We are looking at post-colonialism, specifically looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism.

Orientalism

Orientalism is the stereotyping the East from the viewpoint of the West (Europe). This view is typically that people and the culture from the East is lesser than the Wests.

” the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism ” – Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii

Edward said, the link between culture, imperial power and colonialism ‘the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism’,‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘. Media is not neutral, western culture defines the orient as a lesser culture due to stereotypes. ‘an economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous’

The Orient as the ‘Other’

In his book Orientalism, Edward Said, points out that ‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (Or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience [as] . . . One of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other’. So what does this mean? What is the ‘Other’?

This means the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation‘

‘All ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, through the functioning of the category of the subject’.

Ideological state apparatus (ISA), is a theoretical concept developed by (Algerian born) French philosopher Louis Althusser, which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society (education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc) which keeps people in there place. ‘the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’.

Frantz Fanon

In terms of post-colonialism, we can look at The Wretched of the Earth (1961), by Frantz Fanon, which for many is a key text in the development and ancestry of postcolonial criticism. Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique and appears to recognise the ‘mechanics of colonialism and its effects of those it ensnared’ (McLeod 2000:20) when he remembers how he felt when, in France, white strangers pointed out his blackness, his difference, with derogatory phrases such as ‘dirty Nigger!’ or ‘look, a Negro!’ 

These articulated the way he was constructed as ‘other’ specifically through the way he was hailed, called, perceived and understood. ‘Colonialised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and an identity.

1. Assimilation of colonial culture corresponding to the ‘mother country’ Chinua Achebe talks of the colonial writer as a ‘somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.’ (1988:46)
2. Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
3. Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’.

Antonio Gramsci – Hegemonic Struggle and the Chance to Reclaim

‘From America, black voices will take up the hymn with fuller unison. The ‘black world’ will see the light’ – Frantz Fanon ‘on national culture’

Hegemony is a tug of war for power, and that the balance of power can be changed, how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than other, post colonialism articulates a desire to reclaim, re-write and re-establish cultural identity and thus maintain power of The Empire.

Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation

“Ain’t No Black In The Union Jack” — A proposal for a new flag for the UK and other socially engaged art work by Gil Mualem-Doron

Paul Gilroy is insistent that ‘we must become interested in how the literary and cultural as well as governmental dynamics of the country have responded to that process of change and what it can tell us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.’ (2004:13) His theme of Double Consciousness, derived from W. E. B. Dubois, involves ‘Black Atlantic’ striving to be both European and Black through their relationship to the land of their birth and their ethnic political constituency.

As with much postcolonial criticism the aim to understand and reconcile individual and national identity. Gilroy highlights Enoch Powell’s notorious 1968 ‘rivers of blood speech’ full of the ‘terrifying prospect of a wholesale reversal of the proper ordering of colonial power . . . intensified by feelings of resentment, rejection, and fear at the prospect of open interaction with others.’ (2004:111) Put presciently, ‘it has subsequently provided the justification for many a preemptive strike’.

The stress on ‘cross-cultural’ interactions is indeed a characteristic of postcolonial criticism. Often found by foregrounding questions of cultural difference and diversity, as well as by celebrating ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’. A unique position where ‘individuals may simultaneously belong to more than one culture – the coloniser and the colonised’. (2016:198) Even Fanon suggests an emphasis on identity as ‘doubled, or ‘hybrid’, or ‘unstable’.

Definitions

• COLONIALISM – acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.
• POST COLONIALISM – the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands.
• DIASPORA – a scattered population whose origin lies in a separate geographic locale.
• BAME – a term used in the UK to refer to black, Asian and minority ethnic people.
• DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS (GILROY) – a term describing the internal conflict experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society.
• CULTURAL ABSOLUTISM / RACIAL ESSENTIALISM – when one cultural is deamed more supreme than another and all have to belong to one cultural/the belief in a genetic or biological essence that defines all members of a racial category.
• CULTURAL SYNCRETISM – is when distinct aspects of different cultures blend together to make something new and unique. Culture is a large category, this blending can come in the form of religious practices, architecture, philosophy, recreation, and even food. It’s an important part of your culture.
• ORIENTALISM (SAID) – refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident; the East and the West, respectively. Edward Said said that Orientalism “enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just during colonial times, but also in the present.”
• APPROPRIATION – the act of taking something such as an idea, custom, or style from a group or culture that you are not a member of and using it yourself: Theft is the dishonest appropriation of another person’s property.
• CULTURAL HEGEMONY – cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society.
• THE PUBLIC SPHERE (HABERMAS) – Habermas says, “We call events and occasions ‘public’ when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs”. Jürgen Habermas defines ‘the public sphere’ as a realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens”.
• THE ROLE OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING IN TERMS OF FAIR REPRESENTATION OF MINORITY GROUPS / INTERESTS – PSB’s role is to reflect multiple community interests and news, and different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds to be all inclusive to there audience.
• Hybridisation – is a term used to describe a type of media convergence whereby a new mode emerges containing elements of combined media. Hybrid media represent most modern media and the concept that different media forms can work together to create new media.
• Syncretism – the merging of different inflectional varieties of a word during the development of a language.

Ghost Town by The Specials

Ghost Town by The Specials conveys a specific moment in British social and political history while retaining a contemporary relevance. The cultural critic Dorian Lynskey has described it as ‘’a remarkable pop cultural moment’’ one that “defined an era’’. The video and song are part of a tradition of protest in popular music, in this case reflecting concern about the increased social tensions in the UK at the beginning of the 1980s. The song was number 1 in the UK charts, post-Brixton and during the Handsworth and Toxteth riots.

The aesthetic of the music video, along with the lyrics, represents an unease about the state of the nation, one which is often linked to the politics of Thatcherism but transcends a specific political ideology in its eeriness, meaning that it has remained politically and culturally resonant.

The representations in the music video are racially diverse. This reflects its musical genre of ska, a style which could be read politically in the context of a racially divided country. This representation of Britain’s emerging multiculturalism, is reinforced through the eclectic mix of stylistic influences in both the music and the video.

http://mymediacreative.com/postcolonialism/

Questions – Letter to the Free

• Q1: How can you apply the concept of Orientalism to Common’s Letter to the Free?
• This could be applied to Letter to the Free as it tries to reverse stereotypes given to black Americans by the West (Europe) through orientalism.
• Q2: Can you apply Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action to this music video?
• Common is educating (phase 2) to the hybrid cultural people (phase 1) so that these people can make up their mind in what they want to believe in and what action they might take (phase 3).
• Q3: How is the audience called / addressed / hailed (interpellated)? Use examples from both the lyrics and the visual grammar (shot, edit, mise-en-scene) to show how audiences are drawn into a specific subject position / ideological framework?
• The audience is called to look at systematic racism in the USA that has been caused by the 13th amendment. They use emotive language to demonstrate what has been happening for years but has be looked away from and ignored. Lyrics such as ” The caged birds sings for freedom to bring, Black bodies being lost in the American dream” make you feel sympathetic towards the black community and as we have seen through recent events with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement they are changing to make a difference and change the world for the better.