The Discourse of Civilization and Decolonization Author(s): Prasenjit Duara Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal of World History, Vol.

15, No. 1 (Mar., 2004), pp. 1-5 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20079258 . Accessed: 26/11/2011 14:58
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of Civilization The Discourse and Decolonization

PRASENJIT University DUARA of Chicago

cases until in many of scholars, continuing generations was relatively unproblematic, reflect the term "civilization" For today, secure in their usage. For instance, that were relatively ing meanings a standard to determine "civilization" rights in interna represented tional law, and to this day it serves as a rationale for area studies. When we look back to the usage of the word over the last hundred years or entire to observe how much difference and so, it is actually quite astonishing of the term "civilization." contention there has been in the meaning we have become conscious of the problem?not While increasingly but in the human disciplines with the term "civilization," gener only our analytical to analysis, we are not categories subjecting ally?of it.1 quite sure how to deal with to convey out some of these differences the vast Before pointing in the last century, let me try to indicate terrain the term has occupied that have held the term civilization the "bookends" together over this of "civili Most of these uses have shared an understanding period. and ordering value in the world. The zation" as a way of identifying sometimes identification of value, however, implies the identification can also become the means of of a community of value, and civilization In this respect, civilization the Self from the Other. may marking resemble other identity forms like nationalism, with which it often

1 For an earlier

discussion

of several

"The Discourse Prasenjit Duara, tory i2 (2001): 99-130.

of Civilization

in this ideas presented and Pan-Asianism,"

essay, see, introductory Journal of World His

1 Journal ofWorld History, Vol. 15, No. ? 2004 by University of Hawai'i Press

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becomes conflated. However, what distinguishes the civilizational idea source of value is its appeal to a higher, transcendent from nationalism and authority, the Other. capable of encompassing was an important the concept while of Western civilization Thus, means in of justifying domination of the rest of the world imperialist it was accompanied the late nineteenth the ideal of the century, by a mission that exemplified the desire not (simply) "civilizing mission," to be desired by the Other. In this period, associated with the Enlightenment, represented of rights?of life, freedom, and property including the state protection ?and from the pursuit of material other values and practices ranging it was the disillu and clothing. Notably, progress to civilized manners the Other, but values sionment I with the idea of the civilizing mission during World War that also encouraged the visibility of other civilizations?Confucian, tied to decoloniz Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Native American?often as more genuinely movements alternatives. ing universalizing to this dual dimension Elias pointed of the civilization Norbert idea as it developed in Europe as a temporal phenomenon.2 Before the nine a process?"the civ teenth century, the idea of civilization expressed out from the courts to wider reaches of ilizing process"?extending a rather it had become century, however, society. By the nineteenth was intertwined that inflexible of national with expression identity for instance, between the French and the Germans. national conflicts, in two distinct Elias s temporal difference really indicates a difference in the toward the Other. Civilization types of society in their attitude than in does indeed tend to be more exclusivist period of nation-states societies. Still the difference may be somewhat overdrawn. prenational it is certainly In the older imperial formations, such as Chinese, or wenming could be seen mainly as a process: the true that civilization and people with spread of virtue from the moral center to barbarians In India, it took the form of what M. N. Srinivas "depraved" customs. or the process of lower castes rising in the has called Sanskritization, hierarchy by imitating upper castes.3 Yet in both cases, this process also met with groups that it could not or did not seek to civilize?they remained retained even in modern still Moreover, Europe, civilization the ability to identify a transnational group of Enlightened Other. to conquer civilization

2 Norbert Jephcott 3 M. Oxford

Elias, The Civilizing Books, (New York: Urizen N. Srinivas, The Cohesive Press, 1989). University

Process:

The Development

of Manners, and Other

trans. Edmund (New York:

1978). Role of Sanskritization

Essays

Duara: The Discourse

of Civilization

and Decolonization

to their colonies. The in opposition latter were seen civilized nations as lacking civilization?in values?and the sense of Enlightenment This same encompassing urge also hence, not worthy of sovereignty. could potentially merge the "civilizing mission" reached a point where as sovereign agen nation-states the Other with the Self. Nonetheless, ensure the subordination and would of global competitiveness containment of the civilizing urge. in in the concept of civilization One of the major changes wrought the twentieth century was the idea that there was no single civilization civilizations. While this idea had been around in the eigh but multiple in the immediate of circumstances teenth century, a new constellation an I gave the idea of multiple civilizations aftermath of World War cies enormous power and visibility. The changed balance of power, which on the Soviet Union and and more dependent became less Eurocentric with war?discussed the United States, the disillusionment admirably in the the rising national movements Adas below?and by Michael were part of these circumstances. Oswald non-Western world, Spen West, written just before the war and popularized gler's Decline of the after the war by the writings of Arnold Toynbee, converged with those African of many Asian thinkers and writers.4 The new prom and, later, inence of counter-evolutionary in the West?deriving prin thought and often traced to Herder?became from German thought cipally in the colonies with the ascendant national movements that to utilize the notion to counter West of civilization sought precisely ern definitions. as warranting status The idea of civilization sovereign societies claimed circulated around the world as different this status. was opposed to the nineteenth of civilization The new conception of it as singular and based on material century European conception idea that there were multiple civilizations and that civ progress. The a spiritual and moral concern became widely ilization was ultimately was a truly global of civilization intel accepted. This new discourse lectual product with figures such as Okakura Tenshin, Rabindranath affiliated and Mahatma Gandhi among Tagore, Gu Hongming, Liang Qichao, others adding to the ideas of Spengler and other Western think many ers discussed in the following In the process of decolonization, essays. some fundamental trans the concept of civilization also underwent

4 Oswald from Arnold Oxford the

The Decline Spengler, of theWest, English abridged edition by Arthur Helps translation Francis Atkinson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, by Charles 1962); on Trial (New York: in Civilization and Civilization," J. Toynbee, "Christianity Press, 1948).

University

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"ethnographic with tions without civilizations neckties, out hats."6 When the idea of civilization became its ties to the cosmology of progress, intellectuals

in becoming what Lucien As Frantz Fanon put concept."5

Febvre has called an it, "there are civiliza and others with loin-cloths, freed from somewhat in both the East and

traditions among the West civilizational sought to find the distinctive of civiliza for this ethnographic the people. The impetus deepening ideal of popular sovereignty, tion came, of course, from the nationalist of culture that was but itwas also reinforced by the holistic conception gaining ground globally. versus multiple, To be sure, these different conceptions?singular versus elite?did versus state, spiritual versus material, process popular accommo not displace sometimes each other, but jostled together, as in the idea of the synthesis of East and West, but sometimes dating, its earlier emancipatory and accommodative hostile. Despite stance, too became associated with militarism the new discourse of civilization was the interwar years, this subordination and nationalism. During most nese civilization of pan-Asian clear in the mobilization by the Japa it has in response to globalization, for national purposes. Recently as we can see once again become associated with a certain exclusivism or Samuel as Mahathir Mohammed in the doctrines of such people

Huntington. cen arc joining the nineteenth and the twenty-first The historical at both ends. of civilization turies is tied up with changing conceptions in certain the term may be in the process of being questioned While such as alternative and cognate notions, civilization academic circles, to be popular in other academic and nonaca continue modernities, demic that In order to explore the new kinds of relationships and global bears in relation to nations, regions, religions, in relationships izing forces, we need a strong grasp of the historical of accommodation terms of the present. Are there new strategies and civili and nation and between between civilization globalization return to my first question?how shall we study civ zation? And?to this discourse has itself shaped us and our ilization as a discourse when worlds. civilization inquiry? The following papers discuss many of the issues raised above

5 Lucien Burke, Row,

6 Frantz

of Ideas," in Peter of aWord and a Group Evolution "Civilisation: Febvre, trans. K. Folca (New York: Harper and ed., A New Kind of History and Other Essays, 1973), p. 220. Fanon, 1965), Press, "Algeria p. 35. Unveiled," in A Dying Colonialism (New York: Monthly

Review

Duara:

The

Discourse

of Civilization

and

Decolonization

not

of civilization, but only to better grasp the present circumstances to point us in some fruitful directions to develop its study. By notions and contested the changing of civiliza exploring precisely as a quest for personal meaning, a new political tion?as and ideology, as a site of generational tension?these enable us to see the papers also effects of the discourse of civilization even if it has shaped some of our
assumptions.