A Decolonial View

Yesterday was international women’s day. All over the world people demonstrated for women’s rights. An important issue when talking about women’s rights is of course the problem of violence against women. In the feminist discourse on violence against women, voices of Indigenous women are sometimes excluded.

In a brilliant article by Rauna Kuokkanen (2008), “Globalization as racialized, sexualized violence”, the overlaps and links between patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism is highlighted. Kuokkanen argues that economic globalization poses a threat of a multifaceted attack on the foundation of Indigenous peoples existence, in that capitalist exploitation of  Indigenous peoples’ territories further marginalize Indigenous peoples and undermine their right to self-determination (2008: 216). Indigenous women are the ones who bears the brunt of the violence that globalization entails. The increased pressures on  land displace Indigenous women from their roles and positions in their societies. This implies a shift in gender dynamics in Indigenous societies and disrupts the social fabric. As a result, women’s social status may diminish, making them more vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion (Kuokkanen, 2008:223).

The gendered violence embedded in patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism is multifaceted. It ranges from direct and interpersonal; to structural; to economic; to epistemic. Kuokkanen points out that  violence against women shouldn’t be analyzed as a result of inborn male sadism, but rather as a mechanism in process of ongoing “primitive acculumation”(2008:221-222). With this in mind, I turn the gaze towards globalization in Sápmi and the gendered violence it has brought to Sámi societies.

The violence Sámi women has bore the brunt of is not neccesarily physical or directly sexualized. It is structural, long term, and seemingly hard to discover.  When the 1928 reindeer grazing act was implemented in Sweden, it was presented as a solution to overpopulation of reindeer grazing lands and to land conflicts between Sámi and settler population in the north (Amft, 1999). A simplified explanation of the law and its effects is that it protected reindeer grazing lands from further overpopulation by constraining the group allowed to herd reindeer. In the law, a legal definition of Sáminess was created. The definition was not anchored in Sámi self-identification. With this definition, Sáminess was tied to reindeer herding, and reindeer herding was masculinized. This, in practice, meant that Sáminess was gendered: men and women were Sámi on different grounds. With the 1928 reindeer grazing act, Sámi womens position and role in reindeer herding societies changed. They were excluded and marginalized. In order for the colonizing state to gain control over traditional Indigenous lands, economic, epistemic, and reproductive violence against indigenous women played an important role. The gendering of Sáminess and the marginalization of Sámi women has had long term effects on the way Sámi women could participate in society.

When celebrating and or demonstrating for women’s rights on March 8 (and all other days of the year), we must remember that Indigenous women are the recievers of different kinds of violence brought by capitalist exploitation of Indigenous lands, both globally and here in Sweden. This should not just be a footnote in the struggle for women’s liberation going forward, but an integral part of how we strive to end violence against women.  

Alva Blomkvist

References:

• Amft, Andrea (2000). Sápmi i förändringens tid: en studie av svenska samers levnadsvillkor under 1900-talet ur ett genus- och etnicitetsperspektiv. Diss. Umeå : Umeå universitet, 2000
• Kuokkanen, Rauna, “Globalization as Racialized, Sexualized Violence – The Case of Indigenous Women.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 10.2 (June 2008): 216-233.

The novel “Great Expectations” by Charles John Huffman Dickens (1860), in Miss Havisham’s parts is full of symbols which show a patriarchal society and the influence of patriarchy on people’s routine life. As Silvia Walbey explained in her book “Theorizing Patriarchy” (1989), A patriarchal society is a society in which power is in the hands of men in every way, and the laws are written in such a way that the system of power remains by creating, expanding, consolidating, and reproducing power.  In such a society, women will also gain power for a very clear reason, the main goal of the patriarchal system is to create, expand, consolidate, and reproduce power for its intellectual and political system, and to use a variety of tools in this regard. Women, like other tools, can be similar and used to the patriarchal system. Patriarchy is a way of thinking that doesn’t necessarily depend on gender, as Saba Mahmoud pointed out in her book, “Politics of Piety” (2005) Women are also pawns of the Patriarchal system.

 Despite physical and mental injury which was happened to Miss Havisham because of being ignored in her the most important life event, she continued the cycle of patriarchy.  Revenging men by adopting and teaching Estella was not a reaction for breaking the patriarchal circle. The basic principle of the patriarchal system is to establish power for an individual or persons who dominate society and to exercise power over the subordinates, and this can happen in any place and time and with any gender. So, when the humiliation of a man by Miss Havisham was done, the same cycle of power-seeking and humiliation of the patriarchal system was repeated. 

  A beautiful symbol, both told in this story and in another story a few years before this (1847) written by Charlotte Bronte, is the burning of the house by a crazy woman. “Jane Eyre” is a better storyteller because the female characters of the story depict the patriarchal system and the equations of power well. Home, can be either the symbol of love and kindness in the family or, the symbol of society. The interesting point is that in both stories, the woman is shown crazy. Even Jane, an educated and wise woman, seems to have her own madness. Madness is in fact a symbol of the dominance of emotions over feminine sex and both stories are intended to inspire the reader that a crazy woman, or a person who is subject to emotions, after realizing her unequal position toward the other side of the power system, endures the arena by destroying herself, but the fact is that the destruction of love and intimacy in the family and society is the logical result of the domination of one class over the other classes of society and the exercise of power over them as rulers and owners. As gender roles can be embedded in this story, everyone can seek to dominate and own others by instilling a mindset of domination in their minds. In such cases, despite the legitimacy of society, the law of the forest is condemned, and anyone who has gained more power in their private space can use it to any guardian they like. In this way, the flawed cycle of patriarchal thinking continues.

Fatemeh Shirazizadeh

References:

1. Bronte Charlotte, 2016, Jane Eyre, William Collins Publisher, Scotland.
2. Dickens Charles, 1998, Great Expectation, Gothenburg eBook.
3. Mahmood Saba, 2005, Politics of Piety, Princeton University Press, USA. 
4. Walby, Sylvia, 1990, Theorizing patriarchy, Oxford, UK.

The Sympathizer is a novel about a secret agent’s confession, upholding the rapid evacuation before the fall of Saigon. Through the protagonist’s eyes, it tells his struggle of duality because he is a half-breed, with a Vietnamese mother and a French father. His mother’s love substitutes for the absence of the father even if his birth comes from a rape instead of love. Fortunately, his mother devotes all love to him, and his childhood friends, Man and Bon bring true friendship in his adolescence. Man, and the protagonist, motivated by sympathy, choose to be members of communists for the Viet Cong; contrastingly, Bon stands at the side of anti-communism. Inevitably, being a member of the Communists is a secret although Bon is after them like shadows. Shortly after, the fall of Saigon determines the protagonist and Bon’s exile, but the protagonist has a secret mission of spying on the General, an influential military figure in South Vietnam. After the General arrives in America, he manages a liquor store, where he tries to bring other Vietnamese together because the General plans to take back control of Vietnam. Unlike the General who has high expectations, the protagonist feels bewildered by the new land. Life in America primes the protagonist to question capitalism, however, his career in a university provides him with various views from anti-communists. It is to say, his belief in communism is challenged by his favor and depends on American customs and amenities. In this context, he wanders around two distinct ideologies with “two faces” as “a man with two minds”. (Nguyen 11)

Nevertheless, Bon cannot forget the blood feud between his family and the Communists. The miserable memory reminds Bon to take revenge on the Viet Cong. Therefore, Bon accepts the General’s order to help the General take back the control in Vietnam in the future. The protagonist is so torn that he decides to follow Bon even if Man commands him to stay in the US. The reason for his insistence comes from a chink of hope to save Bon from the Viet Cong if anything happens. His sympathy determines the tragedy because soon they find out Man is responsible for their interrogations. During the interrogations, Man’s behavior is rarely a friend’s because the divided loyalty leads them to a breach of companionship. Eventually, the story indicates emptiness by the unhinged minds of the protagonist. 

The portrayals of the novel tell the different political ideology that brings the breach of friendship even if their friendship is firm in the past. Nevertheless, political beliefs affect all of them, particularly in the protagonist’s mind. In the novel, the plots offer the readers no threads to the protagonist’s name. Seemingly, the protagonist is nameless because of not only his illegitimate birth but his secret agent. What he wanders around the Viet Cong and South Vietnam has rooted in the tragedy ultimately even if it is the last thing they expect to face. It is as the Greek tragedy in Antigone, “The one we love… are enemies of the state.” Yes. Their friendship deteriorates merely owing to the dualities of political beliefs. The narratives of the story are mirrored what we face at the present that different political ideologies occur conflicts between each other. This phenomenon is thought-provoking, particularly in the present time.

Cheng-Fen Wang

Works Cited

Nguyen, Viet Thanh, (2015), The Sympathizer

Recently I saw a video on social media of a discussion between Ms. Masih
Alinejad, a women activist and journalist, and Ms. Ann Linde, the Swedish
Foreign Minister, which was very interesting to me. In this interview, Masih
Alinejad strongly criticizes Ms. Linde for wearing a headscarf during her
diplomatic visit and talking with Iranian government officials in Iran. Her
argument was, while Ms. Linde is a feminist who strives for equal rights for
women and men, she herself is forced to surrender to a country with the law of
compulsory hijab and to accept compulsory hijab at that time and place.

What comes to mind at first glance? Is Ms. Linde entering into negotiations
with government leaders in a contradictory move that openly violates women’s
freedom and equality? Is Ms. Linde just looking to develop Sweden’s political
interests and wear a feminist mask? Has Ms. Linde neglected the rights of
Iranian women? Is Ms. Linde really a feminist?

The answer to this question is beautifully given by Ms. Anne Linde, she can
choose to be a feminist woman and only care about the freedom of her dress and not enter into negotiations with the leaders of Iran for anything. At the same
time, she can be a feminist and choose to accept the forced hijab for a short time
in order to achieve a greater goal and help free some political prisoners. which
one is better? Getting a little of what we want or getting nothing?

The ability to solve a problem is one of the most basic life skills and is a sign of
having white literacy, and in order to be able to solve a problem, one must first
be able to identify priorities. What the Swedish Foreign Minister is aware of,
but many women’s rights activists in Iran and in other places are not paying
attention to. Thus, this inaccuracy causes them to focus only on the goal and the
result instead of focusing on the solutions to solve the problem, and try to
achieve the result in any way, unaware that the goal does not justify the device.
To achieve the goal, you must use the right way, and the right way is in the right
training.

Watch the video here!

Fatemeh Shirazizadeh

“After 85 years in the basement of Uppsala Carolina Rediviva /I find you /my mother my family my people /in the racial biologists 20 measurement tables /in the naked pictures”

Extract of the testimony of Rose-Marie Huuva

Yesterday, 24 nov 2021, the Church of Sweden apologized to the Sámi people in an official ceremony in Uppsala and live on their website. But what was it that they apologized for, and what does it really mean? 

Before Antje Jackelen, the archbishop, gave the official apology, five representatives of the Sámi community gave their testimonies to the acts of abuse the Church has made itself guilty of. Their speeches were short, personal, and moving. They ranged from stories of loss of language and identity, to memories from the nomadic school, to finding one’s mother pictured naked in a photograph kept in the university library of Uppsala, and more. Hearing the testimonies, it becomes evident that the abuses the Church of Sweden is guilty of has had fundamental effects on every aspect of Sámi society. 

The apology itself, given by the archbishop, was solemn. She touched on the areas of which the five representatives just before her had brought up – the Church acknowledged and apologized for their part in assimilation, dehumanization, and colonization of land. The apology was accompanied by a promise to keep on working for reconciliation, hopefully meaning: this is just the beginning!

What I hope for in the continued work towards reconciliation, and what I missed in Wednesdays ceremony is this: actual factual returning of land and power.  The Church of Sweden owns 60 thousand hectare land in Luleå diocese, which yields 13 million sek per year.[1] Härnösands diocese owns just over 93 thousand hectare land[2], which in 2020 yield them 31 million sek.[3] What would it look like if the Sámi society got more power and influence when it comes to how the land is used, and over where the money it brings in is put?

For how can the church of Sweden apologize for sweeping Sámi religion under the rug, treating the students of the nomadic school as less than; opening the door for racial biology in Sweden; and taking the lands from the Sámi people – without subsequently working for opportunities for Sámi people to rediscover their spirituality and heal the generational trauma colonialism has effected in, advocate for pictures of and actual remains of Sámi ancestors be returned/buried, and give land back?

Alva Blomkvist

Sources:

[1] https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/luleastift/skog

[2] https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/harnosandsstift/skog-och-egendom

[3]  https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/filer/500252/Egendomnsn%C3%A4mnden2020_l%C3%A5g.pdf?id=2229556

Human agency means the decision and choice of the individual, that is, the individual chooses a subject or behaviour of his own will, does it, and follows the consequences. Therefore, human agency includes decision-making, selection, action and acceptance of the result. Decisions and choices usually seem to be made by the mind, but in fact many issues have affected the mind of the human selector that eventually the person is faced with a choice. The experiences that human beings face in life, all form our views and beliefs and give us the power to make decisions and choices. So, a person’s choices who lives in a poor family is not the same as a rich person choice. But what if we put these two people in the same choice?

One of the important functions that can be mentioned to consider individual agency is to pay attention to historical events, cultural events and moral events. If we consider wars, can we say that the decisions and choices of individuals are effective in starting and ending wars? Is there a way out for people who are at war? If someone is fighting against the enemy during the war, was it his decision and choice? It seems that fighting against the enemy is a right and logical action. But who is really the enemy? When politicians want to take over a country for economic, political and military interests, they look for rational, cultural, religious and even moral reasons for their defence because they want to justify the soldiers’ minds to take part in the battlefield in their favour. People think that they have made this decision by their own agency. Colonialism happens in exactly the same way. Why some countries are colonized but others are colonizers? Do not colonized people have the power to think, decide and choose? Has a colonizer colonized a country by his own agency? In both cases, there are series of basic information that has given this view to the colonizer and the colony and that basic information has formed both group’s agency.

But as much as the impact of experience on individual agency may seem frustrating, positive functions can also be considered. For example, education is well done in this way. Education can greatly influence people views. Modern education in traditional societies introduces people to new ways of thinking. For example, in the discussion of women’s rights, the best way to acquaint women with their rights is to educate them properly. Unfortunately, even in literate societies, people are oppressed due to lack of sufficient and up-to-date knowledge, and sometimes they themselves accompany this oppression. Therefore, people should pay as much attention to education as they pay attention to the factors influencing their agency to moderate the negative effects of other factors. Finally, we cannot consider absolute agency for individuals, but we can pay attention to the education as an instrument for modifying our mind and resistance.

Fatemeh Shirazizadeh

Memory and hybridity are important concerns in migration literature. Expatriate authors write about vary from traditional English novels. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) by Julia Alvarez is a novel about a Dominican family who move to the USA. The characters live in a hybrid and cultural context. It is difficult for them to overcome not only the language barriers but also the cultural shocks. They find themselves living in a hybrid condition that makes them belong to none. Physically, they feel restricted by cultural differences and language barriers in the USA; mentally they feel nostalgic about the glory of the past. The article sketches the role of memory and hybridity in forming identity.

Alvarez explores the psychological sense of exile of the family and offers intriguing points of cultural and personal hybridity. Her novel affirms the sense of nostalgia while the memory of the relocated peoples was reconstituted in terms of different times and locations. Even after people left their physical homelands, their memory froze mentally at the very moment of their migration. Accordingly, the girls’ mother says, “I want to forget the past” (Alvarez, 50). As we know, people’s relocation caused the inconsistent and fragmented cognition that what was bygone was no longer bygone. What has passed instead fermented in their deepest mind to form their memory? In this sense, it is natural the mother says “… would like to forget the past, but it is really only a small part of the recent past she would like to forget” (Alvarez 50).

Moreover, Yolanda, the third sister, takes on the role of the storyteller mostly in the novel. Yolanda has such literal talents that her mother has big dreams for her bright future. Her immigrant experience strengthens her comprehension of language power. As Hoffman states: “Words are inseparable from Yolanda’s identity: it is absolutely crucial that she chooses the accurate and appropriate word, that she constantly and properly identifies, describes, defines, redefines, and name everything from mere objects to relationships, even to herself” (23). Generally speaking, words are tools to communicate and to express oneself, however, Yolanda is obsessed with them because mastering a second language is a method for her to take root in America. In her view, words become significant elements to distinguish the new land and the old island.

Ironically, her return to the Dominican Republic is to reconnect with the roots of her family. She asserts her identity by shifting into English when she is frightened in the Dominican Republic; she speaks English subconsciously even though it is not her purpose for returning there. As we know, her journey is supposed to reconnect with the roots of her family. The first chapter, “Antojos” (Alvarez 3) is a good example of Yolanda’s heart even though she has no idea of the meaning of “Antojos”. Her craving for guavas reflects her unconscious “Antojos” that she does not even know herself. In this context, her homelands of fiction are located nowhere, but the craving for memory caused by the resettlement triggers her memory that is inherited from the past, which only exists mentally but not physically.

It is to say, the girls have hardships not only in the bilingual context but also in the cultural differences. We see all of the girls search for belonging owing to the unsuccessful assimilation. The Garcia girls try to retrieve the memory of the past even though the memory has faded away. Thus, eventually they lose not only their accents but also their identity.

In short, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents shows the dilemma of immigrants, especially on memory and hybridity. The old memory brings their difficulties in assimilation; the hybrid languages and cultures create acculturation difficulty. The experiences of dealing with memory and hybridity are perpetual challenges of immigrant families.

Works Cited

Alvarez, J. (1991). How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. New York: Algonquin Books.

Hoffman, Joan M. She Wants to Be Called Yolanda Now: Identity, Language, and the Third Sister in How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. Bilingual Review / La Revista Bilingüe, vol. 23, no. 1, 1998, pp. 21–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25745393. Accessed 27 Apr. 2021.

Cheng-Fen Wang

Amidst rising tension between Serbia and Kosovo (with some news sources calling it ‘the worst in a decade’), a familiar symbol rears its ugly head: the warplane. Fighter jets, troop transports and bombers have become so intimately linked with the precarious situation of Kosovo, that one rarely reads and article without one or the other being mentioned. Why is this? While answering that would take quite a lot more work than what can be afforded here and now, there are a few things that we can consider. Namely, the Western notion of R2P, or responsibility to protect, which was ushered in with the late 20th century discourse of humanitarian intervention, and its implementation (or experimentation?) in Kosovo.

In March, 1999, NATO undertook its first bombing campaign in the name of humanitarian intervention, that had not been sanctioned by the UN Security Council. While debates ensued over the legitimacy of the campaign in terms of ethical and judicial considerations, what I find more interesting, is what this tells us of how the Balkans are articulated.

R2P quickly became a key signifier in the humanitarian discourse centred around the war on terror, and the international role of the Western, liberal democracies. Consider how the ‘R’ in R2P stands for ‘responsibility’ and the fact that the American code name for the operation was ‘Operation Noble Anvil’. Both ‘Responsibility’ and ‘Noble Anvil’ signifies paternal duties- a stern but caring father who is forced to step in and break up a pair of squabbling siblings. Yet interestingly, does so primarily with the help of airborne violence. A violence which sees minimal risk for the ones commanding the tools of destruction, while exceedingly punishing the receiver of said violence.

While the discourse of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility it carries is slowly being overtaken by a more conservative notion of national interest and strategic realism, the symbol of airborne violence- the warplane and the havoc it wreaks- serves as a reminder that the dabbling of the West in playing the good cop internationally, rests upon a very uneasy foundation. A foundation which harks back to European colonisation. A foundation where Western notions of morality can be applied in praxis, arbitrarily, while the constant Other serves as the guinea pig.

Ejner Pedersen Trenter

Colonial-era caused exile, diaspora, and forced migration. Nevertheless, the memory of the relocated is reconstituted because of replacement. Humans leave their physical homelands; however, their memory probably freezes mentally at the very moment of their migration. The scattering of the migrated is the reason for the lasting alienation resulting from mental incompatibility. People’s relocation causes the inconsistent and fragmented cognition that what is bygone is no longer bygone. The cognition leads what has passed still dwelled and fermented in their deepest minds. The inconsistent cognition forms their past rather nostalgic than imaginary. Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands shows his feeling of being in exile is nostalgic and unforgettable. Rushdie’s nostalgia represents his imaginary homelands that exist nowhere, but in his illusions of memory because the diaspora triggers nostalgia that is inherited from the memory of the past, which merely exists mentally but not physically.

Rushdie draws memory of the past as the bursting bubbles which seem so near, but yet far. The narratives of nostalgia, blurriness, and fragments are fulfilled with Rushdie’s books. The glacial pacing of his novel, Midnight’s Children, with an abundance of everything thrown at the reader in an incoherent and scattered way is unreal and mythical. As Rushdie says, if a conflict arose between literal and remembered truth, he would favor the remembered version in his writing. In Rushdie’s view, history is ambiguous, but memory can capture the essence of the plot. In this sense, the protagonist, Saleem, in Midnight’s Children makes several errors that reflect Rushdie’s erroneous memory. In his mind, truth or wrongness matters not much; the reconstructed memory matters his sketching, narrative, and plot, which weave his story in a state of ambiguity and vagueness. The ambiguity triggers disconnectedness because his remembrance is based on imagination rather than fact. Accordingly, it is an interesting phenomenon in his novels, particularly in plots elected by his remembered truth even if though it is not true.

His memory mingles the colonial past and the postcolonial present so that physical displacement entails confusion between the imagination and fact. Thus, the unreliable narrators in Midnight’s Children omit fact, so that the memory is not the true reflection of the past instead of the reshaping of threads of what has gone before. In this sense, the physical displacement combined with ex-colonial memory has difficulty in resilience to the gap between fact and illusion. The gap illustrates puzzles and myths that bring readers in a shuffle and confuses them with what is true or not.

The phenomenon of Imaginary Homelands in Rushdie’s mind prevails an interesting phenomenon that triggers nostalgia dwelling in minds with disconnectedness and incompatibility. The incompatibility brings mystery and enchantment which is peculiar to postcolonial literature.

Cheng-Fen Wang