WHAT A BEAUTIFUL UTOPIA
1.
In Dreszcze (Shivers) by Wojciech Marczewski, a phantasmagorical reminiscence of the years of Stalinism, there is a scene in which Scout leaders at a pioneering camp find pre-war stamps among the stuff belonging to the main character, Tomek. The stamps contain slogans propagating the idea of common fund-collection for the Polish Maritime and Colonial League. The boy is scolded for having hidden respect for imperialistic ideas, as well as for not making enough effort to develop class awareness in himself. The theme of the organisation, established in 1930, which worked not only on behalf of the Colonialism sensu stricto but also to aid the expansion of the Polish fleet and popularisation of maritime issues, appears marginally in the latest issue of “Recykling Idei” (“Recycling of the Idea”) [(10) 2008] and is labelled as a phenomenon which is already too late in comparison with the waves of colonialism. It is so, indeed: similarly to Germany, Poland began to arouse its colonial awareness quite late. Declarations and propaganda materials published by the League, and quoted more extensively last year by Grażyna Borkowska in 4th issue of “Teksty Drugie” (“Second Texts”) (no. 4 (106) 2007, Polskie doświadczenie kolonialne / Polish Colonial Experience), sound more comical then threatening. Equally odd seems an entry in Wikipedia devoted to Polish colonies (Colonies_of_Poland) in which areas dependent to a small extent on the First Rzeczpospolita (The First Republic of Poland) are included in this term; plans to colonise Angola, Mozambique, Peru and Liberia are also mentioned.
The fact that luckily we had been late with our imperial ambitions and that the geopolitical cake had already been entirely cut when Poland regained its independence, does not mean that the problem of colonialism and postcolonial situation are completely unknown to us. It is perfectly explained – from every aspect – socio-political to artistic – by the new “Recycling of Idea”.
2.
The editors of “Recycling” knock readers out of a nice dream. With the aid of Kamil Majchrzak’s article titled Demokracja na wojnie (Democracy During the War), they are trying to make us comprehend the deep roots of contemporary neo-liberal imperialism, which – as we can see from the presented analyses – is a raised to the n-th power, mature nineteenth century capitalism. The type of goods and services which drive the economy has changed, geopolitics has changed, but we still live in the world in which economic tensions give birth to ideas that are to make the socio-economic reality easier to digest for an ordinary mortal. A huge expansion of the industrial production and the lack of market for goods produced by West European companies have resulted in the creation of colonial doctrine in particular countries. This, in turn, caused political institutions to assume patronage over the economic expansion of the bourgeoisie identifying the business interests of big companies with state-owned industry and declaring a need for expansion of the spheres of particular countries’ influences.
The editors take a long hundred-year leap and here we are at the turn of the 21st century: a few decades has passed since the majority of old colonies had become more or less – at least de iure – independent political structures; and the term “colony” itself had been thrown out of the language of political geography and replaced by the phrase “dependent territory” (one needs only a glance at the map of the Pacific Ocean to confirm this). Has anything changed since the nineteenth century colonial explosion? It turns out that the changes are only superficial; despite putting aside the matter of broadening spheres of impact of certain national powers, the unilateral model of benefits, which affect multinational companies’ bank accounts, remains the same. Ideology, which is supposed to mask these processes is called “globalism” and – as we can see from the point of view of very pertinent analyses, i.a. by Immanuel Wallerstein (Co po modernizacji i globalizacji? / What’s Comes After Modernisation and Globalisation?), a political thinker who is becoming more and more frequently present in the Polish intellectual offer – although this globalism is not an innocent idea, everyone who is able to derive benefits from it, wants to show them as completely neutral and transparent. The advantages we get from the fact that the world has tremendously shrank within a couple of decades and that more and more places and goods become more accessible to us, is only one side of the story. The other side has the whole planet dominated by neo-liberal economy, based now on inside exploitation because – as opposed to the nineteenth century model – there is no longer a centre consisting of colonialist countries, as well as no place on the outside to be colonised. The mythical Other that was supposed to face the colonialists, became a part of the System which exploitation takes place not only in the colonies but also in economical centres, where Others come with hope of improving their living conditions.
This point of view (economic, social, political) has been sold to us for so long that it is easy to believe that this is the only proper way of thinking and human history should stop at this point. The System, or rather the Empire – it was mentioned frequently in “Recycling” by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – became a highly acquisitive entity, which manages to manipulate every attempt at a subversive act neutralise it completely, or even sell as a trendy product. Similarly to the case of the 19th century proletariat, it is now high time to wake up the awareness of both the government and the governed, the exploiters and the exploited. To refer again to Wallerstein, our current system is gradually running dry. Moving factories from one country to another, based on exploitation and low wages, is not an endless process. Natural resources are becoming depleted, so in a relatively short time we may expect the fall of a neo-liberal paradigm. Today we already live in its final phase. That is why such alternatives like social economy in Venezuela or an appeal in Bamako have their say in the matter. The last one, an unusually interesting source document, is an centrepiece of the tenth issue of “The Recycling of Idea”. What a beautiful utopia – one can ambiguously sigh… Not all of the appeal’s postulates can be fulfilled. It might even make the matter worse if they could. But it’s definitely worth to fight for them.
3.
A dream that “Recycling” tries to disturb concerns science, as well. Postcolonial research was born for the most part at Western European campuses of humanities departments such as literary studies or comparative literature. In fact, from the very beginning comparative literature has been struggling between positivistic collecting of details and broad historical visions. It has problems with stating the field of its research and creating a pattern of the ideal comparatist who would be able to work on this branch of literary studies. Another re-definition of comparative literature had to take place during the geopolitical change, when lesser” literatures gained voice and more academics from countries which used to be colonies in the past joined university faculties. Such theoretical variations are discussed by one of the main figures of postcolonial studies, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Komparatystyka ekstremalna / The Extreme Comparative Studies), who since i.a. the publication of her book Death of a Discipline (New York: Columbia UP 2003), has been advocating the need to reconsider anew contemporary literary studies.
Yet another dream is being disturbed: all known paradigms of currently practised worldwide-literature have been marked with a stamp of colonialism, whereas the equality of cultures’ rights and equality of languages were only superficial. Comparative literature that preoccupies white Western European men couldn’t be as multi-faceted as Spivak would like it to be: a gold period of research of all literatures, including successive generations of postcolonial young scientists entering the gates of academia, is probably still ahead of us. The time will show how much of Spivak’s postulates, mainly related to the equality rights of all languages, will be fulfilled in practice. One can reproach her for the fact that no one is born isolated from the language environment, so studying texts not written in a native language, will always be a form of colonisation by means of categories proper to one’s mother tongue. Is there ideologically pure, colonialism-free science about worldwide literature? – it is worth to see for oneself.
4.
In the end I would like to make a confession because it was “Recycling” that helped me to fully express doubts that have kept bothering me for a couple of months. For quite a long time I have been passionately listening – and I’m probably not original in it – to all kinds of records of Jordi Savall and his bands, with whom he performs varied old music originating, more or less, from the Mediterranean areas, from Gibraltar to the Near East. Suddenly, I was hit by the idea that, in fact, none of the albums released by Savall is a single man’s work. It is not the matter of creating musical monographs but about producing musical structures dominated by cultural diversity. The doubt that has appeared, started to gradually turn into the belief that even such outwardly neutral releases like the Catalonian musician’s CDs are the expression of certain ideology and that they differ in their “medleyness” from other performers’ albums; they allow Jewish, Turkish or Arabic tunes to get into the Western European music culture. It might seem that Savall is an exceptional creation of postmodernist worship that is given to cultural pluralism and a model of civilisation dependences, based on a diffusion of ideas and mutual peaceful interaction. On the other hand, however, with all respect due to his work, we can consider him as a product of the System, which allows us to live under the impression that we can touch a foreign, completely different culture, whereas in practise we get only some part of it. I will leave this question open, because I am not sure if it is properly asked and if it isn’t a thread of seeking independence in the situation when freedom from Empire’s tentacles is already impossible. Or maybe this thought is also an excessive internalisation of the ideas presented by “Recycling”. Although, I would like to note down this remark on the margin of an excellent issue of the magazine from Wrocław.
Michał Choptiany
Translated by Klaudia Makowska
Discussed journals: Recykling Idei