[spectre] 'Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa'

[Geert Lovink]

> ---------------------------- Original Message  
> ----------------------------
> Subject: Review of 'Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the
> Great to Mother Teresa' in THE STATESMAN, Calcutta, India
> From:    "Gezim Alpion" <g.i.alpion at bham.ac.uk>
> Date:    Tue, May 6, 2008 16:53
> To:      Undisclosed recipients:;
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
> ---
>
> The Statesman
>
> 133 years in print
>
> Calcutta, India
>
> http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=30&id=201439&usrsess=1
> Strangers with human faces?
>
> The reader has a vast repertoire of narrative styles to engage with...
>
> A review by Dr Bonita Aleaz
>
> Department of Political Science, Calcutta University
>
> Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother  
> Teresa
>
> (A collection of essays on Albania, Egypt, the United Kingdom and India
> written between 1993 and 2006)
>
> By GËZIM ALPION
>
> Selected by Professor Gaston Roberge
>
> Meteor Books in association with St. Xavier's College, 2008
> Price: $19.95
>
> The last paragraph of the foreword by Gaston Roberge perhaps  
> foregrounds
> and becomes the running theme of the book under review. Gëzim Alpion  
> is a
> foreigner 'encountering' diverse life styles, ideologies and  
> processes. He
> is positioned in Britain but typifies the deep-seated pathos of the
> foreigner, experienced universally down the ages. He remains the  
> perpetual
> onlooker, desirous of inclusion, but is subject to 'social closure'.
> However, the work does not end on a pessimistic note, rather it
> foregrounds the essentiality of definitive faith in the human person,  
> and
> it is this that ultimately underlines continuity of civilizations.
>
> Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother  
> Teresa
> spans centuries and cultures, but despite the apparent impossibility of
> encapsulating within a slim volume the extreme diversity of cultures
> chronologically quite distinct from each other, there is a running  
> theme
> that provides the link. It is a work on Albanians as the 'other' in
> different locales encountering different cultures, and Gëzim is the
> distant Albanian onlooker recounting the varieties of 'social closure'
> encountered /negotiated or even pulverized by his compatriots in  
> different
> time periods.
>
> The locales visited are Albania, Egypt, Britain, and India and the  
> styles
> of narration adopted are equally varied. They range from the dialogue
> style of drama, imaginary conversations with a ghost, to the mournful  
> cry
> narrated by a native on seeing his land being vilified in the name of
> progress. The reader has a vast repertoire of narrative styles to  
> engage
> with.
>
> Two important behavioural traits appear throughout the book and the  
> author
> has taken considerable pains to weave the manifestations of these  
> traits
> in each of the locales presented in the book. These are 'foreigner
> complex' and 'social closure'.
>
> The saga of Mohammed Ali is not very well known. Generally referred to  
> as
> 'the founder of modern Egypt', Ali was an Albanian and had been  
> registered
> with the Sultan of Turkey's army. He was deputed to Egypt, then under  
> the
> Turkish Sultanate, to restore the authority of the Porte to a chaotic
> Egypt. The country had been reeling under waves of alien rule since
> centuries: the Ptolemaic Pharaohs who originated from Greece; the
> subsequent Roman suzerainty; the Mamluk overlordship; the Ottomans; the
> French; and finally British rule. So there were ample historical  
> records
> to almost institutionalize Egypt's 'foreigner complex'. It was Mohammed
> Ali who set in motion the reverse process, initiating the military,
> economic and cultural rebirth of the country. The Albanian veneration  
> for
> cultural antiquity was used to re-impose the concept of worth for one's
> own culture and national pride.
>
> Foreigner complex is actually a double-edged behavioural trait. It may
> develop both within the foreign ruler towards the subject 'other', or
> among the subjects towards the alien ruler. Ruth Phillips Martinez
> believes that an average human being's inner reaction to 'foreigners'  
> is
> the same as that of canines, both bare their teeth at each other. This  
> is
> a primitive instinct borne of distrust and animosity. Foreigners in
> different lands to a large extent carry their 'national' gods with  
> them.
> To what extent blind adherence of the same is resorted to by the  
> foreign
> ruler or to what extent such influences are sought to be curbed,  
> depends
> on the motivation of the ruler. On the other hand, the perception of
> inferiority, in lifestyles and speech may inbreed rebelliousness among  
> the
> subject people, which eventually can have different outlets, revivals  
> of
> ancient cultural traits being one form. The north-eastern tribal
> communities of India effected a backlash against monolithic  
> christianizing
> processes and near total denigration of their past. There has been a
> tremendous surge towards rewriting their history through indigenous  
> lenses
> today; this is coupled with even state sponsored 'revivals' of  
> ritualistic
> cultural practices.
>
> The Kosovars of Albania, on the other hand, are unfortunate indeed in  
> not
> having experienced the largesse of a ruler such as Mohammed Ali. They
> remain under foreign occupation denuded totally of any hopes for total
> autonomy or even of peace. The treatment meted to Albania by the  
> European
> occupation is in keeping with, as Gëzim explains in a different section
> altogether, the imagery of the 'backward' and 'strangest' state in  
> Europe,
> in the British media.
>
> Racial prejudice towards the Balkans is not new but goes back to the
> period of Octavius Caesar, who crowned himself King of Egypt in 32 BC,
> since then the West has relentlessly pursued the looting and  
> plundering of
> 'inferior' cultures and civilizations. In order to retain its political
> and subsequent economic dominance over the eastern parts of Europe, the
> continuous maligning of the 'infidel' became a routine exercise. Gëzim
> notes with some emotion, the maligning that enters fiction,  
> particularly
> children's fiction. J. K. Rowling, the creator of the famous Harry  
> Potter
> series, in at least three of her novels posits Albania as the hapless
> area, housing the evil 'darklord' Voldemort; Agatha Christie, and  
> Herge,
> the creator of the Tintin series have equally typified the Balkans as
> harbouring evil, mystery, ignorance, set apart from the civilized
> sophistication achieved by the West. There have also been instances  
> where
> the Balkans have appeared in writings of authors who have never visited
> the area, setting the trend for what is referred to by K. E. Fleming as
> 'fictional Balkan worlds'.
>
> A content analysis of British newspapers published between 2001 and  
> 2006
> shows a spate of articles showing Albania's skewed presence, all of  
> them
> at a time when 'Albania had experienced political stability, law and
> order... (was) maintained across the country, and many Albanians (had)
> seen an increase in their savings and a significant improvement in  
> their
> living standards' (p. 109). The implication here is that there is a
> deliberateness manifested in, and through the media to retain the  
> imagery
> of Eastern Europe's confused chaotic state vis-a-vis the progress and
> sophistication of Western Europe.
> Social closure is the other significant issue dealt with, in the book.
> Even though British Home Office statistics reveal that asylum seekers
> constitute 2-3 per cent of the population, recent polls have shown a
> vastly inflated figure: such people constitute 23 per cent of the
> country's population. It can be argued, according to the author, that  
> the
> tabloid press is largely responsible for the reported and unreported
> racial tensions in recent years. The almost paranoid reaction to such
> reporting can well be imagined, since the tabloid readers often read
> hardly 'anything else'. A report in The Guardian perhaps best sums up  
> the
> extent of 'social closure' in vogue in Britain against immigrant
> skilled/unskilled labour: 'More than half of university staff is  
> employed
> on short-term contracts. Those requiring work permits have no right to
> stay in the country once the contract expires...It is hard to imagine a
> more effective way of keeping your workforce passive and afraid' (The
> Guardian, 23/7/2003).
>
> Gëzim does not disclose personal experiences of immigrant university
> professors; perhaps it is an extremely delicate issue. However, his  
> slim
> volume contains a scene from a remarkable play that he authored. If  
> Only
> the Dead Could Listen has been staged across Europe to packed  
> audiences.
> This perhaps brings out most significantly the piteous state of the
> outsider, when confronting another similarly positioned on foreign  
> soil.
>
> The Indian component in the book has portions on Mother Teresa, the
> Albanian in Indian soil. Most of it refers to passages from his earlier
> work Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity? with some additional  
> information
> provided by the editor.
>
> The book has important messages for those wishing to seek their  
> futures on
> foreign soil, though Indians' wishing to relocate in their pursuit of  
> the
> elusive 'better futures' do not officially categorize as asylum  
> seekers,
> yet, they become equally subject to behavioural traits such as  
> foreigner
> complex and social closure in the areas supposed to furbish such  
> futures.
>
> (The reviewer teaches in the Department of Political Science, Calcutta  
> University)