‘We Will Spirit You Out’ : Kabir Suman in Conversation with Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, born Marguerite Ann Johnson; poet, memorialist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Kabir Suman, singer-songwriter, musician, poet, journalist, political activist, TV presenter, occasional actor and Member of Parliament, India. ——————————————————– Kabir Suman. In your autobiographical work, The Heart of a Woman, you wrote: ‘Being a black American is qualitatively different from being an American.’ Would you please elaborate a little on this and tell me if that statement would be valid today? Maya Angelou. Absolutely. That’s a recent book. The Heart of a Woman is only a part of a series of autobiographies. I believe myself to be the only serious writer in the United States who has chosen to use that medium as a vehicle for the expression of my work. That book was written only about three years ago. There is still, and there always has been a qualitative difference between being an American and being a black American. Let’s look at the differences: all white Americans arriving on this soil, before America was the United States or after, for the most part came here willingly. Only a very small percentage of white Americans, that is Europeans came here under bondage. And that bondage was a different bondage. In truth, less than two percent of the colonialists came here as bondsmen and bondswomen. For the most part, Europeans (English or Anglo-Saxon or whatever) came here willingly, escaping conditions which they found untenable. No African paid his or her way on a slave ship, paid passage—other than in blood and tears and sweat and agony and fear. That quantitatively makes the difference in the spirit and the intent between the two peoples. If everything had worked out back in 1650 so that there were no slaves and no bondsmen, even that would already make a difference. But 1650 was one of the peak years, because slaving had not by that time so crystallized, it was not ‘big business’ at that time. It only became big business by the end of the seventeenth century. Early in the eighteenth. The majority of the Africans brought to this country were brought from the period until 1850. These people, my ancestors, were brought and they lived under a condition called ‘Chattel slavery.’ That made quite different psychological complexions—first for the slave and for the slave-holder, and for the white who didn’t hold slaves. We bring the baggage of our inheritance, whether we like it or not, with us—the intangible and invisible baggage with us. And it weighs upon us to varying degrees, but it does weigh, and it makes for a different carriage, a different physical carriage between us. If one person has no baggage and another is carrying a hundred pounds, it weighs upon that ‘another’ person. That makes for the different stance, if you will. And my suggestion is that the psychological stances are different, depending upon the varying baggage. K.S. I am going to borrow your statement I quoted before. Is ‘being a black American’ writer qualitatively different from ‘being an American’ writer too? Angelou. Yes. I would say so. The pressure on me, Maya and me, the collective black, is such that I cannot write esoterically. My pen owes its every movement to the struggle. I know it sounds terribly romantic and all that, but I don’t mean it to be. I am who I am because of who I am. I am all those people who have been oppressed, who have been enslaved and murdered, and who have been discriminated against. And so, that’s who I am. So, when I write, I am obliged to write because of who I am. And that means then that I am obliged to talk about it. So, the white writer sometimes feels he or she can talk about the clouds, the sky, the waving of the first green, and I write about that too. But when I am really on my job—black Americans say ‘when I am on my J’—I have to get to my axe. My axe is always hewing on the same stone, and that is: how can we make this country more than what it is today? K.S. Considering your views about the differences between the American and the Black American, would it be justified to suggest that there is an America and an Black America? Angelou. Yes, of course. Some years ago I was on a plane and I picked up a Time or Newsweek magazine, and there I found this quote: “I don’t know why people think this is one country. There are at least, forty Americas, or more. The people of Kansas are convinced that they are America, they are the real America. Go in Texas. People in Texas know that they are America. And then if you go to New York and they know that after New York, you leave New York and you ain’t going nowhere. So, that’s where it is. That’s America. There certainly is a black America. There are many black Americas for that matter. People who are convinced, who stand tall in their conviction that they are black America. Some are radicals, some conservatives, some are religious, some are very young, some are very old—these are all black people who are certain that they represent Black America. So, certainly, it si safe to say, at least, there is a White America and a Black America. And there are, at least, fifty White Americas. K.S. If you say there is an America and a Black America, that would be one thing. But if you say there is a White America and a Black America, don’t you think it would be another? Angelou. I see what you are saying. Well, the Black America is different from America. It is not our wish. Our current president [Ronald Reagan] for whom black Americans did not vote in herds, in millions, is still our president. Whether the people vote for him or not, the moment he comes in and takes office,
Zollikon Seminars: An Evening’s Exchange
from Z O L L I K O N S E M I N A R S 1 9 5 9 – 1 9 69 [The Zollikon Seminars were a series of philosophical seminars delivered between 1959 and 1969 by Martin Heidegger at the home of Swiss psychiatrist Medard Boss. The topic of the seminars was Heidegger’s philosophical method as it pertained to the theory and praxis of medicine, psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy. The protocols of the seminars, along with correspondences between Heidegger and Boss, were published in German in 1987 under the title Zollikoner Seminare, Protokolle- Gersprache- Briefe Herausgegeben von Medard Boss. The English version of the text was published in 2001. Here is a section from an evening’s informal discussion ] July 6,1964, at Medard Boss’s Home But let us praise not only the sage Whose name shines on the book, For first of all one has to tear the wisdom from the sage. That is why the customs collector should also be thanked. He was the one who asked it of him. Legend [“Legend of the Origin of the Book Tao-te-Ching by Lao Tzu on His Way to Emigration”] (Bertolt Brecht) MARTIN HEIDEGGER: For once we must disregard all science in view of what we will now discuss, that is, no use should be made of it now. It must be asked then in a positive sense: How then should we proceed? We must learn a new way of thinking—a thinking which was already known to the ancient Greeks. Returning to the theme of our last meeting, we ask: Is this the same table which stands before me today? SEMINAR PARTICIPANT: I remember it differently. It’s really not the same! It’s been exchanged. MH:Suppose it is the same [derselbe]. Is it also alike [dergleiche]?* SP: No, I remember it differently. MH: In the aide-memoire [seminar protocol] which lies in front of you, the expression “pure and simple” is used. How about it? SP: It has something to do with something simple and plain. MH: Yes, but is this “acceptance” [hinnehmen] actually so simple? Obviously not. Direct acceptance is not an absolute certainty. Does it have the character of certainty at all? SP: It has a momentary certainty: It is here and now, not absolute. MH: What characteristic of certainty does direct receiving-perceiving have? SP: Empirical existence. MH: It is an actual, but unnecessary existence. This is called assertoric certainty. This is in contrast to what is called apodictic certainty, for example, 2 X 2 = 4. Apodictic certainty is not absolute either, but it is necessary. Why isn’t it absolute? .. . In 2 X 2 = 4 “the same as” [=, equals] is presupposed. It is also presupposed that two always remains identical to itself; therefore, it is a conditional certainty. Now, we first described this table, but that is not what interests us. Only “the table which exists” is of interest to us. We took this existence for granted in the sense of what is called acceptance. Now, what does it mean to exist? Being is not a real predicate according to Kant, but we speak about the table’s existence. What is meant by this “real”? It indicates relating to the nature of a thing [Sachhaltifrkät]. In this sense, existence is not real. Nevertheless, we attribute existence to the table. Existence belongs to it. How does it belong to it? What does existence mean? SP: The table is in space. MH: Does this belong to the nature of the thing? SP: Extension is a property of space. MH: How? SP: It has extendedness [Ausgedehntheit]: how high it is; how wide, and so forth. These are its dimensions. MH: Are extension and dimension different? What is the difference? SP: Dimension is an arbitrarily selected extension. MH: How do particular spaces relate to “space”? SP: Space contains them. MH: Space is not “the universal in relation to [particular] spaces, as with trees, for example, as the tree is [the universal] to particular trees. Now, what characterizes this space? SP: It is space, which is demarcated. MH: It is a space for living; it contains useful things. There is an orientation to things in space. Things have a special meaning for the people who live there. They are familiar to some [of the people], but strange to others. This space has characteristics other than “space.” How is the table in space now? SP: It belongs to space; it takes up space. MH: But how? SP: It has a shape which limits it according to its space. MH: Yes. Now you can see how it is with this aide-memoire, as they call it. What meaningless sentences! That’s why we*re so helpless with this scribbling on paper! Now, we are asking whether this table would still be here if Dr. R. were no longer here to see it. SP: Both of them are located in the space, which separates the observer from the table, as well as connects him to it. MH: Separates? Are you sure? If something is separated, it must have first been connected. SP: Better to say distant from, removed from. MH: Distance [in the originary, ontological sense] has nothing to do with separating and connecting. Now, last time we asked: If we put a wall between the table and Dr. R., [then] is the table still there? SP: Then the table is no longer visible to the observer.
From Darkness to Light
Anchita Ghatak There is a new story of intolerance everyday in my country. I no longer know whether these stories shock or upset me anymore. Or if they have become part of the background – things I have learnt to live with. Like children begging on the streets. It is a disturbing truth but I have normalised this tragedy and I live my life. However, in the present scenario of Kamalhaasan’s film being banned, Salman Rushdie being kept away from Calcutta and Durga Vahini women wanting to ban an exhibition of nudes, comes the news of three young girls from Kashmir, whose voices are being stilled. Teenagers, three of them, formed a band and participated in a concert. Yes, they showed initiative and drive but did what many young girls like to do – had a good time. We don’t know whether they were immensely talented, we’re not sure if these girls would have persisted with their band, which they call Praagaash – from Darkness to Light. Some reports suggest that Praagaash means morning light. It is highly likely that schoolwork would have left them very little time to hone their musical talents, or like many other kids they would lose interest and move on to other things. Or maybe, Praagaash would have been a sustaining force in their lives, allowing them to dream big and pursue their artistic ambitions. But it seems that many people do not think that three young girls making music and having a good time is something to be encouraged and supported. We know that Kashmir is a disputed place. Many of us empathise with and support the struggles that the Kashmiri people have been having with the Indian state. We believe that there has to be an end to state violence and muscle flexing in Kashmir. The Kashmiri people want autonomy and dignity and many of us believe that they must have it. The Governments of India and Pakistan, as well as many other political groups need to stop trying to control different sections of Kashmiris. In a climate where people are struggling to be heard, one would expect that three young girls doing something new would be a cause for celebration. Rock music is male dominated and Praagaash was the only girls’ band in the contest that took place in Kashmir in December 2012. After coming into the limelight, the girls’ band came in for much online abuse. They were accused of being immodest and betraying both Islam and Kashmiriyat. Media reports tell us that venerable elders like the Grand Mufti of Kashmir have asked the three girls to stop playing music. The three band members were frightened, two of them have reportedly said that they will not make music and all three are apparently in Delhi. The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir has spoken in favour of the girls. Of course, we need to ask why things have come to such a pass under Omar Abdullah’s Chief Ministership that girls cannot form a rock band. I am disturbed because here we have another instance of girls being stopped from making decisions and discovering the world, in the name of culture and tradition. I cannot understand why the Grand Mufti felt compelled to control three young girls. Does he have a vision of Kashmir where girls cannot be free? Is his Kashmir about schooling girls into a compliant submissiveness? The Grand Mufti is perceived by many Kashmiris to be too aligned to Indian interests and consequently, not a ‘legitimate’ Kashmiri voice. However, newspaper reports suggest that when it comes to controlling girls there is does not seem to be a difference between how the issue is viewed by many Kashmiris – those who believe in azaadi – and the Grand Mufti. I could not help but recall the efforts of Asiya Andrabi and the Dukhtaran e Milat making various attempts to impose an ‘Islamic’ dress code on Kashmiri women and trying to browbeat them into acquiescence. Their efforts have certainly met with some success though perhaps they have not gathered as many people into their fold as they would have liked. Sexism and misogyny are ingrained in India. Does it have to be the same in Kashmir? A vision for azaadi must encompass freedom and equality for all its people. This equality has to take into account various axes like class, caste, community, religion, gender, ability and so on. The idea of Kashmiriyat has to be redefined to make it equal and inclusive. Women and girls are forever controlled by a bogey of ‘culture and tradition’. The impression created is that culture and tradition are unchanging and immutable. Culture is fashioned by people – it is born out of their lives and is, by its very nature flexible, accommodating and changing. Tradition too adapts to changing mores and times. The challenge for Kashmiriyat is to bring in all the elements that will make Kashmir free, equal and inclusive. Despite the climate of fear that the name calling on social networking sites and the Grand Mufti’s so-called ‘fatwa’ have created, many artists and politicians have spoken out for the girls. At present, the girls seem frightened and silenced but it is important that the state administration, as well as the parents, teachers and friends of the girls and also the mass of Kashmiris are able to give them the support they need and the girls are able to resume a life that allows them to learn, explore opportunities, take risks and challenge stereotypes. Those of us who dream of freedom and equality are waiting for Kashmir and its girls to blaze new paths with determination, courage and confidence and rid us of our fears and suspicion of the uncharted and unknown. ————————————————- adminhumanitiesunderground.org
What Makes a Pamphlet?
Joad Raymond Though already venerable the word pamphlet prospered in the 1580s, as its meanings shifted and it entered into common use. In 1716 Myles Davies claimed it as ‘a true-born English Denison’, a native idiom, ‘of no longer a Date than that of the last Century, since ’tis almost certain its Pedigree can scarce be trac’d higher than the latter end of Queen Elizabeth’s Reign.’[i] Davies offered a range of meanings for the term, at the root of which was the small ‘stitch’d’ (not bound) book, tending to calumny or scandal. It was perhaps, he noted, etymologically related to Pan = all and I love: ‘signifying a thing belov’d by all: For a Pamphlet being of a small portable Bulk, and of no great Price, and of no great Difficulty, seems adapted for every one’s Understanding, for every one’s Reading, for every one’s Buying, and consequently becomes a fit Object and Subject of most People’s Choice, Capacity and Ability.’ The term first appeared in Anglo-Latin writing in the fourteenth century, and in English in the fifteenth. It derived from Pamphilus seu de Amore, a popular twelfth-century Latin amatory poem. Thence, with the diminutive ending –et, it became a familiar appellation for any small book. Following the spread of printing, the term began to specify a ‘separate’, a small item issued on its own, usually unbound, not substantial enough to constitute a volume by itself. In a minor usage the word described a collection of literary items, in poetry or prose, which were produced to be disposable rather than enduring. These were produced for the market of gentleman readers who sought entertainment or titillation. The printer’s prefatory epistle in George Gascoigne’s poetic anthology A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1579), referred to ‘the publication of these pleasant Pamphlets.’ Here pamphlets refers not to the poems themselves (Gascoigne writes: ‘I may not compare Pamphlets unto Poems’), but metonymically describes separates collected into a volume.[ii] This usage continued into the next century: Robert Anton, in Vices Anotimie Scourged and Corrected in New Satirs (1617) complained of ‘obsceane and shallow Poetry’ produced by and for the university graduate who ‘murders the Presse with fellonious Pamphlets stolne from the imperfections of their dearest friends’.[iii] During the 1580s the meaning of the word pamphlet coalesced with frequent use: it usually referred to a short, vernacular work, generally printed in quarto format, costing no more than a few pennies, of topical interest or engaged with social, political or ecclesiastical issues.[iv] By the 1590s it had found a range of uses: the noun ‘pamphleter’ (and later pamphleteer), the verb ‘to pamphlet’, ‘pamphletary’ meaning pertaining to pamphlets; attributive uses were subsequently coined, including ‘pamphlet Treaties’, ‘Pamphlet-Forms … Pamphlet-Subjects’, and ‘pamphlet war’.[v] These frequently carried pejorative overtones. Pamphlets were unreliable. A character in Henry Holland’s dialogue A Treatise Against Witchcraft (1590) complains that ‘many fabulous pampheletes are published, which give little light and lesse proofe’.[vi] Pamphlets were closely associated with slander or scurrility. This meaning has a discernible trajectory in the second half of the sixteenth century, and can be found in legal contexts. In 1559 Queen Elizabeth issued to the Court of High Commission, the supreme ecclesiastical court of the country, a set of recommendations and instructions regarding their duties. The fifty-first article of these Injunctions charged the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishop of London with responsibility for supervising the press: ‘And bycause many pampheletes, playes and balletes, be often times printed, wherein regard wold be had, that nothinge therin should be either heretical, sedicious, or unsemely for Christian eares: Her majestie likewise commaundeth, that no manner of person, shall enterprise to print any such, except the same be to him lycensed’.[vii] John Leslie, Bishop of Ross, was interrogated by the queen’s ministers in 1570; he had written a book, defending the honour and legitimacy of Mary Queen of Scots, entitled A Defence of the Honour of the Right Highe, Mightye and Noble Princesse (1569). Leslie justified himself, ‘that nothing was intended but a defence of her honour against so many blasphemous “treateis” and “pamflettis” as have been set abroad both in England and Scotland, which are printed at London …’[viii] In 1579 John Aylmer, who as Bishop of London bore responsibility for supervising the output of presses, wrote to secretary of state William Cecil, Lord Burghley: ‘I have founde out a presse of pryntynge with one [William] Carter, a very Lewd fellowe, who hath byne Dyvers tymes before in prison for printinge of Lewde pamphelettes.’[ix] In 1580, drafting an act to control ‘the licentious printing selling and uttering of unproffitable and hurtfull Inglishe bokes’, the lawyer William Lambarde spread his net wide to include ‘sundrie bookes, pamfletes, Poesies, ditties, songes, and other woorkes, and wrytinges, of many sortes and names serving … to let in a mayne Sea of wickednesse .. and to no small or sufferable wast[e] of the treasure of this Realme which is thearby consumed and spent in paper, being of it selfe a forrein and chargeable comoditie.’[x] In 1583 a group of stationers complained to the Privy Council that the lack of codified rights to ownership of texts (or ‘copy’) was undermining their profitability. A commission appointed to investigate the privilege warned the Council that, unless some remedial action was taken, ‘onelie pamflettes, trifles and vaine small toies shall be printed, and the great bokes of value and good for the Chirch and Realme shold not be done at all’.[xi] A 1588 royal proclamation, concerned with the import of catholic propaganda into England, requested that all officers should ‘inquire and search for all such bulls, transcripts, libels, books and pamphlets, and for all such persons whatsoever as shall bring in, publish, disperse, or utter any of the same.’[xii] By 1588 pamphlets were disreputable, potentially dangerous works that needed to be monitored. An obsolete, early-sixteenth-century term, ‘pamphelet’, meant a prostitute. This may have coloured the name for a cheap book, available to any in return for a small payment. John Taylor drew