
of the United States in the last century. Her analysis and examples come a decade
before the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Post-colonial" Latin America has been invaded by the United

States over a hundred times this century alone. Each time, the US has
acted to install a dictatorship, prop up a puppet regime, or wreck a
democracy. In the 1940's, when the climate for gunboat diplomacy
chilled, United States' relations with Latin America were warmed by
an economic imperial policy euphemistically dubbed "Good
Neighborliness," primarily designed to make Latin America a safer
backyard for the US' virile agribusiness. The giant cold-storage ships
of the United Fruit Company circled the world, taking bananas from
poor agrarian countries dominated by monocultures and the marines
to the tables of affluent US housewives.
And while Latin America hand-picked bananas for the United
States, the United States hand-picked dictators for Latin America. In
Chile, Allende's elected, socialist government was overthrown by a
US sponsored military coup. In Africa, more covert operations such as
the CIA assassination of Patrice Lumumba in Zaire, had consequences
as far-reaching. (89)

6.5 LEADERSHIP AND CRONYISM IN THE

MYSTIC MASSEUR
How does this set of circumstances compare to the situation in Trinidad, where,
as we find in The Mystic Masseur, incompetent persons are put in charge of
crucial functions because of the connections they have?

ÂI been thinking. I have a cousin working in the Licensing Office.

He could get you a job there, I think. You could drive motor car?Ê
ÂI canÊt even drive donkey-cart, Mrs Cooper.Ê
ÂIt donÊt matter. He could always get a license for you, and then
you ainÊt have to do much driving. You just have to test other drivers,
and if you anything like my cousin, you could make a lot of money
giving out license to all sort of fool with money.
(Chap.2)

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82  TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM

ACTIVITY 6.3

1. How can the speaker get Ganesh a job?

2. What is the main criterion for the job that the speaker offers
Ganesh?
3. What skills are required for the job?
4. Does Ganesh possess these required skills?
5. This example of cronyism and corruption occurs in a
pre-independence Trinidad. But how is it relevant to neocolonial
processes?
6. In what ways can this passage be seen as an implicit commentary
on how Trinidad is run and governed?

GaneshÊs Trinidad is a self-governing, partially autonomous colony on the eve of

inevitable independence. This in-betweenness of status renders some local
officials petty and guilty of short-termism, after all, who knows what the future
will bring for these persons? Take a look at this power squabble, resulting from
the surprise donation of funds to "uplift Trinidad Indians":

Two days after the publication of Volume One, Number One of

The Dharma it was announced in the Trinidad Sentinel that a Hindu
industrialist in India had offered thirty thousand dollars for the
cultural uplift of Trinidad Hindus. The money was being kept in trust
by the Trinidad Government until it could be handed over to the
competent Hindu body.
Narayan promptly claimed that the Hindu Association, of which
he had the honour to be president, was competent enough to handle
the thirty thousand dollars.
[⁄]
Ganesh made them all swear a terrible oath of secrecy. Then he
stood up and tossed his green scarf over his shoulder. ÂWhat I want to
say today is very simple. We want to use the money given us well,
and at the same time we want to stop Narayan making more trouble.
He says he is competent to handle the money. We know that.Ê
There was laughter. Ganesh took a sip of Coca-Cola from a prutty-
prutty glass. ÂTo get the money, we musnÊt only remove Narayan, we
must form one united Hindu body.Ê
There were cries of approval.
(Chap. 10)

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 TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM  83

ACTIVITY 6.4

1. Why do both Narayan and Ganesh struggle to make their

respective "Hindu associations" look (falsely) impressive?
2. What is GaneshÊs true objective?
3. What is sarcastic about the way Ganesh repeats the phrase, „we
know that [Narayan is competent to handle the money]‰?
4. Ganesh believes it is necessary to "form one united Hindu
body", but for what end does he believe this?

Re-read Anne McClintockÊs piece in 6.4. The image she invokes of the huge cold-
storage ships is a truly chilling one. Global institutions such as the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) enable US companies to roam the
world searching for the cheapest products to deliver to the tables of families of
richer nations. This system is maintained by either real or threatened military
action, preferential trade agreements, and global finance capital. And these
systems „force Asian, African and Caribbean countries to accept loans in return
for implementing structural adjustment programs (SAPs) which favour the
miniscule elites of these countries and devastate the rest‰ (Mukherjee, 7-8).

Think about the products in The Mystic Masseur that the natives serve or see but
donÊt use or do themselves:

Ramlogan, who was resting forward on his hands, knelt upright

and laughed. ÂIt have years now I selling this Coca-Cola but you
know, sahib, I never touch it before. Is so it does happen. You ever
notice that carpenters always living in some sort of breakdown old
shack?Ê

Part of the reason Ganesh is so revered in his small village is that he actually
deigns to publish a book, something the people think only happens outside,
among the rich and white. As Naipaul says, looking at the landscape of England,
the "black and white cows against the sky [recall the design on the condensed
milk label I knew as a child in Trinidad, where cows as handsome as those were
not to be seen, [and] where there was very little fresh milk and most people used
imported condensed milk or powdered milk". (Naipaul, Enigma, 119)

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84  TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM

ACTIVITY 6.5

1. In what ways does the lack of local natural goods establish

ideal-images in the mind of the native that can only be
disappointed?
2. Is Naipaul fair to concentrate only on those elements of his
society that fail to live up to an impossible outside standard?
3. Do you agree that he does do this (see question above)?

6.6 NEOCOLONIALISM IN MALAYSIA?

Let us look more closely at one of the atrocities Césaire mentions in the passage
we quoted earlier in 6.1:

I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures

trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated,
religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed,
extraordinary possibilities wiped out.

Land confiscation. Before examining this particular atrocity, think about your
own governmentÊs treatment of indigenous peoples. How well do postcolonial
governments respect the rights of indigenous peoples·who are not always the
dominant political group in their country of origin? Some postcolonial
governments deny the indigeneity of their indigenous groups by rescinding
privileges, such as ceremonial land rights. Land schemes that take away land
from the indigenous in these countries and convert them into cash are seen in
contemporary instances like palm oil plantations, which often serve only the
market elites to the exclusion of the indigenous and the poor.

ACTIVITY 6.6

1. Can you think of a case in Malaysia where a government official

denied the indigeneity of Orang Asli?
2. In what ways does such a situation mirror colonialism, in which a
foreign power strips the rights of a native in his/her own land?
3. Therefore, in what ways does it exemplify neocolonialism?

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 TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM  85

6.7 THE "POST" IN "POSTCOLONIAL" VERSUS

THE "NEO" IN "NEOCOLONIAL"
Neocolonialism can be understood as a kind of subset of postcolonial studies
(and because it forms one topic in this module, we are here literally treating it as
a subset too). We have been repeating the idea all along that the effects of
colonialism linger on to the present. This idea is present in the very name
ÂpostcolonialÊ. For most contemporary theorists, the term postcolonial does not
indicate a clean historical break between colonial times and post-colonial times
(after independence). Instead, these theorists take the ÂpostÊ in ÂpostcolonialÊ to
mark an end to a certain kind of colonialism. The next stage in this drama is
often, unfortunately, what we have been describing as neocolonialism.

 In the postcolonial era exploitation did not go away, quite the contrary, the
postcolonial era is marked by intensified and sustained exploitation of whole
peoples and countries carried out by a cartel of their own and European/North
American metropolitan elites. (Mukherjee, 4)

 Both natives and non-natives are guilty of perpetuating colonial structures,

creating what has been called the neocolonial state.

 When first-world countries, through use of arms, threatened force, unfair policy
practices, sanctions, disproportionate wealth, control and determine the futures
of so-called third world countries, we have neocolonialism in practice.

 When natives, inheriting the colonial structures that exploited people in the
colonial era, continue that same exploitation through policies of their own, we
have neocolonialism in practice.

Neocolonialism The use of political, economic and cultural processes to

control a country.
The ÂpostÊ in Moving through, working through, or going beyond
postcolonial colonialism
The ÂneoÊ in A new form of a previously existing structure, or a
neocolonial continuation of the same under a new surface.

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86  TOPIC 6 NEOCOLONIALISM

1. Define "neocolonialism" in your own words.

2. Give an example of neocolonialism in your own country.
3. With what tools, processes or actions do some first-world countries bully
and coerce poorer third-world countries?
4. What are some examples of neocolonial policies through which an
economic superpower, like the United States, maintains its status?
5. What is the difference between neocolonialism and postcolonialism?
6. How are neocolonial themes important in discussing a novel like The
Mystic Masseur that is set in pre-independence times?
7. Give an example of neocolonial reward behaviour of the colonial state in
the novel.

Césaire, Aimé. (2000). Discourse on Colonialism. (Robin Kelley, Trans.). New

York: Monthly Review Press. (Original work published 1950).

Harris, Wilson. (1971). The Native Phenomenon. In Anna Rutherford, (Ed.)

Common Wealth. Aarhus: Akademisk Boghandel, 146-7.

McClintock, Anne. (1992). The Angel of Progress. Social Text, No. 31/32, Third
World and Postcolonial Issues. Durham: Duke University Press, 84-98.

Mukherjee, Pablo. (2009). Postcolonial Environments. London: Routledge.

Naipaul, V.S. [1987]. The Enigma of Arrival. In Huggan, Graham and Helen
Tiffin (Eds). (2009). Postcolonial Ecocriticism. London: Routledge, 114.

Nkrumah, Kwame. (1965). Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism.

London: Thomas Nelson.

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Topic  Postcolonial
7 Issues 1: Exile
and Identity
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. judge some of the pros and cons of exile for, especially, postcolonial
writers;
2. visualise and sketch, roughly, what life was like for Caribbean
persons like Naipaul in the metropolis of London;
3. establish by inference how exile sometimes paradoxically reinforces
oneÊs identity;
4. interpret the cultural predicament of West Indians who had little
sense of a „pure‰ indigenous culture from which to distinguish
English or European culture; and
5. illustrate and predict the dangers of asserting a single, immediately
accessible past culture as if culture is not dynamic and changing.

 INTRODUCTION
In this topic we will explore some of the „pleasures of exile‰. This phrase is
famously used by both Edward Said and George Lamming. We will also look at
some of the predicaments arising from leaving the homeland. We will also look
at the idea of homeland in the peculiar context of Caribbean cultures and, in
particular, the Trinidadian situation.

Caribbean persons in the metropolis often met up and encouraged one another.
The post-war, West Indian scene in England has been memorably depicted in
novels by celebrated Caribbean writers like George Lamming, Sam Selvon and V.
S. Naipaul. Many of these West Indians had a hard time finding work, some
couldnÊt stand the racial prejudice, and others struggled through a depressive
existence. Often, West Indians relied on their creativity and humour to survive in
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88  TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY

England and deal with the tragedy they saw around them and which befell many
of their friends and contemporaries. A few were eventually rather successful at
this; Naipaul was one.

7.1 WEST INDIANS IN ENGLAND

Many West Indian writers, Naipaul included, got their big break in England with
a programme called Caribbean Voices which was broadcast by the BBC back to
the Caribbean. As such, England became a channelling point through which
Caribbean intellectuals and artists could collaborate and know what was going
on amongst themselves. Thus, the common predicament of exile paradoxically
became a point of connection for them, just as being away from the homeland
encouraged thinking and writing about home.

ACTIVITY 7.1
Take a look at Sam SelvonÊs description, in his book, The Lonely
Londoners, of some Caribbean characters eking out an existence in
London:

It have some men in this world, they donÊt do nothing at all, and you
feel that they would dead from starvation, but day after day and you
meeting them and they looking hale, they laughing and they talking as
if they have a million dollars, and in truth it look as if they would not
only live longer than you but they would dead happier. (Selvon, 49)
1. What amazes the narrator about certain characters lives in post-
war London?
2. Is the narrator hopeful or pessimistic? Or is this not an
appropriate question? Why, why not?
3. Compare the tone of this passage by Sam Selvon (another
Trinidadian writer of Indian ancestry) to the tone of the narrator
in NaipaulÊs The Mystic Masseur. What is similar? Different?

7.2 THE PARADOXICAL PLEASURES OF EXILE

In Topic 2 we looked at NaipaulÊs life and history and discovered that when he
had the opportunity to leave his homeland he did so without reservations. You
might more accurately call this a self-imposed exile. Many writers from the
former colonies made the same move in what Jamaican poet Louise Bennett has
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 TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY  89

dubbed "reverse colonisation". Life in the colonial metropole of London had a

peculiar effect on artists and writers. Having left their homelands, many writers
became nostalgic. Although the education they received was English (or other
colonising country) and although they were somewhat familiar with what they
encountered, they still felt a sense of inadequacy. As George Lamming the
Barbadian contemporary of Naipaul says, „each exile has not only got to prove
his worth to the other, he has to win the approval of headquarters, meaning in
the case of the West Indian writer, England....‰ (14)

ACTIVITY 7.2

George LammingÊs thoughts on exile are worth considering in greater

detail at this point. He relates an anecdote in which a Trinidadian in
England for the first time is stunned to see white people doing menial
labour; this is shocking for him, because in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, at
that time, he had never seen an English worker:

This is a seed of his colonisation which has been subtly and richly
infused with myth. We can change laws overnight; we may reshape
images of our feeling. But this myth is most difficult to dislodge...
This myth begins in the West Indian from the earliest stages of his
education. ... It begins with the fact of EnglandÊs supremacy in taste
and judgement: a fact which can only have meaning and weight by a
calculated cutting down to size of all non-England. The first to be cut
down is the colonial himself.

This is one of the seeds which much later bear such strange
fruit as the West Indian writersÊ departure from the very landscape
which is the raw material of all their books. These men had to leave if
they were going to function as writers since books, in that particular
colonial conception of literature, were not·meaning, too, are not
supposed to be·written by natives. Those among the natives who
read also believed that; for all the books they had read, their whole
introduction to something called culture, all of it, in the form of
words, came from outside: Dickens, Jane Austen, Kipling and that
sacred gang.

The West IndianÊs education was imported in much the same way
that flour and butter are imported from Canada. (Lamming 14)

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90  TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY

- continued from previous page

1. What is the paradox Lamming identifies in the fact of the

writerÊs subject and the fact of his departure?
2. Why is England supreme in taste and judgment for the West
Indian native? How did it get to be so?
3. What does it mean to have oneÊs education imported?
4. What does Lamming mean when he says „books were not ...
written by natives‰?

LammingÊs point is that, in the Caribbean, culture was inherited. This

distinguishes, in very general terms and in broad brush strokes, the Caribbean
situation from the African situation, or the Malaysian situation for that matter. In
parts of the world where the indigenous culture can be tapped into, the people
donÊt feel the same cultural loss as in the Caribbean, where the cultures are
typically thought of as bastardised or mongrelised. Malaysians could contest
colonialism on the grounds that it suppressed indigenous cultures, but for many
in the Caribbean, the only culture they knew was European! Because of slavery
and the middle passage, a lot of indigenous culture was lost. As Lamming goes
on to say, in the absence of native ways of knowing, „England had somehow
acquired the divine right to organise the native reading...it was to be exclusively
English.‰

Remember GaneshÊs predisposition for large tomes and his attempt to cram as
many books as he could into his home? Ganesh worships the English book so
that he can look and sound intellectual, and in the end gain praise and awe for it.
As GaneshÊs friend and competitor Indarsingh put it: "Funny people in Trinidad,
old boy. No respect for ideas, only personalities" (Chap. 12). This is indicated in
the fetishisation (worship) of the English book and the amazement of seeing a
white person do actual work.

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 TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY  91

7.3 EXILE IN THE MYSTIC MASSEUR

Take a look at NaipaulÊs presentation of G. Ramsay Muir:

It was aranged that I should be host for a day to G. R. Muir, Esq.,

M.B.E.
The day of the visit came and I was at the railway station to meet
the 12.57 from London. As the passengers got off I looked among
them for someone with a nigrescent face. It was easy to spot him,
impeccably dressed, comig out of a first-class carriage. I gave a shout
of joy.
ÂPundit Ganesh!Ê I cried, running towards him. ÂPundit Ganesh
Ramsumair!Ê
ÂG. Ramsay Muir,Ê he said coldly.

(Epilogue)

In this excerpt the pundit Ganesh has willingly shed his identity for an assumed
English one. He cleverly changes his name from "Ganesh Ramsumair" into a near
homophone, "G. Ramsay Muir". In this way, the narrator sees Ganesh has shed
his old Trinidadian peasant identity and assumed an upper-class European
persona.

ACTIVITY 7.3

1. Why does Ganesh find this attractive to do?

2. What do you make of the figure G. Ramsay Muir?
3. What has happened to the Ganesh the narrator encountered at
the beginning of the book?
4. Why do you think Naipaul has Ganesh turn into G. Ramsay
Muir? What is he trying to tell us?

Indarsingh represents the educated leftist come back to his homeland to educate
and uplift his people. The problem is Indarsingh is somewhat out of touch with
the populace:

Indarsingh came in an Oxford blazer and Swami, as organizer of

the Bhagwat, introduced him to the audience. ÂI got to talk English to
introduce this man to you, because I donÊt think he could talk any
Hindi. But I think all of all you go agree with me that he does talk

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92  TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY

English like a pukka Englishman. That is because he have a foreign

education and he only just come back to try and help out the poor
Trinidad people. Ladies and gentlemen ă Mr Indarsingh, Bachelor of
Arts of Oxford University, London, England.Ê
Indarsingh gave a little hop, fingered his tie, and, stupidly, talked
about politics.
(Chap. 11)

ACTIVITY 7.4

1. For what reason does Naipaul choose to ridicule figures that come
back to their roots in a kind of futile and somewhat paternalistic
attempt to move the country forward?
2. What does Naipaul say about Trinidad or colonial society as a
whole for the inability of foreign educated minds to change the
prejudices or politics?
3. What do you think this passage says about attempts to use
European education and ideas to deal with Caribbean or other
issues?

7.4 EXILE AND IDENTITY

Take a look at this early scene where Ganesh is "symbolically" sent off to become
a brahmin:

The initiation ceremony was held that very week. They shaved his
head, gave him a little safron bundle, and said, ÂAll right, off you go
now. Go to Benares and study.Ê
He took his staff and began walking away briskly from Fourways.
As arranged, Dookhie the shopkeeper ran after him, crying a little and
begging in English, ÂNo, boy. No. DonÊt go away to Benares to study.Ê
Ganesh kept on walking.
ÂBut what happen to the boy?Ê people asked. ÂHe taking this thing
really serious.Ê
Bookhie caught Ganesh by the shoulder and said, ÂCut out this
nonsense, man. Stop behaving stupid. You think I have all day to run
after you? You think you really going to Benares? That is in India, you
know, and this is Trinidad.Ê
They brought him back home. But the episode is significant.
(Chap.2)
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 TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY  93

ACTIVITY 7.5

1. What does it mean that, although the young Ganesh will never
have any contact with the „real India‰ or the „real Benares‰ he still
starts walking as if he is going there?
2. In what ways is this story analogous to the situation of Indo-
Caribbeans, for whom India might be a symbolic home?
3. Why do you think Naipaul includes the line, „They brought him
back home. But the episode is significant‰? What does this
indicate?

7.5 EXILE AND THE MALAYSIAN WRITER

Many Malaysians have written about, and even lived, exile. Some of the young,
up-and-coming postcolonial writers today are Malaysians living abroad (which is
a kind of exile). LetÊs think about a famous example that has made its way into
Malaysian curricula, encouraging younger Malaysians to think about the attitude
to exile.

We will look at a stanza from the poem on homecoming by Malaysian national

laureate, Muhammad Haji Salleh and then compare it to the poem on
homecoming by the St. Lucian Nobel Laureate and poet, Derek Walcott.

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94  TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY

Si TenggangÊs Homecoming:

Figure 7.1: „Si Tenggang‰

Source: www.coac.org

[...]
vi

i am not a new man,

not very different
from you;
the people and cities
of coastal ports
taught me not to brood
over a foreign world,
suffer difficulties
or fear possibilities.

i am you,
freed from the village,
its soils and ways,
independent, because
i have found myself.

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 TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY  95

ACTIVITY 7.6

1. What does the speaker of Muhammad Haji SallehÊs popular poem

suggest in the last stanza?
2. In what ways is the speaker an enlightened version of his people?
3. How did the speaker acquire his wisdom?

Freed from prejudices and alert to cultural differences because of his travel
experience, the persona brings treasures from his travels. The implication is that,
should they accept him, the people would gain the same knowledge and
enlightenment that he possesses.

This is an interesting poem for the Western-educated Malaysian poet to write,

because, according to the legend he adapts, the Orang Asli protagonist turns to
stone for his actions (denying his own parents). Salleh inverts this logic. Just as
SallehÊs published poems reveal much about his character (he returns to encourage
writers in Malaysia to accept native cultural legacies over colonial ones, such as the
English language) so too are they immortalised, or „written in stone‰.

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96  TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY

ACTIVITY 7.7

Look at what Muhammad Haji Salleh has said of the poem:

He came back as a person with larger horizon, though he

was no longer fully Malaysian, in the traditional sense, but
fortunately, he may be seen as a Malaysian of the future. All
of us are Si Tenggang II, in a way of speaking ă for we have
come away from the village, the original home and learning
other ways, and not returning home whole, as traditional
villagers. It is this dilemma of trying to get the best of the
two worlds and at the same time also be still sane, that is the
difficult part he has to negotiate. (Interview)

1. First of all, since you probably have encountered this poem

before, what is the standard reading of it, if any?
2. For what specific reasons do you think this poem is selected for
students to study in Malaysia?
3. For Salleh, we all have an original home to return to, a village or
kampung. How far do you agree with this statement?
4. For the persona, the people that he comes back to are the same, he
is different because he must argue for his sameness·something
they do not have to do. Does this mean that the people he returns
to are a static and unchanging culture?
5. Some criticism has been levelled against retellings of this mythical
story that erase the indigenous (Orang Asli) element. In what
ways could this legend be appropriated by different Malaysian
ethnicities and identities to figure their symbolic condition?
6. How would the inclusion of the information that Si Tenggang is
Orang Asli change SallehÊs poem?

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ACTIVITY 7.8

Now compare the insights you gained thinking about this poem with
another poem on homecoming by the celebrated Caribbean poet
Derek Walcott:

Homecoming: Anse La Raye

Whatever else we learned

At school, like solemn Afro-Greeks But hoped it would mean something
eager for grades to declare
Of Helen and the shades Today, i am your poet, yours,
Of borrowed ancestors, All this you knew,
There are no rites But never guessed youÊd come
For those who have returned To know there are homecomings
[...] without home.
Only this fish-gut reeking beach
You give them nothing.
Their curses melt in air.
The black cliffs scowl,
The ocean sucks its teeth,
Whose spindly, sugar-headed
children race [...]
Whose starved, pot-bellied children
race The children gone.
Pelting up from the shallows Dazed by the sun
Because your clothes, You trudge back to the village
Your posture Past the white, salty esplanade
Seem a touristÊs. Under whose palms, dead
They swarm like flies Fishermen move their draughts in
Round your heartÊs sore. shade,
Crossing, eating their islands,
Suffer them to come, And one, with a politicanÊs
[...] for once, like them, Ignorant, sweet smile, nods,
You wanted no career As if all fate
But this sheer light, this clear, Swayed in his lifted hand
Infinite, boring, paradisal sea,
--Derek Walcott, Selected Poems 1948-1984

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98  TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY

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1. Why do the children curse the speaker?
2. What does Walcott indicate by the phrase, Âborrowed ancestorsÊ?
Whose ancestors are borrowed? And from where are they
borrowed?
3. One of the fishermen becomes a politician, what is WalcottÊs view
of local politicians?
4. In both poems the speaker is not fully recognised by his own
people. What do you make of this mis-recognition?
5. Is this mis-recognition purposeful in both cases?
6. Is it an accident?
7. In both cases the persona has something he values greatly·
wisdom, knowldege, skill, etc.·that he wants to bestow upon the
home culture despite them not being exactly grateful for it. What,
in WalcottÊs case does he value?
8. What is it in SallehÊs case?

7.6 CONCLUSION
Si Tenggang is a good legend to reflect the idea of exile for Malaysians. But there
are attendant problems. We need to watch that we donÊt co-opt other identities
and force into exile other cultures in our attempt to reclaim a true or authentic
one. Any attempt to assert an authentic identity and hold it above anotherÊs will
be a contestable and ideological struggle. This can be seen in critiques of the re-
telling of the legend from the perspective of the Orang Asli, whose presence has
been steadily eliminated from these retellings (Nicholas, 1997).

We need to take FanonÊs warning here. As Frantz Fanon has said, in a memorable
turn of phrase:

The native intellectual who comes back to his people by way of

cultural achievement behaves in fact like a foreigner. [⁄] The culture
that the intellectual leans toward is often no more than a stock of
particularisms. [⁄] Culture has never the translucidity of custom; it
abhors all simplification (Fanon, 180).

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 TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY  99

First off, what culture is the exile leaving or returning toward? If her idea of her
people is one unchanging, ideal or not, then what she turns toward, according to
Fanon, is not a culture at all, but merely custom and ritual ă meaningless and
irrelevant if performed without thinking.

 West Indians in post-war Britain did not have an easy life, many writers
turned to humour and/or nostalgia.

 The pleasures of exile refers to the contradictory stance of leaving oneÊs home
to write or think about it.

 The West Indian cultural predicament was that of having little sense of a
ÂpureÊ indigenous culture from which to distinguish English or European
culture.

 There are dangers in asserting a single, immediately accessible past culture as

if culture is not dynamic and changing.

Reverse colonisation Former colonials moving back to the colonial motherland

Exile Being barred from living in oneÊs native land, or simply
being away from it
Metropole The parent state of the colony

1. Were West Indians and other migrants freely embraced and incorporated
into British culture after the war?
2. What are some "pleasures of exile"?
3. Why is writing about home from the colonial motherland a bit paradoxical?
4. In what ways was culture in the Caribbean different from that of most
countries in Africa or Asia?
5. Why would the Caribbean intellectual feel somewhat inadequate when
he/she went to England?

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100  TOPIC 7 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES 1: EXILE AND IDENTITY

6. What relevance does the symbolic India (or China, or Africa) have for the
transplanted native?
7. Why would the episode of GaneshÊs going to Benares to study be a
"significant" thing for the small village of Fuente Grove? Is this an example
of culture-in-motion or dead and meaningless ritual?
8. If Naipaul was glad to escape Trinidad, why do you think he bases his
books on that country and people?

Fanon, Frantz. (1967). The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.

Lamming, George. (1995). The Occasion for Speaking. The Postcolonial

Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 14.

Nicholas, Colin (1997). Stealing Stories: Communication and Indigenous

Autonomy. Media Development 3(97), London: WACC. Available
online http://www.coac.org.my (accessed 31 May 2012).

Salleh, Muhammad Haji. (1979). Homecoming. The Travel Journals of Si

Tenggang II. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

Selvon, Sam. (1956). The Lonely Londoners. London: Longman.

Tiffin, Helen, Bill Ashcroft and Gareth Griffiths. (2003). Introduction: Part XIII
Education. Postcolonial Studies Reader. London: Verso.

Walcott, Derek. (1984). Homecoming Anse La Rey. Poems 1948-1984. New

York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

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Topic  Postcolonial
8 Issues II:
Hybridity
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. illustrate and debate ways hybridity can be viewed negatively or
positively;
2. identify and assess the ways postcolonial studies has used the term
hybridity in a positive sense to serve its own purposes;
3. correlate NaipaulÊs own fragmented history with his stated notions
of postcolonial societies; and
4. defend creolisation as a challenge and response to strict colonial
racial categorising.

 INTRODUCTION
This topic concerns hybridity. We touched on this important concept in Topics 2
and 4. In Topic 2, we investigated NaipaulÊs background and showed how his
grandparents had to make the difficult shift from India to peasant life in the
island Caribbean. As a result of this displacement, or transplantation of cultures,
Naipaul grows up (as does Ganesh) with a vague sense of spiritual or symbolic
belonging to India but no real or material connection.

In Topic 4 we looked at the colonial legacy of language, which is not limited only
to speech but deeply affects our thoughts, ideas, and our values. This is a
complicated situation for the Caribbean artist. First, the artist has mixed origins;
second, he or she has accepted European language and values; and third, he or
she must still maintain a commitment to local significance and intelligibility! All
this makes the Caribbean subject (no matter his/her racial description) an overtly
hybrid character.
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In this topic we will investigate hybridity more fully, especially its Caribbean
version, creolisation.

8.1 NAIPAUL’S ROOTS/HISTORY AS CURSE

In his Nobel lecture Naipaul spends much time talking about his background.
The entire lecture is quite interesting and you can read it in its entirety on the
Nobel Prize website. Here is the URL:

<http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2001/naipaul-
lecture.html>

For now, consider this extract in which Naipaul talks about his early history and
experience in Trinidad:

My background is at once exceedingly simple and exceedingly

confused. I was born in Trinidad. It is a small island in the mouth of
the great Orinoco river of Venezuela. So Trinidad is not strictly of
South America, and not strictly of the Caribbean. It was developed as
a New World plantation colony, and when I was born in 1932 it had a
population of about 400,000. Of this, about 150,000 were Indians,
Hindus and Muslims, nearly all of peasant origin, and nearly all from
the Gangetic plain.
This was my very small community. The bulk of this migration
from India occurred after 1880. The deal was like this. People
indentured themselves for five years to serve on the estates. At the
end of this time they were given a small piece of land, perhaps five
acres, or a passage back to India. In 1917, because of agitation by
Gandhi and others, the indenture system was abolished. And perhaps
because of this, or for some other reason, the pledge of land or
repatriation was dishonoured for many of the later arrivals. These
people were absolutely destitute. They slept in the streets of Port of
Spain, the capital. When I was a child I saw them. I suppose I didn't
know they were destitute ă I suppose that idea came much later ă and
they made no impression on me. This was part of the cruelty of the
plantation colony.

(Naipaul, Nobel Lecture 2001)

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ACTIVITY 8.1

1. What is simple about NaipaulÊs biography?

2. What about this biography is so confused?
3. What is the "deal" of indentured servitude?
4. What promise was broken to many (especially later arrivals) of
the Indians in Trinidad?
5. How did East Indians enter into this type of contractual
relationship and why would they do so?
6. How could Naipaul say he did not really notice the poor and
destitute in Port-of-Spain?

Naipaul goes on in his lecture to represent the Indian attitude in Trinidad:

What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude.
And we Indians, immigrants from India, had that attitude to the
island. We lived for the most part ritualised lives, and were not yet
capable of self-assessment, which is where learning begins. Half of us
on this land of the Chaguanes were pretending - perhaps not
pretending, perhaps only feeling, never formulating it as an idea -
that we had brought a kind of India with us, which we could, as it
were, unroll like a carpet on the flat land.

(Naipaul, Nobel Lecture 2001)

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ACTIVITY 8.2

1. What does Naipaul mean by "not capable of self-assessment"?

2. How can he say that (see question #1) about an entire people?
3. Is this an example of the colonial mentality Edward Said (See
Topic 2) was talking about?
4. What does it mean to "unroll (oneÊs symbolic culture) out like a
carpet"?
5. If we follow NaipaulÊs analogy of the carpet of culture, what
does the „flat land‰ represent? And why would it be "flat"?

What we witness here in Naipaul seems to be a kind of regret or sadness about

the colonial situation·especially the futile conservation of ritualised and
meaningless customs. Interestingly, he doesnÊt necessarily blame colonialism for
the colonial mentality. He seems to think that it is simply a matter of failure to
imagine alternative possibilities that the postcolonial individual is stuck within
dead, what he calls ritualised action.

For Naipaul, colonialism was not some organised plot to keep third world down
and in check, rather, Europe was merely looking after its own interests and third
world peoples were clueless about the possibilities in life. They had to first earn
the right to enlightenment and power, they couldnÊt be trusted with it at any rate,
if they were, it would probably go to waste.

8.2 HISTORY AS BLESSING

An alternative view of the possibilities granted the hybrid colonial is offered by
fellow Caribbean writer and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. In contrast to
NaipaulÊs mostly pessimistic view of history, Walcott looks at the positive parts
of having hybrid roots. For Walcott, if you have hybrid roots then you have
multiple cultural inheritances! In other words, the multiple hybrid is all the
richer than the singular pure. In his Nobel lecture (Naipaul won the Nobel in
2001, Walcott got it several years earlier in 1992), Walcott first describes the
attitude of those people who inevitably see Caribbean hybridity as an indication
of impurity or brokenness:

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 TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY  105

These purists look on such ceremonies as grammarians look at a

dialect, as cities look on provinces and empires on their colonies.
Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body
from which it has been severed... In other words, the way that the
Caribbean is still looked at, illegitimate, rootless, mongrelized. "No
people there", to quote Froude, "in the true sense of the word". No
people. Fragments and echoes of real people, unoriginal and broken.
... like a dialect, a branch of its original language, an abridgement
of it⁄.

(Walcott, Nobel Lecture 1992)

ACTIVITY 8.3

1. How do grammarians look at a dialect, that appears to ignore or

lack the rules of standard grammatical speech?
2. Locate some of the other analogies Walcott makes of this
impoverished understanding.
3. How is Caribbean culture still looked at?
4. What does it mean to be mongrelized? What kind of
connotations or associations come with this word?

Walcott does not take NaipaulÊs pessimistic description as adequate. Naipaul

offers a sarcastic laugh at the bitter truth of history of loss and brokenness.
Walcott feels this is inattentive to other, more important or living truths. Walcott
goes on to declare that such a "branch" or "abridgment" may seem like a fragment
of some grand whole, but that it is in fact „not a distortion or even a reduction of
its epic scale‰. According to Walcott:

We make too much of that long groan which underlines the past.
[...]
The sigh of History rises over ruins, not over landscapes, and in
the Antilles there are few ruins to sigh over, apart from the ruins of
sugar estates and abandoned forts.
What differentiates ruins from landscapes?
Why would this sigh of history rise over a ruin and not a
landscape?
Why doesnÊt the sigh of history resonate with the Caribbean?

(Walcott, Nobel Lecture 1992)

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106  TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY

Derek Walcott goes on to defend the in-betweenness and mixtures of the

Caribbean from those who see incompleteness and corruption. His conception
sees beauty in the search for form.

Read this last excerpt from Derek Walcott and answer the questions that follow.
You will be using this insight to think about hybridity in the novel as well as
apply it to the Malaysian situation later on. Walcott continues by questioning the
idea of lost pure cultures, as if there was not a culture right in front of those
transplanted peoples searching for one:

[...] evocations of a lost India, but why "evocations"? Why not

"celebrations of a real presence"? Why should India be "lost" when
none of these villagers ever really knew it, and why not "continuing",
[...] I was entitled to the feast of Husein, to the mirrors and crepe-
paper temples of the Muslim epic, to the Chinese Dragon Dance, to
the rites of that Sephardic Jewish synagogue that was once on
Something Street. I am only one-eighth the writer I might have been
had I contained all the fragmented languages of Trinidad.
Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is
stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it
was whole. The glue that fits the pieces is the sealing of its original
shape. It is such a love that reassembles our African and Asiatic
fragments, the cracked heirlooms whose restoration shows its white
scars. This gathering of broken pieces is the care and pain of the
Antilles, and if the pieces are disparate, ill-fitting, they contain more
pain than their original sculpture, those icons and sacred vessels
taken for granted in their ancestral places. Antillean art is this
restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our
archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the
original continent.

(Walcott, Nobel Lecture 1992)

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 TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY  107

ACTIVITY 8.4

1. What is the difference between an "evocation" and a "celebration

of real presence"?
2. How, or in what way, is the speaker "entitled" to the different
celebratory events listed?
3. Explain this sentence: „I am only one-eighth the writer I might
have been had I contained all the fragmented languages of
Trinidad.‰
4. How can the reassembly of a broken vase be a more powerful
act than the careful and beautiful preservation of the unbroken
vase in the first place?
5. What is WalcottÊs idea of Antillean (or Caribbean) art?
6. How is WalcottÊs version of contemporary performance
different from NaipaulÊs?

Walcott sees how (who he calls purists) can laugh and mock at the pretentions of
those persons of the diaspora trying to recreate the grandeur and the meaning of
ancient civilisations and peoples. He says such people cannot see the beauty of what
is actually taking place. Instead of being cynical, Walcott asks us to consider that the
parts of the whole, and the struggle to reassemble something, are part of the beauty
and the joy of it. For Walcott this re-assembly is the real culture, the action of putting
things together, and not the passive or sterile reproduction.

Daizal Samad, of the University of Ifrane, Morrocco, says it succinctly:

To Naipaul's exclamation that "Nothing was created in the West

Indies", Derek Walcott has replied that if nothing was created in the
West Indies, then there was everything to be made.

(Samad, 1)

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108  TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY

8.3 CREOLISATION
Walcott is tapping into positive versions of creolisation or creolité (creoleness).
What is a creole? The Oxford English Dictionary gives us this definition:

n. In the West Indies and other parts of America, Mauritius,

etc.: orig. A person born and naturalized in the country, but of
European (usually Spanish or French) or of black African descent: the
name having no connotation of colour, and in its reference to origin
being distinguished on the one hand from born in Europe (or Africa),
and on the other hand from aboriginal.

(OED)

According to this definition, a creole is simply a person of mixed (European or

black African) origins. Originally, the term was used to distinguish those born in
the metropolis, or Europe, from those born in the colonies, regardless of their
colour. This was because, persons born in the colonies, outside of Europe were
often considered somehow ÂdifferentÊ (read inferior) to those born in Europe,
even if both parents were European-born whites.

Today, we know that these race-based distinctions are made-up and spurious.
But the term has not disappeared, although it is rarely used in its older sense. In
time, the term came to be used to indicate mixtures of various kinds. And
theorists of the Caribbean have used the term creolisation to describe a kind of
harmonious mixing of cultures, ethnicities and rituals.

Wilson Harris is an Indo-Guyanese writer, who, like Walcott, is able to

appreciate the past richness of African and Caribbean cultures. Let us close with
his observations. According to Harris, Caribbean writers must „reconcile the
broken parts of such an enormous heritage, especially when those broken parts
appear very often like a grotesque series of adventures‰ the Caribbean artist
must contain „a profound and difficult vision of essential unity within the most
bitter forms of latent and active historical diversity‰ (31)

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 TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY  109

ACTIVITY 8.5
1. Do you agree with WalcottÊs and HarrisÊs poetic assessments?
2. For many Caribbean writers, creolisation and hybridity are
phenomena to be celebrated rather than scorned. Is Naipaul a
celebrant or a scorner?
3. What does Harris refer to when he talks of „the most bitter form
of ⁄active historical diversity‰?
4. How is the pluralistic situation in Malaysia similar or different
from the Caribbean?
5. Is hybridity and mixing tolerated in Malaysia or is it viewed
with suspicion?

8.4 COLONIAL IDEAS OF HYBRIDITY AND

RACE
Take a look at this colonial chart which lists the different races, as far as a
European colonialist in the Americas was concerned. Examine it briefly and then
answer the following questions which are based on it.

Figure 8.1: „The mixture of different castes‰ (1825) by W. B. Stevenson

Source: W. B. StevensonÊs Narrative of Twenty Years Residence in South America (vol. 1, p. 286)

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110  TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY

ACTIVITY 8.6

According to the Chart ...

1. Can you locate yourself on this chart?!
2. Which race is higher up in the hierarchy of colours?
3. Which colour is the most dominant?
4. What happens when a Negro father crosses with a white
mother?
5. A White father with a negro mother?
6. What is a Mulatto?
7. What is a quarteron?
8. If none of these descriptions is scientifically accurate, why do
you think this kind of chart was produced?
9. What function does a spurious chart like this serve?
10. Do ideas like these expressed in the chart still exist today?
Why?

According to W. B. Stevenson in his Narrative of Twenty Years Residence in

South America (1825), this table depicts „the mixture of the different castes,
under their common or distinguishing names.‰ Despite its detail, Stevenson
cautioned that the chart „must be considered as general, and not including
particular cases.‰ „I have classed the colours,‰ he warned, „according to their
appearance, not according to the mixture of the castes, because I have always
remarked, that a child receives more of the colour of the father than of the
mother‰ (286).

This table merely conveys a dominant ideological assumption of White

(especially white male) supremacy. It is based on colonial pseudo-science and
not fact.

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 TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY  111

8.5 HYBRIDITY IN THE MYSTIC MASSEUR

In the novel The Mystic Masseur, Naipaul restricts himself to dealing (mostly)
with the Indian community in Trinidad, but all of his characters deal with and
experience other Trinidadian groups too. As such, the characters are always
negotiating identities. Many characters in the novel grapple with assuming
different, newer identities.

As we saw in the previous topic, with Indarsingh, who came back to his people
by way of Oxford University education, identities can change. Let us consider
two characters in the novel, Ganesh himself but also the white man near the
beginning of the book who fetishises Indian culture.

First, let us consider GaneshÊs transformation into a politician:

It would be hard to say just when Ganesh stopped being a mystic.

Even before he moved to Port of Spain he had become more and more
absorbed in politics. He still dispelled one or two spirits; but he had
already given up his practice when he sold the house in Fuente Grove
to a jeweller from Bombay and bought a new one in the fashionable
Port of Spain district of St Clair. By that time he had stopped wearing
dhoti and turban altogether.
(Chap. 12)

ACTIVITY 8.7

1. Why is it hard to say when Ganesh stopped being a mystic?

2. In what ways is Ganesh hybridising his old identity?
3. How is GaneshÊs identity related to his work and performance?
4. Why, do you think, Ganesh stopped wearing his dhoti and
turban?
5. In this scene, in what ways might Ganesh represent or parallel
the story of the nation as a whole?

In the last passage, Ganesh seemed to be losing those stereotypical and

distinguishing characteristics of his cultivated brahminical identity and adopting
a modern, secularised one. Now, consider this next passage in which something
similar happens in Âreverse directionÊ as it were: A white European shedding his
garb to adopt a more ritualistic and mystical one:
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... just before the village of Parrot Trace [...] a man ran into the
middle of the road at the bottom of the incline and waved him to stop.
He was a tall man and looked altogether off, even for Parrot Trace. He
was covered here and there in a yellow cotton robe like a Buddhist
monk and he had a staff and a bundle.
ÂMy brother!Ê the man shouted in Hindi.
Ganesh stopped because he couldnÊt do anything else; and,
because he was afraid of the man, he was rude. ÂWho you is, eh?Ê
ÂIndian,Ê the man said in English, with an accent Ganesh had never
heard before. His long thin face was fairer than any IndianÊs and his
teeth were bad. [...]
ÂSo why for you wearing this yellow thing, then?Ê
The man fidgeted with his staff and looked down at his robe. ÂIt
isnÊt the right thing, you mean?Ê
ÂPerhaps in Kashmir. Not here.Ê
ÂBut the pictures ă they look like this...Ê

(Chap. 3)

ACTIVITY 8.8
1. In this scene the man Ganesh meets has obviously preconceived
notions about Indians. Why does Ganesh react the way he does?
2. A few pages later and this man, Mr. Stewart mentions that
„Hindus [...] are the only people really striving after the
indefinite‰. Mr. Stewart means it as a matter of pride. How do we
receive it?
3. What eventually happens to this man?
4. Given Mr. StewartÊs fate, what does this suggest Naipaul thinks
about a character who leaves his European privilege for a "Hindu
enlightenment" or "wisdom"?

8.6 HYBRIDITY IN MALAYSIA

In Malaysia, many writers have taken up the challenge to represent a hybrid, and
not merely pluralistic Malaysia. Think of Lloyd FernandoÊs prescriptive novels,
for instance, especially, Scorpion Orchid which features mixed racial characters,
even a few with totally ambiguous ethnicities.

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ACTIVITY 8.9

Found in Malaysia

Consider this book project, recently produced in Malaysia called

„Found in Malaysia‰, and then answer the following questions based
on an excerpt from its synopsis:

„Synopsis: Just what does it mean to be a pendatang? Does being a

pendatang mean that you forfeit any sense of ownership upon this
land? Who counts? Or rather, who does not? And more importantly,
does it even matter? Because we Malaysians are, after all, a
hodgepodge of races, not easily classifiable, or even quantifiable.

Found in Malaysia explores this contentious and political issue, at a

critical juncture in our nation's history, in an attempt to reveal who
Malaysians are and who the pendatang are among us.

- continued on next page

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114  TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY

- continued from previous page

These are Malaysians who do not fall neatly into the official racial or
religious categories. They are united ă despite the fifty-year age
difference between the oldest and youngest candidate ă by their
shared diversity of backgrounds and beliefs, and by their stories and
aspirations that cut across racial and religious barriers. They are ă all
of them ă truly Malaysian.

In this compilation of 50 meticulously selected interviews [...] notable

Malaysians share memories of growing up in this pre- and post-
Independence Malaysia.‰
1. According to this synopsis, pendatangs are persons who „do not
fall neatly into the official racial or religious categories‰. What
happens to such individuals if the state believes everyone must
be classified?
2. What does it mean that Malaysians are „a hodgepodge of
races‰?
3. Can you give an example of a „pendatang‰ according to this
usage?
4. The writers of the book feel that it appears at a „critical
juncture‰ in Malaysian history. Why do you think they feel it is
so important to release a book like this at this specific time?
5. The writers say that the varied persons featured in the book „are
united ⁄ by their shared diversity‰. Is it not paradoxical to be
united by difference? In your own words, what do the writers
mean by this?

Race is a contentious issue in Malaysia. Some say racial issues in the country
point to deep-seated problems, others believe that racial contention is a simple
result of a power-play by local elites to maintain that power. How does hybridity
in Malaysia compare to Caribbean or Trinidadian versions?

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Daizal Samad makes the comparison in his „Caribbean dish on the Postcolonial
supper table‰:

The luxury of the creation of whole and relatively harmonious

societies is a recent phenomenon--phenomenon, because survival
itself was nothing short of a miracle. Heterogeneity, even up to the
sixties, meant that one obtained different groups living alongside each
other but separate from and in great suspicion of each other. There
were a series of cultural garrisons, a series of racial solitudesÌa
situation that exists even now in Malaysia, Singapore and other places
that proclaim themselves multi-cultural. After centuries during which
the human person was but an economic commodity and was as
expendable as a coin, self was fragmented and unformed. And when
self has yet to be recreated, society cannot labour into being.

(Samad, 2001)

Samad makes it sound as if the Caribbean used to have the same types of racial
and cultural garrisons that Malaysia currently does, but that they managed to get
over them. What is so different about these two societies? According to Samad,
like Walcott, the Caribbean refused „to choose‰ a vision of a single pure race
upon which to build its new identity.

 Hybridity is about mixture of peoples, classes, identities and beliefs and it is

reflected especially in the Creole identity of many people in the Caribbean.

 Hybridity challenges those ideas that are fixed, universal, or static.

 The Caribbean identity emerges from a wreckage of colonialism and slavery

and mixed groups with various conflicting nostalgic notions of home.

 But instead of freezing, ossifying, or stopping new identities, Caribbean

peoples are proud of their multiple heritages.

 In the Caribbean, many people relish the dizzying mix of cultures and they
refuse to simply mourn over what was lost.

 Naipaul, and his character Ganesh, participate in a truly Caribbean mixture

of identities, growing up with an English education, in a Caribbean setting
with Indian ancestry.

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Creole 1. A person descendant from mixed european and

Black descent or Descendant of Spanish or
European.
2. A language resulting from the mixing of two
languages from an earlier Pidgin.
Hybridity The quality or state of being mixed
Pendatang A person with foreign ancestry or roots
Heterogeneity Diverse in character or content

1. Explain how Third World membersÊ intensive exposure to Western ideas

might count as hybridization.

2. What are some examples of hybridization in the book The Mystic Masseur?

3. Distinguish between NaipaulÊs and WalcottÊs ideas about history and

cultural loss.

4. Which Nobel laureate do you think presents the more idealistic vision?

5. Which presents the most realistic?

6. How would you distinguish between Caribbean responses to diversity and

Malaysian ones?

7. How did ethnic groups in the Caribbean, brought over in the brutal Middle
Passage, maintain a sense of culture and solidarity?

8. What is most difficult for a people whose link to an ancient culture and
tradition is cut or distant?

9. What lessons does NaipaulÊs novel, and his presentation of a community

trying to survive despite its distance from its symbolic home, have for us in
contemporary Malaysia?

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 TOPIC 8 POSTCOLONIAL ISSUES II: HYBRIDITY  117

Fernando, Lloyd. (1976). Scorpion Orchid. Kuala Lumpur: Heinemann.

Harris, Wilson. (1967). Tradition, the Writer and Society. London: New Beacon
Publications.

Naipaul, V.S. (2001). Two Worlds. Nobel Lecture. Available at NobelPrize.org:

<http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2001/nai
paul-lecture-e.html> Retrieved 31 May 2012.

Nutgraph, The. (2011). Found in Malaysia. Vol. 1. Kuala Lumpur: Zed Books.

Samad, Daizal. Caribbean Dish on the Postcolonial Supper-Table. Postcolonial

Web. Available online at <http://www.postcolonialweb.org/
poldiscourse/casablanca/samad2.html> retrieved May 31 2012.

Stevenson, William Bennet. (1825). A Historical and Descriptive Narrative of

Twenty YearsÊ Residence in South America, Volume 1. Edinburgh: Hurst,
Robinson, and Co. Constable & Co. and Oliver & Boyd. (Digitized 8 March
2007).

Walcott, Derek. (1992). The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory. Nobel Lecture.
Available online at NobelPrize.org: <http://www.nobelprize.org/
nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-lecture.html> Accessed 31
May 2012.

"Creole, n. and adj.". OED Online. (September 2012). Oxford University Press.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/44229?redirectedFrom=creole
(accessed October 02, 2012).

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Topic  Tourism and
9 the Postcolonial
Environment
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. assess the importance of environmental concerns to postcolonial
studies;
2. name early writers and thinkers in postcolonial studies who are
concerned about their environment;
3. critique the idea that environmental consciousness and concerns are
„Western‰ or European-American ideas alone; and
4. determine and reveal how colonial legacies are involved in
environmental conservation in some cases and ways, but also in
environmental degradation in others.

 INTRODUCTION
In this age of climate change and impending global ecological disaster, what is
useful about a preoccupation with ideas of justice and postcolonial themes? One
project of postcolonial studies is remembering that land and place are central
when fighting colonialism. In fact, from its earliest days and originary writings in
Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, Edward Said and others, postcolonial studies has
been concerned with the link between geography, land and sovereignty and the
responsible and just use of land. Remember that colonialism was all about
controlling people's lives on foreign lands.

In this topic, we will look at NaipaulÊs geographical and environmental

imagination, and discuss the importance of land and geography to postcolonial
studies. We will also touch on the crucial theme of tourism, which is increasingly
an economic mainstay for many postcolonial countries (especially the islands of
the Caribbean), and which has troubling links and parallels to colonialism.
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ENVIRONMENT

9.1 ENVIRONMENTALISM AND GEOGRAPHY

IN EARLY POSTCOLONIAL WRITINGS
Early canonical writers of postcolonial studies like Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon
and Edward Said, hold that land is a central category for colonised peoples:

Figure 9.1: Frantz Fanon from The Wretched of the Earth

Figure 9.2: Edward Said from Culture and Imperialism

Figure 9.3: Aimé Césaire from Notebook of a Return to my Native Land

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ACTIVITY 9.1

The above are three quotations by renowned postcolonial thinkers.

1. For Fanon what determines the most essential values for
colonised peoples?
2. How is the land a concrete value? What does Fanon mean by
the word, "concrete"?
3. For Said, why is imagining the land, or geography so important
for peoples fighting imperialism?
4. In the excerpt of poetry by Aimé Césaire, what does the speaker
mean when he declares his "spilt blood" determines his
geography?
5. In Aimé CésaireÊs poem, why do you think the speaker contrasts
his method of determining geography with that of the "men of
science"?
6. Who do you think the "men of science" would serve?

The fact that these concerns over environment and land have been present since
before the beginning of postcolonialism as an institutionalised discipline means
that concern for the natural world and the physical environment is not the cause
of the elite in rich Western countries (as some have pretended). In fact, these
environmental issues have been crucial for many people in the third world. The
major difference has been simply that, while among elites in the first world
environmentalism is largely concerned with what products are ok to purchase, in
the Third World, environmental issues more often are a question of livelihood,
that is, of life and death, and thence, they become much more political.

9.2 NAIPAULIAN STYLE AND SCENE IN THE

MYSTIC MASSEUR
Early in the module, in Topic 2, we discussed some overall themes in the novel,
The Mystic Masseur. One of these themes was dereliction and decay. How many
times in the novel does Naipaul paint a depressing picture of GaneshÊs environs?
But NaipaulÊs descriptions are never straightforwardly depressive. A common
technique of his is to present a deplorable scene and with deadpan humour,
revealing how the characters strut and lord over that decay.

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ENVIRONMENT

Let us analyse this humour briefly. Do you remember this early passage in the
novel?

ÂI know the sort of doctors it have in Trinidad,Ê my mother used to

say. ÂThey think nothing of killing two three people before breakfast.Ê
This wasnÊt as bad as it sounds: in Trinidad the mid-day meal is
called breakfast.

(Chap. 1)

How would you classify this type of humour? It seems to be a kind of sarcastic
understatement; it presents a shocking situation in a dry witty style. What do
you think Naipaul achieves, in terms of literary expression with this style?

Consider NaipaulÊs presentation of place using the same stylistic technique:

For more than two years Ganesh and Leela lived in Fuente Grove
and nothing big or encouraging happened.
Right from the start Fuente Grove looked unpromising. The Great
Belcher had said it was a small, out of the way place. That was only
half true. Fuente Grove was practically lost. It was so small, so
remote, and so wretched ⁄

(Chap. 5)

Again, Naipaulian pessimistic understatement. He presents a negative view of

the scene; for a moment, he suggests his judgement might not be fair, but just
when we think he will revise his judgement to say something more judicious, he
surprises the reader by revealing that, no, his judgement actually didnÊt go far
enough in condemning the place! And we are left surprised and laughing.

Again and again, Naipaul sets us up to sympathise with the characters and the
landscape but they always fail. In NaipaulÊs estimation nothing meets the
standard. Remember the absurd English man, Mr. Stewart, whom we talked
about in the previous topic? Think about why he was ridiculed. Was it not
because he decided to choose to come to Trinidad? It showcases his privilege that
he wants to escape the opportunities of England.

ÂWhy donÊt you go to India then?Ê Ganesh asked.

ÂPolitics. DonÊt want to get involved in any way. You canÊt imagine
how soothing it is here. One day you may go to London ă I pray not ă
and you will see how sick you can get gazing from your taxi at the

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stupid, cruel faces of the mob on the pavements. You canÊt help being
involved there. Here there is no such need.Ê

(Chap. 3)

ACTIVITY 9.2

1. Why doesnÊt Mr. Stewart want to go to India?

2. Why doesnÊt he wish Ganesh ever makes it to London?
3. Stewart says there is no need to „be involved‰ in Trinidad. He
takes this as good and a compliment. What do you think Ganesh
makes of this statement?
4. Why do you think Mr. Stewart is disillusioned with England?
5. What do you think Mr. Stewart is looking to find in Trinidad?
6. Do you think he will ever find it?

9.3 THE COLONIAL LEGACY OF

CONSERVATION
Remember Topic 6 on neocolonialism? In that topic we demonstrated how the
history of colonialism is complicated. As such, it is often too difficult to say that
someone or force was purely good or purely bad. Recall that some aspects of
colonialism were horrible atrocities that should never have happened, others,
were a mixed blessing.

An example of one of the latter might be modern conservation policy.

Contemporary talk on conservation and sustainability has its roots in European
enlightenment knowledge, natural history, conservation policy and an idea of
nature that is derived from a long history of colonial exploitation of nature. Much
of the documenting and cataloguing of indigenous knowledge of plants and
animals from all over the colonial world·especially the tropical colonial world·
resulted from the massive project of colonialism (Deloughrey and Handley,
2010).

Think about indigenous healers and mystics in Malaysia that are today
sometimes positioned against Western science. In fact, the histories of these two
ways of knowing (epistemology) are somewhat intertwined. Early explorers
learned about native plants from natives, bush experts to bomohs, for example,

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 TOPIC 9 POSTCOLONIAL THEMES: TOURISM AND THE POSTCOLONIAL  123
ENVIRONMENT

documenting what they learned and assimilating it into the language of Western
Science.

In other words, colonialism facilitated the meeting and exchange of very different
and diverse cultures. Unfortunately, that great meeting almost always occurred
on an uneven playing field. The power dynamic between these groups was
always disproportionate and in a way that almost always favoured the coloniser.
Again, remember CésaireÊs rhetorical complaint:

But then I ask the following question: has colonization really

placed civilizations in contact? Or, if you prefer, of all the ways of
establishing contact, was it the best?
I answer no.
And I say that between colonization and civilization there is an
infinite distance...

(Césaire, 33)

9.4 THE POSTCOLONIAL ENVIRONMENT IN

THE MYSTIC MASSEUR
The image of the ruined garden is a common trope in Caribbean literature. Take
a look at this example in The Mystic Masseur:

The villagers went to work in the cane-fields in the dawn of

darkness to avoid the heat of the day. When they returned in the
middle of the morning the dew had dried on the grass; and they set to
work in their vegetable gardens as if they didnÊt know that sugar-cane
was the only thing that could grow in Fuente Grove.

(Chap. 5)

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ACTIVITY 9.3

1. Why do the villagers save the coolest time of day for the work
that brings them money and the hotter part for their own
personal attempts at subsistence?
2. How might the ruined garden, or the garden that will not grow,
symbolise the yawning gap between rich and poor in modern
Trinidad?
3. How does the passage above relate the difference between
growing and serving in an agricultural colony?

When it comes to Fuente Grove, Naipaul presents "everything, the houses, the
style of government, the mixed population" as the "brute fact of the plantation
itself". How does this agricultural system have such a deadening effect on the
inhabitants of the colony of Trinidad?

To help us answer this question, we will consider the neglected figure of

Ramlogan, the shopkeeper, as he visits his son-in-law, Ganesh in his home:

Ramlogan, who was resting forward on his hands, knelt upright

and laughed. ÂIt have years now I selling this Coca-cola but you know,
sahib, I never touch it before. Is so it does happen. You ever notice
that carpenters always living in some sort of breakdown old shack?Ê

(Chap. 11)

ACTIVITY 9.4

1. Why hasnÊt Ramlogan ever tasted the product he sells?

2. What is the meaning of the analogy Ramlogan comes up with of
the ramshackle house of carpenters?
3. How does this analogy work in relation to Trinidad as an
agricultural colony of England? Explain.

What does this scene tell us about the difference between a producer and a
consumer, between those that labour to provide goods in an agricultural colony
and those who enjoy the fruits of this labour?

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ENVIRONMENT

Colonialism made European countries extremely rich. Even countries that fought
and won their independence earlier from European countries, such as Haiti,
ended up paying millions of dollars to the colonising country as a condition of its
acceptance as an independent state. Circumstances like this left many countries
in further poverty. Even today, there are people who declare that European
colonial countries like Britain need·not only to apologise to postcolonial
countries from whom they raped and plundered·but to pay them back in some
way for some of these atrocities.

9.5 TOURISM AND COLONIALISM

What connection does tourism have with postcolonialism? The issues of land,
service, enjoying the fruits of oneÊs labour all come to the fore when discussing
tourism and its impact on postcolonial societies. More than this, think back to
topic 6 where we discussed neocolonialism. Tourism has a funny way of re-
introducing old hierarchies between countries and civilisations.

As richer tourists demand the comforts they associate with home, the landscape
of the postcolonial state becomes homogenous. Think of all the luxury hotels and
resorts they have around the world that look the same and feature all the same
amenities. It is as if you never left anywhere! On top of this, the cultures of
postcolonial countries tend to be frozen, made still and unchanging as if they
never evolve. Why is this done? This is done in order to accommodate a
stereotypical or desired image of the postcolonial landscape. Think back to Mr.
StewartÊs attempt to identify the „typical‰ behaviour of the Indian:

Mr Stewart sat down on the bed next to him and said, ÂWhat do
you do?Ê
Ganesh laughed. ÂNothing at all. I guess I just doing a lot of
thinking.Ê
ÂMeditating?Ê
ÂYes, meditating.Ê
Mr Stewart jumped up and clasped his hands before the water-
colour. ÂTypical!Ê he said, and closed his eyes as if in ecstasy. ÂTypical!Ê

(Chap. 3)

Mr Stewart sees GaneshÊs actual laziness·his so called "thinking"·as "typical"

meditation. In this case, Mr. Stewart saw or found exactly what he wanted by
creating what he wanted to find there (he put the words into GaneshÊs mouth).

In the same way, the logic of tourism seems to render the Caribbean destination
into an over-determined package of sameness, the diversity, the difference, the
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ENVIRONMENT

uniqueness of the destination is eliminated in favour of a bland, large-scale,

multinational, corporate, cosmopolitan entertainment.

Massive cruise ships, unloading passengers by the thousands onto small islands
in the Caribbean·with just enough time to do little more than dump trash and
stool in toilets·have wrecked traditional economies. Large companies hash out
favourable deals, offering exclusive rights to certain operators, so that small local
businesses are left out the loop. Tourism creates first and second class citizens in
the nation in which it operates according to the law of global capital.

One of the major problems for a small Caribbean country like Trinidad, whose
main economic sector becomes tourism, is selling out to richer foreign countries
in a service industry that does not help the local population in the long run.
Instead, this system often exploits them for cheap labour, returning profits not to
the nation, but to a foreign-owned conglomerate.

This is the foreboding prediction or warning in Jamaican-Canadian poet Olive

SeniorÊs poem Rejected Text for a Tourist Brochure. Take look at it, thinking
about how this situation resembles colonialism:

Rejected Text for a Tourist Brochure

„I saw my land in the morning

And O but she was fair‰
-M.G. Smith, „Jamaica‰ (1938)

Come see my land

Come see my land

before the particles of busy fires ascend;
before the rivers descend underground;
before coffee plantations
grind the mountains into dust; before
the coral dies; before the beaches
disappear

Come see my land

Come see my land
And know
That she was fair.

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 TOPIC 9 POSTCOLONIAL THEMES: TOURISM AND THE POSTCOLONIAL  127
ENVIRONMENT

Up here, the mountains are still clear.

After three weeks, I heard a solitaire.
Down there, the mountains are clear-cut
marl pits. Truckers steal sand from beaches,
from riverbeds, to build another ganja palace,
another shopping centre, another hotel
(My shares in cement are soaring). The rivers, angry,
are sliding underground, leaving pure rockstone
and hungry belly

No problem, Mon. Come.

Will be one hell of a beach party.
No rain. No cover. No need to bring
your bathing suit, your umbrella.
Come walk with me in the latest stylee:
rockstone and dry gully. Come for the Final
Closing Down Sale. Take for a song
the Last Black Coral, the Last Green Turtle,
the Last Blue Swallow-tail (preserved behind glass).
Come walk the last mile to see the Last Manatee,
the Last Coney, the Last Alligator, the Last Iguana
Smile.

Oh, them gone already? No Problem, Mon.

Come. Look the film here.
Reggae soundtrack and all. Come see
my land. Come see my land and know, A-oh,
that she was fair.

Olive Senior. Over the Roofs of the World. 2005, p. 53-54

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ACTIVITY 9.5
1. In the first stanza, why is it necessary to see the land now?
2. What will happen if the reader does not go see the land
immediately?
3. What are the truckers doing? Why?
4. After all is sold and gone or lost, Senior indicates that the capitalist
logic will not stop still. What can be sold after the last real item is
sold?
5. What is the poet Olive Senior suggesting for us to do by presenting
this poem?

 NaipaulÊs landscapes are often depicted as run-down, derelict, and

depressing.

 This failed garden is a common trope in Caribbean Literature and it is often

interpreted as a critique of transplantation and colonisation (of especially
cultures and peoples).

 Environmental concerns are not simply a trendy Western topic as some

cynical commentators have claimed, they have been central to much of the
work of postcolonial studiesÊ scholars from the earliest writers.

 Postcolonial environments concern politics and justice as well as land use.

 Far from being simply a matter of which (sustainable) ice-cream to purchase,

environmentalism in postcolonial societies is about the livelihood of its
citizens, the sovereignty of the nation, and the protection of the natural
environment from predatory and unjust forces.

Epistemology the study of knowledge

Trope a figurative or metaphorical way of using an image or phrase
Bomoh a medicine man
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 TOPIC 9 POSTCOLONIAL THEMES: TOURISM AND THE POSTCOLONIAL  129
ENVIRONMENT

1. In what ways do issues of land and issues relating to justice for the people
relate or intersect? Give a suitable example.
2. In what ways does Naipaul paint a depressing picture of GaneshÊs
environs?
3. Why does he do so? (See Question 2 above)
4. How is modern conservation policy in many postcolonial states linked to
colonialism?
5. What is so resonant about the image of the Âruined gardenÊ that would
make it a common trope in Caribbean writing?
6. How do some large-scale, exclusive, foreign-owned tourism conglomerates
in postcolonial countries replicate colonial systems in the name of securing
capital/profit?

Césaire, Aimé. (1995). Notebook of a Return to my Native Land. (Mireille Rosello

& Annie Pritchard, Trans.). Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books.
(Original work published 1947)

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth and George Handley. (2010). Intro. Postcolonial

Ecologies. New York: Oxford University Press.

Fanon, Frantz. (1965). The Wretched of the Earth. (Constance Farrington, Trans.).
New York: Grove Press. (Original work published 1961).

Said, Edward. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. New York: Knopf.

Senior, Olive. (2005). Over the Roofs of the World. Toronto: Insomniac Press.

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

Topic  Postcolonial
10 Studies and
Naipaul in
Review
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
1. relate and defend some of NaipaulÊs achievements as a writer;
2. appraise The Mystic MasseurÊs importance as a book for
postcolonialists;
3. list some of problems critics have had with NaipaulÊs work; and
4. critique and debate the place of NaipaulÊs book in postcolonial
theory.

 INTRODUCTION
Now you have a good idea about just what postcolonial studies entails. You
developed your knowledge by investigating case studies drawn from many difference
sources but always returning to the novel The Mystic Masseur by V.S. Naipaul. Are
you surprised that an early novel by a foreign writer born in a small country far away
could have much relevance to your own understanding of your home?

While they may seem small and unimportant, islands of the tropical world,
especially those of the Caribbean, have had tremendous influence on world
politics.

In this topic we will look briefly at this idea, before examining V.S. NaipaulÊs
work more critically and wrapping up the module as a whole. When answering
the questions in this section, think about the larger picture.
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 TOPIC 10 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES AND NAIPAUL IN REVIEW  131

This is the last topic of the module. By the end of it you will have a well
developed and unique take on the book and its significance to the course. Take
some time to reflect on your enjoyment of the course and how much you have
learned:

SELF-CHECK 10.1

1. How much of what you covered in this course is completely

new?
2. How much of what you covered is somewhat familiar, or
reinforced previously acquired knowledge?
3. How would you personally rate the relevance of the novel and
its historical context to the Malaysian situation? Highly
relevant? Somewhat relevant? Mostly irrelevant?

10.1 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SMALL ISLANDS

From Anguilla to the Virgin Islands, nearly every island and country in the
Caribbean has dealt with two more or more colonial powers. Compare this to
Malaysia who has experienced at least four, and there are some similarities. Some
people may wonder why studying the history of a tiny island in the Caribbean,
far away from Malaysia, is so important.

In fact, these same little islands of the Caribbean have had crucial and lasting
effects on many other countriesÊ histories all around the globe (Torres-Saillant).
Just think back in history. Britain became a world economic power, in part,
because it controlled the seas and the sugar producing territories in the
Caribbean. Before that Spain was the superpower and it funded its war against
Reformation with Caribbean gold. Even now, the buildings and elaborate
structures of these parts owe their existence to the wealth that was plundered
from the Caribbean. The French would not have had to cede Louisiana if not for
rebellion in Haiti. If Haiti had not demanded its freedom, large parts of the USA
would be speaking French today!

All the major powers of Europe wrestled for control over tiny islands you have
probably never even heard of today. Go look up the history of San Martin/San
Maarten/Sant Martin. And even the United States got involved, especially in the
20th Century, and most famously during the Cuban Missile Crisis. At this time,

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the Caribbean was the setting for a critical event in World History. Some
Caribbean commentators have even said, that if that standoff between Russia and
the US ever happened elsewhere, other than in the Caribbean, we would have
had utter destruction

(Benitez-Rojo, 1995

10.2 NAIPAUL’S TRINIDAD

Just before Chapter One of The Mystic Masseur, before the novel has even
properly begun, the author V.S. Naipaul writes the following:

All characters, organizations, and incidents in this novel are

fictitious. This is a necessary assurance because, although its
politicians have taken to calling it a country, Trinidad is a small
island, no bigger than Lancashire, with a population somewhat
smaller than NottinghamÊs. In this novel the geography of the island
is distorted. Dates are, unavoidably, mentioned; but no actual holder
of any office is portrayed. The strike mentioned in Chapter Twelve
has no basis in fact.

(Front matter)

Just who is NaipaulÊs audience? We cannot imagine that it is only for

Trinidadians because both NaipaulÊs voice in this passage and his personal
history indicate that he is writing about Trinidad to someone only vaguely
familiar with the country, hence the explanatory style. The inclusion of English
placenames indicates that Naipaul assumes his readers are much more familiar
with England than Trinidad.

SELF-CHECK 10.2

1. Does it matter that Naipaul seems to be writing with an English

audience in mind?
2. Does the knowledge of this probable implied reader affect the
way you read and understand the book?
3. What does it mean that Naipaul blames the geography of his
island for its condition?

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 TOPIC 10 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES AND NAIPAUL IN REVIEW  133

Consider especially the last question in the self-check above. This question is
significant, and somewhat ironic, because one of the justifications for colonialism
presented by government officials in England was precisely the small size of the
British Isles! The nineteenth century British Colonial Secretary, C. S. Adderley,
asserted that „this little island wants not energy, but only territory and basis to
extend itself; its sea-girt home would then become the citadel of one of the
greatest of empires‰ (DeLoughrey, 7). According to his argument, the English
spirit was too large to be confined to a small island, their energy demanded a
larger space.

Why is this interesting? This is interesting because Naipaul inverts this logic. He
is arguing the same thing but in reverse! For Naipaul, Trinidad is too small to
accomplish anything significant. He attributes no genius to the blood of his
compatriots. And yet, as we have mentioned before, Naipaul comes from this
tiny island.

SELF-CHECK 10.3

1. Why did the English official feel England needed more space?
2. How does Naipaul invert this logic?
3. What is a small country to do, when a large writer like Naipaul
sets his oeuvre in it?
4. Can you think of any major Malaysian artist who has an I-am-
larger-than-here mentality? How so?
5. In your opinion, is this perspective justified?

10.3 NAIPAUL AND THE CRITICAL VIEW

NaipaulÊs contemporary, fellow Caribbean (Barbadian) writer in England,
George Lamming has this to say about NaipaulÊs the Mystic Masseur:

His books canÊt move beyond a castrated satire; and although

satire may be a useful element in fiction, no important work,
comparable to SelvonÊs, can rest safely on satire alone. When such a
writer is a colonial, ashamed of his cultural background and striving
like mad to prove himself through promotion to the peaks of a
„superior‰ culture whose values are gravely in doubt, then satire, like

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the charge of philistinism, is for me nothing more than a refuge. And

it is too small a refuge for a writer who wishes to be taken seriously.

(Lamming, 225)

Lamming implies that satire cannot turn into sympathy. For Lamming, Naipaul
occupies a position of superiority. It is from this position of superiority that
Naipaul scolds and berates individuals. Naipaul, of course, does not see it this
way, preferring to call it a position of complete uninvolvement. For Naipaul, he
is above the scene, outside it, looking in.

SELF-CHECK 10.4

How is Naipaul like Mr. Stewart (who also desires uninvolvement

and whom he parodies early in the book) in this case?

NaipaulÊs biographer, Patrick French, says Naipaul became preoccupied with the
void at the heart of Trinidad, the idea that it was a remote island where each
person was an interloper come to experiment in human cruelty ⁄ he was
producing evidence for his prejudice‰ (French 265). Another commenter says
that in spite of the geniality of this novel, the „suspicion persists that Naipaul
himself regards these people with more contempt than compassion‰ (Roehler).

Naipaul himself has said that he realises his responsibility to society has
diminished his urgency to write since „true communication with a society is non-
existent and impossible‰.

The tone of Western colonial writers was one of condescending paternalism (the
Western colonial writers would look down upon Third World much as a father
looks disapprovingly upon an unruly child). Many critics·especially Edward
Said and also Rob Nixon·have taken Naipaul to task for what they see as a
simple acceptance of older colonial mentality. For example, when Naipaul quotes
the British historian James Anthony Froude in the epigraph of his travelogue The
Middle Passage („They were valued only for the wealth which they yielded, and
society there has never assumed any particular noble aspect ... There are no
people there in the true sense of the word, with a character and purpose of their
own.‰), these critics believe Naipaul simply echoes and agrees with the words.
But is Naipaul really a simple colonial parrot?

According to Robert Fraser, „the apparent object in echoing these words was to
paint a picture of the Caribbean as unchanging, narrow and culturally void.‰ But

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 TOPIC 10 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES AND NAIPAUL IN REVIEW  135

Naipaul „also wished by implication to extend FroudeÊs view that the democratic
conscience in the West Indies was a dead duck, to the Caribbean of his own
day‰·more or less the view of the democratic process in the West Indies
exemplified in the novel, The Mystic Masseur (Fraser, 121).

So who is right? Critics like Edward Said and Rob Nixon, who see Naipaul as a
colonial voice, or Irving Howe and Robert Fraser who register a concerned voice?
In the context of The Mystic Masseur, one of NaipaulÊs more personal and early
books, this will be for you to decide.

 Naipaul is a great and deserving writer, though he is not without his critics.

 Many see NaipaulÊs view of the world, and postcolonial societies in general,
as highly problematic.

 These criticisms of Naipaul come out especially in reviews of his non-fiction

works, which many have said are too obviously prejudiced.

Condescending Looking down on somebody as a father would an unruly

paternalism child
Satire Use of humour, irony, and/or exaggeration to ridicule
someone or something
St. Martin (island) A small leeward island in the Caribbean, pop. 32 000

1. What is your take on NaipaulÊs art?

(a) Is it really as hopeless and pessimistic as his critics make it out to be?
(b) If so, why does he deserve the Nobel Prize?
(c) Does a writer have a responsibility to his or her society?
(d) Does a writer have a responsibility to the world?

Copyright © Open University Malaysia (OUM)

136  TOPIC 10 POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES AND NAIPAUL IN REVIEW

2. In what ways have small islands in the Caribbean affected or had an effect
on, World History?
3. If the islands of the Caribbean were so small, why did colonial powers fight
so fiercely over them?
4. Who, in your informed opinion is NaipaulÊs novel The Mystic Masseur,
really written for?
5. What major objection or problem do critics have with NaipaulÊs tone?
6. What do most critics celebrate about Naipaul regardless of their
differences?
7. Finally, how do you like the novel now, that is, after you have completed
an entire module based on it? In other words, how has your experience of
the novel changed from first reading it, to completing the course?

Benítez-Rojo, Antonio. (1995). The Repeating Island. Durham: Duke University

Press.

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. (2007). Routes and Roots: Navigating Caribbean and

Pacific Island Literatures. Honolulu: University of HawaiÊi Press.

Fraser, Robert. (2000). Lifting the Sentence: a poetics of postcolonial fiction.

Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Froude, James Anthony. (1888). The English in the West Indies: or, The Bow of
Ulysses. London: Longmans, Green & Co.

Lamming, George. (1960). The Pleasures of Exile. Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press.

Naipaul, V.S. (2001). The Middle Passage: Impressions of five colonial societies.
London: Picador.

Torres-Saillant, Silvio. (2006). An Intellectual History of the Caribbean. New

York, N.Y.: Palgrave-Macmillan.

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 MODULE FEEDBACK
MAKLUM BALAS MODUL

If you have any comment or feedback, you are welcome to:

1. E-mail your comment or feedback to [email protected]

OR

2. Fill in the Print Module online evaluation form available on myVLE.

Thank you.

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