Session 12: The Postcolonial Aura

For me, Arif Dirlik addresses most of my questions about post-colonialism and he does so fairly convincingly. He takes a term used to define intellectuals in the third world and generalizes it over a world situation. The term is not limited to the third world intellectual but refers to anyone who talks against the meta-narrative (or so I understood). But in saying this he also recognizes the importance of a meta-narrative as a contrast. He also points towards this other issue - which makes me personally very uncomfortable as well - where he talks about how different narratives are tailored to fit a meta-narrative. In an existence which can not be freed of biases, the modern historian counters this problem by accepting quite the opposite. They take up titles such as Marxist or feminist. This open acceptance gives them the right to be biased. Narratives are formed by different writers to fit history into their own ideological orientation. This is where silences are born and one position, or version of history or historical moment is given precedence over another. Since, according to modern set standards different intellectuals are allowed to have different orientations, many sides of a historical event are illuminated. Except when a historical narrative does not fall into any of the meta-narratives, then the subaltern position is born. The subaltern can not be understood because it does not, in any way conform to the meta-narratives in play. He gives the example of Confucianism which did not make sense to the Chinese a few decades ago and there was vehement resentment to it in the Mao era, but now due to the Sinification of first socialism, and now capitalism, intellectuals can link traces of capitalism to Confucianism. Confucianism now has legitimacy to exist in the modern context because it conformed to an acceptable meta-narrative. This sort of conformity leaves no room for 'the other' to exist. He/she only exists in a mirror to what is already present.