Our Universal Civilization

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http://www.manhattan...html/wl1990.htm

INTRODUCTION

May I read you a snippet from a letter written by a novelist?

"I sit down religiously every morning. I sit down for eight hours every day—and the sitting down is all. In the course of that working day of eight hours, I write three sentences, which I erase before leaving the table in despair….It takes all my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from butting my head against the wall. I want to howl and foam at the mouth, but I daren't do it for fear of waking th[e] baby and alarming my wife."

The writer was Joseph Conrad, and I read you these lines from one of the greatest of all novelists for three reasons.

First: we are used to seeing greatness in retrospect, when the writer has become a dignified collected edition in matching bindings. But greatness also meets deadlines and catches planes. It struggles with balky stories or grudging critics or the concentration-shattering crying baby. It goes to dinners and gives speeches, as it does here with us tonight. For our speaker this evening, V. S. Naipaul, isn't merely an acclaimed novelist, a prizewinning novelist many times over. He is, as I know readers here in this room and across the world will agree, the greatest living English novelist, part of the same constellation in which Conrad himself shines. Surely our culture is far from the twilight of its artistic achievement if it can produce so luminous a writer.

In the second place, Naipaul and Conrad share a certain history that makes them almost obsessive analysts and questioners of social reality. For, like Conrad, Naipaul comes to his place at the very center of English culture as an outsider. Perhaps not from so far outside as Conrad—a Polish exile, who in his early life in the French merchant marine fell in love with the English language, seeing it emblazoned on the prows of British clippers. But Naipaul, even with English as his native tongue, made almost as arduous and unexpected a journey.

He was born in Trinidad into a Hindu family, part of the Indian community that had migrated the breadth of the British Empire a century ago to work the West Indian cane fields as indentured laborers. From early on, he must have chafed against the as yet inarticulate sense of marginality that fills his books, the troubled feeling of the irrelevance of such places and their inhabitants to the mainstream where history is made and significant deeds done. "When I was in the fourth form," he writes, "I wrote a vow on the endpaper of my Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer to leave within five years. I left after six.” A scholarship took him to Oxford at eighteen; he has lived in England ever since.

But like Conrad, whose restless wanderings as a sea captain took him from Constantinople to the Congo, Naipaul for thirty years has crossed and recrossed the globe from Surinam to Srinagar, from Buenos Aires to the Ivory Coast. Accounts of these journeys dazzle in seven remarkable volumes—travel books in the sense that the Odyssey is a travel book. They dramatize how a foreign culture fits together to form a distinct whole; they investigate—and judge—what kind of men and ideas it nurtures. This global understanding, this thirst to see a culture in the round and in its relation to world history, illuminates his eleven novels, too, from his Dickensianly funny and satirical early novels, mostly set in Trinidad, to his towering later, darker novels, set in other marginal nations of the world, African or Caribbean.

Finally, in a deep sense, Naipaul is Conrad's spiritual heir, his worthy successor, and not simply in that they both write of far-off, often dark places, the outposts of empire, the half-made societies, as Naipaul calls them. Deeper than that, they share a similarity of outlook: that the bush or the darkness of human irrationality, aggression, fanaticism, and barbarism is always impending, that civilization is an achievement that has to be worked at constantly, and that its strength is the strength of its beliefs and values.

That's why it is so appropriate for a social-policy institution like the Manhattan Institute to have a novelist—and this novelist in particular—as its speaker. He takes as his subject the beliefs and values on which our civilization rests. And like all great novelists, he explores the intersection of the social order and the individual life—how the social order comes to bear, in often messy and contradictory ways, on the lives of individuals, defining our possibilities, constraining and enabling our individuality, and affecting how each one of us lives and understands and values his single life.

Sir Vidiadhar Naipaul.

Myron Magnet

Board of Editors, Fortune

Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute

OUR UNIVERSAL CIVILIZATION

By Sir Vidiadhar S. Naipaul

I've given this talk the title “Our Universal Civilization.” It is a rather big title, and I am a little embarrassed by it. I feel I should explain how it came about. I have no unifying theory of things. To me, situations and people are always specific, always of themselves. That is why one travels and writes: to find out. To work in the other way would be to know the answers before one knew the problems; that is a recognized way of working, I know, especially if one is a political or religious or racial missionary. But I would have found it hard.

That was why I thought, when this invitation to talk came, that it would be better for me to find out what kind of issues that members of the Institute were interested in. Myron Magnet, a senior fellow of the Institute, was in England at the time. We talked on the telephone; then, some days later, he sent me a handwritten list of questions. They were very serious questions, very important. Are we—are communities—only as strong as our beliefs? Is it enough for beliefs or an ethical view to be passionately held? Does the passion give validity to the ethics? Are beliefs or ethical views arbitrary, or do they represent something essential in the cultures where they flourish?

It was easy to read through to some of the anxieties that lay behind the questions. There was a clear worry about certain fanaticisms "out there." At the same time, there was a certain philosophical diffidence about how that anxiety could be expressed, since no one wants to use words or concepts that might boomerang on himself. You know how words can be used: I am civilized and steadfast; you are barbarian and fanatical; he is primitive and blind. Of course, I was on the side of the questioner and understood his drift. But I got to feel, over the next few days, and perhaps from my somewhat removed position, that I couldn't share the pessimism implied by the questions. I felt that the very pessimism of the questions, and their philosophical diffidence, defined the strength of the civilization out of which it issued. And so the theme of my talk, “Our Universal Civilization,” was given me.

I am not going to attempt to define this civilization. I will only speak of it in a personal way. It is the civilization, first of all, that gave me the idea of the writing vocation. It is the civilization in which I have been able to practice my vocation as a writer. To be a writer, you need to start with a certain kind of sensibility. The sensibility itself is created, or given direction, by an intellectual atmosphere.

Sometimes an atmosphere can be too refined, a civilization too achieved, too ritualized. Eleven years ago, when I was traveling in Java, I met a young man who wanted above everything else to be a poet and to live the life of the mind. This ambition had been given him by his modern education; but it was hard for the young man to explain to his mother exactly what he was up to. This mother was a person of culture and elegance; that should be stressed. She was elegant in visage and dress and speech; her manners were like art; they were Javanese court manners.

So I asked the young man—bearing in mind that we were in Java, where ancient epics live on in the popular art of puppet plays, "But isn't your mother secretly proud that you are a poet?" He said in English—I mention this to give a further measure of his education in his far-off Javanese town, "She wouldn't have even a sense of what being a poet is."

And the poet's friend and mentor, a teacher at the local university, amplified this. The friend said, "The only way he would have of making the mother understand what he is trying to do would be to suggest that he is being a poet in the classical tradition. And she would find this absurd. She would reject it as an impossibility." It would be rejected as an impossibility because for the poet's mother the epics of her country—and to her, they would have been like sacred texts—already existed, had already been written.

They had only to be learned or consulted.

For the mother, all poetry had already been written. That particular book, it might be said, was closed: it was part of the perfection of her culture. To be told by her son, who was 28, not all that young, that he was hoping to be a poet would be like a devout mother in another culture asking her writer son what he intended to write next, and getting the reply, "I am thinking of adding a book to the Bible." Or, to attempt another comparison, the young man would be like the character in the story by Borges who had taken upon himself the task of rewriting Don Quijote. Not just retelling the story, or copying out the Cervantes original; but seeking, by an extraordinary process of mind-clearing and re-creation, to arrive—without copying or falsity, and purely through original thought—at a narrative coinciding word by word with the Cervantes book.

I understood the predicament of the young man in central Java. His background, after all, was not far removed from the Hindu aspect of my own Trinidad background. We were an agricultural immigrant community from India. The ambition to become a writer, the introduction to writing and ideas about writing, had been given me by my father. He was born in 1906, the grandson of someone who had come to Trinidad as a baby. And somehow, in spite of all the discouragements of the society of that small agricultural colony, the wish to be a writer had come to my father; and he had made himself into a journalist, even with the limited opportunities for journalism existing in that colony.

We were a people of ritual and sacred texts. We also had our epics—and they were the very epics of Java; we heard them constantly sung or chanted. But it couldn't be said that we were a literary people. Our literature, our texts, didn't commit us to an exploration of our world; rather, they were cultural markers, giving us a sense of the wholeness of our world and the alienness of what lay outside. I don't believe that, in his family, anyone before my father would have thought of original literary composition. That idea came to my father in Trinidad with the English language; somehow, in spite of the colonial discouragements of the place, an idea of the high civilization connected with the language came to my father; and he was given some knowledge of literary forms. Sensibility is not enough if you are going to be a writer. You need to arrive at the forms that can contain or carry your sensibility; and literary forms—whether in poetry or drama, or prose fiction—are artificial, and ever changing.

This was a part of what was passed on to me at a very early age. At a very early age—in all the poverty and bareness of Trinidad, far away, with a population of half a million—I was given the ambition to write books, and specifically to write novels, which my father had presented to me as the highest form. But books are not created just in the mind. Books are physical objects. To write them, you need a certain kind of sensibility; you need a language, and a certain gift of language; and you need to possess a particular literary form. To get your name on the spine of the created physical object, you need a vast apparatus outside yourself. You need publishers, editors, designers, printers, binder; booksellers, critics, newspapers and magazines and television where the critics can say what they think of the book; and, of course, buyers and readers.

I want to stress this mundane side of things, because it is easy to take it for granted; it is easy to think of writing only in its personal, romantic aspect. Writing is a private act; but the published book, when it starts to live, speaks of the cooperation of a particular kind of society. The society has a certain degree of commercial organization. It also has certain cultural or imaginative needs. It doesn't believe that all poetry has already been written. It needs new stimuli, new writing; and it has the means of judging the new things that are offered.

This kind of society didn't exist in Trinidad. It was necessary, therefore, if I was going to be a writer, and live by my books, to travel out to that kind of society where the writing life was possible. This meant, for me at that time, going to England. I was traveling from the periphery, the margin, to what to me was the center; and it was my hope that, at the center, room would be made for me. I was asking a lot—asking, in fact, more of the center than of my own society. The center, after all, had its own interests, its own worldview, its own ideas of what it wanted in novels. And it still does. My subjects were far-off: but a little room was made for me in the England of the 1950s. I was able to become a writer, and to grow in the profession. It took time; I was forty—and had been publishing in England for fifteen years—before a book of mine was seriously published in the United States.

But I always recognized, in England in the 1950s, that as someone with a writing vocation, there was nowhere else for me to go. And if I have to describe the universal civilization, I would say that it is the civilization that both gave the prompting and the idea of the literary vocation; and also gave the means to fulfill that prompting; the civilization that enables me to make that journey from the periphery to the center; the civilization that links me not only to this audience but also that now not-so-young man in Java whose background was as ritualized as my own, and on whom—as on me—the outer world had worked, and given the ambition to write.

It is easier today for someone setting out to be a writer from places like Java or Trinidad; subjects once far-off are no longer so. But I have never been able to take my career for granted. I know that there are still large tracts of the world where the cultural or economic conditions I described a while ago do not obtain, and someone like myself would not have been able to become a writer. I couldn't have become the kind of writer I am in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union or black Africa. I don't think I could have taken my gifts even to India.

You will understand, then, how important it was to me to know when I was young that I could make this journey from the margin to the center, from Trinidad to London. The ambition to be a writer assumed that this was possible. So, in fact, I was taking it for granted, in spite of my ancestry and Trinidad background, that with another, equally important part of myself, I was part of a larger civilization. I suppose the same could be said of my father, though he was closer to the ritual ways of our Hindu and Indian past.

But I never formulated the idea of the universal civilization until quite recently—until eleven years ago, when I traveled for many months in a number of non-Arab Muslim countries to try to understand what had driven them to their rage. That Muslim rage was just beginning to be apparent. "Fundamentalism"—in connection with the Mohammedan world—was not a word often used by the newspapers in 1979; they hadn't yet worked through to that concept. What they spoke of more was "the revival of Islam." And that, indeed, to anyone contemplating it from a distance, was a puzzle. Islam, which had apparently had so little to offer its adherents in the last century and in the first half of this—what did it have to offer to an infinitely more educated, infinitely faster, world in the later years of the century?

The adaptation of my own family and Trinidad Indian community to the colonial Trinidad and, through that, to the twentieth century hadn't been easy. It had been painful for us, an Asian people, living instinctive, ritualized lives, to awaken to an idea of our history and to learn to live with the idea of our political helplessness. There had been very difficult social adjustments as well. For example: in our culture, marriages had always been arranged; it took some time, and many damaged lives, for us to arrive at the other way. All this went with the personal intellectual growth I have described.

And I thought, when I began to travel in the Muslim world, that I would be traveling among people who would be like the people of my own community. A large portion of Indians were Muslims; we had both had a similar nineteenth-century imperial or colonial history. I thought that religion was an accidental difference. I thought, as people said, that faith was faith; that people living at a certain time in history would have felt the same urges.

But it wasn't like that. The Muslims said that their religion was fundamental to them. And it was: it made for an immense difference. I have to stress that I was traveling in the non-Arab Muslim world. Islam began as an Arab religion; it spread as an Arab empire. In Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia—the countries of my itinerary—I was traveling, therefore among people who had been converted to what was an alien faith. I was traveling among people who had had to make a double adjustment—an adjustment to the European empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; and an earlier adjustment to the Arab faith. You might almost say that I was among people who had been doubly colonized, doubly removed from themselves.

Because I was soon to discover that no colonization had been so thorough as the colonization that had come with the Arab faith. Colonized or defeated peoples can begin to distrust themselves. In the Muslim countries I am talking about, this distrust had all the force of religion. It was an article of the Arab faith that everything before the faith was wrong, misguided, heretical; there was no room in the heart or mind of these believers for their pre-Mohammedan past. So ideas of history here were quite different from ideas of history elsewhere; there was no wish here to go back as far as possible into the past, and to learn as much as possible about the past.

Persia had a great past; it had been the rival in classical times of Greece and Rome. But you wouldn't have believed it in Iran in 1979; for the Iranians, the glory and the truth had begun with the coming of Islam. Pakistan was a very new Muslim state. But the land was very old. In Pakistan were the ruins of the very old cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Fabulous ruins, the discovery of which earlier this century had given a new idea of the history of the subcontinent. Not only pre-Islamic ruins; but possibly also pre-Hindu. There was an archaeological department, inherited from British days, which looked after the sites. But there was, especially with the growth of fundamentalism, a contrary current. This was expressed in a letter to a newspaper while I was there. The ruins of the cities, the writer said, should be hung with quotations from the Koran, saying that this was what befell unbelievers.

The faith abolished the past. And when the past was abolished like this, more than an idea of history suffered. Human behavior, and ideals of good behavior, could suffer. When I was in Pakistan, the newspapers were running articles to mark the anniversary of the Arab conquest of Sind. This was the first part of the Indian subcontinent to be conquered by the Arabs. It occurred at the beginning of the eighth century. The kingdom of Sind (an enormous area: the southern half of Afghanistan, the southern half of Pakistan) at that time was a Hindu-Buddhist kingdom. The Brahmins didn't really understand the outside world; the Buddhists didn't believe in taking life. It was a kingdom waiting to be conquered, you might say. But it took a long time for Sind to be conquered; it was very far away from the Arab heartland, across immense deserts. Six or seven Arab expeditions foundered.

At one time the third caliph himself, the third successor to the Prophet, called one of his lieutenants and said, "O Hakim, have you seen Hindustan and learned all about it?" Hakim said, "Yes, O commander of the faithful." The caliph said, "Give us a description of it." And all Hakim's frustration and bitterness came out in his reply: "Its water is dark and dirty," Hakim said. "Its fruit is bitter and poisonous. Its land is stony and its earth is salt. A small army will soon be annihilated, and a large one will soon die of hunger.”

This should have been enough for the caliph. But, looking still for some little encouragement, he asked Hakim, "What about the people? Are they faithful, or do they break their word?" Clearly, faithful people would have been easier to subdue, easier to lighten of their money. But Hakim almost spat out his reply: "The people are treacherous and deceitful," Hakim said. And at that, the caliph did take fright—the people of Sind sounded like quite an enemy—and he ordered that the conquest of Sind was to be attempted no more.

But Sind was too tempting. The Arabs tried again and again. The organization and the drive and the attitudes of the Arabs, fortified by their new faith, in a world still tribal and disorganized, easy to conquer—the drive of the Arabs was remarkably like that of the Spaniards in the New World 800 years later. And this was not surprising, since the Spaniards themselves had been conquered and ruled by the Arabs for some centuries. Spain, in fact, fell to the Arabs at about the same time as Sind did.

The final conquest of Sind was set on foot from Iraq, and was superintended from the town of Kufa by Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq. The topicality is fortuitous, I assure you. The aim of the Arab conquest of Sind—and this conquest had been thought about almost as soon as the faith had been established—had always been the acquiring of slaves and plunder, rather than the spreading of the faith. And when finally Hajjaj received the head of the king of Sind, together with 60,000 slaves from Sind, and the royal one-fifth of the loot of Sind, that one-fifth decreed by the religious law, he "placed his forehead on the ground and offered prayers of thanksgiving, by two genuflections to God, and praised him, saying: 'Now have I got all the treasures, whether open or buried, as well as other wealth, and the kingdom of the world.’ " There was a famous mosque in Kufa. Hajjaj called the people there, and from the pulpit he told them: "Good news and good luck to the people of Syria and Arabia, whom I congratulate on the conquest of Sind and on the possession of immense wealth…which the great and omnipotent God has kindly bestowed on them."

I am quoting from a translation of a thirteenth-century Persian text, the Chachnama. It is the main source for the story of the conquest of Sind. It is a surprisingly modern piece of writing, a good fast narrative, with catching detail and dialogue. It tells a terrible story of plunder and killing—the Arab army was allowed to kill for days after the fall of every town in Sind; and then the plunder was assessed and distributed to the soldiers, after the fifth had been set aside for the caliph. But to the Persian writer, the story—written 500 years after the conquest, is only "a pleasant tale of conquest." It is Arab or Muslim imperial genre writing. After 500 years—and though the Mongols are about to break through—the faith still holds; there is no new moral angle on the destruction of the kingdom of Sind.

This was the event that was being commemorated by articles in the newspapers when I was in Pakistan in 1979. There was an article by a military man about the successful Arab general. The article tried to be fair, in a military way, to the armies of both sides. It drew a rebuke from the chairman of the National Commission of Historical and Cultural Research.

This was what the chairman said: "Employment of appropriate phraseology is necessary when one is projecting the image of a hero. Expressions such as 'invader' and 'defenders' and 'the Indian army' fighting bravely but not being quick enough to 'fall upon the withdrawing enemy' loom large in the article. It is further marred by some imbalanced statements such as follows: 'Had Raja Dahar defended the Indus heroically, and stopped Qasim from crossing it, the history of this subcontinent would have been quite different.' One fails to understand"—this is the chairman of the Commission of Historical and Cultural Research—"whether the writer is applauding the defeat of the hero or lamenting the defeat of his rival." After 1,200 years, the holy war is still being fought. The hero is the Arab invader, bringer of the faith. The rival whose defeat is to be applauded—and I was reading this in Sind—is the man of Sind.

To possess the faith was to possess the only truth; and possession of this truth set many things on its head. To believe that the time before the coming of the faith was a time of error distorted more than an idea of history. What lay within the faith was to be judged in one way; what lay outside it was to be judged in another. The faith altered values, ideas of good behavior, human judgments.

So I not only began to understand what people in Pakistan meant when they told me that Islam was a complete way of life, affecting everything; I began to understand that—though it might be said that we had shared a common subcontinental origin—I had traveled a different way. I began to formulate the idea of the universal civilization—which, growing up in Trinidad, I had lived in or been part of without quite knowing that I did so.

Starting with that Hindu background of the instinctive, ritualized life and growing up in the unpromising conditions of colonial Trinidad, I had—through the process I have tried to describe earlier—gone through many stages of knowledge and self-knowledge. I had a better idea of Indian history and Indian art than my grandparents had. They possessed rituals, epics, myth; their identity lay within that light; beyond that light was darkness, which they wouldn't have been able to penetrate. I didn't possess the rituals and the myths; I saw them at a distance. But I had in exchange been granted the ideas of inquiry and the tools of scholarship. Identity for me was a more complicated matter. Many things had gone to make me. But there was no problem for me there. Whole accumulations of scholarship were mine, in the sense that I had access to them. I could carry four or five or six different cultural ideas in my head. I knew about my ancestry and of my ancestral culture; I knew about the history of India and its political status; I knew where I was born, and I knew the history of the place; I had a sense of the New World. I knew about the literary forms I was interested in; and I knew about the journey I would have to make to the center in order to exercise the vocation I had given myself.

Now, traveling among non-Arab Muslims, I found myself among a colonized people who had been stripped by their faith of all that expanding intellectual life, all the varied life of the mind and senses, the expanding cultural and historical knowledge of the world, that I had been growing into on the other side of the world. I was among people whose identity was more or less contained in the faith. I was among people who wished to be pure.

In Malaysia, they were desperate to rid themselves of their past, desperate to cleanse their people of tribal or animist practices, all the subconscious life, freighted with the past, that links people to the earth on which they walk, all the rich folk life that awakened people elsewhere cultivate and dredge for its poetry. They wish, the more earnest of these Malay Muslims, to be nothing but their imported Arab faith; I got the impression that they would have liked, ideally, to make their minds and souls a blank, an emptiness, so that they could be nothing but their faith. Such effort; such self-imposed tyranny. No colonization could have been greater than this colonization by the faith.

While the faith held, while it appeared to be unchallenged, the world perhaps held together. But when there appeared this powerful, encompassing civilization from outside, men didn't know what to do. They could do only what they were capable of doing; they could only become more assiduous in the faith, more self-wounding, more ready to turn away from what they didn't feel they could master.

Muslim fundamentalism in places like Malaysia and Indonesia seems new. But Europe has been in the East for a long time, and there has been Muslim anxiety there for almost all of this time. This anxiety, this meeting of the two opposed worlds, the outgoing world of Europe and the closed world of the faith, was spotted a hundred years ago by the writer Joseph Conrad, who, with his remote Polish background, his wish as a traveler to render exactly what he saw, was able at a time of high imperialism to go far beyond the imperialistic, surface ways of writing about the East and native peoples.

To Conrad, the world he traveled in was new; he looked hard at it. There is a quotation I would like to read from Conrad's second book, published in 1896, nearly 100 years ago, in which he catches something of the Muslim hysteria of that time—the hysteria that, a hundred years later, with greater education and wealth of the native peoples, and the withdrawing of empires, was to turn into the fundamentalism we hear about:

"A half-naked, betel-chewing pessimist stood upon the bank of the tropical river, on the edge of the still and immense forests; a man angry, powerless, empty-handed, with a cry of bitter discontent ready on his lips; a cry that, had it come out, would have run through the virgin solitudes of the woods as true, as great, as profound, as any philosophical shriek that ever came from the depths of an easy chair to disturb the impure wilderness of chimneys and roofs."

Philosophical hysteria—those were the words I wanted to give to you, and I think they still apply. They bring me back to the list of questions and issues that the senior fellow of the Institute, Myron Magnet, sent to me when he was in England last summer. Why, he asked, are certain societies or groups content to enjoy the fruits of progress, while affecting to despise the conditions that promote that progress? What belief system do they oppose to it? And then, more specifically: why is Islam held up in opposition to Western values? The answer, I believe, is that philosophical hysteria. It is not an easy thing to define or understand, and the Muslim spokesmen do not really help. They speak clichés, but that might only be because they perhaps have no way of expressing what they feel. Some have overriding political causes; others are really religious missionaries rather than scholars.

But years ago, while the Shah still ruled, there appeared in the United States a small novel by a young Iranian woman that in its subdued, unpolitical way foreshadowed the hysteria that was to come. The novel was called Foreigner; the author was Nahid Rachlin. Perhaps it was just as well that the novel appeared while the Shah ruled, and thus had to avoid politics; it is just possible that the delicate feeling of this novel might have been made trivial or ordinary if it had run into political protest.

The central figure of the book is a young Iranian woman who does research work in Boston as a biologist. She is married to an American, and she might seem to be all right, well adapted. But when she goes back on a holiday to Tehran, she loses her balance. She has some trouble with the bureaucracy. She can't get an exit visa; she begins to feel lost. She is disturbed by memories of her crowded, oppressive Iranian childhood, with its prurient sexual intimations; disturbed by what remains of her old family life; disturbed by the overgrown, thuggish city, full of “Western" buildings. And that is interesting, that use of "Western" rather than big: it is as though the strangeness of the outside world has come to Tehran itself.

Disturbed in this way, the young woman reflects on her time in the United States. It is not the time of clarity, as it might have once appeared. She sees it now to be a time of emptiness. She can't say why she has lived the American life. Sexually and socially—in spite of her apparent success—she has never been in control; and she cannot say, either, why she has been doing the research work she has been doing. All this is very subtly and effectively done; we can see that the young woman was not prepared for the movement between civilizations, the movement out of the shut-in Iranian world, where the faith was the complete way, filled everything, left no spare corner of the mind or will or soul, to the other world, where it was necessary to be an individual and responsible; where people developed vocations, and were stirred by ambition and achievement, and believed in perfectibility. Once we understand or have an intimation of that, we see, with the central figure of the novel, what a torment and emptiness that automatic, imitative life in Boston has been for her.

Now, in her distress, she falls ill. She goes to a hospital. The doctor there understands her unhappiness. He, too, has spent some time in the United States; when he came back, he said, he soothed himself by visiting mosques and shrines for a month. He tells the young woman that her pain comes from an old ulcer. "What you have," he says, in his melancholy, seductive way, “is a Western disease." And the research biologist eventually arrives at a decision: she will give up that Boston-imposed life of the intellect and meaningless work; she will turn back on the American emptiness; she will stay in Iran and put on the veil. She will do as the doctor did; she will visit shrines and mosques. Having decided that, she becomes happier than she has ever been.

Immensely satisfying, that renunciation. But it is intellectually flawed: it assumes that there will continue to be people striving out there, in the stressed world, making drugs and medical equipment, to keep the Iranian doctor's hospital going.

Again and again, on my Islamic journey in 1979, 1 found a similar unconscious contradiction in people's attitudes. I remember especially a newspaper editor in Tehran. His paper had been at the heart of the revolution. In the middle of 1979 it was busy, in a state of glory. Seven months later, when I went back to Tehran, it had lost its heart; the once busy main room was empty; all but two of the staff had disappeared. The American embassy had been seized; a financial crisis had followed; many foreign firms had closed down; advertising had dried up; the newspaper editor could hardly see his way ahead; every issue of the paper lost money; waiting for the crisis to end, the editor, it might be said, had become as much a hostage as the diplomats. He also, as I now learned, had two sons of university age. One was studying in the United States; the other had applied for a visa, but then the hostage crisis had occurred. This was news to me, that the United States should have been so important to the sons of one of the spokesmen of the Islamic revolution. I told the editor that I was surprised. He said, speaking especially of the son waiting for the visa, "It's his future."

Emotional satisfaction on one hand; thought for the future on the other. The editor was as divided as nearly everyone else. One of Joseph Conrad's earliest stories of the East Indies, from the 1890s, was about a local raja or chieftain, a murderous man, a Muslim (though it is never explicitly said), who, in a crisis, having lost his magical counselor, swims out one night to one of the English merchant ships in the harbor to ask the sailors, representatives of the immense power that had come from the other end of the world, for an amulet, a magical charm. The sailors are at a loss; but then someone among them gives the raja a British coin, a sixpence commemorating Queen Victoria's jubilee; and the raja is well pleased. Conrad didn't treat the story as a joke; he loaded it with philosophical implications for both sides, and I feel now that he saw truly.

In the 100 years since that story, the wealth of the world has grown, power has grown, education has spread; the disturbance, the philosophical shriek, has been amplified. The division in the revolutionary editor's spirit and the renunciation of the fictional biologist—both contain a tribute unacknowledged, but all the more profound to the universal civilization. Simple charms alone cannot be acquired from it; other, difficult things come with it as well: ambition, endeavor, individuality.

The universal civilization has been a long time in the making. It wasn't always universal; it wasn't always as attractive as it is today. The expansion of Europe gave it for at least three centuries a racial taint, which still causes pain. In Trinidad, I grew up in the last days of that kind of racialism. And that, perhaps, has given me a greater appreciation of the immense changes that have taken place since the end of the war, the extraordinary attempt of this civilization to accommodate the rest of the world, and all the currents of that world's thought.

I come back now to the first questions that Myron Magnet put to me earlier this year. Are we only as strong as our beliefs? Is it sufficient merely to hold a worldview, an ethical view, intensely? You will understand the anxieties behind the questions. The questions, of course, for all their apparent pessimism, are loaded; they contain their own answers. But they are also genuinely double-edged. For that reason, they can also be seen as a reaching out to a far-off and sometimes hostile system of fixed belief; they can be seen as an aspect of the universality of our civilization at this period. Philosophical diffidence meets philosophical hysteria; and the diffident man is, at the end, the more in control.

Because my movement within this civilization has been from the periphery to the center, I may have seen or felt certain things more freshly than people to whom those things were everyday. One such thing was my discovery, as a child—a child worried about pain and cruelty—of the Christian precept “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” There was no such human consolation in the Hinduism I grew up with, and though I have never had any religious faith, the simple idea was, and is, dazzling to me, perfect as a guide to human behavior.

A later realization—I suppose I have sensed it most of my life, but I have understood it philosophically only during the preparation of this talk—has been the beauty of the idea of the pursuit of happiness. Familiar words, easy to take for granted; easy to misconstrue. This idea of the pursuit of happiness is at the heart of the attractiveness of the civilization to so many outside it or on its periphery. I find it marvelous to contemplate to what an extent, after two centuries, and after the terrible history of the earlier part of this century, the idea has come to a kind of fruition. It is an elastic idea; it fits all men. It implies a certain kind of society, a certain kind of awakened spirit. I don't imagine my father's parents would have been able to understand the idea. So much is contained in it: the idea of the individual, responsibility, choice, the life of the intellect, the idea of vocation and perfectibility and achievement. It is an immense human idea. It cannot be reduced to a fixed system. It cannot generate fanaticism. But it is known to exist; and because of that, other more rigid systems in the end blow away.

Edited November 27, 2012 by HSD1

[dalsingh101]

Great post. Fascinating topic and perspective.

Some overall thoughts on a first read and mull.

Naipaul seems to equate a sort of expansion of western literary culture as one that is 'universal'. When he says this, he seems to miss the fact that he himself appears to have accepted into this culture/society and thus speaks from a position of relative privilege. But he does make some important points, especially for someone like me who toys with the idea of writing - periodically. Do or would 'outsiders' like myself have any alternate to the 'framework' that already exists from western society to create, share and theoretically make a living from writing? Maybe Naipaul (and myself sometimes?) is being a bit naive or failing to face up to the bitter reality of there currently being no alternate societal framework within which literary types like himself could live - outside of the imagined 'universal' one. One which, to my mind is far from universal, and very selective about what it accepts and promotes.

Also, it appears as if Islam becomes a whipping boy for him. I'm not disputing orthodox Islam's impulse to purge a society of previous beliefs, but as a Sikh it would be false to consider our own faith also doesn't have aspects, which when idealised (or practiced purely?) demand a break from past beliefs, practices. Sometimes this isn't actually a bad thing. There isn't any need for me to go on about the way our past tribal affiliations now play havoc with Sikh cohesion as my views on the topic have already been forthrightly put forward. And we are truly honest we can say that Islam HAS successfully integrated an unbelievable array of people from various backgrounds under its umbrella, most of when do retain their distinct cultural identity as well as their faith.

Truth be told, I can't see his 'universal civilisation' from where I am standing. But it isn't a bad idea at all.

And what about this as Sikhs?

the idea of the pursuit of happiness.

From what I'm reading of bani, our heritage seems to suggest the above pursuit is folly - at least in the ways conventional society pursues this elusive 'happiness'.

[HSD1]

I first came across this Naipaul guy when looking for Sikh narratives from the 18th century. I couldnt find much apart from what was written by outsiders. I then moved onto other Indian states and came across a few Bengali references to how strong their industry and economy were before the Brits and how badly they suffered in two centuries of occupation. I then moved onto South Asian sources from outside India and came across this guy as there wasnt much else out there. Naipaul is a Brahmin Hindu son of itinerant workers who went to Trinidad. The pecularity of Brahmins working in a slave island economy probably resulted in him being detached partially from a true South Asian perspective.

He has a disdain for Sikhi which I found in his book about India in a chapter called in the 'Shadow of the Gurus'. He seems to be deliberately ignorant of Sikh history to produce a view to reader that modern Sikhs dont quite understand their own Gurus. We know that if this is the case, this is due to mostly external influences and our own ignorance rather than us doing in order to get a reason to hate others. He even blames the violence of the 1980s entirely on Sikhs, for not being content with the way India is. The Khalistanis he speaks to are part of the older generation types who say what they think the listener wants to hear, in order to get them on side with the idea of Sikh sovereignty. Naipaul isnt really fooled by it but at the same time never acknowledges it, instead using their own points against them. In his defence, it could be said it was written closer to the time so he didnt have the chance to see it as we do today, with full knowledge of the Black Cats and chicanery of the Indian state and the personality struggles and military pressure on the freedom fighters.

But that still doesnt mean his points about colonialism in general arent interesting to a Sikh perspective. Even though he married an English woman and lived in England, his time wasnt always pleasurable so we dont know how much that would affect his outlook. Having said that, this speech is really quite something. The first thing is the mention of the Javanese boy. I dont know much about Javanese culture but the fact that the culture itself thinks the pinnacle of its existance has been reached in the past is something we can relate to. Sikhs/Punjabis seem to over glorify the past without seeming to understand that our ancestors wouldnt be very proud of us. They went through such great stresses yet in our histories these are supermen and women who just did what was necessary almost as if it was second nature. I think Panth Prakash is the only truly personal and emotional account of what really went on. I know some people need to look up to others, but some people either think they can never equal them and become disillusioned. This is the exact opposite reason these stories/histories are spread from generation to generation in Asian cultures.

Naipaul seems to equate a sort of expansion of western literary culture as one that is 'universal'. When he says this, he seems to miss the fact that he himself appears to have accepted into this culture/society and thus speaks from a position of relative privilege. But he does make some important points, especially for someone like me who toys with the idea of writing - periodically. Do or would 'outsiders' like myself have any alternate to the 'framework' that already exists from western society to create, share and theoretically make a living from writing? Maybe Naipaul (and myself sometimes?) is being a bit naive or failing to face up to the bitter reality of there currently being no alternate societal framework within which literary types like himself could live - outside of the imagined 'universal' one. One which, to my mind is far from universal, and very selective about what it accepts and promotes.

From what I got from the article, it seems that he felt that British civilisation would give him opportunity that Trinidad hadn't. He also references the industrial culture - Java didnt seem to want new authors or have the ability to spread the literature to those who wanted it. Britain had the printing presses, bookshops, publishers etc. That seemed to weigh heavily on his mind. His early work also wasnt too controversial from the small amounts I have seen. This was probably enough for the British to not be too bothered about this brown guy writing books. i guess they wanted something 'authentic' and he was good enough. Contrast that to the way Sikhs view non-religous literature http://www.sikhchic.com/article-detail.php?id=2650&cat=11 .

Also, it appears as if Islam becomes a whipping boy for him. I'm not disputing orthodox Islam's impulse to purge a society of previous beliefs, but as a Sikh it would be false to consider our own faith also doesn't have aspects, which when idealised (or practiced purely?) demand a break from past beliefs, practices. Sometimes this isn't actually a bad thing. There isn't any need for me to go on about the way our past tribal affiliations now play havoc with Sikh cohesion as my views on the topic have already been forthrightly put forward. And we are truly honest we can say that Islam HAS successfully integrated an unbelievable array of people from various backgrounds under its umbrella, most of when do retain their distinct cultural identity as well as their faith.

To be fair, as they were paying for his roti, this guy wasnt going to compare Western Abrahamic Barbarism with Middle Eastern Abrahamic Barbarism. Even today no one has the balls to do this or because they have invested in one side or the other. The thing is that we, for Sikhi, are the Arabs. It was one of us who came up with it and it was in our nation that it started. Just like Islam overcoming Arab paganism, Sikhi overcame Punjabi paganism but without the bloodshed and kiddie rape. The question is if we were to become strong would we inflict this kind of 'memory wipe' on other cultures? Especially after our own experiences with colonialism, would it make it less or more acceptable? Or like the Jews after being colonised by the Romans/Persians by the Arabs/Africans by the British, are we in danger from indulging in this to ease our own existance and sooth the scars of our defeats?

As for the pursuit of happiness, it means different things for different people. For Naipaul it was the chance to travel the world and get his work published. For the average Brit today their idea would be a massive plate of curry and a can of Stella whilst watching X Factor. Dont even get me started on the living Sikh charicatures who do my head in.

Maybe in a Sikh society there would be a scope for achievement and happiness (as Sikhs did in the early 18th century), that would not cause ridiculous damage to other benevolent races/cultures but also allow those who want to be pulled to the centre to work towards it?

[dalsingh101]

Will comment on your post in time. It covers a lot of important and pertinent points that need discussing.

In the meanwhile have a 'butchers' at this brief translation and narrative I posted a while back if you haven't already.

http://www.sikhawareness.com/index.php/topic/14794-the-making-of-sikh-history-literally-a-translation/

[dalsingh101]

The pecularity of Brahmins working in a slave island economy probably resulted in him being detached partially from a true South Asian perspective.

How many of us diasporans actually retain a 'true SA perspective'? Very few I would imagine. Ourselves included.

He has a disdain for Sikhi which I found in his book about India in a chapter called in the 'Shadow of the Gurus'. He seems to be deliberately ignorant of Sikh history to produce a view to reader that modern Sikhs dont quite understand their own Gurus. We know that if this is the case, this is due to mostly external influences and our own ignorance rather than us doing in order to get a reason to hate others.

He might be on the ball more than we'd like to admit. Even to myself, sometimes it does appears as if the Sikh movement has largely petered down to some 'exclusive' grouping where many apnay haughtily looked down on other within the quom and towards perceived 'lesser breeds' outside, especially 'Hindus'. We DO have some deeply ignorant mofos in our quom, who seem to have predilection towards haughtiness and separation - who exercise this at any given opportunity. Classic 'othering' in the Edward Saidian sense. That's undeniable from where I'm standing. I have no doubt that this tendency was exacerbated by the English so maybe Naipaul just picked up on this? And be frank, apnay frequently exercise willful ignorance of their faith for political ends. So if an outsider picks up on this - is it surprising?

He even blames the violence of the 1980s entirely on Sikhs, for not being content with the way India is. The Khalistanis he speaks to are part of the older generation types who say what they think the listener wants to hear, in order to get them on side with the idea of Sikh sovereignty. Naipaul isnt really fooled by it but at the same time never acknowledges it, instead using their own points against them.

You say this is characteristics of 'older generation types' - I'd disagree, I'd say it is a characteristic of K'stanis in general. I was one for a while. Once I clocked (and it took time), just what kind of morons I was surrounded by, I changed my mind. Most K'stanis are Jats with an eye on money making opportunities with the Panjab agricultural sector. Sure there are/were some more religiously motivated types, but the majority were selfishly motivated from my experience. They have NO conception of fairness, egalitarianism or statecraft.

In his defence, it could be said it was written closer to the time so he didnt have the chance to see it as we do today, with full knowledge of the Black Cats and chicanery of the Indian state and the personality struggles and military pressure on the freedom fighters.

We have to face up to it. The way we went on in the past. Full of false pride and arrogance didn't make us any friends. Instead of reaching out, we jumped on high horses albeit under the influence of the sneaky invaders.

I dont know much about Javanese culture but the fact that the culture itself thinks the pinnacle of its existance has been reached in the past is something we can relate to. Sikhs/Punjabis seem to over glorify the past without seeming to understand that our ancestors wouldnt be very proud of us. They went through such great stresses yet in our histories these are supermen and women who just did what was necessary almost as if it was second nature. I think Panth Prakash is the only truly personal and emotional account of what really went on. I know some people need to look up to others, but some people either think they can never equal them and become disillusioned. This is the exact opposite reason these stories/histories are spread from generation to generation in Asian cultures.

This is a VERY interesting point. Our idealisation of the past to the point were we turn our ancestors into something we can't relate to in human terms. Having looked at some pre and post annexation (i.e. Singh Sabha) literature, we can see how Sikhs have adopted a British style 'whitewashing' historiography post-annexation. Something that continues to this day. History now becomes a blatant form of propaganda (just like Brits use it) with little care for truth and no bad is ever done by our side. When we compare a preannexation text like Panth Prakash with later Bhai Vir Singh and even Ganda Singh narratives this is blatantly obvious. Look at how Bhangu doesn't try and cover up excesses and 'unSikhlike' behaviour on our side. In stark contrast Bhai Vir Singh's historical novels are perfect exemplars of the idealisation I speak about. Even Ganda Singh removes all references of drug and drink taking in his work on early European sources apparently.

We DON'T understand the use of history as a learning tool, instead we usually turn it into another device to fuel our already massive egos. Our collective ability to analyse and reflect are weak.

I don't agree with your aligning Brits/Europeans with Islam along Abrahamic faith lines by the way. Western Europeans only seem to have briefly flirted with Christianity and it isn't any sort of strong factor in their politics and day to day lives/interactions. So I think you're wrong to group them like that. Yes, they do share very similar traits to the more negative conceptions of the Islamic but I don't think the cause is their connection to an Abrahamic faith. Maybe the link is a supremacist worldview, Muslims from their religion, whites from their 'whiteness'?

The thing is that we, for Sikhi, are the Arabs. It was one of us who came up with it and it was in our nation that it started. Just like Islam overcoming Arab paganism, Sikhi overcame Punjabi paganism but without the bloodshed and kiddie rape. The question is if we were to become strong would we inflict this kind of 'memory wipe' on other cultures? Especially after our own experiences with colonialism, would it make it less or more acceptable?

I don't think it has overcome Panjabi tribalism/paganism fully myself. If current behaviour is anything to go by, our lot will do EXACTLY as the Arabs and try to position themselves at some apex like Brahmins, and YOU KNOW who I personally believe would be most guilty of this. Hell, wake up brother. Our lot are ALREADY doing this. We already castigate Afghan Sikhs for example. The 'white elephant' in the room (casteism) comes to mind. Forget 'memory wipe', we'd never let anyone forget how 'low' their antecedents were....lol!!!!! Unless it were people we turn into pets for (i.e. the Angrezi or goray), for whom we'd probably bend over backwards to accommodate in such an emasculated way that it would make people like you and me hang our heads in despair and shame. lol

Maybe in a Sikh society there would be a scope for achievement and happiness (as Sikhs did in the early 18th century), that would not cause ridiculous damage to other benevolent races/cultures but also allow those who want to be pulled to the centre to work towards it?

I would like to hope so, but right now we are so swamped in a quagmire of both our own and others making that we need baby steps. We need higher literacy, we need higher culture, a more independent economy, a less ignorant social order. Most of all we need to have a better attitude towards one another AND outsiders who aren't hostile. We've been engaging in this low IQ 'generalisation' shite of others for ages now. Hindus are whipping boys and WASPS are our best buddies. I mean who is more stupid than someone who can't differentiate between friend and foe? And check us out - look at whose been our greatest 'allies' for the last century and a half.

I don't know, we need a raise in consciousness, which is pretty hard because as you know from SS, there seems to be a long line of shameless ar5e-lickers amongst us. Not a good look for people who want to strike out on their own. It reeks of lack of confidence and manliness.

Edited December 11, 2012 by dalsingh101

[HSD1]

How many of us diasporans actually retain a 'true SA perspective'? Very few I would imagine. Ourselves included.

True, but none of us made a living by discussing what was going on there. Or try and force our South Asian brethren to copy what we do, where as Naipaul kind of did.

He might be on the ball more than we'd like to admit. Even to myself, sometimes it does appears as if the Sikh movement has largely petered down to some 'exclusive' grouping where many apnay haughtily looked down on other within the quom and towards perceived 'lesser breeds' outside, especially 'Hindus'. We DO have some deeply ignorant mofos in our quom, who seem to have predilection towards haughtiness and separation - who exercise this at any given opportunity. Classic 'othering' in the Edward Saidian sense. That's undeniable from where I'm standing. I have no doubt that this tendency was exacerbated by the English so maybe Naipaul just picked up on this? And be frank, apnay frequently exercise willful ignorance of their faith for political ends. So if an outsider picks up on this - is it surprising?

I think it's best if you read the chapter, it sounds more like your perspective on how things petered out. He was writing about this stuff when it was still up in the air and it's clear which side he picks. Like anyone who picks sides, he instantly considers the other side to be wrong or deluded in every sense.

As for what happened afterwards, I think the Hindus have the exact same disdain for Sikhs that you think Khalistanis have for Hindus. Which is not particularly surprising as Sikhs stared into the abyss and it stared right back into us.

Sikhs cant really be guilty of 'othering' either. Sikhs were independant long before the English turned up, and this was with a lineage stretching back to the Gurus. If anything it was the English who dragged us into India and made us stay. Early Sikh freedom fighters adopted the Indian freedom struggle in much the way earlier Sikhs probably looked at British India as occupied territory. As the relationship soured after Partition, for reasons that go far deeper than personal beef, it's no surprise Sikhs wanted out. The way Sikhs went about it may not have been ideal and contributed to why the movement fell apart. That's not to say the issues have gone away.

You say this is characteristics of 'older generation types' - I'd disagree, I'd say it is a characteristic of K'stanis in general. I was one for a while. Once I clocked (and it took time), just what kind of morons I was surrounded by, I changed my mind. Most K'stanis are Jats with an eye on money making opportunities with the Panjab agricultural sector. Sure there are/were some more religiously motivated types, but the majority were selfishly motivated from my experience. They have NO conception of fairness, egalitarianism or statecraft.

Considering the screwed up stories about what people do for land, being in India hasnt exactly stopped this from happening. If Khalistanis really were after bigger farms, they wouldnt need independence to do it. Like I said, if what your saying is true than this reflect the short sightedness of older types - there is only so much land in East Punjab. Younger people dont want bigger farms and can extrapolate what independence would bring in terms of issues. For one Khalistan would never exist until the majority of Sikhs in India and outside India want it. Then there's the external issues - it becomes clear Khalistan is only viable if India and Pakistan suffer a perfect storm of trouble. That doesnt mean Sikhs cant do things to bring the culprits of 84 to justice or secure their heritage in South Asia.

We have to face up to it. The way we went on in the past. Full of false pride and arrogance didn't make us any friends. Instead of reaching out, we jumped on high horses albeit under the influence of the sneaky invaders.

When a people have nothing else going for them, what do you expect? People will always break out the plasters even if they're bleeding to death, not everyone is a surgeon. If that analogy makes sense?

This is a VERY interesting point. Our idealisation of the past to the point were we turn our ancestors into something we can't relate to in human terms. Having looked at some pre and post annexation (i.e. Singh Sabha) literature, we can see how Sikhs have adopted a British style 'whitewashing' historiography post-annexation. Something that continues to this day. History now becomes a blatant form of propaganda (just like Brits use it) with little care for truth and no bad is ever done by our side. When we compare a preannexation text like Panth Prakash with later Bhai Vir Singh and even Ganda Singh narratives this is blatantly obvious. Look at how Bhangu doesn't try and cover up excesses and 'unSikhlike' behaviour on our side. In stark contrast Bhai Vir Singh's historical novels are perfect exemplars of the idealisation I speak about. Even Ganda Singh removes all references of drug and drink taking in his work on early European sources apparently.

We DON'T understand the use of history as a learning tool, instead we usually turn it into another device to fuel our already massive egos. Our collective ability to analyse and reflect are weak.

Yeah, bang on the money. The problem is that our immigrant/minority/all people are equal lovey dovey stuff culture has completely taken over. Sikhs wont say a bad word about certain external people but feel free to cut up their own kind with ridiculous subdivisions whilst over dosing on war porn from our history. If our historians were a bit more frank, honest and informative we'd be able to get something from it. The way it is, some people swallow it whole and others deride the obvious gaps. The question is what do Sikhs want from their history? The truth, which may be refreshing but also through our own lives in a weird light compared to people back then or to twist it to fit our current circumstances?

I don't agree with your aligning Brits/Europeans with Islam along Abrahamic faith lines by the way. Western Europeans only seem to have briefly flirted with Christianity and it isn't any sort of strong factor in their politics and day to day lives/interactions. So I think you're wrong to group them like that. Yes, they do share very similar traits to the more negative conceptions of the Islamic but I don't think the cause is their connection to an Abrahamic faith. Maybe the link is a supremacist worldview, Muslims from their religion, whites from their 'whiteness'?

A thousand years is an awful lot of flirting. I think religion for them has always been to suit purposes. Hence the growth of national churches to support wars against other countries. The main reason the xtians arent that religous anymore is the retreat of the church from a more hedonistic and educated society. This is why they focus on foreign conversions - people abroad dont have everything or the logic to see through their crap. Give it a few more years of austerity, a food bank system run primarily through churches and a dumbing down of certain subjects at school before you can count Christianity down and out. Likewise, watch what happens in the middle east amongst the richer muslim countries.

Maybe it's a good thing they've turned a back on their Abrahamic faiths. There is a lot of stuff in Bible that is downright uncivilised.

I don't think it has overcome Panjabi tribalism/paganism fully myself. If current behaviour is anything to go by, our lot will do EXACTLY as the Arabs and try to position themselves at some apex like Brahmins, and YOU KNOW who I personally believe would be most guilty of this. Hell, wake up brother. Our lot are ALREADY doing this. We already castigate Afghan Sikhs for example. The 'white elephant' in the room (casteism) comes to mind. Forget 'memory wipe', we'd never let anyone forget how 'low' their antecedents were....lol!!!!! Unless it were people we turn into pets for (i.e. the Angrezi or goray), for whom we'd probably bend over backwards to accommodate in such an emasculated way that it would make people like you and me hang our heads in despair and shame. lol

The thing is that Punjabi 'tribalism' like Punjabi 'culture' before it has been used as a get out of jail card by a group who arent meant to be susceptible to such things. Like what is 'tribalism'? Most Sikhs have a pisspoor understanding of their history, let alone their pre-Sikhi one. Dont blame something ethereal or meaningless for people's own wrongdoings. It is the individual who is responsible for what he is influenced by and what he wants to do in the world. It's also up to the rest of the society on how they react to this behaviour. Calling it a result of culture/tribalism just removes individual liablilty and hasnt helped solve the problem so far and will do little to combat it in the future. Bad behaviour has to be brought to account by a society that has a set of values that everyone in it wants to live by.

I think our behaviour towards to others will unfortunately be very westernised. Like the rich, hate the poor, hate the dull, believe the wellspoken etc and all that stuff. Sikhs in the UK were quite fond of Afghani Sikhs especially after they started coming here after 9/11. I think something happened in Southall and things have turned sour, but it will probably be forgotten next generation. Or not, I dont know much about Afghani Sikhs. I guess these qustions are part of what needs to be asked when Sikhs go up or down in standing when measured against other nations.

I would like to hope so, but right now we are so swamped in a quagmire of both our own and others making that we need baby steps. We need higher literacy, we need higher culture, a more independent economy, a less ignorant social order. Most of all we need to have a better attitude towards one another AND outsiders who aren't hostile. We've been engaging in this low IQ 'generalisation' shite of others for ages now. Hindus are whipping boys and WASPS are our best buddies. I mean who is more stupid than someone who can't differentiate between friend and foe? And check us out - look at whose been our greatest 'allies' for the last century and a half.

I don't know, we need a raise in consciousness, which is pretty hard because as you know from SS, there seems to be a long line of shameless ar5e-lickers amongst us. Not a good look for people who want to strike out on their own. It reeks of lack of confidence and manliness.

Cant really disagree with that. The problem is that we as a community have no depth, everything is on our sleeves. Others have a hell of a lot more history and all the baggage that goes with it. Look at Singhrow, they have to educate young Sikhs on things that their parents should have told them. It doesnt bode well for the flexibility of a sovereign people. The truth is the Sikh nation is a shadow of what it was once was. This whole idea of this is how it is meant to be (hukam) is used to justify sitting around doing nothing. Going back to the idea of the pursuit of happiness, you say it may not apply. But so many Sikhs are unhappy about a lot of things that relate to racism and us being different, so why shouldnt SIkhs pursue some kind of national feeling of happiness?

Have you read the book on Hari Singh Nalwa by Vanit Nalwa? The final chapter on the aftermath of his death are pretty interesting, with plenty of historical quotes by outsiders on the 'Sikh character'.

[dalsingh101]

I think it's best if you read the chapter, it sounds more like your perspective on how things petered out. He was writing about this stuff when it was still up in the air and it's clear which side he picks. Like anyone who picks sides, he instantly considers the other side to be wrong or deluded in every sense.

I've never expected people from Hindu backgrounds to be general favourable to Sikh aspirations when it involves any perceived damage to India.

As for what happened afterwards, I think the Hindus have the exact same disdain for Sikhs that you think Khalistanis have for Hindus. Which is not particularly surprising as Sikhs stared into the abyss and it stared right back into us.

The whole point is that this relationship has been pretty fluid since the time of our Gurus, and you've read some translations of older pre-annexation texts yourself. I think post 1699 common Hindus probably looked at Singhs with a mixture of fear and respect - and get this - even some measure of admiration. Of course, ruling class Hindus may have been different as they much too lose from the egalitarian ideas ingrained in Sikhi. All major mid 19th century manuscripts don't have any outright animosity towards Hindus as can be seen today. After the Brits started putting their 'racialised' and 'denegeracy' ideas out there to explain India, with relatively favourable representations towards apnay, we seem to have bought into them wholesale, without any critical evaluations or eye on the long term implications. My point is that this 'disdain' between Sikhs and Hindus is a relatively modern phenomena and it hasn't always been this way.

As the relationship soured after Partition, for reasons that go far deeper than personal beef, it's no surprise Sikhs wanted out. The way Sikhs went about it may not have been ideal and contributed to why the movement fell apart. That's not to say the issues have gone away.

I have to put out the uncomfortable notion (for discussion) that maybe certain 'sections' of Sikh society were more effected by certain 'issues' you speak of and that the wider Sikh community may not have been? This mainly goes towards those issues that relate to matters 'agricultural' in Panjab and the moves made by central government in this industry, which may well have been detrimental to those relying on this as an income source. If so, I'm not in favour of turning economic issues like that into flaming communal ones. Sure other issues DO definitely effect the wider panth like The Hindu Marriage Act, but not all. You'd do well to clearly spell out the issues you feel haven't gone away btw.

Considering the screwed up stories about what people do for land, being in India hasnt exactly stopped this from happening. If Khalistanis really were after bigger farms, they wouldnt need independence to do it. Like I said, if what your saying is true than this reflect the short sightedness of older types - there is only so much land in East Punjab.

It's not so much about land, from what I gather, more water allocation, fixed tariffs for produce and that kind of stuff.

Younger people dont want bigger farms and can extrapolate what independence would bring in terms of issues. For one Khalistan would never exist until the majority of Sikhs in India and outside India want it. Then there's the external issues - it becomes clear Khalistan is only viable if India and Pakistan suffer a perfect storm of trouble. That doesnt mean Sikhs cant do things to bring the culprits of 84 to justice or secure their heritage in South Asia.

You say that but I meet plenty of young K'stanis who are are as brain dead as the older ones - probably even more so. Plus waiting around for some act of God that brings Hindus and Paks to their knees for us to come up isn't any sort of plan (not suggesting you are doing this btw). We have to learn to secure our heritage 'on tour' as it is. Looks like God wants us to be the new 'wondering Jews' - for a while at least. We have no other options. Plus this clinging onto K'stan when there are 1001 and one other more achievable things we can try to strengthen our people seems stupid to me right now.

When a people have nothing else going for them, what do you expect? People will always break out the plasters even if they're bleeding to death, not everyone is a surgeon. If that analogy makes sense?

I get you, but it could also be viewed as 'excusary'. I EXPECT better from us. Being astute and steady in defeat. Not turning from fierce warriors into compliant, sycophant mercenaries en masse because the money faucet suddenly got turned off and fancy lifestyles couldn't be maintained.

The question is what do Sikhs want from their history? The truth, which may be refreshing but also through our own lives in a weird light compared to people back then or to twist it to fit our current circumstances?

I've grown up around some old school, tough arse apnay and the truth is that the Singh Sabha idealised portrait always disturbed me bacause it was so far from what I was witnessing in terms of characteristics. Only when i accessed older stuff like Panth Prakash did I finally see accounts of people with characteristics that aligned with that I was witnessing around me. The older stuff actually DOES 'fit' us better today than ever.

Will answer your other important points regarding tribalism later. I haven't read the Vanit Nalwa book, but plan to eventually - I'm aware of it - all money on winter gas/electric bills right now - lol. Also what did you think of Ganda Singh's historical views in the link to the translation I posted earlier?

[dalsingh101]

Maybe it's a good thing they've turned a back on their Abrahamic faiths. There is a lot of stuff in Bible that is downright uncivilised.

Point is that animals use and twist whatever comes into their hands towards their own inclinations. So for western Euroscum, xtianity or science or whatever doesn't make a difference. Their nature becomes manifest into WHATEVER they align themselves too.

The thing is that Punjabi 'tribalism' like Punjabi 'culture' before it has been used as a get out of jail card by a group who arent meant to be susceptible to such things. Like what is 'tribalism'? Most Sikhs have a pisspoor understanding of their history, let alone their pre-Sikhi one. Dont blame something ethereal or meaningless for people's own wrongdoings. It is the individual who is responsible for what he is influenced by and what he wants to do in the world. It's also up to the rest of the society on how they react to this behaviour. Calling it a result of culture/tribalism just removes individual liablilty and hasnt helped solve the problem so far and will do little to combat it in the future. Bad behaviour has to be brought to account by a society that has a set of values that everyone in it wants to live by.

You're only half right when you say 'most Sikhs have a piss poor understanding of their history'. Many have what they feel is a very detailed and real account of their ancestry - and spend a lot of time trying to learn it. But - as we've ascertained, post annexation historical narratives are seriously skewed in various ways. But the fact remains a strong identity borne of some perceived (even if it is largely gibberish) grasp of our past is a strong feature of many apnay of my generation at least. You want the definition of tribalism as I use it, you got it! It's the tendency of a certain group to clump together along lines of some tribal affiliation and then try and generally dictate and manipulate events, proceedings within the larger group to primarily advantage of their own tribal group. That is exactly what has been going in Sikh society for a while now. So when you say "Dont blame something ethereal or meaningless for people's own wrongdoings." I disagree. We'd better face up to this thing and to me any attempts from certain quarters to avoid this is just resuming the old strategy. There are informal, word to mouth, and printed texts all working in conjunction to sustain this tribalism, and anyone looking who can't see this is either being willfully ignorant or has a below average IQ. You need to attack the mechanisms that foster this nonsense (the institutes formal and informal which includes family for example) AND target individual behavior. Reason nothing has worked before is because NOTHING has been seriously tried.

I think our behaviour towards to others will unfortunately be very westernised. Like the rich, hate the poor, hate the dull, believe the wellspoken etc and all that stuff. Sikhs in the UK were quite fond of Afghani Sikhs especially after they started coming here after 9/11. I think something happened in Southall and things have turned sour, but it will probably be forgotten next generation. Or not, I dont know much about Afghani Sikhs. I guess these qustions are part of what needs to be asked when Sikhs go up or down in standing when measured against other nations.

You're probably right about the westernisation. Truth is that apnay buy into consumerism in a big way. Even, if not especially, Amritdharis in the west.

The truth is the Sikh nation is a shadow of what it was once was.

Okay, but let's hope some of us aren't going to go down into our own version of pining for 'the England that never was' like the donuts here do! lol

If we last a long time that brief period you talk about will be brief in span in relative terms. We need to aim for a new, achievable ideal all can buy into..One transportable across continents. We have to face up to the reality of being a modern, globally dispersed society. Not think running back to some central location and trying to replicate a by gone era, which, ironically isn't even understood properly.

This whole idea of this is how it is meant to be (hukam) is used to justify sitting around doing nothing. Going back to the idea of the pursuit of happiness, you say it may not apply. But so many Sikhs are unhappy about a lot of things that relate to racism and us being different, so why shouldnt SIkhs pursue some kind of national feeling of happiness?

What would this feeling of happiness be based upon? You hit on a another important key theme though, the underlying idea of life inherent in the faith and our more base desires. How do we balance?

If it is a happiness based on financial success, big houses and cars - hordes of us already seem to have achieved that? Is our society happier as a result I wonder?

[HSD1]

I've never expected people from Hindu backgrounds to be general favourable to Sikh aspirations when it involves any perceived damage to India.

Exactly. So why are older Khalistanis still trying to sell something to individuals of certain backgrounds who will never want it as it will upset the established balance of power? The same goes for the Khalistanis who think outside countries would want to piss off India by helping seperatist movements. It's a waste of time, let them figure out what Sikhs want for themselves rather than giving them the rope to hang us with.

The whole point is that this relationship has been pretty fluid since the time of our Gurus, and you've read some translations of older pre-annexation texts yourself. I think post 1699 common Hindus probably looked at Singhs with a mixture of fear and respect - and get this - even some measure of admiration. Of course, ruling class Hindus may have been different as they much too lose from the egalitarian ideas ingrained in Sikhi. All major mid 19th century manuscripts don't have any outright animosity towards Hindus as can be seen today. After the Brits started putting their 'racialised' and 'denegeracy' ideas out there to explain India, with relatively favourable representations towards apnay, we seem to have bought into them wholesale, without any critical evaluations or eye on the long term implications. My point is that this 'disdain' between Sikhs and Hindus is a relatively modern phenomena and it hasn't always been this way.

To be honest I have never bought into the idea that Hindus are one homogenous blob, nor do I believe that the way they are today is how they have been in previous millenia. There is still a lot of difference amongst them according to caste, nationality (marathi/tamil/bengali etc) and where they fit into modern India. Having said that there is a lot of Hindus who are 'Hindustani' in the sense that they buy into Indian Nationalism in the same way that their forefathers bought into British Hindustan. Sikhs arent the only ones who have large sections of their community who look favourably upon colonialism. These guys would look upon Sikh sovereignty the same way any other previous central indian administration has - with anger. I agree that sweeping generalisations dont help but there is some truth in them when applied to certain groups within India. It is unfortunate that Sikhs in previous times didnt name and disect what they were up against so we could be a bit more specific.

I have to put out the uncomfortable notion (for discussion) that maybe certain 'sections' of Sikh society were more effected by certain 'issues' you speak of and that the wider Sikh community may not have been? This mainly goes towards those issues that relate to matters 'agricultural' in Panjab and the moves made by central government in this industry, which may well have been detrimental to those relying on this as an income source. If so, I'm not in favour of turning economic issues like that into flaming communal ones. Sure other issues DO definitely effect the wider panth like The Hindu Marriage Act, but not all. You'd do well to clearly spell out the issues you feel haven't gone away btw.

It's not so much about land, from what I gather, more water allocation, fixed tariffs for produce and that kind of stuff.

Well I'm not advocating militancy in East Punjab, or any kind of flaming. What I'm talking about is simple self determination. You say fixed tariffs only affect farmers but is that the case? Paying 60% - 75% for farm stuff is one thing. But what if Sikhs sold the food on international markets and got the full amount? You say they would be richer, but I see an opportunity for increased tax revenue too. We complain about how run down schools and hospitals are in EP but never talk about how to sort it out. This is isnt SikhSangat were people talk out of their asses with no idea of how to pay for half the ideas they come up with. With self-determination would also come the necessary power to reform the agriculture sector. Allow small farmers who dont want to farm to sell their land and break up big farm owners who own lots of land but dont do any work on it. Push to help medium size farms that become sustainable and arent hellish to run and change the law so that farm land can only be passed onto those who want to farm. Using increased tax revenue to fund an education system which doesnt force Sikhs to either farm or fly off to another country. Thereby weaning Sikhs from farming and giving EP the manpower for other industries. Creating industries which arent expoitative - small and young farmers who got rid of their land as they didnt want to farm could use their money to buy stakes in the industries they work in. Marx would love the idea! I think Brazil actually has businesses and factories that are run like this. It's weird how Sikhs pull faces at the notion of industrialisation but then come over to other countries to work in the very same type of jobs. China/Japan/Korea all had a generation who had to slog it out in the factories so that their kids could get an education in their own country and not have to run off abroad for opportunity. The fact that this hasnt been understood on any level in EP doesnt bode well for Sikhs, whether we stay in India or Khalistan. Seeing as India actually bans industry in EP, this is a reason for self determination.

As for water allocation, those rivers are for Punjabis. Badal and the central government have shown no interest in finding out why they are so polluted. Notice how a lot of foreign farming companies are setting up shop in East Punjab. In africa these same companies have been responsible for famines. In central India, one American company sold GM seeds to farmers promising all kinds of benefits. The crop failed as it needed twice as much water than normal crops. Also the crop was attacked by pests. The expensive pesticide was conveniently made by the same company. All the Indian farmers started killing themselves and the company then demanded all unused seeds be returned to them as they are property of the company. This company has a lab in Punjab. Now Sikhs in EP, Badal and the central govt couldnt give a monkeys if the same thing happened in EP. Badal and Sikhs over there are just too stupid for their own good. It took one crazy white person to kill six Sikhs in America. It would take one crazy white/hindu scientist to re-engineer the seeds that are sold and we could have 20 million dead Sikhs. It may seem far fetched but these biological weapons do exist and every time Sikhs put our faith in others, we come out worse off. Letting Indians/foreigners/Badal run the show is going to ruin us. I'm not doing this to big up Jatt culture or whatever but to point out the pitfalls that are there. At the end of the day everyone has to eat, unless we want to turn Punjab into Somalia.

If you dont believe me, the evidence is everywhere http://www.dailymail...fied-crops.html

Coming to a Hindustani run Punjab near you soon. If we had self determination we would have our own journalists/scientists/laboratories to avoid things like this. But how many dimwitted EP's would know what to do if they get dumbed down educations?

The main issue I havent mentioned is cultural genocide. If you got on a bus and it was empty apart from a fat man squashing a kid he didnt know by sitting next to him, you would think it was odd. India is big. There are lots of Hindus. Why are they so bothered about Sikh land/rights/culture? It seems as they just want to swallow us whole. I have the same feeling about Sikh minorities wherever they live in the world.

Maybe if you cant see what I'm saying, how would you feel if Iraq/Libya and any other 'liberated' country had to sell it's oil to the USA for 60%? And as a result the musis couldnt fund anything in their own country? What has happened is that we have been too kind as a people. If you do something for someone, they get used to it. If you stop doing it they feel like they are losing out. Like Sikhs and the British Armed Forces, they got so used to having us around as cannon fodder that when we dont want to join the army in the same way they feel that we arent pulling our weight (look at the comments in the Telegraph for example in relation to the Scots Guardsman Bhullar). The fact that we got nothing out of fighting all these wars for Britain is lost on them. The same goes for the Indians, we have become so useful that they cant stand to lose us but they dont want us knowing our value so they put us down and try to grind us into blind obedience.

You say that but I meet plenty of young K'stanis who are are as brain dead as the older ones - probably even more so. Plus waiting around for some act of God that brings Hindus and Paks to their knees for us to come up isn't any sort of plan (not suggesting you are doing this btw). We have to learn to secure our heritage 'on tour' as it is. Looks like God wants us to be the new 'wondering Jews' - for a while at least. We have no other options. Plus this clinging onto K'stan when there are 1001 and one other more achievable things we can try to strengthen our people seems stupid to me right now.

No no, I get that. I say it to the Khalistanis I know. No one is just sitting around waiting for it. We Sikhs arent ready for self determination, if it came it would Badalstan or whatever ruling family got the reins of power. My points above are to kickstart the progression to the point were we either have autonomy in India (being in the Indian state doesnt really impact on our ambitions) or the ability to take over if something were to go wrong in South Asia. If things went wrong, the Sikhs in other countries would not be able to create a strong Khalistan as we havent even got strong communities over here. This point takes a bit of drumming for people to understand but once they get it they realise what we're on about.

Bare in mind how the Jewish travels panned out. Their pre-Israeli cultural songs have a lot hurt in them, and the reason they survived so long is that they hid in plain sight or legged it when they could. Not something we should be inspired by to be honest.

I get you, but it could also be viewed as 'excusary'. I EXPECT better from us. Being astute and steady in defeat. Not turning from fierce warriors into compliant, sycophant mercenaries en masse because the money faucet suddenly got turned off and fancy lifestyles couldn't be maintained.

i.e You want a strong national character, something that can be passed on from generation to generation and be built upon, rather than the stupid history worship of people like the Javanese. Khalistan is the vehicle for this. A lot of Khalistanis are Punjabi Nationalists for lack of a better phrase (I mean they are Nationalists but not Nazis). SIkhs need to be educated on their pre-colonial history, not accept the whitewash and act like the Persians do after being Isamised. You should see how people feel after reading Amarpal Singh Sidhu's book, my friend wouldnt even believe the events were real until I showed him other books and videos on youtube about how advanced the Sikhs were back then militarily. He thought we were a bunch of yokels, but knowing the truth gave him the self confidence to leave all the caste crap behind and be a bit more well rounded in his views rather than soaking up garbage from the propaganda that our elders and the state give us.

You can only expect better from someone if they have an identity that is grounded in something we can all relate to rather than being 'British Sikh'. That phrase is in itself shows where we've ended up.

I've grown up around some old school, tough arse apnay and the truth is that the Singh Sabha idealised portrait always disturbed me bacause it was so far from what I was witnessing in terms of characteristics. Only when i accessed older stuff like Panth Prakash did I finally see accounts of people with characteristics that aligned with that I was witnessing around me. The older stuff actually DOES 'fit' us better today than ever.

Will answer your other important points regarding tribalism later. I haven't read the Vanit Nalwa book, but plan to eventually - I'm aware of it - all money on winter gas/electric bills right now - lol. Also what did you think of Ganda Singh's historical views in the link to the translation I posted earlier?

I dont blame you its so cold. I'm not sure if the book is still in print. I mention the Nalwa book as I managed to get a significant chunk of it on Google books by doing a search on tax rates in Maharajah Ranjit's time (dont ask). It certainly is an eye opening book.

I havent gotten through the other topic yet.

Edited December 17, 2012 by HSD1

[HSD1]

You're only half right when you say 'most Sikhs have a piss poor understanding of their history'. Many have what they feel is a very detailed and real account of their ancestry - and spend a lot of time trying to learn it. But - as we've ascertained, post annexation historical narratives are seriously skewed in various ways. But the fact remains a strong identity borne of some perceived (even if it is largely gibberish) grasp of our past is a strong feature of many apnay of my generation at least. You want the definition of tribalism as I use it, you got it! It's the tendency of a certain group to clump together along lines of some tribal affiliation and then try and generally dictate and manipulate events, proceedings within the larger group to primarily advantage of their own tribal group. That is exactly what has been going in Sikh society for a while now. So when you say "Dont blame something ethereal or meaningless for people's own wrongdoings." I disagree. We'd better face up to this thing and to me any attempts from certain quarters to avoid this is just resuming the old strategy. There are informal, word to mouth, and printed texts all working in conjunction to sustain this tribalism, and anyone looking who can't see this is either being willfully ignorant or has a below average IQ. You need to attack the mechanisms that foster this nonsense (the institutes formal and informal which includes family for example) AND target individual behavior. Reason nothing has worked before is because NOTHING has been seriously tried.

Well the post colonisation Sikhs probably thought they were doing things the 'British way' or how they perceived the British to be.

If what your saying is true then it cant be too hard to find the print and hold people accountable. If Sikh/Punjabi Institutions are following self-serving agendas then this should be easy to prove and held against them by exposing it in the wider community.

You're probably right about the westernisation. Truth is that apnay buy into consumerism in a big way. Even, if not especially, Amritdharis in the west.

A long long time ago a Sikh Emperor went to the Akal Takht for being a 'bad' Sikh and he took his punishment like an honest person would. Today, the holier than thou types are quicker with the finger pointing than they are with their wits, weapons or wisdom. Such a bizarre turn around.

Okay, but let's hope some of us aren't going to go down into our own version of pining for 'the England that never was' like the donuts here do! lol

The more historical knowledge is diseminated the less chance there is of this. There is a reason the Anglo masses are taught a glorified and dumbed down version of their history, the truth about how the plebs were like would be too much for their fragile egos to handle.

The postcolonial Sikh stuff is also in dangerous as it will be read and believed by many who will try to emulate it - thereby inducing the bland white washed types that Arabs/Europeans did with Islam/Christism in the people they conquered. Isnt that very disconcerting?

If we last a long time that brief period you talk about will be brief in span in relative terms. We need to aim for a new, achievable ideal all can buy into..One transportable across continents. We have to face up to the reality of being a modern, globally dispersed society. Not think running back to some central location and trying to replicate a by gone era, which, ironically isn't even understood properly.

If you were to merge with the Timeless One you would not be so hung up by how long things last!!! lol. But seriously, I get that but at the same time it's not like we cant achieve both. There are almost half a million Sikhs in the UK, that's a hell of a lot of us, it's not as if it cant be hard to create an octopus like structure where all the communities are interlinked but we know where the main body is. Like the Israelis or Turks or any other national group are like. The last thing we want is to be assimilated. That goes for the Sikhs in India just as much for the rest of us.

What would this feeling of happiness be based upon? You hit on a another important key theme though, the underlying idea of life inherent in the faith and our more base desires. How do we balance?

If it is a happiness based on financial success, big houses and cars - hordes of us already seem to have achieved that? Is our society happier as a result I wonder?

No, that's not what I meant. I mean on a communal level. Like Sikhs are unhappy with being marginalised or facing institutional racism or white/hindu privelege. Surely happiness would be a result from knocking down and eliminating these obstacles? So surely these are viable pursuits of happiness?

I was going to comment further on Naipaul's stuff but I have completely forgotten the points.

Edited December 18, 2012 by HSD1