[Discussion] Antinomies of Modernity: Essays on Race, Orient, Nation

[sule tarakcioglu]

Vasant Kaiwar and Sucheta Mazumdar, eds. Antinomies of Modernity: Essays
on Race, Orient, Nation. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003.
viii + 354 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $64.95 (cloth), ISBN
0-8223-3011-3; $21.95 (paper), ISBN 0-8223-3046-6.
*Reviewed by:* Goolam Vahed, Department of History, University of
KwaZulu Natal.
*Published by:* H-SAfrica <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/%7Esafrica> (August,
2004)

The publication of this book is timely for those seeking to understand
what it means to be modern, as well as those trying to place the project
of Al-Qaeeda and the "War against Terror" in context. This volume
consists of an excellent introduction by the editors and nine case
studies based on archival research and fieldwork, which collectively
illustrate that the course and outcome of capitalist modernization has
not been the same everywhere. Contrary to the belief from around the
eighteenth century that society was "modernising," and that this meant
that human knowledge, wisdom, prosperity, and contentment were
simultaneously growing, these case studies intimate that modernity is
marked by heterogeneity and contradictions.

The genesis of the book lay in events such as the 1979 Iranian
Revolution, the long struggle against apartheid, the breakdown of
modernization projects from the 1970s, and the imposition of structural
adjustment policies during the 1980s, which resulted in the editors,
together with other academics and policymakers, seeking to develop a
comparative perspective regarding the forces shaping the contemporary
world. Kaiwar and Mazumdar, inspired by their conviction that a
comparative approach was required to make sense of the problems of the
"Third World," founded and co-edited South Asia Bulletin in 1981, and
then renamed it the Journal of Comparative Studies of South Asia,
Africa, and the Middle East in 1993. Earlier versions of some of these
essays appeared in these journals but have been considerably revised and
updated.

The studies in this volume focus on the construction of race,
Orientalism, and nationalism, both during the encounter with colonial
expansion in the nineteenth century as well as the post-Communist age of
globalization. Separately and together, these constructions, they argue,
have been central to the particularization of modernity. From the
mid-nineteenth century, academic disciplines like philology,
anthropology, and sociology produced "scientific" categories and
theories that reduced disparate phenomena to a few universal truths.
Race mapped the coordinates of a world of visible and measurable
difference; Orientalism was a powerful autonomous ideology positing
culturally separate but mutually constituting worlds; Nationalism was
the great abstraction that incorporated previously autonomous projects.
Race, nation, and Orient divided "us" from "them" and provided a glue
that brought certain peoples together, while excluding others.

These divisive categories did not fade with decolonization. Cultural and
political identities were not imposed by colonial powers on malleable
colonial subjects. Colonial identities emerged through both
appropriation and resistance to European ideas by colonials, became
indigenized over time, and acquired a "local" patina. This collection of
essays challenges the notion that the spread of modernity has resulted
in people becoming uniformly cosmopolitan and that the world is moving
towards a single culture. While modernity is an inevitable condition of
the age of globalization, its impact and distinctive characteristics
vary according to the location of individuals in the global division of
labor. Despite the spread of education and industrialization, race,
Orient, and nation continue to be reworked in different ways according
to one's class and geographic position. Differences remain salient and
the identities of race, Orient, and nation remain central to the efforts
by many individuals to create a sense of belonging in the face of the
ruptures caused by the spread of global capitalism.

The chapters by Vasant Kaiwar, Andrew Barnes, Mohamed Tavakoli-Targhi,
A. R. Venkatachalapthy, and Michael O. West focus on how race,
Orientalism, and nation were deployed during the colonial and immediate
postcolonial period. Kaiwar argues that racialism and Orientalism were
products of the crisis of confidence among sections of the European
aristocracy and bourgeoisie, as well as an expression of the economic
and epistemic power of Europeans. During the twentieth century these
categories were appropriated by the colonized as they sought parity with
Europeans, and were used to construct new hierarchies within the project
of decolonization. This included, for example, resignifying
socioeconomic and ascriptive differences such as the racialization of
caste and spatialization (north-south, Aryan/insider-Muslim/outsider).
In India these categories created the foundational myths of Indian
nationalism and remain a central element of bourgeois culture.

Tavakoli-Targhi shows that, historically, Orientalism resulted from
discussion between Indo-Iranian and European scholars, but that this
partnership was neglected and deliberately forgotten during the
nineteenth century as Orientalism came into the sphere of racism, and
became a discourse of the marginalization of the "Orient." The
post-colonial period has witnessed further amnesia regarding
Indo-Iranian collaboration, resulting in the rival derision of
scholarship and aptitude. In this way, the racism of the colonizers is
being recaptured among the subalterns. Together with the chapter by
Barnes on the use of the Aryan myth to work out "collaborative"
relations between British colonizers and the indigenous elites of
northern Nigeria, these chapters show that the features of cultural and
identity politics were not simply imposed by Europeans. There was active
embracing of, and resistance to, European ideas, as well as the
conscious participation by colonial subjects in the construction of
aspects of Orientalism and racialized knowledge during the emergence of
colonial modernisms. These ideas eventually became indigenized and the
consequences remain with us. Venkatchalapathy shows that just as Indian
nationalism appropriated the Aryan myth of continuous linguistic and
cultural antiquity to articulate a position of moral parity with the
colonizers, Tamil discourse invented a Dravidian particularism in
relation to Ayran universalism through the establishment of the
antiquity of Tamil and the fusion of race, territory, and language in
Tamil-Dravidian discourse. West's chapter underlines the importance of
the fusion of race and territory in counterhegemonic discourse among
Africans in British Central Africa as they responded to the challenges
of white and Asian settlers. The fragile position of Indian settlers
after independence underscores the constant tension between the
civic-universal and ethnic-particular in nationalist movements.

The essays by Neville Alexander, Minoo Moallem, and Sucheta Mazumdar
focus on post-1945, postcolonial identity politics and nationalism. This
period was marked by the establishment of nation-states, and emergence
of new forms of local identity politics which cannot be examined without
taking cognizance of the larger social, political, and economic factors
that shaped the colonial period. Alexander focuses on South African
society undergoing irreversible change. While change has provided its
people with an ideal opportunity to challenge the all-pervasive
identities and boundaries of race, class, and ethnicity which had shaped
relations under apartheid, the post-apartheid period has been marked by
a failure to transform politics in a way that creates national unity
while recognizing diversity, and building a new society free of
xenophobia. The post-apartheid perpetuation of race, class, and ethnic
identity politics, including xenophobia against refugees from
neighboring countries, highlight the perpetuation of the politics of
subalternity. The global categories of race, Orientalism, and
nationalism, which were necessary in modernizing cultural and political
projects and questioning the dominance of the West, remain central to
the development of local particularisms.

Moallem and Mazumdar, in their respective essays, show that changes in
the post-1945 world, such as the revolution in communication
technologies and the media as well as the emergence of a single
imperialist power, the United Sates, to replace the multiple
colonialisms of the pre-1945 period, have contributed to the sharp
juxtaposition of rich and poor countries, and the virtual collapse of
alternatives. Moallem examines Ayatollah Khomeini's attempt to construct
a social order in Iran that rejected capitalism and consumerism.
Khomeini exploited mass discontent with the Shah as he sought to
construct a national renewal around elements of Islamic theology and a
reified version of Iranian culture and history. Aspects of the new
regime, such as the veiling of women, were part of what Moallem regards
as the construction of a new Islamic ethnicity. However, the opposition
that this provoked, within and outside Iran, and the ambivalent
achievements of Khomeini's revolution point to the limitations of
alternative modernities to the challenges posed by global capitalism.

The post-colonial period has also been marked by the
transnationalization and consumption of religious and cultural symbols,
which is evident in the identity crises of Hindu immigrants in the
United States who endure a double alienation, physically from the
country of their birth and culturally from their adopted country.
According to Mazumdar, Hindu migrants selectively use the discourses of
race, Orientalism, and nationalism to place themselves on par with
"whites" in the United States, while simultaneously raising themselves
above other "people of color" such as Hispanics and Afro-Americans. This
strategy was bolstered by the visits of "apostles of purity," who
advocated political commitment in accordance with the right-wing agenda
of Hindu nationalism in India. Together with the temples, summer camps,
and programs of organizations like the Hindu Student Council, they are
peddling a version of Hindu India that has its origins in an idyllic
Vedic past, is the product of Orientalist reconstruction, an erasure of
the complexities of Indian history, and a product of right-wing Hindu
mythology. This is radically at odds with the evolving cultural fusions
in the United States, and with both popular anti-communalism and the
secularist worldview of significant sections of the intelligentsia in
India.

The concluding essay by Kaiwar and Mazumdar argues that the world's
people have, over time and for various agendas, been categorized into
races, cultures, nations, and civilizations which, while seemingly fixed
categories of identification, are, in fact, highly flexible, and
continually appropriated, reinterpreted, and resisted in local terms.
The categories of race, Orient, and nation have been "endowed with
immense range, great longevity, and continued vitality," and are
regularly appropriated by national and regional projects for identity
and cultural politics. The myths of racialism, Orientalism, and
nationalism constituted a notable component of the anti-colonial
struggle, and remain central to identity politics in the postcolonial
world.

Taken together, these studies emphasize the importance of history,
unfolding over time and space, but also in showing the various moments
in which such categories are mobilized for particular political and
cultural projects. They question the notion that there is only one way
of being modern. The uneven impact of global capitalism has resulted in
differing assessments of the nature of economic development, political
community, and cultural hegemony. Much of the tension of the
contemporary period is due to the attempt of individuals to impose order
by adopting an alternative path in the absence of "fixed signposts," the
breakdown of community, the psychic isolation of individuals, class
polarization, and spiritual emptiness of modern western societies.
Hindutva and Islamic fundamentalism can be viewed as attempts to
modernize without destroying the older social and economic systems,
which capitalism requires. Like Marxism, these alternative ideologies
are anti-western but modern because they see history as a prelude to a
new world.

Collectively, this volume questions the notion that modernity is a
single condition, that it is uniform everywhere, and that only one way
of life is best for everyone. Scientific progress has not automatically
led to a more organized society, nor have human values been converging.
The twentieth century was witness to the greatest advances in science
but also the most number of wars and genocides, and the greatest
tyranny, thus challenging the idea that scientific progress will lead to
convergence in other aspects of life.

This collection of impressive essays shows the various ways in which old
divisive categories continue to re-emerge in different contexts and in
different ways. This raises the question of whether there is, or can be,
a common humanity or whether there are just humans pursuing conflicting
ends. Should we continue to hold on to the idea of a common modernity
and peaceful evolution? Is unity a false hope? How do we resolve the
dialectical tension between universalism and particularism? Is conflict
inevitable and should we learn to live with? The advance of scientific
knowledge, after all, has not ushered in an era of reason, and a
convergence of politics. The present conflict involving Al-Qaeeda should
be seen less as the result of a "clash of civilizations" and more as one
with roots in global economic, political, and cultural crises, produced
by new forms of globalization. Even when Al-Qaeeda has been defeated,
new types of terror, not necessarily religious in nature, are very
likely to emerge because of rising human numbers, a bigger disparity
between the rich and the poor, greater competition for natural
resources, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction which,
it should be remembered, are due to scientific advances. There is no
consensus or certainty regarding the end result of "modernity," and
instead of seeking to impose or create a utopian world littered with
liberal democratic regimes in which the countries are linked in free
trade, and in which the people live in peace and harmony, we might be
better served by accepting that there will be differences among people
and states, and that it would be more helpful to make every effort to
achieve toleration and peaceful coexistence, even while differences remain.

Library of Congress Call Number: CB358 .A59 2003

Subjects:

    * Civilization, Modern.
    * Imperialism--History.
    * Capitalism--Social aspects--History.
    * Race relations--History.
    * Orientalism--History.
    * South Asia--Civilization.
    * Middle East--Civilization.
    * Africa--Civilization.
    * East and West.
    * North and south.