These stages correspond to some degree to the
stages established by Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin in their introduction to The Empire writes back for
post-colonial literatures:
“Post-colonial literatures developed through
several stages which can be seen to correspond to stages both of national or
regional consciousness and the project of asserting difference from the
imperial centre. During the imperial period writing in the language of the
imperial centre is inevitably […] produced by a literate elite [primarily
identified] with the colonial power […] by representatives of the imperial
power. […] Such texts can never form the basis for an indigenous culture nor
can they be integrated […] with culture which already exists in the countries
invaded. [These texts] inevitably privilege the centre. ['home' over the
'native', metropolitan over the The 'provincial' or 'colonial', pretending
objectivity to hide the imperial discourse]
The second stage of production […] is the literature produced 'under imperial license' by 'natives' […] The producers signify by the very fact of writing in the language of the dominant culture that they have […] entered a specific and privileged class endowed with the language, education, and necessary to produce such works. […] It is characteristic of these early post-colonial texts that the potential for subversion in their themes cannot be fully realized. Although they deal with […] the historical potency of the supplanted and denigrated native cultures […] or the existence of a rich cultural heritage older and more extensive than that of Europe […] they are prevented from fully exploring their anti-imperial potential. Both the available discourse and the material conditions of production for literature in these early post-colonial societies restrain this possibility.
The second stage of production […] is the literature produced 'under imperial license' by 'natives' […] The producers signify by the very fact of writing in the language of the dominant culture that they have […] entered a specific and privileged class endowed with the language, education, and necessary to produce such works. […] It is characteristic of these early post-colonial texts that the potential for subversion in their themes cannot be fully realized. Although they deal with […] the historical potency of the supplanted and denigrated native cultures […] or the existence of a rich cultural heritage older and more extensive than that of Europe […] they are prevented from fully exploring their anti-imperial potential. Both the available discourse and the material conditions of production for literature in these early post-colonial societies restrain this possibility.
While Fanon attempts to identify stages in the colonized
individual through time, the introduction on post-colonial literature
approaches the theme in a sociological manner. Introducing to complex fields as
'cultural hegemony', 'language' and 'place and displacement' what is related to
“The alienation of vision and the crisis in self-image which this displacement
produces [...]” we can trace back to Fanon's account on alienation among the
colonized in relation to the degree of whiteness and quality of
relationship to the colonizers.[1]
Permanent self-negation and the attempt to be like the colonizers in every
aspect –from superficial manners to high culture– in order not only to discern
from other colonized people but from the own is the a central phenomenon Fanon
describes[2].
Regarding the stages outlined before we can put the stages of individual development described by Fanon in contrast to the literary historical approach. His three stages
are the stages of liberation from the colonial mind, a trap the colonized seem to be doomed to. The three phases of development the native intellectual in colonized countries goes through, could be put in relation to the evolution an artist goes through. While occupation or colonization differ mainly in time, the effect manifested in a tension between reluctance and adoption of the colonizers culture, language, habits and values is also an individual process. The three phases by Fanon[3] consist mainly of assimilating the culture of the occupier, followed by a sudden self-awareness and recall of a distant past and finally 'the fighting phase'. But Fanon adds that the intellectual is already trapped and unable to detach from the high culture that has molded him or her. This leads also to the question how this condition can be overcome. Wong must have also gone through these stages in his individual experience of leaving Malaysia, returning after being trained arts, literature and education abroad to a place its historic past he starts to treat not only asking for a Malaysian identity, but also because of personal matters (Sook Ching). About the early years as a painter Beverly Yong states: "His works over this period can be seen as a series of subversions, which began with Gauguinesque paintings of exotic tropical malaise, with titles like: "Rape of the Native" and "The Grass Eaters"[4] Subversion as way to express that 'self-awareness'. In Sook Ching and Doghole a shift from investigating in history and looking for an adequate medium and form (painting, video, performance), to an audiovisual piece that digs deep into the colonial mind becomes apparent.
Regarding the stages outlined before we can put the stages of individual development described by Fanon in contrast to the literary historical approach. His three stages
are the stages of liberation from the colonial mind, a trap the colonized seem to be doomed to. The three phases of development the native intellectual in colonized countries goes through, could be put in relation to the evolution an artist goes through. While occupation or colonization differ mainly in time, the effect manifested in a tension between reluctance and adoption of the colonizers culture, language, habits and values is also an individual process. The three phases by Fanon[3] consist mainly of assimilating the culture of the occupier, followed by a sudden self-awareness and recall of a distant past and finally 'the fighting phase'. But Fanon adds that the intellectual is already trapped and unable to detach from the high culture that has molded him or her. This leads also to the question how this condition can be overcome. Wong must have also gone through these stages in his individual experience of leaving Malaysia, returning after being trained arts, literature and education abroad to a place its historic past he starts to treat not only asking for a Malaysian identity, but also because of personal matters (Sook Ching). About the early years as a painter Beverly Yong states: "His works over this period can be seen as a series of subversions, which began with Gauguinesque paintings of exotic tropical malaise, with titles like: "Rape of the Native" and "The Grass Eaters"[4] Subversion as way to express that 'self-awareness'. In Sook Ching and Doghole a shift from investigating in history and looking for an adequate medium and form (painting, video, performance), to an audiovisual piece that digs deep into the colonial mind becomes apparent.
The catalogue of the
New Art from Southeast Asia 1992 mentions a work entitled Sook Ching
(The Purge, 1991) by Weng Hoy Cheong, Ushiroshoji Masahiro[5] does a brief description on the theme and the
context, followed by a short note on the artist's identity. Regarding identity Ushiroshoji Masahiro cites from Glimpses
of Malaysian History by Zainal Abidin bin Abdul Wahid:
Japan implanted in Malay hearts a
somewhat excessiv ethnic consciousness that became the basic of the later
equation of Malay with nationalism [...]
On the other hand, it also promoted a feeling of
racial that is a factor impending the formation of the Malaysian state in the
true sense of the world even today.[6]
It is also remarkable that the Japanese having had invaded
Asian countries, are eager now to show and frame the art of an Asian region. It
leads us to what I'd like to call the apologetic “responsibility”-discourse.
The responsibility claimed by the colonizing countries upon those they are
oppressing or are going to destroy. This responsibility is close to the mother-child metaphor described by Fanon:
On the unconscious plane, colonialism [...] did
not seek to be considered by the native as a gentle, loving mother who protects
her child from a hostile environment, but rather as a mother who unceasingly
restrains her fundamentally perverse offspring from managing to commit suicide
and from giving free rein to its evil instincts. The colonial mother protects
her child from itself, from its ego, and from its psychology, its biology and
its own unhappiness which is its very essence.
In such a situation the claims of the native
intellectual are no luxury but a necessity in any coherent programme. The
native intellectual who takes up arms to defend his nation's legitimacy and who
wants to bring proofs to bear out that legitimacy, who is willing to strip
himself naked to study the history of his body, is obliged to dissect the heart
of his people.[7]
The embodied call against any other engagement that might
lead to instrumentality of the intellectual –and I am convinced the responsible
contemporary artist does have the same role as intellectual does– might not be
proven in the oeuvre of Wong by any kind of Manifesto, but I consider it
implicit more or less to the works studied here. Anyway, following quotation on
his work as an educator gives also a proof of the artist's uneasiness with a
'coherent programme':
I taught for about 18 years, and during that
period there was a stronger relationship between my practice as an artist and
my practice as an educator. As was the case with the third-world aesthetics
course that I taught for around three years, classes often became arenas for me
to explore ideas of transformation, of pedagogy, or even those related to a
more complex issue like conscientization: how do you make students conscious of
themselves and acquire a reflexivity about themselves, their environments and
the societies in which they live?
However, since I stopped teaching almost 10
years ago my work has become less pedagogical or didactic, more free and playful.
Even when I was an educator, I had come to realize that didacticism can trap
art into agendas of transformation which, personally, I think are not
necessary.[8]
His third-world aesthetics course is also a result of
an intense reading of Fanon and Cesaire. The
artist is familiar with the writings and the 'three stages decolonisation of
the post-colonial mind' have been treated also in the writings of Wong[9].
[1] “The problem we shall
tackle in this chapter is as follows: the more the black Antillean assimilates
the French language, the whiter he gets–i.e., the closer he comes to becoming a
true human being.” Fanon, F. : (2008) Black Skin, white Masks; NY. First
published in 1952 entitled Peau noire, masques blancs; Paris.
[2] Fanon is anxious on
restricting his observations to his own people from Martinique only,
considering the contact with France. But this requires to bring in the
attitudes towards the 'Motherland' of Senegalese and other colonized countries. Even if language is
placed at the beginning of his essay, the whole approach is rather
psychoanalytical.
[4] Yong, Beverly, “Re:Looking” in
Shifts – Wong Hoy Cheong, 2002-2007 ed. June Yap (Singapore: NUS Museum/Galeri Petronas), 17.
[5] Chief
Curator at Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan. Yasuko
Furuichi, Masahiro Ushiroshoji and Yoko Sakonaka, New Art from Southeast Asia 1992, trans. Janet Goff and
Erimi Fujihara (Tokyo: The Japan Foundation ASEAN Culture Center, 1992), 58-61.
[6] Ushiroshoji cites: Zainal Abidin bin Abdul Wahid, Glimpses of
Malaysian History, trans.
Nomura Toru (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 1983) 182.
[7] Fanon,
F. : Wretched of the Earth, 1965,
170-171.
[8] Maerkle,
Andrew, “Complicit Consciousness Wong Hoy Cheong: Part III” 2011, accessed March
21, 2012,
http://www.art-it.asia/u/admin_ed_feature_e/o3xMiH2K1mrAIZ6l80DO/
http://www.art-it.asia/u/admin_ed_feature_e/o3xMiH2K1mrAIZ6l80DO/
