“Finally, a word on the possible ’sexism’ of my language. This issue has dogged my steps for a while and I want to state my position on it once and for all. English is not my language. Though I have developed a taste for it, it was once forced upon me. Even now I often form my thoughts in my native Bengali and then translate when I have to put them down on paper. Now after thirty years of toil I have acquired reasonable competence in the language, I am told by the progeny of those who first imposed it on me that I have been taught the wrong English by my forefathers; that I must now relearn the language. Frankly I am too old to do so. Those who are offended by my language may console themselves by remembering that the language in which I think has traditionally looked at the male and female differently.”
- Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self After Colonialism, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1993.
I’m having an interesting time trawling virtual and dusty papers from that fun period of 2002 - 2006 when immigration detention activism was all the rage. Do any readers know of/have any critiques from that time (within loosely ‘anti-detention’ activism/debates) regarding the work of groups like ChilOut and the Circles of Friends?
PS Go, go, go RTBU!
“A national framework for child protection is necessary, we can do better and must do better for the protection of our little children.” - Kevin Rudd.
Having worked with the child protection system I am much less excited about this comment than I should be were I to take the above comment at face value. A national framework has been advocated for years as a very basic policy intervention, and always seems to end up being hijacked for other violently paternalistic ends (if it’s not how such Interventions start off in the first place).
“Little children” really are the ultimate signifier into which to empty out all sorts of misdirected rubbish.
Particularly since the NT intervention lurched onto the public scene last year, I feel the urge to keep up the critique of government and non-government ‘helping’ regimes. I’ve quoted it before, and I’ll quote it now: “the judgement ‘good’ was not invented by those to whom goodness was shown!” (Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morality).
So. On this. Whilst flicking through the notes I had made whilst I was overseas, I was reminded to share this little gem with the critiquitariat: Arzu Rugs. It was advertised in an aeroplane magazine, I forget which one. At first glance it seemed to be the usual marketing package of decorative non-western crafts attached to a charity venture: ‘conscious’ consumption with an ‘ethnic’ feel. Arzu brokers the sale of rugs crafted by Afghan women, “creating opportunities for women to obtain a consistent income”. But their trade has an even sharper twist than similar ‘fair trade’ products: it’s not just money, its empowerment, too, apparently:
“Core to the Arzu approach is our social contract with weaver families where we agree to pay the weavers market rate for their weaving, plus an additional 50% bonus on top-quality carpets.
In return for this higher wage, families must agree to send all of their children under age 15 to school full-time and to have at least one woman from each household attend literacy classes. Where children cannot attend a government school, Arzu partners with education providers and pays for classes to be set up in villages. Since most girls are well behind the education standards for their age group, Arzu funds “Fast Track” classes so they can catch up and join their peers at a government school wherever possible.”
This is a remarkably explicit ‘contract’ imposed on ‘third world women’ by ‘first world women’ in the name of salvation from the consequences of imperialist wars brought to the former by the kinsmen of the latter. I mean, those girls and women should sure be grateful. I wonder what they did before Western intervention in their lives?
Image: Gertrude Duby Blom with Lacandan friend, date unknown.
“We formed the first governmental expedition of the State of Chiapas to establish contact with the Lacandon Indians. A contact not to exploit them, nor to study them anthropologically. The mules carried very little of our things, the majority of the cargo were gifts for the Lacandon from the government. Our goal was to investigate the necessities of these remote Indians, to construct modern houses and to establish a relationship between them and the government.”
- Franz and Gertrude Blom, La Selva Lacandona, Vol. 1, p.69, 1955.