Clash of Civilizations
Noted cultural critic and author Rustom Bharucha, in his presentation at the ‘elective affinities, constitutive differences’ seminar talks about the notion of ‘Asia(n)’. A Report.
Rustom Bharucha |
‘Civilizational exchanges should be entertained,’ said Dr.Jyotindra Jain, the noted art historian. He said that the Greek poet Kawafy did not end up by saying that the Barbarians are coming. ‘Barbarians are not coming’. What is going to happen without the barbarians? What will we do without them? ‘For Kawafy, Barbarians were a problem and a solution,” Dr. Jain said. He intended that the barbarians’ attack should have been taken as a positive sign. Even if it was a fear of the west for the east, the clash of civilizations brought in positive results for the humanity.
‘But minus hatred’, said Rustom Bharucha, the noted cultural critic and author. In the name of civilizational clashes one cannot entertain the spreading of hatred, Bharucha said. He was delivering the opening lecture of the international seminar ‘elective affinities and constitutive differences’. “We are living in a period where the clash of civilizations is over determined. We have monolithic civilizational blocks. But civilizational exchanges are more productive,” said Bharucha.
Though Bharucha gave emphasize on civilizational exchanges, he categorically said that the ‘exchange should be separated from the larger politics of trade, war etc. While applauding the positive exchanges, he cautioned that in the field of cultural production, these kinds of exchanges could become hegemonic in nature. In 1990s, thanks to economic growth in the Asian countries, a shift was happened in the priorities of culture production. There was a cry for ‘Asian-centricity’. But Asian-centricity was nothing but the other side of the deride-able ‘Euro-(American) centricity.
Doubting the generic term of ‘Asian’, Bharucha asked, “What are the Asian Values that determine the qualification, Asian?” As a figure of thought Asia(n) did not have political valency, he said. Putting the claim of the rich city states like Singapore directly into an area of problematic, Rustom Bharucha said that the countries like Singapore, which had killed the nature in the name of progress and sanitized the whole state (of dirt and historical baggage) needed qualifications like ‘Asian’ and it was not a necessity for a country like India. For Singapore, ‘Asia’ was something, which could be flaunted as ‘cultural capital.’
A city state like Singapore had never addressed the many ‘Asias’ functioning from within its own geographical boundaries in the forms of workforce, which included Indians also. Bharucha said that there were other ‘Asias’. These Asias were the political locations against which the dismantling of Asian empires was to be done. “To what extent India as a nuclear savvy nation would jump into the bandwagon of Asian Empire where the majority of people live in poverty and violence?” Bharucha asked. Those who make the claims of Asian empires belong to a minority; the powerful and hegemonic, he said. How can the global Asian cultural capital function without infiltrating the rights of the deprived majority?
Bharucha took the cases of Rabindranath Tagore and the Okakura. He suggested that Okakura was a person who made the Japanese museum in Boston and he should be deemed as the first curator of an international Biennale. Okakura assumed that Asia is one where as Asia was three in one (India-China-Japan; in terms of power). He wanted to present the ‘unbroken sovereignty of Japan’ through the Boston collection. Bharucha went on to say that considering the Okakura example, one had to think in terms of ‘nation as a museum’ and ‘nation as biennale’. The nations should be the living museums of the world, he said. He accused Okakura looting the cultural capital of a country and selling it for a pittance in order to justify the cultural sovereignty of Japan. Bharucha said that Okakura was legitimizing the cultural loot by projecting Asia as his premise.
Talking about globalization and universalism in the context of cultural production, Rustom Bharucha said that it was high time for re-uniting many universalisms. Once again bringing back the arguments on the clash of civilizations, Bharucha observed that the antagonism in terms of clash of civilizations catalyzed new political frontiers. He was referring to the cultural theorist Chantal Mouff. However, Bharucha reiterated the fact that in the name of antagonism there should not be the spreading of hatred.
About Biennales, Bharucha said that these kinds of international expositions should go beyond geographical boundaries. It should not be produced on the mere grounds of social justice. “Things have changed now. It is not trade based economics in working. One should understand the knowledge based economy at work. This should be addressed and tackled,” Bharucha said. By closing his speech he underlined that the commoditization of art should be handled in a different way to make things possible (as imagined by the international biennale societies).
(Report by JohnyML) |
