Dit is nie net in die poststrukturalistiese diskoers waarin daar kritiek uitgespreek word teenoor die Westerse historiografiese tradisie nie. Helen Tiffin ( 1995 : 95 ) noem juis dat die “rereading and rewriting of the European historical and fictional record” een van die fokuspunte van die postkoloniale kontra-diskoers vorm. In
White Mythologies. Writing History and the West ( 1990 ) redeneer Robert Young
ook dat die postkoloniale diskoers verweef is met die poststrukt uralistiese kritiek, veral m.b.t. die kritiek teenoor die Westerse metanarratief van die geskiedenis.
In die poststrukturalistiese diskoers is daar ‘n suspisie jeens die objektiwiteit van Westerse kennisstrukture ( Young, 1990 : 9 – 11 ). Die Derridiaanse kritiek teen- oor die Westerse logosentrisme sluit ook noodwendig die konsep van die geskiedenis in, aldus Young ( 1990 : 64 ). Die eietydse wantroue jeens die kennisideale en waarheidsaansprake wat eie was aan die Verligting geld ook vir ‘n positivistiese benadering tot die geskiedskrywing : “We now stand at a juncture where the discipline of history is surrounded by confusion as the traditional analytical and conceptual Enlightment structures of historical knowledge stand eroded. It is not possible ever to reconstruct the past in all its actuality [ … ] The epistemological notions of the positivists are being challenged on the ground that history is a literary artefact and that all historical sources are intertextual” ( Walia, 2001 : 12 ).
Dit is veral in die kritiek van Foucault en Lyotard wat ‘n wantroue uitgespreek word teenoor kennissisteme met ‘n totaliserende karakter, waaronder die Westerse metanarratief van die geskiedenis ( Young, 1990 : 9, 10 ). Lyotard neem die stellinginname dat ons bo universele vorme van die geskiedskrywing eerder ‘n veelvuldigheid van heterogene, konflikterende en onversoenbare geskiedenisse moet skryf ( Young, 1990 : 63 ). Binne Lyotard se idiolek staan hierdie heterogene geskiedenisse natuurlik bekend as die petits histoires, oftewel kleingeskiedenisse. Hierdie voorkeur vir ‘n dispersiewe vorm van geskiedskrywing bo ‘n totaliserende perspektief op die geskiedenis kom ook in die werk van Foucault na vore met sy keuse vir ‘n “general history” bo ‘n sogenaamde “total history”, wat in die vorige hoofstuk bespreek is. “Total history” sluit aan by die kennisideale van die Verligting omdat die verlede benader word as ‘n samehangende geheel wat op ‘n onproblematiese wyse deur die historikus ontleed kan word, terwyl die verloop van die geskiedenis beskou word as ‘n ordelike en rasionele proses met ‘n teleologiese karakter. As voorbeeld van so ‘n “total history” verwys Foucault na ‘n Hegeliaanse benadering tot die geskiedskrywing waarin ‘n “continuous and chronological historiography [ … ] with its philosophies of history, its assumptions of a rational, progressive and teleological historical development, its desire to discover meaning in history, its questioning of the relativity of historical knowledge” beoefen word ( Young, 1990 : 77 ).
Hegel se geskiedenisfilosofie staan ook binne die postkoloniale kritiek onder verdenking. Robert Young lewer die volgende kommentaar in hierdie verband : “Hegel articulates a philosophical structure of the appropriation of the other as a form of knowl edge which uncannily simulates the project of nineteenth-century imperialism ; the construction of knowledges which all operate through forms of expropriation and incorporation of the other mimics at a conceptual level the
geographical and economic absorption of the non-European world by the West” ( 1990 : 3 ). Susana Onega ( 1995 : 7 – 18 ) noem dat daar binne ‘n totaliserende
perspektief op die verlede soos die van Hegel nie plek gemaak word vir die narratief van die Ander nie. Hegel se “world history” behels volgens Onega dat “many of the differences must be neglected, the individuality of the past forced into a general formula and all the sharp angles broken off for the sake of correspondence”. Foucault en Lyotard se keuse vir heterogene of dispersiewe geskiedenisse skep dus ruimte vir die akkommodasie van die geskiedenis van die Ander, waarvoor daar nie plek ingeruim kan word binne ‘n totaliserende geskiedenis nie : “This quest for the singular, the contingent event which by definition refuses all conceptualization, can clearly be related to the project of constructing a form of knowledge that respects the other without absorbing it into the same” ( Young, 1990 : 10 ). Young se opmerking dat die Ander binne die Europese imperialisme geapproprieer word binne totaliserende kennissisteme sluit hierby aan ( 1990 : 4 ).
Daar is binne die postkoloniale diskoers ‘n bewustheid van die aandadigheid van die dissipline van die historiografie aan koloniale onderdrukking. Ashcroft, Griffiths en Tiffin noem onder andere dat “the emergence of history in European thought is coterminous with the rise of modern colonialism, which in its radical othering and violent annexation of the non-European world, found in history a prominent, if not the prominent, instrument of the control of subject peoples. At base, the myth of a value free, ‘scientific’ view of the past, the myth of the beauty of order, the myth of the story of history as a simple representation of the continuity of events, authorised nothing less than the construction of world reality”( 1995 : 355 ). Agter ‘n front van ‘n soeke na akkurate kennis oor die verlede was die Westerse historiografiese tradisie dus medepligtig aan die kolonialisme.
Soos wat reeds genoem is, is Foucault se assosiasie van diskoers met ‘n vorm van magsuitoefening van toepassing op die wyse waarop die historiografie in die
verlede gebruik is as ‘n ideologiese instrument. Joan Scott noem na aanleiding van Foucault se assosiasie van diskoers met magsuitoefening dat “history’s standards of inclusion and exclusion, measures of importance, and rules of evaluation are not objective criteria but politically produced conventions” ( Munslow, 1997 : 100 ). Foucault se verbintenis tussen diskoers en magsuitoefening wo rd egter nie spesifiek uitgebrei ten opsigte van die koloniale diskoers nie. Hierdie gaping in Foucault se studies word deur Edward Said ingevul. Said ondersoek in sy
Orientalism ( 1978 ) die aandadigheid van Westerse kennisstrukture aan die
koloniale diskoers ( Young, 1990 : 11 ). Hy illustreer dat akademiese vorme van kennis, soos byvoorbeeld die dissipline van die historiografie, nie neutraal is nie, maar dat dit gekoppel is aan magsinstansies. Walia noem dat “Said sets out to demonstrate that different writings of European scholars were shaped by ideological and political exigencies of empire-building, with racial and cultural superiority inherent in the palpable designs of their political aims” ( 2001 : 19 ). Die kennisideaal van die Verligting word sodoende ontmasker as medepligtig aan die koloniale diskoers : “Said shows that the Enlightment project of Reason and
Progress had a hidden agenda : that of creating a succesful imperial practice” ( Walia, 2001 : 36 ).
N.a.v. Foucault se beskouings oor diskoers beweer Said in Orientalism dat die Ooste ( “Orient” ) ‘n diskursiewe konstruk binne die diskoers van die kolonialisme is. Hierdie diskursiewe konstruk was geensins ‘n refleksie van die werklike Ooste nie, maar eerder die produk van die Weste se eensydige kolonialistiese blik op die Ooste. Said beweer ook vervolgens dat hierdie diskoers van die Weste oor die “Orient” ‘n groot aandeel gehad het in die onderdrukking van koloniale gebiede en in koloniale ekspansie :
In Orientalism Said argues that analysis of the politics of Western ethnocentrism must begin with the question of representation as formulated by Foucault. Foucault, it will be recalled, contended that knowledge is constructed
according to a discursive field which creates a representation of the object of knowledge, its constitution and its limits ; any writer has to conform to this in order to communicate, to be understood, to remain ‘in the true’, and thus be accepted. Said shows how this also wo rks for the European constructions of knowledge about other cultures. Orientalism argues that a complex set of representations was fabricated which for the West effectively became ‘the Orient’ and determined its understanding of it, as well as providing the basis for its subsequent self-appointed imperialist rule. Disclosing a closely interrelated web of writing that stretch from literary, historical, scholarly accounts to political, military, and imperial administrative ones, Said suggests that the former produced the Orient for the eventual appropriation by the latter ( Young, 1990 : 126, 127 ).
Said het dan ook vervolgens die projek onderneem om te illustreer hoedat uiteenlopende vorme van diskoers, vanaf die literatuur tot die opera, deel gehad het aan die propagering van ‘n stereotipe beeld van die Ooste ( Walia, 2001 : 9 ). Soos wat dit uit die volgende stelling van Said blyk, het die Westerse historiografiese tradisie ( en veral die historisisme ) eweneens deelgeneem aan hierdie diskoers van die Oriëntalisme :
So far as Orientalism in particular and European knowledge of other societies in general have been concerned, historicism meant that one human history uniting humanity either culminated in or was observed from the vantage point of Europe, or the West [ … ] What [ … ] has never taken place is an epistomological critique at the most fundamental level of the connection between the development of a historicism which has expanded and developed enough to include antithetical attitudes such as ideologies of Western imperialism and critiques of imperialism on the one hand, and on the other, the actual practice of imperialism by which the accumulation of territories and population, the control of economies, and the incorporation and
homogenisation of histories are maintained ( Young, 1990 : 10 )23.
23
Said maak ook die volgende stelling in Culture and Imperialism in hierdie verband : “I suggested that studying the relationship between the ‘West’ and its dominated cultural ‘others’ is not just a way of understanding an unequal relationship between unequal interlocutors, but also a point of entry into studying the formation and meaning of Western cultural practices in themselves. And the persistent disparity of power between the West and non-West must be taken into account if we are accurately to understand cultural forms like that of the novel, of ethnographic and historical discourse [ my kursivering – N.M. ], certain kinds of poetry and opera, where allusions to and structures based on this disparity abound” ( Walia, 2001 : 20 ).
Said verskil egter van Foucault oor die idee dat daar geen konkrete instansie is waardeur diskoers benut word as ‘n magsinstrument nie ( Walia, 2001 : 29, 30 ). Hy glo ook nie soos Foucault dat diskoerse van onderdrukking nie volkome gesubverteer kan word nie. Said glo dat die hegemoniese diskoers van die Ander
ondergrawe kan word ( Walia, 2001 : 43 ). Met betrekking tot die geskiedskry- wing ruim Said juis in sy studies die moontlikheid van ‘n post-Oriëntalistiese
geskiedskrywing, wat gekenmerk word deur “anti-essensialisme” in, aldus Walia ( 2001 : 18 ). Hierdie post-Oriëntalistiese geskiedskrywing moet gekenmerk word
deur ‘n ondergrawing van ‘n eenstemmige en lineêre perspektief op die geskiedenis en ‘n fokus op heterogeniteit en hibriditeit ( Walia, 2001 : 54, 57 ). ‘n Sodanige ondersoek na die geskiedenis van die Ander kan volgens Alun Munslow geassosieer word met ‘n postmodernistiese perspektief op die geskiedenis waarin die relatiwiteit van waarheid erken word :
As soon as we acknowledge that written history is open rather than closed in meaning, as when, for example, the history of imperialism is written from a non-European perspective – not recognised as a perspective at all in the West until the second half of the twentieth century and the advent of decolonisation – then we come closer to what postmodern history means : a recognition of the relativism of meaning, determined by where one stands and the dissolution of source-derived certainty in historical representation ( 1997 : 26 ).