RESISTANCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN KENYA AND SOUTH AFRICA
A COMPARATIVE STUDY W ITH PARTICULAR REFEREN CE TO T H E NOVELS O F N G U G I WA T H IO N G ’O A N D ALEX LA GUMA
by
Anders Breidlid
Thesis submitted to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
June 2001
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Abstract
This study undertakes an analysis o f the m odels o f response (resistance/(non-agency) to colonial, apardieid and post-colonial im position w hich are posited in die novels o f the Kenyan author N gugi wa Thiong’o and the South African w riter Alex La Guma. Such a focus involves related issues such as the relationship betw een the consciousness level o f the subaltern and h is /h e r capacity for resistance and how oppression affects self-construcdon and consciousness. Since die thesis deals widi resistance and consciousness within die textual space o f die novels, the central issue raised in die diesis is explored around questions o f representations.
In defining die nature o f resistance literature, die introductory chapter characterises levels o f resistance and distinguishes betw een “counter-hegem onic” and “ com bat” literature.
W hereas “com bat” literature tends to invert the colonial version o f M anichean binarism and is placed squarely within die liberation struggle, “counter-hegem onic” fiction is defined as constituting the fragm ented colonial subject and subverting die colonial representation o f the subaltern w ithout necessarily insisting on die implacable enm ity o f M anicheism and its location witiiin die liberation struggle. Part 1 identifies N gugi’s A Grain o f Wheat and La G um a’s A W alk in the Alight and A n d A Threefold Cord as counter-hegem onic fiction.
T he texts may be viewed from two interconnected levels: the am bivalence and subversion o f colonial discourse and the reconstruction o f self in resistance to the
colonial/apartheid/post-colonial dom ination. T he texts fill the vacuum created by colonial discourse by defying the non-representation o f the O d ie r/th e subaltern by writing about the world, culture and values absent in colonial representations, b u t the textual analyses reveal at the same tim e representations o f die subaltern w hich resist essentialist
representation o f subaltern consciousness and reject an essentialist view o f resistance as an obvious, non-contradictory act.
In a brief chapter at die end o f P art 1, the revised version o f A G rain o f W heat is analysed, signalling N gugi’s transition from his counter-hegem onic to his com bat phase.
In P art 2 N gugi’s Devil on the Cross and Matigari and La G um a’s In the Fog o f the Seasons'End and Time o f the Butcherbird are defined as “ com bat” fiction. In contrast to die novels
discussed in P art 1, the texts under scrutiny in P art 2 expose essentialist assum ptions about the colonial/apartheid/post-colonial situation. Ngugi and La G um a’s literary projects focus on die urgency o f the political situation in Kenya and South Africa, thereby underlining die ideological m essage in the texts and the im portance o f conscientising die subaltern. In the com bat fiction o f the tw o authors die emphasis is on a m ore direct, uncom prom ising and often one-dim ensional reaction and struggle against the oppressor.
W hile the diesis critiques certain aspects o f this fairly fixed, one-dim ensional representation o f the African situation in these fictional texts, the diesis underlines die need for counter
narratives o f freedom and liberation on die troubled African continent.
T able o f C o n te n ts
A cknow ledgem ents... 6
1. T H E O R E T IC A L P R O P O S IT IO N S ...8
1.1 Introduction...8
1.2 N on-fictional textual resistance... 13
1.3 Theorising resistance: ideology, pow er and know ledge... 17
1.4 Representation in historical and fictional discourse... 23
1.5 Literary images o f Africa. Some colonialist and anti-colonial te x ts ... 29
1.6 D efining counter-hegem onic fiction... 34
1.7 Defining com bat fiction... 39
PA RT 1. C O U N T E R -H E G E M O N IC FIC T IO N : T H E E X P L O R A T IO N O F A N AM B IG U O U S T E R R A IN ... 46
2. General in tro d u ctio n ... 46
3. A Grain of Wheat... 53
3.1 Introduction...53
3.2 Prospero in Africa: T he Consciousness o f Superiority... ..53
3.3 Interrogating resistance from within: the exposure o f the fragile se lf...58
3.3.1 T he enigmatic character o f M ugo... 58
3.3.2 M ugo’s construction o f self: Seclusion, agency and betrayal...61
3.3.3 N egotiating the interests o f self and com m unity : the betrayals o f Gikonyo and M u m b i... 65
3.3.4 Breaking the silence: voice as a revolutionary gesture... 68
3.4 Exploring the grand narrative o f resistance... 71
3.4.1 T he representation o f M au Mau in post-colonial K e n y a ...72
3.4.2 Kenyatta and Mau M au ...74
3.4.3 N gugi and Mau Mau: Querying the Post-colonial M yth-M aking... 76
3.4.4 Recovering the grand narrative o f Mau Mau: T he am bivalent portrayal o f Kihika ... 78
3.4.5 Talking about the Past as a Way o f Talking A b o u t the F u tu re ...84
4. A Grain of Wheat Revisited: A Transitional Case ...89
5. A W alk in the N ight... 98
5.1 Introduction...98
5.2 Exposing the solidity and the vulnerability o f the apartheid system ... 100
5.3 Q uestioning assum ptions about subaltern rec o n stru c tio n ... 104
5.3.1 T he am biguous representation o f the subaltern: M ichael A d o n is... 105
5.3.2 M ichael A donis3 construction o f self: the im portance o f re c o g n itio n ... 110
5.4 Exploring consciousness, resistance and regression...112
5.4.1 Michael Adonis: Resistance w ithout a political ag e n d a ... 116
5.4.2 T he potentials o f the crowd: recovering subaltern resistance?...118
3
6.^4nd A. Threefold Cord... 124
6.1 Introduction... 124
6.2 A partheid hegem ony and its different representations... 124
6.3 Exploring the subaltern v o ice ... 127
6.3.1 Spatial constraints and oppression: the m em bers o f the Pauls’ fam ily... 128
6.3.2 Q uestioning solidarity in die community: die dehum anisation o f subaltern self ... 130
6.3.3 A com m unity n o t at peace with its e lf...133
6.4 Exam ining alternative narratives: Resistance and complicity am ong die subaltern. 136 6.4.1 T he border-crossings o f Charlie P au ls...137
6.4.2 The colonising o f the mind: Ma and Uncle B e n ...140
6.4.3 T he fly, die rain, die carnation and the bird: redem ption beyond die apartheid discourse?...142
6.4.4 Transcending com bat discourse... 145
PA RT II. CO M BA T L IT E R A T U R E AS PO L IT IC A L C O M M IT M E N T ... 148
7. General introduction... 148
8. Devil on the Cross...160
8.1 In troduction...160
8.2 Exploring the post-colonial hegem onic order: the econom ics o f die exploitative classes... 161
8.3 Resisting dom inant discourse... 166
8.3.1 Conscientisation and the construction o f W ariinga’s self... 170
8.3.2 Resistance and the strayed intellectual: T he ambiguous life o f G atuiria... 173
8.4 Querying the narrow ideological terrain: The suppression o f plural sto ries... 175
9. M atigari... 182
9.1 In troduction... 182
9.2 Exploring truth and justice: disillusionment and betrayal... 183
9.3 Resistance and agency: the p rophet and die g rassroots... 187
9.3.1 Transgressing M arxist discourse: The role o f super-naturalism and Christian im agery... 188
9.3.2 The identity o f Matigari and the problem o f grassroots ag en cy ...190
9.4 T he apotheosis o f M atigari and the rejection o f die decentered voice... 196
10. In the Fog o f the Seasons’ E nd... 205
10.1 In tro d u c tio n ... 205
10.2 E xploring die terrain o f oppression... 205
10.2. 1 T he rationale o f die struggle: Race and class ... 208
10.3 Resisting the apartheid regime: T he anatom y o f a resistance m o v e m e n t... 209
10.3.1 Resistance against oppression: Coloured and black representation in die m o v em en t...212
10.3.2 T ranscending subalternity: the im portance o f organisation and education 213
10.3.2 T he concept o f h o m e ... 216
10.3.3 The re-establishm ent o f a fragile se lf...217
10.3.4 T he econom ics o f low-key resistance and passivity...219
10.3.5 Black representation- the anonym ous m em bers o f the Sharpeville c ro w d 221 10.4 T he evaporation o f the fog: the vision o f the prom ised la n d ...222
11. Time of the Butcherbird...226
11.1 In tro d u c tio n ... 226
11.2 Exploring B oer ideology... 228
11.3 Resistance against apartheid im position...231
11.3.1 Rural resistance: The role o f the peasantry... 232
11.3.2 Race and class revisited... 234
11.3.3 Querying O therness and difference...238
11.3.4 T he personal revenge m o tiv e ... 239
11.4 T he eradication o f difference: utopia envisaged... 242
12. Conclusion... 245
13. B ibliography... 254
5
Acknowledgements
This thesis w ould n o t have been possible w ithout the support and assistance o f many people and institutions.
I have realised that the time factor is very im portant in writing a Ph.D . thesis, and w ithout my sabbatical year in Cape Tow n I w ould never have found time to start exploring the subject m atter o f this diesis. I am grateful to O slo University College which granted m e the time to go to Cape Tow n and also for die scholarship I received to com plete this diesis.
As a visiting fellow at die Centre for African Studies, University o f Cape T ow n (UCT), I was given an office and access to die U C T library and archives. It was an im portant point o f entry into my topic. I am also grateful to the University o f W estern Cape w hich gave me admission to the Alex La G um a special collection.
I m et m any people in Soudi Africa w ho gave m e insightful com m entaries on La G um a and South A frican history and politics, am ong diem Cecil Abraham s, Neville Alexander, V.A.
February, Barry Feinburg Roger Field, A bner N yam ende, Maria Olaussen and Albie Sachs.
My m eeting w ith Blanche La G um a was a unique experience and cast light on m any aspects o f Alex La G um a’s life and fiction which I couldn’t have found in books or archive
material. I tiiank her very m uch for her hospitality.
U nfortunately I was n o t able to go to Kenya after I started on my thesis due to my hum an rights activities. B ut from previous visits to Kenya, from a m eeting witii Ngugi long ago and through friends w ith an intimate knowledge o f Kenya, and in particular Koigi wa W amwere, I was given inform ation useful for my diesis.
A t the School o f O riental and African Studies (SOAS), University o f L ondon, N ana W ilson-Tagoe has b een my supervisor through the w hole writing process, and I thank her for her insightful com m ents on my various draft chapters. W hen struggling to give sense and cohesion to my m aterial from the two in m any respects very different authors, she was there to offer constructive help and criticism. Thanks also to G raham Furniss, head o f the Africa D epartm ent at SOAS, w ho offered to read through the whole thesis in its final stages w hen N ana W ilson-Tagoe was on leave o f absence. “Sign-posting” is a w ord I picked up from G raham Furniss and w hich helped m e a lot in the final polishing o f this thesis. I also wish to thank my fellow Ph.D . student Anja O ed for interesting discussions in die field o f literature and Africa w hen in London.
In Oslo I am thankful to my colleagues D avid Stephens, w ho offered to read the final draft, and Jan-E rik Johansson, w ho turned out to be a com puter w izard in tim e o f technical crisis.
T he library at Bislet, and A ndre Bialk in particular, deserve thanks for supplying m e with all die books and articles I asked for dirough die inter-library system.
A final thanks to my own family, to Halldis, for continuous support and inspiration, and our two youngest children, Torhild and Eivind, for accepting that the com puter was less available for com puter games during the final phase o f this writing project.
1. T H E O R E T I C A L P R O P O S IT IO N S
1.1 In tro d u c tio n
Resistance in a third w orld context is characterised as a reaction to colonialism and imperialism, implying an alternative, non-hegem onic way o f conceiving hum an history, which is also extended to encompass the struggle in the post-colonial period. This reaction comes about w hen the subaltern1 becom es “aware o f one’s self as belonging to a subject people,” 2 and becom es conscious o f h is/h e r oppression. Subaltern resistance
necessitates a process o f conscientisation which, according to Paulo Freire, m eans “the deepening o f the com ing o f consciousness.” 3 T he deepening o f this process implies
“learning to perceive social, political, and econom ic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements o f reality.”4
As is well docum ented, resistance m ovem ents played an im portant p art in the struggle for independence and also m ade an im pact on the future structuring o f the new nations. As Terence Ranger says:
African ‘prim ary resistance’ shaped the environm ent in w hich later politics d ev elo p ed .. .resistance had profound effects upon white policies and
a ttitu d e s.. .during the course o f the resistances, or some o f them , types o f political organization or inspiration emerged w hich looked in im portant ways to die future;
w hich in som e cases are directly and in others indirectly linked w ith later m anifestations o f African opposition.5
Said distinguishes in Culture and Imperialism betw een “primary” and “secondary” resistance, the form er referring to the literal struggle against colonialism, the latter referring to w hat he calls “ideological resistance.”6 “Primary” resistance as I interpret it is a m ultifaceted
concept w hich com prises physical resistance as expressed in liberation m ovem ents, mass dem onstrations and similar high-profile actions, m ore low key resistance activities which include, in Jam es Scott’s words, “false compliance, foot-dragging, dissimulation, desertion,
1 The term “ subaltern” was first used by A ntonio G ram sci in political/philosophical debate. W hile “ subaltern” originally was a military concept, G ram sci used it to denote an oppressed person or oppressed classes w ith no access to hegem onic power. See A ntonio Gramsci, Selectionsfrom Political Writings 1910-1920, ed. Q uintin H oare, trans. Jo h n M atthews (New York: International Publishers, 1977). T he term was later picked up by the Subaltern Studies group o f Indian historians m eaning “ the general attribute o f subordination in South Asian society w hether this is expressed in term s o f class, caste, age, gender and office or in any other way.” (See Ranajit Guha, ed., Subaltern Studies 1: Writings on South A sian History and Society (New jDehli: O xford University Press, 1982), vii. The term was further used by Gayatri C. Spivak in her article: “Can the Subaltern Speak? Speculations on W idow- Sacrifice,” Wedge 1 f 8 (1985): 120-130.
2 Edw ard W.Said, Culture and Imperialism (London: Vintage, 1993), 258.
3 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy o f the City (New York; C ontinuum , 1993), 110.
4 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy o f the Oppressed (Harm ondsw orth: Pelican, 1985), 15.
5 Terence Ranger, “C onnexions Between Primary Resistance M ovem ents and M odern Mass N ationalism s in E ast and Central Africa, "journal of African History 9, no. 3 (1968): 631.
6 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 252.
false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander... ” ' and m ore symbolic activities as eidier avoiding or returning the oppressor’s gaze. “Secondary” or ideological resistance focuses, according to Basil Davidson, on rebuilding “a shattered com m unity, to save or restore the sense and fact o f com m unity against all the pressures o f the colonial system.” 8 Said sees “prim ary” and “secondary” resistance as mutually interdependent:
the interventions o f non-E uropean artists and scholars cannot be dismissed or silenced, and these interventions are n o t only an integral part o f a political m ovem ent but, in many ways, die m ovem ent’s successfully guiding imagination, intellectual and figurative energy reseeing and retiiinking the terrain com m on to whites and non-w hites.9
Located w ithin w hat Said calls “secondary” resistance resistance literature can be perceived as literature which resists die ideological impositions o f colonial discourse. Since colonial discourse, according to Said, n o t only represents b u t produces die reality o f the colonised and actually makes the colonised accept this construction o f reality, resistance literature is often defined as literature w hich queries and often underm ines the reality construction o f colonial discourse.10 This rem apping o f reality and the African terrain is in line with Simon G ikandi’s reading o f A chebe’s novels as being “prom pted by the desire to initiate a
discourse o f resistance and to re-present Africans other than they have been presented by colonialist discourse.” 11 As A chebe states:
w hat I think a novelist can teach is som ething very fundam ental, namely to indicate to his readers, to p ut it crudely, that we in Africa did n o t hear o f culture for the first time from E uropeans.12
According to Gikandi Achebe
turns the W estern fantasy on Africa upside down, a gesture o f reversal
w h ic h .. .makes it possible for A chebe to initiate narratives o f resistance. A reading ... w hich fails to relate it to the discourse that shadows it, misses the revolutionary nature o f .. .(the) text.13
This is in line with the authors o f the seminal book The Empire Writes Back 14 w ho suggest that anti-colonial discourse is a way, as Said states, “o f writing hack to tire m etropolitan cultures, disrupting the E uropean narratives o f the O rient and Africa, “replacing them with 7 See e.g. Jam es C. Scott, Weapons o f the Weak: Everyday o f Peasant Resistance (New H aven and London: Yale University Press, 1985), xvi.
8 Basil D avidson, Africa in Modern History: The Search fo r a New Society (London: Allen Lane, 1978), 155.
9 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 256.
10 See sections 1.6 and 1.7 for a m ore com prehensive discussion o f the term “resistance literature.”
11 Simon Gikandi, Reading Chinua Achebe: Language and Ideology in Fiction (London, Nairobi:
H einem ann, H einem ann Kenya, 1991), 24.
12 Chinua A chebe in an interview w ith D onatus Nw oga in African Writers Talking, eds.
D ennis D uerden and C osm o Pieterse (London: H einem ann, 1972), 7.
13 Gikandi, Reading Chinua Achebe, 26.
14 Bill A shcroft, G areth G riffiths, Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (London and N ew York, 1989).
9
either a m ore playful or a m ore pow erful new narrative style.” 15 T he way o f rewriting hegem onic discourse m eans a form o f subversion,
as the subversive is characteristic o f post-colonial discourse in general. P o st
colonial literatures/cultures are thus constituted in counter-discursive rather than hom ologous practices, and they offer ‘fields5 o f counter-discursive strategies to the dom inant discourse. 16
By focusing on these counter-discursive practices the present study will explore selected novels o f Ngugi wa T hiong'o and Alex la G um a within the param eters o f w hat is traditionally called resistance literature, grounded on the prem ise that the com plex and im portant issues o f resistance in third w orld literature will be illuminated from different angles by these two authors.
T he central question o f this thesis refers to the kinds o f m odels o f response
(resistance/(non)agency) to colonial and post-colonial im position w hich are posited in the texts. Such a focus involves related issues such as the relationship betw een the
consciousness level o f the subaltern and h is/h e r capacity for resistance and how
oppression affects self-construction and consciousness. In w hat way, in o ther w ords, can the subaltern act or speak? M ore accurately, is there a causal relationship betw een self
construction, consciousness and resistance? Is resistance/agency accom panied by or a consequence o f a decolonised consciousness? In w hat way do the authors respond differently to the issue o f resistance/agency in different periods o f their career?
Since the thesis is concerned w ith resistance within the textual space o f the novels the central issue raised in the thesis is explored around questions o f representation. T he textual analysis will investigate in w hat way colonial representations o f the subaltern are confirm ed or subverted and how or if the writers essentialise the subaltern. M oreover, by exploring the subaltern m ind in resistance it is o f param ount interest to expose the ideological underpinnings that inform the inscriptions o f the subject positions and representations o f die subaltern self in the texts o f N gugi and La Guma. Such an analysis will explore the ideological climate o f the novels and analyse in w hat way the characters are interpellated by b oth dom inant and non-dom inant ideologies and w hether the ideological interpellations and counter-interpellations in the different texts o f Ngugi and La G um a vary in such a way that they cause various responses (resistance/com plicity) to
colonial/apartheid/postcolonial dom ination. The thesis will consequently explore how such inscriptions are m ediated in various ways by race, class, gender, by authorial history and by context (South A frica/K enya).
My final concern in this thesis relates to in w hat way Ngugi and La G um a, by representing or historicising colonial and post-colonial relations, m ove beyond the colonial and p o st
colonial “realities55 themselves and reinterpret or offer alternative interpretations o f that 15 Said, Culture and Imperialism, 260.
16 H elen Tiffin, "Post-Colonial Literatures and C ounter-D iscourse,55 Kunapipi, IX, n o .3 (1987): 18.
world. This issue necessitates a discussion, albeit brief, o f the relationship and potential tension betw een “history” (context) and imaginative texts.
Besides querying how die analysed texts b o th rival and reproduce “historical narratives”
the diesis explores how and if the resistance literature o f Ngugi and La G um a transcends die limitations o f die historical and sociological reality and redefine new worlds. H ave the novels escaped the grip o f colonialist discursive practices and E uropean aestiietics?
These are die questions which will inform the analysis o f die novels in question.
Ngugi wa T hiong’o and Alex La G um a w rote their novels under very different
circumstances and contexts. W hereas N gugi’s fiction deals with die situation in colonial and post-colonial Kenya, La G um a focuses on the situation in his hom e country, South Africa, during the apartheid period, or during the period o f internal colonialism. A t first glance a com parative study o f N gugi and La G um a may seem idiosyncratic since the colonial experience in the two countries is very different and n o t easily comparable.
W hereas form al colonialism in Kenya ceased to exist with her independence in 1963, Soudi Africa becam e independent from Britain as early as 1910. How ever, w hat many historians w ould term “internal colonialism,” i.e. the w hite subjugation o f blacks w ithin the country, continued up till the elections o f 1994. T he traditional definition o f “colonialism ” as appropriating m aterial resources, exploitation o f labour and interference w ith political and cultural structures o f another territory o r nation m ust therefore be supplem ented w ith a version o f “ colonialism3’ which is duplicated from witiiin. 17
In any case the coloured and black people in South Africa and the blacks in Kenya suffered under the dom ination o f white supremacy during im portant periods o f the 20th century. A com parative study betw een the two different colonial experiences may yield different dialectical relationships betw een context and text which I will explore in this thesis.
Both N gugi and La G um a published their first fictional books at the beginning o f the sixties, N gugi on the eve o f K enya’s independence and La G um a in the m idst o f resistance and increased repression by the apartheid regime. Ngugi's last novel (to this date), M atigari was published in 1987 and reflects the disillusionm ent with the indigenous post-colonial regime whereas La G um a’s last, Time o f the Butcherbird, published in 1979, focuses on the intensified resistance to the apartheid regime.
W hile N gugi is one o f the best-know n and m o st highly profiled writers on the African continent, La G um a never achieved the same kind o f reputation and prom inence even diough there is no reason to undervalue his contributions b o th as a w riter and a politician.
Ngugi, for one, admits to have been deeply influenced by La G um a and classifies him
“am ong the best o f A frican writers.” 18 A nd at the first African W riters C onference in Kam pala in 1962 W ole Soyinka, com m enting on A W alk in the Night, stated that “La G um a 17 F or a discussion o f this special type o f colonialism (“internal colonialism”), see Brian Bunting, “ Introduction,” in Edw ard Roux, S.P. Bunting: A Political Biography (Bellville, Cape Town: University o f W estern Cape, 1993), 20.
18 N gugi wa T hiong’o,“D ecolonising the Mind: Cultural E m ancipation A fter Liberation.”
Address at University o f W estern Cape Cultural Centre, 20.8 1991.
11
had m anaged to do in 91 pages w hat African writers had been trying to achieve for years.” 19 Similarly other critics hold his writing in very high esteem.2"
My reading o f the two authors separates the selected works into two parts, the first dealing with w hat I have called their counter-hegem onic fiction and the second w hat I have term ed com bat fiction. T he first part deals w ith the counter-hegem onic fiction o f the authors w hich in b oth cases coalesces w ith the early period o f their w riting careers whilst the second part deals with the com bat fiction o f their later period. I have chosen to focus on three o f N g u g i's novels, one from his counter-hegem onic period, A Grain ofW heat (1967), and two from w hat I have called his com bat period, Devil on the Cross (English version 1982) and Matigari (Gikuyu and English version 1987). In fact A Grain o f Wheat appeared in an original and a revised version (1986). W hereas the m ost thorough analysis is undertaken o f the original version, I have found it necessary to make som e com m ents on the changes that have taken place in die new version to explain his transition to w h at I have called die com bat period. F our o f La G um a’s novels are analysed, A W alk in the N ight (1962) and A n d A Threefold Cord (1964) from his counter-hegem onic period, and In the Fog of the Seasons' E nd
(1972) and Time o f the Butcherbird (1979) from his com bat period.21
By analysing two authors from different regions and countries, different historical and political settings and w here the emphasis is in large parts on different ethnic groups, this study offers readings that focus on resistance- comparatively viewed- w hich critical studies o f the two authors separately by logic and necessity have avoided. I will argue d iat it is critically and theoretically fruitful to examine the issue o f resistance from such a com parative perspective.
The distinction betw een two types o f resistance literature w hich in various ways challenge die various impositions o f colonial and neo-colonial hegemony is by no m eans clear-cut, but is nevertheless a productive notion to distinguish betw een literatures which
thematically and (sometimes) stylistically operate on different levels as far as resistance is concerned.
W hereas I define com bat fiction as placed squarely within the liberation struggle or the so- called neo-colonial struggle and as characterised by its m arked inversion o f the M anichean binarism o f colonial discourse, my discussion o f counter-hegem onic fiction is m eant to show, on the odier hand, how it interrogates this binarism by introducing relational notions betw een the oppressor and the oppressed, and is consequendy m ore concerned w ith the 19 Q uoted from A ndre O dendaal and Roger Field eds., Liberation Chabalala: The World of A le x L a Gtima (Bellville, Cape Town: Mayibuye Books, University o f W estern C ape,1993), iii.
20 See e.g. Lewis N kosi, w ho in his obituary on La G um a, com pares La G um a’s vision to that o f Dostoyevsky. The Trines, L ondon, 23.11 1985.
21 T he choice o f novels has primarily been determ ined by their ideological location within the total production o f novels o f the two audiors. Space lim itation has excluded N gugi’s The River Between ,Weep N ot, Child and Petals o f Blood and La G um a’s A Stone County from analysis.
possibility o f self-construction within the space o f the colonial/postcolonial world.”
T he present chapter provides a theoretical introduction to the central concepts which inform my analysis o f the novels in Part 1 and Part 2. A fter having briefly focused on a very selective num ber o f w hat I consider seminal, non-fictional writings and outlined some o f the m ain concerns in anti-colonial non-fictional discourse (1.2) I address key theoretical concepts such as ideology, pow er and knowledge in relation to resistance and agency (1.3).
The central question o f representation is seen in connection w ith the discussion about die possibility o f restoring die potential voice o f the subaltern. Such a discussion m ust
necessarily also include the contentious questions relating to notions o f w hat “true”
representations actually imply. M oreover the potential differences betw een historical and fictional narratives are discussed in tiiis section (1.4). In die next section (1.5) I first briefly focus on a limited num ber o f colonialist, fictional narratives and their ideological
im plications and tiien discuss anti-colonial fiction and its m ain concerns, in particular die notion o f resistance in relation to the various ramifications o f inverting colonial fictional practices. I finally analyse in som ew hat m ore deptii the dieoretical implications o f my distinction betw een counter-hegem onic (1.6) and com bat fiction (1.7) and signal tentatively how m y two authors can be placed in the m idst o f this dieoretical debate.
1.2 Non-fictional textual resistance
T he struggle against colonialism has produced, as Barbara H arlow correcdy observes, “a significant corpus o f literary writing, b o th narrative and poetic, as well as a broad spectrum o f theoretical analyses o f the political, ideological, and cultural param eters o f this
struggle.” 23 This is w hat Said terms “secondary” resistance and w hich encom passes a wide variety o f narratives which in multiple ways signal an alternative way o f understanding T hird W orld history and the struggle against various forms o f colonialism and imperialism.
The dieoretical analyses o f the colonial situation were in m any ways the precursors o f the new, imaginative literature which appeared o n the eve o f independence and later and can be seen as a reaction b o th to the material and ideological ram ifications o f colonialism. By underscoring the dichotom y and difference o f self and others, colonial discourse after W orld W ar 11 was, generally speaking, unable “to contain any notion o f difference that was n o t directiy tied to the question o f inferiority and the necessity o f subordination.” 24 Such a discourse o f colonial psychology was grounded in a completely dehistoricised and
depoliticised understanding o f m an, or rather, a politicised understanding o f m an to serve colonial interests.
T he dichotom y betw een self and O ther as expressed in writings on A frican psychology and psychiatry underlined the O ther's inability to cross this colonial dividing line. The
22 A m ore detailed analysis o f my distinction betw een counter-hegem onic and com bat fiction appears towards the end o f this chapter.
23 Barbara Harlow, Resistance Literatlin (New Y ork and London: M ethuen, 1987), xvi.
24 M egan V aughan, Cutting Their Ills: Colonial Tower and African Illness ( Cam bridge and Stanford, CA: Polity Press and Stanford University Press, 1991), 115.
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“O tiiering” o f die colonised and die perception o f diem as different and inferior resides in die notion o f w hat Frantz Fanon (and later A bdul JanM oham ed) called the M anichean binarism 25 in which implacable discursive opposition betw een the coloniser and die colonised is being produced.
Octavio M annoni’s contribution to colonial discourse, Prospero and Caliban: The Psychology of Colonisation f polarised the debate on colonialism by explicating the situation o f the
colonised in ethno-psychological terms, claiming that the colonised becam e colonised because o f a “dependence complex” they inherently possessed. M oreover, as Frantz Fanon underlined, any crossing or disordering o f die line o f dem arcation betw een coloniser and colonised, i.e. anti-colonial resistance was “attributed to religious, magical, fanatical behaviour.” 27 J.C. Carothers’ report, The Psychology o f M an M a n 28 was interpreted along these lines. Fanon interpreted, on the other hand, this native hysteria as sign o f resistance;
the criminal record o f Algerians, “his impulsivity, and die violence o f his m urders are therefore n o t die consequences o f the organization o f his nervous system or o f the characterial orginality, b ut the direct product o f the colonial situation.” 29
By viewing colonialism from a Black African point o f view, A im e Cesaire's Discourse on Colonialisfn underscores how “ colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in die true sense o f the w ord, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts.30 By placing colonialism in direct relation to an understanding o f A frican m an as a product o f colonialism’s dehum anising aspects, Cesaire reconstructs and historicises the establishm ent o f self and die construction o f hum an identity. This is in line w idi Frantz Fanon, w ho in b odi The Wretched o f the Earth and Black Skin, White M asks, strongly contests biological explanations o f difference, placing dislocated and confused psyches o f the colonised squarely widiin die param eters o f colonialisation and colonial discourse. In one sense Fanon upholds the binary division betw een self and O ther created by th e colonisers, b u t explains the developm ent, or ratiier, dem olition o f black selfhood, n o t in biological or pseudo-psychological terms, b u t as a result o f colonial political and cultural im position on the Black man.
In Black Skin, White M asks Fanon claims th at colonialism eroded the very being o f the black m an, his very self. “A t the risk o f arousing the resentm ent o f my coloured brothers, I will say diat the black m an is n o t a m an” 31 since the colonial experience crushes his
25 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched o f the Earth, transl. Constance Farrington (New York: G rove Press, Inc., 1968), 41. A bdul R. JanM oham ed, Manichean Aesthetics: The Politics ofEiterature in
Colonial Africa (Amherst: T he University o f M assachusetts Press, 1983).
26 Octavio M annoni, Prospero and Caliban: The Psycho log)! of Colonisation, trans. P. Pow esland (London: M etiiuen, 1956).
Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, transl. H aakon Chevalier (New York: G rove Press, 1965), 41.
28 J.C. Carothers, The Psychology of M au M au (Nairobi: G overnm ent Printer, 1954).
29 Fanon, The Wretched, 309.
30 Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism, (New York: M onthly Review Press, 1972), 13.
31 Fanon, Black Skin, White M asks, trans. C.L. M arkm ann (New York: G rove Press, 1967), 8.
selfhood. Fanon thus inverts the colonial version o f the M anichean binarism and defines colonialism as die culprit, die evil, the uncivilised, the savage. As Cesaire says:“a poison has been instilled into the veins o f E urope and, slowly, but surely, die continent proceeds tow ard savagery.” 32
This does n o t prevent Benita Parry from reading b odi Fanon and Cesare as
authors o f liberation tiieories... (who) affirmed the intervention o f an insurgent, unified black self, acknowledged die revolutionary energies, released by valorising the cultures denigrated by colonialism and, rather dian construing the colonialist relationship in terms o f negotiations with the structures o f imperialism, privileged coercion over hegem ony to project it as a struggle betw een implacably opposed forces... 33
There are two tilings to be said here. First Fanon both argues for die unified self with revolutionary agency and at the same tim e clearly, as in Black Skin, White M asks, for the split colonised subject, or even, as referred to above, a non-self im posed up o n it by
colonialism. T he split self results w hen the colonised subject realises tiiat h e /s h e can never attain die whiteness he has been taught to desire, or shed the blackness he has learnt to devalue. So in a sense, b o th post-m odern critics like Bhabha and m ore M arxist critics can appropriate Fanon by eitiier privileging the split, dislocated self over the native elite who have experienced W estern education or the revolutionary self w ho F an o n identified in the peasants possessing a unified, agent self. As a consequence o f F an o n ’s perception o f the colonial w orld as a M anichean world, “a world cut in two,” 34 the two zones betw een natives and settiers “ follow the principle o f reciprocal exclusivity.” 35 In the M anichean w orld die settier “paints the native as a sort o f quintessence o f evil” 36 whereas the setder views hims elf/hers elf as the civilised saviour. The binary opposition betw een E urope, the W est, the rational, the dynamic, die civilised as opposed to die other, Africa, the irrational, the strange, the static, the savage is n o t only an invention in F an o n ’s, the O th e r’s mind.
Edw ard Said claims that the whole project o f studying the O rient was ultimately a political vision o f reality whose structure created a binary opposition betw een the familiar and the strange.37 So, in a sense one can talk o f a reciprocal understanding o f w hat die colonial encounter entailed betw een the coloniser and the colonised. T he dialectics betw een self and the O ther constituted the dom ination and subjugation o f colonialism and turned the
colonized, in Fanon's w ords, into an animal: “A t times this M anicheism goes to its logical conclusion and dehumanizes die native, or to speak plainly, it turns him into an animal.” 38 32 Cesaire, 13.
33 Benita Parry,“Resistance T heory/T heorising Resistance or Tw o Cheers for Nativism ,” in Colonial Discourse!Postcolonial Theo/y, eds. Francis Barker, Peter H ulm e and M argaret Iversen (Manchester: M anchester University Press, 1994), 179.
34 Fanon, The Wretched, 38.
35 Fanon, The Wretched, 39.
36 Fanon, The Wretched, 41.
37 See Edw ard Said, Orientalism (London and Henley: Routiedge and K egan Paul, 1978), 45.
38 Said, Orientalism, 42.
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The binary M anicheism in die colonial encounter has been challenged, n o t surprisingly, bodi by W estern and non-W estern scholars and artists since die binarism may seem to reside in a stadc, inflexible understanding o f complex reladonships w hich do n o t easily succum b to simple, devastating opposites. As Frederick C ooper puts it:
The risk is diat in exploring the colonial binarism one reproduces it, either by new variations o f die dichotom y (m odern versus traditional) or by inversion (die destructive imperialist versus die sustaining com m unity o f die victim s)... The binaries o f colonizer/colonized, W estern/non-W estern, and do m in atio n / resistance begin as useful devices for opening up questions o f pow er b u t end up constraining die search for precise ways in which pow er is deployed and die ways in which pow er is engaged, contested, deflected and ap p ropriated.39
O r put differendy, F an o n ’s fierce binarism may seem to deny die natives any history but that o f oppression and pushes under die carpet any ambiguity o r ambivalence with w hich die colonised m ight confront and appropriate colonial ideology.40 Fanon's binarism is in fact an inverse duplication o f the coloniser's dichotomy, n o t allowing for, it is claimed, the significant nuances which the colonial encounter entailed. T he disordering o f the binary dichotom y adds in one way to the complexity o f the colonising project, since a m ere inversion or abrogation o f colonialist discourse may reinforce, according to A shcroft, the old binarism:
w idiout the process o f appropriation the m om ent o f abrogation may not extend beyond a reversal o f the assum ptions o f privilege, the ‘norm al’, and correct inscription, all o f which can simply be taken over and m aintained by the new usage.41
In other words, the w orry relates to an understanding o f counter-hegem onic discourse as only reflecting an inversion o f the binarism o f colonialist discourse.42
O n the other hand, however, recent critics o f Fanon seem to underplay the context in which he w rote The Wretched o f the Earth, the French-Algerian W ar, w hich, at least psychologically, necessitated clear-cut lines o f dem arcation betw een “ friend and foe.”
Fanon's insistence on M anicheism undoubtedly reflects ingrained conceptions b o th am ong 39 Frederick C ooper,“ Conflict and Connection: Retliinking Colonial A frican History,”
American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (1994): 1517.
40 F anon’s oppressed group was n o t the native population in toto, excluding as it were the com prador people belonging to the petty bourgoisie or w orking class. T h e peasants and the lum penproletatiat w ere the true oppressed and the true revolutionaries. As C ooper puts it:
“Fanon's reduction o f ideology and political strategy to traits o f social groups in effect created purge categories: die organized w orker or the petty bourgeoisie,.. .was a traitor by definition.” C ooper, American Historical Review, 1543.
41 A shcroft et al., The Empire Writes Back, 38.
42 Said's thesis in Orientalism was ultimately a political vision o f reality w hose structure prom oted a binary opposition betw een the familiar (Europe, the W est, “us”) and the strange (the O rient, die East, “them ”). This is in line with Fanon's binarism , and Said shows how this opposition is crucial to E uropean self-conception, colonised people are irrational, barbaric, sensual; Europeans are rational, civilised, sensible. This dialectic betw een self and otiier has been crucial in trying to analyse colonial structures in various parts o f the world.
the colonised and n o t the least am ong the coloniser and underscores the in many wavs disastrous consequences o f colonial aggression, arrogance and dom ination. M oreover F anon’s insistence on the binary w orld o f colonialism m ust also be seen, n o t only as a response to, b u t as a dram atic revolt against the alm ost all-pervasiveness o f colonial ideology and colonial discourse, how they “ take their effect, n o t only within the W estern m ind, b u t also on consciousness and die very constitution o f colonial people
themselves.” 43 Reflecting fundam ental concerns in various phases o f N gugi and La G um a's fiction writing die binary/relational debate will significandy inform my analyses o f dieir resistance fiction.
1.3 Theorising resistance: ideology, power and knowledge
This infiltration and im position o f ideology referred to above has been dieorised by Aldiusser w ho, by dissociating him self from traditional M arxist thinking about ideology as
“false consciousness” o r illusion, defines ideology as “bodies o f representations existing in institutions and practices.” 44 Ideology is
a system o f representations, ideology responds to the individual's quest, conscious or unconscious, for knowledge about the complexity o f the world. Ideology functions as 'die relation through which hum an beings live in relation to the world.45
In diat sense ideology is a real relation to the world, but the relationship is also “imaginary”
in the sense tiiat it does n o t tell the whole “truth” about m an's relationship to society; it conceals real contradictions in society by trying to establish a sense o f security and recognition am ong its subjects. Thus dom inant ideology has the function o f obscuring from the subaltern classes the “real” state o f their own lives and exploitation.
A ccording to Althusser, society in a certain sense addresses die individual (“interpellates”
the individual) as a subject and recognises the individual as a subject w ith value and identity. This m eans that subjectivity or personhood is itself form ed in and through ideology as the interpellation idealises the individual and its real situation in order to conceal the real contradictions o f society. W hen the subjection o f selves cannot easily be achieved due to indom itable contradictions, repression replaces die m echanism o f interpellation. A lthusser includes literature, as Catherine Belsey states, “am ong the ideological apparatuses w hich contribute to the process o f reproducing the relations of production.”46 Referring to classic realist fiction, Belsey argues (derived from
A lthusser’s position) that tiiis fiction “interpellates’ the reader, addresses itself to him or her direcdy, offering the reader as die position from which the text is m o st ‘obviously’
43 M egan Vaughan, Colonial Discourse Theory and African Histoty or has Post-Modernism passed us by? (Cape Town: Centre for African Studies Publication, 1994),4.
Louis Althusser, Essays in Self-Criticism (London: NLB, 1969), 155.
45 J. T hom pson, Studies in the Theoiy of Ideology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984), 90.
46 Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (London and N ew York: Routiedge, 1980), 56.
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intelligible, the position o f the subject in (and oj) ideology”''1 W hile A lthusser’s concept o f ideology is a useful concept in analysing dom inant power structures, it is also problem atic in the sense that it, by exposing no articulation o f non-dom inant ideologies, seems to give no space for agency and resistance which are n ot contained within the limits o f dom inant ideology.
Resistance in relation to dom inant ideology and pow er structures is theorised by Foucault in his discussion o f pow er and knowledge where resistance is placed inside the power structure. Foucault’s idea o f pow er is to be seen in
die multiplicity o f force relations im m anent in the sphere in w hich diey operate and which constitute their ow n organization; as die process which, through ceaseless
struggles and confrontations, transform s, strengthens or reverses them , as the support w hich these force relations find in one anotiier, thus form ing a chain or a system, or o n die contrary, die disjunctions and contradictions w hich isolate them from one anotiier.48
Pow er can tiius be conceptualised as multi-directional relations w here force, processes, linkages, disjunctions and strategies are central concepts. T he diversity involves
negotiations, com prom ises and struggles. A nd m ore im portandy, pow er relations are n o t totally im posed from the one side, b u t are created in a dialectical relationship. According to this view pow er is n o t exclusively possessed by one actor or one party; in a colonial context this m eans that the colonial culture is constantiy recreated through overlapping and
conflicting discourses. As Ran G reenstein says: “History is seen as a process that allows alliances across the colonial divide, n o t a dichotom y betw een the pow erful and the powerless.” 49
It is my contention that Foucault employs the notion o f pow er n o t very different to A lthusser’s notion o f ideology in the sense that while pow er per definitionem is coercive, its cam paign/use is often secretive or veiled as is Althusser’s ideology. In this sense pow er is at the same time seductive and coercive, establishing some sort o f dependence am ong those w ho are coerced by it. Like ideology pow er is viewed as an all-pervasive
phenom enon which, if n o t interpellating the person (as w ith ideology) is, as Foucault insists,
employed and exercised through a net-like organisation. A nd n o t only do individuals circulate betw een its threads, they are always in the position o f simultaneously undergoing or exercising this power. They are n o t only its inert or consenting target; they are also the elements o f its articulation. In other w ords, individuals are like vehicles o f power, n o t its point o f application.50
47 Besley, 57.
48 Michel Foucault, The History o f Sexuality: A n Introduction, trans. R o bert Hurley (New York:
Vintage Book, 1980), 92-93.
49 Ran Greenstein, "History, Historigraphy and the Production o f K now ledge,” South A fiican Historical Journal 32, (1995): 225.
50 M ichel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and other Writings 1972-77, ed. Colin G o rdon (Hertfordshire: H arvester Press, 1980), 98.
W hereas knowledge gives rise to power, knowledge is also a product o f power, intimately linking the two concepts. T he problem atic point with Foucault’s concept o f pow er and knowledge is its pervasiveness which m eans that the im position o f pow er seems
unavoidable and that there is nothing outside o f power. This pervasiveness is due to the transform ation o f pow er to knowledge which is being transm itted in the net-like fashion m entioned above, m eaning that Foucault’s theory seems to leave no room for opposition or resistance from the outside, similar to Althusser w ho found no room for alternative, oppositional ideological interpellations outside these very ideological interpellations. By picking up the issue o f subaltern resistance which he neglected in Orientalism, Said critiques in a fundam ental way Foucault’s concepts o f pow er and knowledge. Said insists that there is no system o f dom ination which is so all-pervasive that there are n o spaces which are outside its control. Said leans on G ram sci’s theorising o f hegem ony to underline that ideology in general works to m aintain social cohesion and dom inant interests, b u t that there are also particular ideologies that express the protest o f those being exploited.
G ram sci’s im portant observation is that the oppressed has a dual consciousness, one which is complicit w ith the will o f the rulers and one which has the potentials o f developing into resistance. As Said states:
If pow er oppresses and controls and manipulates, then everything that resists it is n o t morally equal to power, is n o t neutrally and simply a w eapon against that power. Resistance cannot equally be an adversial alternative to pow er and a dependent function o f it, except in some metaphysical, ultimately trivial sense.
(Gramsci) w ould certainly appreciate the fineness o f Foucault’s archeologies, but w ould find it odd that they m ake n o t even a nom inal allowance for emergent m ovem ents, and none for revolutions, counter-hegem ony, or historical blocks.51 H om i K. B habha’s resistance m odel, on the other hand, reflects F oucault’s “resistance from within’’ paradigm w here he elaborates on the function o f mimicry as a form o f
“intransitive” resistance, w here the gaze is seen as a control m echanism employed by the coloniser, but also as an act o f defiance by the colonised. How ever, it w ould seem that the coloniser’s gaze is m ore proactive than that o f the colonised, w ho is often merely
responding to an act o f dom ination. In Bhabha's view, it is the failure o f the colonial authority to reproduce itself that allows for anti-colonial subversion. As a result, like Said in Orientalism, Bhabha does n o t consider the indigenous sources o f anti-colonial intellectual and political activity. In La G um a’s A W alk in the Night Michael A donis’ return o f the policem an’s gaze can, arguably, be seen as an act o f defiance. T hat the colonised gaze or mimicry is, as Bhabha puts it, “the nam e for the strategic reversal o f the process o f d o m in atio n .. .that turns the gaze o f the discriminated back up o n the eye o f pow er” 52 is, however, in M ichael A donis’ case certainly contentious, b ut is from our perspective theoretically and ideologically interesting as it implicitly raises the fundam ental question o f
51 E dw ard W. Said, The World, the Text and the Critic (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), 246.
52 H om i K. Bhabha, The Location o f Culture (London and N ew York: Routledge, 1994), 112.
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resistance “production” inside or outside the pow er structure. T here is, however, little evidence that B habha’s psychological warfare or resistance m odel affected the stability o f the dom inant regime in any substantial way. This is due to B habha’s resistance m odel w hich is theorised entirely in semiotic or psychoanalytic term s, neglecting or negating as it were the establishm ent o f self and die relationship betw een self and O thers in terms o f context, class and gender. W hile it will be shown diat diere is litde indication diat Michael A donis’ return o f die gaze in any way destabilises the apartheid regime, or effects in Michael Adonis a politically grounded resistance m ood, it is o f interest to analyse w hetiier his reactive response can help boost his m orale and his sense o f self-control. Bhabha's insistence on intransitive resistance or resistance from witiiin coincides witii a post
structuralist account o f self as fragm ented and non-unitary.53 F or our purposes it is necessary to explore briefly the dieoretical ramifications o f this debate w here the p o st
structuralist position54 is central.
Clearly there is some sort o f symmetry betw een the notion o f self and self-form ation and the idea o f resistance and agency. In Fanon in particular the idea o f the unified, solid self widi potentials o f agency is grounded in his tiieory o f die rural m asses as the revolutionary
spearhead in the resistance against colonialism. This line o f tiiought is followed by H arlow w ho seldom seems to question agency am ong the oppressed, and is thus rarely preoccupied with die problem atics o f non-agency. T he post-structuralist idea o f language as prior to and die condition o f self-consciousness means the prioritisation o f linguistic operation as the m edium o f self-conception, th at a sense o f self-hood w hich precedes linguistic form ulation 53 K im W orthington elaborates on die post-structuralist position:“A theory o f linguistic constructivism, in w hich authoritative agency is dismissed as delusion, offers no possibility for revolutionary practice.” K im W orthington, Self as Narrative: Subjectivity and Community in Contemporary Fiction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 8. A bit later he asks:“H ow can socially constructed subjects ever be the agents o f social change?” W orthington, 12.
54 The connection betw een post-structuralism and post-m odernism o n die one hand and post-colonialism on the o ther is complex. A rif Dirlik, am ong others, claims diat p o st
colonial theory is the child o f post-m odernism and thus inadequate in either understanding or changing the world. H e argues that the link which has been established betw een p o st
m odernism and late capitalism can now be extended to post-structuralism . Therefore, p o st
colonialism, w hich appears to critique the universalist pretensions o f W estern knowledge systems, and starts off, according to Dirlik, “with a repudiation o f die universalistic pretensions o f M arxist language ends up n o t w ith its dispersal into local vernaculars b u t w ith a return to another First W orld language w ith universalist epistemological
pretensions.” A rif Dirlik,“ T he Postcolonial Aura: T hird W orld Criticism in the Age o f G lobal Capitalism,” Critical Inquiry 20, no.2 (1994): 342. Dirlik goes o n to claim that p o st
colonialist theories’ privileging o f cultural analysis ignores die econom ic dim ension diat shapes our world. O ne way o f understanding the contem porary situation in the Third W orld, and particularly diat o f the subaltern, is to com bine different theoretical
perspectives, such as is done in the Subaltern Studies group which, according to Prakash, “ employs in com bination Marxism, post-structuralism , Gram sci and Foucault, the m odern W est and India, archival research and textual criticism.” Gyan Prakash,“ Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism,” American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (1994): 1490. Such a hybrid approach betw een different theoretical propositions does n o t m ean to unproblem atise m ultiple dieoretical applications; clearly such applications may lead to contradictions and tensions, but it m ust also be borne in m ind that the complexity w hich postcolonial studies represent, dem ands flexible tools o f methodology.
is inconceivable. T he self is n o t a pre-linguistic given, but is rather a construct o f language.
Since hum an subjects are “beings o f language” who do n o t possess pre-linguistic
essentiality, hum an relations and conceptions are fundamentally linguistic. T he self and its world are intra-linguistic: It is, according to Tallis,“ the w orld o f w ords that creates the world o f th in g s... it is in the w orld o f m eaning o f a particular language in which the world o f tilings will com e to be arranged.” 3S In the rhetoric o f post-structuralism /post
modernity, all absolutes, according to W orthington, “including the ostensibly free-tliinking subject o f m odernity, are deem ed to be the product o f the kind o f deluded metaphysical thinking which seeks to ground the contingencies o f experience in an authoritative, substantial presence.” 56 T he consequence o f such a poststructuralist/postm odern theory (reminiscent o f Foucault) is from a resistance view point very problem atic since it postulates that personal subjectivity/authenticity and personal agency are, if n o t impossible,
exceedingly difficult. T he post-structuralist position that self, identity is solely a linguistic construct, that selfhood is w ritten and read in the extra-personal term s o f social language seems contradictory to our experiences as hum an beings. As W orthington says:
If I do n o t possess som e kind o f personal identity through time, a sense o f m yself which, if n o t fixed, is at least coherent, how can my actions have any guarantee o f consistency? If I am only the ahvays-already p roduct o f discourse, how can I speak w ith originality or act w ith intention?... H ow can socially constructed subjects ever be the agents o f social change? 57
My repudiation o f a post-structuralist position o f self, however, is n o t m eant to minimalise the danger o f subjection, even subjugation by the discourses o f prevailing social practices and institutions. La G um a’s portrayal o f the submissive, oppressed people on the Cape Flats and D istrict Six is in this respect a telling example o f successful, dom inant
subjugation. N o r is scepticism o f the post-structuralist position m eant to reject the idea o f self as som ew hat m ore problem atic and unstable than F anon’s unified self seem ed to project. In the W est one o f the changes (from tradition to m odernity) relates to the concept o f the self. In traditional societies the self w ent through ritualised alteration w hen passing from childhood to responsible adulthood, and could still be defined in kinship structures and com m unal rituals. In m odernity the self (self and subjectivity are inseparable) is
som ething which has to be constructed, reflected upon and explored; the reflexive activities o f the individual are o f central im portance. The idea o f a self w hich is open to questioning and w hich in order to be consolidated involves rational thought and sense experience is n o t only a W estern phenom enon; the colonial encounter is in one way an encounter betw een traditionalism and m odernity. As in the W est the classical system o f representation o f the subject entered a state o f crisis because of, as Braidotti says, “the failure o f the traditional definition o f the subject as an entity that is expected to coincide w ith h is/h e r conscious 55 See Raym ond Tallis, N o t Satis sure: A Critique ofPost-Saussurean (London: MacMillan, 1988),160.
56 W orthington, 8.
57 W orthington, 12.
21
self.” 58 Tliis does n o t necessarily m ean that the m anifestations o f the crisis are similar in the west as in Kenya and South Africa; obviously the dom ination o f W estern m odernity had a different im pact in various cultural contexts, b ut the essence o f the paradigmatic change has had a dram atic influence on die self also in Kenya and South Africa. In a situation w here m odernity and traditionalism clash or alternatively meet, it is difficult to conceive o f a pre-program m ed, stable identity which is established through a pre-given ritualised pattern. T he self is developed tiirough self-reflexive activities which involve rational (and som etim es irrational) decision-malting on die basis o f often conflicting ideological signals As will be dem onstrated in my analysis o f N gugi’s com bat fiction, the essentialising o f die resistance fighters’ self n o t only contributes to narrational closure, b u t runs the risk o f lacking hum an and thereby political credibility. T he problem arises w hen the self is stabilised by som e sort o f ideological im position, w idiout as it were, taking into account die process o f self-form ation as an active interpretative and interactive process where it is im portant to filter the often incom patible signals diat the self is bom barded w ith daily. W hereas Waiyaki in Ngugi’s The Rivet' Between is confronted w ith the tough challenges o f accom m odating die divergent impulses from colonialism and traditionalism into his own self, and M ugo in A . Grain of Wheat is torn betw een his ow n individualistic desires and die collectivist im position o f K enyan nationalism and thus is from a resistance view point sidelined, these complex, often contradictory challenges will be show n to be m ore or less suppressed in N gugi’s com bat fiction. Ngugi seems less willing, it will be argued, to keep his hands o ff die ideological steering wheel, resulting in resistance fighters whose non- fragmentary selves seldom , if ever transcend one-dim ensional predictability. La G um a, on the odier hand, may seem to allow in his com bat fiction for protagonists with decentered, conflict-ridden selves w ho simultaneously are geared towards active resistance. Insisting on a less dian stable self because it constandy has to draw together past and present subject positions does n o t m ean, however, com plete anarchy or fluidity o f self: there is still some sense o f continuity, a sense o f m yself which does n o t have to be recuperated or established anew every time. So it is im portant to make a difference betw een an unstable, fragm ented yet coherent self and a self which is completely dislocated.
As O 'H anlon and W ashbrook claim:
O ur present challenge lies precisely in an understanding o f how the underclasses we wish to study are at once constructed in conflictual ways as subjects yet also find the m eans through struggle to realize themselves in coherent and subjectively centered ways as agents.
There is, however, a sense w here clearly die subaltern potentiality for agency is being subjected to subversion to a degree w here one w onders if the dislocation o f self is so 58 Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (New Y ork : Colom bia University Press, 1994), 239.
59 Rosalind O 'H anlon and D avid W ashbrook,“A fter Orientalism: Culture, Criticism, and Politics in die T hird W orld f Comparative Studies in Society and History, 34, n o .l (1992): 153.
absolute as to m ake agency non-viable. Certainly La G um a’s low-key portrayal o f the subaltern in his counter-hegem onic phase re-echoes this pessimism, even though the fact that subaltern agency is n o t always transparent, visible and unam biguous may
underestim ate its potential force. Stuart Hall's emphasis on the im portance o f subaltern existence even though they ate not always clear-cut agents o f history is w orth noticing:
in spite o f the fact that the popular masses have never been able to becom e in any com plete sense the subject-authors o f the cultural practices in die twentieth
century, their continuing presence, as a kind o f passive historical-cultural force, has constandy interrupted, limited and disrupted everydiing else.00
1.4 Representation in historical and fictional discourse
W hereas Foucault’s n o tion o f pow er and knowledge queries resistance outside the
dom inant pow er structure, Spivak’s rhetorical question o f w hether the subaltern can speak is, as I see it, closely linked to the question o f representation. By problem atising the subaltern’s ability to speak, Spivak focuses on w ho speaks for die O th er and the representation o f the O ther in post-colonial discourse. In colonialist discourse the subaltern was cut o ff from representation: there was nothing to represent. O n e o f Said’s epigraphs in Orientalism from M arx’ The 18th Brunaire o f Louis N apoleon is in this respect telling: “They cannot represent tiiemselves; they m ust be represented.”
While critics o f Orientalism are right in contending that the O rientalist image draw n by the O ccident was m ore nuanced, ambiguous and contradictory than Said exposes in his book, it is b o d i historically and ideologically problem atical to deny th at the m ajor thrust o f Orientalist ideological transm ission encom passed a deeply-entrenched self-O ther dichotom y w here the Orientalists decided that the O ther was incapable o f representing themselves and w here they w ithout em barrassm ent spoke on behalf o f the O ther. In other words die O rientalist representation o f the O ther was filtered through the lenses o f a E uropean bias. Said is right w hen contending that
a representation is eo ipso implicated, intertwined, em bedded, interw oven w ith a great many other things besides ‘truth’, which is itself a representation. W hat this m ust lead us to m ethodologically is to view representation (or m isrepresentation- the distinction is at best a m atter o f degree) as inhabiting a com m on field o f play defined for them n o t by some inherent com m on subject m atter alone, b u t by som e com m on history, tradition, universe o f discourse.61
R epresentation is thus n o t som ething that can be taken at face value or, in H om i B habha’s words, diat which is simply “pre-given.” 62 But the problem o f representation is n o t only related to W estern narratives o f the East. Clearly Stuart Hall is right w hen contending that
60 Stuart Hall,“ O n P ostm odernism and Articulation” (interview w ith Hall) in Stuart Hall- Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, eds. D. Morley and K .H .C hen (London and N ew York:
Roudedge, 1996), 140.
61 Said, Orientalism, 272-73.
62 Bhabha, The Location, 2.
