Week 9 : Can the subaltern speak

Post colonialism looks into the lingering effects of colonialism decades nearing centuries after the political emancipation because colonialism was more than a political domination – it pervaded the economic, social and religious facets.

In fact the initial desire for domination was for economic gain – The ships that first sailed out of Europe were seeking cheaper routes to accessing raw commodities by cutting out the chain of middle men on the land based trade circuits. In doing so they could secure the raw goods at a cheaper price and make a bigger profit. First and foremost, then, the quest to dominate another’s land was an economic quest.

As an ideology, colonialism ontologically created and sustained “the other” as a justification of domination. Even as early as the 13th century the morality of domination of one human over another was in question with St. Thomas Aquinas arguing that all human beings, as God's creations, had certain inherent rights. An ethical leeway for domination was leveraged from Pope Innocent IV legal commentary in 1240 arguing that it was not legitimate for the Europeans to wage war on indigenous people simply for the reason they were not Christians. Instead, violence against such people could only be justified if they were seen to be violating natural law, as defined by Europeans e.g. being cannibalist.

“Non-believers had legitimate dominion over themselves and their property, but this dominion was abrogated if they proved incapable of governing themselves according to principles that every reasonable person would recognize” Kohn, M., & Reddy, K. (2006). Colonialism

This thin moralistic leeway allowed for the initial dominion. To justify the continued dominance necessitated portrayal of ‘the other’ in forms that were ‘socially unacceptable’ or ‘socially lessening’ such as: uneducated, uncultured, barbaric, mystic, orientalist, feminist beyond their acceptance of Christianity.

The doubling effect of colonialism on culture is evident with mimicry (Bhabha, H. (1994) - where the formerly colonized weng and tweng and bleach and wear European because of conditioning to believe they can overcome being “the other” by acting like the western. There is also the case of Hybridity which takes the colonized away from his or her own culture and identity shaping a people who are neither themselves nor their own colonizers “in-betweeners”

The political emancipation was therefore just the tip of the iceberg.

Unpacking the economic, social, cultural, religion and psychological effects remains the long journey. It is argued that Martin Luther’s real dream was that of economic justice predating his famous “I have a dream speech” of 1963 condemning “the tragic inequalities of an economic system which takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.” The March on Washington leading up to his famous speech sought equality before the law, but also an economic bill of rights for poor white, black and brown workers.

The question now comes: where do we go from here? How do we dig out of this colonial pit?

Gayatri Spivak seeks to answer this in her essay “Can the Subaltern speak”. Subaltern – persons who are outside the social, political or economic power structure – further below “the other”. She argues that there is no way to turn back time and find our way back to a glorious pre-colonial virginity. We may never get to a point where the lesser in the society may it be economically disenfranchised, socially or religiously persecuted will ever sit on the same table with the dominator on equal footing to demand and receive their rights.

The answer in subaltern is no. There are layers of intellectual and cultural filters that prevent the empiricists from ever hearing even before understanding the true voice of the subaltern.

The Sublatern can only speak through the the intermediation of the curious academic or elite willing to engage in understanding their ways and interpret them into the elitist context to be understood.