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Volume 2
Issue 2
International
Journal of
Humanities and
Cultural
Studies
ISSN 2356-5926
Editor-in-Chief : Dr. Hassen ZRIBA

July-September 2015
Volume 2 Issue 2
Volume 2 Issue 2 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND
September 2015 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926
Editorial Board
Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor

Dr. Hassen Zriba Najoua Chalbi
*Emeritus Professor Ralph Grillo *Dr. Syed Zamanat Abbas

University of Sussex, UK Salman Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi
Arabia
*Professor Muhammad Asif *Dr. Santosh Kumar Behera
Riphah International University, Pakistan Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, India
*Professor Sadok Bouhlila *Dr. P. Prayer Elmo Raj
Northern Borders University, Saudi Arabia Pachaiyappa's College, India
*Professor Pacha Malyadri *Omid Akhavan
Osmania University, Andhra Pradesh, India Imam Ali University, Iran
*Professor Shormishtha Panja *Loredana Terec-Vlad
University of Delhi, India tefan cel Mare University, Romania
*Professor Jason L. Powell *Shama Adams

University of Chester, UK Curtin University, Australia
*Professor Ali H. Raddaoui *Mansour Amini

University of Wyoming, USA The Gulf College, Oman
*Dr. Mohamed El-Kamel Bakari *Mohd AB Malek Bin MD Shah

University of King Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia Universiti Teknologi Mara, Malaysia
*Dr. Solange Barros *Mark B. Ulla
Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil Father Saturnino Urios University,
Philipinnes
*Dr. Salah Belhassen * Anouar Bennani
University of Gafsa, Tunisia University of Sfax, Tunisia
*Dr. Nodhar Hammami Ben Fradj *Shuv Raj Rana Bhat
University of Kairouan, Tunisia Central Department of English Kirtipur,
Kathmandu, Nepal
*Dr. Arbind Kumar Choudhary *Erika Ashley Couto
Rangachahi College, Majuli ,Assam, India University of Concordia, Canada
*Dr. Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi *Md. Amir Hossain
University of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi, India IBAIS University, Bangladesh
*Dr. Baliram Namdev Gaikwad * Elvan Mutlu

University of Mumbai, India University of Kent, UK
*Dr. Abdullah Gharbavi *Syed S. Uddin-Ahmed

Payame Noor University, Iran St. John's University, USA
http://ijhcschiefeditor.wix.com/ijhcs Page 1
*Dr. Al Sayed Mohamed Aly Ismail * Mansour Amini

Bin Abdualziz University, Saudi Arabia The Gulf College, Oman
*Dr. Nidhi Kesari * Nick J. Sciullo

University of Delhi, India Georgia State University, USA
*Dr. Raghvendra Kumar * Nizar Zouidi

LNCT Group of College Jabalpur, India University of Mannouba, Tunisia
*Dr. Salima Lejri *Logan Cochrane
University of Tunis, Tunisia University of British Columbia, Canada
*Dr. Chuka Fred Ononye *Shataw Naseri

Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, University of Shahid Beheshti in Iran
Nigeria
*Dr. Mohammed Salah Bouomrani *Manoj Kr. Mukherjee
University of Gafsa, Tunisia Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan,
West Bengal, India
*Dr. Mahdi Zarai *Javed Akhter

University of Gafsa, Tunisia University of Balochistan Quetta
Balochistan, Pakistan
*Dr. Anwar Tlili *Haron Bouras

King's College, London, UK Mohamed Cherif Messadia University,
Souk-Ahras Algeria
Table of Contents
Editorial....7
1) "The Search for Identity in Online Chat"

Nawal F. Abbas, University of Baghdad, Iraq
Rana H. Al-Bahrani, University of Baghdad, Iraq...8-15
2) "Uses of Humour in an English Language Class"

Shumaila Abdullah, University of Baluchistan, Quetta, Pakistan
Javed Akhter, University of Balochistan Quetta, Pakistan.16-21
3) "Mde dEuripide et dAnouilh"

Ari Mohammed Abdulrahman, University of Sulaimani, Iraq....22-32
4) "Yoruba Traditional Education Philosophy in the Evolution of a Total Man"

Ademakinwa Adebisi, University of Lagos, Nigeria..33-45
5) "Le Problme Sociolinguistique Dans La Traduction Franaise Des Romans De Fagunwa"

Gbadegesin Olusegun Adegboye, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria...46-55
6) "The Choice of Diction as Empowerment for Marital Freedom: A Study of Selected Divorce
Registers in a Nigerian Newspaper"
Harrison Adeniyi, Lagos State University, Nigeria
O. Rachael Bello, Lagos State University, Nigeria..56-69
7) "History, the Historian and Historical Society of Nigeria @ 60: The Journey so far and the road
ahead"
Emmanuel Osewe Akubor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.70-86
8) "Que sait la littrature?"

Nancy Ali, CRLC Paris IV Sorbonne, France.87-103
9) "Lide de Dieu chez Ahmadou Kourouma et Calyxthe Beyala: une tude compare"
Ndongo Kamdem Alphonse, University of Uyo, Nigeria...104-118
10) "Philanthropy Language Construction"

Iqbal Nurul Azhar, University of Trunojoyo, Madura, Indonesia..119-129
11) "De la violence la nvrose: Parcours de la Tunisie rvolutionnaire ou ltat de lieu dun peuple
dsillusionn"
Dorra Barhoumi, Universit de Kairouan, Tunisie.130-143
12) "A Psychoanalytical Hermeneutics of John Keatss Verse Epistle To John Hamilton Reynolds
through Julia Kristevas Theory of Semiotic vs. Symbolic Orders"
Farhat Ben Amor, University of Kairouan, Tunisia...144-163
13) "La communaut arabo-musulmane aux Etats-Unis : entre rve et ralit"

Lanouar Ben Hafsa, Universit de Tunis, Tunisie..164-178
14) "Pre-Colonial Security System in Akungba-Akoko, South-West Nigeria"

Famoye Abiodun Daniels, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria...179-191
15) "The Dynamics of Palm Kernels Marketing in Igala Area, Nigeria 1920-1956"
Victor Chijioke Nwosumba, Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo, Ebonyi State, Nigeria
Abah Danladi, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria..192-205
16) "A study of the Portuguese-Benin Trade Relations: Ughoton as a Benin Port (1485 -1506)"
Michael Ediagbonya, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria...206-221
17) "Decentering Globalization"

Abdelaziz El Amrani, ASCA, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands..222-232
18) "On the Issue of Ultimate Attainment in L2 Acquisition: Theoretical and Empirical Views"
Hosni Mostafa El-Dali, United Arab Emirates University, United Arab Emirates233-256
19) "Twins: Similarities, differences and individuality"

Maria Garro, University of Palermo, Italy
Alessandra Salerno, University of Palermo, Italy
Federica Cirami, University of Palermo, Italy....257-269
20) "Masculinity and Male Domination in D.H Lawrences Lady Chatterleys lover"
Abdelfattah Ali Ghazel, Al Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia..270-280
21) "The Challenge of Resuscitating Interest in History in Contemporary Nigeria Schools: New
Approaches to the Rescue"
Emorc .C. Emordi, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria
Felix Ejukonemu Oghi, Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa, Edo State, Nigeria281-291
22) "Vocabulary Learning Strategies of English as Foreign Language (EFL) Learners: a Literature
Review"
Prashneel Ravisan Goundar, Fiji National University, Fiji..292-301
23) "No No Trespassing! The cultural logic of property rights and their moot pleasures of denial"
Mark Webster Hall, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea302-317
24) "The Development of Students Learning Achievements and Learning Behaviors through
Participatory Learning Method"
Phatsaraphorn Khansakhorn, Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Takhli Campus, Thailand
Rangsiphat Yongyuttwichai, Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Takhli Campus, Thailand.318-325
25) "Rhizomatic Mother Goddesses in North Africa:The Great Mothers Resurrection in Sophie El
Goullis Hashtart: la Naissance de Carthage"
Insaf Khmiri, University of Sousse, Tunisia.326-339
26) "Blurring Polyphonic Voices in Katherine Mansfields Short Story The Singing Lesson
Nadia Konstantini, University of Jendouba, Tunisia..340-349
27) "Language and culture"

Abdelfattah Mazari, Mohammed Premier University, Oujda, Morocco
Naoual Derraz, Mohammed Premier University, Oujda, Morocco....350-359
28) "Isolation in The Catcher in the Rye and A Woman on the Turret : A Comparative Study"
Ranji Shorsh Rauf Muhamad, University of Sulaimani, Iraq...360-367
29) "Style and Lexical Choices in Teacher-Student Classroom Interaction"

Chuka Fred Ononye, Alvan Ikoku University, Owerri, Nigeria368-381
30) "The Quandary of Eurocentric Truth and Prospect of Cultural Sensitivity: Echoes from Richard
Rorty"
Modestus Nnamdi Onyeaghalaji, University of Lagos, Nigeria....382-392
31) "Masterpieces of Nouri Bouzid: Between Conditioned Advent and Censorship's Extinction"
Feten Ridene Raissi, ESACG, Carthage University, Tunisia..393-409
32) "From Heresy in Religion to Heresy in Culture: The Symbolic Power of the 15th Century
Spanish Inquisition: The Case of the Arab Muslims (Moriscos)"
Latifa Safoui, Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco.....410-428
33) "LEffet de Distanciation dans Le Pre Goriot de Balzac"

Asso Ahmed Salih, University of Sulaimani, Iraq...429-439
34) "Cohesion in the Descriptive Writing of EFL Undergraduates"

Wafa Ismail Saud, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia...440-450
35) "The Backlash of 9/11 on Muslims in Mohsin Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist"
Isam Shihada, Al Aqsa University, Gaza Strip, Palestine...451-466
36) "An Ethno-Statistical Analysis of Direct and Indirect Acts in Catchy HIV/AIDS Campaign
Messages in Benin Metropolis"
Patience Obiageri Solomon-Etefia, University of Benin, Nigeria
Gerald Okechukwu Nweya, University of Ibadan, Nigeria...467-490
37) "Drawing the Human Face of a Homeland: A Reading of Khaled Hosseinis Novels; The Kite
Runner, A thousand Splendid Suns, and And the Mountains Echoed"
Rim Souissi, University of Sousse, Tunisia.491-498
38) "Where There Is No Second Language: The Problems Faced By International Tourists during
the Calabar Christmas Festival"
Gloria Mayen Umukoro, University of Calabar, Nigeria...499-519
39) "Connectivity between Diplomacy, Foreign Policy and Global Politics"

Stella Wasike, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Susan. N. Kimokoti, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Violet Wekesa, Eldoret University, Kenya..520-526
40) "Feminine versus Masculine: The Dichotomies of Movement in Spanish Flamenco"

Marta Wieczorek, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates..527-535
41) "Imperial Rivalry in South West Arabia before the First World War"
Abdol Rauh Yaccob, Sultan Sharif Ali Islamic University, UNISSA,Darussalam, Brunei...536-546
42) "Slavery and Orientalism in Balzacs La Fille aux yeux dor"

Meng Yuqiu, Capital Normal University, China.....547-556
43) "The History of Martiniquan Rum"

Hlne Zamor, University of The West Indies, Barbados...557-568
Editorial
Dear Colleagues and Readers
I am so glad to present the sixth issue of the International Journal of Humanities and Cultural
Studies (IJHCS). With this issue, the IJHCS enters its second year with more diligence and
confidence. This sixth issue includes different research articles on various topics in humanities,
linguistics and cultural studies both in English and French languages. This reflects the
multidisciplinary, multilingual and interdisciplinary scope of the IJHCS. This new issue includes
works of the research scholars from different countries such Barbados, Brunei, China, Fiji, France,
Indonesia, Iraq, Italy, Kenya, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia,
South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, and United Arab Emirates.
As usual, I sincerely thank our respected authors for selecting the IJHCS, our reviewers for
reviewing the selected articles for this issue and the Administrative Board for its contribution to
helping the IJHCS achieve this success.
With Best Regards,
Dr. Hassen Zriba

Editor-in-Chief
The International Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies (IJHCS)
The Search for Identity in Online Chat
Nawal F. Abbas
University of Baghdad, Iraq
Rana H. Al-Bahrani
University of Baghdad, Iraq
Abstract
Internet communication is one of the most important applications of the 21st century. College
students are among those who make use of this activity for both academic and personal interest.
Students usually vary in their use, appreciation and response to this widely used activity.
Accordingly, the present research paper aims at answering the following questions: to what
extent college students use the instant-messaging system in initiating and developing personal
and social communication? and to what extent the revealed identities are real or fake? If real,
how many aspects of identity are real or fake? What is the purpose behind using fake identities?
Are there any similarities and differences between gender-based identities? To what extent
messages reflect the user's identity and gender? And what are the different ways of identity
manifestations? To achieve the above aims, a questionnaire has been conducted on the students
of Baghdad University to closely examine the relationship between online interaction and gender
identities. The results showed that the highest percentage of students, 94%, agrees that chat is of
great help in establishing and maintaining distant and local relationships. While the lowest
percentage, 1.1%, goes with the proposition that chat is the most important application of the
internet.
Keywords: Identity, hidden identity, gendered-based identities, self-disclosure, disguised

chat
Introduction
Internet communication is a socially-based activity that involves no personal presence of

participants who are logged on simultaneously, but separated geographically (Doring, 2006).
Such a means of communication is found to have many merits, among which are to assert their
own identities and to explore new means of self-representation. The stepping stone of using such
a means embeds questions about the user's identity, such as name, gender, age, location, interest
and may also indicate motives for the communication.
In this vein, the psychologist and internet researcher Turkle (2005) notes that many users
employ chat to "try on" identity positions that might not feel permissible in their offline lives.
Just as chat allows banter and creative communications conventions (LOL for "Laughing Out
Loud") to flourish, it also seems to promote antisocial behavior, such as flaming and trolling.
Gender vs. Identity
Gender is the foundation of personality. It indicates how a person chooses to express

himself, i.e., which identity does he actually represent? Moreover, Lott (cited in Stewart, 2003:
4) defines gender as "an attribute used by individuals for self-identification within their culture".
Identity, on the other hand, is often characterized in terms of one's interpersonal characteristics,
such as self-definition or personality traits, the roles and relationships one takes on in various
interactions, and one's personal values or moral beliefs (Calvert as cited in Huffaker& Sandra,
2005). In other words, everyone in this world has a different identity because they all make their
own over the course of their life. Identity also involves a sense of continuity of self-images over
time (Grotevant, 1998; cited in Huffaker& Sandra, 2005), a continuity that may be disrupted
when puberty creates radical alterations in one's physical appearance.
Identity, as a term has been viewed differently by different socialists. Traditionally an

individual's identity was looked upon as singular and stableperhaps permanentand over
which one had little control. If a person is a carpenter by occupation, that is how everyone views
him, and how he views himself. However, over time, this view progressively changes. The
current view of identity, on the other hand, holds that individuals have multiple identities, which
are constantly changing and being negotiated depending on the time and context of the situation.
That is to say, an individual has numerous facets of the self (e.g., man/woman, spouse, parents,
and boss), all of which together form the individual's multiple identities. These multiple facets or
ways of looking at oneself in relation to the world are socially constructed (Cohen, 2008).That is,
the more changes in the social roles, the greater changes in the communicative behavior
(Stewart, 2003: 5).
According to Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004), identity can be of three different

categories: imposed identities, assumed identities, and negotiable identities. Imposed identities
can be described as "those that cannot be negotiated in a particular time and place". Assumed
identities, on the other hand, refer to those who are comfortable with and willing to try a
character that is valued and legitimatized by the dominant group within a given society. The third
category of identity is negotiable identities. Negotiable identities "pertain to all identity options
that can be, and are, contested or resisted by particular individuals and groups"(Cohen, 2008). In
this respect, Stewart (2003: 7) maintains that identity is a collection of socially-based features
that can be revealed through social interactions; that is communication plays a key role in the
development of our gender identity and of our perception of other' identities.
Gender has been around throughout history; however, within recent years, gender has
separated itself from the traditional view of sex, i.e., male or female, and has become centered on
ones masculinity or femininity, gender has become a way for one to describe, he or she, in a
way in which they are different from everyone else. Gender has turned into a sense of identity, a
way for one to feel different and fulfilled among all of those around them. On the whole, gender
identity is closely interlinked with social science as it is based on an identity of an individual in
the society. Sexuality is the the condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex (Free
dictionary, 2009).
Identity and other Related Terminologies
Speaking about identity may lead to come across other related and confusing words. In
this vein, Ivanic (cited in Joseph, 2004: 9-10) makes a survey of the different terms that may be
used when dealing with identity-related topics and from different angles or connotations. Such a
list embeds the following:
1. Self emotionally and effectively refers to "who I feel myself to be";

2. Person refers to the identity "I project to others in my socially defined roles";
3. Ethos is a general term for a person's identity as conceived and constructed in the context of
world view and social practices. It indicates the personal characteristics which a reader might
attribute to a writer on the basis of evidence in the text. That is, self inner qualities;
4. Persona means a mask. It is an objective self that one creates in order to position himself within
the context of those around us;
5. Subject, subject position, positioning : in accordance with these terms, self is a product of the
discourse and social field in which it is located
6. Subjectivity, subjectivities, positioning, possibilities for self-hood: these terms carry the
connotation that identity is socially constructed, that people are not free to take on any identity
they choose, and that add a sense of multiplicity, hybridity and fluidity; and
7. Identity, identification: these terms refer to a process rather than a fixed condition.
Creating a profile
Some young people create profiles as their friends have; they desire to join in their peer
group and to share a common experience with their friends. Joining like-minded peers appeals to
their collective self-esteem, which eventually, gives them the unexpected pleasure in expressing
themselves on SNS profiles. Often, young people provide specific information (e.g., name,
birthday, relationship status) on SNS, although such disclosure is often considered as
personalized. Profile generation is an explicit act of writing oneself into being a digital
environment and participants must determined how they want to present themselves to those who
may view their self-representation or those they wish might.
Questioning the Authentication of Profile Information
The first place of wondering about the authentication of profile information launches from
the process of choosing an ID for your e-mail, instant messenger contact details, and personal
websites, blogs, and face books. In this respect and as far as chat rooms are concerned, Dring
(2006) maintains that before entering a chat room, one has to select a chat name or nickname,
and an avatar if needed. The advantage of choosing a name or nickname is to communicate such
information as gender, age, weight, size, location, interest and to some extent the motives for
communication. But, to what extent the revealed information is true and real. Online chatters
usually change their proposed sex, physical appearance, and age for different reasons. One of
these reasons is psychologically oriented in that young chatters want to appear old; another is
socially oriented in that chatters do not like to be focused on; instead they merely wish to
develop long-term and more serious contacts. The second question that lays itself in this vein is
how many aspects of personality are intended to be hidden? The third is how much time is
allocated for online chatting? The more time allocated for chatting, the sooner fake personalities
are discovered, especially if developed into voice chat. Consequently, and despite the fact that
chatting plays a role in enhancing and extending the social network of a person, there is still a
percentage of risk that the revealed identities are assumed and the closeness is an illusionary one.
As far as the previous studies are concerned, Turkle (1995:184) adds that by
divorcing ourselves from our bodies, from time and from space, the computer opens a realm in
which the multiplicity of identity that is taken to realize a contemporary life we can be
multiple identities simultaneously, with no one of these selves necessarily more valid than any
other. These valid identities can have varied degrees of relation to the embodied 'self'.
Bargh and McKenna (2004) propose that "constructing a new identity which is
successful within a new peer group can allow for role changes that create real changes in self-
concept".
Self-disclosure
The opposite process of disguise identity is self-disclosure. Pearce and Sharp (cited in
Stewart et al, 1996, 104) state that self-disclosure occurs when:"people voluntarily communicate
information about themselves that other people are unlikely to know or discover from other
sources". Brunell (2007) adds that disclosure is considered a key aspect of developing closeness
and intimacy with others, including friends, romantic partners, and family members. It embeds
revealing personal, intimate information about oneself to others; it helps two individuals to get to
know one another. Self-disclosure varies by the level of intimacy. For example, information can
range from being relatively superficial, such as disclosing where you are from and what your
favorite flavor of ice cream is, to being more private, such as revealing that your parents are
going through a divorce or that you once cheated on your boyfriend or girlfriend. Self-disclosure
also varies in the number of ways in which topics are disclosed. When individuals disclose
private information, their disclosure is high in depth. When individuals disclose a wide range of
topics about themselves, their disclosure is high in breadth.
Gender and Disclosure Differences
Disclosure, as far as gender is concerned, indicates that women are seen to be more
expressive than men. When a woman is not expressive, others perceive her as maladjusted.
Likewise, men are expected to be inexpressive, and when a man is expressive, he is perceived as
unstable. And, in fact, women tend to disclose more than men do in general. However, although
women disclose more to their female friends and to their romantic partners than men do, they do
not disclose more to their male friends any more than men do. Furthermore, women tend to elicit
self-disclosure from others, even from those who do not usually disclose very much about
themselves. One reason for this is that women tend to be responsive listeners, which in return
promotes further disclosure by the speaker (Brunell, 2007).
In the light of the above, Tannen (cited in Stewart et al, 1996: 104) adds that females
emphasize throughout the process of disclosure expressive aspects, such as sharing feelings and
emotions, for they regard them as important aspect as far as friendship is concerned. Males, on
the other hand, emphasize instrumental aspects, such as working together. Howell (cited in
Stewart, 1996: 104-105) maintains that "several communicative behaviors demonstrate that that
women tend to be facilitators of disclosure and that men are the controllers of disclosure". Coates
(1986) further states that talk among female friends is generally characterized by noncritical
listening and mutual support. Women are likely to sense when their women friends are in trouble
and so be able to provide a sympathetic listening ear that conveys understanding and concern.
But, when a man senses that a close male friend is depressed, his first impulse is to ignore the
depression and change the subject of their conversation, or they may respond to another person's
self-disclosure as if it were a request for advice, instead of responding to their own self-
disclosure.
Haas and Sherman (cited in Perry et al. 1992) mention that disclosure among female
friends typically focuses on topics that involve personal and family matters. Such topics are
closely related to self and tend to be characterized as more emotion-based in nature than men's
talk. Moreover, women often are more willing to share intimate details of their personal lives
with other women than men share with other men. Women are more likely to confide worries to
a friend than men are; they often discuss self-enhancement that results from self-disclosure while
men do not; or they might talk more about people while men talk more about things. Women are
more likely to respect each other's speaking turn and attempt to equalize participation in the same
sex-groups. Conversely, individual men may dominate an all-male group while the others just
listen.
Some people are better able to self-disclose than others are. This is because self-
disclosure can be threatening. Self-disclosure can leave one vulnerable to rejection,
manipulation, and betrayal. Some individuals are so concerned about these dangers of self-
disclosure that they have trouble opening up and revealing intimate details about themselves,
even in the appropriate contexts. They worry about the impression they are making on others and
readily perceive rejection in others' intentions. Consequently, these individuals frequently feel
lonely and isolated from others and tend to have fewer closures, satisfying relationships with
others (Brunell, 2007).
Merits of Disguised Chatting
Chatting with respect to disguised identity is not void of advantages. In light of this
statement, Persad (2010) mentions the following merits of internet:
1. Helping adolescent establish their sense of identity;
2. Chatters find a chance to try different identities (or pseudo-profiles) to see which one suits or lets
them feel more comfortable;
3. Anonymity, and its lessening associated risks, may allow people to be more honest and take
greater risks, in their self-disclosures than they would offline (See McKenna and Bargh, 2000).
Data Analysis
A thirty item questionnaire has been conducted and applied on 36 college students from
Baghdad University. The items of the questionnaire are to be answered with yes or no except in
certain situations where answers are to be further justified or elaborated to show the impact of
the items on the students, or even to entail the reason behind the given answer. The percentage
has been calculated for each item to trace the students' reaction to it, i.e., to see how many
students side with or against each item.
Percentages have been calculated and the highest percentage of the students' reactions,
which constitutes about 94% (34 students), goes to both items that agree that online chat is
considered a means for developing long-distance and local friendships. This means that place or
location is of little value in comparison with gender and identity, except in cases when
individuals have already met face-to-face when geographically close. So seeking friendships is
what most students point at.
The second highest percentage, about 83% (30 students), goes with the propositions that
anonymity and multiplicity of identities are dangerous and anonymity may allow people to be
more honest and to take great risk in their self-disclosure when they would offline.
The lowest percentage, which constitutes about 1.1% (two students), goes with the
proposition that the chat is the most important application of the internet. The second low
percentage, 2.7% (five students), emphasizes the obsession of the idea of multiplicity of
identities.
Generally speaking, most students agree with the following:

1. Reduction of physical appearance creates a kind of invisibility or anonymity.
2. Anonymity opens potential for the multiplicity of identities.
3. Anonymity creates a high degree of privacy and a lower sense of social risk.
4. Anonymity may allow people to be more honest and take great risks in their self-
disclosure.
5. People online are brought together by shared interest and by a joint focus on one another's
conversational style without attending to one another's appearance.
6. Online chat serves as a means for people with existing ties to support and maintain
meaningful relationships.
7. Users use the chat to 'try on' identity positions that might not feel permissible in real life.
8. Instant messages are used to reinforce relationships with those who are geographically
close to them and whom they have met face to face.
9. The socio-emotional communication is said to be more likely personal than antisocial.
10. These identities might have varied degrees of relation to the embodied self.
11. Anonymity (or hidden identity) is dangerous.
12. The rational ideals in online relationships are the same as those emphasized in offline
relationships including trust, honesty and commitment.
13. Girls are slightly more than boys in using instant messages.
14. Multiplicity or anonymity leads people to treat life online as an isolated social entity.
15. As far gender/identity relation is concerned, most students agree that identity does not
necessarily reflect gender, and sometimes gender can be reached at during self- disclosure, if
there is any need, when chat occurs with total strangers.
Conclusions
Internet communication is one of the most important applications in which people are
interested. College students are among those who make use of it for both academic and personal
interest. Yet, students usually vary in their use, appreciation and response to this widely used
activity. Throughout answering some question, the researchers of the present paper have arrived
into a number of conclusions, the most important of which are the following: Identities are of
two types real and fake; fake in the sense of being hidden wholly or partially. Fake identity is
initiated due to social and psychological factors. Illusive or fake identity can be widespread or
more common in online interaction. Fake identity is followed by a process of self-disclosure.
Gender-based identities show that women are more likely than men in being expressive and
responsive to online chat. Gendered-based identities seem riskier when it comes to self-
disclosure.
References
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Uses of Humour in an English Language Class
Shumaila Abdullah
University of Baluchistan, Quetta, Pakistan
Javed Akhter
University of Balochistan Quetta Pakistan
Abstract
Humour is peculiar to human beings and an essential characteristic of human life. When it is
applied in English teaching, it enhances students learning ability. If the teachers start adding
element of humour in their teaching method it could definitely improve students English
learning ability. Therefore, humour is considered an important element to reduce the anxiety
factor and boredom in an English language class. However, its uses make English language
class more effective and interesting. It creates a learning environment in such a way in a
language class that helps the students to perform even better. Mostly the teachers follow the
same old traditional method of English teaching and avoid cracking jokes in the class in order to
maintain discipline and class control. That is why students do not take much interest in their
classes. However, the negative kind of humour such as to make fun of the students, to hit their
families, sarcasm, hit ethnicity and insult should be avoided as it badly damages the students
personality as well as it ruins the sacred environment and discipline of the class. The negative
impact of humour makes the student offensive and can bring negative results in the classroom.
Keywords: Pedagogical Humour, Students Learning, Mimicry, Mockery
Introduction
Humour is considered an essential characteristic of humans life. No one can deny its
importance in human life. It is the only source of reducing tension, boredom and anxiety in an
English language class. No doubt, learning English language is by no means an easy task in a
multilingual society. However, Pakistan is a multilingual country in which learning and teaching
English language is neither the first nor the second language but a foreign language. Therefore, a
large number of students take admission in language centres to learn English language as their
basic requirement to receive knowledge of science and technology, not only in educational
institutions but for other societal needs too. English is passport of success and upward social
mobility. For this reason, centres of English language are considered the biggest source of
learning English language. Learning of English language requires a positive and friendly
classroom atmosphere. However, this research is an effort to highlight the importance of humour,
which is an essential teaching tool in a language class to learn English language more efficiently.
Nevertheless, teaching is a serious profession and learning English language is not so
easy job. We are all aware of the fact that the students of English language are more willing to
participate in classrooms that allow them to feel relaxed. P, Krishmanson states that the need to
create a welcoming classroom for language learning, so that the learning environment does not
feel threatening or intimidating (Krishmanson, P.2000, pp. 1-5). A teacher must be creative to
develop a positive learning environment in such a way that a student not only learns but also
enjoys, not hesitates but also learns and not feels stressed but relaxed. A teacher must have sense
of humour and use humour in a proper way to teach the students, cultivating good taste, aesthetic
credo and sense of humour in his students. This is possible only when the teacher knows how to
entertain his/her students to use humour in classroom because humour not only reduces the
boredom and anxiety level of the students of English language but constructs students learning
ability in a way that the students perform even far better.
Nevertheless, the mood of classroom imprints positive effects on English language
learning experience because humour can promote understanding and attract the attention of the
students until end to make learning process more affective and interesting one. It is the duty of a
teacher to create a relaxed, pleasant and positive attitude in their teaching so that the students take
much interest, learn more and more and have a lot of fun. G. Walter claimed that the students
who laugh have less disturbing outbursts in class. Therefore, when humour is applied to teaching
it enhances the students learning ability (Walter, G., 1990, pp. 43-44).
Moreover, humour plays an important role in second language or foreign language
learning as English and is an integral part of second language teaching and learning classroom
environment. It is a very skilful way of motivating those students who are demotivated, showing
no interest in English language classes due to various factors like lack of confidence, anxiety
factor, language ego, shyness, hesitation and nervousness. Those teachers, who do not like to use
humour, share and exchange jokes with their students, are not very much popular among the
students. While on the other hand, those teachers who produce a friendly environment in such a
way that they crack jokes, use humour and funny incidents and share such things with their
students are the most popular among the students. The students take more interest in this kind of
language classes in which their language learning capability automatically enhances and for this
reason, they learn English as a second language or foreign language within no time because
humour helps them to keep the things in their minds and memorise the elements of English
language for a long time. Casper stated that learning induced by humour strengthens the learning
memory (Casper, R., 1999).
Thus, humour is an important spice of teaching English in Pakistan. It can imprint
positively influences on the minds of the English language learners to learn a second language,
and avoiding humour may deprive the learners of gaining access to second language learning.
Moreover, it produces an environment of tediousness and boredom in an English language
classroom in which students do not enjoy learning. On the contrary, the touch of humour is
extremely beneficial for second language learning classroom environment. Medgeys, P. (2002)
suggests that funny games, stories jokes, puzzles, pictures, sketches, and dialogues can be
fruitfully used for all levels of second language learning. So, the instructor must know how the
make a language classroom environment more affective and interesting. No learning is more
beneficial than learning in an ideal environment, where the learning is always at the highest level
and anxiety level at the lowest and this is possible only when the facilitator provide such an
environment to his students in a way where they are free to share their thoughts without being
afraid.
However, teacher should not spoil the sacred environment of the classroom because
exchanging much jokes and focusing less on learning is extremely dangerous for the students.
Therefore, negative and vulgar kind of humour should always be avoided by the teacher.
Negative and vulgar kind of humour includes making fun of the students, to attack their families,
ethnicity, insulting and humiliating the students. A teacher must know his/her prestige and the
importance of holy, noble and prophetic profession of teaching. The present study shows that
negative or vulgar humour ruins the students personality as well as the classroom environment
so that it should always be avoided. Moreover, vulgar humour and dirty jokes should not be
allowed in classroom. Although the jokes and funny incidents are a part of English language
classroom. As R. Bonjour states that private humour which takes students out of topic should be
avoided.
Literature Review
Humour is an instructional tool a teacher could use in the class to increase the
effectiveness. In the various studies on humour in language, teaching and learning researchers
have highlighted the useful potential of humour that how it enhances the students learning
ability and the way it brings a number of positive changes in students attitudes. Garner writes,
Students indicate that humour can increase their interests in learning and research has
demonstrated that students who have teachers with strong orientation to humour tend to learn
more (Garner, 2006, p.177). Humour is a catalyst for classroom magic, when all the
educational elements converge and teacher and student are positive and excited about learning
(Kher, 1999, p.1).
In another study, Loomans writes about humour, there are two distinct sides of the of the
humour coin: the comic and the tragic, humour can act as a social lubricant or social retardant in
the educational setting. It can educate or denigrate, heal or harm, embrace or deface, its a
powerful communication tool, no matter which side is chosen. (Loomans, 1993, p. 14).
According to Prosser, humour builds unity, relieve stress and enhance creativity. Humour helps
the instructor enjoy teaching and empowers the learner to participate in the project (Prosser,
1997, p. 2). (Buckman cited in Psathas, 1973, p. 37) saying that "by asking people questions we
discover what they are experiencing, how they interpret their experiences and how they
themselves structure the social world in which they live" (Buckman, 2010, p. 64). The present
study focuses on the importance of uses of jokes in an English language class to make the
teaching/learning process more interesting and enjoyable one.
Impact of Humour and jokes on Students performance in an English Language Class

The purpose of using jokes is to enhance students learning ability, performance and
proficiency in an English language classroom. A good and motivated teacher can only attract the
attention of his/her students by sharing jokes with them and teacher who deliberately commits
mistakes and the laughs at himself he is definitely providing his students a chance that they may
not be shy and hesitant. However, jokes produce a stimulating and relaxing environment in the
class for English language learners. When the students are enjoyably engaged in the class they
learn in a better way and if a class can laugh together with one another, they are likely to learn
better together. One of the most important advantages of jokes and humour is to help students
feel more comfortable in their target language learning. A teacher can produce a loveable,
friendly and frankly, atmosphere only through jokes and use of humour in the classroom in which
students feel more free, comfortable and relaxed.
Furthermore, uses of humour and jokes bring many positive changes in the behaviour of
the students. When a teacher creates such a relaxed, friendly and frankly atmosphere in the class,
the students become more motivated to do well in the class. The performance, proficiency and
fluency of the students become more effective. However, use of humour and jokes can be
beneficial in order to gain the students liking and win their attention. Such teachers are always
popular among the students who provide them a convenient and easygoing environment. Gorham
& Christopher claims that, if the teachers use humour in the classroom they are often doing so to
reduce tension, to facilitate self-disclosure, to relieve embarrassment, to save face, to disarm
others, to alleviate boredom, to gain favour through self-enhancement, to convey good will or to
accomplish some other prosaically goal (Gorham, J., & Christophel D. 1990, pp. 354-36).
Nevertheless, jokes and humour are incentive for students to learn and it enhances their
language learning ability, eagerness and aptitude. Jokes and humour do not only help to
memorize the stuff easily but for a long time too as things associated with funny incidents
imprints on the minds of the students permanently. This is the reason that students do not forget
such teachers in their lives no matter how old they get. Many students think that teachers are
strangers or outwardly beings, for the very same reason they do not open up in presence of such
teachers. Therefore, it badly affects the language learning process somewhere in the mind as
learning an English language a tough task in a multilingual country like Pakistan. However, a
teacher who uses jokes, humour and puns in his lesson regarding what is he teaching can
definitely help the students to learn it proficiently. Ziv investigated the effects on students
learning of teaching and reported that students appreciate and enjoy learning with a teacher who
uses humour (Ziv, A. 1988, pp. 5-15.).
Everyone loves jokes and humour because they are invaluable source of entertainment
and excellent vehicle for presenting, learning and teaching English as a second language. Use of
humour could definitely be a gateway to understand and observe culture of English language. It
could easily be observed that when a teacher enters in the language class and says the word
joke only, students becomes attentive and that is how a teacher catches the attention of the
students in a tricky way. Moreover, jokes could be used in a class to motivate the students so that
they start taking interest in reading and writing activities. Baron states that, the use of humour
can vent anger and frustration that might otherwise be destructive (Baron, R. A. 1978, pp.
189197). Humour has the power to change the dull atmosphere of a classroom all of a sudden
into lively and energetic environment it keeps awake the students in a dull and boring classroom.
Apart from all the social advantages and benefits there are a number of psychological and
social benefits for the students too when a teacher frequently cracks jokes in the classroom. It
helps to reduce frustration, boredom, tediousness and all the fears in the mind of a student having
regarding English language. Many linguists agree that Ego is a hurdle in second language
learning and mostly students do not feel comfortable in English language classes due to this
factor. When a teacher produces such positive environment in an English language class, the
students will surely not think much about their ego, definitely speak much, and think a little.
Moreover, it will help them to learn English as a second language. In fact, humour is a double-
edged sword, if it helps to construct, it can ruin or destroy a students personality too. Therefore,
positive kind of humour should be used and negative kind of humour such as mimicry and
mockery should be avoided so that the sacred environment of the classroom may not spoil. A
negative kind of humour includes dirty jokes, sarcasm, mimicry and mockery to hit students
ethnicity, to pass negative and vulgar comments, to make fun of the students can badly affect the
students learning ability, enthusiasm and aptitude as well as his character. Inappropriate humour
can clearly be destructive to instructor-student relationship and thereby a threat to
professionalism and instructor credibility, prestige and popularity.
Conclusion
This research paper aims to highlight a full fledge picture of using humour in an English
language class, concentrating the question how the students learning ability and aptitude can be
enhanced by using the humour properly in the classroom. Uses of humour in an English language
class is an instructional tool a teacher can use in the classroom to increase its effectiveness and
enhance eagerness of the students of English language. There are many benefits and advantages
associated with the use of humour in the classroom. When a teacher use humour in class, it can
result in a number of benefits and advantages for both teachers and students of English language.
However, negative, vulgar or harmful kind of humour such as sarcasm, mimicry and mockery
should strictly be avoided as it leaves negative impressions and effects of the teacher on his/her
students as well as it can bring negative results in the classroom.
References
-Bonjour, R. (2011). The Essence of Good Teaching-Humour. Language in India, 11.

-Baron, R. A. (1978). Aggression-inhibiting influence of sexual humor. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 36(2), 189197.
-Casper, R. (1999) Laughter and humour in the classroom: Effects on test performance.
University of Nebraska Lincoln.
-Gorham, J., & Christophel, D. M. (1990). The relationship of teachers use of humour in
classroom to immediacy and student learning. Laughing Matters: Humor in the language
classroom. Communication Education, 39, 354-36.
-Krishmanson, P. (2000). Affect in the Second Language Classroom: How to create an emotional
climate. Reflexions, 19 (2), 1-5.
-Medgyes, P. (2002). Laughing Matters: Humor in the language classroom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
-Walter, G. (1990). Laugh, teacher, laugh! The Educational Digest, 55 (9), 43-44.
-Ziv, A. (1988). Teaching and Learning with Humour: Experiment and Replication. Journal of
Experimental Education, 57(1), 5-15.
Mde dEuripide et dAnouilh
Ari Mohammed Abdulrahman

University of Sulaimani, Iraq
Abstract
The title of this research is ' Euripides and Anouilhs Medea '. This research is a comparative
study comparing the protagonist Medea in two literary works.
The aim of the current research is to study the mythical character Medea in two different literary
works; one by the Greek playwright Euripides and the other by the French author Jean Anouilh
This research will pose a number of key questions and it will address the main topics discussed
by the two authors. It will begin by examining the texts analyzing why Jean Anouilh chose
mythology to show the reality of his society of the time. The research will explore how social and
political conditions witnessed by the authors in their countries formed their political and
philosophical thoughts and undoubtedly influenced their writing.
Medea is a drama of No and resistance. Euripides and Jean Anouilh have used this classic myth
to address and focus on the various social and political issues that prevailed in society in their
time. Anouilhs Medea was written two years after Antigone and the same themes recur in
Medea.
Keywords: Medea, Happiness, Exile, Abnormality, Revenge, the other
Rsum
Le titre de cette recherche est Mde dEuripide et dAnouilh qui est une tude comparative
comparant le protagoniste Mde dans deux uvres littraires.
L'objectif de la recherche actuelle est d'tudier le caractre mythique de Mde dans deux
uvres littraires diffrents; un par le dramaturge grec Euripide et l'autre par l'auteur franais
Jean Anouilh
Cette recherche va poser un certain nombre de questions cls de la recherche et elle va traiter
des thmes principaux abords par les deux auteurs. Il commencera par examiner les textes
examinant pourquoi Jean Anouilh a choisi la mythologie pour montrer la ralit de sa socit de
l'poque. La recherche sera d'explorer la faon dont les conditions sociales et politiques
constates par les deux auteurs dans leurs pays et ailleurs ont form leur pense politique et
philosophique et sans doute ont influenc la forme de leur criture.
Mde est un drame de Non et de rsistance. Euripide et Jean Anouilh ont recouru ce mythe
classique pour traiter et mettre l'accent sur des diverses questions sociales et politiques qui
prvalaient dans la socit leur temps. Mde d'Anouilh a t rdige deux ans aprs Antigone
et les mmes thmes reviennent dans Mde.
Mots Cls : Mde, Euripide, Jean Anouilh, Bonheur, Exil, Anormalit, Vengeance, lautre
Introduction
Mde d'Euripide, ce personnage se comportant de faon unique parmi sa race des femmes,
a t un sujet de controverse et pourrait rassembler l'objet d'un grand nombre d'crivains travers
le monde et diffrentes priodes de temps. Sa personnalit exceptionnelle et distinctive, son
comportement et ses actes ont cr un sentiment de terreur mlang parfois avec respect envers
elle. Auteurs des pays du monde ont eu recours l'image que ce personnage reflte afin qu'ils le
transplantent leurs vnements sociaux et politiques contemporaines. Parmi un certain nombre
d'auteurs, qui recraient ce caractre dans leurs propres moyens, malgr les changements vidents
dans le cadre, l'intrigue, les thmes et mme des personnages, le personnage principal d'Anouilh
est la personnification de Mde transplant la vie franaise contemporaine.
C'est seulement en 1944 quAnouilh a commenc sintresser au mythe. Ceci est li selon
McIntyre (1981, p. 42) la violence dans ces mythes qui est d'accord avec les conditions de la
deuxime guerre mondiale. Pronko (1964, p. 107) attribue ce recours au mythe grec par Jean
Anouilh au fait que les intrigues de ces mythes servent d'outils rvlant la relation existant entre
l'objectif de l'tre humain et le destin. Anouilh a commenc son nouvel intrt pour le mythe grec
avec son drame exceptionnel Antigone qui a eu un grand succs et a gagn beaucoup d'loges
et qui avait pour thme la rvolte contre le bonheur imparfait ; un thme qui revient dans son
drame "Mde" qui a t crit en 1948, c'est--dire deux ans aprs Antigone.
I- La guerre et l'exil
Euripide tait un tmoin ardent de la Grce du Vme sicle au cours de laquelle ce pays a
tmoigne de grands changements. Il a trait diverses questions qui dominaient l'poque comme
le mariage, le patriarcat, le sexe, l'exil, et la violence au sein d'une famille ...... etc.
Euripide a crit Mde en 431 AEC l'poque de la guerre du Ploponnse contre Sparte et son
auto-exil. Ces deux lments de l'exil et de la haine de la guerre sont des thmes majeurs dans ce
drame (Mcleich, 2003). Quand la France passa sous la domination allemande, Jean Anouilh n'a
pas quitt la France, mais il est rest l et a continu crire mais il n'a pas rejoint la rsistance et
ses uvres ont t considres comme sombres ou pessimistes en raison des thmes dominants
de l'humanit mdiocre. Il y a une allusion la guerre et la rsistance contre l'occupation
allemande lorsque Mde se renseigne sur le retour de Jason Il ne rentrera pas ? Il est bless,
mort?...emprisonn ? (Anouilh, pp. 16-17)
Il y a deux runions importantes dans le drame et les deux sont avec Mde. La premire
runion a lieu entre Cron et Mde. Cela peut tre considr comme une confrontation entre
deux royaumes; Cron est un roi dans son territoire et Mde tait une princesse. Cette runion
fait allusion la deuxime guerre mondiale, lorsque la France tait sous le contrle de
l'Allemagne. Cron est le matre de cette rgion et tente par tous les moyens d'expulser Mde.
Cette tragdie a t rdige deux ans aprs la guerre et tout lecteur franais cela aurait triste
souvenir de leurs conditions de vie pendant la guerre sous l'occupation allemande. L'attitude de
Jason est un collaborateur ou un tratre (La solitude Contre Le Sens du monde, p.1)
Il existe un certain nombre de points communs qui relient Mde dEuripide Mde
d'Anouilh, comme l'exil, l'altrit, lanormalit et le pass .... etc. L'exil est une question
fondamentale dans les deux pices en question. Les deux protagonistes fminins de Jean Anouilh
et dEuripide sont hants par le fantme de l'exil. Mde vit Corinthe en exil avec son mari
Jason et ses deux fils, mais elle a choisi cet tat de l'exil cause de l'amour obsessionnel pour
Jason. Tout comme Mde d'Anouilh, Mde a vcu Corinthe pendant de nombreuses annes,
mais encore les gens la considraient comme une trangre et une barbare. Mde d'Anouilh
ainsi, en dpit de son long sjour, est toujours considre comme une voyageuse et une
trangre. L'exil pour Mde est ltat dtre prive de ses amis et c'est pourquoi elle voulait se
venger de Jason parce qu'il n'tait plus un ami, mais un ennemi et comme preuve de cette
affirmation est l'arrive d'ge qu'elle prie de lui offrir un abri Athnes et devenir son nouvel
ami Prends piti de mon infortune; ne me laisse pas seule (Artaud, p. 171). Quand Mde
regrette trahir sa famille et vivre en exil, il est tout aprs tre trahie par son Jason et tre sans
amis. Alors que Mde d'Anouilh est seul et n'a aucun ami. La seule chose qu'elle ne peut pas
supporter est de vivre en exil de son Jason et les enfants. Mde de Jean Anouilh renvoie l'ide
des amis dans son discours la nourrice mprise, Chasse, battue, sans paie, sans maison, mais
pas seule (Anouilh, p. 14). Anouilh laisse Mde sans aucun ami. Dans la Mde d'Euripide, il
ya le chur, Ege et l'aide divine, mais Anouilh prive sa Mde de toutes ces sources d'aide la
laissant seule face son destin. Cela a t fait peut-tre exprs par Anouilh afin de montrer la
dpendance et la force de Mde puisque cette drame a t crite en 1946 une date qui pourrait
se rfrer la condition des femmes cette poque en France car c'tait seulement en 1944 que
les femmes pouvaient atteindre le droit de vote qui avait t restreint aux hommes avant cette
date les femmes n'taient pas autorises voter en raison de l'opinion que les femmes dpendent
financirement des hommes et par consquence cela entrave leurs choix.
Euripide en crivant Mde a voulu tenir compte des questions ou des problmes qui prvalaient
dans la socit grecque de l'poque. Conformment la loi adopte en 451 avant JC, le droit la
citoyennet a t limit aux personnes dont les deux parents taient Athniens; une loi qui a eu un
impact terrible sur des femmes venant de l'extrieur d Athnes et y vivant peut-tre avec le mari
d'Athnes. Mde souffrait de cette loi injuste, un fait qui pourrait justifier des actes criminels de
Mde.
Pour rsumer, Mde vit en exil. Elle est loin de son pays natal, mme Corniche elle vit
en exil de la ville, et mme elle vit en exil en elle-mme car elle a banni la vritable Mde pour
le bien de Jason; elle touffait sa vraie personnalit d'une femme violente et cruelle pour
satisfaire Jason. Mde est dsespre cause de sa position en tant que femme, une trangre et
un paria, et une barbare dans la terre d'Athnes. Accepter l'exil la fois par Mde dEuripide et
d'Anouilh pourrait mettre un terme toute la violence terrible et ses rsultats et les malades, mais
les deux personnages refusaient l'exil.
II- Lactualisation et les changements de la Mde par Jean Anouilh
Euripide apporte certaines modifications l'histoire du mythe de Mde qui tue son frre et
trahit son pre pour aider Jason. Euripide fait de Mde un paria apport de Colichis et une
meurtrire de ses deux enfants. Anouilh comme Euripide change peu de choses dans sa Mde en
faisant Mde tuer la fin du drame et en supprimant l'aide divine qui a permis l'vasion de
Mde d'Euripide la fin.
Anouilh, tout en retravailler ce drame grec, tentait de lactualiser en changeant lintrigue. Par
exemple, Mde meurt la fin du drame la diffrence de Mde d'Euripide qui obtient une aide
surnaturelle par les dieux. Mde dAnouilh est une sorte de gitane vivant dans une caravane en
dehors de la ville, et la nourrice est comme une femme du pays avec un enthousiasme ardent de
vivre.
Dans la Mde d'Anouilh, il n'y a pas de chur tandis que dans Mde dEuripide, il ya le
chur de femmes soutenant Mde. Cela pourrait tre li au style d'Anouilh de actualiser le
drame ou ce qui souligne la solitude de Mde et la laissant seule face son destin comme une
femme sans l'intervention d'une aide extrieure si divine ou humaine.
D'autres changements apports par Anouilh affectent les personnalits des personnages. Par
exemple, le personnage principal, Mde, n'est pas fort et violent par rapport la Mde
d'Euripide et contrairement la Mde d'Euripide, qui ne suscite pas de piti cause de ses
crimes, Mde d'Anouilh mrite toute piti.
Les caractres ordinaires dans Mde d'Anouilh ne sont pas marginaliss contrairement ceux
chez Euripide. Par exemple, la garde et la nourrice ont leurs propres comptes et ils ont les
derniers mots sur la vie et mme Jason dAnouilh n'est pas un caractre lche au contraire de
Jason dEuripide. Certains critiques affirment que la tentative d'Anouilh actualiser les mythes a
gagn trop de critiques parce qu'il a rendu les motifs de ses protagonistes insignifiants et le
contenu du mythe a perdu sa valeur gnrale (McIntyre, p. 45).
III - Oui et non au bonheur
Jean Anouilh pourrait faire sa place parmi les meilleurs dramaturges franais et pourrait
construire une bonne rputation en France en particulier tout au long de l'occupation allemande
que ses uvres littraires ont attrap l'attention de l'auditoire. Anouilh a cre deux catgories
diffrentes de l'humanit. La premire catgorie comprend ceux qui cherchent principalement le
bonheur et l'acceptation de la banalit de la vie sans avoir aucune ambition. Ce genre de
personnes habite le monde et mne leur vie avec le travail trivial qu'ils ont faire et une fois
qu'ils meurent, ils sont oublis.
Le thme des tragdies dAnouilh est le refus de bonheur conditionnel qui est accept par
les gens ordinaires, mais rejet par les hros ou quelques-uns. La premire page de Mde
d'Anouilh commence avec la notion de bonheur rejet et dtest Le bonheur. Il Rode
(Anouilh, p. 9). Les hros dAnouilh ne peuvent pas s'adapter avec le bonheur futile accept par
les autres et par consquent, ils se rvoltent contre ce bonheur et ceux qui disent Non ce
bonheur deviennent des ennemis de ceux qui affirment leur Oui au mme bonheur.
L'autre catgorie est constitue de ceux qui refusent d'accepter la banalit de la vie et
disent Non la concession et au petit bonheur. Alors que la plupart des tres humains acceptent
le bonheur, peu d'entre eux rejettent ce bonheur trivial et disent Non de toutes leurs forces. Selon
Anouilh, il est le deuxime type de lhumanit qui peut fournir le monde avec l'lite en particulier
les hros tragiques. Lebel (1956, p. 147) affirme que Mde incarne l'univers familier de Jean
Anouilh. Univers mivre et forcen ........ Tout le monde s'y rebelle contre le Bonheur. Parfois,
le hros ou l'hrone ne choisit pas ce mode de vie, mais ils sont obligs de prendre cette direction
en raison de leur personnalit et leur nature. Ils ne peuvent pas fuir la catastrophe ventuelle
qu'ils apportent sur eux-mmes et les autres. Ces deux groupes tant totalement diffrents de
l'humanit ne peuvent pas coexister parce qu'ils sont de deux plantes diffrentes et il n'y a rien
de commun entre eux.
Alors que la vie n'est pas parfaite certains humains cdent et acceptent cette faille et disent
Oui au bonheur insuffisant comme Jason, Cron et la nourrice mais Mde est la recherche de
la perfection et d'absolu. Par exemple, le seul obstacle devant Jason pour accepter la vie et le
bonheur est Mde Je veux accepter maintenant ........... Je veux tre humble ........ tre Un
homme (Anouilh, pp. 69-70) et il admet que pour atteindre le bonheur se son prix doit tre pay
j'attends l'humilit et l'oubli .......... le Bonheur, le pauvre bonheur (p. 74).
Il y a quelques caractristiques dans les critures dAnouilh qui l'unissent l'existentialisme
comme le refus de la vie ordinaire par ses hros. Le Non qui est le rejet de chaos d'un monde
absurde et pos. La diffrence entre l'existentialisme d'Anouilh et celle des pionniers de l'cole
comme Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir et Camus est que les hros d 'Anouilh meurent ou se
suicident en raison de leur rvolte contrairement aux hros de ces auteurs (Poujol, 1952, p. 341).
Pour rsumer, Mde d'Anouilh montre la lutte entre le Oui et le Non, le Oui la vie ordinaire ou
mdiocre; une vie qui offre la tranquillit d'esprit, le bonheur, mais pas dhrosme et le Non
toutes les rgles et mdiocrit de la vie et au bonheur, mais ce Non fournit l'hrosme.
IV-Anormalit, pass et prsent
Un autre thme trait dans les deux drames est lanormalit de Mde dEuripide et
d'Anouilh. Le dilemme de Mde est son anormalit; elle n'est pas comme les autres femmes; une
vrit qui se manifeste dans ses paroles au chur Qu'on ne me croie ni faible, ni lche, ni mme
insensible; je suis tourne tour terribles versez mes ennemis, et affectueuse verser mes amis
(Artaud, p. 174). Lanormalit de Mde des deux auteurs est donc lie l'tat de l'altrit.
Mde est considre comme une trangre par la communaut. Mde, en dpit dtre
descendante d'une famille royale et Hlios le dieu-soleil, a accept le rle dfini sur une femme
typique; un rle d'une pouse et une mre, c'est--dire une tche domestique, mais elle a t
toujours considre comme une trangre et une barbare par les Corinthiens qui montraient
rticences envers tout tranger leur socit. Mde, malgr son pouvoir unique de
caractristiques masculines et exploits courageux, n'est pas respecte comme elle le mrite, mais
elle est considre comme une sorcire qui provoque la peur au sein de la communaut
simplement en raison de son altrit; une altrit rsultant en raison de son pouvoir unique et rare
parmi sa race de femmes.
Mde a accept, au nom de Jason, de sacrifier sa rputation d'une femme unique,
nanmoins la communaut la prend pour une trangre et l'autre qui n'est pas autorise profiter
d'avoir le droit d'une femme typique, mme son mari Jason veut pouser une autre femme de sa
propre communaut en raison de l'altrit de Mde d'aujourdhui je deviens sage; j'tais
insense, alors que d'une terre barbare je t'amenai dans la Grce (p.192). Ainsi Mde a chou
dans sa tentative de cacher son altrit et comme sa vengeance son altrit tait stagnante ou
dormante parce qu'ils taient dans un long coma de l'amour, mais quand elle s'est rveille de ce
coma Mde a rcupr de cet tat de l'insomnie.
Le pouvoir de Mde de convaincre est l'une des cls de son victoire sur les ennemis.
Elle connat la capacit d'agir en fonction des diffrentes exigences et aux besoins qui lui sont
attribus, un pouvoir qui tait vident dans son aide Jason dans son pays natal et convaincre
les filles de Plias de couper leur pre et lui faire bouillir dans une casserole. Ce pouvoir a t en
train de mourir en elle, mais la trahison de Jason a nourri ce pouvoir et la aid se mettre debout
sur ses pieds nouveau, comme Pelling (2000: 203) souligne Mde est intelligente, en
particulier avec des mots; et, avec la passion sexuelle suscite, cette intelligence peut tre
mortelle. Ce pouvoir se dvoile dans la premire scne avec le chur de femmes comme elle
peut les persuader de ne pas interfrer avec sa vengeance de Jason en les trompant avoir de la
compassion pour son cas d'une femme trahie Sil soffre mon esprit quelque moyen, quelque
artifice pour punir mon poux et le chur rpond disant Mde, je saurai me taire; car cest
avec justice que tut e vengeras de ton poux (Artaud, p.153). Dans une autre scne, le roi Cron
lui ordonne de partir et admet sa puissance et l'intelligence exprime par sa crainte delle je te
crains; a quoi bon de vains dtours tu es artificieuse, verse dans dangereuses pratiques (pp.
153-154), mais elle pourrait lui faire cder sa volont de rester un jour de plus.
Elle connat les points faibles de tout le monde ou les choses chres et les utilise son
succs. Elle exploite la position de chur comme des femmes son cas et lamour de Cron
pour sa fille et elle dclare la faute commise par Cron en le dcrivant comme un fou. Mme dans
sa vengeance de Jason, elle veut lui faire du mal le plus profond en le privant de ce qui lui est le
plus prcieux , savoir ses fils, comme elle dcrit ce fait en disant Oui; cest le moyen de
dchirer le Cur de mon poux ( p. 175). ge est une autre victime de la tromperie de Mde
comme elle pouvait le gagner son soutien par l'inciter donner son abri Athnes et qui a
galement exploit son amour davoir des enfants. la fin de la pice, un autre triomphe de son
intelligence se manifeste en ayant la faveur de l'aide du dieu de soleil son cas lorsqu'on lui a
offert vasion dans le char.
Mde d'Anouilh ne jouit pas de la mme magie puissante de convaincre que Mde
d'Euripide avait. La rencontre entre elle et Cron n'est pas aussi convaincante que celle entre
Mde et Cron d'Euripide comme la femme forte et puissante est absente. Il ny a pas de chur
dans Mde d'Anouilh, mais cest la nourrice sur qui Mde ne peut pas exercer son pouvoir
Nourrice, si je crie tu mettras ton poing sur ma bouche.. tu ne me laisseras pas souffrir seule
(Anouilh, p.16). Mde d'Anouilh n'est pas violente au contraire de Mde d'Euripide. Cette
absence de violence rendait Mde dAnouilh faible pour s'opposer aux autres et par consquent
son pouvoir de convaincre n'tait pas trs efficace. La violence de ce caractre est attnue, par
exemple, les cris violent dans Mde d'Euripide n'apparaissent que dans une situation aprs
avoir pris connaissance de la trahison de son mari dans Mde d'Anouilh la musique est plus
forte au loin, Mde crie plus fort quelle (p. 26) et les mots document et plus document
apparaissent beaucoup de fois dcrivant la manire de Mde de parler et de se comporter (Voir
Anouilh, pp.52, 68, 69, 74, 76, 41).
Le dsir de Mde de vengeance a rveill lanimalit dans sa personnalit, la nourrice

demande au tuteur des enfants de les loigner d'elle, en disant jai vu son il farouche se fixer
sur eux (Artaud, p. 146) et elle a dcrit sa rage au chur de femmes dans une autre scne en
disant semblable a une lionne qui vient de mettre bas (Artaud, p.149). la fin de la pice
Jason, aprs avoir vu ses fils assassins par les mains de leur mre, rapporte l'acte abominable de
tuer les enfants la jalousie sexuelle et la dcrit comme un tigre lionne plutt que femme, au
naturel plus farouche que la Tyrrhnienne Scylla (P. 192).
Pour montrer lanormalit de Mde, Euripide emploie certains noms d'animaux sauvages pour
dcrire Mde travers les diffrents personnages de son drame tandis quAnouilh utilise des
mots montrant l'affection et l'amour de Mde et mme ses ennemis ne la dcrit pas par des mots
de sauvagerie. La nourrice utilise des noms d'animaux comme Ma chatte et ma louve pour
montrer son amour Mde (Voir Anouilh, pp. 12, 22, et 27).
Le thme du pass et du prsent est un autre jalon important dans les deux pices. Mde
reprsente le pass odieux pour Jason. Elle sacrifie toutes les choses prcieuses pour lui qui, en
retour, l'abandonne cause d'un nouveau lit et le bonheur. Le prsent de Jason est celui de
l'innocence, de la stabilit, du bonheur et de Oui la vie. Il veut se dbarrasser d'elle pour respirer
le vrai bonheur et vivre comme un tre humain normal.
Mde profitait Jason quand elle l'a sauv des diffrents dangers dans ses aventures sauvages et
elle a donn naissance deux garons, mais maintenant que Jason n'est plus un hro la
recherche de grandes choses et veut la paix et la stabilit dans sa vie, il na plus besoin d'elle
parce qu'elle est une menace sa nouvelle vie et mme les enfants.
Pour conclure, Mde na pas le droit d'avoir une famille en raison de son statut d'une
trangre et une voyageuse. Son altrit est une menace pour la paix de leur communaut
homogne. Jason, le personnage masculin, dans les deux pices de thtre, veut s'chapper du
pass et son souvenir cruel et violent par l'adoption d'une vie normale, mais cette vie paisible ne
peut pas tre obtenue en prsence de Mde cause de son pass terriblement violent et mme la
vue des communauts forme d'elle comme une barbare, une vue mlange avec la peur en raison
de son altrit. Le poids du pass et le monde actuel avec ses dfauts empchent les protagonistes
dAnouilh d'atteindre les objectifs chers leurs curs.
V - La vengeance
La vengeance est un des thmes centraux de Mde dEuripide et d'Anouilh. Leur

protagoniste Mde recourt la vengeance aprs avoir t abandonne par Jason pour une autre
femme ou un autre lit. Une vengeance qui a conduit la destruction de deux familles (la sienne et
celle de Cron).
Lamour passionn, exceptionnel et sauvage de Mde pour Jason la pouss commettre
beaucoup de pchs et de crimes tels que le meurtre de son frre et la trahison de sa propre
famille et tribu. Un amour qui la fait accueillir le patriarcat et accepter sa position d'une femme
typique, mais dans cette mme personne se cachait toujours la vritable Mde qui a merg
aprs avoir t trahie. Mde d'Anouilh serait accepter la vie, mais une vie avec Jason Carcasse!
Moi aussi, hier, J'aurais voulu vivre (Anouilh, p. 29). Ainsi, son amour dpassant toutes limites
pour Jason a donn naissance nouveau la nature cruelle de Mde de vengeance.
La vengeance de Mde, comme son amour inconditionnel, doit tre complte. Elle ne tue
pas Jason, si elle pouvait le tuer, mais elle veut qu'il vive et subisse les consquences de sa
trahison en tuant ses fils, dtruisant son rve de futur stabilis en le privant de l'union avec la
famille royale et, ventuellement, prvoyant sa mort. McDonalds souligne que un homme grec
voulait la gloire, la fortune et des enfants (2003: 101). Afin de parvenir une vengeance sans
faille et complte aprs tre trahie, Mde a d fuir la punition pour viter d'tre humilie et
offense par ceux sur qui sa vengeance a caus des destructions et cela a t fourni par Ege et
Hlios le dieu-soleil. Elle ne fuit pas aprs avoir commis les meurtres mais elle attend pour
connatre les circonstances entourant le meurtre de ses victimes et c'est vident lorsque le
messager vient du palais de Cron annonant la mort de la jeune marie et son pre, elle
n'abandonne pas le lieu, mais prend plaisir connatre les dtails de leur mort tu doubleras ma
joie, s'ils ont souffert une mort cruelle (Artaud, p. 185). Un fait qui est vident dans la scne
finale quand elle est haute dans le char, fourni par Hlios, en attendant l'arrive de Jason pour le
voir insult, humili et dvast.
Selon Anouilh, l'amour est la source de la cruaut, la fatalit et il provoque le malheur et

la misre (Poujol, p. 344). Il a t l'amour qui fait Mde commettre tous les actes de violence
et de mort. Le thme de la vengeance dans Mde d'Anouilh n'occupe pas le centre de l'intrigue
parce que le thme le plus aim d'Anouilh est la rvolte contre le bonheur imparfait. Par exemple,
la scne de tuer des enfants n'est pas violente que celle de Mde d'Euripide. Dans Mde
d'Anouilh nous n'entendons pas les cris des enfants. La scne de Mde de tuer ses propres fils o
des cris terribles se font entendre Au nom des dieux, venez a notre secours. entendez-vous,
entendez-vous les cris des enfants? (Artaud, p.196). La dernire rencontre entre Mde et Jason
n'est pas aussi cruelle et violente que celle d'Euripide et sa vengeance, contrairement la Mde
d'Euripide, n'est pas complte car la fin du drame Mde prit dans l'incendie et Jason continue
la regarder jusqu' ce qu'elle se transforme en cendres et elle ne pouvait pas faire ses ennemis
souffrir la perte et l'amertume de la dfaite.
Mde des deux auteurs est devant quelques options aprs avoir perdu ce qui tait le plus
prcieux. Elle pouvait garder son calme et accepter le petit bonheur ou elle devait se venger,
souffrir ou fait les autres souffrir. Ds quelle n'aime pas la soumission et la concession, Elle
choisit la vengeance qui est un trait distinctif de sa nature d'une femme forte et sans piti. Elle
veut avoir une vengeance parfaite sur ses ennemis. Son meurtre de la princesse et ses enfants
contribuent tous est sa vengeance.
Conclusion
Mde d'Euripide a t rdige en 431 avant JC et en raison de traiter des questions

universelles telles que le sexe, l'exil, la position des femmes, le patriarcat, le soi et l'autre, etc. ...,
un dramaturge comme Jean Anouilh pourrait la transplanter la scne thtrale franaise, mais
avec quelques modifications manifestes aux thmes principaux. Contrairement la Mde
d'Euripide, qui l'emporte sur ses ennemis en chappant tre insulte, humilie et mme punie
pour ses actes extrmement violents et cruels dassassiner, Mde de Jean Anouilh est
compltement dfaite en perdant ce qui est prcieux son cur, savoir ses fils.
Dans Mde d'Anouilh, l'auteur a limin l'lment de l'intervention divine qui pourrait tre
explique par l'influence de la Seconde Guerre mondiale et les catastrophes qui ont suivi et la
propagation de la philosophie de l'existentialisme. Dans Mde d'Euripide, l'utilisation de la
puissance et de l'intervention divine pourrait expliquer la socit de l'poque et les pices crites
par Euripide ont toutes t effectues au cours de la fte de Dionysos qui tait une fte religieuse.
Mde est devenue une criminelle cause de son amour pour Jason. Elle tait pure avant son
arrive Colichis mais son amour lui a contamin et lui a fait commettre le pire des crimes tels
que le meurtre de son frre en le coupant en morceaux et la trahison de son pre et sa patrie.
Jason tait aussi la raison de son meurtre de leurs deux enfants quand il a refus son amour et a
cherch l'amour et lit ailleurs. Le seul motif qui la poussait est de se venger.
Le thme de la vengeance qui occupe le centre de Mde d'Euripide est vaguement abord dans
Mde dAnouilh. Lanormalit et l'altrit de ces deux personnages fminins dans le monde des
femmes sont leur dilemme; ces deux femmes n'aiment pas se conformer aux rgles ou limiter
leur libert et par consquent, elles sont considres comme les autres. L'habilet de Mde
serait un bonheur si elle tait un homme ma rputation ... a t ma maldiction et la ruine
(Euripide: 26), mais cause d'tre une femme ou lautre son intellectualit est une source de
tristesse pour elle. Ces deux femmes sont la fois victimes des normes et des valeurs dans leur
existence des hommes, mais, alors que Mde russit sa vengeance, Mde d'Anouilh choue et
recourt au suicide.
Mde d'Anouilh est un drame de Non et de rsistance en particulier pendant l'occupation

allemande de la France, mais Mde n'est pas l'gal dAntigone parce que Mde tait une femme
violente et une criminelle contrairement Antigone qui a t victime et pure.
Mde d'Anouilh est cruelle qui en se suicidant se dtruit. Sa vengeance ne peut pas tre
considre parfaite comme la Mde d'Euripide, car Jason la fin de la pice ne se soucie pas de
sa mort et continue la regardant tourner en cendres.
Mde dEuripide est ternelle car elle ne meurt pas mais en ce qui concerne Mde d'Anouilh le
temps est ternel parce que le drame se termine avec lui. Mde dAnouilh culmine par le retour
de la stabilit et de l'ordre reprsents par les gens ordinaires qui acceptent de dire Oui la vie.
Rfrences
-Anouilh, Jean. (1976). Mde. Barcelone, Espagne : La Table Ronde
-Artaud, M. (1842). Tragdies dEuripide : Traduites du Grec. Paris : Charpentier. Libraire

Editeur
-Lebel Maurice .De la Mde d'Euripide aux Mdes d'Anouilh et de Jeffers

Reviewed work(s): Source: Phoenix, Vol. 10, No. 4 (winter, 1956), pp. 139-150Published by:
Classical Association of Canada Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1086016 .Accessed:
08/08/2012 08:50Your
-Macdonalds, Marianne (2003). The living art of Greek tragedy. USA: Indiana University Press.
-McLeish Kenneth; Raphael Frederic. Medea by Euripides; Review by: Elin Diamond Theatre
Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1, Ancient Theatre (Mar., 2003), pp. 135-136Published by: The Johns
Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25069184 .Accessed:
08/08/2012 08:09
-Mclntyre, H.G. (1981). The theatre of Jean Anouilh. Great Britain: George G. Harrap and Co.
Ltd.
-Pelling, Christopher (2000). Literary texts and the Greek historian. London: Routledge.
-Tendresse et cruaut dans le thtre de Jean Anouilh Author(s): Jacques Poujol Reviewed
work(s): Source: The French Review, Vol. 25, No. 5 (Apr., 1952), pp. 337-347Published by:
American Association of Teachers of French Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/381850
.Accessed: 06/11/2012 06:47Your
-Pronko Leonard Cabell .The World of Jean Anouilh by Review by: Holly HowarthMLN, Vol.
79, No. 1, Italian Issue (Jan., 1964), pp. 106-107Published by: The Johns Hopkins University
PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3042733 .Accessed: 06/11/2012 06:55Your
-La solitude contre le sens du monde. Jean Anouilh, Mde, ditions de la Table ronde, 1947
(rd. 1997, coll. La Petite Vermillon).
Yoruba Traditional Education Philosophy in the Evolution of a Total Man
Ademakinwa Adebisi
University of Lagos, Nigeria
Abstract
Nigeria as a country is blessed with a large number of literate people: scientists, engineers and
so on, yet the manpower needed to harness its enormous resources should be the natural outcome
of its education system. The paper reassesses the notion which hinges African economic
development on the achievements of its formal education system. The paper, due to this raises
some questions among which are: is development best measured with the yardstick of high
percentage of literate youths? Can we read economic achievements into the quantity of
engineers, scientists and etc. that a nation is able to produce? What ethics predominates in the
conglomeration of African elite to influence African development?
Materials are drawn from the rich stock of traditional Yoruba proverbs while two novels by
Chinua Achebes: No Longer at Ease and T. A. Awoniyis Aiye kooto analyse the ingredients
necessary for the creation of a total man. They also provide veritable socio-political
backgrounds for an adequate comparison of the various concept of education churned up in the
process.
It was established in this paper that traditional Yoruba concept of economic development is at
variance with the modern concepts since traditionally, Yoruba society placed high premium on
human development as opposed to those we term naira and kobo inherent in the modern
concept of economic development. The paper symbolises the failure of the current education
system by its products exemplified by the ill-trained and corrupt elite at the helms of affairs in the
country. The paper reiterates how Nigerians can maintain a symbiotic African traditional
education system and the modern formal one as one of the ways capable of guaranteeing the
formation of a total man. The paper sees the total man as the alternative to currently evolved
individuals that are ill-trained ethically and mentally to fast-track the development of African
continent on the social, political and economic fronts.
The importance of this paper rests on its interdisciplinary assessment and use of African cultural
perspective, literature and myths to analyse the role of culture in African development.
Keywords: Total man, economic development, omoluwabi, education, training
Omo ti a ko ko in Contrast to Omoluabi

Formless as it might seem, the content and objective of traditional African education
system are designed to help the individual to understand his world, fit him into the society and
inspire his sense of duties to himself and the society at large. In spite of the fact that there are no
formal structure created within which individual can read and write, traditional African societies
believed that education hold the fabrics of the society together and they see it as the culture that is
systematically, but consciously passed from one generation to the other in order to improve the
level attained by previous generations.
The seriousness which Yoruba people, if one may zero down to one society in Nigeria
and Africa in general, attach to education is seen in the philosophy expressed in omo ti a ko ko
( the child that was not taught/trained). To the Yoruba people, this is a negative action or inaction
and the result of this portends negative result, not only for the child, but for the society itself in
general. Thus, the Yoruba people believe that omo ti a ko ko ni yoo gbele ti a ko ta (the child
that we failed to build up. Yoruba word ko or to train or to teach has the same connotation
with to build as in building a house) The onomatopoeic symbol is also important as it underline
the fact that if we keep on building houses instead of training the child, the child will in future
sell off the houses as a profligate.
The beauty of this philosophical statement not only lies in its epigrammatic strength, but
on its strong emphasis on the issue of education. The root of Yoruba education is in the word
k, that is to teach or to learn. This is the reason why formal school system is referred to as ile-
eko (the house of teaching or the house of learning). The word ko ko (did not teach) connotes
negative action or inaction and this reverses ti a ko ta (sell off what we built), positive action of
mansion that is sold.
However, to sell off the mansions is not the main issue, the problem being emphasized is
that an untrained child is an irresponsible child or a prodigal, thus, only a prodigal can sell off
his/her parents mansions. Selling off the mansions is also symbolic of the negative tendencies of
an untrained child because an untrained child is an epitome of corruption, laziness, brigandage
and all that is negative in an individual which could ultimately affect the entire society. It is in
this wise that African societies of which Yoruba is one took education very seriously as only a
well-educated child can become, in the word of Timothy Awoniyi (1975:364) an omoluwabi.
Omoluwabi in contrast to omo ti a ko ko is well-educated and thus is a total man
and to be educated in the word of Awoniyi means the individual has been educated to respect old
age, to be loyal to ones parents and local traditions, to be honest in all public and private
dealings, to be devoted to duty and be ready to assist the needy and the infirm, to be an epitome
of sympathy, sociability, courage and itching desire for work and many other desirable qualities.
The Basis of Education in African Traditional Societies

In the view of African colonial masters, African societies have no concept of education
and this is due to the fact that there were no visible formal structures set up as schools to train
individuals. Africans education concept saw education of individuals as paramount starting from
the womb and terminating at a mans death. From what one could garner from Afolabi
Olabimtans Kekere Ekun (1967) and Awoniyis Aye kooto (1973), once a woman becomes
pregnant, the society believes it has a responsibility to encourage the woman to give birth to a
total individual. The naming ceremony is both spiritual and educative, the name is symbolic and
the child is expected to honour and protect the sanctity of that name and ultimately that of the
society at large.
The oriki (praise chant) is one of the safeguards put in place by the society to spur the
child to emulate his ancestors who were omoluwabis (individual of unquestionable characters) .
The mother constantly recites the oriki (the panegyric praise-names of the childs progenitors) to
remind him of his noble ancestry and to motivate him to further surpass the ideal of his ancestors.
On health education, the child is taught early, the necessity of obeying the societal codes on
hygiene. Bed-wetting, for instance, is curbed through simple teaching and other preventive
measures.
On linguistic education, the child is assisted through precepts, examples and
reinforcement to imbibe difficult phonemes. Tongue-twisters, such as: opolopo olopolo ko mo
pe opolo lopolo lopolopo (many intelligent people do not know that frogs have a lot of
intelligence), are part of linguistics education meant to induce the child to be precise and clear in
his speech from youth.
The linguistic education is complemented by the development of the childs intelligence,
thus, he is taught the knowledge of numbering through what Awoniyi calls play-way analogies
such as eni bi eni, eji bi eji, eta n ta gba. The child is also taught how to observe his
environment to know the names of plants, trees, birds and animals as well as the description of
the appropriate seasons.
The Yoruba people place high premium on character-building to prevent their children
from being referred to as abiiko (a child that is born but not trained/ or properly brought up).
However, a child that is trained, but refuses to take to the training is referred to as akoogba (the
one taught but refuses to heed the training) and to traditional Yoruba parents, this is more
tolerable than the former simply because the parents have been vindicated as they have fulfilled
their own part of educating the child and the child is the one that shied away from fulfilling his
own part of the responsibility.
The Curriculum in African Traditional Education

Truly, there were no formal structures or infrastructures where a child could go to learn
all that is stated above as is the case with Western formal school system. The Yoruba people,
however, devised many methods to implement the curriculum designed to mould the child to
become an omoluwabi. In place of formal structures, the whole life is the school and the
teachers are primarily the father, the mother, members of the immediate household and members
of the society in general. The child is encouraged to live what is taught. He is further encouraged
to exhibit courage and endurance. The children are taught by examples.
Parts of the curriculum include moonlight tales, proverbs, folktales, myths and songs.
All this have great functions in the education of children in African traditional society. As
Herskovits (1948:143) affirms, myth, for instance,
Explains the universe andprovide a base for ritual and belief. Tales are often
regarded as an unwritten recording of tribal history. They act not only as a valuable
educational device, but are equally valuable in maintaining a sense of group unity
and group worth. Proverbs which with riddles have essentially old world
distributions, garnish conversation with pointed allusion, help clarify an obscure
reference to one deficient in worldliness, and moralRiddles divert by serving as a
test of wits; they give prestige to the one who can pull with sureness and ease.
Truthfulness is a must teach in Yoruba education, but this is not merely taught, but
practiced, both in private and public life. Stories underlining the results of lying are told during
moonlight tales sessions in the evening and proverbs are drummed into the childrens ears to
buttress the importance of truthfulness. Hard work is equally emphasized. The child is made to
realize early that atelewo eni kii tan ni je (it is only your hand that will not deceive you), and
ise kii pani, aise re gan an labuku (hard work does not kill. It is its opposite that does).
The child is taught the value of dressing. He is taught the essence of belonging to a
social group, thus, in some African societies; the child belongs to age grade group. Here, the
child learns how to appreciate the societys culture, music, dance, traditional songs and so on.
The essential aim of traditional education is to impart knowledge and culture, develop skills and
abilities necessary for the individual to operate effectively in the society. Through education the
individual learns to pursue his own objectives as a means to further societal interests.
The Tragedies Inherent in Western Education System

The very first tragedy of Western School System is to set up a gap between the pupils
and the African society that would benefit from it, thus, the purposes that education should
achieved become obfuscated. The second tragedy is similar to the first one as the young African
children brought through Western school system were taught to hate African educational values.
Underlining both tragedies is the fact that the school was presented to African children as a
separate institution that has no connection to the society. He was thus made to believe that to be
educated was to be Europeanised. Those who did not attend the formal school system were
regarded as illiterate, ignorant, primitive, pagans or heathens. This second tragedy is emphasized
when the educated individual decked in suit and shoes from Paris and London arrived back in his
village and discovered that he was totally alien to his society, especially when the result of
education of traditional society that should contribute to the formation of omoluwabi is seen to
be deficient in him. The society then becomes disillusioned with him.
The final tragedy of Western school system is the emphasis that it shifted from concern
with character and conduct of the individual to the acquisition of certificates and wealth.
Education is now merely seen as the means to social and economic advancement. No school is
concerned with the production of omoluwabi as they rather produce marks, awards, grades and
positions. This is what Ivan D. Illich (1971:1) condemns when he writes that many students are
schooled:
To confuse process and substanceto confuse teaching with learning, grade
advancement with education, a diploma with competence and fluency with ability to
say something newmedical treatment is mistaken for health care, social work for
the improvement of community life, police protection for safety, military poise for
national security, the rat race for productive work.
To complicate matters, theoretical knowledge without the foundation in the culture of

the people has been the nexus of African economic imbalance. Abrogating the culture which
develops an omoluwabi underlines the fundamental tragedy of modern day African political and
economic development.
The economic woes of the continent are traceable to the production of omo ti a ko ko -
the ill-trained or uneducated individuals who are, therefore, not qualified to be regarded as
omoluwabis. Many African political elite are thus drawn from this pool and the result of the
acts and behaviours of these individuals constantly have had resounding implications on African
economic development. The question could be how has this been achieved?
Omo ti a ko ko and African nations Developmental Crises

As stated earlier, the ruling elite in African countries are at best regarded as omo ti a ko
ko simply because the ethical aptitudes, the acquisition of those moral qualities felt to be an
integral part of manhood, and the acquisition of knowledge and techniques needed in order to be
able to play a positive role in life are totally lacking in them. Many of them have laudable
qualities but are deficient in some necessary ones. Only very few possess the qualities that an
individual, educated in African traditional education system could aspire to. In other words, very
few can be regarded as omoluwabis or total men.
The repercussion of this on political and economic development of African countries has
been largely negative simply because as Sekou Toure in Cowan Gray (1965:125) asserts mans
social behaviour and economic activities are directly conditioned by the quality of his
intellectual, moral, political and physical education. Most African countries have been saddled,
from independence, with irresponsible Western educated elites that are lacking in qualities that
can effect positive development in their respective countries. In this wise, we shall look at the
actions and inactions of the elites that portray them as omo ti a ko ko and the result of this on
their communities.
The unscrupulous nature of African political elite becomes clearer with the way they
have deified the cult of nepotism. Nepotism ensured that qualified few are denied appropriate
positions in socio-economic engagement. Most of the times, therefore, square pegs are fit in into
round holes. The problem of the main hero in Aye kooto is unconnected with this:
Some Palm Oil consortium advertised that they needed a Clerk! So what! What is
strange in this? Many of such advertisement had been published in newspapers. At
least, he had written up to sixty application letters on such. But many of such letters
got no response. Some of the advertisers would actually reply, but they would post
the letter on the very day of the interview. That was a trick. Because they would
have conducted interview for those they had in mind before one got the letter. And it
would be too late. This was how life went on in the town of Opeyemi. That was how
they practice truth and honesty.
Sometimes, of course, some of them would invite Opeyemi to the interview. Before
Opeyemi would go to such, he would ensure he was dressed very appropriately. He
would answer all the questions put to him intelligently. But that would be the last of
what was heard of it. At the end of the day, he would hear that some people who
were not even invited to the interview got the job. (50) (Translation mine).
The moral bankruptcy of the elite is equally vivified with the prevalence of corruption in
the African countries. In Achebes No Longer at Ease, the predominance of corruption from the
leaders down to the grassroots is greatly emphasized in the encounter of the main character, Obi
Okonkwo and the policemen on the road to his home town. After the policemen checked the
drivers document and found everything in order, the driver knew he would still need to give
bribe:
Meanwhile the drivers mate was approaching the other policeman. But just as he
was about to hand something over to him, Obi looked in their direction. The
policeman was not prepared to take a risk; for all he knew Obi might be a C.I.D
man. So he drove the drivers mate away with great moral indignation What you
want here? Go way! The driver drove a little distance and stopped
Why you look the man for face when we want give um two shillings? he asked Obi.
Because he has no right to take two shillings from you, Obi answered.
Na him make I no de want carry you book people, he complained. Too too know
na him de worry una. Why you put your nose for matter way no concern you? No
that policeman go charge me like ten shillings.
True to the drivers words, when the drivers mate returned from the policemen, it was
confirmed that ten shillings was taken from him. What irritated Obi was the response of fellow
passengers who saw nothing wrong in the policemens behaviour and actually heaped all the
blame on him. Obis contemplation is still relevant on the Nigerian society of today. In fact, it
underlines the enormous problem of corruption in Nigeria, especially in its match to economic
development.
What an Augean stable he muttered to himself. Where does one begin? With the
masses? Educate the masses? He shook his head. Not a chance there. It would take
centuries. A handful of men at the top. Or even one man with vision-an enlightened
dictator. People are scared of the word nowadays. But what kind of democracy can
exist side by side with so much corruption and ignorance? Perhaps a half-way
house-a sort of compromise. When Obis reasoning reached this point he reminded
himself that England had been as corrupt not so very long ago (40).
The evil of corruption on African economic development can only be adequately dealt
with in volumes of books, suffice it to say, however, that corruption affects all facets of African
development.
What all this points to is the fact that colonialism and its education system failed to
provide adequate platform for African development especially in the area of human resources on
whom the mantle of leadership fell to after the exit of the colonial masters. Many of the new elite
were ill-equipped to jump-start or deal with the urgency of development required for the newly
independent nations.
These elite found it expedient to look for solution to governance from outside. Equally
problematic were, according to J.F. Ade-Ajayi (1995: 42) the external advisers and experts and
their lack of experience in stimulating development in the new African economies. When
they were genuinely interested in developing African economics, they feel their way and they try
to learn from their past mistakes, but they were not willing to acknowledge their limitation
The failure of training is evident by the application of wrong methods to stimulate
African development by the elite. Thus, it is not very rare for the elite to apply prevailing western
development strategies to African economies without taking cognizance of the social, political
and cultural backgrounds that could affect their workability in African environment. These
include: five-year planning, import substitution for industries, export drive, population control,
foreign exchange control, structural adjustment programme, devaluation of currency as
inducement for foreign investment, poverty eradication, privatization, MAMSER, deregulation of
up stream and down stream oil sector in order to stimulate market forces, NEEDS, NEPADS,
LPA and so on. The sad aspect of all these policies is that they have neither been beneficial to the
masses nor brought African economies out of the woods, if anything at all; they have rather
served to shift African economic position from the 3rd to the 4th in the mainstream of the world
economy.
Sometimes the elite also borrow from the Western nations unworkable economic ideas.
They erroneously believe that a nations development is often determined in the light of its
economic standing or on the growth of its GNP or GDP, investment rates, higher savings or rate
of its shares in international trade and so on. This is what one could term the naira and kobo or
dollar and cents econometrics as it symbolises the concept often used by economists to
determine economic development of nations.
As desirable as economic growth is, this growth cannot all by itself spread the good life
to the majority of the population because increased output of goods and services over the decades
had failed to affect the greater part of African population. In fact, in the words of Asante
(1995:5), GDP is one of the most pervasive development illusion and these illusions and
confusions, more than any factors, are primarily responsible for the slow progress that has been
made so far in the developing countries. The concept of Omo ti a ko ko explains better the
whole scenario of African economic development and puts it in proper perspective.
The foundational structure, according to this paradigm is training having in its wide
orbit the issue of self development, self enhancement and self esteem which as underlined in the
selected novels, are lacking in the psyche of African elite that is saddled with the responsibility of
developing African nations after independence. The Yoruba philosophy on education subscribes
to the holistic view of development emphasizing that economic development can never be
achieved without African peoples self-development. This underlines the stance of Walter
Rodney [1972:12] that:
development cannot be seen purely as an economic affair, but rather as an
overall social process which is dependent upon the outcome of mans efforts
to deal with his natural environment.
Development is thus a cultural process involving education, production, consumption

and well-being. It coincides with the theory of scholar like Adedeji who stressed that economic
and material growth should not be viewed as sufficient measurement of development. In the
words of Asante (1995:6), Adedeji believes that the ultimate purpose of development must be
the development of people.
The Sanctity of Omoluabi Concept in Traditional Education

In order to find solution to Africas development problems we would need to look at the
two main novels; Achebes No longer at Ease and Awoniyis Aye kooto. No Longer at Ease tells
the story of a young man, Obi Okonkwo, who is able to get Western education up to a first degree
and he even gets this degree in England. He comes back to Nigeria only to discover that he
cannot meet up with the expectations of his people because, due to his position in the civil
service, they expect him to behave like other elites who live extravagant life and imbibe new
behavior while imitating white men who are about to leave the various posts in Nigerian
establishments prior to Independence.
In order to meet up with the peoples expectation, he succumbs to the pressure of taking
bribe which has become endemic in the society and, in fact, has become the oil that greases the
smooth running of the bureaucratic machinery. At a point, however, he is caught in a set-up while
taking bribe and is eventually jailed.
The second novel is similar. The character in this Yoruba novel is Opeyemi. Quite
unlike Obi Okonkwo, he is trained by his parent to be honest, to always stick to the truth, live a
frugal live and avoid everything that will tarnish the image of his village and that of himself.
After his education, he goes to live with his elder brother in Lagos, but he finds it difficult to get
employment despite his impeccable certificates and good character attestations. He discovers to
his chagrin that to secure employment; he has to give bribe which he is not ready to do. He is in
this condition for many years and his problems become aggravated when his brothers wife, Titi,
who gets her certificates through fraudulent means and is employed, begins to torment him.
She eventually makes life so miserable for him to the point he tries to commit suicide.
He is prevented from doing so when a policeman arrests him. He eventually goes back to his
village where he takes over his fathers cocoa farm and due to his honesty and level of education
he is able to apply modernity to his agricultural method and he soon becomes very rich.
The main focus of the two stories is the issue of training. A point is made that Nigerian
economy has remained in limbo due to lack of training of those handling it. The heroes of the two
novels are two opposite examples. Obi Okonkwo does not receive the kind of deep moral training
given by Opeyemis parent, thus, apart from the education which has become ephemeral in
Nigeria of today, honesty, integrity, home training and high moral standard which are very
important ingredients in traditional education are deficient in the character build-up of many
Nigerian youths.
The novel Aye kooto devotes many chapters to the systematic home training and moral
lessons given to Opeyemi right from the time he is three years old up to the time he leaves his
village of Ireakari to live with his brother, Arowosola, in Lagos. The moral training given Obi,
despite the fact that his father is a catechist is not as endemic, thus, it does not stand the test of
time as it could not withstand the barrage of temptation against his principle of honesty at the
critical juncture of his life. In Aye Kooto (2003:23), the narration goes:
When Opeyemi becomes three years old, his mothers began to teach him how to
respect both old and young.
Ope, prostrate for Dales father. Opeyemis mother thus instructed his son. By
this, Opeyemi learnt how to greet the elders, either men or women.
Agbekes moral upbringing almost became excessive because it got to the etiquette
on eating. Whenever Opeyemi and his mothers or another elderly person were
eating, Opeyemi must not touch meat first. Also, he must not cut portion of food at
another side of the plate. (Translation mine)
One day, Opeyemis mother did not give him a breathing space while they were eating
and the father became exasperated, but Opeyemis mothers response is instructive of the
philosophy behind the emphasis we have placed on home and moral education as a prerequisite
for Nigerian economic development. She says:
a slap here and a slap there bring the sound out of bata drum. This is not what
you should say and you were even blaming me! I cannot consciously allow Opeyemi
to be cutting bolus of food in forms of boulders that even his mouth would not be
able to contain, and also allow him to hurry to cut another while one bolus is still in
his mouth. That is greed. And gradually he becomes used to itIf in the future he is
unable to find heavy meal to eat what would he do? That is when he will become
amenable to corruptionIf today is good and sweet, can anybody guarantee
tomorrow? (Translation mine)
In their argument, Opeyemis mother speaks like a prophetess in her comments on

the future of youths who will definitely leave the roof of their parents in future to fend for
themselves as Opeyemi eventually does. In the case of Opeyemi, he is saved from succumbing to
the moral malaise of the society he finds himself because of the earlier training and the
relationship between Opeyemi and his parents. The mother further states:
You seem to forget that the world is changing I do not wish evil for our son.
But we should be able to train him from now onwards to be frugal and moderate in
everything he does. If the world changes in the future, to the extent that it is the hare
that begins to chase the hunting dog, who will be there with him except what we
have taught him? Some rich peoples children only experience small problem and
they melt away with it, is it not because they did not allow them to experience some
suffering while growing up? (24-25). (Translation mine)
This is just the exact opposite of the relationship that exists between Obi and his
parent. In Achebes novel (1977:122):
Obi felt strangely happy and excited. He had not been through anything like this
before. He was used to speaking to his mother like an equal, even from his
childhood, but his father had always been different. He was not exactly remote from
his family, but there was something about him that made one think of the patriarchs,
those giants hewn from granite. Obis strange happiness sprang not only from the
little ground he had won in the argument, but from the direct human contact he had
made with his father for the first time in his twenty-six years.
What becomes clear in the examination of the two main characters is that Opeyemis
relationship with his parent has been very cordial but underlined with firm parental discipline in
the field of moral. The same cannot be said of Obi Okonkwo. One sees that right from childhood,
Opeyemi combines Western education with traditional system of education and he is thus
sufficiently armed against all the vagaries of the modern society that is highly effete, corrupt and
lacking in moral.
Although the two characters are worthy of emulation, that of Opeyemi is a shining
example of an enhanced human personality who in the word of Adedeji is not alienated from
his society and culture but rather develops his self-confidence in himself and identifies his
interest with those of his society and thereby develops his ability and willingness for self-
reliance. It therefore comes as no surprise that he eventually finds his focus in life when he comes
back to the village to build a business empire founded on honesty and transparency contributing
in no small measure to the economic development of his village.
He is the developed human resources that can contribute to resuscitate and ginger the
desired economic growth in the country and most important of all sustain this growth. The
character of Obi is comparable to those of Nigerian past leaders and present day politicians who
were trained in western education and are lacking in moral upbringing. It comes as little surprise
then that the lack of training of this crop of people is responsible for the way they have frittered
away Nigeria wealth and natural resources willfully and unconsciously.
Recommendation
The only solution for Africa economic development is to find a way to replicate the
character of Opeyemi in Nigerian youths and possibly in the new breed of politicians in African
political terrain. This is obviously an uphill task as the youths of today are already filled with the
get -rich quick spirit which they copy from the past and present looters in positions of power
in their respective countries.
Many parents in Nigeria society of today do not have time to afford their children moral
education as they are busy chasing shadow in the mega cities leaving their children to be trained
by peer groups. It is due to this that the get-rich-quick syndrome has taken new dimension: pool
betting, cultism, lottery racket, 419, trade in hard drug, internal and international prostitution,
Yahoo-yahoo (internet fraud) and so on which are about the only cannon of moral standard
known to Nigerian youths of today. Due to all this, what wonderful economic theories, or what
solutions can anybody proffer to African economic development? And how high can the GNP or
GDP rise to be of benefit to the entire African masses under the management of these leaders of
tomorrow?
Consideration has never been given to manpower requirement of industries in the
curricula of institutions of learning; thus, graduates churned out year after year are generally
regarded as unemployable. On a concrete basis, Industrial and agricultural development in
Nigeria has been stultified by Nigerian elite. Constant electric power generation that is essential
to industrial development has been mishandled by the elites.
An overhaul of Nigerian education policy therefore becomes imperative. It is not as if
one is recommending a roll back into primitivism, but educational philosophy of the traditional
African communities, especially the one that underlined the sanctity of omoluabi should be
incorporated into the modern education systems curriculum from nursery/ primary school to the
universities.
Eradication of illiteracy should be one of the areas that experts could focus their
searchlight on. It is unfortunate that many decades after Independence in many African countries,
a remarkable percentage of the population in these countries are still illiterate. With governance
concentrated in the hand of the few literate but untrained few (the omo ti a ko ko), and the
majority of the people still unable to read or write, African economic growth will continue to be a
mirage. Many scenarios depicted in Alukos One Man, One Matchet (1964:42-43), set before
Independence is still relevant today as it is played out in one varied form or the other even in the
modern Nigeria set-up. On many instances, literate few like Benjamin-Benjamin finds a way to
mislead the illiterate majority.
Premium should be placed on honesty by setting up individuals and past leaders who are
known as epitome of morality and who have served the nation in honesty as role models.
Nigerian government is especially known to extenuate moral decadence and corruption by giving
national honours to crooks, bandits and dishonest figures.
Economists should also endeavour to shift their focus from naira and kobo, cedis and
pesewa, dollar and cent, pound and shilling inherent in GNP or GDP, budget deficits and all
macro-economic plumbline used in Western economics to accommodate that which is very
imperative for the development of African economy, that is, genuine self transformation of
human personae, the rejuvenation of the traditional ethical culture, attitudes to work, savings and
investment habits, concepts on skills, moral and general social system, in short, the creation of
total men.
The Yoruba philosophy becomes a verity because even after experts have propounded
theories and the magic wand to stimulate the economy to record high percentage of GNP, or
GDP, or even record 20 percent growth annually; and even when the country has managed to
accumulate trillions of dollars in reserve and is able to construct infrastructures; the likes of the
World Trade Centres all over the country; if the human resources to manage all this still possess
the psychological orientation of the present elites, the Yoruba educational philosophy will
remain valid because all the efforts will be exercises in futility. The elite will definitely behave
like the biblical prodigal son as all the resources will be stolen and stashed away in foreign banks
while they undersell the infrastructures the same way the present day elite has done and is still
doing under the bogus privatization programmes.
Social scientists, economists and education experts should endeavour to critically
examine the social background vital for the fruition of their old and new concepts and also find a
way of fusing Western and Yoruba education concept on a symbiotic manner. In their researches,
they should constantly have it at the back of their mind that the social atmosphere prevalent in
many African countries today makes the attainment of any economic utopia, if attainable at all, in
the hands of untrained and unscrupulous akotiletas (nonentities born to sell off their
inheritance), a valueless victory. Many of such untrained elite are at the helms of affairs in most
African countries today and if there is no radical shift in the traditional concept of naira and
kobo, they will continue to be at the helm of affairs even in the next millennium and African
countries will maintain their present position in the lowest nadir of world economy.
References
-Achebe, C. (1960) No Longer at Ease. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
-Adedeji, A. (1982) Development and Economic Growth in Africa to the Year 2000: Alternative
Projections and Policies in Alternative Future for Africa, Shaw, Timothey M.,(ed), Colorado:
Westview Press.
-Ade-Ajayi, J.F. (1995) Africas Development Crisis in Historical Context in Issue in Africa
Development, Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at 65 (eds.) Bade Onimode and Richard
Synge. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books (Nig.) Plc.
-Aluko, T.M. (1964) One Man, One Matchet. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
-Asante, S.K.B. (1995) Adebayo Adedejis Ideas and Approaches to African Development in
Issue in Africa Development, Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at 65 (eds.) Bade Onimode
and Richard Synge. Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books (Nig.) Plc.
-Awoniyi, T.A. (1973) Aye kooto. Ibadan: Onibonoje Press.
-Awoniyi, T.A. Omoluwabi: The Fundamental Basis of Yoruba Traditional Education

ed.Wande Abimbola Yoruba Oral Tradition: Poetry in Music, Dance and Drama. Ile-Ife:
Department of African Languages and Literatures, 1975.
-Gray, L. Cowan et al. [eds.] Education and Nation-Building in Africa, New York, 1965,
-Herskovits, M.J. Man and His Works, New York, 1948, quoted by Awoniyi, ibid.
-Illich. D. Ivan. Deschooling Society, London: Calder and Boyars, 1971.
-Rodney, W. (1972) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Dares Salaam: Tanzania Publishing
House.
-Shaw, T. (1995) African Development in a Changing World Order in Issue

Development,Essays in Honour of Adebayo Adedeji at 65 (eds.) Bade Onimode and Richard
Synge Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books.
-The Mirror, Dec. 12, 2007. Mirror Newspaper Publications, p.36
-Vanguard, Lagos: Nov. 15, 2007. Vanguard Media Ltd. pp. 44-45
Le Problme Sociolinguistique Dans La Traduction Franaise Des Romans De

Fagunwa
Gbadegesin Olusegun Adegboye

Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria
Rsum
La situation sociale dtermine souvent le choix des termes et la tournure de la voix au cours
dune conversation entre un locuteur et son interlocuteur. Puisque les comportements des
personnes impliques dans la conversation et les rapports dagir entre eux varient dune socit
lautre, nous disons que ce phnomne est un fait socio-culturel. La culture yorouba vouvoie
pour leffet du respect. Les Franais font le mme geste mais pour leffet de la courtoisie. Les
Yorouba toutoient normalement pour dmontrer un statut distanciel entre le plus ag et le moins
ag, entre le patron et le serviteur, entre le pre ou la mre et lenfant, etc. Pour les Francais, le
toutoiement se fait non uniquement pour dmontrer un statut distanciel mais aussi pour souligner
un rapprochement intime entre eux. Ces diffrences constituent un souci pour le traducteur
littraire et voil la proccupation de cette communication.
Mots cls: sociolinguistique, la tonalit, le problme culturel
Introduction
La langue vhicule la culture. Elle met en dmonstration les moeurs acceptables dans
toutes les strates de la socit. La question qui se pose alors est la langue franaise, peut-elle
traduire la culture yorouba? Les contraintes qui sensuent au cours de la rexpression des
termes illustrs des faits sociolinguistiques dans les romans de Fagunwa montrent que les deux
langues ne peuvent pas salterner parfaitement ni au niveau culturel ni sur le plan linguistique en
raison de diffrence dans les contours sociolinguistiques de la socit. Selon Sanchez (2003:25)
As it is known, any language is born from the need to communicate.that it cannot be cut off
from its society. Cest--dire, la langue est originaire du besoin de communication. elle est
insparable de la socit. Comment la socit sinflue sur le choix des termes en discours est
encore soulign par Peter Trudgill (1974:14). Il identifie deux aspects de lacte du discours dune
langue en occurrence: the function of language in establishing social relationships; and second
the role played by language in conveying information about the speaker. Par consquent, nous
partageons lide de Ronald Wardnaugh (1998:10-11) que: (i) la structure sociale peut influencer
ou dterminer la structure linguistique comme nous verrons plutard dans cette communication.
(ii) la structure linguistique et son fonctionnement peut influencer ou dterminer la structure
sociale dune manire que le comportement dun interlocuteur donn soit orient vers ce qui est
admis dans cette culture. (iii) ltude dune langue donne amne ltude de sa socit. (iv) la
langue prise dans un contexte social peut causer un casse-tte pour le traducteur tant donn quil
doit travailler des rgistres de la langue au sein du contexte social.
En fait, les varits linguistiques quutilise un individu ainsi que les choix des mots pour
communiquer, et la faon dont ces mots est exprime rvle sa situation sociale, rgionale,
ethnique, etc qui varient dune socit lautre. Cette variation constitue un grand dfi que nous
tudions dans cette communication.
Les Changements de Tonalit Perceptible et Les Dfis Sociolinguistiques Dans la

Traduction des Romans de Fagunwa:
Il sagit de la tournure de voix, suite la prsentation orale de lcrivain reprsente par

les personnages choisis dont les rles sont en tandem avec la situation du rcit et selon le style de
lauteur. Ce point sociolinguistique constitue un dfi relatif au fait socio-culturel. Nous adoptons
le systme binaire selon notre raisonnement pour en faire sortir la perception traductrice de deux
langues en question (yorouba/franais) au sein des contraintes socio-culturelles pour traduire le
langage de Fagunwa.
Dans les deux oeuvres Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole (Le Preux Chasseur dans la
fort infeste de dmons) et Ireke-Onibudo (La fortune sourit aux audacieux, Fagunwa se pose
comme rdacteur du rcit. Il ralise cette tournure par lemploi de la premire personne du
singulier. Akara-Ogun ou Ireke-Onibudo est le raconteur de lhistoire aussi en premire personne
du singulier. Nous reconnaissons les changements de tonalit surtout dans les termes de
prsentation du raconteur sous la forme suivante.
Du ton mchant au ton gentil:
Le mchant est toujours adversaire du gentil. Trs souvent, le mchant parle avec frocit
alors que le gentil se comporte paisiblement. Loriginal prsente le discours galant au
comportement de son personnage avec les termes culturels de la langue; la traduction fait le
mme geste mais avec une certaine lacune:
Exemple 1: Iwo ko mo pe emi ki ise ara aiye ni ndan? Oni ni mo ti isalu orun
de! Tori tire ni mo tile se wa pelu, mo wa lati pa o ni: ibikibi ti o wu ti o si le sa
de loni, afi bi mo pa o dandan (Ogboju Ode p.3)
Traduction: Tu ne sais pas que moi, je ne suis pas un tre humain! Cest
aujourdhui mme que je suis arriv des cieux! Je suis venu cause de toi; je suis
venu juste pour te faucher la vie. Quoi que tu fasses, tu nchapperas point la
mort aujourdhui, car je tiens te tuer (Le preux chasseur p.5)
On se demande si le ton mchant de loriginal est justement reproduit dans

la version. Le traducteur prend kii se ara aiye pour ne suis pas tre humain. Donc, pour
lui ara aiye est tre humain et celui qui nest pas de la terre nest pas tre humain mais ce
nest pas tout ce qui vit sur la terre qui est tre humain. La force de la peur que cre wo k m
p mi k se ar aiy est au sens de la voix dun gnie trrible et non tout simplement dune
crature tombant par terre. Encore dans la phrase: mo ti sl run d, Isalu orun dans ce sens
nvoque pas lespace visible au-dessus de nos ttes non quelle parle de sjour des bienheureux
aprs la mort. Cet agresseur vient du Dieu de jugement sans injurier sa misricorde. Evidemment
le mot ciel nest pas suffissant pour la traduction disalu orun.
La phrase dclarative de la mission du gnome: mo w lti pa ni nattend pas un ton

diffrent. La restitution du traducteur: je suis venu juste pour te faucher la vie est un cart du
ton de loriginal. La phrase affirmative du devoir sinistre de cet homme trange: Afi bi mo pa o
dandan montre que le gnie ne blague pas avec sa victime. Ceci ne se fait pas dans un tat
affectif mais dans un tat menacant, lpe la main.
Fagunwa est trs apte changer le ton selon son personnage. Le ton mchant que prsente
le gnome devient gentil chez sa victime. Considrons la rponse du pre dAkara-ogun devant la
mort.
Exemple 2: Loto bi mo ti ri o yi mo mo pe ara orun ni iwo nse, ida ti osi wa

lowo re pelu, ida ati ta ijamba fun mi ni, sugbon sibe emi be o, mo si fi Olorun
Alaye fi o bu, ma sai so ohun ti mo se fun mi (Ogboju Odep.3-4)
La Traduction: A vrai dire, ton apparance me renseigne que tu es des cieux

et je vois aussi que lpe que tu tiens cest pour me blesser; mais quand mme,
je te prie au nom de Dieu apprend moi pourquoi je mrite ce malheur imminent
(Le preux chasseur p.5)
Dans cette citation, on imagine la victime demander la clmence. Nous reconnaissons les
expressions du ton gentil telles que: emi be o; mo si fi Olorun Alaye fi o bu (be o), ma sai
so ohun ti mo se fun mi. La premire expression emi be o na aucun apport la version car
pour le traducteur lon peut apervevoir le sens dans la deuxime phrase: Mo si fi Olorun Alaye
fi o bu pour devenir je te prie au nom de Dieu: La partie non traduite est un porteur du ton
gentil qui nest pas au mme niveau que la deuxime phrase. Elle est au nom de lhomme alors
que la deuxime phrase est au nom de Dieu. Cette ide ne se voit pas dans le ton de la version.
Cependant la locution fi b est mal employe dans loriginal mais reformule dans la version
pour tablir quelle ne veut pas dire maudite mais demander pardon.
Apprends-moi pourquoi je mrite ce malheur imminent, la traduction de M s so

ohun t mo se fn mi est du ton gentil; mais labsence de la touche affective de m s rduit la
force de cette gentillesse dans la version sur le plan du sens, lon remarque que lexpression est
sous-traduite. La phrase de loriginal: ma sai so ohun ti mo se fun mi trahit un ton plaideur que
la version atteint difficilement. A vrai dire, faucher la vie du quelquun est un malheur mais ce
nest pas la seule cause du malheur dans la vie pratique. La victime veut tout simplement savoir
pourquoi il mrite la mort.
Le ton injurieux face la traduction
Linjure fait partie de la vie culturelle. La culture youruba ne nie pas cette notion. En fait,
tout injure lanc en yorouba doit tre qualifi ou compar une chose pour avoir les fins
impressionnantes. Fagunwa prserve le ton injurieux de cette culture et maitrise bien son emploi
dans la situation culturelle approprie. Nous pouvons aborder lexemple suivant. Il sagit de la
conversation entre le chef de la fort et Akaraogun.
Exemple 3: Alakori oku orun, bo ji ko ni iwe, bo yagbe ko nu inu idi, gbogbo ara
re n da orun pani, ehin re gbogbo npon koko
Iwo yi tun nbu mi laiye yi! Iwo bi ara dudu fafa, iwo bi oku opolo
yi.(Ogboju Odep.8)
Traduction: Bougre, personnification de puateur; il ne se lave gure, il nest pas

habitu faire attention sa toilette; il est partout et toujours porteur de salet
puante; regardez, ses dents jaunissent dj.
Toi aussi tu te plains de moi. Toi qui es aussi noir que du charbon et dont
lapparence physique ressemble au cadavre dune chtive grnouille. (Le Preux
chasseurp.13)
Le segment qui suit chacune des expressions injurieuses explique pourquoi la victime
mrite tre injurie de telle manire. Elle est Oku orun cest--dire Personnification de
puanteur parcequelle ne fait pas attention sa toilette. Le corps devient aussi noir que le
cadavre dune grnouille en raison de salet. Considrons sous forme de double restitution,
certaines expressions injurieuses dans loriginal et leurs versions dans la traduction:
Alakori/Bougre; oku orun/personification de puanteur, bo ji ko ni iwe/il ne se lave gure; ehin re

gbogbo npon koko/ses dents jaunissent dj; iwo abi ara dudu fafa/Toi qui es aussi noir que du
charbon; iwo bi oku opolo yi/Toi dont lapparence physique ressemble au cadavre dune chtive
grnouille.
Alkor parle de lhomme dpourvu de bon sens; un homme qui ne suit pas la culture de
bonne conduite. Bougre dans un terme familier veut dire gaillard ou margoulin au sens
large. Nous disons que la version imite loriginal dans la mesure o tre bougre souligne une
conduite anti-culturelle. Mais le sens du terme (alkor) touche aussi la personnalit de
lhomme.
Au sens gnral de la locution, k rn est une expression ddaigneuse qui ne veut

pas dire en principe se couvrir de chose puante dans la culture injurieuse de yorouba. Cependant,
tudier des lments injurieux autour de cette expression; la version: personification de
puanteur ne peut pas se prendre pour sous-traduction mais lide directe de loriginal qui nest
pas ncessairement dans lesprit de la culture de loriginal..
Nous reconnaissons le changement du point de vu entre la culture de loriginal et la

version. Par exemple, dans le troisime segment Bj k n w parle de ne pas se baigner le
matin avant de sortir. Pour loriginal, le matin est normalement le temps spcifique pour prendre
son bain alors que pour la version, prendre son bain est une activit que lon peut sexercer
nimporte quand. La traduction de la phrase comme il ne se lave gure nest pas dans le
raisonnement culturel de loriginal mais peut-tre, dans le jugement du traducteur que si lon ne
se lave pas chaque fois quil se leve, il se lave rarement. Dans le raisonnement culturel de la
version, laction de se baigner ne se limite pas au matin. En fait, on se douche au moins deux fois
par jour dans la culture de la version.
L o loriginal emploie le terme qualificatif pour dcrire ltat dune chose, la version ne
trouve pas le terme assez suffissant pour le traduire comme nous lavons dans la quatrime
classification. Koko dans ehin re gbogbo npon koko dcrit ltat de salet de dents du
chasseur comme remarqu par le troll. Les dents qui doivent tre normalement blanches
deviennent gravement jaunes comme celles de lhomme qui mange de noix de cola, fume une
pipe de tabac et aprs tout il ne se brosse pas les dents. Ladverbe dj employ pour remplacer
ce mot (le mot koko) est trs loin de la ralit du sens du mot et du culturel de loriginal.
La rponse injurieuse dAkaraogun au troll traduit bien la culture de comparer les

lments de linjure une chose. La version capte bien ce style malgr le fait que la tournure est
implicite dans loriginal. Iwo abi ara dudu fafa attend des termes compars que la version
compense et restitue comme Toi qui es aussi noir que le charbon. Le charbon remplace fafa
en fonction et au dgagement du niveau de sens. On remarque que fafa qualifie dudu mais sa
traduction littrale sans une reformulation sabaisserait le mouvement du rcit. Puisque la version
ne trouve pas un mot analogue pour le terme fafa, le recours la comparaison pour la phrase
simple est une option bien choisise.
Iwo b k pl yi compare le personnage un cadavre dune grnouille. Limage

dune grnouille morte dans loriginal prsente au lecteur une physionomie laide du personnage.
Pour la version, il faut une dscription concrte de la physionomie du personnage pour ressortir le
sens cach dans loriginal. Il nous parait que loriginal est abstrait alors que la version Toi dont
lapparence physique ressemble au cadavre dune chtive grnouille est concret et explicatif.
Nanmoins lapparence physique ressemblant au cadavre dune chtive grnouille perd la
force implicite du culturel de loriginal dans la traduction. Nous passons un autre trait de ton
yorouba et sa traduction en franais.
Le franais face lincantation yorouba:
Lincantation est une formule magique chante pour obtenir des efffets surnaturels.
Lincantation est une rcitation magique accompagnant une chimie ou un grisgris. Elle est parfois
prcde du sacrifice comme nous lavons dans Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmole. Aprs avoir tu
un pigeon pour sacrifice, Imodoye rcite lincantation dans les termes suivants:
Yiye ni iye eiyele, dide ni ide adaba lorun

yiye ni ki o ye Kako loni dandan (Ogboju Ode .63)
Traduction: La vue du pigeon sucite le respect et ladoration ; la colombe est

toujours assure dune vie paisible, de mme, le sort de kako le conduirait
ncessairement la gloire aujourdhui (Le Preux chasseur. P.103
Lincantation apartient la posie orale. Cest le patrimoine culturel du yorouba. La

version de lextrait ci-dessus nous tente croire que lincantation yorouba ne peut pas se traduire
par le franais. Evidemment, la traduction ne fait que donner la description affective du pigeon et
de la colombe. Lon ne remarque gure lexpression incantatoire dans la version. La contrainte
qui se pose dans la traduction de lincantation yorouba au franais est du fait que le franais ne
connait pas le monde de lincantation dans les termes et les moyens du yorouba malgr le fait que
le monde de magie se partage par toutes les cultures du monde.
La version face la politesse:
A travers le personnage de son oeuvre, Fagunwa sait changer du ton dun vaillant celui
de lhomme saisi de peur. Par exemple:
Tani enyin wonyi? Nibo ni e tiwa? Nibo ni e sin lo?... e se giri, ki onibante san
ibanntengo haan yin lemo loni (Ogboju Odep.61)
Traduction: Qui tes-vous?...prparez-vous pour une bataille acharne. Celui qui

veut porter le caleon, quil le fasse vite vous serez menacs ici tout lheure
(Le preux chasseur p.100)
Chaque mot du langage porte une signification. La signification culturelle est smantique.
Wonyi dans Tani enyin wonyi? porte un sens drisoire lauditeur adress. Il signifie
galement que lmetteur du message se comporte beaucoup plus fort et suprieur ses auditeurs.
La traduction Qui tes-vous? pour cette question ne prend pas compte de cette analyse psycho-
culturelle.
De la mme faon, les questions Nibo ni e tiwa? Nibo ni e si nlo? ne servent rien
dessentiel la traduction, donc lomission. Ces questions portent des marques de supriorit et
du ton du vaillant. Leur omission dans la version est une perte. Ng hn yn lm ln
dpasse menacer Lautruche-agresseur est prt de fortement troubler les voyageurs dOke-
Langbodo. Dans lexplication culturelle d eemo, eemo est capable de faucher la vie de
quelquun ou de linfliger dun mauvais sort. Par consquent menacer na pas la mme vue
culturelle et significative qu eemo selon notre tude du message.
A travers le hros du roman, nous remarquons le changement du ton de lauteur dans une
circonstance pertube. Cest une demande pour la clemence. Jowo fi mi sile nko ni pa agborin re
mo (Ogboju Ode p.23)
Traduction: Laisse-moi en paix, je ne tuerai plus tes cerf (Le Preux Chasseur p.36)
Ici, nous remarquons par lemploi de limpratif du verbe laisser le remplacement dune
demande passionne pour la libration. Le personnage craint la captivit et la punition qui lui
viennent en raison de son tir du cerf appartenant au troll mchant dans le trou de la colline. La
version, laisse-moi en paix pour jw fi m sl rsonne plutt comme ordre quune prire.
La traduction dmontre que la victime a une force dominante sur son agresseur alors que
loriginal tablit lincapacit de la victime se debarrasser de la personnalit qui la pig et par
consquent implore la clmence de celui-ci. Le problme qui sensuit dans la traduction de cette
phrase est du fait que la culture yorouba favorise la politesse alors que la culture franaise prne
la courtoisie. Nanmoins, lindice de la politesse: sil vous plait ou sil te plait pris avec le
verbe liberer ou laisser restituera mieux lesprit de loriginal dans la traduction.
Lexpression de distance sociale:
La conversation entre Ireke Onibudo et Arogidigba est exemplaire de la relation

distancielle entre le serviteur et le roi dans la traduction yorouba. Le ton du serviteur est de
soumission et dobissance. Celui du roi est dautorit et de pouvoir. Voici cette diffrence dans
des exemples suivants.
Le serviteur: Kabiyesi mo si fe ki e mo pe bi ekute ko ti lagbara niwaju ologbo

be na ni nko lagbara niwaju yin, bi agbonrin ko si ti le se nkankan niwaju
kinniun ni nko le se nkan (Ireke Onibudo p.66)
Le roi: ise ti o nilati se fun mi ni eyi, ki ile ola to suu o ni lati mo ile kan ti o ni
yara mejila ti o si ga ni ese bata mejila si iwaju ile mi yi, bi oko ba e see ngo
pao (Ireke Onibudo p.66)
Traduction:
Le serviteur: Votre majest, devant vous, mon impuissance ressemble bien
celle dun rat devant le chat, elle ressemble bien aussi a celle du cerf devant le
lion (La fortune souritp.57)
Le roi: Voici ce que je te propose comme tche, dici vingt quatre heures et
justement avant demain soir, tu dois me cconstruire, devant mon palais, une
maison douze chambres dont la hauteur sera de douze mtres; si tu narrives
pas le raliser, je te devorerai(La fortune sourit p.57)
Par les deux exemples, nous avons distingu le ton du serviteur de celui du roi travers
des termes choisi. La traduction fait le mme geste en reproduisant le sens pour son lecteur.
Cependant, certains lments de loriginal se voient peu importants dans la version. Alors que ces
lments font partie de la valeur et du niveau de dignit de la personne en question dans
loriginal. Par exemple, llocution, mo si fe ki e mo pe est une expression qui dans la
tradition yorouba, incite linterlocuteur prter attention au discours du locuteur. Cette pression
culturelle de prsenter avec politesse et soumission sa dfense devant une grande personnalit
comme roi manque dans la traduction.
La rptition dune phrase ou dun mot a pour but de mettre laccent sur une ide afin de
convaincre lauditeur. La rptition de la formule ngative, bi ekute ko ti lagbara et bi
agbonrin ko si ti le se nkankan tend avoir dinfluence sur la demande de clmence au roi que la
prsentation affirmative de la version.
Nous savons que la souris est une proie pour le chat ainsi que le cerf pour le lion. La
comparaison de la victime la souris et au cerf devant leurs captifs tablissent limpuissance du
serviteur (rk) devant le roi (Argdgb). Cette notion est bien capte dans la traduction grce
la comparaison directe.
Nous remarquons le ton autoritaire du roi dans le deuxime exemple. Il donne lordre
obir, dans ce cas, par la victime. Ce nest pas une proposition comme cela est prsent par la
version. Cest une obligation que doit effectuer la victime sil veut se sauver la mort entre les
mains du roi. En fait, dans le contexte culturel yorouba, le roi est dieu du deuxime rang. Son
discours est toujours incontestable. La contrainte que lon observe de la version est du fait que la
culture moderne de la langue rceptrice nest pas si absolue.
Lvaluation de la bonne manipulation de la tonalit surtout dans un texte littraire est

base sur la bonne articulaton de loralit. Le message est mieux apprci et compris quand le
lecteur arrive lire comme penser lauteur. Le ton, grce aussi lintonation, du narrateur est
diffrent de celui de lauditeur, celui du mari nest pas aussi doux que celui de la femme. De
mme, le ton de linfrieur est normalement de soumission alors que la voix dominante
sexplique dans le ton du suprieur.
Comme nous lavons remarqu, les difficults tmoignes au cours de traduire la tonalit
de loriginal au franais sont originaires du problme de transcodage culturel. Le fait que les deux
langues ne partagent pas la mme psycologie du raisonnement culturel fournissent pourquoi
Olaoye Abioye adopte lapproche dynamique qui sans doute nest pas dpourvu des dfis
analyss.
Rfrences
- Fagunwa, D.O. (1949): rk-Onbd, Ibadan, Nelson Publishers.
-Fagunwa, D.O. (1950): gbj Ode Nn Igb Irnmol Ibadan, Nelson Publishers Ltd.
-Fagunwa, D.O. (1989): Le preux chasseur dans la fort infeste de dmons (traduit par Olaoye
Abioye), Lagos, Nelson Publishers Ltd.
-Fagunwa, D.O. (1992) La fortune sourit aux audacieux (traduit par Olaoye Abioye), Lagos,
Nelson Publishers Ltd.
-Nida, E et Taber, C.R (1971): La Traduction: Theorie et Methode. New York, United Bible
Societies.
-Trudgil, Peter (1974): Sociolinguistics- An Introduction, Harnmondsworth. Penguin Books.
-Sancez, M.T (2003): Translation and Sociolinguistics: Can Language Translate Society? dans
International Journal of Translation, U.K
-Wardhaugh, Ronald (1998): An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers

Ltd.
The Choice of Diction as Empowerment for Marital Freedom: A Study of

Selected Divorce Registers in a Nigerian Newspaper
Harrison Adeniyi
Lagos State University, Nigeria
O. Rachael Bello
Lagos State University, Nigeria
Abstract
For some time now, the female gender has strived to make an impression in the supposedly male
dominated world. Consequently, several methods ranging from symposia, workshops,
conferences, publications to appeal have been adopted to find a position for the female in the
globe. In all of this, both the verbal and non-verbal means of communication are adopted. In
Nigeria today, the woman has succeeded in finding her voice both in marriage and even outside
marriage. Thus, contrary to what used to exist especially in the Northern part of the country and
especially among members of the Islamic religion, talking about marriage and the rights of the
woman, the women by their choice of diction now can determine their lot in wedlock and their
choice to be let loose of the marital bondage. In this paper, we explore how the Nigerian female,
through her choice of words, not only make her intentions known but also succeed at persuading
her listeners to understand her plight. In doing this, we examine the divorce discourse of The
Punch Newspaper between 1st January 2012 to 29 September, 2015. Adopting Engbergs (2010)
second role of language for specific purposes, we unravel how the Nigerian females in the
divorce dilemma combine discourse features, established through cultural knowledge and social
background to fight her course. As suggested by Engberg, (2010) therefore, it was discovered
from the analyzed data that the basic assumption lying behind the subjects choice of diction is
marked by the characteristics of the participants in the communication business and the purposes
pursed by the female participants. Apart from their use of metaphors, simile, analogy rhetoric,
concession strategy etc., the female participants in this register also appeal to emotions. Such is
the case with one of the informants claim: Please, I still need him; he is the father of my child;
dont separate us. Also discovered in the data is the diction of common knowledge as well as the
diction of abstraction as found in: I am always available for his sexual satisfaction, but he does
not respond.
Keywords: Marital Freedom, Saturday Punch Newspaper, Diction, Empowerment, Divorce
Registers
Introduction
The concept of language change in society may be conceived beyond being a natural to a
needed phenomenon among language users today. This is especially so when we consider the
post-structuralists view that mans linguistic identity is fluid. The Nigerian woman, in a bid to be
relevant and socially vindicated, adopts language to make a point in the divorce register. In this
paper, we explore how the Nigerian woman creates for herself a voice to be acknowledged by
men on one hand and the entire society on the other. Our understanding of this linguistic
creativity goes beyond the popular and possibly over-flogged issue of womens liberation to
being what we have referred to as marital disentanglement via diction. Such choice of words
ensures not only emotional freedom but also helps to eradicate social disintegration which usually
accompanies divorce in this part of the world.
We are not ignorant of the fact that several bodies not excluding individuals consider the
liberation of women as confrontational, unhealthy, anti-social and even ungodly. However, if we
consider Po-Vi-Lius (2013) submission that language in many situations dictates the power we
have in relation to our other colleagues and partners and to other people in society, then we will
understand that our informants careful though purposeful choice of words and expressions in this
discourse is a needed tool to either retain their positions in marriage (in situations it is the men
who want the divorce) or to avoid societal stigma which usually goes with divorce (in instances
where the woman herself demands the breakup). In this paper, we see empowerment as an act of
making someone stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming
their right.
Background to the Study
Marriage in Nigeria is neither as transparent nor as rigid as what obtains in the

Ethiopia community. In Ethiopia, for instance, women cannot marry before they are eighteen.
Similarly, the men cannot marry until they are twenty-two. There are no such rigid rules in
Nigeria. The Nigerian female could marry as early as her family or even men around recognize
she has the feminine features. Thus, some females get married at ridiculous ages such as age
twelve or even below. These are ages where she cannot be said to understand the language of
general communication let alone understand the marital language. Similarly, some men could
also get themselves entangled before the age of reasoning. The implication usually is that apart
from the economic and emotional immaturity of such young married ones, we also recognize
linguistic impoverishment that may afterwards result in their inability to keep the marriage alive
or keep alive outside the marriage (by withstanding societal criticisms that accompany divorce).
Furthermore, while sanity could be relatively maintained in Ethiopia considering the

grave punishment that follows misconduct by either of the parties, the Nigerian woman is usually
at the mercy of both the husband and society as far as enjoying marriage vows is concerned.
Following this, she tends to linger on irrespective of odds, afraid of being labeled.
Theoretical Framework
In this paper, using Engbergs (2010) view of language for specific purposes, we expound
how the informants (Nigerian women in divorce discourse) employ language contextually for the
purpose of registering not only their intentions but also their human rights. Engberg (2010) views
language for specific purposes as aspects of actual communication in specialized discursive
domains. He recognizes two poles of the field. The second pole on which this research is
anchored is closely connected to the concept of specialized meaning. In his words:
The center of this pole is the concept meant by the German term fachsprache, i.e.
domain or subject specific language. This concept lays more weight upon the
specialized meanings constituting a domain and upon the relations between these
meanings and the linguistic choices conventionally made by the agents of the
domain this view is more discourse oriented in its approach (p. 144).
Our choice of this model is because it has its roots in sociology and dialectology.
Consider how Engberg (2010: 144-145) puts it:
This study leads to an early interest in global model of communication in specialized

settings combining text internal and text external factors in the descriptions and
focusing upon global explanations including and combining discoursal features,
relevant knowledge, and social backgrounds rather than just finding specialized
elements of the discourse.
We like Engberg see language use in this domain as being specialized. The understanding
of the texts and the possible interpretations arrived at by the different participants are hinged on
their sociological perception. To Engberg, the degree of specialization of a text and,
connected to that, the relation between senders and receivers in a communicative situation
concerning their respective levels of expertise is traditionally seen as a crucial factor when setting
up models for specialized communication. (P. 14). The informants examined in this study adopt
various styles to register their intentions.
Literature Review
Marriage takes place in Nigeria under three legal systems namely: common law (civil or
statutory law), customary law and Islamic law. The issue of polygamy is gradually becoming less
pronounced in the country although the men could still keep mistresses outside wedlock. It is
worthy of note that most marriages under the customary and Islamic law are polygamous. Most
Christian denominations still prohibit divorce, hanging on the biblical injunction found in I
Timothy 3:2, 12 and Mark 10:2-9. For marriages that hold under the common law, the
Matrimonial Cause Act says that a divorce may be granted to the petition if the marriage has
broken down irretrievably.
A given marriage is said to have broken down irretrievably under certain conditions
such as non-consummation of marriage, adultery, a party deserting the marriage etc. Many
reasons ranging from adultery, impotence of the husband, ill-treatment and cruelty to the
womans barrenness may lead to the conditions that bring about divorce. Surprisingly, however,
women could be divorced if they have no male children. It must be mentioned here that the rates
of divorce have increased in the country in recent times. In this paper, we examine how women
through their choice of diction in the divorce travail either retain their positions in the family (by
fighting against divorce) or maintain a stigma-free status in society.
Methodology
Data which relate to marriage and divorce were collected from The Punch newspaper
between 1st January 2012 through 29th of September, 2015. The Punch, also the publisher of
Saturday Punch, is the most popular Nigerian dailies. In fact, it is believed to be second most
read newspaper. It is a national paper which presents Nigerias events of interest. It publishes
more than 125,000 copies daily distributed to parts of the country. It also has an online version of
the newspaper which can be read anywhere in the world. The paper dedicates a section to divorce
issues in Nigeria in its Saturday editions. Such discourses are representative of all speech
communities and religions in Nigeria.
Data Analysis
To analyze the data, we draw a link between the informants choice of words and socio-
cultural underpinning of the Nigerian people. In doing this, we first present the sample after
which we examine how the discourse signals relevant knowledge and suggests possible logical
direction to which the listeners should take.
Sample A
Also, he has made advances to all my friends including my
siblings. He sleeps around with anything in skirt no matter
the age, even those old enough to be his mother.
Saturday Punch, Feb. 9, 2012
That was the ordeal of a 44 year old woman who had been married for 25 years but would
want the marriage dissolved. It is common knowledge to expect that a woman who had
endured for that long in marriage should hang on till death. However, the informant, through her
choice of diction, appealed to reasoning, here, presenting the danger that lies in staying a day
longer with a man who who could sleep with anything in skirt. The implication, therefore is
that much more than committing adultery, the said husband could rape as well as sexually molest
a female, irrespective of her age as long as she is in skirts. No sane society would want such a
man around. The reference created of the man is more of a criminal than a husband. The overall
generated message of this discourse therefore goes beyond listeners knowledge of the meanings
of the words. Its understanding could be related to Sullivans (2010) concept of causal theories of
reference and meaning. To him, the causal-historical theory is an externalist approach to
reference, in that reference depends largely on factors external to the speakers head-factors,
pertaining to the speakers linguistic community and to the environment in which the expression
in question evolved (p. 42).
It is little wonder therefore that, the mother of four, having empowered herself through
her choice of diction could tell the court that it might sound awkward to dissolve her 25 year old
marriage but that she knew what she was doing.
Sample B
My baby is two months old and I have not seen him for some
time; he does not come home; even when the baby was sick,
he did not show up. Instead, he calls me to abuse me that I should
keep going about with a stupid court letter. His family does not care
about me and the child either. His mother says she does not want me
in the family because my mother sells herb
Saturday Punch, Dec. 15, 2012.
The use of speech in a distinctive way such as we have in sample B above creates a
special effect. The list of activities or highlighted characteristics of the object of discourse in
sample B is an example of innuendo. Innuendo is conceived as saying something without saying
it, often implying something negative, through allusion or insinuation.
The wife, in Nigeria, most often than not is not expected to challenge her spouse let alone
accuse him especially in public. In fact, in some communities, the woman has no right to partake
in or contribute to any family discussion, especially when a third party is involved. Anything
contrary is seen as insubordination. This informant, however, overcame this challenge through
metaphorical sense. No responsible man, for instance, would abandon a two-month-old baby
when he/she is well let alone abandon him/her when he/she is not well. Thus, although the
aggrieved wife is prevented from calling her husband names due to social norms, she made her
listeners understand the message by her use of innuendo.
What is more, she increased her attempt of empowering herself by stating that the family
detests her because to them, her mother sells herb. Herbs in Nigeria serve a number of functions.
They are used as prevention or cure for ailments. They could also be needed for some
supernatural effects. It is usually believed that the herb seller has some supernatural power and
could inflict sickness or doom on an enemy or rival as the case may be. Following this
background knowledge, the informant implies a number of things although these have not been
clearly said by her.
It is no news that the Nigerian community places much importance on procreation. As a

matter of fact, one of the major reasons members of the community go into marriage is to have
children. It is not surprising therefore that supplications such as: May your children surround
your table; We will come to rejoice with you in nine months time are heard on wedding days.
If, however, prayers are unanswered, the woman usually is blamed for being unproductive.
Consequently, in a bid to retain her position in the home on the one hand, and her social dignity
in society on the other, she takes responsibility for the couples inability to beget children. It is
thus expected of her to cooperate with her partner, in-laws, and the society all the way, whatever
it will cost her. She thus carries the burden which may actually not be hers. Today, however,
women react differently. They would either not accept total responsibility for barrenness or
choose to live their lives whether or not the babies do come. The informant in Sample C below,
for instance, did the unimaginable of a Nigerian woman looking for the fruit of the womb.
Consider her:
Sample C
She urged the court to dissolve the marriage, adding:
I cannot continue to endure in an unproductive marriage
and with a man that has no respect for his wife.
Saturday Punch of 28th of September 2014.
How dare her. A number of sociolinguistic implicatures could be derived from the data.
Contrary to what society expects, she publicly posits that her husband and not her should be seen
as being responsible for an unproductive marriage. Following this claim, she would not mind a
divorce. Furthermore, the pragmatic meaning derivable from the clause, I cannot endure with a
man that has no respect for his wife is that of the woman conceiving of herself first as a human
being before being a woman. What is more, another pragmatic implicature is seen in the man
being presented as the indirect agent of non-productivity. How do we, for instance explain the
informants submission that though the marriage had not produced any child yet she was fed up
with her husbands harshness.
Nigerian women, today, do not see marriage as an end in itself. Before now, the Nigerian
woman would rather die of frustration than have a broken home. To fail in marriage was almost
like a taboo. But there is a sense of liberation enjoyed relatively today. In the words of one Mrs.
Bamitale Damilola Adeniyi (interviewed by P.M. News of Nov. 11, 2011), when asked what a
woman should do when the man insists on divorce:
If a man wants a divorce, the woman should give it to
him
if she still cherishes her life. That means the man is
already
operating on high level. A woman cannot force herself
on a
man; it will be like a dog living in a lions den.
Sample D
This informant, who herself filed for a divorce on the grounds that her pastor husband (a
General Overseer) is fetish and adulterous adopts two major discourse strategies to register her
intention that of being liberated from a marital bondage. The first major method adopted by her
is analogy rhetoric whereby she argues through parallel cases. Consider the cases as presented
below.
Case 1
The informant told the court that her husband took a church member to a
hotel in Enugu.
Three lexical choices of the informant help register some message. Their choice may not
be unintentional. The first lexical choice is church-member. In analogy rhetoric, the listener is
expected to deduce the unsaid from the said. The idea of a pastor having carnal knowledge of his
church member could be likened to Gods accusation of the shepherd ill-treating the sheep during
the period of the Prophet Jeremiah. What is more, the said Pastor is presented as nurturing a
hotel rather than his church or home. The gravity of the offence is revealed in the fact that a
pastor of a church at Sango (a city around Lagos) traveled to as far as Enugu (a city in the Eastern
part of the country) to commit adultery.
Case 2
The lid blew off my husbands escapades when he mistakenly
brought home the traveling bag of the concubine he took to the
undisclosed hotel in Enugu.
There have been many struggles by different groups to liberate women all over the world.
While the different efforts have supposedly liberated women from the domination of their male
counterparts, government laws and education marginalization, they have surprisingly not been
able to liberate the woman from the domination of social expectations. From our analyses,
however, it is certain that women in the marriage divorce discourse adopt tactical rather than
confrontational strategy to state the obvious. In case 2 above, for instance, the informant presents
the man as not being as smart as society believes of the male gender after all. How will anyone
explain why he would bring a wrong bag from a supposedly journey as long as presented?
Case 3
The embattled wife claimed that her step-son urged her to hire assassins
to kill her husband (and of course the step-sons father) but she refused
the advice.
Although case 3 is incongruous to cases 1 and 2 above, it is relevant in reflecting the

informants innocence and affirming the genuineness of her claims.
Case 4
She pleaded with the court to dissolve her marriage on the
grounds that it lacked love, stressing that her husband whom
she said possessed a PhD charmed her.
The weapon of argument employed by the plaintiff in this case lies in making her
audience draw the link between somebody holding a PhD and his being involved in charm. The
two ordinarily should not be on a par. The argument, therefore, is that we do not expect a PhD
holder to be associated with magical powers whose authenticity cannot be proven especially
when such a PhD holder is also a pastor.
Case 5
I did not know my husband had nine children with his other wife
before I married him. I was already four months pregnant before
I discovered he had nine children. There was nothing I could do
` at that point, she said.
Case 5 is a follow up on the previous cases. The informant aimed at empowering herself
through her choice of lexis enough to be fred from the stigma which ordinarily accompanies a
woman or anybody at that who rubbishes a man of God. To ensure this, apart from adopting
the analogy rhetoric, the informant also employed the concession strategy. Concession is an
argumentative strategy whereby a speaker having presented some cases leaves the hearer to judge
by himself. The judge in court could not do otherwise than submit that the defendant (the Pastor,
General Overseer) had acted contrary to what is expected of clerics like him living above board
by showing good examples.
(Cases 1-5 were taken from Saturday Punch of August 31, 2013)
Sample E
She said, My husband is a shameless man. He slept with my best
friend. My husband is a womanizer. I caught him making love to my
best friend in her house. I refuse to employ any house help again as
he has turned them into sex machine. I stopped making love to him and
I stopped washing his clothes when I always discovered sperm in his
boxers.
Saturday Punch of August 24, 2013.
This is the blunt and raw declaration of a defendant whose husband had asked that their
12 year old marriage be dissolved on the grounds of alleged threat to life and lack of respect for
the plaintiff. As a form of defense, the defendant adopts taboo language. What does it matters
anyway, the embattled married Nigerian woman may ask.
In Kottaks (2001:269) view, culture is an attribute not of individuals per se but of

individuals as members of group. Thus, culture is transmitted in society. The members of a
community are therefore guided by some norms. These norms are necessary to regulate
members behaviour to ensure peaceful co-existence among them. It is a taboo, for instance, in
Nigeria to employ vulgar language especially in public. We notice a disregard for such norms in
Sample E above. This may not be unintentional. The informants choice of diction may not be
unconnected with her aim to register her disregard for a custom that sees the woman as an
instrument, a slave to be driven around in matrimony.
Sample F
In informant Fs words: What my husband said is true, I always beat
him but I do not know what usually comes over me whenever I did that.
Some unknown spirits push me to do it. I still love my husband and I want
the matter to be settled amicably. I do not want to leave him and I promise
that I will never beat him again.
Saturday Punch of August 24, 2013.q
The specimen above will ordinarily send a shiver down the spine of a Nigerian male adult.
This time not necessarily that of fear but rather of indignation. The social import of a working
Nigerian home lies in the mans ability to provide for the members of his family, dictate the
lifestyle of the inmates and possibly physically assault his wife. These features typically
characterize homes which are totally anchored on the Africans beliefs concerning the marriage
institution and how it should be run. Certain practices are taboo in the society. For instance, in
the Igala community, it is an abomination for a man to hold a broom to sweep let alone do this
where women are present. Whats more, it is an inhibition, a ban that the wife should beat her
husband. Society in its entirety frowns at this. The informant, in order to escape the social
stigma that accompanies her action and inaction appeals to emotion. In her words, she is being
controlled by some unseen spirits and still loves her husband. What a dilemma.
Sample G (i)
Ibrahim is a hot tempered person, he gets angry at the slightest
provocation, she said, adding that even when I am pregnant he
beats me.
Saturday Punch 28th September, 2015.
Sample G (ii)
I bought a motorcycle (okada) for my husband to use

for commercial purposes but he stays at home and does
not work. He later sold the motorcycle without my consent
and I do not know what he used the money for, the estranged
wife said.
Saturday Punch 28th September, 2015.
There is truly no doubt that the state of the mind of the speaker or writer places some
constraints on the quantity or quality of words he/she uses in discourse. The fact however
remains that even at this, the norms that guide participants of a given community in discourse still
stand out. The import of language use in this domain (where the estranged wife defends the
superiority of her proposition irrespective of what society dictates) is noticeable. She prevailed
against the socio-cultural variables that ordinarily affect the production of discourse. The
informants choice of the present tense form of the word beats against the past tense form of beat
is significant to the overall meaning and messages derived. The assumption is that the husband
even outside court has the tendency to beat her in pregnancy. To complement this is her
systematic presentation of herself as a being capable of providing for the family, having the right
to decisions taken in the family and a major partner in the business running of the family. These
propositions cannot be obviously stated except they are woven round a discourse for the audience
to digest just as she had done in the text. By her use of language, she has established the
proposition that whoever controls the language controls the culture. Language as used by this
informant is intended to perform a communicative act. This intention is better understood by
considering Osoba and Sobolas (2014:208) view that:
Every utterance made by a speaker is meant to perform

an action that is changing the reality of the situation
in context. It is the performative function or illocutionary
act of the speech acts. The outcome of a communicative
act is the action carried out as a result of the utterance,
which is illocutionary result.
Sample H:
She said, My husbands smoking habit is uncontrollable.

It is so worrisome that he smokes cigarrete even in our
Bedroom not minding my presence.
She went further to say that:
He derives pleasure in wining and dining with friends not
minding me and the children
Saturday Punch, September 14, 2015.
Contrary to the informants husbands expectation that his wife should endure
matrimonial abuse all the way (in his words, my wife knew I smoke cigarrete before she agreed
to marry me; so I cannot understand why she is now complaining about my smoking habit), the
informant brought in reasoning beyond the generally expected proposition of the Nigerian
marriage domain. The basic observation in sample H above lies behind the the way discourse had
been written as characterizing the ideology of the informant in this communication process and
the purposes pursued by her. The recent law in various parts of the country that forbade smoking
in public and in the presence of children could have helped somewhat in empowering the
informant. The idea, therefore is that as much as language and culture are interwoven with the
latter being the carrier of the former, members of a society actually make-up the elements found
in the culture. Thus, if language changes, we expect norms and practices of the culture in
question to equally change. Marriage is about living and not existing irrespective of cultural
norms that dictate behavior and reasoning. This informs sample I below:
Sample I:
My Lord, I want an end to this marriage because I see no
reason in enduring with a man that value cigarrete smoking more
than his wife. Continuing, she said, my husband will even
at times, smoke in our bedroom and sitting room, polluting the
whole environment and making it uncomfortable for living, she said.
Saturday Punch, Jan 18, 2015.
It is observable how the wife tied their inability to have children to her husbands
excessive smoking habit although she did not categorically express this in words. Consider the
newspaper report. According to her, their marriage was contracted in 2011 and had yet to
produce any child, Successful communication is guided by a number of factors among which is
tactfulness. By her conscientious choice of words, this informant adopts favourable linguistic
discernment thus presenting her argument to be strong enough to convince her Lord, the court
president, without saying things that would upset societal laid down norms and values.
The study of language for specific purposes (LSP) goes beyond being an applied
linguistics to being the application of appropriate means of interaction. Language intelligence or
better still communicative intelligence which transcends one having abstract linguistic knowledge
to his/her understanding circumstantial principles needed to register his/her intention without
offending the other party is demonstrated by the informants. This informs sample J below:
Sample J:
Everyday he beats me silly and he says he is a Christian, she said
Saturday Punch February 9th, 2012.
The two lexical items that catch the addressees attention in the text J are silly and
Christian. Much is expected of the addressee to deduce of the character and personality of the
actor (i.e husband in question as well as his act. Silly is used in this discourse does not
presuppose simple, unsophisticated or ordinary. Rather, it could connote which are pitiable,
deserving compassion, helpless on one hand and semiconscious on the other hand. The ambiguity
created by the speaker may not be unintentional. As a matter of fact, the word silly may be
erroneously taken as a slang item. Generally, we see the discourse as a departure from the normal
models of communication. The discourse is actually selective. This selectivity we tie round
Titscher et als (2000) three stage selection process which consist of the components of
information, utterance and understanding. The information process relates to the selection from a
(known or unknown) repertoire of possible themes just as the word silly suggests from these
various options, the addressee is expected to decipher what is indicated. The third selection of
understanding brings about a change of state in the reliever. The court president, for instance, is
left to read as many meanings as possible to the item. Similarly, by her use of the item Christian,
the informant creates several images in the minds of her audience, the court president inclusive.
A Christian is enjoined to make peace and be at peace with all men. What do we make of a
supposed Christian who beats his wife silly everyday?
Our informants choice of words may not be divorced from the pragmatic impulse
informants want to propel. Firth 1957, maintains that normal linguistic behavior is meaning effort
directed towards the maintenance of appropriate patterns of life. Our informants sometimes use
particular lexical items to reveal the negative roles played by their actors. The implication is that
the overall contextual meaning of such chosen words says a lot about the person being talked
about, the way he perceives himself, his roles in society (i.e.in the marriage domain) and his
relationship with one other members in the marriage domain. Consider sample K.
Sample K:
My husband is a pathological liar, it was after ten years that

I know that the woman he called his cousin and her children
are his wife and children, she said.
Saturday Punch, July 13th 2013.
The relations that exist between the items pathological and lie transcend that of
collocation to semantics. If colocation suggests the harmony that items keep I discourse such that
the mention of one almost immediately suggest the other(s) in the family, then we could hold that
pathology and liar belong to different families. We may, however, be wrong after all if we
consider the insanity that lies in the misrepresentation of identity displayed by the man of
discourse in text K. The informant sees him (her husband) as being not only a liar but also
somebody who has deviated from a healthy, or normal condition. Much is implied here.
Language does much more than to express a speakers view or opinion. To Oyetade (2015), it
also helps in fostering an enabling environment for human development. What the informant
unknowingly has done in this discourse is to unearth the taken-for-granted behaviours in marriage
which could in the end bring about values that may jeopardize the family at one end of the scale
and the entire society at the other end of the scale.
Conclusion
The findings of the work show that the Nigerian woman attempts to empower herself
through her choice of diction, bearing it in mind that society itself through its customs and
practices bury her in challenges which usually accompany marriage and demands in the country.
We see this as a healthy development. The idea is to set the Nigerian woman free of what Egbo
(2010) presents as gendered language practices which can affect the overall life chances of girls
and women. Egbo goes on to say: In many parts of the world, access to certain kinds of
language and discourse is often associated with increases in life chances which are a friction of
two elements options and ligatures. (p. 450). We hold that though the Nigerian woman already
has formed bonds by virtue of her immersion in the Nigerian culture (ligatures) she has options to
reject negative societal dictates through her choice of diction. It is clear from the foregoing that
the success of the struggle for womens liberation may not be race, class, or even group
motivated but rather through individual diction. The women examined in this study and by
extension every woman in this category want to be loved and respected for who they are as
people, and not as some purchased materials. What the informants do indirectly is build upon the
victories of the womens liberation movement of the sixties through their choice of diction.
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History, the Historian and Historical Society of Nigeria @ 60: The Journey so
far and the road ahead
Emmanuel Osewe Akubor

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Abstract
Available evidence has shown that History is recognized all over the world as a source of
enlightenment and development. This is because as a collective memory of a people, history
attempts to bring to the fore the salient and significant part of events that occurred in the past,
which could be utilized in building a peoples prosperous future. It is therefore not surprising
that every human society, no matter the level of enlightenment and advancement, has placed
optimum priority to the bequeathing of a "useable past" from generation to generation. This was
the most probable reason behind the establishment of the Historical Society of Nigeria by a
group of Historians some sixty years back and the insistency on the teaching of history in
schools. However, this paper argues that years after the attainment of Independence, the story
seems to be changing (negatively). Data obtained from primary and secondary sources were
deployed to carry out the study with an analytical and narrative historical method. Findings
indicate that the acclaimed role of history as the vanguard of the Nigerian society has been
crippled by some forces, actors and factors, while the historian have been rendered almost
irrelevant in the society. This, the paper intends to interrogate. The paper thus concludes that if
the much needed is not done by both the individual historians and the Historical Society of
Nigeria, the road ahead may be bumpy and rough for history.
Keywords: Nigeria, History, Development, Nation
Introduction
History is as old as the human society, and this is appreciated even more when seen in the
light of the fact that all human beings are products of History. It is in line with this that it has
been described as both the human past as well as the sum total of human experience (E.H.Carr,
1961, Y.B Usman, 1977, Y. Mangvwat, 1990, 1992) . The importance of history in any society is
reflected in the fact that, every society no matter how primitive has a special place for it. It is
therefore not surprising that History is recognized all over the world as a source of enlightenment
and development. In this way as a collective memory of a people, it attempts to bring to the fore
the salient and significant part of events that occurred in the past, which could be utilized in
building their prosperous future (this is because it is not static). This have been summarized thus
The human past (history), by its very nature embodies a process, it embodies
cumulative human experience that is both variegated and dynamic in nature. The
human experience (history) as past and current reality consists in its fundamental
essence, of a process (including forms, patterns and structure) of relationships
between man and nature. This idea implies and involves movement (exchange). The
man-man and man and nature relationship takes places in the framework and context
of time (A, Mahadi, 2008).
A critical analysis of the above view shows that every human society is part of history and that an
understanding of the dynamics of the human society can only be attained when situated in
history.
History and the Historian: A Conceptual Clarification
The relationship between History and the Historian has been described as one that is
inseparable and which is beyond the mere comprehension of man. This is because the historian is
on a daily basis trying to understand a process which he is part of (i.e; he is part of the process he
is studying (Carr, 1961). This is so complex that removing one from the process making it
incomplete and useless. Y.B Usman, (1977), described the relationship thus:
The person with a perception of history who is studying history has been produced
and moulded by history. And he is involved in looking at what has produced and
moulding him. It is much more complex and fundamental thing than the study of
rocks and plants, for exampleThere is no distance between the student of history
and society and the subject of his study in the same way, as there is between the
geologist and his rocks, or the biologist or medical scientist with bacteria. The
Chemist who is studying a chemical reaction has a distance from it which the
molecules in the reaction do not have, and can never have. The student of history is
like a molecule studying a permanent reaction which is producing it
From the position above, the paper opines that the historian is that individual who engages
himself in the critical and analytical understanding of the relationship between the past and the
present. This position is considered meaningful when viewed in the light of the working and
arguments. For example, the views of Collingwood (as cited in Carr, 1961 ), posited thus;
The philosophy of history (as practice by the historian) is concerned neither with
'the past by itself' nor with 'the historian's thought about it by itself', but with 'the two
things in their mutual relations'. (This dictum reflects the two current meanings of the
word 'history' - the inquiry conducted by the historian and the series of past events
into which he inquires.) The past which a historian studies is not a dead past, but a
past which in some sense is still living in the present.' But a past act is dead, i.e.
meaningless to the historian, unless he can understand the thought that lay behind it
(emphasis is mine)
History thus can be seen from and discuss at two levels by scholars i.e., History as the sum total
of changes humanity has undergone since the emergence of human society ( this has been
described by Carr, as the relationship between Man and Man on the one hand, and Man and the
Environment on the other (The Process of History). The study of these changes and experiences
is also known as History. In this way, History as a study, which is an academic discipline,
saddled with the responsibility of documenting (critically), the changes that has taken place in the
human society (i.e., the constant interaction between the Historian and his facts). However, the
word Historiography which now has its own history and which is at times described simply as the
art (or science), of writing history, is used here to refer to different but closely related kinds of
historical activities (Carr, 1961:30, Mangvwat, 1990, 1992) .
In his analysis, Afigbo (1980), gave a summary of history thus;
.....the discovery and critical analysis of historical source; the reconstruction and
description of the past on the basis of facts queried from the discovered sources;...
the construction, on the basis of the ascertained facts of some general theories,
which gives meaning and inner logic to the known past, or to most of it, as well as
serves to educate and ascertain society as a whole or even helps to influence aspects
of contemporary public policy or action; and the reflection on the trends and patterns
of historical writing.
An analysis of the definitions above will show that, while it is generally agreed that
historians in this part of the world have tried in the first two aspects of the above definition, they
cannot deny the fact that there is failure in the third and fourth definitions. This is based on the
fact that the teaching and study of history has not been given the desired attention.
Historicizing History in Nigeria up to the eve of Decolonization
The study and teaching of history in Nigeria (as in other countries of African) as an
independent and autonomous focus of scholarship has been argued to be a recent development.
This was because up to the eve of late colonial period, Western historians believed and argued
that Nigeria (indeed the entire Africa, south of the Sahara), had no civilization and thus no
history. They insisted that even if there were events of a historical nature, such a history was
unknown and unknowable, since African societies, for the most part, were non literate and as
such left no records that historians could study. Such was the main content of the uninformed and
jaundices statement by George Hegel, when that;
It is manifest that want of self control distinguishes the character of the Negroes.
This condition is capable of no development or culture, and as we have seen them at
this day, such have always been. For it is no historical part of the world; it has no
movement or development to exhibit
A more systematic and fairly detailed account of such denial of history and progress was
made by Dame Margery Perham, a doyen of colonial historiography. Comparing Asia with
Africa, M. Perham (1951), wrote:
In Asia, there are great areas of cultural and religious unity and of common pride on
the inheritance of ancient civilizations. These people have brought their historic
culture through centuries of subjection to western influence with their deepest
element still violate.the dealing with Tropical Africa and the West must be
different. Here, in place of the larger unities of Asia was the multi cellular tissue of
tribalism; instead of an ancient civilization, the largest areas of primitive poverty
enduring into the modern age. Until the very recent penetration by Europe, the
greater part of the continent was without the wheel, the plough and the transport
animals; almost without stone houses, or clothes; except for skins, without writing
and so without HISTORY (emphasis is mine)
In a similar manner, in the task of denying the existence of history in the area (as in other
African countries), Professor Hugh Trevor Roper categorically declared that before the arrival of
Europeans only darkness existed in Africa; and that darkness was not a subject of history (A
Marwick, 1970). His position as well as those of other like Perham were basically to justify the
conquest and colonization of the continent, a process which began with African historiography
as dominated by European traders, travelers, as well as missionaries and other adventurers, whose
accounts of Africa, was generally tendentious and Eurocentric. Thus European conquest and
domination spawned a new era of colonial historiography that justified European imperialism and
espoused the ideology of a savage Africa in need of European civilization and tutelage.
The Eurocentric school maintained the above position despite the fact that available
evidence showed that Africans had their way of documenting events which are considered
historical, which formed the take off base for African scholars during the decolonization period.
In this way, the writing of African History by African academics can be traced back to the period
when most African countries were struggling to regain independence from colonial rule. The first
set of African historians during this period busied themselves with seeking to demonstrate that
the continent had a very rich historical past of which they can be proud of. Thus, the era of
decolonization and the immediate post-independence years saw the emergence of group of
scholars who vigorously rejected this Eurocentric and anti-African historical epistemology that
privileged civilization and written sources as the only rational bases for historical scholarship,
which also denied the possibility of civilization and history to small-scale and non literate
societies dominant in Africa. The emerging scholars using an array of sources, successful showed
that Africa not only had a history but that its history and the writing of it date back to ancient
antiquity. They pointed to the existence of works by ancient and classical writers, who wrote
about Africa, even though their writings were considered unsystematic. They also argued in
favour of Islamic and Arabic writings on the area, which constituted first- or secondhand
accounts of African states and societies, which was vital in understanding the dynamics of
development in the area over time and have continued to prove valuable for scholars of African
history. In his analysis, O. Ikime, (1977), put it thus
This concern invariably involved a certain denunciation of the kind of history which
had been written about Africa by European scholars, travelers and the like. The Kind
of History which emerged from this generation was one which sought , more often
by implication rather than direct statement, to inculcate in the African who read or
was taught it a certain pride in his race, in terms of how the African ordered his
social and political life, in terms of the economic activities which supported the
socio-political edifice, and in terms of the creative and adaptive genius of the
African. Within the context in which they wrote and taught, that generation of
historians was fulfilling an essential political psychological and intellectual function.
For it is a well accepted tenet of historical scholarship, that the historian can only
work within the context of the expectations of his society at any given time.
It is in line with the above that the paper safely argues that period and process of
decolonization and independence came the era of nationalist and liberalist historiography which
rejected the notion of a barbaric and static Africa without history. This was championed by
what is today known in Nigerian history as the Ibadan School of History, which re-invented
African history and African Historiography, with the intention of shaming the racist notion that
Humanitys oldest continent was a place without a past. This singular but notable act made
University of Ibadan to become the Mecca for scholars of African History all over the world as it
sought to restore autonomy and initiative to the Africans, as well as authenticity and
respectability to the historicity of the African past. In this way, the school and other emerging
scholars rejected the privileging of written sources; it also argued for and adopted the disciplined,
rigorous, and corroborative use of a variety of sources and multidisciplinary methods from
archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, linguistics, and art history to oral traditions. K.O. Dike
(1965), graphically captured the situation thus:
The decided change towards a new African historiography came with the movement
towards independence. African nationalists rejected the European appraisal of their
past. They demanded a new orientation and improved educational facilities to effect
this reappraisal. With the establishment of new universities in Africa, it was
inevitable that the teaching of history and the training of African historians would
receive a new impetus.
This team of academics as led by K.O. Dike and Abdullahi Smith continued to encourage
historical scholarship and research. The immediate evidence of this apart from the development
of the Ibadan School of History was the emergence of various Historical Research Schemes such
as the Benin Historical Research Scheme, the Yoruba Historical Research Scheme, the Northern
Historical Research Scheme, the Eastern Historical Research Scheme, the Kenneth Dike Aro
History Project, Lagos Project, Rivers State History Project, and the University Centre of Hausa
Studies, Kano (A. Smith, 1969, J.F. Ade-Ajayi, 2008, G. Kwanashie et al, 1987)
Historical Society of Nigeria and Nigerian History
In the Nigerian area, the struggle to establish the richness of African history led to the
establishment of the Historical Society of Nigeria in 1955. This made it the oldest registered
professional academic association in Nigeria and the first of it type of organization to exist in
Nigeria. Its main focus is the promotion of Nigerian and African history globally. It does so
through research, publications, conferences, seminars and training. Prominent among its
publications are the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria and the Tarikh series. The HSN
also has to its credit several book publications on various aspects of Nigerian and African history.
Furthermore, the society has acted as midwife to several other affiliated organizations that share
similar aims and objectives. Apart from the relatively new Bonny Historical Society, there is the
vibrant Students Historical Society of Nigeria, which exists in many tertiary institutions in
Nigeria. The HSN has continued to nurture and provide guidance to these other affiliated
organizations. It is to the credit of the founding fathers of the HSN that the structures they erected
over five decades ago have continued to be relevant in spite of the suffocating stresses and strains
that confront the discipline and practice of history. In 2005, the Historical Society of Nigeria
celebrated its fiftieth anniversary at the University of Ibadan from where it all began.
The Society has since inception the desire to promote historical awareness of members of a
given group or society. This is appreciated more when seen in the light of the section 4(1)
Constitution of the Historical Society of Nigeria (HSN) provides that the aims and objectives of
the society shall be To vigorously promote, support, strengthen and uphold the study of Nigerian
History and historical scholarship (Constitution of the HSN 2007). Another sub-section goes
further to include as the societys raison dtre the promotion of an enduring sense of history and
historical consciousness amongst the citizens (Constitution of the HSN 2007, s4(4). In other
words, its focus is not just professional academic practitioners but the entire Nigerian citizenry.
Historicizing the nexus between the emergence of the new school of history and the Historical
Society of Nigeria, O Yakubu and C.B.N Ogbogbo (2006), argued thus,
The school was characterized by its overt Nigerian nationalism and it was geared
towards forging a Nigerian identity through publicizing the glories of pre-colonial
history. The school was quite traditional in its subject matter, being largely confined
to the political history that colleagues in Europe and North America were then
rejecting. It was very modern, however, in the sources used. Much use was made of
oral history and throughout the school took a strongly interdisciplinary approach to
gathering information. This was especially true after the founding of the Institute for
African Studies that brought together experts from many disciplines. There was some
friction between the Ibadan School and the Africanists in Britain and the U.S.. The
Africanists felt that the Nigerian scholars should be more objective and less involved
in current politics. However, the quality of the methodology and scholarship of the
Ibadan scholars was never questioned. Conversely the African scholars of the Ibadan
School saw the American and British universities as bastions of imperialism.
Nationalists shunned the western based Journal of African History in favour of the
domestic Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria.
In line with the above position, M Oladejo (2014) historicizing the achievements of the society
wrote:
The synthesis of historians would have been incomplete without the Historical
Society of Nigeria, established by Dike and H.F.C. Abdullahi (Abdullah Smith) to
provide a stable and reliable medium to present historical findings. It was the
workshops organized by this society that enabled the publication of the two books
mentioned earlier-Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries as well as A
Thousand Years of West African History. With the HSN, there came the need to
regularize the presentation of Historical findings through journals. This brought
about the Journal of Historical Society of Nigeria (JHSN) in the 1960s. The HSN
became a body for Historians to distinguish the outcome of research in history from
other disciplines.
History, the Historian and the Danger Sign-post: The Nigeria Experience
A clear understanding of the situation in which the historian and history finds themselves
today can only be understood once scholars are able to grasp clearly the idea behind the teaching
of history as established by the founding fathers of the department in Nigerian university. They
emphasized the building of critical and analytical minds. In the document establishing history
department in one of the first generation universities, the objective is stated thus;
The basic objective of the history teaching programme is to give a thorough
grasp of Nigerian history and historiography, placed firmly in the context of African
history and historiography and of historical movements of the world significance
from other continents. The purpose of this is to make the students comprehend the
historical forces and developments which have shaped and are shaping the lives of
the peoples of Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world. And at the same time,
develop in the student the commitment and capacity to consciously relate to these
forces and developments in ways which foster Nigerian and African unity and
independence. (A.B.U, Zaria, 1977, University of Ife, 1962, 1978/79,
Usman, Y.B, 1977).
The above is not completely different from those of other history departments established during
that period. However, in the opinion of this paper have been relegated to the background and
discarded in most universities and the society in general.
Society, Government and the Strangling of History/Historian
Years after gaining independence, history that would have remained the major tool for
nation building, was neglected and the teachers dispersed into various directions in search for
greener pastures. In the first place, the quest by the Nigerian government to join the league of
scientific and technological developed nations of the world made her to pay less attention to
history. This was based on the belief that history has no role to play in quest for optimum
increase in technological capacities. Thus, While developed parts of the world were depending
on the lessons of history to develop these capacities, the governments in Nigeria, felt that it did
not need history to develop this as such the attempt to scrap history and replace it with other more
technologically innovative courses. The result was that history was seen as a useless, or at best a
not-so-useful discipline. A Akinwale (2015) specifically points to the period from the late 1970s
and early 1980s, when under the guise of transfer of technology phrase, the Nigerian people
were made to believe that arts subjects especially History and literature were not as important as
science subjects. The position of the government on this issue was specifically made clear in
1983, when the then Minister of Students Affairs argued thus:
The country now needs technological and result oriented education so
as to prepare for the future. America and Russia did not go to the moon
by studying history, philosophy, English language etc, but did so by
encouraging technological growth (Nigerian Statesman, 1983)
Under this situation greater emphasis was being laid on technical education in Nigerias
policy of education. In the opinion of A Akinwale (2015) this marked the beginning of policy
failure as the nation needed the so called not-too-useful subjects for nation building and
integration. This marked the beginning of the war against history, which is not only impacting
negatively on the historian, but the nation at large. In line with this and the disappointment this
has brought on the people and national development and integration, A Akinwale (2015),
continued thus
Forty year after the rhetoric and policy of transfer of technology and the attendant
marginalization of arts in our education, we have schools where History and
Literature are no longer taught. We have bred, and we continue to breed, a generation
of Nigerians who neither know the history of Nigeria nor possess the ability to
analyse a discourse. Gather ten Nigerians below the age of 45, and you would be
extremely lucky to find one who studied history in secondary school. Today we have
a generation that will most probably go down in history as the most unfairly treated
in Nigeria, a generation that represents the pitiable state of Nigeria
In a more categorical term O Ikime (1977) , had noted this much earlier thus:
Any government which allows itself to be persuaded at this state of our development
to neglect historical research in pursuit of science and technology will find that
science and technology, excellent weapons as they are for the boosting of the
national ego, do not on their own necessarily create the nation. For a look at the
really advanced technological nations of the world, will reveal that these nations first
attained true nationhood, before they set their tracks for rapid technological
advancement. America, Japan, China, Britain these all first had to go through the
turmoil of nation-building before they attained their greatest height in science and
technology
Apart from the shift from and gradual neglect of history from the late 1970 early 1980s, the
government at various levels from the 1980s began to wage war on those teaching history and
related courses, as they began to feel threatened by the perceived emergence of young idealists
and Marxists, who stood up to them to condemn the loss of focus of the founding fathers of
independent Nigeria. To these set of people, the historians and their allies came to symbolize the
revolution and change. To the administration, the basis of the teachings of some of the early
universities (especially history) was too radical and uncompromising (for example, the vision of
University of Ife encouraged independence of academic enterprise and selfless public service).
This was exemplified by the staff recruited and scholars nurtured in the of faculties Arts and
Social Science of the University of Calabar, Ibadan, Ife and Zaria as well as their contributions
aggressive anti-imperialist incursions and commitment in other parts of African continent
especially Southern Africa (Kukah, 1999). This led to situation in which teachers were either
threatened or were deported on the ground, that they were inciting students against the
government or inculcating subversive ideas in students (A. Abba, 2006).
The Journey so far and the Road ahead: Any Hope?

In the present day Nigeria, it is no longer news that the study of history especially in
secondary schools has been relegated to the background and crying to be salvaged from the
erosion of extinction. In most cases students are forced to offer government in place of history.
The case of Lagos state is a good example, where history has been deleted as subject of study
from school curriculum, while Osun state in 2002, engaged in mass sacking of History teachers
from schools. At the Junior Secondary School level, Social Studies have been introduced to take
the place of History, while the teaching of Social Studies have been hijacked by Social Scientists
exclusively for the National Certificate Examinations and B.Ed students, with no acquaintance at
all with historical orientation (Ade-Ajayi, 2008). Omolewa (1987 cited in Bello, 2012), argued
that these actions are taking place years after independence, the idea behind it is still in line with
the idea of the Western world to deny the black world a place in history, as was the case before
the coming of Historical Society of Nigeria in the late 1950s. The scholar opined thus:
a consistent assault on history teaching at the first tier of the secondary school
curriculum, by a highly inspired group from the United States. The history of the
liquidation of history as a subject in the junior schools began with the United States
agencies-assisted Ohio project, Ayetoro project and lately the Comparative
Education Studies and Adaptation Center (CESAC)towards confiscation and
condemnation of Africas histories and futures
The above situation has thrown the teaching and study of history in modern Nigeria into
problems, so much so that unlike the early scholars who were ready to ensure good governance,
the present day students give lots of excuses why they cannot study history. For example,
students are complaining about the wideness of history syllabus, the dearth of capacity,
committed and genuinely interested teachers as well as the perceived uselessness of history as a
subject. it is therefore not surprising that this situation has given birth to scenario in which the
study of history at the tertiary level suffers great hemorrhage. Thus in the first place only a very
few candidates are qualified to and are interested in studying history; secondly, out of the few
that are studying history, many are reluctant candidates who sees the acceptance to study history
as a means of getting into the university system, with the view of abandoning the course for more
lucrative ones after the first one or two years. In some other cases, as a way of luring students to
study history, the content of the history curriculum have been watered down under the guise of
departments of History and International Relations, History and Diplomacy, History and Public
Administration, History and Strategic studies etc (J.F.Ade-Ajayi, 2008). In line with this, O
Yakubu and C.B.N Ogbogbo (2006) argued thus:
Historical studies have been the subject of a brutal assault by successive Nigerian
governments in the past two decades. Historical studies have been virtually
extinguished from Nigerian primary and secondary school curricula. At the tertiary
level some departments of history, in the quest for survival, have put on the toga of
international relations and at other times diplomatic/strategic studies. Prominent
among them are the universities of Benin, Lagos, Uyo and Ambrose Alli University.
The impression is that history can no longer survive on its own. The situation is
indeed tragic. All these are the product of ignorant but deliberate government
policies. In the guise of promoting science and technology, which is erroneously
conceptualized as the only engine of development, there has been deliberate
undermining of the humanities, which have history as their core.
The consequence of the above has been summarized thus by A.O.Adesoji

The apathy or neglect, which the study of history suffers in contemporary period, is
no doubt without its consequences. The seeming confusion in our society, the
unbridled desire for power and its attendant consequences and more importantly, the
inability to learn from the past experiences (which has made the society prone to
repeating past mistakes) are the consequences of neglect of history
The immediate impact of the above is that the dreams of the founding fathers of Nigerian
independence as well as the hope of the people that struggled for self determination from the
colonial masters have been dashed. The situation is such that even years after the collective
struggle for independence, the differentials which Nigerian accused the colonial administration
still exist among us and even new ones are being introduced. Thus the differences in socio-
political institutions between groups are still used as index of development or lack of it, resulting
in different treatments being meted to such groups, and creating new tensions which did not exist
before this period. In this way emphasis on daily bases has been on factors making for disunity at
the expense of factors making for unity. This in the view of scholars formed the basis of what has
come to be the distorted and manipulated history fed to the millions of Nigerians. E. Ayandele
(1978), noted this thus:
..we are not telling the whole story unless we also stress the factors for unity and
cooperation that existed before the advent of the white man. And these factors were
many. Consider for example the mosaic of inter-state routes that linked the south and
the north; and think not only of the economic role the routes played but also of the
diffusion along them of religious, social, and political ideas. Few people realize that
in the eighteenth century the natron used by the Efik came largely from the Chad
basin; that in the same century the Ijbu were the specialist makers of a coarse type
of cloth used by slaves and poor people in Northern Nigeria; that up to 1830 the
larger part of what is now Nigeria regularly patronized the market of Kulfu, near
present-day Kontagora; that for a long time the Edo trafficked with the Nupe and
bartered their camwood for manufactured articles of northern origin; that as late as
the second half of the nineteenth century, the Nupe were the most excellent weavers
in the textile establishments of the cities of the far north; that Ijaw men from Nembe
were trading directly as far north as the Nupe kingdom before 1841; that the Yoruba
obtained their horses from Tripoli through Kanuri middlemen long before the
nineteenth century; that, as slaves, a large number of Hausa were an economic asset
to the Yoruba. Even Igboland was not completely closed to the rest of Nigeria before
the advent of the British; trade went on between the Igbo and their neighbours, and
many Igbo went to the north as slaves; (and that) in December 1842 messengers of
the Sultan of Sokoto were with odk in Abokuta; that the Sultan of Sokoto made
some effort to persuade the Yoruba to end their civil war, that Balogun Ogundip,
the uncrowned king of the gba for nearly a quarter of a century, offered advice to
the Etsu of Nupe in 1870.
It is indeed a complete ignorance of the above excellent relationship that existed among the
people that is largely responsible for the uprising, skirmishes and wanton destruction of lives and
properties that is experienced in Nigeria on a daily basis. For example, every part of modern
Nigeria has been experiencing clashes and crises, which ordinarily would have been avoided with
the promotion and good knowledge of history. However, the lack of the processes of nation-
building which history would have promoted has fuel these conflicts. The most recent is the
conflicts that are almost exclusively defined by the competition for scarce economic goods, with
specific attention on conflict over grazing opportunities between Fulani herdsmen and sedentary
farming populations. In June, 2003, about 50 persons died and 10,000 displaced in new night
raids on Tiv settlements on the Benue and Nasarawa border by Fulani herdsmen. (Independent,
June 23, 2011). This phenomenon has continued till date in which on a daily basis there are news
of violent clash between farmers and herdsmen in every part of the country. On March 7, 2010, a
vengeful attack by Fulani herdsmen on four villages near Jos, led to the merciless killing of over
four hundred in Dodo-Nahawa and the neigbhouring villages of Zot, Rasat and Kutgot. On 17
July, 2010, an attack by Fulani herdsmen on Mazah village in Jos claimed ten lives. In what
seems like an attack for their stolen cattles, Fulani herdsmen attacked Nding Susuk, Nding Jok,
Jong and Dorowa villages in Barkin Ladi Local government area in January 27, 2011, killing 14
people. In February and September 2011, they also attacked Tsohon Faron and Kunzen Gashish,
in Barkin Ladi Local government area, killing 12 people. In November,2011, Herdsmen violence
in Plateau State led to the death of 20 people and the destruction of property as Berom natives
and Fulani herdsmen clashed at the Barkin Ladi Local Council of the state. Also in January 2013,
at least nine people were killed in clashes between ethnic groups in the central Nigerian state of
Plateau. This was as a result of clashes which broke out between ethnic Fulani herdsmen and
local farmers in the city of Wadata. It should be noted that this has been extended to parts of
Kaduna state and Tiv land. Of more recent, villages in Tiv land were attacked by the herdsmen,
while the palace of the Tor Tiv was burnt down; in a similar manner, in March 2015, parts of
Kaduna south (Kaura) was attacked with sophisticated weapons leaving hundreds dead
(Mohammed, 2012). All these could only take place in societies that lack sense of history as well
as those whose history have been deliberately manipulated or distorted for selfish reason. This is
more meaningful when considered in the light of the position of F.J. Teggart (1941), who argued
thus:
History provides a body of ideas which serves to unify the attitudes of citizens of
nations towards their country,.In every land the historian has been the heart at
which the soul of the country has been kept alive.Not only has history writing
awakened peoples to a consciousness of nationality, it has promoted them to action
by inciting hope for the future
The situation in our country is a true reflection of the view of Teggart as represented
above. This has been given credence to by historians in Nigeria, who in more specific
term, pointed to our inability to take advantage of the lessons of history to unify the
country. This is best understood when view in the light of the opinion as posited by a
scholar thus:
Perhaps, one reason why there is so much violence, aggression and instability in our
day to day life is that we so little consciousness (history) of a time perspective. We
act and react as if there is only today, no yesterday, no tomorrow. We seem to care so
little about the past; .The nation suffers which has no sense of history. Its values
remain superficial and ephemeral unless imbued with a deep sense of continuity and
a perception of success and achievement that transcends acquisition of temporary
power or transient wealth. Such a nation cannot achieve a sense of purpose or
direction or stability, and without them the future is bleak (emphasis is mine)
(Ade-Ajayi, 2008)
The Way Forward
As it stands today, it is clear that both the historian and history in Nigeria are in serious
crisis. This is because the role of being the vanguard of the society has escaped them, and in
place of this, historians are been conscripted left, right and center by the powerful and the
wealthy in the society to distort and/or manipulate history. We have witnessed situations in
Nigeria, where historian were employed (and are still being employed) specifically by
government to become propagandist and have instead of building the society, used in destroying
the country. This probably justifies the position as maintained by C Ogbogbo (2015), when he
argued thus;
If we pause to ponder on the question, in whose interest is the non-study of history in

our schools? Who wants Nigerian children to be ignorant of the nations history? It
must be those who have negatively impacted on us and have been churning out all
sorts of memoirs in an attempt to favourably position themselves in the annals of our
history. There is so much junk and distortions churned out by those who have had the
exceptional privilege of ruling this country in the name of providing and setting the
records for future generations of Nigerians. These men / women are conscious of the
weight and judgment of history and desire to be on its safe side. When they are
unable to write, they encourage the non-propagation of history with the hope that
with a weak memory, we will readily forget their atrocious past. It is this realization
that must continue to embolden us in our quest to bring back to the schools an
authentic history of Nigeria. For as JF Ade-Ajayi and Obaro Ikime have continuously
reminded us, an enduring sense of history is a necessity for national

developmentThe History blackout must be put to an end.
It is therefore in line with the above, that the paper argues that the Historical Society of
Nigeria has more work to do. The first is that, it must continue to fight for the restoration of
history in the academic curriculum of Nigerian schools. This will help prepare the minds of our
young leaders for the challenges of tomorrow, i.e; the challenges of nation-building which was
aborted with the exclusion and war against history and historians. This will be appreciated more
when considered in the light of the fact that history serves to educate and ascertain society as a
whole or even helps to influence aspects of contemporary public policy and action.
There is also the need to engage in publication of history books that could be read at book
primary and secondary schools. As, it is now, there is the danger of scholars not wanting to write
books, but to continue publishing in Journals, which is considered more important in our
academic promotion.
There is the need to help restore history departments to their past glories, as the institution
that helped to build the founding fathers of Historical Society of Nigeria are gradually
disappearing, viz, History Research centers, staff training programmes, grants for research and to
attend both local and international conferences and congresses. This has led to massive brain
drain from the academic arena to other sectors both within and outside the shore of Nigeria. On a
general term, it has been established that between a period of two years (1988 and 1990), over
1000 lecturers left the services of Nigerian universities (Bangura 1994). Till date the system has
continued to suffer from what have been described as the serious intellectual hemorrhage (Oni,
1987, Yesufu 1996). All these must be put in place, if any serious and meaningful achievement
can be attain. The impact of the above is that the Nigeria education system has been weakened by
both the psychological warfare and infrastructural denial by the authorities.
There is the need to put an end to binary system of education which dichotomies students
into two factions, namely sciences and liberal arts. Presently, there seems to be a sort of disparity
in the education family, as the government seems to highlight the role of science and technology
in national development. In this way, the Nigerian government put admission ratio in tertiary
institutions at 60 percent for Science and technology subjects and 40 percent for humanity
subjects (Akinwumi et al 2010). This was the issue which National Association of Nigerian
Students (NANS) in the early 1980s kicked against. In their confrontation with the government,
the NANS produced a Charter of Demands, yet it has not been resolved. It is therefore the duty of
Historical Society of Nigeria to revive this call, as history seems to be the department in
humanities most affected.
Conclusion
The paper has argued that although history is recognized all over the world as a tool for
national integration and development, but enough attention has not been devoted to it study and
teaching. This situation is more in developing nations of the world like Nigeria, where it is
considered as not too useful in the pursuit of advancement in science and technology. This in the
opinion of the paper is not only dangerous but also self destructive, as amount to building a
society with no foundation, i.e., breeding generation which end up growing in a sort of permanent
present lacking any organic relation to the public past of the times they live in. In the case of
Nigeria, the end result is represented in the loss of the identity of people and the constant drawn-
dagger situation the citizens find themselves on daily basis.
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Que sait la littrature?
Nancy Ali
CRLC Paris IV Sorbonne, France
Abstract
This paper deals with the new conventions of representing reality in both the literary and the
historical texts. Alongside memory, history and fiction are the two other domains from which we
derive knowledge of our past. We have chosen to compare the literary narrative with the
historical one. Where is the place of fiction alongside this often totalizing and totalitarian pillar
of knowledge? Furthermore, we explore the way in which fiction and history interact in the
contemporary novel. Contemporary novels often incorporate extra-literary discourses in their
texts in an attempt to show that any discourse on the real is always a work of fiction because it is
discursively constructed. By incorporating such fragments of history within their fictive world,
these contemporary novels point our attention to the similarities between the literary and
historical texts, both of which resort to narrative techniques in order to represent the past and
give meaning to it. The insistence on the notion of narrativity in historiographic research over
the last decades has brought into question the legitimacy of the once incontestable historical
archives. By stressing on the inevitable subjectivity of the once so-called objective historical
documents, contemporary historians have demonstrated the way in which history uses narrative
techniques similar to that of fiction to establish order and make sense the dispersed events of the
past. Because narrative form is in itself a way of ordering and bringing together the
fragmented events and incoherencies of reality, narrative form in itself often violently
manipulates this reality with the aim of giving meaning to an often inexplicable reality. Even in
the autobiographical text, deemed truthful, or the historical document, deemed objective, we
always write the past from the present, that is we predict the past from the prism of the present
thanks to what Ricoeur has called the traces of the past, namely the archives, testimonies,
photographs and other already written texts. So doing, both the literary and historical texts
attempt to order reality with the aim of arriving at a certain representation of it that expresses an
intended signification.
Keywords: narrativity, mimesis, historical discourse, literary discourse, representation,

knowledge, emplotement
Rsum
Cet article porte sur les nouveaux modes de reprsentation ou mimesis dans l'uvre d'art et le
discours historique. En dehors de la mmoire, l'histoire et la fiction sont les deux autres
domaines partir desquels nous tirons notre connaissance du pass. Nous avons compar les
rcits de fiction avec un autre domaine partir duquel nous tirons la connaissance de notre
pass, savoir l'histoire. O est la place de la fiction ct de ce pilier de connaissance souvent
totalisant et totalitaire? Aussi, nous explorerons le traitement de l'histoire et de la fiction dans le
roman contemporain. En outre, les romans contemporains intgrent souvent des discours
extralittraires au sein de leurs rcits littraires. Ils dont ainsi apparatre que n'importe quel
discours sur le rel reste toujours une construction discursive. En incorporant souvent des
discours extralittraires dans le rcit trs littraire, ces romans mettent en comparaison l'criture
de fiction et l'criture de l'histoire. En mme temps, depuis plusieurs decennies, les
historiographes ont mis laccent sur la narrativit de tout recit historique. Les deux types de
discours, littraire et historique, utilisent des techniques narratives similaires (telles que le point
de vue ou la mise en intrigue) afin de pouvoir prendre ensemble , pour reprendre les mots de
Ricur, les vnements pars de la ralit. Du fait que la forme narrative est en soi un moyen de
rassembler les vnements disperss et les incohrences de la ralit, le rcit manipule
violemment cette ralit dans le but de lui donner un sens, quand elle est souvent inexplicable.
Mme dans le recit autobiographique, dit fidle, ou le document historique, dit objective, on
crit le pass partir du prsent, on prdit le pass sous le prisme du prsent grce ce que
Ricur a ailleurs nomm les traces du pass, savoir les archives, les tmoignages, les
photographies et les textes dj crits. Ce faisant, le texte, la fois littraire et historique,
donne un ordre dfini la ralit dans le but dobtenir une certaine reprsentation et
signification de la ralit.
Mots cls : la narrativit, mimsis, le discours historique, le discours littraire, la

reprsentation, le savoir, lemplotement
Milan Kundera a mis en vidence le rle de lcrivain dans Le Rideau (2005) son
troisime ouvrage thorique traitant du roman, postrieur Lart du Roman (1986) et Les
Testaments trahis (1993). Loin dtre un crivain engag la manire sartrienne, Kundera est
sensible linfluence fondamentale de lHistoire sur lcrivain et au rle fondamental de
lcrivain dans le contexte de son Histoire.
Un rideau magique, tiss de lgendes, tait suspendu devant le monde. Cervants

envoya Don Quichotte en voyage et dchira le rideau. Le monde s'ouvrit devant le
chevalier errant dans toute la nudit comique de sa prose... c'est en dchirant le
rideau de la pr-interprtation que Cervants a mis en route cet art nouveau ; son
geste destructeur se reflte et se prolonge dans chaque roman digne de ce nom ; c'est
1
le signe d'identit de l'art du roman .
voquant Cervants, un auteur quil cite dun bout lautre de ses livres, Kundera a montr
comment luvre littraire remplace les pr-interprtations , obstruant la ralit et la
littrature, de mme quun contre-histoire , ouvre le rideau , en amenant le lecteur au
monde et la ralit. Par les aventures fictives de Don Quichotte, le lecteur est conduit la
ralit. De lge de raison lre du soupon lre du tmoin , nous sommes plongs
dans une poque o la vrit est devenue dcentralise, discontinue, et fragmente. Le besoin
se fait alors sentir denlever le voile, douvrir le rideau.
Selon les mots de lcrivain amricain postmoderne Donald Barthelme, l'art n'est pas une
reprsentation mimtique du monde, mais une mditation sur le monde, un commentaire2. Au
lieu de reproduire ou d'imiter la ralit (mimesis), le roman est une mditation sur la ralit. En
ce sens, il fait cho aux remarques de Kundera dans L'art du roman quand celui-ci dit
linterrogation mditative (mditation interrogative) est la base sur laquelle tous mes romans
sont construits3 . Le roman, selon Kundera, est une mditation interrogative sur notre ralit, un
conte fictif sur l'existence humaine et sur les possibilits de notre existence.
Ce nouveau ralisme nous prsente une autre forme de savoir, une rflexion sur la ralit
diffrente de ce que disent ou racontent les domaines des sciences naturelles ou mme lhistoire,
contraints comme ils le sont par les preuves empiriques et les archives. La littrature est capable
d'explorer les domaines et les complexits de l'existence humaine hors de porte de la
connaissance empirique et du savoir tangible. La littrature est capable dexplorer ce quon
appelle souvent lineffable. Le roman fournit un autre moyen de savoir, diffrent de l'histoire ou
de la science par exemple. Il y a une connaissance particulire que seule la littrature peut
fournir.
Comme le dit Barthes, le savoir quelle mobilise nest jamais ni entier ni dernier ; la
littrature ne dit pas quelle sait quelque chose, mais quelle sait de quelque chose ; ou mieux :
1
Milan Kundera, Le rideau (Paris: Gallimard, 2005), 50.
2
Donald Barthelme, Not-Knowing: the essays and interviews (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1997), 23.
3
Milan Kundera, Lart du roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 45.
quelle en sait quelque chose quelle en sait long sur les hommes4 . La littrature offre un
savoir sur notre existence, notre comportement humain, car c'est surtout la faon dont nous nous
reprsentons nous-mmes et la faon dont nous reprsentons les autres travers nos rcits, qui
montrent nos valeurs et nos croyances. Elle fait tourner les savoirs5 ; c'est aussi qu'elle nous
oblige mettre en question ces savoirs. Si les scientifiques nous donnent la connaissance ltat
brut, les sciences humaines nous donnent les outils de la critique de cette connaissance 6. Le genre
de savoir, que les sciences humaines procurent, est une certitude provisoire et un doute infini7. Le
savoir fourni par la littrature est donc toujours hypothtique, jamais certain ni totalisant.
Kundera explique comment le rapport entre le roman (aprs Balzac) et l'histoire s'opre: il
y a dun ct le roman qui examine la dimension historique de lexistence humaine, il y a de
lautre ct le roman qui est lillustration dune situation historique, la description dune socit
un moment donn, une historiographie romance 8 . Le roman, selon lui, na jamais t
proccup par la ralit, mais plutt par l'existence de l'homme : Et lexistence nest pas ce qui
sest pass, lexistence est le champ des possibilits humaines, tout ce que lhomme peut devenir,
tout ce dont il est capable. [...] et nous font ainsi voir ce que nous sommes, de quoi nous sommes
capables9. Au-dessus de toutes les autres disciplines, la littrature est en mesure d'explorer les
complexits de notre ralit et lexistence humaine qui dfient la logique mathmatique ou
lapproche scientifique.
La littrature peut fournir une partie diffrente du savoir, parce que certaines des
dimensions de notre existence et de notre ralit sont hors de porte des sciences naturelles, en
raison de contraintes comme les preuves empiriques. En outre, contrairement la loi, l'histoire
ou la langue encore utilise comme un outil au service d'une structure externe (la construction
juridique ou les archives, par exemple), la littrature nest au service de rien dautre que de la
langue. Se librant de notions telles que lexactitude ou la vrit, le roman est le mieux plac pour
raliser les possibilits gnratrices de la langue.
De mme, l'histoire ne peut aborder une partie de notre pass parce que le travail historique
vise reprsenter des vnements que lon croit avoir eu lieu dans ce pass. La littrature nous
prsente le pass probable, un pass possible. Mais de plus, comme lhistoire se construit sur des
traces incohrentes et disperses, cest la fiction ou limaginaire qui nous aide combler les
lacunes.
L'histoire a oblig la reprsentation littraire changer, et la littrature peut un jour juger ou

mme changer l'histoire. Le roman ne porte pas de jugement ni n'impose de morale, car, la
4
Roland Barthes, Leon. Paris: Seuil, 1978, p.1819.
5
Ibid.
6
Michael Wood, Literature and the Taste of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 53.
7
Ibid.
8
Milan Kundera, Lart du roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 54.
9
Ibid., 57-58.
connaissance est la seule morale du roman10. Si l'histoire comme vrit absolue est remise en
question, alors pourquoi ne pas commencer remettre en question le ct artificiel de la
fiction ? Pourquoi la fiction ne peut-elle pas tre un rcit qui nous fournit du savoir sur le pass ?
Les discours sur le (mme) rel
L'homme est un animal narratif, il apprend par le rcit, il tire ses murs et valeurs des
rcits. Puisque, selon Lacan, lenfant nat au langage (Lacan) 11 savoir le langage de lautre
et que linconscient est structur comme un langage (Lacan) 12 cest peut tre le rcit qui est le
plus apte grer les complexits de la vie. Les rcits nous aident visualiser l'information, la
transformer en connaissances durables graves dans nos mmoires. C'est le rcit qui transforme
l'information en savoir.
Les rcits nous aident traiter les complexits, leur donner corps pour quon puisse les
organiser et les comprendre. Le rcit a, de plus, une mmoire plus lointaine que, par exemple, les
nouvelles ou les discours contemporains qui crivent l'histoire du prsent. Ainsi la littrature fait
peur, parce que ce quelle nous enseigne est durable.
Les rcits nous aident non seulement acqurir des connaissances, mais les enregistrer et
sen souvenir. C'est peut-tre encore plus important aujourd'hui, notre poque de
surinformation. Comme les curateurs de presse modernes le font aujourd'hui, ce qui est le plus
important est la capacit raconter une histoire partir de nouvelles fragmentes abondantes
mais souvent sans contenu.
Comme lcrivaine afro-amricaine Toni Morrison le dit : les gens recherchent les rcits
... c'est la faon dont ils apprennent des choses. C'est la faon dont les tres humains organisent
leur savoir humain, des contes, des mythes. Rien que des rcits13. Lattachement de Morrison
aux rcits est en ligne avec le retour au romanesque qui caractrise la fiction crite par les
minorits14.
Dans les comptines pour enfants ou les livres sacrs de nos religions, dans la mythologie
grecque, la Bible, le Coran, chaque valeur morale ou connaissance que nous apprenons dcoule
du rcit. Selon le philosophe-historien Paul Ricur, nous comprenons le monde et le temps
humain grce une approche narrative. Le rcit est l'interface par laquelle nous comprenons le
monde.
Que ce soit dans le discours historique ou littraire, le rcit nous aide prendre
10
Ibid., 16.
11
Jacques Lacan, Ecrits (Paris : Editions du Seuil, 1966), 319.
12
Ibid., 868.
13
Jay Clayton, "The narrative turn in recent minority fiction," American Literary History (1990): 377. Cest nous qui
traduisons.
14
Ibid.
ensemble les vnements du pass et en faire un objet cohrent 15. Les occurrences historiques
sont slectionnes et organises temporellement en dbut, milieu et fin, comme dans un texte
littraire16. Notre comprhension du monde passe par le rcit.
Nanmoins, Aristote a remarqu quil y a bien une diffrence entre le discours historique et
le discours littraire. Le vraisemblable dans les arts selon lui est ce qui aurait pu avoir lieu17 .
Parce que la littrature parle de ce qui aurait pu avoir lieu, elle peut parler de thmes universels 18.
Selon Ricur, lhistoire nous raconte ce quon croit avoir t tandis que la littrature nous
raconte ce qui tait une fois , cest--dire les possibilits historiques 19 . Cependant, ces
possibilits sagissent galement de ce qui probablement a eu lieu : la fiction ne peut-elle pas
nous dire ce que bon nombre de ceux qui ont disparu n'ont pas vcu pour le dire ?
Le texte historique et celui de fiction se rejoignent par la narrativit. Selon Ricur, chacun
de ces textes utilise des conventions similaires afin de pouvoir figurer le temps du pass dans le
rcit : le temps devient temps humain dans la mesure o il est articul sur un mode narratif 20 .
Bien que les deux rcits ne partagent pas la mme intention21, la plupart des mthodes impliques
dans la tentative historique se retrouvent dans le rcit fictif comme nous allons le voir bientt.
Ricur insiste sur l' entrecroisement de l'histoire et de la fiction22 , parce que les deux types de
discours partagent le processus de configuration et de refiguration du temps pass dans le prsent.
Sans remettre en cause la factualit des vnements historiques en eux-mmes, Ricur

montre simplement qu'il nexiste pas de reprsentation innocente, parce que les vnements sont
toujours configurs dans un rcit et donc manipuls par la langue et le discours23. Les textes
historiques et fictifs sont tous les deux des rcits, car c'est le rcit qui permet de configurer un
monde temporel, une exprience relle du temps humain : le rcit est significatif dans la
mesure o il dessine les traits de l'exprience temporelle 24 . C'est alors le rcit qui aide
transformer les Temps avec un T majuscule en tenant compte de leur subjectivit humaine.
Comme Ricur, Louis Mink, Paul Veyne et Hayden White ont soulign l'importance de la
narrativit dans le travail historique25. Veyne qualifie l'histoire dun vrai roman parce qu'elle
partage certaines conventions avec la fiction, savoir la slection, l'organisation ainsi que la
15
Ricoeur, Temps et rcit 1, 10-12.
16
Lars Eckstein, Re-Membering the Black Atlantic, On the Poetics and Politics of Literary
Memory (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), 17-18.
17
Paul Ricoeur,Temps et rcit 3: Le temps racont (Paris: Seuil, 1985), 347.
18
Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction (London: Routledge, 1988), 106.
19
Voir Ricoeur, Temps et rcit 3, 329-348.
20
Paul Ricoeur, Temps et rcit 1: L'intrigue et le rcit historique (Paris: Seuil, 1983), 105.
21
Ricoeur, Temps et rcit 3, 52.
22
Ibid., 329.
23
Ibid., 18.
24
25
Samia Mehrez, Egyptian writers between history and fiction (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1994), 1.
simulation temporelle, les anecdotes et la mise en intrigue26. Selon Louis Mink, les vnements
du pass ne prennent vraiment sens que dans leur rapport lensemble dinterrelations
narratives27.
De mme, le critique marxiste Frdric Jameson souligne l'importance de la mise en

intrigue et de la narrativit dans la comprhension historique, quand il insiste que lHistoire
nest accessible qu travers les rcits 28 . Hayden White prtend, galement, que l'historien
donne le sens au pass et arrange les vnements dans l'ordre logique. Hayden White met en
cause les mthodes positivistes et naves de l'historiographie passe, ainsi que les valeurs qui
assument la transparence empirique29. Il tudie, entre autres, la notion de la mise en intrigue dans
le rcit historique grce laquelle un historien donne un sens aux vnements du pass30.
Michel de Certeau lui aussi affirme que toute recherche historiographique s'articule sur
un lieu de production socio-conomique, politique, et culturel 31 . Alors, toute recherche est
manipule d'une certaine faon, influence par le contexte do elle se lance dans le prsent.
Une intrigue, que ce soit dans le roman traditionnel ou le texte historique, est une
reprsentation totalisante qui rassemble des vnements disperss en une histoire
monolithique et cohrente32. En outre, lhistorien ne donne pas chaque vnement le statut de
fait, seuls quelques uns sont slectionns, rpts dans les discours, et donc embaums comme
tels33. La question nous amne donc directement la question du pouvoir : qui sert le choix de
la reprsentation dun vnement dans un discours historique ? Qui est le nous qui parle dans
les discours historiques ? Quel rle joue la langue dans la reconstruction du pass ?
Ces historiens (et philosophes), Paul Veyne, Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Hayden
White ainsi que Dominick La Capra, remettent en question les frontires qui traditionnellement
sparent les deux modes de reprsentation de notre pass, savoir le discours historique et le
littraire34. En outre, ils montrent comment les deux domaines se sont mutuellement influencs35.
Selon Ricur la fiction est quasi historique, tout autant que l'histoire est quasi fictive36 . Tout
comme les crits conscients de soi qui font partie de la littrature postmoderne, lhistoriographie
depuis les annes 1960 prend en compte le fait que nos discours sur le pass sont toujours des
26
Voir Paul Veyne, Comment on crit l'histoire (Paris: Seuil, 1971)
27
Voir Louis O. Mink, "Narrative form as a cognitive instrument," The writing of history: Literary form and
historical understanding (1978): 129-149.
28
Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1981), 82.
29
Karyn Ball, Disciplining the Holocaust (SUNY Press, 2008), 3.
30
Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1989), 67-68.
31
Michel De Certeau, L'criture de l'Histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), 65.
32
Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, 68
33
Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, 122.
34
Mehrez, Egyptian writers, 1.
35
Ibid.
36
reconstructions et non pas des liens transparents et directs aux vnements de ce pass.
Cependant, cela ne signifie pas que les vnements du pass nont pas eu lieu, mais cela
signifie que notre savoir sur ces vnements est transmis smiotiquement (semiotically
transmitted)37. Alors que les vnements se sont produits, la comprhension, que nous en avons,
est le rsultat de leur reconstruction et de leur configuration par nos rcits collectifs. Tandis que
les historiens font ressortir la narrativit et mme la littrarit des discours historiques, comme
par exemple Hayden White, ils soulignent aussi sur ce qui diffrencie leur travail de celui des
crivains littraires, savoir que les historiens ont en gnral la certitude que les vnements se
sont rellement produits dans le pass, tandis que les crivains littraires ne se sentent pas limits
par cette contrainte.
Selon Ricur, les textes historiques et fictifs diffrent non pas en ce qui concerne le pacte
rfrentiel qu'ils partagent, dans la perception habituelle. Au contraire, le texte historique et le
texte fictif partagent le mme pacte rfrentiel, car tous les deux s'tablissent sous la forme du
se figure que38 . Pour que ce figure que s'actualise, l'acte de lecture entre en jeu, donc les
vises rfrentielles respectives du rcit historique et du rcit de fiction39 s'entrecroisent dans la
refiguration du pass travers l'acte de lecture. La refiguration nous amne dans le domaine de la
lecture, dans le troisime type de mimesis3 qui ne peut exister sans les deux premiers40.
Pour Ricur, l' affinit profonde 41 entre le texte historique et le texte fictif apparat dans
le rapport circulaire qui se ralise lors de l'acte de lecture, ou autrement dit, dans la
refiguration du temps par le rcit : l'uvre conjointe du rcit historique et du rcit de fiction42 .
Cette refiguration du temps qui s'opre tant dans le rcit historique que dans le rcit fictif repose
sur l'empitement rciproque et l'change de places, procd de ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler le
temps humain, o se conjuguent la reprsentation du pass par l'histoire et les variations
imaginatives de la fiction43 . C'est par la fiction que l'histoire est en mesure de structurer le pass
d'une manire qui fait sens, et c'est travers l'histoire que la fiction s'ancre dans le temps, parce
que les deux discours sont lus par le lecteur travers une lentille narrative.
Tout comme l'crivain du rcit historique ou du rcit fictif configure le temps par le rcit,
en ordonnant le monde grce l'imagination, le lecteur du texte historique et du texte de fiction le
reconfigure travers sa propre imagination. Il ne les prend ensemble que grce ce que
37
Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism,122.
38
39
Paul Ricoeur, Temps et rcit 2. La configuration dans le rcit de fiction (Paris: Seuil, 1984), 298.
40
Ricur dcrit trois types de mimesis, savoir mimsis1 qui dsigne la prfiguration de ce texte, c'est--dire l'ide
de ce quun rcit est suppos tre. Mimesis2 tourne autour de la configuration ou la mise en intrigue par lequel
l'crivain raffecte les vnements du pass dans une squence logique qui explique les rapports entre eux. Le
troisime type, mimesis3, est ddi la refiguration, qui se rfre l'acte de lecture grce auquel le lecteur donne un
sens au rcit. (Voir Ricoeur, Temps et rcit 1)].
41
42
43
Ricur appelle une comprhension narrative 44 . La rfrentialit est donc ralise par le
lecteur, au point o le monde du texte rencontre son complment, savoir le monde de vie
du lecteur 45 . Le monde du lecteur est complmentaire au monde du texte, et c'est dans
l'entrecroisement de ces deux mondes, l'espace de confrontation entre le monde du texte et le
monde du lecteur46 , que la signification ou la rfrentialit se produit.
Dans cet espace de confrontation, les idologies, les valeurs et les inclinations subjectives
de l'auteur, qui ont abouti une certaine configuration du temps dans le rcit, dialoguent avec
leurs homologues dans la vie du lecteur, dont la propre idologie et les valeurs sauront le
conduire une certaine refiguration du temps du rcit et porter un jugement sur le rcit qu'il lit.
Le pass, l'histoire, ne sont entendus que par le prsent, c'est--dire dans l'acte de lecture, ancr
dans le contexte pistmologique et historique du lecteur.
Le rcit historique imagine les vnements qui ont effectivement eu lieu, tandis que le rcit
de fiction historicise les vnements qui auraient pu se produire. Ni le texte historique ni le texte
de fiction ne porte une vrit rfrentielle absolue qui s'attache au monde rel ou naturel. Le
pass est insaisissable, on peut seulement le prdire ou l'imaginer.
Les deux types de texte ne visent pas la rfrentialit, mais plutt la capacit de reprsenter
une certaine vrit sur l'homme et une explication de ses actes pour le lecteur. Finalement, c'est le
lecteur, travers la refiguration du texte, qui actualise le texte et tablit sa propre vrit
rfrentielle subjective ou comprhension du monde rendue possible par le texte. L'acte de
lecture reconfigure le pass dans un rcit, il donne un sens aux vnements, car il parachve l'acte
de langage : Suivre une histoire, c'est actualiser en lecture [...] c'est le lecteur, quasiment
abandonn par l'uvre, qui porte seul sur ses paules le poids de la mise en intrigue47 . Sans
l'acte de lecture, le cercle hermneutique est incomplet, et la signification ou la rfrentialit
devient impossible.
Ce qui distingue le texte historique de la fiction, est donc une diffrence non pas de
rfrentialit mais dintentionnalit. Le rcit historique est rgi par une intentionnalit
historique [qui] vise des vnements qui ont effectivement eu lieu 48 . Cette intentionnalit
historique porte au rcit historique la note raliste qui selon Ricur, n'galera jamais aucune
littraire, ft-elle prtention "raliste" 49 . L'histoire se rfre un pass qui a eu lieu ,
mme sil est absent [...] la perception prsente50 . Le rcit de fiction, cependant, est rgi par
le possible, en prsentant les potentialits non effectues du pass historique51 . Tandis que le
44
45
46
47
48
Ibid., p.154.
49
Ibid.
50
Ibid.
51
rcit historique prend soin du pass effectif , le rcit fictif se charge du possible52 . Alors
que la fiction se libre de la contrainte extrieure de la preuve documentaire , comme le texte
historique, elle est cependant contrainte par le vraisemblable car, la fiction [e]st [..]
Intrieurement lie par le service du quasi-pass53 . La fiction, quelle soit innovante ou non
conventionnelle, est toujours engage proposer un pass possible, qui aurait pu avoir lieu.
Le rapport entre le texte historique et fictif est caractris par une concrtisation
mutuelle , car l'histoire se sert de quelque faon de la fiction pour refigurer le temps, et d'autre
part, la fiction se sert de l'histoire dans le mme dessein54 . Le texte historique et le texte fictif
oprent les mmes oprations configurantes55 , grce auxquelles les vnements du pass sont
mis en intrigue dans un effort de prendre ensemble le rcit et intgrent dans une histoire
cohrente et totalisante 56 . Comme lassimilation prdicative 57 , de la mtaphore par laquelle
l'intrigue sert aussi d'une assimilation qui rend proches les vnements autrement loigns58.
Les rcits d'Histoire et de fiction sont donc complmentaires, deux parties intrinsquement
lies et se renforcent mutuellement quand ils essaient d'expliquer les actions humaines. On peut
lire un livre d'histoire comme un roman59 dont l'histoire imite dans son criture les types de
mise en intrigues reus de la tradition littraire 60 . En mme temps, en tant que quasi
historique la fiction donne au pass cette vivacit d'vocation qui fait d'un grand livre d'histoire
un chef-duvre littraire61 . Ni le texte historique, ni la fiction nont de liens transparents avec
le pass, mais ce sont des reconstructions imagines de ce pass, tous deux produisant des textes
qui expliquent les vnements comme si ils avaient eu lieu. Dans le rcit historique, les
vnements concrets et les civilisations se comportent comme si ils taient des ventements
d'intrigue ou des personnages fictifs, tandis que les personnages et les vnements du rcit de
fiction se comportent comme sils taient des vrais gens et des vrais vnements du pass.
Dans ces documents historiques, les vnements historiques, les personnalits historiques,
les nations, les rois et les empereurs s'assument des rles fictifs, servant de ce que Ricur appelle
des quasi-personnages, quasi-intrigues, quasi-vnements qui sont compris par le lecteur
travers la lentille narrative 62 . Les dcisions de ces nations et les raisons, pour lesquelles les
vnements ont eu lieu, sont expliques comme s'ils regardaient des personnages et des
squences de l'intrigue d'un rcit.
52
Ibid., 345.
53
Ibid., 347.
54
Ibid., 331.
55
56
57
Ibid.
58
Ibid.
59
60
Ibid., 337.
61
Ibid., 345.
62
Voir Ricoeur, Temps et rcit 1, 247-320.
Lire un texte historique est similaire la lecture d'une fiction, dans le sens que le lecteur
comprend le pass en tant qu'vnements dans une histoire et le juge comme une intrigue
narrative, tragique, hroque, comique, ironique comme il le fait pour le texte de fiction. C'est le
rcit qui nous permet de ressentir l'histoire. C'est la fiction ou l'imagination qui nous permet de la
comprendre.
Tandis que l'histoire prsente le pass comme ce qui sest probablement rellement pass,
la fiction prsente un pass possible, les potentialits non effectues du pass historique63 ou
dit autrement, ce qui aurait pu avoir lieu64 . La fiction se rapproche de l'histoire en ce sens
qu'elle raconte les vnements comme sils staient vritablement passs.
Tandis que la fictionnalisation de l'histoire 65" se reflte dans les quasi-intrique, quasi-
personnage, et quasi-vnement du rcit historique, l'historicisation de la fiction66 s'effectue
travers ce que Ricur dsigne comme le quasi-historique ( le rcit de fiction est quasi-historique
dans la mesure o les vnements irrels qu'il rapporte sont des faits passs pour la voix narrative
qui s'adresse au lecteur : c'est ainsi qu'ils ressemblent des vnements passs et que la fiction
ressemble l'histoire67 ) et le quasi-pass ( le quasi-pass de la fiction devient ainsi le dtecteur
des possibles enfouis dans le pass effectif 68 ). Ricur fait rfrence la formulation bien
connue qui ouvre souvent le rcit fictif, Il tait une fois , qui est exemplaire de la faon dont
est assume la perspective comme si cela stait pass vis--vis des personnages et des
vnements des romans. Le comme si passe permet au texte fictif de maintenir sa dimension
historique, car l'univers fictif du roman se comprend dans le temps historique.
L'histoire ne vise pas simplement tre une liste de faits sans liens entre eux , mais
tablir des connexions entre les faits 69 . Afin d'tablir ces connexions, l'historien doit
recomposer le temps, en configurant les traces du pass dans une narration qui remplit les lacunes
avec des connexions fictionnelles.
L'historien ne s'interdit pas alors de dpeindre une situation, de rendre un cours

de pense, et de donner celui-ci la vivacit dun discours intrieur" [...] Nous
sommes entrs dans l'aire de l'illusion qui, au sens prcis du terme, confond le "voir-
comme" avec un croire-voir . Ici, le tenir-pour-vrai qui dfinit la croyance,
succombe l'hallucination de prsence70.
En dcrivant les vnements du pass, l'historien doit invitablement les expliquer, car Ricur
nous dit dcrire et expliquer ne se distinguent pas [..] Expliquer pourquoi quelque chose est
63
64
Ibid., 347.
65
Ibid., 331-342.
66
Ibid., 342.
67
Ibid., 345.
68
Ibid., 347.
69
70
arriv et dcrire ce qui est arriv concident 71 . En lisant les archives , nous devons
reconnaitre la mdiation de l'historien dans la construction de l'histoire.
La prtention scientifique du travail historique suggre que l'historien s'approche davantage

de la position d'un juge que de celle dun scientifique parce que son travail implique toujours la
description, donc l'explication et le jugement : l'historien est dans la situation du juge : il est mis
dans une situation relle ou potentielle de contestation et tente de prouver que telle explication
vaut mieux que telle autre72 . Pour Ricur la question de la subjectivit et de l'objectivit du
texte historique n'est pas pertinente. Un historien objectif, cela n'existe pas, par le simple fait que
l'historien relit le pass travers le prisme du prsent, comme [le pass] ne peut tre atteint que
dans le prsent73 . Ce dcalage temporel et rtrospectif, avec le pass vcu par les hommes
dautrefois loign de l' historien aujourdhui 74, fait de chaque texte historique une uvre de
fiction.
Pour Ricur, les archives historiques, le pass, restent dans ce qu'il appelle les traces, les
tmoignages, les documents, les comptes-rendus d'individus spcifiques, les fossiles discursifs du
pass qui sont excavs, configurs et reconfigurs par l'historien : en histoire les vnements
tirent leur statut proprement historique d'avoir t initialement inclus dans une chronique
officielle, un tmoignage oculaire, ou un rcit bas sur des souvenirs personnels75 . Ces traces
des archives dites officielles - ont t initialement cris par un individu, d'un point de vue
subjectif, rendant ainsi la question de l'objectivit entirement inapproprie.
L'historien n'est jamais en mesure de r-actualiser le pass, il peut seulement arriver

une reffectuation du pass dans le prsent76. Il le fait travers limagination, intermdiaire
de la fiction. L'histoire n'est pas porteuse d'une vrit absolue et totale, mais d'une reffectuation
d'un pass faite partir des traces, les traces qui deviennent documents pour l'historien.
C'est grce ces traces que l'historien cherche reffectuer le pass, en les reconfigurant
dans un rcit qui fait sens et fait prendre ensemble . Parce que l'histoire est tablie sur les
traces du pass vu travers le prsent, toutes les uvres de l'histoire sont essentiellement
fictives : la trace que culmine le caractre imaginaire des connecteurs qui marquent
l'instauration du temps historique77 . Par consquent, les sources d archives disponibles pour
l'historien sont intrinsquement biaises, mettant en cause toute objectivit ou le statut
documentaire78 du document historique.
71
72
Ibid., 311.
73
Ibid., 154.
74
Henri-Irne Marrou, De la connaissance historique (Paris: Seuil, 1954, rd., "Points Histoire", 1975), p.35.
75
76
77
Ibid., 335.
78
Ibid., 401.
Mtafiction historiographique (Historiographic metafiction)
Lhistorien slectionne, organise et met en intrigue les vnements afin de raconter une
certaine ralit. Par consquent, lcrit Hayden White, [t]oute reprsentation du pass a des
implications idologiques prcises79. Lobjectif pour lhistorien contemporain ne serait donc pas
de dterminer si un tel vnement est vrai ou faux, mais plutt de se concentrer sur la manire
dont les diffrentes cultures donnent un sens ces vnements, afin de donner crdit certaines
perspectives actuelles ou futures80.
Linda Hutcheon remarque que le tournant narratif dans l'historiographie a dplac

lattention sur les vnements vers le sens que ces vnements produisent sur des personnes
diffrentes81. Il sagit donc du passage de la validation la signification82. En consquence, notre
point de vue sur l'historiographie est devenu pluraliste et trouble, car il se compose de plusieurs
versions ou constructions sur le mme pass, chaque version tant faite par un groupe diffrent
dans un contexte aussi diffrent83. Au lieu de se concentrer sur les vnements, on se concentre
sur la faon dont on lit ou comprend ces vnements.
En montrant la faon dont nous reprsentons la ralit, le texte invite mditer sur le
comment et le pourquoi de notre reprsentation de la ralit. Comme Hutcheon lcrit dans sa A
Poetics of Postmodernism, la leon de l'art postmoderne est que nous ne devons pas limiter nos
investigations quelques lecteurs et textes, le processus de production, non plus, ne peut tre
ignor84. En se concentrant sur la faon d'crire, la mtafiction historiographique par dfinition
met l'accent sur la situation nonciative dans laquelle le texte, le producteur, le rcepteur, le
contexte historique et social tous travaillent ensemble pour dlivrer et actualiser le sens85. La
signification devient un projet commun quoique problmatique86.
Au lieu de se concentrer sur le quoi, cette mditation rflexive produit une sorte de mta-
connaissance durable, car elle montre les idologies et les valeurs qui manipulent nos faons de
penser, nos mthodologies inhrentes tout type de discours, que ce soit le traditionnel du roman
ou le discours historique.
La mtafiction historiographique est le terme quHutcheon utilise pour faire rfrence

ces romans bien connus et populaires qui sont la fois intensment autorflexifs et,
paradoxalement, prtendent dcrire des vnements historiques et des personnages 87 . La
79
Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
1978, p.69. Cest nous qui traduisons.
80
Hayden White, "Historical pluralism," Critical Inquiry (1986): 487. Cest nous qui traduisons.
81
Voir Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, 87-101.
82
Ibid., 96.
83
Ibid., 96.
84
Ibid., 80. Cest nous qui traduisons.
85
Ibid., 80-81, 115.
86
Ibid., 115.
87
Ibid., 5. Cest nous qui traduisons.
mtafiction historiographique, quHutcheon nomme galement le passe-temps du temps

pass 88 , emprunte, comme son nom l'indique, la fois au tournant historiographique dans
lcriture de lhistoire et au tournant mtafictionnel ou rfrentiel dans lcriture littraire. Ce
tournant rfrentiel dans les deux disciplines reflte la prise de conscience de spcialistes dans
ces deux domaines, que :
Le pass est dj smiotique ou cod. Il est dj inscrit dans le discours et donc

toujours interprt priori(ne serait-ce que par le choix de ce qui est enregistr et
son insertion dans une narration). [] La signification et la forme ne sont pas dans
les vnements, mais dans les systmes qui rendent ces vnements passs devant
le prsent historique des faits. [] Si les vnements ne se produisent pas dans le
pass rel empirique, nous nommons et dfinissons ces vnements comme des faits
historiques par la slection et le positionnement du rcit. Plus fondamentalement,
nous ne connaissons que les vnements passs travers leur inscription discursive,
travers leurs traces dans le prsent89.
La mallabilit du pass lu travers le prisme du prsent, est encore facilite parce que nous y
accdons sous la forme d'archives fragmentes, dartefacts, ce que Ricur appelle les traces du
pass. Ces traces, ces documents, archives et discours, sont les seuls liens avec notre pass.
Pour affirmer ce point de vue, les textes postmodernes dont les mtafictions
historiographiques font parties - insrent souvent des discours historiques au sein de leurs textes
littraires. Selon Hutcheon, linsertion de ces discours est destine interrompre lillusion du
vraisemblable et les rintroduire sous le signe de la fiction90. Quand on travaille sur lhistoire du
prsent ou lhistoire immdiate, il convient de dmythifier ces mythes du temps prsent, savoir
l imaginaire social puissamment relay par les mdias , qui ont au moins autant de
prgnance que les mythes des socits archaques91 . Notre pass et notre histoire, ne sont donc
ni rels ni tangibles ni fixes, mais mis notre disposition par le discours. Ces discours ne sont ni
objectifs ni absolus, mais incomplets, construits partir de fragments.
Runies par la narrativit, il n'est pas surprenant que l'histoire et la fiction aient de nouveau
donn naissance un enfant ensemble, comme ctait le cas avant avec le roman historique. La
mtafiction historiographique, homologue autorfrentiel du roman historique, met en cause
toutes les ides reues que ses anctres ralistes ont pris pour acquis, telles que la transparence du
langage, le reprsentationnalisme et la mimesis, le sujet unitaire et l'accs sans intermdiaire aux
rfrents historiques du pass92. la fin cette mtafiction historiographique vise montrer, que,
en mme temps que la fiction est conditionne par l'histoire , l'histoire est discursivement
structure 93. Tandis que le roman historique a pris certaines choses pour acquis, la mtafiction
historiographique est sceptique du pass, qui nest disponible pour nous que par les textes, les
88
Ibid., 105.
89
Ibid., 96-97. Cest nous qui traduisons.
90
Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, 88.
91
Franois Bedarida, Histoire, critique et responsabilit (Editions Complexe, 2003), 235.
92
Brian Michale, "Postmodernism, or the Anxiety of Master Narratives", Diacritics, Vol. 22, No. 1, 19-20.
93
Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism, 120.

discours et le langage.
Sappuyant sur le tournant rflexif dans les deux domaines pistmologiques ou discursifs
qui constituent notre savoir sur le pass, savoir lHistoire et la littrature, domaines sur lesquels
le roman historique repose, la mtafiction historiographique dcrit le genre postmoderne et
rflexif du roman historique. Ce genre montre bien le rapport intrinsque entre le discours
historique et le discours littraires. Il montre aussi que notre accs au pass nest jamais direct,
quon doit passer toujours par lintermdiaire narratif.
****
A ct de la littrature, l'histoire est lautre domaine pertinent partir duquel nous tirons
notre connaissance du pass. Tandis que l'histoire est totalisante, effaant souvent la version qui
nentre pas dans son rcit universel, la littrature est essentiellement dmocratique permettant aux
autres de prendre la plume pour raconter leur version de la ralit. Pour ceux qui ont t
systmatiquement rduits au silence, rendus anonymes ou exotiques, la littrature offre une large
plateforme la contreviolence pour renverser les reprsentations malheureuses du discours
dominant. La dcentralisation de la langue et les systmes de pense de la socit moderne ont
dplac l'attention vers les marges, cest--dire les gens dont la position est excentrique la
culture dominante94. Ces crivains de littrature, tout en innovant et tant parfois en marge de la
culture dominante, ont nanmoins fait entrer leurs canons littraires respectifs. Ils ont aussi utilis
la littrature pour revisiter et re-imaginer le pass.
94
Ibid., 57-73.

Rfrences
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-Barthelme, Donald. Not-Knowing: the essays and interviews. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1997.
-Barthes, Roland. Leon. Paris: Seuil, 1978.
-Bedarida, Franois. Histoire, critique et responsabilit. Bruxelles: Editions Complexe, 2003.
-Clayton, Jay. "The narrative turn in recent minority fiction." American Literary History (1990):
375-393.
-De Certeau, Michel. L'criture de l'Histoire. Paris: Gallimard, 1975.
-Eckstein, Lars. Re-Membering the Black Atlantic, On the Poetics and Politics of Literary
Memory. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006.
-Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. London: Routledge,

1988.
-Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1989.
-Jameson, Frederic. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1981.
-Kundera, Milan. Lart du roman. Paris: Gallimard, 1986.
-Kundera, Milan. Le rideau. Paris: Gallimard, 2005.
-Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966.
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1975.
-Mehrez, Samia. Egyptian writers between history and fiction. Cairo: American University in
Cairo Press, 1994.
-Michale, Brian. "Postmodernism, or the Anxiety of Master Narratives", Diacritics Vol. 22, No. 1
(Spring 1992): 17-33.
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and historical understanding (1978): 129-49.

-Ricoeur, Paul. Temps et rcit 1: L'intrigue et le rcit historique. Paris: Seuil, 1983.
-Ricoeur, Paul. Temps et rcit 2. La configuration dans le rcit de fiction. Paris: Seuil, 1984.
-Ricoeur, Paul. Temps et rcit 3: Le temps racont. Paris: Seuil, 1985.
-Veyne, Paul. Comment on crit l'histoire. Paris: Seuil, 1971.
-White, Hayden. "Historical pluralism." Critical Inquiry (1986): 480-493.
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Press, 2005.

Lide de Dieu chez Ahmadou Kourouma et Calyxthe Beyala: une tude

compare
Ndongo Kamdem Alphonse

University of Uyo, Nigeria
Abstract
As a communicator, the writer must abstain from a sort of euphoric writing that lays
emphasis on the obscene, without derision, and this, at the expense of the spiritual life. Man is
made of spirit and flesh, obviously. One cannot satisfy the body while killing the spirit, nor
the spirit at the expense of the body. Happiness derives from the perfect balance between the
physique and the spirit, and far from being a bet, it is the duty of humans to work to attain this
equilibrium, both from Christian and Islamic perspectives. This article examines not only the
semantic implications of the titles of Kouroumas and Beyalas Allah nest pas oblig and
Seul le diable le savait, but also how the neglect of God (that starts with the titles), flown at
half-mast, automatically leads man to shirk and carpe diem, without morality and without
hope.
Keywords: body, spirit, semantic implications, shirk, carpe diem

Rsum
En tant que communicateur, lcrivain doit se garder de verser dans une sorte de jubilation
de la parole qui mette en relief lobsne, sans drision, et ce, au mpris de lesprit. Lhomme
est un tre psycho-somatique, cela va de soi. On ne peut pas satisfaire le corps en tuant
lesprit, ou lesprit en tuant le corps. Le Bonheur de lhomme vient sans doute de
lquilibre entre les deux: le corps et lesprit. Et loin dtre un pari, il est du devoir de
lhomme de travailler atteindre le bonheur, tant dans loptique biblique que dans loptique
quranique. Cet article se propose dexaminer non seulement les implications smantiques des
titres Allah nest pas oblig et Seul le diable le savait de Kourouma et de Beyala, mais aussi
comment la mise en berne de Dieu (qui commence partir des titres) conduit
automatiquement lhomme au shirk et au carpe diem sans morale et sans lendemain.
Mots cls: corps, esprit, implications smantiques, shirk, carpe diem

Introduction
En torunant le dos au mythe, la littrature (ici, la prose essentiellement) na pas

seulement abandonn sa qute verticale avec ses grandes questions existentielles ( Qui
sommes-nous? Do venons-nous? O allons-nous? Comment les choses en sont-elles
arrives tre telles quelles sont? Qui est le matre de notre destin? etc.), elle a surtout pris
une nouvelle forme, le roman, avec ses proccupations horizontales et ses tentatives de
reconceptualisation de lexistence. La littrature serait ainsi passe de la qute du sacr (Dieu)
la qute du profane; de la qute du mta-physique la qute du physique, une dgradation
qui va (sur le plan littraire) du mythe au roman (Strauss 106).
Dans cette qute effrne dun bien-tre ou dune alternative sans Dieu, lhomme,
dsormais nu et seul sur sa plante voyageuse1, se cre un nouveau paradigme existentiel o
il srige comme matre de son destin. Du mme coup, il repense Dieu et le ramne de la
transcendence limmanence, aux dimensions mmes de lhumanit connaissant des limites
au lieu dtre omnipotent, omniscient, omniprsent( Aroga 206). On sait ce quen a dit
Camus: au silence de Dieu il faut opposer un silence mprisant. Que mimporte lternit?
(30), se demande-t-il. Chez Sartre, lhomme est un tre de situation, et il ngocie son destin
chaque instant, car lexistence prcde lessence, lhomme sans Dieu tant devenu un sur-
homme.
Lide de Dieu chez Kourouma et Beyala nest pas loin de ces visions camusienne et
sartrienne du monde, avec des oeuvres qui attribuent Dieu des caractres humains avec tout
ce que cela comporte derrements et de faiblesses. Les titres Allah nest pas oblig de
Kourouma et Seul le diable le savait de Beyala, eux seuls, fonctionnent comme des
condenss de programmes narratifs, anticipant et laissant prfigurer (Hamon 150) lidee de
Dieu chez ces deux auteurs. Ces titres sont-ils des choix conscients, ou des labels placs la
hte? Quelles en sont les implications smantiques et leur porte, eu gard (lide de) Dieu
et sa place dans lconomie de ces deux textes? Cet article se propose dexaminer trois
lments essentiels: les implications smantiques des titres des deux ouvrages sus-cits, le
shirk et le carpe diem comme consquences de la mise en berne de Dieu.
Implications smantiques des titres
On sait que Calyxthe Beyala, aprs avoir publi son roman sous le titre initial (Seul le
diable le savait) a, par la suite, chang ce titre pour proposer La ngresse rousse. Pourquoi?
Seul Dieu le sait, car le contenu des deux ditions est le mme. Seul: qui se trouve tre sans
compagnie. Qui a peu de relations avec dautres personnes. Solitaire. Unique. Sans aide.
Autonome. Sans rien dautre que ce qui est mentionn. Exclusivement, rien que, simplement,
uniquement. Esseul, solo2. On est seul, soit par privilge, soit par abandon. Le titre de ce
roman de Beyala implique que le diable est dot dun savoir exclusif, un savoir ou une
connaissance quil ne partage avec personne, puisquil est seul le/la possder. Ladjectif
seul exprime donc un privilge.
Dieu est demble cart de ce champs de connaissance o seul est instal le diable,
bien que lun soit le crateur de lautre. Dans ce nouveau paradigme o la crature en sait plus
que le crateur, Dieu ne peut tre considr que comme un tre marginal, un outsider relgu
la priphrie et dans son ignorance. Car si seul le diable le savait, cela implique que Dieu

ne le savait pas, quil lignorait, quil est dchu de son pidestale domniscience au profit du
diable qui, lui, savait seul. Ce dplacement de paradigme ne va pas sans consquence sur la
vie de lhomme qui, dsormais, voue son culte au diable plutt qu Dieu. Cest du reste le
(nouveau) rapport paradigmatique qui existe entre lhomme et le diable dans ce roman de
Beyala: il est son (nouveau) matre.
Un personnage de ce roman proclame dailleurs tre le diable [ Mais je suis le diable

(96)], et fait talage de ses pouvoirs magiques la grande surprise dune foule qui le redoute
ou le craint selon les penchants des uns et des autres. Dans cette optique beyalienne, lhomme
est dsormais dans un monde sans Dieu, affichant lgard de son crateur une attitude
dsinvolte, ce qui est une faon de lexclure de nos affaires, en somme de le nier (Towa
152). Selon le narrateur, les habitants de Wuel, dans Seul le diable le savait, implorent en
vain un ciel qui noffrait plus rien (13). Il ne leur reste plus quune terre dont la splendeur et
la lumire parlent sans relche dun Dieu qui nexiste pas(Camus 56).
La chambre de lEtranger (le personnage qui proclame tre le diable) est du reste
dcore dicones reprsentant le diable, avec sa longue queue, ses cornes(97), preuvue, sil
en est, quau centre de la vie de lhomme, Wuel, se trouve non pas Dieu, mais le diable,
seul. Un personnage tient dailleurs le diable responsable des imperfections naturelles de la
femme:
Le diable seul sait pourquoi la femme a t cre avec de tells dfaults (136).
Poussant laudace plus loin, le narrateur soutient que Dieu, ou lide de Dieu, nest
quun vu pieux entretenu par les esprits russ pour adoucir les murs:
Lexistence dun Dieu (entre nous hypothtique), nest quun

instrument pour rassurer les esprits faibles (144).
Seul le diable le savait. Le diable savait seul ce que Dieu (dont lexistence est
hypothtique selon le narrateur de ce roman de Beyala) ne savait pas. Dieu ignorait (donc) ce
que le diable savait (seul). Par consquent le diable en sait plus que Dieu, et a supplant Dieu
dans larne de lomniscience. Aussi le diable occupe-t-il, tout au moins dans la vision de
Beyala, la place de Dieu, au point de savoir (seul) pourquoi la femme a t cre (et par qui?)
avec tant de dfaults. Telles sont, pour moi, les implications smantiques du titre Seul le
diable le savait. Par ce titre, Beyala attribue des droits et des qualits du crateur une
crature(Moujahid 15). Et si lhomme, par essence subordonn Dieu, sarroge la libert et
le droit de dpouiller Dieu, son crateur, de ses attributs et de les attributer une crature (le
diable qui, par ce fait, sen trouve sublim), qua-t-on dautre attendre de Dieu sinon
labandon? Allah peut-il (toujours) tre oblig aprs un tel geste de lse-majest de la part de
lhomme?
Obliger: contraindre ou lier quelquun par une obligation. Mettre quelquun dans la
ncessit de faire quelque chose. Astreindre, forcer. Oblig: qui resulte dune obligation ou
dune ncessit; indispensable, obligatoire. Obligation: ce qui contraint une personne
donner, faire quelque chose. Lien moral qui assujettit lindividu une loi religieuse, morale
ou sociale. Devoir. Allah peut-il tre oblig?

La voix passive, engage traditionnellement par lauxiliaire copulative tre et le

participe pass du verbe en procs, implique, dans la terminologie dA. G. Greimas, au moins
deux actants: un agent et un patient; celui qui agit et celui qui subit laction.
Dans tous les cas de figure, lagent (le complment dagent) est toujours en position
de force, de dcideur, de dominateur. Laction dpend de lui et il impose sa loi au patient.
Cest lui le magister dans la chane paradigmatique. Sur le schma actantiel propos par
Greimas, lagent occuperait la position de destinateur, et le patient, celle de destinataire.
Dans le titre Allah nest pas oblig, cest Allah (Dieu en Arabe) qui est le destinataire,
le receveur, le patient. Mme si Allah nest pas oblig, il occupe tout de mme, dans cette
construction, la position de patient; celle de lagent tant rserve une entit qui nest pas
nomme. Allah nest pas oblig: par les hommes ou par lhomme? Lhomme semble tre
lagent implicite dans ce titre de Kourouma; il y a donc changement de paradigme, lhomme
agissant et Allah subissant; Allah reculant devant ses responsabilits et laissant lhomme se
dbrouiller comme il peut pour tre heureux.
Allah nest pas oblig: cela veut dire quil peut manquer sa promesse, se jouer de
lhomme, se dtourner de lui sans raison, changer dide. Birahima nous dit dun ton ironique,
dans le dernier roman (inachev) de Kourouma (Quand on refuse on dit non), quAllah en
Cte-dIvoire a cess daimer ceux qui sont obsquieux envers lui (31). Or, une apprciation
quranique du titre et du texte de Kourouma nous rvle plutt le contraire: Allah sest
prescript lui-mme lobligation de rcompenser quitablement tant les croyants que les
mcreants, chacun selon ses uvres:
Respectez mon alliance et je respecterai la vtre (2:40). Allah tient toujours sa

promesse (2:80). Jexauce lappel de celui qui minvo-que. Quils rpondent
mon appel et quils croient en moi (2:186). Chacun recevra le prix de ses actes,
sans que personne ne soit ls (2:281).
Autrement dit, il existe entre Dieu et lhomme un contrat de confiance: si lhomme

rpond lappel de Dieu et se soumet Lui, il recevra le prix de sa soumission. Par contre,
sil se rebelle et sme le dsordre sur terre, ceux-l sont les vrais perdants (2:27). Allah
nentend pas lser les hommes (3:108). A chacun les fruits de ce quil aura sem. Fanta, la
compagne de voyage de Birahima dans Quand on refuse on dit non rtorque du reste au jeune
garon que lomniprsent au ciel, Allah, nagit jamais sans raison (38). Allah peut-il donc
tre oblig? Et par qui? Y a-t-il une force qui puisse se placer au-dessus de Lui et lobliger,
le contraindre? Le Quran soutient quil sest prescript lui-mme lobligation dtre juste
envers les croyants aussi bien quenvers les mcreants. Dans cette perspective quranique, le
rapport paradigmatique nest pas invers, la pronominalisation du verbe prescrire (Allah
sest prescript (6:12) faisant de lagent le patient, et aucune force nest place au-dessus de
Dieu.
Si Allah nest oblig dtre juste dans toutes ses choses ici-bas comme le soutient
Birahima (223), cela veut dire quil peut dcider dtre injuste envers lhomme; quil peut
dcider dtre indiffrent son sort, par mpris ou cynisme. Or, ses attributs le prsentent,
entre autres, comme le Tout-Misricordieux, le Grand Pardonneur, lIndulgent, lAccueillant
au repentir, le Gnreux par excellence, Celui qui donne sans compter, le Grand bienfaiteur,
le Charitable, le Bienveillant, le Juge (selon le Quran). Peut-on associer lide dinjustice un
tre dot de tous ces attributs, un tre qui assure la victoire de la cause juste et la dfaite de
linjustice (Quran 8:8)? Allah dit dans le Quran:
Chacun sera rtribu selon le degr de son action, et ton Seigneur nest pas
inattentif ce que les hommes font (6:132). Les peses se feront en toute quit
(7:8). Allah nest pas injuste envers ses sujets (8:51). Nous navons jamais
sanctionn injustement (26:209). Chacun recevra le prix exact de son uvre
(39:70). Tout Malheur qui vous arrive est la consquence de vos propres
erreurs (42:30).
Or, Birahima commence le rcit de ses aventures au Liberia et en Sierra Leone par un
mea culpa:
Jai tu beaucoup de gens avec kalachnikovet me suis bien cam avec Kanif
et les autres drogues dures (11)moi jai tu beaucoup dinno-cents (12).
Certes, le rcit ne dit rien sur le sort rserv Birahima. Il est un enfant de dix ou
douze ans (10), et il a fait la guerre au Liberia et en Sierra Leone comme enfant malgr lui.
Lge peut donc jouer en sa faveur dans le dcompte des pchs. Mais que dire de Yacouba,
son oncle et guide, fticheur temps plein, et de tous les autres acteurs de la guerre qui tirent
profit du chaos quils entretiennent? Allah est-il oblig? De surcroit lorsquon trempe dans
toutes sortes de pchs, y compris celui de lui associer des partenaires?
Shirk et blasphme
Littralement, le mot shirk en Arabe signifie associer un partenaire Dieu, cest--dire

la dification ou ladoration de toute autre entit en dehors de lunique Dieu. Ce qui est un
crime impardonnable tant chez les Chrtiens que chez les Musulmans. Dieu dit dans Exode
20:3: Tu nauras point dautres dieux devant ma face. Lvangile de Matthew (2:31-32) va
plus loin dans cette injunction:
Toute espce de pch et de blasphme sera pardonne aux hommes,

mais le blasphme contre lEsprit ne sera pas remis. Et quiconque aura
dit une parole contre le Fils de lhomme, cela lui sera remis, mais quicon-
que aura parl contre lEsprit Saint, celui-l ne lui sera remis ni en cet
ge, ni en lautre.
Nous retenons par ailleurs que personne ne peut servir deux matres la fois: Vous ne
pouvez servir Dieu et Mammon (Matth. 6:24).
La position du Quran est autant claire sur ce sujet: Allah peut pardonner qui Il veut
tout autre pch sauf lidolatrie ou lassociation ( Lui dun partenaire). Nassociez pas
Allah de faux dieux alors que vous tes bien informs (2:22).
Ds le dbut du rcit dans Allah nest pas oblig, un personnage trange nous est
introduit, Balla le sorcier. Il avait le cou, les bras, les cheveux et les poches tout plein de
grigris(16). Or, quest-ce quun grigri, sinon une amulette ou un talisman contre les mauvais
sorts? Ce qui est de lidolatrie, un pch majeur en Islam. Tout pouvoir est entre les mains de
Dieu et le fidle na besoin que de prires et de supplications pour bnficier de la protection
divine. Le fticheur propose lhomme des grigris qui sont supposs le protger, attribuant

ainsi des objets ( eux-mmes inconscients, selon le Quran) des pouvoirs que seul Allah
dtient. Par ailleurs, aucun moment le sorcier Blla nest tourn en drision, dans ce rcit. Au
contraire, il est sublim par sa communaut qui le craint, et cest un tel individu que la famille
de Birahima, musulmane, sollicite pour dsenvouter sa mre malade (16-20). Aprs tous les
sacrifices que sa science de fticheur lui indique, Balla le sorcier ne peut venir bout du mal
dont souffre la mre de Birahima. Celui-ci attribue cet chc lindiffrence dAllah et des
mnes des anctres. Ce qui, en Islam, est le comble du shirk:
Les sacrifices, cest pas forc que toujours Allah et les mnes des
anctres les acceptent. Allah fait ce quil veut; il nest pas oblig
les mnes font ce quils veulent; ils ne sont pas obligs(21)Le
Tout-Puissant du ciel sen fout, il fait ce quil veut(31)
Ce partage de pouvoir entre Allah et les mnes des anctres est, dans loptique
islamique, un pch impardonnable. Adorez Allah sans rien Lui associer(4:36), soutient le
Quran. Allah ne pardonne jamais quon lui associe de fausses divinits (4:116).
Le deuxime personnage de ce texte, illustre dans lart de la dception, est Yacouba, le

guide de Birahima. Il prend la dcision de quitter le calme de la Cte-dIvoire pour risquer sa
vie dans des zones ravages par la guerre pour un seul mobile: largent. Et il compte lobtenir
par des moyens peu recommandables: il est faux-monnayeur et vendeur de ftiches (42-43).
Yacouba sera le bienvenu dans ce genre de bordel o les gens ont besoin de grigris pour se
bercer dillusions au front de guerre. Il faut se rappeler que Yacouba est un musulman,
multiplicateur de billets et aussi devin et marabout fabricant damulettes(38), une alliance
des contraires qui font de lui un mcrant en Islam. Lappat du gain facile est donc le mobile
de son dpart pour le Liberia, au grand dam de sa foi musulmane:
Tiecoura (Yacouba) tait press de partir parce que partout tout le monde
disait quau Liberia l-bas, avec la guerre, les marabouts multiplicateurs
de billets ou devins guerisseurs ou fabricants damulettes gagnaient plein
de dollars amricains (38).
Chemin faisant, Tiecoura fait comprendre au jeune Birahima que leur voyage est
parsem de mauvais prsages des chouettes et autres oiseaux de mauvais augure, mais
quavec ses prires et ses incantations de sorcier, ils avaient la protection dAllah, mais aussi
de lme de la dfunte mre de Birahima (44-6). A chaque mauvais prsage, Tiecoura a cri
beaucoup de nombreux bissimilahi et a pri longtemps et longtemps avec des sourates et
beaucoup de prires de fticheur cafre (47). Cafre vient de lArabe Kufar, qui signifie
mcrant. Tiecoura est (-il) donc la fois croyant et mcrant (?).
Au, Liberia et en Sierra Leone, Tiecoura se fait recruter par diffrents chefs de guerre.
Dabord Papa le bon qui fut trs heureux de rencontrer Yacouba, trs heureux davoir un
grigriman, un bon grigriman musulman (74). Puis , aprs la mort de Papa le bon, Yacouba,
malgr linefficacit avre de ses ftiches (95), se fait recruter par un autre chef de guerre qui
avait dj un grigriman fticheur. Mais ctait pas un grigriman musulman (106). Or, le
credo islamique proclame lunicit dAllah qui seul dtient tout pouvoir de protection et de
rtribution. De l avoir recours aux grigris comme alternative et source possible de

protection, cest proclamer une chose et son contraire. Cest se fonder kafir (unbeliever),
mushrik (one who associate others with Godor dahriyah (an atheist) (Ahmad 56) [kafir
(mcrant), mushrik (celui qui associe des partenaires Dieu))ou dahriyah (un athe)-Notre
traduction].
Chez Calyxthe Beyala, le shirk est toff de propos blasphmatoires. Outre le fait de
substituer le diable Dieu, au point de prendre lun pour lautre, Beyala se donne parfois la
libert dinterroger lomniscience et lomnipotence de Dieu. Lattitude quaffiche lauteure
travers son procs blasphmatoire du divin et du sacro-saint oscille entre dsinvolture et
irreligiosit, libertinage et athisme, enfin, scepticisme et amoralisme (Asaah 159).
Dj dans son premier roman, Cest le soleil qui ma brule, le narrateur se demande
si La vie ne serait (-elle) quun tableau peint par un fou, ajoutant quil y a trop de dsordre
dans son art avant de conclure que Dieu est vieux et probablement sourdDieu a rat sa
vie pour avoir cr de telles imbcilits (37-38). Dans Tu tappelleras Tanga, Beyala
portraiture le Crateur tel un Dieu oublieux et imparfait, proche en cela des tres humains
(Asaah 165). Dans La petite fille du reverbre, la protagoniste-narratrice affirme que Dieu a
choisi lAfrique pour pleurer ses chcs. Selon elle, en Afrique, Dieu et le diable se
confondaient (57). Un personnage, Tapoussire, dclare dans ce mme texte:
Toi, Dieu puissant et inconnu, reste o tu es! Les choses du monde ne sont
plus tes affaires, puisque tu es injuste (93).
Et pour promouvoir lmergence de la femme (pour ne pas dire du sexe, chez Beyala),
Irne Fofo dclare dans Femme nue femme noire que le sexe est plus doux que lamour de
Dieu (42). Cest dailleurs de sexe quil est essentiellement question dans Seul le diable le
savait: deux hommes sont esclaves sexuels dune femme (Dame maman) qui se joue deux
sa guise, et devant eux. Megri, qui se morfond dans ses douleurs, parce quelle ne peut
possder (le sexe de) lEtranger qui na de regard que pour dautres femmes, mme maries.
La Prtresse goitre (62) et lEtranger (230-1) qui envotent la foule et engage, tour de rle,
tout un village dans des orgies sexuelles, puis Laetitia et ses deux amants: le sexe constitue
dans ce texte, comme dans la plupart des textes de Beyala, un lment hautement dramatique,
un projet ou un mobile narratif de premier ordre. Cette promotion de la femme (ou de son
sexe) se fait incontestablement aux dpens de (limage de) Dieu qui se trouve, chez Beyala,
comme chez Kourouma, associ systmatiquement lerreur, lchc et au silence (Asaah
165).
Dans Seul le diable le savait, on sort les dieux des cachettes, loccasion (87). Aux
cts des autres dieux, vos salets de dieux (88), on ne croie plus au Dieu tout-puissant
qu demi (92). Dieu est limage des hommes, de mme le diable est son image(94).
Tout vnement extraordinaire et positif est attribut non Dieu, mais aux anctres (113).
Pourquoi Dieu na-t-il pas mesur toute la dimension du mal auquel lhomme ferait face dans
sa vie, se demande un personnage (136). Lexistence dun Dieu omniscient et omnipotent est
par consquent hypothtique (144). Labandon de Dieu implique lmergence du
surhomme, Lhomme est Dieu (151), soutient Laetitia dans ce roman de Beyala. Dsormais,
par consquent, La justice est du domaine des hommes et non de celui des dieux (188).

Voil le langage de Beyala et lide quelle nous propose de Dieu. Dans cette perspective, il
ne reste plus lhomme que ses proccupations horizontales.
Carpe diem
Dans son pome intitul Mignone, Ronsard, aprs avoir trait la nature de martre,
conseille la mignone de cueillir sa jeunesse pendant quil est temps car, comme cette
fleur, la vieillesse/Fera ternir votre beaut (Odes I,17). Lon sait que Camus a fait du carpe
diem son lot de consolation devant ce quil considre tre lincomprhension entre lhomme
et le monde (ce quil appelle lAbsurde), promouvant la jouissance jusquau mpris de la
biensance; jappelle imbcile celui qui a peur de jouir(18), nous dit-il dans Noces. Et il
ajoute:
Hors du soleil, des baisers et des parfums sauvages, tout nous parait
futileJe laisse dautres lordre et la mesure (13)Il ne me plait pas
de croire que la mort ouvre sur une autre vie. Elle est pour moi une
porte ferme (27). La notion denfernestquune aimable plaisan-
terie (42). Le monde est beau et hors de lui, point de salut (67).
Quil lest emprunte chez Epicure ou chez Ronsard, la philosophie du carpe diem
chez Camus est loin de son acception chez Ronsard tout au moins. Le carpe diem chez
Ronsard ne se fait pas au mpris des moeurs et de la morale, comme chez Camus. Dans son
pome intitul Il nous faut tous mourir, Ronsard prsente Dieu dans son unicit et son
omnipotence, seul maitre bord du navire quest le monde, et dplore lattitude de ces
humains qui feignent dignorer que lhomme est un tre sans pouvoir, et que tout pouvoir
appartient Dieu. Ronsard nous dit:
Si les hommes pensaient part eux quelques fois

Quils nous faut tous mourir, et que mme les Rois
Ne peuvent viter de la mort la puissance,
Ils pendraient en leurs curs un peu de patience.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Beaucoup, ne sachant point quils sont enfants de Dieu,
(V89-106)
Dans Le chrtien face la mort, Ronsard va plus loin pour soutenir que le Bonheur
ou le Malheur de lhomme est le rsultat de son obeisance , ou de sa rebellion contre Dieu.
En voquant dans ce pome les images du Christ, Ronsard nous fait comprendre que la
soumission Dieu conduit la flicit ternelle, tant dis que le mpris des injonctions divines
aboutit la damnation ternelle. La jouissance au mpris des murs et de la morale sociales,
chez Camus, est donc un enrichissement du carpe diem ronsardien. Ahmadou Kourouma et
Calyxthe Beyala sont plutt partisans de Camus.
Quand Birahima dit dans Allah nest pas oblig quils navaient que leurs kalach
comme subsistence parce que Allah ne laisse pas vide une bouche quil a cre (130), cest
non seulement associer Allah la btise, cest surtout nous faire comprendre quils (Yacouba
et lui et tous les rebelles) sont prts tuer, sil le faut, pour se nourrir. Le kalach fonctionne ici
comme une mtonymie de lobjet pour ce quil produit. Mais lon sait que le kalach produit
non pas de la nourriture, mais la mort. Autrement dit, lorsquon a faim, la mort des autres ne
signifie pas grand chose; on peut tuer pour survivre. Yacouba sengage dailleurs au front de

guerre pour arnaquer, manipuler, mentir, vendre des illusions (les grigris) pour senrichir (38-
42). Birahima smerveille son dpart pour le Liberia:
L-bas, les enfants de la rue comme moi devenaient des enfants-soldats

Les small-soldiers avaient tout et tout. Ils avaient des kalachnikov. Avec
les kalachnikov, les enfants-soldats avaientde largent, mme des dollars
amricains. Ils avaient des chaussures, des gallons, des radios, des casquettes,
et mme des voitures (43-4).
Le dpart pour le Liberia et la Sierra Leone est motiv par deux grands enjeux: la
qute de la tante (Birahima) et la qute du trsor (Yacouba). Trs vite, les deux qutes
fusionnent pour nen former quune seule: la qute pour la survie. Que ce soit Papa le bon, le
premier recruteur de Yacouba et de Birahima, du Gnral Baclay ou de Prince Johnson, le
narrateur nous fait comprendre que tous ces chefs de guerre navaient pour seul souci que de
contrller les diffrents sites miniers des deux pays et de senrichir. Tous sont la recherche
du bonheur, et tout prix. Aprs un massacre denfants-soldats par un groupe de bandits dans
une mine dor exploite par des Libanais, sous la protection dun chef de guerre, Birahima
nous dit:
Onika Baclay sest rendue sur placeElle na pas pu retenir ses larmes
Des larmes de crocodile! Ca ne pleurait pas sur les cadavers, mais sur ce
que a risquait de lui faire perdre. La politique dOnika, ctait la scurit
des patrons associs. Sans patrons associspas dexploitation des mines
et, par consquent, pas de dollars (113).
Chez Kourouma, il nest question que de bouche et de dollars. Une phrase revient
dailleurs comme un leit motiv dans ce roman: Allah dans son immense bont ne laisse
jamais vide une bouche quil a cre (41, 43, 44, 48, 61, 88, 94, 130) Image consciente ou
pas, on ne nourrit pas une bouche vide, on la remplit, puisquelle est vide, ce qui est
animalesque.
Calyxthe Beyala, quant elle, semble avoir fait du sexe son projet narratif majeure,
son cheval de batail (contre les hommes). Outre les propos blasphmatoires et irreligieux qui
constituent ses ingrdients favoris (Asaah 159), Beyala assaisonne son oeuvre de termes et de
scnes ou lindcence se dispute la vedette avec lamoralit. Le carpe diem chez elle est
essentiellement affaire de sexe comme si lhomme, libr de toute morale divine, navait plus
que le sexe comme boue de sauvetage. Lcriture de Calyxthe Beyala frappe surtout par son
caractre minemment licencieux (Ndongo 27).
Dans Cest le soleil qui ma brule, Ateba Locadie se demande ce quattend lhomme
de la femme sinon de ne pas bouger et de baiser (57). Et malgr ce constat qui aurait pu
orienter autrement son fminisme, elle finit par ne faire valoir que son sexe. Dans Seul le
diable le savait, les images les plus frappantes sont celles de Dame maman et ses deux
talons (ses deux maris) qui rodent dociles autour delle tels des enfants bien duqus;
Megri qui, aprs avoir sduit et couch avec lEtranger, cde allgrement dautres amants;
Laetitia et ses deux amants, mais surtout les deux orgies sexuelles publiques organises par la
Prtresse goitre et par lEtranger (62-230). On est en plein dans un bordel. Devant la dernire
scne orgiaque, Megri se demande ce que lEtranger attend delle, sinon dchirer mon sexe
et marracher des spasmes de plaisir (234). Mohja Kahf dfinit de tels tres comme de

simples Wantons bed-hop (and) rebellious renegates(176-177) [putains instables (et)

rengats rebelles- Notre trad.].
Dans Femme nue femme noire, la nudit de la femme noire nest pas ici une
mtaphore, cest une ralit physique. Nous vivons dans ce texte une scne itrative ou
homosexualit (y compris le lesbianisme) et htrosexualit sont allgrement pratiques par
un groupe de gais lurons (hommes et femmes) sous le commandement dune femme,
enferms dans une maison pendant des jours. Est-ce (toujours) cela la literature [entendue
comme lusage du matriau verbal pour un but esthtique et subsidiairement utilitaire]? Est-ce
cela la littrature africaine? Est-ce ainsi que Beyala conoit le devenir de lAfrique partir de
son exil europen? La littrature peut aussi prospecter lavenir.
On va ainsi, chez Kourouma et chez Beyala, de la satisfaction du ventre la

satisfaction du bas-ventre, ce que Sony Labou Tansi appelle Bonheur de ttard (38). Certes,
on a le droit, je dirais mme le devoir dtre heureux. Mais ce bonheur ne saurait se faire au
prix de la biensance et de lethos. Limage de Dieu chez ces deux auteurs est associe la
dchance, lerreur et tout ce qui est humain. Lorsquun auteur comme lAmricain Dan
Brown se demande: What if God was wrong?(81), cest, pour moi, oublier non seulement
que son lectorat va (ou peut aller) au-del de sa famille restreinte, mais surtout quil est un
communicateur, et que ses propos pourraient constituer, pour une partie de ses lecteurs, une
insulte. Ce qui est sr, cest que Allah nous dit quil est juste (dans ses comptes) et quil (s)
est oblig respecter son engagement envers lhomme. Ce qui est sr encore, cest que le
diable ne peut pas le savoir seul, parce que les attributs domniscience et domnipotence
sont divins et non sataniques.
Conclusion
En labsence de Dieu, il reste chez Kourouma les ftiches, les mnes des anctres et le
ventre (les dollars). Chez Beyala, il reste les dieux, les ftiches, la sorcellerie et le bas-ventre.
Dieu peut-il tourner injustement le dos lhomme comme le prtendent Kourouma et Beyala?
Le livre dIsae (59) soutient, dans la Bible:
Non, la main de Yahv nest pas trop courte pour sauver, ni son oreille
trop dure pour entendre/Mais ce sont vos fautes qui ont creus un
abime entre vous et votre Dieu/ Vos pchs ont fait quil vous cache
sa face/ et refuse de vous entendre/ Car vos mains sont souilles par le
sang, et vos doigts par le crime (1-3).
Allah ajoute dans le Quran:
Allah prescript la justice, la bienveillance et lassistance charitable

Il proscrit la turpitude, limpudence et lagressivit (16:90). Que lon
se rassure. Notre compte est juste (21:47). En vrit, ce sont les
injustes qui subiront un chatiment douloureux (42:21).
Le Quran soutient en plus que quiconque prendra satan comme compagnon aura le
plus sinistre des compagnons(4:38), quAllah ne svit jamais injustement contre les
hommes; ce sont en fait les hommes qui sont injustes envers eux-mmes(10:44). Quelles
injonctions divines observe-t-on dans ces textes de Kourouma et de Beyala avant de conclure,

du, que Dieu est injuste ou que Dieu nexiste pas(Camus 56)? A aucun moment il
nest question desprit ou de soumission Dieu, mais seulement de jouissance physique, de
bouche et de sexe. Dieu et ses commandements sont des voeux pieux et lhomme est esclave
du bewegung (ambiance, jouissance, en Allemand).
Ni la vision chrtienne, ni la vision musulmane du monde ne projette lhomme

malheureux dans le monde. Le bonheur, physique et spiritual, est dailleurs un devoir chez le
chrtien comme chez le musulman. On peut donc sindigner devant la vision dcadante et
dgradante qui se dgage des textes de Kourouma et de Beyala comme si le seul salut de
lhomme, dlaiss par Dieu, tait de (miser) sur la chair(Camus 34) mais en sachant quon
a davance perdu. Le lecteur a le droit de porter un jugement sur la valeur thique dun texte:
si je peux mextasier ou mindigner devant un mets bien fait ou mal fait, pourquoi ne puis-je
mextasier ou mindigner devant un texte bien fait ou mal fait? De surcroit quand ce texte
tourne en drision les valeurs qui sous-tendent lexistence? Le critique devrait aller au-del du
rle simpliste damplificateur ou de caisse de rsonance du texte pour sappesantir sur lthos
ou la catharsis qui devraient guider lcrivain dans son enterprise potique. Lcrivain doit
travailler faire retourner la rgle de biensance dans le giron littraire do elle a t
expulse manu qalami par des crivains sensation. La lacit ne peut se faire aux dpens de
ces ssames qui font le savoir vivre.

Notes:
1- Cette citation est extraite de Vigile de lesprit du philosophe Alain. Notes de cours
de Philosophie de la classe de Terminale, Lyce dEda, 1987.
2- Cette dfinition est tire du Petit Larousse illustr, 1984.
3- Le Petit Larousse illustr, Op. Cit.
4- La chane actantielle propose par A.G. Greimas est structure comme suit:
Destinateur-------------------Objet-----------------Destinataire
Adjuvant-----------------------Sujet------------------Opposant.

Rfrences
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Africaines. No 186, 2006, 157-168.
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--- Tu tappelleras Tanga. Paris: Stock, 1988.
--- Seul le diable le savait. Paris: Belfond Le Pr aux Clercs, 1990.
--- La petite fille du reverbre. Paris: Albin Michel, 1998.
---Femme nue femme noire. Paris: Albin Michel, 2003.
-Brown, Dan. Inferno. New York: Doubleday, 2013.
-Camus, Albert. Noces. Paris: Gallimard, 1959.
-Degrand, Martin. Le mythe et les genres littraires: aspects thoriques. Folia electronic
classica, t.19, 1, Janvier-Juin 2010. Lien. http://bcs.fltr.ud.ac.be.FE/19/TM19.html.
Consult le 03 Aout 2015.
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Seuil, 1977.
-Kahf, Mohja. Western representation of the Muslim woman: from Termagant to Odalisque.
Texas: University of Texas Press, 1999.
-Kourouma, Ahmadou. Allah nest pas oblig. Paris: Seuil, 2000.
---Quand on refuse on dit non. Paris: Seuil, 2004.
-La Bible de Jrusalem. Rome: Les ditions du Cerf, 2002.
-Labou Tansi, Sony. LAnt-peuple. Paris: Seuil, 1983.
-Le Noble Coran. www.qurancomplex.org
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-Ndongo, Kamdem Alphonse. La reprsentation de la femme chez Mariama Ba et Calyxthe

Beyala: entre religion et scularit. International Journal of Humanities and Social
Science Invention (IJHSSI). No 10, Vol.2, October 2013.
-Ronsard, Pierre. (de). Mignone. OdesI,17. Lagarde et Michard XVIe sicle, p.139.
--- Il nous faut tous mourir. Lagarde et Michard. Op.Cit. p. 147.
--- Le chrtien devant la mort. Lagarde et Michard. Op. Cit. p. 147-8.
-Towa, Marcien. Cit par Aroga J.D. Les fondements de la pense africaine traditionnelle.
Op. Cit.

Philanthropy Language Construction
Iqbal Nurul Azhar

University of Trunojoyo, Madura, Indonesia
Abstract
This paper proposes a theory the-so-called philanthropy language theory through linguistic
perspective. Philanthropy language is defined in simple way as "a language style that
expresses love and care to others." There are two maxims of philanthropy languages namely,
maxim of proposition and maxim of affection. An expression contains proposition maxim
when its proposition point at six situations, namely: the proposition shows the feelings of love
and affection, the proposition puts the subject matter as a shared property, the proposition
puts the expression makers/writer and the listeners/readers in a brotherhood situation, the
proposition does not attack the others face, the proposition introduces reformations yet the
form of expression does not violate maxim 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the proposition contributes
something to others even though it is only in the form of an expectation. An expression
contains affection maxim when it carries three characteristics that give a feeling of comfort
since it affects others to: (1) agree with the proposition to act or react positive, (2) follow
proposition not to act or react negative, and (3) not do anything to avoid negative attitude.
Philanthropy language utilizes some peculiar lexical markers such as: love, compassion,
peace, prosperity, comfort, unity, truth, equality, friendship, happiness, unity, we, us, all of us,
you and I, and many others of language philanthropist. Philanthropy language also has a
unique syntactic rule that is it is better to immediately disobey syntactic rules rather than to
say something cruel to others".
Keywords: philanthropy language, maxims, construction

Introduction
This paper is inspired by my students emails which demand answers on a sort of

Indonesian expression pattern which contains love, affection and compassion. The examples
of the expressions have already been published in my article (see Azhar, 2008). Here is one of
the examples:
Mari Kita Wujudkan Jawa Timur Yang Makmur, Aman, Tenteram, Bersama
(Manteb) Merdeka (Azhar, 2008) (Let us realize East Java to be prosperous safe,
tranquility, by doing it together (acronym), Freedom.
The emails were on inquiries related to on which linguistic field; one could hold a
discussion about the pattern. Having retraced some printed and electronic literature available
in some libraries and e-libraries, I encountered a fact that the pattern can be accommodated in
a special terminology or a scope the-so-called "philanthropy or namely the language style
of philanthropy. It is so unique that Fusari (2006) considered it to have a power to humanize
humans by banishing their misery and cultivating their love.
Although it has been set up the umbrella to accommodate the pattern, there is a bit
disappointment associated with the existing information in the literature. This dissatisfaction
arises because of two things. First, existing information about philanthropy language are very
inadequate and less comprehensive as they are only stated in articles of journals which of
course less qualified to answer the inquiries which explicitly aim at theoretical answers.
Second, the literature is not really connected to the topic since it mostly deals with social-
humanitarian issues while the inquiries are demanding linguistic academic answers.
Researchers studying the nature of philanthropy have been those of different

disciplinary backgrounds and, correspondingly, have attended to various aspects of
philanthropy. There have been a number of valuable studies of philanthropy as by Bhativa
(1997), Bhatiava (1998), Connor (1997), Connor and Wagner (1998), Crismore (1997), Lauer
(1997), Myers (1997), Payton, Rosso, and Paste (1991), Fusari (2005), Fusari (2006) and
Amabile (2012). The studies portrayed philanthropy in many communities through discourse
analysis perspective. However, none of these photographed philanthropy within the scope of
theoretical linguistics. All of them related languages in texts to philanthropic activities and
aimed at social affairs which were about how to process language so as to generate donations
for philanthropic purposes. None of them studied the languages independently.
One study that has little contact with linguistics is the study conducted by McCagg
(1997) which examined philanthropy through linguistics sphere. This study was still not able
to answer the inquiries since it merely discussed the moral values of metaphors in the
discourse of philanthropy. Since there have been literally no report documenting studies on
philanthropy through linguistics perspective (except by McCagg) attempts to disclose
philanthropy through linguistics perspective are warranted.
Due to the time limitation to complete this article, the writer considers library study
fits to all procedures which must be undergone before arriving at the theory of philanthropy
language. The data were philanthropy expressions which came from some particular scientific
articles about political campaign discourses. Some of them were in the form of Jargons, and

some of them were in slogans. Since the type of this study was a library study, the method of
data collection was Content Analysis, with the basic techniques was tapping and the further
technique was recording (Kotari, 2004). The instrument used to retrieve the data was the
writer himself. The method of data analysis was Correlation Method with Segmented-
Element-Determinant-Technique. The determinant elements were the discourses. Since there
had never been a linguist who conducted researches on this topic, the approach of this study
was Bottom Up (grounded), which started from data and ended to a theory. The data which
had been collected and analyzed, at the end were formulated in the form of a proposal theory.
Discussion
The Maxims of Philanthropy Language
Etymologically, the word philanthropy was derived from the Greek word 'philos'
which means love and anthropos which meant human. The combination of the two words
produced new meaning "Love or to love human". In philosophical history, philanthropy was
closely linked to the spirit of human freedom. It was believed as a manifestation of the story
of the god Zeus tyranny who long time ago bind human in ignorance, fear, darkness, and
helplessness, Then, there came a good God named Prometheus who were willing to save
mankind by giving them fire and hope.
In the story of Prometheus resistance, fire symbolized technology, skills, and

knowledge, while hope had always been associated with the spirit of improvement of the
human condition. And that was where the story of human civilization began. It was originated
from the love "philanthropy" of Prometheus to human kinds
(http://ditpolkom.bappenas.go.id).
The word Philanthropy is often interpreted as "an expression of love to other human
beings". Webster's Dictionary does not impose limits to the disclosure of love, whether it is
shown by sharing money or materials to others, but rather it is "works or efforts that are
intended to increase the sense of love of neighborhood and of humanity".
Philanthropy definition recently develops itself into two boundaries, namely action,
and concept. The first boundary is still deeply entrenched in societies and can be viewed in a
variety of containers of humanitarian movements such as the Philantropic Will Company,
Duafa Wallet, Zakat House, BSMI (Indonesian Red Crescent), and so forth. In this boundary,
philanthropy is interpreted as the acts of someone who loves donating his/her wealth to
his/her associates. In everyday situation, philanthropy is practiced as alms, custody/parenting
of orphans, charity, benevolence, donation, and other actions which have similar purposes.
Philanthropy in this boundary is also interpreted as a "voluntary acts of transferring resources
for the purpose of community or social charity which consist of two main forms; utilization of
social grants and of social construction."
The second boundary, although it stills a minor flow, is gradually increasing to appear
along with the emerging of many discourses containing philanthropy. This boundary shifts
from the original form of philanthropy which are actions, into rather abstract (here we call it
as a concept) which orients to "goals of love and compassion for others, whether they are
performed solely or in groups. Since the second is in the form of concept, it mostly behaves

like adjectives, so that the word philanthropy can be attached to other words (nouns) to form
new entities. Thus, based on this new concept, later we know some new terms such as
philanthropy literature, philanthropy arts, philanthropy drama, philanthropy style,
philanthropy language and other kinds of philanthropy. In the second boundary, we can see a
fundamental shift from the original definition of philanthropy which deals with a concrete
action of groups of people, or works for the sake of humanity, into a broader area which is the
concept of love and individual/group affection. This definition also shifts retro on
materialistically, since philanthropy was actually originated from the Greek definition of
intangible abstract feeling of a Greek good God, then turned into concrete activities to deliver
tangible material given freely to others for a good cause, then moves back again into an
abstract concept which is attached closely to nonspecific entries of language (nouns).
Using the definition of philanthropy of the first boundary to discuss languages as

indicated by the electronic mails is clearly not appropriate. The first branch of philanthropy
has no relation at all to the topic of the e-mails. Here are four factors that cause the topic of
the e-mails cannot be put in the first boundary: (1) The first branch is more likely under the
shade of social realm, humanitarian and religious, while the topic only focuses on the realm of
language, (2) the first branch discusses concrete products that can be used for humanitarian
purposes, whereas the topic discusses the language products that contain human love and
compassion, (3) the first branch discusses human actions, while the topic discusses human
expressions, (4) the first branch discusses how to empower people to be beneficial to others,
while the topic discusses how language can be empowered so as to indicate the charge of
love, affection and compassion.
Philanthropy that we discuss in this article is the philanthropy in the second boundary.
The definition of Philanthropy language that we use as a parameter of discussions in this
article is "the style of language that shows expression of love for human beings." From the
definition above, we can see that the definition raises two maxims namely, maxims of
proposition, and maxims of affection.
Philanthropy language contains particular information that is love, compassion and

generosity. Although it has different sentence structures, as long as the sentences contain the
three propositions above, the sentences can be put in the category of philanthropy. This is how
the Maxim of Proposition appears. There are six characteristics that distinguish philanthropy
language with other types of languages based on the first maxim. Those are; the language
must: (1) show the feelings of love and affection, (2) show the subject matter covered as a
shared property, (3) put the makers and readers of a discourse in the same brotherhood, (4)
not attack the face of the others so that no philanthropy language hurts other feelings, (5) add
invitation to reform something but the invitation must not violate the solicitation of 1st, 2nd,
3rd, and 4th character. (6) give something to others even though it is only in the form of a hope.
The examples of discourses that contain proposition maxim can be seen as follows:
Table 1. The Examples of Discourse that Contain the Maxim of Proposition

N The Example of English Translation
o Discourse (in bahasa Indonesia)
1 Mari kita wujudkan Let us realize Indonesia as
.1 Indonesia yang mandiri dan an independent and prosperous
sejahtera, Rakyat harus terlepas country, The people must be free

dari belenggu penderitaan,

from the shackles of misery,
kemiskinan dan ketidakadilan poverty and injustice regardless of
tanpa membedakan suku, ras dan ethnicity, race and class (Azhar,
golongan (Azhar, 2009) 2009)
1 Mari Berkarya Bersama Let us produce something
.2 Rakyat (Azhar, 2009) Together with the People (Azhar,
2009)
1 Bersama Kita Bisa (Azhar, Together We Can (Azhar,
.3 2009) 2009)
The three data above are included in the category of philanthropy language since they
contain proposition maxim. Example 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 clearly show the love to others (as it is
the 1st characteristic of the maxim of preposition). Example 1.1 shows the love to Indonesia
and to the people, while example 1.2 shows the love to work for the people and the love to
always be together in doing something. The three examples above posses the characteristic of
maxim of proposition number 2 because Indonesia, the people and togetherness are the
topics that are commonly shared by group of people and not by an individual. The three
examples above meet the 3rd characteristic due to the fact that the discourses invite the readers
to build friendship not separation. The three examples above also meet the characteristics
number 4 because they do not attack others face and do not make others angry. The three
examples above meet the characteristics number 5 since they invite the readers to change the
status quo in society yet the forms of the expressions are not aggressive because they attack
none. The three examples above meet the characteristic of maxim of proposition number 6
because they give hope to others in the form of reformation and improvement in the future.
The second maxim is the Maxim of Affection. Affection in this context is defined as
the response of the reader or the listener towards philanthropy discourse by feeling
comfortable, calm, and happy. There are at least three characteristics within the scope of this
maxim that readers respond to the discourses by: (1) complying the proposition to apply
positive attitudes, (2) following proposition not to apply negative attitude, and (3) not doing
anything to avoid negative and aggressive attitude.
As examples of the Maxim of Affection can be seen in the following discourses:
Table 2. The Examples of Discourse that Contains Maxim of Affection

N The Example of Discourse English Translation
o (in bahasa Indonesia)
2 Menjelang pagi dan malam Right before dusk and dawn,
.1 Tuhan membuka dan menutup God opens and closes the window of
jendela bumi. . . kemudian, TUHAN the earth. . then, the Lord sees me,
melihatku, lalu bertanya. Apa yang then He asks: What do you want?
engkau inginkan? Kemudian, Then, I answer, give mercy to the
akupun menjawab, SAYANGI people who read this writing forever,
orang yang membaca tulisan ini AMEN
selamanya, AMIN (Sulistyaningtyas,
2009)
2 Impianmu impianku impian Your dream and my dream are
.2 kita Bersama (Sulistyaningtyas, our dreams
2009)

2 Bersih itu damai Clean is peaceful

.3 (Sulistyaningtyas, 2009)
The three discourses above are included in group of philanthropy language because
they contain the maxim of affection. Example 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 are clear to the reader that they
give comfortable feeling. Example 2.1 provides a comfortable feeling for the reader since the
reader will feel that he/she is being loved by the maker of the discourse. Example 2.2 provides
a comfortable feeling to the reader because the readers are considered friends who have
similar dreams by the discourse makers. Example 2.3 provides a comfortable feeling to the
reader that although there is a weep-cleaning activity, yet the activity is still in the corridors of
peace.
Lexical and Structural peculiarities of Philanthropy Language
Besides having maxims, philanthropy language also has a tendency to form typical of
statements and solicitations (whether affirmative or negative). However, imperative or
interrogative sentence construction can also contain philanthropy as long as the proposition
also characterizes philanthropy.
Philanthropy language has lexical peculiarities. The construction of philanthropy can

not only be identified through the compliance of its maxims, but also can be identified
through its lexical choice. Particular lexicons such as: love, compassion, peace, prosperity,
friendship, unity, truth, equality, friendship, happiness, prosperity, unity, for human, for
peace, equality, and many others are the markers of philanthropy language. Additionally,
pronouns such as; us, all of us, you and I, are also encountered in the construction of
philanthropic language.
The structure of philanthropy language also has a specific feature in it that is the
structure may: "violate grammar rules to avoid saying something cruel to others, as it is
suggestible". As an example of the typical philanthropy structure of a style language can be
seen as follows:
Tabel 3: The Examples of Discourse that Contains Philanthropy Maxim

N Discourses that Contain Discourses that do not
o Philanthropy Maxims Contain Philanthropy Maxims
3 Jika orang benar bertambah Jika orang benar bertambah
.1 (tidak menyebutkan nama), (seperti Bapak A), bersukacitalah
bersukacitalah rakyat. Jika orang rakyat. Jika orang fasik memerintah
fasik memerintah (tidak (seperti bapak B) berdukacitalah
menyebutkan nama) berdukacitalah rakyat
rakyat (Azhar, 2009)
When the righteous increases When the righteous increase
(not mentioning any names), the (as Mr. A), the people rejoice. When
people rejoice. When the wicked the wicked rule (like Mr. B) the
rules (not mentioning any names) people bereaved.
the people bereaved
3 Jangan lihat orangnya, lihat Jangan lihat orangnya (yaitu
.2 yang telah diperbuat bapak/ibu A), lihat yang telah

(Sulistyaningtyas, 2009) diperbuat (melakukan A atau B)

Do not see who the person is, Do not see who the person is
see what he has done (i.e Mr. A/Ms.A), see what he has
done (done A or done B)
The form of linguistic unit above is a sentence (example 3.1) or a combination of

sentences (3.2). The two discourses above break grammatical rules (even pragmatic-semantic
rules) because it does not mention any names, a little vague, since it can be anyone. The
violation aims to not to say something painful that may cause division. In 3.1, "when the
righteous increase, the people rejoice," There is the-so-called divertis" that is the avoidance
to directly mention the righteous (names that are considered stand in the right path). If the
name is mentioned, the impression that arises is negative (cocky, arrogant, pretentious) both
in the so-called, and on which is not called. Likewise, the expression "If the wicked rule, the
people bereaved" also does not mention the name of the persona that has a wicked nature. If
the name is mentioned, of course, will make the person offended. Likewise, at 3.2 "do not see
the person, see who has done" also tries to divert persona name to avoid negative effects.
Avoidance to mention good deeds that have been done by a person also minimizes negative
effects.
The Application of Philanthropy Language Construction Theory
The theory of philanthropy language in the previous section according to the limitation
of this study is focused on data which relate to political discourses. From the above
explanation, the theory is applicable in this context. The question is; can this theory be used to
analyze other types of discourse?
In practice, it turns out that this philanthropy language theory can also be used to
distinguish discourse, such as the four lyrics in table 4 below. In the table it can be seen that
there are four lyrics. Two lyrics use philanthropy language (because it meets two philanthropy
language maxims), while the other two, do not contain philanthropy language maxims and
therefore cannot be regarded as philanthropy language discourses.
Tabel 4: the comparison of philanthropy language and nonphilanthropy language

N Philanthropy Lyrics Nonphilanthropy Lyrics
o
4 (a) (b)
.1 heal the world, make it a Dirty Diana, nah, Dirty
better place, for you and for me, and Diana, nah, Dirty Diana, no,
the entire human race, there are Dirty Diana, Let me be! Sumber:
people dying, if you care enough, for (http://www.rizkyonline.com)
the living, make a better place, for
you and for me (sumber:,
http://lirikdansair.blogspot.com)
4 (c) (d)
.2 ('cause we all live under the (Here I am, Will you send
same sun, We all walk under the me an angel, Here I am, In the
same moon, Then why, why can't we land of the morning star)

live as one) (http://lirik.kapanlagi.com)

(http://lirik.kapanlagi.com)
Example 4.1 (a) and 4.1 (b) are the chorus of the two Michael Jackson's song (4.1 (a)
heal the world, 4.1 (b) dirty Diana). The second chorus of the song though it is also the chorus
of Michael Jackson song, but it has different language style. 4.1 (a) contains philanthropy
language maxims whereas 4.1 (b) does not. 4.1 (a) meets the maxim of proposition. Likewise,
4.2 (c) and 4.2 (d), the two such discourse are the chorus of the song sung by Scorpion.
Although they are produced by the same group, they have different language styles. In 4.2 (c)
the language contains philanthropy language whereas 4.2 (d) does not.
In the context of maxim of proposition, example 4.1 (a) and 4.2 (c) show the love to
the world and to others. World and concern for others are topics that belong to common
people and not to individuals. The discourses above also invite the readers to respect
companionship not to separation. Example 4.1 (a) and 4.2 (c) above also do not attack other
people's faces and do not make the people angry. In addition, 4.1 (a) and 4.2 (c) invites the
public to change for the betterment. 4.1 (a) and 4.2 (c) also give hope to others by initiating
the existence of changes in the future. On the other hand, 4.1 (b) and 4.2 (d) do not contain
any of philanthropy maxims. 4.1 (b) and 4.2 (c) do not contain any expression of love to the
world and to the others. Even, the two discourses above are quite personal because they use
pronouns "me and I" as the subject of the sentence. The propositions also do not refer to
shared topic since they are individualistic and do not talk about everyones problem. Although
they do not attack others face, they do not give any hope to people about betterment in the
future.
In the context of maxim of affection, example 4.1 (a) and 4.2 (c) provide comfortable
feeling for the reader since they are put on the equal level and are invited to collaborate with
the writer to improve the future, both by protecting the world and by maintaining friendship.
Example 4.1 (a) and 4.2 (c) also provide comfortable feeling to the reader because the reader
feels that the discourse makers care about the problems of the world (which he/she feels that it
is also his/her problem) such as peace, friendship, world preservation and many more. While
in 4.1 (b) and 4.2 (d), these two discourses do not contain maxims of affective. Although the
readers do not feel threatened, but the readers do not feel comfortable either because he/she is
not involved in the topics discussed.
Conclusion
Philanthropy language is "the style of language that shows expression of love for
human beings." From the definition above, we can see that the definition raises two maxims
namely, maxims of proposition, and maxims of affection.
Maxim of proposition has six characteristics: (1) show the feelings of love and
affection, (2) show the subject matter covered as a shared property, (3) put the makers and
readers of a discourse in the same brotherhood, (4) not attack the face of the others so that no
philanthropy language hurts other feelings, (5) add invitation to reform something but the
invitation must not violate the solicitation of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th character. (6) give something
to others even though it is only in the form of a hope.

The second maxim is the Maxim of Affection. There are at least three characteristics
within the scope of this maxim that readers respond to discourse by: There are at least three
characteristics within the scope of this maxim that readers respond to the discourses by: (1)
complying the proposition to apply positive attitudes, (2) following proposition not to apply
negative attitude, and (3) not doing anything to avoid negative and aggressive attitude.
Philanthropy language has lexical peculiarities. The construction of philanthropy not

only can be identified through the compliance of its maxims, but also can be identified
through its lexical choice. Particular lexicons such as: love, compassion, peace, prosperity,
friendship, unity, truth, equality, friendship, happiness, prosperity, unity, for human, for
peace, equality, and many others are the markers of philanthropy language. Additionally,
pronouns such as; us, all of us, you and I, are also encountered in the construction of
philanthropy language.

References
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dev/apf/teaching_philanthropy.doc
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Pusat Studi Wanita Universitas Gajahmada dan penerbit Tiara Wacana.
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of Legislature Candidate 2009 in Facebook) in the prosiding of Konferensi Linguistik
Tahunan Atma Jaya 7: Tingkat Internasional. Jakarta: Pusat Kajian Bahasa dan Budaya
Unika Atmajaya.
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philanthropic fund raising. Issues of language and rhetoric (pp. 27-44). Indiana University
Center on Philanthropy. Working Papers, 98-13. Indianapolis, IN.
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Philanthropic Fundraising, 22, 95-110.
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and English. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising: Understanding and Improving
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Written discourse in philanthropic fund raising. Issues of language and rhetoric (pp. 64-100).
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Study Of Interparadigmatic Translation. University of Bologna at Forl Italy.
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Papers, 98-13. Indianapolis, IN.
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De la violence la nvrose: Parcours de la Tunisie rvolutionnaire ou ltat

de lieu dun peuple dsillusionn
Dorra Barhoumi
Universit de Kairouan, Tunisie
Abstract
Tunisia is the people. Indeed, wasnt the expression the people want the revolution slogan
in January 14, 2011? This revolution that was extremely desired and aspired by a people that
was outraged by social injustice and persecuted by the hegemony of one dominant political
party. This revolution took place because of inefficiency and defective communication of the
political discourse and its collapse as well. Then, we can say that Tunisia was the victim of
its own disillusion.
The verbal violence found in the political discourse of mainly all the political parties has
created other forms of violence that were really destructive: the assassination of political
figures and terrorism. Since then, the country has undergone a great division and the violence
of some ones terrifies and threatens the security and serenity of the others. As a result, this
violence and terrorism gave birth to the world weariness (the pain of being) and after the
neurosis (la nvrose) on this pacific Tunisian people.
Keywords : Tunisia, revolution, communication, violence, neurosis

Rsum
La Tunisie est le peuple. LE PEUPLE VEUT, nest-il pas le slogan de la rvolution du 14
janvier 2011 ? Cette rvolution, tant attendue dun peuple indign par linjustice sociale et
perscut par lhgmonie politique dun seul parti, assiste cause dune communication
dfectueuse du discours politique, son effondrement. La Tunisie semble tre, demble,
victime de sa dsillusion.
La violence verbale des discours politiques de presque tous les partis, a engendr une
violence matrielle et destructrice : les assassinats des personnalits politiques et le
terrorisme. Le pays vit dsormais une scission excrable et la violence des uns terrifie la
srnit des autres. Bref, la terreur et le terrorisme suscitent chez ce peuple pacifique un
mal dtre et donne naissance la nvrose .
Mots cls : Tunisie, rvolution, communication, violence, nvrose

I-Introduction :
La communication est lacte de savoir produire et transmettre un message. Selon
Jakobson1 la communication possde un schma constitu essentiellement de deux lments
majeurs : lmetteur et le rcepteur. Lmetteur possde une ide mettre ; cette ide passe
par un processus de plusieurs filtres ayant un encodage bien spcifique. Ainsi, se construit un
message que doit recevoir le rcepteur. Ce dernier dcode ce message en faisant filtrer son
ide essentielle pour finalement recevoir ce dont lmetteur veut lui faire parvenir. Par
ailleurs, le message est produit dans le cadre physique, appel situation de communication ou
situation dnonciation. Cette situation de communication est dfinie par quatre lments
reprant le destinateur, le destinataire, le lieu de lnonciation et le temps de lnonciation. En
outre, lencodage et le dcodage transparat, selon le schma de Jakobson, la suite la plus
importante du dveloppement de la communication, puisque lmetteur encode son ide pour
que le rcepteur puisse la dcoder afin de recevoir bel et bien le message. Or, ce dernier ne
peut tre bien reu, si seulement trois conditions doivent tre remplies : premirement, le
message ne doit tre pas vraiment perturb par le bruit communicationnel. Deuximement,
lmetteur et le rcepteur doivent suffisamment tre en contact pour pouvoir se voir et
sentendre. Et troisimement, ils doivent avoir en commun le mme code. Cela tant, le code
est un ensemble organis de signes qui font correspondre un signifiant un signifi.
Ainsi, sexplique la communication correcte qui pourrait se faire dans la rgle de lart
de lchange fructueux entre lnonciateur et lnonciataire. Cependant, la communication
dfectueuse se transforme en incommunication ; et les ides transmettre, lorigine par le
destinateur, deviennent incommunicables pour le destinataire. En effet, les dgts de ce genre
dincommunicabilit peuvent engendrer des dsastres comme ctait le cas de la violence et
de la dsunion qui caractrisaient le peuple tunisien de la priode post-rvolution. Ce peuple
apparat donc la victime, par excellence, de leffet nfaste dune communication errone. La
communication entre les tunisiens se transmet depuis la rvolution soit mal, soit faussement
ou souvent aucunement, et ce cause dabord, dune divergence conceptuelle de lide
transmettre de lmetteur (le gouvernement et ses allis) et recevoir du rcepteur (la majorit
du peuple), puis cause dun mauvais processus dencodage du message dune part
(destinateur) et dune inacceptable tentative de dcodage de lautre part (le destinataire, par
manque de confiance totale en lnonciateur).
Par ailleurs, mme la situation de lnonc savre tre contrariante ainsi que le
rfrent ou le contexte de la communication : chacun des deux partis doivent communiquer
dans une situation critique o chacun deux veut transmettre son message sa manire selon
sa propre fonction mtalinguistique (code ou idologie) sans prendre en considration la
fonction rfrentielle et donc le cadre gnral du rfrent (le contexte : la rvolution). Ainsi, le
message entre les deux entits (islamistes et dmocrates progressistes) ne peut plus passer,
puisque dabord leur communication est handicape par le bruit communicationnel, ensuite
chacun deux dnigre lautre et vite souvent son affrontement, et ensuite les deux ne
possdent pas ou plus, le mme code ni la mme conception du signifiant par rapport son
signifi. De ce fait, le rejet catgorique du message du destinateur de la part du destinataire,
explique le phnomne de la strilit communicationnelle qui caractrise dsormais les deux
1
Roman Jakobson, Essai de linguistique gnrale, Tome 1, Fondation du langage, d. Poche, 2003.

grands partis reprsentants du peuple tunisien aprs la rvolution du 14 janvier 2014 : le

gouvernement transitoire et ses partisans (la Troka), et leurs opposants.
La problmatique de notre tude tourne, alors, autour de trois parties : en premier lieu,
nous allons montrer travers une tude historique, linaptitude du peuple tunisien par rapport
au domaine de la communication et de lchange des ides politiques opposes, ce qui a
engendr, par consquent, la violence de la communication langagire, spcifiquement dans le
discours politique trs mdiatis. Leffet de la violence dans le discours socio-politique est
redoutable chez un peuple inexpriment et compltement perdu dans le labyrinthe de la
libert, excessive et inhabituelle, de laudio-visuel, fera lobjet de la deuxime partie de notre
rflexion. En troisime lieu, nous analyserons partir dune approche psychanalytique2
(montrant les mmes symptmes mentaux que manifestent la plupart des tunisiens), le rsultat
de cette violence langagire inapproprie, sur lindividu tunisien, sur ses aspirations, sur ses
ambitions et sur ses besoins qui se heurtent la dsillusion et au dsenchantement.
II-La Tunisie entre le mirage du pass et la ralit actuelle :
La Tunisie est le peuple. Le peuple veut 3 (renverser le rgime !), nest-il pas le
slogan de la rvolution du 14 janvier 2011 ? La Tunisie voulait transmettre un message et
voulait que ce message soit bien reu et que ses valeurs soient rapidement appliquer sur le
terrain. Le peuple veut, en bref, passer un message soi-mme et aux autres : se confirmer et
ne plus tre ignor ou opprim afin de vivre libre et libr de toute perscution et de toute
injustice sociale et politique. Tout au long de la priode dagitation du dbut de la rvolution,
tout le peuple tait soud et tenait concrtiser son dsir le plus profond dexister, dagir et de
ragir dignement et librement. Nanmoins, le tunisien affronte aprs le dpart du dictateur
Ben Ali, un autre ennemi beaucoup plus froce : il sagit de la violence langagire produite
par un discours politique violent et agressif, et qui nest inluctablement le rsultat dune
dficience au niveau de la communication entre les grands partis politiques. La violence
verbale du discours politique a engendr une violence matrielle et destructrice : les suicides,
les assassinats politiques et le terrorisme.
Le pays vit dsormais une scission entre deux catgories politiques : les islamistes et
les dmocrates. Des islamistes, il sest produit le radicalisme islamiste ; et des dmocrates
progressistes sest produit la gauche extrmiste. De ce fait, la Tunisie auparavant unique,
tergiverse dsormais entre extrmisme et intgrisme. La politique a pu en une priode trs
courte (moins dun an aprs la rvolution) partager le peuple en deux partis suivant les deux
grands partis politiques opposs. Ceux-ci engendrent leur tour deux catgories sociales qui
adhrent leurs principes. Mais, lexercice de la libert et de la diversit qui devrait rassembler
toutes ces catgories postrvolutionnaires mme dans leurs diffrences, les dissemble. La
2
Pour Freud, le terme de psychanalyse dsigne trois choses :
- Une mthode dinvestigation des processus mentaux peu prs irrductible toute autre mthode ;
- Une technique de traitement des dsordres nvrotiques, base sur cette mthode dinvestigation ;
- Enfin, un corps de savoir psychologique dont laccumulation tend la formation dune nouvelle
discipline scientifique. Voir, Sigmund Freud : Prface Saussure (R. de), La mthode psychanalytique,
PUF, 1992.
3
Voir, Gilbert Achar, Le peuple veut : une exploration radicale du soulvement arabe, d. Sindbad-Actes Sud,
2013.
Voir aussi, Thierry Sarfin, Le peuple veut, d. GRANDIR, 2012.

cause principale est incontestablement leur manque de communication ou plutt leur

incapacit de pouvoir se communiquer le mme message primordiale qui les a tous
rassembls avant la rvolution : la libert. En effet, ni les islamistes ni les dmocrates ne
possdent non seulement le mme code du concept de la libert, leur permettant de dfinir le
mme signifiant par rapport son signifi, mais aussi et surtout nont pas lhabitude de
communiquer librement leurs ides politiques dans la diversit.
La libert pour les islamistes (qui gouvernaient et commandaient essentiellement le
pays aprs la rvolution) devrait tre en leur faveur afin den profiter pour installer leur
programme islamiste qui leur parat le plus adquat pour le bon droulement du processus
transitoire. Tandis que pour les dmocrates (lopposition), ils pensent que chaque individu
doit avoir le droit dexercer la libert mais sous lgide de ltatisme et de la loi
institutionnelle. Autrement dit, la libert en tant que signifiant ne possde pas le mme
signifi pour les islamistes par rapport aux laques. Dans cette perspective, le programme des
uns et des autres se percute limpasse, et laction politique se heurte de srieux et graves
problmes. La violence dans le discours politique apparat tel le premier signe dune crise
entre les partis adversaires qui se propage insidieusement dans la socit en gnral. Ainsi, la
violence discursive dans la politique engendre la haine, suscite chez ce peuple pacifique, un
sentiment de mal dtre et donnent naissance sa nvrose.
Dans quelles mesures, la violence du discours politique entraine-t-elle la division du
peuple tunisien ? Et comment la communication politique trs mdiatise apparat comme la
cause principale de cette division ?
Huit cents ans avant Jsus-Christ, la reine phnicienne Didon ou Elyssa fondit
Carthage. Trois cents ans aprs, Hannibal conduit trois guerres puniques contre Rome et
perdit la bataille. En 146 avant JC la premire colonie romaine Africa fut installe. Rome a
command le pays 7 sicles peu prs. De 439 533 aprs JC se sont les vandales puis les
byzantins qui ont succd les romains aprs des guerres et des conqutes sanguinaires. La
priode de 647 698 marquait le dbut de lre arabo-musulmane. Le chef de larme arabe
Oqba ibn Nafa fit de Kairouan, au lieu de Carthage, le nouveau centre politique et
intellectuel du Maghreb (670).
Quatre sicles aprs les Almohades unissent les pays du Maghreb et lAndalousie
musulmanes. De 1236 jusqu 1705, la Tunisie tait la terre de convoitise des Abbasides, des
Hafsides puis des Ottomans, ensuite les Husseinites. De 1881 1956, ctait le tour de la
France qui a colonis la Tunisie soixante quinze ans jusqu 1957, la date de la proclamation
de la Rpublique Tunisienne et Bourguiba devint le premier prsident de la rpublique.
Bourguiba prsidait la Tunisie pendant trente ans et il a t destitu de son poste en 1987 par
un coup dtat chafaud par son premier ministre Ben Ali ; qui la succd par la suite. Ben
Ali, son tour, a command exclusivement le pays pendant vingt trois ans jusquau 14 janvier
2011, la date de la premire rvolution tunisienne qui a renvers depuis 3000 ans un rgime
politique gouvernant le pays.
Cela dit, depuis Carthage, les tunisiens luttaient contre les romains, les vandales, les
byzantins, les arabes, les andalous, les ottomans puis contre les franais. La Tunisie berbre
qui devient avec ces 3000 ans dhistoire, la terre dun richissime brassage de cultures et de
civilisations luttait depuis la nuit des temps contre lautre. Le plan de chaque lutte, bataille et
conqute se prparait souvent dans un huit clos qui rassemblait uniquement les dcideurs et
les teneurs du pouvoir. De ce fait, le peuple tait toujours pargn de son sort puisque les
leaders du peuple tait incontestablement les plus dominants aussi bien sur le plan ethnique
que financier. De Hannibal Ben Ali, le destin social des tunisiens et lavenir de la Tunisie se
discutaient et dpendaient essentiellement des composants allis dun snat (Carthage) ou
dun gouvernement. Le peuple dans tout cela passait la deuxime position excutive, et donc
soit il participait aux conqutes par ses soldats, soit il approuvait la victoire ou il subissait
lchec. Bref, le peuple tunisien mme sil ne voulait pas, il devait accepter.
Le 14 janvier 2011, les tunisiens crient haut et fort leur vouloir devenir le seul et
unique dcideur de leur sort et appelle au changement catgorique de leur position politique et
sociale. Le peuple, alors, revendique son droit dtre ; donc son droit de communiquer ses
demandes, ses valeurs et sa lgitimit. Ainsi sexplique la premire phrase de lhymne
national tunisien qui nest que la premire phrase de la fameuse posie du grand pote
tunisien Abou el Qasem CHABBI : Si le peuple veut exister et vivre, alors il faut que le
destin exauce sa demande 4. Le tunisien rvolutionnaire divulgue enfin son sentiment refoul
de libert, et exige dsormais que le pouvoir doit tre aux mains de tout le peuple et non pas
dun seul homme.5
Leuphorie dun tel exploit historique, stimulait lenvie irrsistible de tous les tunisiens
de sunir et dapprendre ensemble pratiquer la libert et la dmocratie. Seulement, cette
euphorie se mue en dysphorie, le rve tunisien se heurte la dsillusion et lunit du peuple se
dissout. Inhabituel la politique, ses modes daction et au processus de son exercice de
pouvoir, incapable de communiquer librement et dapprendre le faire correctement, le
tunisien qui ignore les rgles du jeu de ce domaine compliqu et fourbe, tombe dans le pige
du dsenchantement. Le dsir de retrouver lre de Ben Ali, malgr sa dictature, et la
nostalgie de la scurit et du calme de la Tunisie davant hantent un grand nombre de
tunisiens immensment dus de la rvolution.
En effet, aprs la chute du dictateur et aprs avoir vcu joyeusement lallgresse du
glorieux changement populaire applaudit par le monde entier, la scne politique sapprtait
sorganiser et les partis politiques auparavant perscuts, commenaient se reconstruire et
dautres nouveaux partis se prparaient pour se faire une place dans cette re nouvelle et libre
de lhistoire de la Tunisie. Chacun veut profiter de son droit dexister et dexercer afin de
participer rellement lvolution dmocratique de la nouvelle Tunisie unie et prospre.
Lambiance tait prometteuse.
Or, cette union populaire qui a renvers le rgime autoritaire du pouvoir totalitariste,
se dtache et se disperse. Les partis politiques postrvolutionnaires censs travailler ensemble
dans la diversit pour construire un pays nouveau digne de cette grande rvolution, se
divisent, se disputent, se dtestent pour aboutir la scission de la Tunisie en deux partis : les
islamistes et les dmocrates progressistes. La communication qui devrait attnuer les conflits
et les divergences entre ces deux partis, participe llargissement de la distance entre eux.
4
Mohamed Hassen Zouzi-Chabbi, La philosophie du pote : lexemple dun pote tunisien de langue arabe,
Aboul Qacem CHABBI (1909-1934), lHarmattan, 2005.
5
Voir, Vivianne Bettaieb, Dgage : la rvolution tunisienne, Editions du Layeur, 2011.

Le tunisien vierge desprit dans le domaine politique, qui ignore les techniques de la
communication, qui aspire vivre dans un rythme sociale propre et enrichissant lui permettant
dvoluer dans un cadre digne, assiste constamment un dbat politique pourri et
dgradant o lun insulte lautre, lun dnigre lautre, lun mconnait lautre, lun expdie
lautre, bref ; lun lutte atrocement contre lautre. Cet autre nest, malheureusement que lui-
mme. Le discours politique violent, acharn, agit, haineux, extrmiste voire raciste partage
le peuple autrefois uni, appelle la mort et suscite un tat de panique effrayant.
Dun temps ancien o les tunisiens assistaient la dcapitation des opposants, aux
temps o ils entendaient parler des horreurs des tortionnaires qui pratiquaient des moyens
indescriptibles pour torturer les prisonniers politiques, au temps actuel o ils entendent de
vive voix les menaces de morts, les insultes les plus choquantes. Les scnes les plus affreuses
se succdent ; le tunisien assiste tantt latrocit des lynchages des sympathisants dun tel
parti politique (Lotfi Naghth, en 2012) par les opposants de lautre part, aux carnages
collectifs de ses soldats (par les terroristes) aux assassinats des personnalits politiques
(Belad et Brahmi, en 2012) devant leurs domiciles, le jour aux vus des passants. Alors entre
lautrefois archaque, le pass ancien et le prsent, le tunisien se voit de gnration en
gnration assist tous les genres de violences morales et physiques les plus dplorables.
Sauf que la violence actuelle savre tre la plus destructrice car depuis presque
soixante ans (aprs le dpart des colonisateurs franais en 1957), la gnration actuelle vivait
dans le calme absolu des vnements politiques et sociales. Depuis Bourguiba et surtout
pendant lpoque de Ben Ali, les objectifs de ltat tunisien se basaient essentiellement sur le
dtournement du tunisien de la vie politique afin que ltat sen occupe tout seul. Ben Ali
poursuivait le systme suivant : vous me donnez votre libert je vous garantirai votre scurit.
Ainsi, pour pratiquer ce systme, Ben Ali procdait stratgiquement des formes spciales de
violence dans le but de terroriser ses opposants et donc pour prvenir implicitement les
tunisiens susceptibles se rvolter. Lusage de ces formes de rpression tait alors approuv
et bien encadr par le soutien des structures institutionnelles, scuritaires et juridiques
encourageant ainsi la violence sous-jacente et totalitaire du rgime.
III-La violence dans le discours politique : dgts et statistiques :

A cet gard, aprs la rvolution du 14 janvier 2011, ce tunisien qui esprait mettre fin
toutes ces horreurs, assiste dors et dj une nouvelle forme de violence aussi bien
apparente quangoissante : la violence dans le discours politique. Du coup, tout le non-dit et
linterdit dvoiler verbalement par mesure de prvention devient accessible tout monde,
courant voir et ordinaire entendre. Les valeurs de la rvolution tunisienne savoir
libert, dignit et justice sociale perdent leurs sens authentiques pour acqurir une
dimension dgradante. La libert dexpression dpasse ses limites et devient un outil de
perscution qui appelle la violence et qui incite lexclusion. Nous allons, dans cette
perspective, recourir une tude statistique illustrant les dgts de la violence dans le discours
politique mdiatis et qui incitent la haine entre les tunisiens.
Lorganisation non gouvernementale danoise International Media Support (IMS) en
collaboration avec deux organisations tunisiennes lONG Conseil national pour les liberts
en Tunisie (CNLT) et le rseau associatif coalition pour les femmes tunisiennes, ont
command une tude qui a t tudi par Arab Working Group for Media Monitoring
(AWGMM) sur les medias tunisiens. Ltude a t affecte sur les deux premiers mois de
2013 sur un chantillon de 19 medias diffrents : 9 journaux, 5 tlvisions et 5 radios. Ses
rsultats sont alarmants et prouvent que la Tunisie est dcidemment en prise un climat
dltre de haine et de violence. Selon cette organisation,
ltude a port sur 6 quotidiens : 4 arabophones (Al Maghreb, Al Chourouk, Al
Sarih, Al Fajr, Attounsia) et 2 francophones (La Presse et Le Temps) et 3
hebdomadaires (Al Massaa, EkherKhabar, Al Dhamir). Lhebdomadaire Al Massaa
est le journal publiant le plus un discours haineux. Ltude souligne aussi les
journaux qui incitent la haine et la violence en Tunisie :
- 90 / des journaux arabophone contre 9/ des francophones dont :
- 72/ des discours de haine sont des diffamations et des insultes.

- 45/ des discours haineux touchent la politique ; 14/ sont relatifs la religion.
- 38/ des discours de haine sont des publications des partisans dEnnahdha, de
NidaaTounes et du Front Populaire sont le produit des journalistes.
Par ailleurs, 5 chanes tlviss ont t concernes par ltude de AWGMM : la

6
tlvision nationale, Nessma tv, Almotawasset, Ettounsiya et Hannibal tv.
La chaine Hannibal (tendance populiste) est au premier rang o le discours violent est
le plus prsent suivie par el Motawasset et Ezzeitouna (pro-islamistes), Nessma (pro-
progressistes) puis Ettounsia (pro-progressistes). Ltude note que les appels la violence ou
au meurtre constituent 9/ du discours de haine la tlvision. Environ 60/ des propos haineux
sont ceux des responsables politiques, dont 40/ sont le produit des militants des partis
Ennahdha (parti islamiste) et Watad (parti de lextrme gauche). En ce qui concerne les
radios, ltude porte sur 5 radios : Mosaque fm, Express fm, Radio6, Radio Kalima et la
Radio nationale. Mosaque (tendance progressiste) la radio la plus coute du pays est la radio
o le discours de haine est le plus prsent selon cette tude. 50/ des discours violents diffuss
sur les ondes sont le produit des reportages. Leur proportion reste toutefois importante dans
les dbats entre dmocrates et islamistes.
Arab Working Group of Monitoring a publi un Dictionnaire de la haine 7 o
plusieurs termes considrs comme violents ou incitant la haine ont t recenss. Ces
termes sont trs utiliss dans le discours politique mais ont aussi intgr le vocabulaire
quotidien des tunisiens mme au sein de leurs foyers. On y trouve entre autre : jerthne
(rats), Azlme (rsidus), trahison, obscurantiste, collabo, mcrant, effmin 8 . Cela revient
dire, le discours violent devient tel un cho accessible tout le monde, et la communication
de ce langage politique agit, apparat telle une vidence dans les mdias tunisiens. Tout le
monde parle de la politique et le principe essentiel des politiciens qui en parlent le plus est la
violence. Cette violence nest que la consquence en premier lieu dune communication
verbale inexperte, exerce essentiellement par des politiciens commenants et immatures ; et
en deuxime lieu elle nest quune raction inconsciente de chaque individu qui dissimule son
incomptence de convaincre son adversaire par son projet politique et social.
6
Site internet Al Huffington Post, Maghreb-Tunisie , article, Etude : Un discours de haine fort prsent
dans les mdias tunisiens, date le 13/09/2013.
7
Op, cit.
8
Ibidem.

La violence dans le discours qui sert chez les politiciens adversaires, sinsulter et se
sous-estimer, nest finalement que lexpression dun malaise intrieur que vit lhomme lui-
mme, car il se voit incapable de bien prcher et donc de convaincre. Alors, le citoyen comme
le politicien apparaissent deux victimes de leur inexprience communicationnelle dans un
contexte rvolutionnaire. Le politicien sombre de plus en plus dans sa violence verbale et le
citoyen succombe cette violence, en souffre profondment et engendre progressivement sa
nvrose.
IV-De la violence verbale la nvrose :

En qute de soi-mme, la recherche dun rempart protecteur et dune libert tant
dsir, les tunisiens ont espr acqurir travers la rvolution, ce dont ils ont besoin afin de
retrouver lapaisement et la quitude. Mais leurs efforts se rvlent vains. Ils ont tout juste
divulgu la peine de lhomme qui se heurte une ralit cruelle : la dsillusion. Le rve
devient cauchemar et le rel du monde reflte une vraisemblance ridicule et pessimiste. Le
tunisien est ainsi amen se muer en un tre soucieux, mlancolique, angoiss, apathique. Il
se cantonne dans sa solitude ou dans son dsir de mort, loin du monde trange qui ptrifie ses
ambitions et annihile ses dsirs les plus fougueux. Ltre devient lesclave de sa mfiance vis-
-vis de la socit et mme vis--vis de soi-mme. La seule certitude que reconnat dsormais
le tunisien dsenchant, cest sa faiblesse face lintransigeance de sa socit. Se retrouver
devant une telle impasse aprs maintes tentatives de dtachement dun rgime puritain, et
aprs avoir tent de se rvolter pour changer la socit ardue, les efforts du peuple se rvlent
impossibles. Un bouleversement moral dcourage un grand nombre de tunisiens et enfante par
consquent des dpressifs, des tres inhibs9, des dpersonnaliss10, des angoisss, des
mlancoliques, des refouls11, des suicidaires, bref ; des nvross.
Perdu dans le gouffre de la haine et de la violence, le tunisien vivant depuis belle
lurette dans le calme dun silence politique sous forme de tabou, se heurte dun coup un
rythme agressif de violence verbale et non verbale. Un discours grossier et bas qui se rpte
partout dans les medias, dans la rue et mme dans les foyers ; un regard haineux, mprisant et
accusateur jonch de mal et de colre qui se partage entre islamistes et progressistes. Le
pouvoir dachat atteint un effondrement incroyable, la scurit nationale n y est plus et le
tunisien pacifique et serein vit dsormais sous la menace des assassinats et du terrorisme. La
paix dautrefois devient si dsirable pour un individu qui se sent devenir proie au sentiment
implacable de dsenchantement et de dsillusion. La rvolution qui est cense consolider les
liens entre tous les tunisiens et souder leurs efforts pour le progrs, elle les spare.
9
Freud crit : En conclusion, on peut donc dire des inhibitions quelles sont des restrictions des fonctions du
moi, soit par prcaution, soit la suite dun appauvrissement en nergie. Sigmund Freud, Inhibition,
symptme et angoisse, PUF, 1993, p.6.
10
En psychiatrie, la dpersonnalisation se dfinit comme altration de la conscience caractrise par le
sentiment de ne plus se reconnaitre soi-mme ; et souvent par le sentiment de dralisation. Voir le Petit
Larousse, 100 Edition, 2005.
11
Freud crit : Linconscient cest avant tout le refoul. () le refoulement a conduit linconscient et le
spcifie. () Pour faire bref disons que, processus inconscient, le refoulement est leffet dun conflit quil tend
solutionner. Voir, Freud, Linterprtation des rves, PUF, 2003, p. 21.

Le tunisien devient aprs tant despoir et desprance proie au sentiment destructeur

du mal dtre . Sentir le mal dtre12, cest ne plus pouvoir supporter les dgts de la
dsillusion de la rvolution ; cest donc ne plus pouvoir lutter contre le changement
indsirable. Etre mal cause dune ou de plusieurs situations contrariantes et ne plus avoir la
patience de supporter ce sentiment ravageur du mal est le dbut dun sentiment de malaise qui
pourrait toucher, dans la profondeur, la mtapsychologique (lappareil du fonctionnement
psychique) de ltre. Si ltre subit un changement devient pour lui insupportable, excrable
puis impossible le dpasser, il (ltre) pourrait sombrer dans le chaos. Ce chaos est le
rsultat des manifestes de la dpression latente ou apparente qui se renforce par les sentiments
de langoisse, de la mlancolie, du refoulement pour engendrer enfin, aprs la prsentation
dautres symptmes, un cas psychopathologique13 ou tout simplement un nvros. Dans la
nvrose, du point de vue clinique, les spcialistes dgagent sept points omniprsents dans
chaque cas nvrotique :
- Des difficults relationnelles ;
- La survenue inopine de moments dangoisse ;
- Le dveloppement de symptmes particulier ;
- Un sentiment amer de mal dtre - dexister- ;
- La perception dune conflictualit interne ;
14
- La conscience de difficults sexuelle.
En effet, la nvrose est la maladie clinique qui touche dabord le morale de ltre pour
fragiliser par la suite son corps. Ses symptmes sont aussi la frustration, linhibition (la
restriction diminution- des fonctions de ltre : au travail ou mme pendant ses rapports
sexuels)15, la dpersonnalisation (ne plus se reconnaitre soi-mme : se voit dpourvu des
caractres dominants de sa personnalit), un sentiment constant de conflictualit, lenvie de
suicide.
Malheureusement, toutes ces symptmes apparaissent chez un bon nombre des
tunisiens qui souffrent depuis la rvolution dun trouble psychologique d au changement
politique, social et conomique du pays. Effectivement, daprs un rcent sondage ralis par
linstitut Gallup et Healthways sur 133000 dans 145 pays16, concernant les pays les plus
heureux, le peuple tunisien serait parmi les pays les moins heureux dans le monde. La
12
Voir, Dorra Barhoumi, Ecrire le mal dtre au XIX sicle : Chateaubriand, Constant, Maupassant ,
Bibliothque de Paris VIII, 2011.
13
Freud crit ce propos : Le champ des nvroses se dfinit donc de faon diffrentielle par rapport aux autres
champs de la psychopathologie la fois par un degr de gravit, par lorganisation interne laquelle elle
conduit pour le sujet nvros, et par la relation que celui-ci entretien avec lenvironnement. Si la psychose
marque une forme de rupture dans lquilibre du sujet avec le monde extrieur, la nvrose dnote la prsence
dune situation permanente de conflit sopposant cet quilibre, source de souffrance pour le sujet elle tmoigne
donc dune solution la fois moins radicale et plus adapte que la psychose pour faire face aux difficults
que rencontre le sujet dans sa relation avec le monde extrieur. De ce fait, ses effets psychiques demeurent pour
la plupart conscients, et ils se traduisent par les symptmes qui sont des traits dunion entre le sujet et le monde,
en relation ambivalente avec langoisse. . Sigmund Freud, Inhibition, symptmes et angoisse, op, cit, p.6.
14
Jean Mnchal, Quest ce que la nvrose ?, Dunod, 1999, p.34.
15
Freud crit dans le mme contexte : () des symptmes tmoignant dune rgulation plus difficile au plan
interne entre corps et psychisme, au terme de laquelle le monde extrieur est disqualifi dans son rle de
soutien. , Quest ce que la nvrose, op, cit. p.45.
16
Voir, le site internet Peps news , date du 26 septembre 2014.

Tunisie figure la 134 place dans ce sondage avant la Syrie, la dernire sur la liste qui
occupe la 145 place17. Alors quen 2010, la Tunisie stait classe 36 sur 60 pays sur lIndice
du bonheur mondial (IBM) avec 692 points. Elle se classait, donc, en la premire position au
monde arabe et en Afrique ; et elle tait mme prcde par plusieurs pays europens et
certains pays du continent amricain.18
Les effets nfastes de la rvolution tunisienne ont largement affect les tunisiens aussi
bien explicitement ou implicitement. Certes, daprs un article publi lhebdomadaire
tunisien Ralits, lauteur crit :
Daprs la carte mondiale de la sant mentale, il semblerait quil ne fasse plus
bon vivre dans le pays. Les tunisiens joyeux, heureux, tranquilles, seraient devenus
mal laise, mal dans leurs peaux et dgots de tout. La mlancolie
caractrise lambiance gnrale qui rgne dans un pays en mode souffrance o
19
plus de 50/ des habitants sont dpressifs .
Donc, il y a ceux qui manifestent leur mcontentement par des ractions apparentes,
et il y a ceux qui refoulent leurs maux et frustrent leurs angoisses. Daprs le mme magazine
Ralit, la Tunisie souffre dun sentiment implacable de peine du cette priode nomme
post-rvolution. Une ambiance de colre et dagressivit rgne, incessamment, les tunisiens
depuis la rvolution.
Colre, agressivit, haine, violence, division, dsespoir, sentiment constant
dincertitude et de dsillusion, le peuple tunisien auparavant optimiste devient pessimiste.
Repenser au pass, fuir le prsent et ne plus croire en lavenir, le tunisien se retrouve saccag
par la hantise de la perdition. Cette hantise donne naissance la nvrose. Cette maladie
psychopathologique passe par un processus qui va en mouvement crescendo. Celui-ci
commence par le sentiment de mal dtre en passant par un sentiment de perturbation
psychologique qui augmente par les sentiments de dsenchantement ou de dsillusion,
dincertitude, dinhibition, de dpersonnalisation, de conflictualit, dangoisse, de
refoulement, de mlancolie pour aboutir une dpression aigue qui suscite dans le cas
extrme lenvie de se suicider et donc de la mort.
Voici, cet gard, une tude statistique effectue par lorganisation mondiale de la
sant qui confirme ce processus, spcifiquement chez les tunisiens qui souffrent de cette
maladie due la rvolution :
- 53/ des tunisiens souffrent de perturbation psychologique aprs la rvolution contre
11/ avant.
- Le tunisien consomme 3 fois plus dantidpresseurs aprs la rvolution quavant.

- 37/ des tunisiens souffrant de la dpression et de langoisse.
- En 2012, le plus grand hpital psychiatrique de la Tunisie Errazi, contient plus que de
10000 patients contre 3500 en 2009.
17
Voir, le journal lectronique Tuniscope , article Le peuple tunisien parmi les peuples les moins heureux
du monde selon le sondage de linstitut Gallup. , date 25 mai 2014.
18
Voir, le journal lectronique Bisness News , date 8 aout 2010.
19
Magazine lectronique Ralits , Voir aussi du mme magazine, larticle Sant mentale : la Tunisie en
mode souffrance , publi le 16 dcembre 2013.

- En 2011, 27/ des patients psychologiques sont des victimes de la dsillusion de la

rvolution.
- En 2014, les spcialistes prvoient une nouvelle trouble psychologique due au stress
20
post traumatique et post lection.
Pour finir, daprs une investigation personnelle du Docteur en psychiatrie, mr. Frikha,
le revenu mensuel de son cabinet se multiplie par peu prs 5 fois, depuis la rvolution
tunisienne.
Passons maintenant une statistique plus menaante quaffolante : le taux de suicide
qui enfle de plus en plus en Tunisie aprs la rvolution.
Selon une tude effectue par le journal quotidien tunisien Echourouk en fvrier
2013, entre janvier 2011 et fin dcembre 2012, le ministre tunisien de lIntrieur a compt
511 cas de suicides soit 21 suicides par mois. Pour 2012 le bilan faisait 226 cas contre 285 en
2011. Dun autre ct, les chiffres du ministre de lIntrieur ont rvl que 1557 tentatives
dmigration clandestine ont t enregistres tout au long de 2012. Cela tant, le taux que se
soit dvasion ou de suicide a tripl au moins de 2 ans. Cest le syndrome Bouzizi (lhomme
qui sest immol le premier la ville de Sidi Bouzid, et a dclench la rvolution) auquel ont
dj succomb un bon nombre de tunisiens, surtout des jeunes diplms, des policiers, ou des
cadres dans le secteur financier ou autre. Autrement dit, ce sont surtout les intellectuels et
duqus ou tout simplement, les consciencieux qui se donnaient la mort ! Dernier en date
dune tentative de suicide est celui dun banquier de 40 ans qui sest jet de son bureau du
sige de la banque BNA de Tunis ; une professeur en chmage ge de 23 ans sest suicid en
septembre 2012, un agent de police g de 25 ans le 24 aout 2012.
Donc, le suicide affecte gnralement les jeunes qui ont fait la rvolution dont ils
espraient beaucoup. Les uns par dgot, les autres par culpabilisation ou par dprime de voir
le pays risque de se mtamorphoser en Afghanistan comme le cas de Karim Alimi, ce jeune
de 29 ans trouv mort par pendaison chez lui lAriana le 16 juin 2012. Selon un rapport
rendu publique par le ministre de lIntrieur, il y a 290 cas dimmolation par le feu rien
quen 2011. Le taux des victimes du chmage, de la misre ou des troubles mentaux enfle de
plus en plus aprs la rvolution selon cette tude. Le nombre des suicidaires augmente de plus
en plus en 2013. Le journal lectronique tunisien Kapitalis crit cet gard :
Selon les chiffres officiels du ministre de la sant, on enregistre en Tunisie en
2013, 304 cas de suicide soit 3 cas pour 100.000 habitants. Selon le ministre de la
sant Mohamed Salah Ben Ammar, qui intervenait au cours dune runion, lundi 22
dcembre 2014, au sige de son dpartement Tunis, le nombre de suicides a tripl
par rapport aux annes 2008-2009. La progression de ce phnomne est inquitant,
a-t-il ajout, prcisant que le nombre de tentatives de suicide quivaut 5 fois celui
21
des suicides.
20
.Op,cit.
21
Journal lectronique Kapitalis , article Un phnomne en hausse : 304 cas de suicide en Tunisie en 2013.
La date du 22 dcembre 2014.

V-Conclusion :
En guise de conclusion, le sentiment du mal dtre chez les tunisiens sexprime par la
violence, lagressivit, le dprime, la dpression, la toxicomanie, la dlinquance et le suicide.
Ce sentiment est issu essentiellement dun autre sentiment, celui de la dsillusion. La
rvolution na pas encore ralis les rves de ce peuple assoiff de libert ; mais bien au
contraire, elle menace mme leur autonomie, leur scurit et leur paix dauparavant. Le
contexte social tunisien autrefois stable, se caractrise actuellement par une recrudescence de
la violence. Celle-ci est tributaire, surtout, de la production dune communication dfectueuse,
lie un discours politique dirigeant des esprits en manque immense de libert sociale et de
formation politique dcente et biensante. Le tunisien de trois milles ans qui vivait sous
lgide de plusieurs rgimes politiques absolus ou dictatoriaux, se voit incapable de sadapter
facilement aux nouveaux enjeux politiques et de se mfier de ses consquences. L un des
premires tapes de la bonne constitution approprie et dmocratique qui aiderait ce peuple
viter la droute, est incontestablement la rvision totale du schma de la communication du
discours politique tunisien. La communication politique doit, effectivement, voluer en faveur
du progrs dmocratique et non pas en faveur de la violence et de la division. Ainsi
seulement, la violence change en non-violence, la haine se transforme en entente et
concordance, et la nvrose gurit jamais.

Rfrences
- Gilbert Achar, Le peuple veut : une exploration radicale du soulvement arabe, di.
Sindbad, Actes-Sud, 2013.
- Le petit Larousse, 100 Edition, 2005.
- Mohamed Hassen Zouzi Chabbi, La philosophie du pote : lexemple dun pote tunisien de
langue arabe, Aboul Qacem CHABBI (1903-1934), lHarmattan, 2005.
- Roman Jakobson, Essai de linguistique gnral, Tome 1, Fondation du langage, d. Poche,

2003.
- Sigmund Freud, La mthode psychopathologique, PUF, 1992.
- Sigmund Freud, Inhibition, symptme et angoisse, PUF, 1993.
- Sigmund Freud, Linterprtation des rves, PUF, 2003.
- Thierrey Safrin, Le peuple veut, d. GRANDIR, 2012.
- Vivianne Bettaeb, Dgage : la rvolution tunisienne, Edition du Layeur, 2011.
- Journal lectronique Kapitalis, art. Un phnomne en hausse : 304 cas de suicide en

Tunisie en 2013, 22/12/2014.
- Journal lectronique, Bizness News, 08/08/2013.
- Magazine lectronique Ralits, 16/12/2013.
- Magazine lectronique Tuniscope, 25/05/2014.
- Site intenet, Peps news, 26/09/2014.
- Site internet, Al Huffington Post, Maghreb-Tunisie, art. Etude : Un discours de haine

fort prsent dans les mdias tunisiens, 13/09/2013.

A Psychoanalytical Hermeneutics of John Keatss Verse Epistle To John

Hamilton Reynolds through Julia Kristevas Theory of Semiotic vs.
Symbolic Orders
Farhat Ben Amor

University of Kairouan, Tunisia
Abstract
My readings of John Keats s verse epistle To John Hamilton Reynolds (1819) have allowed
me to gather the poets underlying wonder at the vertiginous number of visions his
imagination induces whenever he succumbs to rest. The noticeable surfeit of these visions is
suggested not simply to hinder the poet from enjoying the bodily and spiritual relaxation he
needs. More importantly, the poet seems to be much perplexed and even is led to deplore the
sheer remoteness of these visions from the world of reality. While enumerating these visions,
the poet stresses the way they keep not abiding by the terms of logic, whether temporal or
spatial. Therefore, the epistle documents, as well, the vain wrestles within the poet to subject
these innumerable visions deterring his equanimity to the precepts of reason and to
orchestrate them to order.
This paper seeks to apply Julia Kristevas psychoanalysis in reading Keatss epistle. Much
concentration is going to be put on the relevance of Kristevas psychoanalytical views in the
text of the epistle. Thus, this study requires going through the theoretical elucidations of
Kristevas notions of the semiotic versus symbolic orders, where the former is pre-
linguistic and, therefore, maps out the childs early life and the latter coincides with the
development of language. The clash between both orders is manifested in the frequent
disruption of the semiotic (which is regulated by fluidity and absence of prohibitions
whatsoever) to the seamy fabrics of the symbolic (which is governed by the law of
binarism that requires the subject to be enlisted to a whole set of dos and donts).
Keywords: chora, criture, imagination, material sublime, organic whole, semiotic vs.
symbolic orders

Introduction
John Keatss verse epistle To J. H. Reynolds (1818) is a space in which the poet is
presented as a helpless victim to the innumerable visions besieging him from every corner
from within. From the beginning, then, we understand that the poets psyche represents the
pivot around which the whole texture of the epistle revolves. This means that Keatss interior
world becomes the battleground on which the fight of the poet against his visions and his
wrestles with conceptualizing them are minutely staged before his readers. Such an
underlying dramatization of what is going on in the poets psyche makes the text of the epistle
constitute a concretization of what Stuart. M. Sperry referred to as that sense of mist and
clouds, the feeling of the burden of the Mystery oppressing the poet. (118)
The sense of inability to orchestrate ones visions ought to be read within Keatss
frequent dramatization of the destructive potential of the poetic imagination. In reality,
pointing to the negative outcome of following the limitless vagaries of imagination is
unconventional within a romantic mode of apprehension. Indeed, it is very common to find
romantic poets extol imagination and assess its creative divine-like capacity that
acknowledges no boundary whatsoever. Keats himself had written one year before this
epistle: I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Hearts affection and the truth of
Imagination. What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth whether it existed before
or not. (Appendix 6. John Keats. The Complete Poems. 535)
The question which imposes itself, then, concerns the change wrought to imagination
with respect to its position for the poet. If we were to admit that the epistle marks a deviation
from the romantic itinerary, we would certainly be invited to ponder over the causes,
manifestations and results of such an abrupt and romantically unconventional negative view
the poet comes to hold about imagination.
Research objectives
The aim of this paper is to cover the following objectives:

- To adopt Julia Kristevas psychoanalytical approach (namely her differentiation between the
semiotic vs. the symbolic orders) while trying to delineate the causes that lead to the
eventual appropriation of these visions of irritating aspects to the poet.
- To stress the superseding might of these visions and their tenacious defiance against the
poets efforts to subjugate them to the laws of reality and commonsensical logic. This is going
to be read within Kristevas view of the supremacy of the pre-linguistic fluidity and
unrestrained freedom and mobitliy governing the semiotic order over the regularities and
severe control and boundaries set around the linguistically-bound individual in the symbolic
one.
- To frame the poets recognition of his inability to control his fecund imagination (which is
constantly begetting further visions) within the context of Kristevas insistence on the rhetoric
of the individuals search for self-disaffiliation from the semiotic in favor of embracing the
symbolic. Hence, this emphasis on the rhetoric side of such an effort implies the weak-
grounded nature of that disaffiliation a deduction that is going to be shown through
highlighting the pernicious role the poets imagination keeps playing in the epistle despite his
explicit linking it with the purgatory blind.

- To heighten the interspersion of both orders (the semiotic and the symbolic) in the whole
texture of the epistle and the impossibility to sever each from the other. This fact is going to
be studied in relation to the effects produced out of that dialectical link, while focusing on the
underlying sense of indeterminacy governing the epistle and coloring the poets mood.
Research Questions
The study will concentrate on the following questions:

- How is Julia Kristevas psychoanalysis relevant to the text of John Keatss epistle To J. H.
Reynolds?
- What are the major insights we can gather into Keatss view of imagination (which, as we
said, he broached unconventionally with reference to its usual estimation among romantic
poets) out of such a psychoanalytical spectrum?
Research Methodology
This study will be based on analysis and inference, supporting each idea from the text
of the epistle and finding indices telling of the centrality of Julia Kristevas psychoanalytical
views in it. The textual references are given as evidence to support the arguments of this
research. The key Kristevian concepts of semiotic vs. symbolic orders, along with chora and
criture are going to be studied in relation to the text of the epistle. This entails that the notion
of imagination, which represents the main controversial issue in the epistle, is going to be
subjected to a Kristevian psychoanalytical hermeneutics. The list of cited sources is given
under the heading of References at the end of this paper.
Literature Review
It is true that the verse epistle To J. H. Reynolds (1818) does not seem to achieve the
same canon as Keatss other works like his romance Endymion (1817) which precedes it and
his epic Hyperion and the six famous odes (To Autumn, To a Nightingale, On Indolence, On a
Grecian Urn, To Psyche, and On Melancholy), written after it (1819). This may explain the
small amount of criticism the epistle has received, inasmuch as it has not been extensively
written about. Still, I find that the importance of the epistle should not be devalued under the
pretext of being relegated to other major works. To a considerable extent, the epistle gains its
valor through the turning point it marks in the poets career, as far as his view of
imagination is concerned. As Walter Evert ascertains no poetic agonist created after the
Reynolds epistle succeeds in assimilating both worlds (the imaginative vs. the real) to his own
spirit. (281)
Referring back to the whole body of criticism written about and on the epistle (no
matter how small it may be), I found out that most of it address the intellectual and aesthetic
questions the poet grapples with in his epistle. I could cite such works as Stuart M. Sperrys
Keats the Poet (1994), Albert Grards article Romance and Reality: Continuity and Growth
in Keatss View of Art that appeared in Keats-Shelley Journal XI (pp. 17-29), Mary Visicks
article Tease us out of Thought: Keatss Epistle to Reynolds and the Odes in Keats-Shelley
Journal XV (pp. 87-98), along with Walter Everts discussion of the epistle in Aesthetic and
Myth in the Poetry of Keats (pp. 194-211).

These books and articles are very interesting in illuminating us to focal facets that
need to be known about the poet, related mainly to the philosophizing tendency he reveals in
this epistle (the intellectual side) and the original style he adopts in it which verges on
surrealism (the aesthetic dimension). However, no psychoanalytical study is offered in these
works. My Ph.D on Keats (Ben Amor 2012) makes use of psychoanalysis, but it does not
delve much into Kristevas works and seeks, rather, to frame Keatss view of imagination
within the dialectics the poet exhibits between the real and the ideal. The present study
undertakes the task of providing a hermeneutical reading of the epistle, using Julia Kristevas
psychoanalysis as a reference, in the hope of deciphering new results that may complete the
intellectual and aesthetic handlings of it.
I. The Semiotic: between immanence and elusiveness
In her book Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, Julia
Kristeva maintains that the semiotic refers to the actual organization, or disposition, within
the body, of instinctual drives as they affect language and its practice. (18) Elucidating more
the nature of these drives, Kristeva adds in her book Revolution in Poetic Language that
drives involve pre-Oedipal functions and energy discharges that connect and orient the body
to the mother. (27)
What could be derived from these quotes are the following five points:
1 - The anchorage of the semiotic in the body, which highlights its close affinity to mans
biological constitution that is empirically-verifiable and, therefore, apt to be studied
scientifically.
2 - The association of the semiotic with instinctual drives, linking it, thus, with what is
innate, rather than acquired, that is, what we are born with. By implication, the world of the
senses represents the bedrock of the semiotic, which means that the semiotic pertains to
mans instinctual drives to grant the senses full satisfaction of all that is desired.
3 - There is a discernible effect of the semiotic on the course of language and its practice.
This certainly serves:
a + To extend the tempo-spatial appearance of the semiotic as to be stretched beyond the
pre-linguistic phase, generally considered to be lavished with unrestrained freedom from
inhibitions, whether moral, social, religious, or institutional at alrge. All these forms of
inhibition are usually held to fatally regulate the individuals lives departing from the moment
they start to use language. By implication, the tempo-spatial extension of the semiotic
beyond its own phase is suggested to make that so-called fatal regulation in the symbolic
order void of sense.
b + To present the semiotic as capable of invading the internal fabrics of the symbolic
order a fact that is clear in language, the hitherto-held to be the most explicit indicator of
ones severance from the pre-linguistic unconfined realms of the semiotic. Actually, the
practice of language, in itself, (including artistic productions) could be revelatory of the
presence of the semiotic. As Julia Kristeva ascertains in one of her interviews, What we
call art is characterized by more patent immanence of the semiotic to the symbolic. Art
transforms language into rhythms and transforms aberrations into stylistic figures.
(Guberman 109)
4 - The existence of pre-Oedipal facts within the structure of language, despite the
anchorage of these facts in the individual unconsciousness. This is what Kristeva puts

forward in her book New Maladies of the Soul: within the semiotic activity, sensory vectors
such as sound, color, smell carry the sense of the drive and of affect and are organized within
the primary process (unconscious). (159) What happens, after the individual enters the
symbolic order of language, is his/her retaining of these very sensory vectors that,
originally, inhabit the semiotic, rather than the symbolic. As Sylvie Andrea Gambaudo
puts it, Kristeva interprets the presence of semiotic contents as the marker of the subjects re-
actualization of a time anterior to language, that is, a return of the subject to maternal time and
a re-actualization of maternal time within the subject. (32)
5- The metaphorical link of the semiotic with the image of the mother the receptacle of
all that is desired for the child in the pre-linguistic phase. Through endorsing the possibility of
re-actualization of such a phase at any time, Kristeva is implicitly sanctioning the return of
pre-Oedipal contents (that is, the time before the childs severance from its mother occurs,
which is the semiotic) into symbolic production. In fact, Kristeva announces, in her book
Against the National Depression, her outright commitment to the project of rehabilitating
pre-Oedipal and psychic latencies of the unconscious. (27) This project constitute but an
attempt to return to pre-Oedipal contents in order to verbalize it again. (Gambaudo 93)
It is this attempt to verbalize these pre-Oedipal contents, while being immersed in

the symbolic order, which proves the eventual imprisonment of the semiotic in the darkly
labyrinthine realms of inexpressibility. This is what Julia Kristeva ultimately seems to find
out as a main challenge in her psychoanalytical enterprise. Rather than being a transparent
medium of revealing the tacit multiple layers of the presence of the semiotic in it, language
often remains inapt to formulate the non-verbalized bodys needs and longings. As she
observes in her book Against the National Depression many do not manage to represent their
conflicts psychically (in sensations, words, images, thoughts), and consequently expose
themselves to vandalisms, psychosomatic disorders, drugs. (69) As a matter of fact, no
longer are sensations, words, images and thoughts transmissible of and representative to
ones psyche. If ever a perturbed psyche that is living in conflicts were to express itself, it
would be through self-destroying neurotic forms of compensation that share in common
disorder.
Implicitly, the stiff divide between the semiotic and the symbolic is retrenched, for
the semiotic harks back to its non-expressive essence that none can get insights into. This is
what led Kristeva to disagree with Freud who posited the possibility to arrive at the truth of
ones unconscious through paying attention to ones use of language. Confirming her
disagreement with Freud in this point, while highlighting her view of the inexpressibility of
the semiotic by a psyche that is suffering, Kristeva opines: My major disagreement with
Freud in this field lies in the attention that I pay to language. In certain cases, the discourse of
the melancholic is so impoverished that one wonders on what could one base an analysis. The
language of the depressed is not psychotic. But it rests upon a denial of the signifier which
results from the dissociation of the affect from language. It speaks, but does not touch me.
(Julia Kristeva. Aesthetic, Politics, Ethics. 16, italics mine)
In front of that implied state of paralysis of expression, imagination remains the sole
soothing balm for the individual to let the semiotic survive within the moulds of the
symbolic, despite its inexpressibility. In other words, when the imagination speaks from
within the individual, it does touch him/her greatly now. This pertains to Kristevas notion

of the chora. In her book Revolution in Poetic Language, Kristeva defines the chora as a
non-expressive totality formed by the drives and their stases in a motility that is as full of
movement as it is regulated. The chora precedes and underlies figuration and is analogous
only to vocal or kinetic rhythm. (25 - 6) The space the chora occupies may underpin,
chiefly, an underlying paradox translated in its amalgamation of stasis and motility,
dynamic movement and regulation, and temporal precedence of figuration as a sign
system and its underlying it. This may be added to the paradoxical association of the chora
with the vocal and kinetic rhythm (which appeals both to the auditory and visual sensory
responses) and non-expressive totality (which is suggested to elude the auditory sense, for it
transcends the scope of language altogether, out of its non-expressive nature).
The multifarious aspect of the chora and its malleability to fit any shape may link it
with the unrestrained freedom granted to the child during the pre-linguistic phase, that is, in
the semiotic order. Actually, Kristeva emphasizes the intrinsic tie that binds both the
semiotic and the chora in her Desire in Language. A Semiotic Approach to Literature and
Art: the semiotic process relates to the chora, term meaning receptacle. It is also anterior to
any space. (6) Rather than being just another variable of the semiotic, the specific nature of
the chora, as a receptacle of contrarieties, ensures the ever-existent potential of the
semiotic to spread its wings and to allow it to invade the established logic and rules of the
symbolic. In other words, the chora is a dynamism from within the individual which keeps
seeking to blur the boundaries separating the semiotic order from the symbolic. However,
far from setting a permanent bridge between both orders, the chora is just capable of
establishing a brief and intermittent union that does not exceed the subjective repertoire of
imagination.
Interestingly, these intermittent moments of union constitute the repository from

which creative works feed. In fact, Kristeva considers that poets, for example, imbibe their
inspiration from the chora. In her Revolution in Poetic Language, she maintains that the
chora can transform ideation into an artistic game, corrupt the symbolic through the return
of drives, and make it a semiotic device, a mobil chora. (53) The act of corrupting the
symbolic, which is taken as necessary for the operation of the chora, may point to the
falsification and, therefore, the fakeness of blurring the boundaries between the semiotic and
the symbolic. By extension, any artistic game, including the poetic imagination itself, is
suggested to derive its sources from deceit. This deduction must be much perplexing to John
Keats, for it seems to posit a moral dilemma for him. Keats seems to grow poignantly aware
of the devilishness of the poetic imagination (Ben Amor 315) which casts him in an endless
whirl of a vain imposing of the semiotic on the symbolic in his epistle To J. H. Reynolds.
The relevance of the semiotic in Keatss epistle
Originally, Keatss purpose of writing his epistle was just a playful attempt to provide
some humorous distraction for his friend Reynolds who was ill at the time. (Sperry 118)
Actually, Keats begins his epistle with underlying that sense of playfulness and mental and
bodily relaxation he is cocooned in while composing it. This is what we gather from the first
line of the epistle Dear Reynolds, as last night I lay in bed. His mentioning of the tempo-
spatial context of his composition might be read as a deliberate attempt to emphasize the
states of easiness and rest, which are, in Kristevas psychoanalytical enterprise, chief qualities

of the semiotic order. In reality, stressing that measure of relaxation to which the poet
peacefully succumbs is a conventional image that we find in Keatss poetry. In his poem
Sleep and Poetry, for example, the poet extols the fruitful aspect of rest: The pleasant day,
upon a couch at ease. / It was a poets house who keeps the keys / Of Pleasures temple. (353
- 5) The capitalization of the initial letter of Pleasure may pertain to the completeness it
possesses and, therefore, its perfection, which certainly holds much echo to the infinite and
unrestrained pleasure that Kristeva grants to the semiotic order.
Inhabiting the same semiotic-like temple of Pleasure, the poet establishes, in the
epistle, a close connection between his rest and the profuseness of images coming to his mind:
as last night I lay in bed, / There came before my eyes that wonted thread / Of shapes, and
shadows, and remembrances. (1-3) Inferably, there is built an organic whole between
pleasure, rest and imagination, while all are tinged with a sacred aura since they are
made to share the same temple. Accordingly, the poet seems to begin his epistle with
underlining the boon he was in last night. We may even derive that such a boon provides
him with enough stamina and the needed impetus to write his epistle. In Julia Kristevas
psychoanalytical hermeneutics, the poets perfect rest represents a moment in which the
chora exercises its presence and the poet hastens to profit from it through documenting his
experience. In fact, the main levels associated with the chora (receptivity, unity and
creativity) are strongly suggested in these first three lines of the epistle.
Receptivity can be derived from the poets self-lavishing of the set of images passing
before his eyes while succumbing to rest. Unity may be insinuated from the amalgamation
of shapes, shadows and remembrances that, despite their differences, seem to visit him all at
once in a wonted thread. Meanwhile, creativity is suggested through the poets implied
subjection of all these images to an artistic context whereby his simple act of laying in bed
enshrines that thread of associations and gives free rein to his imagination to weave it.
What is shared, throughout, is to voice the unrestrained realm of the semiotic the poet is
psychoanalytically retrieving thanks to his being visited and lulled by the chora. The loose
structure of the epistle, in itself, may be telling of the semiotic anchorage of its genesis. As
Stuart M. Sperry observes, the poem as a whole seems strangely disjointed and even at times
incoherent. (117) Through its immersion in the semiotic, the unity that is achieved in the
epistle is not structural, but mental, for the poet manages to relate between discrete objects
and put them in the same bundle, transgressing, thus, the commonsensical order. Sylvie
Andrea Gambaudo, while expounding on Kristevas differentiation between the semiotic
and the symbolic, summarizes it in the following formula: language is made of two
dimensions, symbolic and semiotic, the one classifiable, the other exceeding order. (38)
Becoming a semiotic space in which the poet exceeds order, the epistle possesses
different turns that keep resisting orchestration and, therefore, take the poets imagination far
into idyllic realms that are highly etherealized. His imagination leads him, for example, to
envision the Enchanted Castle it doth stand / Upon a rock, on the border of a lake / Nested
in trees. (26 - 8) The qualification of this castle as enchanted may serve to highlight its
imaginary aspect, as if the poet were narrating a fairy-tale. Moreover the use of capitalization
of the initial letters of Castle and Enchanted may point to its uniqueness and therefore its
mystery. Psychoanalytically, that measure of mysterious singularity might have to do with the
real nature of the semiotic which breaks the repressive laws of phallo-centric logic at the

level of the subject. (C. W. 84) The poet, while undergoing such a semiotic-like affiliation,
affirms his breaking of any repressive logic through anchoring the castle his imagination
induces in a dream-like context while underscoring the highly inexpressible superb
enchantment of it. Invoking his muse (in the name of the god Phoebus), the poet says: O
Phoebus! that I had thy sacred word / To show this castle, in fair dreaming wise, / Unto my
friend, while sick and ill he lies! (30 - 2)
The essence of the poets wish to share his semiotic-like attachment to the eminent
singularity of the Castle his imagination envisions is to heal his friend, Reynolds, who sick
and ill he lies. Hence, the therapeutic retreat to the semiotic order is highlighted. In the
words of Julia Kristeva, in a sense, the semiotic order is pure musicality. It is rhythm, tonal
difference, phonic change, movement of the body and of the limbs. This semiotic area,
characterized as enigmatic indifferent to language, is a sort of orchestration of primary
movements and functions. (Revolution in Poetic Language 29) The healthy aspect of the
rehabilitation of primary movements and functions, which imagination when shielded by its
semiotic affiliation can ensure, is made an innate and, therefore, a universal boon which can
be recovered by anyone. Thus, the poet addresses his ill friend, Reynolds, in the following
terms: You know it well, where it (the Enchanted Castle) doth seem / A mossy place, a
dream. / You know the clear lake, and little isles. (33 5, italics mine) The reiteration of the
cognitive verb to know implies that the illness wrought to Reynolds is ascribed to his
estrangement from the semiotic expressed metonymically through the image of the
enchanted castle which is deep-seated within him and hence, he knows it very well
instinctively. Implicitly the poet is making a plea to his friend to heed to the voice of the
semiotic inhabiting him from within if he wants to be recovered from his illness.
Actually, the high measure of idyllic presentation of what we might call semioticized
castle is telling of the reinvigorating and, therefore, therapeutically healthy aspect of the
poets call. The sensually appealing verdure suggested from a mossy place and the lake
coupled with the metaphorical comparison of the castle to dream may highlight the poets
inscription of it in a pastoral-like context where there is a powerful overflow of imagination.
Delineating the chief virtues of the pastoral as a literary form idealizing the lives of
shepherds, Edward Quinn notices that implicit in the idea of pastoral is the identification
of happiness with simple, natural existence, associated in classical times with the Golden Age,
and in modern times with images such as the little house in the prairie or Grovers
Corners, the locale of Thornton Wilders play Our Town (1938). (240) The effect of this
tacit metaphorical equation of the semiotic voice from within to such a pastoral-like setting
is to highlight the poets centralization of what is innate and, therefore, natural, as a healing
agent to diseases that are, as the epistle suggests, made and constructed due to ones alienation
from ones essence. What is innate, here, corresponds, in Kristevian psychoanalysis, to the
semiotic and what causes alienation from it (which effects illnesses, like the disease that is
suggested to haunt Keatss friend, Reynolds) corresponds to the symbolic.
In positing affiliation to the semiotic as an efficacious cure to the diseases that

plague the symbolic (which are suggested to be mostly psychological), the poet seems to
grow restless to find ways of expressing to Reynolds the real nature of such a semiotic
healing. At this juncture, the poets invocation of the god, Phoebus: (O Phoebus! that I had
thy sacred word / To show this castle, in fair dreaming wise, : Unto my friend, while sick and

ill he lies! (30 - 2)) casts the wish in a fair dream that, despite its inexpressibility, is
qualified wise since it defines the very locus of healing. However, as the epistle proceeds,
we remark that the desire to verbalize dreams seems to assume a manic dimension. It leads the
poet to hanker for extending the unrestrained pleasure, which dream may offer, to the
objective world of reality in order to ensure the ever-healing process of psyches. In Kristevas
psychoanalytical model, this desire pertains to her project of rehabilitating pre-Oedipal and
psychic latencies of the unconscious (Against the National Depression 27), that is, of
reconciling the semiotic with the symbolic. This involves the daring attempt tore-
habilitate the pre-Oedipal within the fabrics of the symbolic, which requires the poet, who
engages in a lethal fight with expression to inscribe the wise dream in his friends mind, to
return to pre-Oedipal contents in order to verbalize it again. (Gambaudo 93) In other words,
the poets desire consists in extending that measure of infiniteness, which characterizes the
complete sensual link that organically links the baby to its mother in the semiotic order, to the
finiteness that corresponds to the symbolic order where the gratification of the senses is
highly controlled and framed within a phallocentric context.
Deemed to be therapeutically beneficial, that desired extension of the semiotic to the

symbolic which the poet seeks to verbalize as a wise dream is reminiscent of Kristevas
chora in its vibration and dynamism. We might recollect, here, Kristevas view that the
process and practice of signification seeks to make the symbolic less opaque and real by
returning to the process of the semiotic. The chora returns to the point of the semiotic creation
and to the seed crystal of polarity to find semiotic renewal. (Revolution in Poetic Language
66) This semiotic renewal, which operates through making the symbolic less opaque and
real than it really is, points to the duplicitous mechanisms underlying that idealized process
of returning to the pre-Oedipal in order to be capable of doing such as acts as verbalization
of dreams, an act which signifies the extension of the semiotic to the symbolic. In the
epistle, that process of mystifying the symbolic through infusing it with traits typifying the
semiotic could be derived from the poets asking his friend, Reynolds, to see what is
coming from the distance dim. (55) The procession of sensually apprehensible phenomena
the poet mentions afterwards are made, due to their subjection to such dimness, hardly
recognizable and, therefore, much etherealized as if they belonged to a dreamy, rather than
tangible world. Among the things that Reynolds is pleaded to see it coming from the
distance dim is the galley: A golden galley all in silken trim (56) where three rows of
oars are lightening (57) side eventually towards the shade, under the castle wall (59) to
cause the whole sight he seeks to envisage to be hidden all. (60)
Symbolically, the movement of the scene from clarity to imperceptibility may echo the
course the Kristevian chora follows while making the symbolic less opaque in the process
of its being semioticized. The same itinerary towards unclarity and difficulty of sensual
apprehension characterizes the poets description of the enchanting music: An echo of sweet
music doth create / A fear in the poor herdsman / He tells of the sweet music, and the spot,
/ To all his friends and they believe him not. (62 - 3 / 65 - 6) There is a high measure of
mystification surrounding this music which causes it not to be believed. Chiefly, its
instilling of fear and sweetness renders it the locus of contrarieties to the extent that it is
introduced as being an enigmatically unidentifiable music that is hardly apprehensible
acoustically, thus resembling the dimness of shapes Reynolds is asked to heed. In reality,
this amalgamation of fear and sweetness could be read in connection to Kristevas

construction of the workings of the chora, namely in the waning and waxing in the degree of
its inducing the senses to apprehend objects properly. Such an implied instability attached to
the chora, from which the poets imagination feeds, is confirmed by Kristeva: margins
and boundaries will become less transparent, and anomalies will be more and more present.
As this happens, the chora becomes more and more available, more and more mobile. It
vibrates with instability and takes the role of meta-communication. (Revolution in Poetic
Language 67)
Essentially, the meta-communicative basis of the chora might be ascribed to its

metaphorical link with all that is sensually elusive in the world. Such elusiveness seems to
pertain, not primarily to discarding the senses from the orbit of the poets connection to the
physical world, but to the fleetingness of the sensual stimuli which constantly dupes him into
believing them to be a settled form, while they never stop changing. Actually, the definition
of prefix meta in dictionary is a combining form of change, used in words like
metamorphosis, metabolism etc. (O.A.L.D) Hence, the assumption of the chora of the
role of meta-communication may signify the endless metamorphosis of the sensually
apprehended objects into a state of inapprehensibleness that can cause fear. The meta-
communicative basis of the chora, then, may indicate the inextricable moment when the
illusion of mythic oneness is dissolved in the awareness of change. (Sperry 267) Being
caught in such a poignant awareness of change, the poet seems to be led to question the
generally-considered perfect oneness of the semiotic order (as a site not only of complete
satisfaction of desires without restraint, but also a healing mine to be taken from whenever
faced with annoying disturbances in the symbolic order). What mostly could nourish the
poets questioning of the semiotic is his discernment of its remoteness from the idealized
whole, inasmuch as the chora which bestows it energy never ceases evading the senses and
thus keeps dangling between the sweet and the fearful. This is what might make the
limitations of the symbolic order more preferable to the duplicitous enticements of the
semiotic.
II. The Symbolic: between impoverishment and appropriation
In Julia Kristevas psychoanalytical enterprise, the symbolic order maps out most of
the subjects life, since it marks its presence right from the emergence of language use. In her
book, Strangers to Ourselves, she defines the symbolic as being the proper of language, of
its signs and its syntax. (26) However, while embarking on delineating the specificities of the
symbolic order, Kristeva comes up with several flaws in its composition that have to do
mostly with its bases and methods of operation in relation to the pre-linguistic semiotic
order which precedes it. These flaws deter considerably the working of the symbolic and
despicably shackle its mechanisms, affording thus much psychoanalytical space for Kristeva
to reveal its fragile essence and its exposure to semiotic transgressions. The following points
will summarize the diverse difficulties facing the individual once s/he enters the symbolic
order.
1) The association of the symbolic with repression. This means that the whole body of
language used in communication is based on hiding facets of reality, problematizing, thus, the
whole scope of communicability altogether. As a matter of fact, Kristeva discerns a stark
dissociation between conscious representations of reality and what Sylvie Andrea Gambaudo

calls the expression of affects. (30) In Kristevas own words, affect remains in suffering,
so all I can do is weep. (Julia Kristeva. Aesthetic, Politics, Ethics. 16)
2) The production of language without affect draws attention to the incomplete nature of the
symbolic and its sheer deracination from the individuals self-expression. Falling short of
expressing real affective sides the individual lives entails the impoverished character of the
symbolic and, hence, the incapacity of language to provide an exhaustive account of some
inner truths that are psychoanalytically speaking fundamental for understanding ones motives
and reactions. This means that although many adults have successfully entered the symbolic
sphere, an increasing number have done so at the expense of a disconnection language/affect.
(Gambaudo 34)
3) Once they enter the symbolic order, individuals are made to indoctrinate a whole set of
dos and donts that have to be internalized prescriptively. In other words, ones psyche is
made to constitute a perpetual space of negotiation of what can be shown and said (conscious
representation of reality) and what should remain hidden (unconscious repression of other
facets of reality). In this respect, Kristeva insists on the necessity of the superiority of
unconscious repression over ones conscious representation, which implies the imminence
of ones laying bare of some sort of what is being repressed, no matter how much one tries to
keep it immune from the symbolic order. Thus, the layers of language in the symbolic
order remain not thick enough to hide what is sought to be repressed. For example, Kristeva
finds in pitch, intonations, silences, while conversing, proofs of the disruption of the
symbolic chain. (Lechte 60)
4) The symbolic regularities remain, nevertheless, a prerequisite for being acknowledged
socially as a member with whom to communicate, determining thus ones identity as a social
being. By implication, for the individual, socialization means coming to terms with the loss
of the pre-social or instinctive world of the infant and consenting to socio-cultural demands.
(Gambaudo 89) The essence of such consent to socio-cultural demands pertains to the will
to appropriate prescriptively the norms and etiquettes of society that are made, rather than
born with. According to Kristeva, this is one form of containment of oneself in a false self-
representation that gears towards achieving what we may call social rather than personal
identity. The matter is verbalized in the following terms by Kristeva: I am not contained in
the symbol. I do not connect what I am with its representation. (Strangers to Ourselves 24)
5) Ones appropriation of the symbolic, despite its divorce from what I am, begets for
Kristeva the psychic ills of modern life. Kristeva describes how one is led to speak a ready-
made discourse where dreams and fantasies have been replaced by operative fantasies.
(Power and Limits of Psychoanalysis. 126) These formulaic reductive operative fantasies
are presented as lethal to the innate creative potential of the individual, giving birth to what
Kristeva chooses to label as somatic body which is automatic, mindless and entirely
imprintable, a diseased body from which the ability to represent unconscious drives has been
suppressed, and which produces non-organic diseases as an alternative language to language
which no longer carries individual desires. (New Maladies of the Soul 69)
In front of such a deadlock where language no longer carries individual desires,

while being blindly yearned for in order to gain social identity, there occurs a hazardous
split within the individuals psyche translated in an overwhelming incapability of
compromising between the instinctual drives of the semiotic and the prescriptive dictates of
the symbolic. According to Kristeva, the perpetuation of this implied irreconciliability
between both orders yields eventually an exclusive discourse that is sanctioned scientifically

just to warrant the scale of normalcy built even in the use of language. As a consequence, the
investigation of an a-symbolic, that is, semiotic reality tends to be symbolically described as
madness. (Gambaudo 102) This means that even though it is paid attention and analyzed,
any trace of the semiotic in the fabric of the symbolic (which represents for Kristeva an
undeniable underlying truth) is judged negatively and sought to be remedied from through
effacing it. In other words, the scale of normalcy demands that semiotic characteristics be
totally absent in order for the individual to be admitted as fit socially.
The ultimate result of that unanimous construct of what we might call socially healthy
identity is the fall of the individual into psychotic forms of illnesses. Here, it is worth-
mentioning that psychotic signs are identifiable by the subjects keeping of what he knows it
to be a truth from others. (Cavell 67) According to Kristeva, there develops a double
discourse from within the individual: one is a cover and serves to appear socially acceptable
(which defines the symbolic), the other is severely muffled and subjected to invisibility
through all means in order to evade being referred to as mad in the constructed scale of
normalcy. Implicitly, added to psychosis, there is built also neurosis which consists in trying
to have reason and strength to keep what one knows from oneself. (Cavell 67) These
psychotic and neurotic forms of disease wrought by ones attempt to bury the semiotic and
to grant visibility only to the symbolic result in drastic changes of certain mechanisms
within the individual. Kristeva cites, in an interview, the example of the transformation of
phantasy into fantasy: With language (that is the emergence of the symbolic order),
phantasy gives way to fantasy. Fantasy is the metaphoric incarnation of phantasy, a
substitute where the combination sensation/affect with an object is now represented in a
symbol. (Guberman 110)
Kristeva seems well-aware that the need to capture the symbolic identity
(Gambaudo 65) is an inevitable fact and a sanctioned necessity. Yet, she never seems to
endorse such an exclusive discourse which engenders psychotic and neurotic forms of
illnesses. Rather than contenting herself with just pinpointing to the way the symbolic
character of the human collapses into chaos (Strangers to Ourselves 40), Kristeva works to
find an outlet from that despicable solidification of modern life into formulaic moulds, or
symbols regulating ones conduct. Essentially, Kristevas corrective approach seems to
operate from within the status quo, that is to depart from the result wrought to the world in the
aftermath of subjugating it to symbolic representations whereby to determine the scale of
normalcy. With respect to fantasy (which takes over phanatsy, on the passage from the
semiotic to the symbolic order), Kristeva works to grant it more representativeness in the
symbolic sphere. In her Power and Limits of Psychoanalysis, she complains: the new
maladies of the soul are characterized notably by a slowing down, if not a destruction of the
faculty of fantasy. We are swamped with images, some of which sound like our own fantasies
and appease us, but which, due to a lack of interpretive discourse, did not liberate us.
Moreover, the stereotypy of those images deprives us of the possibility to create our own
imagery, our own imaginary scenarios. (125)
What is being called for implicitly is to enliven and mobilize the workings of fantasies
and to locate them in a private interpretive discourse that is really our own and free from
stereotypical ready-made fabrications. Thus there is a tacit mating, on Kristevas part, of
symbolic activities (which are used to be approached as exclusive of the semiotic in order to

translate a socially-healthy identity) and semiotic aspects as regards the call for the non-
stereotyping and, by implication, the non-standardization of the faculty of fancy and its
presentation to be ideally a private constitution. With that move, Kristeva works to re-
habilitate the importance of the semiotic in the make-up of the symbolic and considers it as
a healthy sign for the individual. As she argues, the work of the analyst is to reconnect
language and affect. (Julia Kristeva. Aesthetic, Politics, Ethics. 16) To effect that
reconnection between language and affect, that is between the symbolic and the
semiotic, Kristeva emphasizes their mutual interdependence as an ineluctable fact that is
essential in the fabrics of each. As she remarks in her Revolution in Poetic Language,
because the subject is always both semiotic and symbolic, no signifying system s/he
produces can be either exclusively semiotic or exclusively symbolic and is instead necessarily
marked by indebtedness to both. (24)
This indebtedness to both orders could be envisaged in writing, criture. Ecriture

can be defined as a type of literary practice which defies discursive pretensions, on the
writers part, to omniscience and neutrality; to the contrary, criture carries within its own
discourse the heterogeneity particular to human experience. (Gambaudo 84) Certainly, the
challenge criture bears against omniscience and neutrality includes a complete refutation of
the belief in the possibility of building a social identity that can be sheltered from the
intruding visitations of the phantasies of the semiotic that tend to be associated within the
symbolic order with madness. Being the locus of heterogeneous discourse particular to
human experience, criture is a method of ensuring and recognizing the organic link binding
the symbolic to the semiotic and, by implication, fantasy to phantasy. In this way,
criture, as Kristeva points out in an interview, is but an attempt to put the neutral surface of
abstract words into contact with a whole dynamic of recollection of the most archaic
sensations experienced at a pre-linguistic level. (Guberman 55) In a nutshell, then, criture
aims at producing a language that is, thanks to its inclusive thrust, speaks and touches me,
rather than a stultifying one, which Kristeva deplores, that speaks, but does not touch me.
The Relevance of the Symbolic in the Epistle
In the epistle, imagination is introduced negatively as a disruptive force that slyly

victimizes its pursuer, mainly through enticing profuse and infinite gifts while detaining them.
The series of shapes, shadows, and remembrances which pass before the poets eyes as he
lay in bed keep every other minute vex and please. (4) As such, the contradictory effect of
imagination on the poet is highlighted, since just as it is apt to please him, it can also vex
and irritate him and, therefore, deter the equanimity he succumbs to in bed. This double
effect may inscribe imagination in a context similar to the symbolic order, where desire
fulfillment alternates with desire frustration, rather than with the semiotic one, in which
there is just desire fulfillment. Psychoanalytically, this implied displacement of imagination
from the semiotic to the symbolic might serve to anticipate the poets adoption of a
repressive discourse of the semiotic effusive inducement of infinite thread of shapes,
shadows, and remembrances. In the meantime, the corollary of repressing the semiotic
fabrications is the poets appropriation of the lens of the symbolic order while broaching
imagination.

Adopting symbolic lens, the poet seems to do his utmost in the epistle to regulate the
workings of imagination. For this project to succeed, he sets out to ironize the essential
fabrics of the semiotic through parody, imitation of a particular style or discourse for the
purpose of satirizing it. (Quinn 239) If that parodic method of reading were to be followed,
the epistles purport would be understood, then, to show what Umberto Ecco says about the
semiotic as being in principle, the discipline of studying everything which can be used in
order to lie. (7, italics mine) Of course, within a Kristevian psychoanalytical spectrum, such
an underlying incrimination of the semiotic is but a vain attempt to cut all ties with it, while
seeking to build strong bonds with the symbolic regularities even for imagination. The
poets parodic thrust of satirizing an imagination which chooses to feed from the semiotic
is envisaged in the playful style he adopts in the process of introducing its inducement and all
that it begets. What we might call semioticized imagination is conducive to a whirl of
postulations that, despite their remoteness from reality, affect the sensory responses of its
pursuer to such a considerable extent that the latter grows unable to maintain a usual
enjoyment of the sensually-appealing objects in reality as they are.
Actually, it is out of his pursuance of the vagaries of imagination that all graspable
(and, therefore, real) elements of beauty are distorted in the epistle and, eventually,
metamorphosed into sensually appalling, rather than appealing. While inducing things all
disjointed (that) come from North and South (5), such a semioticized imagination
bludgeons the poet into envisioning two witchs eyes above a cherubs mouth. (6) The
image of the witchs eyes confers a tint of profanity on the sanctity of the cherub. More
importantly, the sharp dissonance between the cherub as an angelic child with wings and the
witch messes with the orderly nature of the chain of being and produces, ultimately, a
sensually appalling image that denudes the cherub from its sensual appeal. As a matter of fact,
the face, which that form of imagination begets, serves just to dislocate the implied beauty
of the cherub that is, by virtue of its angelic anchorage, the incarnation of ultimate form of
perfection. The direct effect of such dislocation is the metamorphosis of the cherub in the
epistle into a frightful image appalling the senses. Elliot Gilbert goes even further to hold how
the face of the cherub is fraught with the grotesque. (25) Delineating the characteristics of
the grotesque, Edward Quinn affirms that it refers to a work in which abnormal or macabre
characters or incidents are presented in a mix of comedy and pathos or horror. The
incompatibility of this mix creates in the reader the kind of conflicted response that one makes
to a sick joke: on the one hand funny; on the other, nauseating or horrifying. (142)
There is, actually, a sense of abnormality mingled with contradictory effects on the
readers response in the image of the cherub. The distorted image of the cherub not only
resists unification, but also alludes to Dionysus, the mythical figure who is cut to pieces by
the Titans. (Brunel 309) In the epistle, the face of the cherub seems to be cut to pieces, too,
by the poets semioticized imagination pieces that bundle the divine with the beastly
witchy. Such a satirized form of imagination is further mocked in the epistle through the
image of the so-called Enchanted Castle it envisages. In its overall shape this castle is
introduced as a composite of dissociable structural components that yield a very queer setting
which is no less grotesque than such a sensually-appalling face of the cherub. Although it is
qualified as being a chosen see (41), that is, a perfect place (which might induce the reader
to ascribe that to its being made by divine-like powers), this castle is peopled by evil forms,
putting to the forefront the idea of bestiality instead. In this castle the doors all look as if they

oped themselves, / The windows as if latched by fays and elves. (49 - 50) This gothic-like
image might transform this Enchanted Castle into a prison that derives its specificity (got
from the capitalization of its initial letters) from its being guarded by fays and elves. Hence,
the element of the macabre, which is based on intensification of horror, is strongly
suggested and, consequently, helps nullifying the so-called enchantment of this castle.
The responsibility of such a semioticized imagination in sustaining horror is

envisaged more palpably in the scene of the sacrifice dramatized in the epistle. In this scene,
the thrilling aspect of death is highlighted in a pitiless context through the image of the heifer
being forcibly taken to the sacrifice in the altar, which brings the sensually appalling to its
extreme degree. The spectacle of the pontiff knife (which) / Gloams in the sun (20 - 1) is
followed by that of the milk-white heifer lowing (21), creating a sense of threat induced by
the imagination, with respect to the awaited death of the heifer. Indeed the whole spectacle
stimulates the imagination to envision the brutal slaughtering of the heifer. The expectation of
the brutality of such an act may be accentuated by the modifiers attached to the knife and the
heifer. Its gloaming in the sun may stand for the knifes being so honed that it sparkles on
being exposed to the sun. Meanwhile, the adjectival modifier white, attributed to the heifer,
may personify that animal as an innocent victim who is about to meet a cruel torture. What is
important, in this context, is the way the sensually appalling aspect of this scene is kept built
up even before its actual occurrence. Certainly, this form of anachronism is ascribed to the
unrestrained workings of imagination.
Underlying that unrestraint of imagination is its infusion of pain effect before its time,
including the experience of death. That form of semioticized imagination engenders what
Roland Barthes calls scenography of waiting which he dramatizes as follows: I organize it
(the waiting of a scene from certain external stimulants), manipulate it, cut out a portion of
time in which I shall mime the loss of the loved object and provoke all effects of a minor
mourning. This is, then, acted out. (37) Through acting out a scene before its occurrence,
this form of imagination transgresses the limitations of reality. It leads the poet to experiment
with death while alive (Ben Amor 336), though through the empathetic thrust with the heifer.
This experimentation with death prior to its time, seems to place imagination in a floating
space which resembles the unrestrained freedom the semiotic order is said to grant. From
thence comes the poets outright denunciation of that form of licentiousness set for the
imagination. Through a rhetorical question, the poet assaults that form of semioticized
imagination in the following terms: Or is it that imagination brought / Beyond its proper
bound, yet, still confined, / Lost in a sort of purgatory blind, / Cannot refer to any standard
law / Of either earth or heaven? (78 - 82)
It is inferred, then, that the poet is demonizing the infinite space of imagination. This
demonization implies a correlative thrust of repudiating ones retreat to the semiotic while
being caught in the symbolic which, by implication, defines the proper bound of
imagination. In other words, there is built a tacit contrast between what we might call
semioticized and symbolized forms of imagination whereby the formers superabundant
fecund potential leads just to labyrinthine purgatory blind, whereas the latter, through its
restriction to reality, ensures balance and clear-sightedness. D. G. James goes a step further
as he implies the necessity of having an imagination that is bound to the restriction of reality,
in the way the symbolized form of imagination operates: imagination seeks to pass beyond

its proper bound within the world, to try to see the world from outside, to see, as Keats says,
in The Fall of Hyperion (I.303), as a God sees. But it cannot succeed. It is still confined to
its proper bound.(20) That proper bound, set for the imagination, imposes on it to see as
man sees, not as God sees. Implicitly, the poet might be seen as providing a corrective
reading to the role of the imagination using logic and suggesting his predilection of an
imagination that has been disciplined by the regularities of the symbolic order to a
semiotic one that remains, inferably, indulgent and therefore impetuous in its operation.
Following the poets logic, then, the imagination which places itself in an unlimited
space is that which is duped into believing its ability to impose eternity on the temporal; to
reveal miracles by performing them. (Murry 131) Yet, the mere act of effecting that
imposition contains the seeds of its own destruction, for it leads to maiming the whole
scheme of things and, ultimately, to ones alienation from the present moment. Indeed, the
poet provides an explicit answer to his rhetorical question which deplores the semioticized
form imagination as a sort of purgatory blind due to its operation beyond its proper bound.
This explicit answer takes the form of a general truth: It is a flaw / In happiness to see
beyond our bourne - / It forces us in summer skies to mourn; / It spoils the singing of the
nightingale. (82 - 5) The last two lines of the quote above provide tangible analogies to an
unrestrained form of imagination that retards ones positive response to the present moment.
The first image is that of someone who is mourning and unable to apprehend the superb
beauty and enchanting summer skies. That despicable sort of dissonance between mood and
reality is accentuated in the second image of the inability of acoustically enjoy the singing of
the nightingale.
Following Kristevas psychoanalysis, these forms of depressive moods with seemingly

no external warrant pertain chiefly to the way the semiotic profuse energy is kept denied and
not provided representations in the symbolic order. As Sylvie Andrea Gambaudo puts it, in
Kristeva, mood is present within the symbolic, it is not an act of identification: it is not a
symbol (that is, it is not represented and thus has not owned yet linguistic icons to represent
itself). In the case of melancholia/depression, the presence of sadness (voice, gesture, etc)
points to the thing of loss which does not evolve into its representation. (144) By
implication, all of the poets attempts to distance himself from the semiotic (whether
through satirizing it or via demonizing it through logic) are the very causes of such an
inexplicable disjuncture between his own moods and the external world of reality, despite his
full awareness and total conviction of the necessity to content himself with the regularities
and confinements of the symbolic. In other words, the poets appropriation of a symbolized
imagination, which is based on excluding its semioticized counterpart, engenders a
depressive mood that remains inexplicable and, therefore, not capable of being represented
through language, the supposedly distinguishing feature of the symbolic order. So, rather
than being hushed and buried, the poet seems to be led to acknowledge that the semiotic,
despite its going beyond the bounds of reality, should be received as an essential component
in the highly-restrained nature of the symbolic order. Essentially, that acknowledgement of
the semiotic while seeking to fully adopt the tight regulations of the symbolic is ascribed
to the tenacious anchorage of his moods in an a-symbolic context that resists any sort of logic
which governs the symbolic order that the poet targets, initially, to fully inhabit himself in.

In reality, the burgeoning acknowledgement of the semiotic within the fabric of the
symbolic, which entails the poets gradual succumbing to a semioticized and symbolized
form of imagination, precipitates the presence of the Kristevian criture in the epistle.
Through its search to voice the pre-linguistic archaic energies in the materials of writing,
criture is not a totalizing mode of writing pretending to arrest its progression at perfect
meaning; rather, it is an endless process in which homogeneity and heterogeneity interact in
the production of a renewed identity, that is to say, an identity of multiplicity rather than
sameness. (Gambaudo 86) Certainly, this identity of multiplicity which criture ensures
defies the poets hitherto search for elaborating a mere social identity that builds its
constructed scale of normalcy on hierarchical basis, whereby all that belongs to the semiotic
is excluded from the texture of the symbolic. In the epistle, the manifestation of criture is
interspersed in instances like: Things cannot to the will / Be settled, but they tease us out of
thought. (76 - 7) This touching avowal may help present a poet who stands flabbergasted in
front of the workings of imagination and its diverse pulls that escape his will to orchestrate
them to order. Implicitly, this statement includes the poets recognition of the impossibility of
subjecting imagination to representation, in the same way moods are presented previously,
which highlights the tenacious inscription of imagination in the semiotic, too. Out of that
inextricable anchorage of his moods and imagination in the semiotic and after the effort he
exhibits in the epistle to give upper hand to the symbolic, the poet seems to find nowhere to
go but to cult what he calls something of material sublime. (69)
Granting sublimity to the material may represent an oxymoronic harnessing of

conventionally dissociable entities. However, when read within the context of the inclusive
thrust of Kristevas criture, the effect of that oxymoron would be thwarted and replaced,
rather, by that of the underlying harmony between the semiotic and the symbolic in
shaping the poets imagination and determining his moods. As Stuart M. Sperry observes, a
key phrase for elucidating Keats meaning is material sublime, expressing as it does the
desire of the imagination to possess at once the best of worlds, the ethereal and the concrete.
(126) The ethereal, here, corresponds metaphorically, to Kristevas semiotic order,
whereas, the concrete to the symbolic one. Both worlds are kept given voice till the end
of the epistle and remain intertwined together as to form ultimately an interwoven fabric
resembling, to a large extent, the romantically idealized motif of the organic whole that
embodies perfect unity and beauty. Perhaps, the fruitful aspect of Kristevas criture, which
underlies the eventual formation of that organic whole between the semiotic and the
symbolic, is best translated by the end of the epistle when the poet is suggested to move
from the state of perplexity at the interconnection between both worlds, or, in Kristevian
model, orders to that of jovial elation on gathering the beauty of such an intertwinement of
them. The poet rounds off his epistle thus: Ill dance, / And from detested moods in new
romance / Take refuge. (110 - 12) Certainly, the new romance in which the poet will take
refuge is going to derive its specificity from his self-willed immersion in the gleeful
jouissance Kristevas criture promises to achieve thanks to its inclusion of the semiotic
and symbolic in its vessel.
Conclusion
This study has shown the relevance of Julia Kristevas psychoanalysis in the text of
John Keatss verse epistle To J. H. Reynolds. Namely, Kristevas notions of the semiotic

versus symbolic orders are chartered theoretically and their applicability in the epistle is
evidenced afterwards. In either cases of enumerating the specificities of the semiotic and the
symbolic evinces the whole gamut each concept covers, from one extreme to its opposite:
from immanence to elusiveness for the semiotic and from impoverishment to appropriation
for the symbolic. This reveals the subjection of each of the semiotic and the symbolic to
contradictions from within its structure that influences to a large extent its operation and
manifestation in reality and in the text of the epistle. In fact, the immanence of the
semiotic order is shown to predicate mostly on the chora as an inner mechanism allowing
for the ever-regenerative potential of the poets imagination. Yet, it is also the chora which,
due to its swift switching between opposites, begets that sense of elusiveness whose
tormenting effect on the poet is envisaged in his inability to maintain an adequate sensory
response to objects as they are, which results in shattering the poets imagination that
becomes, eventually, unable to building any form of organic whole the poet tends to
idealize.
When it comes to the symbolic order, its paradoxical structure could be revealed
from its association with repression of deep-seated truths within the individual which, despite
its impoverished impact on the individuals essence, remain a desired path to be appropriated.
While seeking to appropriate the symbolic repressive laws, there is built a mistaken belief in
the possibility to bury the semiotic in the shade of forgetfulness. This is envisaged in the
clear-cut disaffiliation of the poet from what we have called a semioticized form of
imagination at the expense of adopting a symbolizedone, that is, to appropriate an
imagination that is bound to the restrictions of reality. As this study reveals, the
inexpressibility of moods and the poets awareness of being teased out of thought by the
floating of imagination prove the impossibility to maintain such a division between both
orders. As a matter of fact, the poet seems to endorse eventually Julia Kristevas notion of
criture that purports to be inclusive of the semiotic and the symbolic within the same
canon.

References
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La communaut arabo-musulmane aux Etats-Unis : entre rve et ralit
Lanouar Ben Hafsa

Universit de Tunis, Tunisie
Abstract
This paper aims to give an overview of the way Arab-American Muslims adapt to the United
States and its institutions. In effect, despite their growing numbers over the last few decades,
and despite the role they could play if, like other ethno-religious groups, develop a distinct
and cohesive identity, Americans of Arab and Muslim descent are still striving to unify their
ranks and consolidate their efforts in a changing socio-political context. The September 11,
2001 attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon not only
destroyed any hope to achieve their goals, but also reinforced the stereotype which makes of
them the members of an alien creed that preaches hatred and supports terrorism.
Keywords: Arab-American Muslim community, immigration, Islam, assimilation,

American New Right

Rsum
Ce papier tente doffrir un aperu sur la faon dont les amricains dorigine arabo-
musulmane saccommodent au systme des Etats-Unis et sadaptent ses institutions. En
effet, en dpit de leur croissance spectaculaire au cours des dernires dcennies et malgr
leur rcente prise de conscience du rle quils peuvent jouer sils russissent se forger
une identit distinctive et autonome linstar des autres groupes ethno-religieux, les
amricains dorigine arabe et musulmane narrivent toujours pas consolider leurs efforts et
surtout retrouver leurs repres dans un environnement socio-politique qui ne cesse de
changer. Les vnements du 11 septembre 2001 ont accentu leur dtresse et ont plus
particulirement bris tout espoir leur permettant de rayer cette image qui leur colle la
peau et qui fait deux les membres dun groupe fortement li une croyance incommode
qui prche la haine et soutient le terrorisme.
Mots cls : communaut arabo-musulmane amricaine, immigration, Islam,

assimilation, Nouvelle Droite amricaine

Rappel historique
Bien que les Amricains dorigine arabo-musulmane soient devenus plus visibles
notamment sur la scne politique, ils sont peu ou mal connus aux Etats-Unis. En fait, le
nombre infime dtudes qui leur a t consacr ne rvle que peu dinformations, sinon des
donnes imprcises quant leur statut socio-conomique et spcialement leur degr
dadaptation aux structures amricaines. Lon se heurte demble la difficult de les
recenser. Car, faute de statistiques officielles (vu que le gouvernement ne recense pas les
citoyens selon leur appartenance religieuse), les estimations leur concernant proviennent
essentiellement dinstituts de sondage privs ou dorganisations non-gouvernementales.
En effet, contrairement aux ides reues, la majorit des Arabes tablis aux Etats-Unis
ne se dclarent pas Musulmans. Selon une enqute conduite par Zogby International en 2005,
seulement 24 pour cent des Arabes amricains se revendiquent de lIslam, contre 63 pour cent
qui se dclarent Chrtiens, et 13 pour cent nappartenant aucune religion.1 Selon le rapport
2010 du Census Bureau2, lorgane officiel de recensement, il y a aujourdhui 1 967 212
Amricains de descendance arabe qui rsident aux Etats-Unis, mais le trs connu groupe de
pression, Arab American Institute, bas Washington D.C. et dirig par le docteur James
Zogby, avance le chiffre de 3 665 789 quil estime plus proche de la ralit.3
Au niveau de la communaut musulmane amricaine dont on estime le nombre entre

deux et sept millions, la diaspora arabe (dont le nombre sest considrablement accru aprs le
Seconde Guerre mondiale), savre relativement minoritaire face aux Afro-Amricains qui
constituent environ le quart des Musulmans tablis aux Etats-Unis. Dautant plus que la
population musulmane amricaine se distingue par sa grande diversit nationale et ethnique
par rapport leurs coreligionnaires europens. Selon le Pew Research Center, 30 pour cent
parmi ses membres se dcrivent comme blancs (Egyptiens, Palestiniens, Irakiens, Jordaniens,
Marocains, Algriens, etc.), 23 pour cent comme noirs et natifs des Etats-Unis, et 23 pour cent
provenant dAsie du Sud (Pakistanais, Indiens, Bengalis, etc.).4
Sans doute la religion qui progresse le plus rapidement travers le monde, o une
personne sur quatre est musulmane5, larrive de lIslam dans le Nouveau Monde sest faite
en trois tapes. Les premiers Musulmans qui ont foul le sol amricain taient des esclaves
imports ds 1501.6 Mais comme ils navaient systmatiquement aucune chance de pratiquer
1
Arab American Institute (www;aaiusa.org/pages/demographics ou
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Arab_American_Religious_background ).
2
U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 American Community Survey 1-year Estimates
(https://www.factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk).
3
2012 Arab American Institute Foundation (b.3cdn.net/aai/fcc68db3efdd45f613_vim6ii.pdf).
4
Pew Research Center, Section 1: A Demographic Portrait of Muslim Americans, August 30, 2011
(https://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf).
5
Michael Lipka & Conrad Hackett, Why Muslims Are the Worlds Fastest-Growing Religious Group.
(Disponible sur htps://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/23/why-muslims-are-the-worlds-fastest-
growing-religious-group/).
6
Ceci malgr que certains linguistes, historiens ou archologues datent larrive des premiers Musulmans dans
le Nouveau Monde au VIIe sicle. Venus dAfrique du Nord, ces Musulmans taient notamment des
commerants. Non seulement des pices de monnaie islamiques datant des IXe et XIe sicles ont t trouves en

leur foi, leur hritage religieux na pu se transmettre de gnration en gnration et a fini par
disparatre dans les annes 1860, au lendemain la Guerre civile qui a aboli lesclavage aux
Etats-Unis.
La deuxime grande vague dimmigrants musulmans qui avait commenc affluer ds

1880, provenait essentiellement du Levant, lpoque une province de lEmpire ottoman. En
majorit des Chrtiens, malgr la prdominance des Musulmans dans la Grande Syrie, ces
Arabes arrivaient des montagnes libanaises pour fournir une main duvre bon march
lindustrie lourde amricaine. Mais comme ils taient moins nombreux par rapport aux autres
immigrants qui arrivaient notamment dEurope de lEst et du Sud (Polonais, Italiens, etc.), ils
staient vite disperss sur le territoire amricain et avaient pu se fondre sans difficult dans la
culture dominante.7
La loi de 1965 sur limmigration et la nationalit (The Immigration and Nationality

Act) qui avait mis un terme au systme discriminatoire des quotas (tabli ds le Johnson-Reed
Act de 1924), et qui visait la diversit en matire de nouveaux-venus, avait dclench la
troisime vague dimmigrants arabo-musulmans. Ceux-ci commenaient sinstaller dans le
pays de lOncle Sam vers ds la fin des annes soixante et venaient notamment de pays
dAsie du Sud, mais galement dIran, dIraq, de Turquie et dEgypte. Parmi les facteurs qui
avaient dclench ces mouvements, on voque surtout des raisons dordre : politique
(sentiment gnral de frustration aprs lhumiliation des la Guerre des Six Jours en 1967) ;
conomique (croissance et prosprit au pays daccueil concidant avec lallgement des lois
sur limmigration en 1965) ; ou ducatif (nombre croissant dtudiants arabo-musulmans
ayant choisi de sinscrire dans les prestigieuses universits amricaines).
Mais lhistoire de lIslam aux Etats-Unis ne sest pas faite au nom des seuls
immigrants musulmans. Elle sest galement construite autour de ceux qui ont choisi de se
convertir lIslam, notamment les Afro-amricains qui, ds les annes 1930, ont fond leur
mouvement, Nation of Islam (dirig lpoque par le trs controvers Elijah Muhammad),
comme forme de combat pour lutter contre les ingalits raciales. Ainsi, plus que toute autre
nation, les Etats-Unis constituent aujourdhui un microcosme du monde musulman. Partie
intgrante de la grande mosaque socioculturelle, lactuelle communaut musulmane
comprend toutes les races, toutes les nationalits et toutes les ethnies.
Par-del sa diversit ethnique et culturelle, la communaut musulmane amricaine est

une communaut qui russit. Selon les experts amricains, elle russit parce quelle a non
seulement gagn le pari de lintgration en sincrustant harmonieusement dans le paysage
multiculturel amricain, mais galement parce quelle a su faire face aux dfis imposs par
une conjoncture dfavorable qui met srieusement en doute son amricanit. Ainsi,
contrairement leurs coreligionnaires dEurope qui, le plus souvent, vivent cantonns dans
des banlieues pauvres en proie la criminalit, les Musulmans des Etats-Unis se trouvent
rpartis sur lensemble des Etats qui forment lAmrique avec une trs forte concentration
Amrique, mais galement des noms et autres mots islamiques ont t gravs sur des rochers au Nevada depuis
650. (Zahir Uddin, Muslims in America , World and I, March 1st, 2002).
7
Cela sest produit lorsque les dfenseurs de lhritage anglo-saxon essayaient de renforcer la thorie du Melting
Pot et dassimiler les nouveaux immigrs dans la culture dominante.

dans les grandes mtropoles, telles que New York, Houston, Los Angeles, la Baie de San
Francisco et Dallas. Banlieue ouvrire de Detroit au Michigan, Dearborn, o un habitant sur
trois a des racines au Proche-Orient, est considre aujourdhui comme la capitale arabo-
amricaine.
Par ailleurs et sans commune mesure avec leurs partenaires dEurope, les Musulmans
amricains sont trs instruits et jouissent de meilleurs avantages conomiques. Daprs un
rapport publi par le Center for American Muslim Research and Information (CAMRI), le
Musulman moyen possde son compte trois ans dexprience universitaire (soit deux ans au-
del de la moyenne nationale)8. De surcrot, alors que les Musulmans rsidant en Europe
souffrent soit du chmage ou, dans leur immense majorit, occupent des mtiers peu
valorisants qui noffrent aucune perspective davenir, ceux qui ont mis sur le rve amricain
semblent en avoir largement tir profit, puisquils ont atteint des niveaux dinstruction et de
revenus qui dpassent mme la moyenne nationale. A en croire une tude mene par Zogby
Poll en 20129, 89 pour cent des Arabes amricains (Chrtiens et Musulmans) ont dj leur
Baccalaurat, 45 pour cent une Licence ou diplme quivalent, contre une moyenne nationale
de 27 pour cent ; 18 pour cent ont un Master ou un Doctorat, pratiquement le double de la
moyenne nationale (soit 10 pour cent).10
Les niveaux respectables atteints par la diaspora arabo-amricaine au niveau ducatif,

refltant selon plusieurs tudes une forte adhsion au rve amricain qui persiste depuis le
dbarquement de la premire vague en1880, leur ont permis dentrer par la grande porte dans
le domaine des affaires et des mtiers fortement rmunrs. En effet, 14 pour cent de ces
diplms sont aujourdhui employs dans le secteur des services. Ils exercent comme
dirigeants dentreprise, ingnieurs, avocats, mdecins, etc., et le revenu mdian de leurs
mnages (56 331 dollars pour lanne fiscale 2008)11 dpasse galement celui des mnages
amricains en gnral qui est de 51 369 dollars pour la mme anne.12
Enfin, sur le plan politique, en dpit des contraintes auxquelles ils se sont souvent
heurts et les nombreux obstacles qui se sont dresss sur leur chemin depuis quils sont
devenus visibles (en raison notamment de larrive massive dimmigrants musulmans ds la
fin des annes soixante), certains dirigeants arabo-musulmans ont su profiter dun
environnement propice aux initiatives individuelles pour btir leurs niches dans les rouages du
pouvoir. Certains ont grimp tous les chelons et se sont mme vus propulser au plus haut
niveau de lEtat grce essentiellement leurs efforts individuelles et sans compter sur le
moindre appui de leurs coreligionnaires ou instances dirigeantes de leurs communauts
respectives. En tmoigne llection de cinq parmi eux au Snat fdral amricain, neuf la
8
Zahir Uddin, Muslims in America , op .cit.
9
2012 Arab American Institute Foundation, op. cit.
10
Ibid.
11
Dernires statistiques fournies par lArab American Institute jusqu prsent.
12
Zahir Uddin, Muslims in America , op. cit. Parmi les PDG des grandes firmes industrielles, on cite Farooq
Kathwari de lEthan Allen Furniture, Ray Irani de lOccidental Petrolium, et Safi Qureshi de lAST Computers.
De grands noms de Musulmans travaillent galement dans lindustrie cinmatographique et dans les mdias. Les
plus connus sont Mustapha Akkad et Assad Kelada, producteurs de films et sries tlvises, et Fareed Zakaria,
diteur du Newsweek International. En 1999, Ahmed Zewail, professeur la California Institute of Technology,
avait reu le Prix Nobel en chimie.

Chambre des Reprsentants, trois ont t lus comme gouverneurs, etc. Deux dentre eux ont
mme exerc dans des cabinets prsidentiels, linstar de Donna Shalala qui tait Ministre de
la sant sous lre Bill J. Clinton, et Spencer Abraham qui a occup le poste de Ministre de
lnergie durant le premier mandat de George W. Bush (2000-2004).13
Modle dintgration ou de marginalit?
Contrairement la plupart des autres immigrants qui ont successivement dbarqu sur
le sol amricain, les Amricains dorigine arabo-musulmane souffrent de labsence de
cohsion identitaire, notamment de repres communs qui les unifient et les distinguent en tant
que groupe ethnique et/ou religieux. Cest ce qui explique, en partie, la ngligence, voire la
marginalisation de cette communaut qui, jusqu une poque rcent, tait presque invisible et
na fait lobjet que de rares tudes et enqutes. Mais larrive, ds la fin des annes 1960, de
nouvelles vagues dimmigrants musulmans, aux origines les plus diverses, a suscit un trs vif
dbat donnant lieu de nombreuses mises en garde quant leur volont dintgration et
dassimilation dans le melting pot amricain. Bref, la grande question tait de savoir si les
Musulmans, en gnral, sont solubles dans le rve amricain.
Quoiquayant incontestablement russi sur le plan professionnel, leur intgration

sociale na pas t aussi rapide que leur succs conomique, tout au moins en ce qui concerne
la dernire vague dimmigrants musulmans arrive aprs la Deuxime Guerre mondiale. Par
de-l le problme de double identit ou ce que certains dnomment loyaut partage
(entre mre-patrie et pays daccueil), ce repli communautaire nest nullement surprenant
puisque, selon certains, il sexplique par une tendance gnrale et spontane dvelopper des
liens plus troits avec leurs coreligionnaires ou les membres de leur groupe ethnique. Sajoute
ceci le caractre extrmement htrogne des nouveaux expatris arabo-musulmans et
surtout leur crainte dtre figs dans des strotypes de rfugis politiques. Cest ce qui
dmontre, lvidence, pourquoi certains parmi eux ne peuvent toujours pas sintgrer ou
simplement ne sont pas dcids le faire.14
En gnral, contrairement leurs coreligionnaires dEurope qui, faute peut-tre de

structures favorisant leur intgration, se sentent carts du systme malgr leur nombre
croissant, les Musulmans des Etats-Unis semblent mieux implants et font partie intgrante du
paysage socioculturel amricain. Dailleurs, 65 pour cent dentre eux se revendiquent
Amricains avant dtre Arabes ou Musulmans, contre seulement 45 pour cent en Europe qui
ressentent la mme fiert pour leur pays daccueil.15 Ce sentiment dtre amricain part
entire, en dpit de la conjoncture du 11-Septembre qui avait ressuscit les vieux dmons
islamophobes, sexplique par le fait que non seulement les Musulmans amricains sadaptent
mieux aux standards de la socit amricaine, mais aussi parce que celle-ci leur a fournis les
moyens indispensables leur absorption, savoir des liberts politiques garanties par la
13
The Roster of Arab Americans in Public Service and Political Life. (Disponible sur
https://www.aaiusa.org/index_ee.php/pages/arab-american-roster).
14
Andrzej Kulczycki & Arun P. Lobo, Deepening the Melting Pot: Arab Americans at the Turn of the Century
, The Middle East Journal, June 22, 2001.
15
Lon Hadar, Migrants Musulmans ? Oubliez le vieux continent, place au rve amricain , (i24 News, 3
fvrier 2015). Disponible sur www.i24news.tv/app.php/fr/opinions/59753-150202-analyse.

Constitution, des avantages conomiques incontests, et notamment la possibilit de pratiquer

leur foi sans la moindre crainte dtre perscuts par une quelconque autorit. Notre
communaut musulmane se sent amricaine , dclarait rcemment Barack Obama, insinuant
lchec de lEurope intgrer ses populations musulmanes, et ce processus incroyable
dimmigration et dassimilation qui fait parti de notre tradition est probablement notre
grande force .16
Mis part le sentiment de scurit ressenti travers lexistence depuis des gnrations
dune communaut arabo-chrtienne bien intgre et de plus en plus prsente dans les circuits
dcisionnaires du pays, le contexte multiculturel et pluriconfessionnel amricain permet
doffrir une occasion unique aux immigrants musulmans qui ne peuvent que la saisir au pays
que lon dcrit comme Promised Land (terre promise) ou Land of the Free (terre des Hommes
libres). Comme le souligne firement Anne Wortham, sans doute lun des sociologues les plus
clairs des Etats-Unis, qui considre que : Contrairement aux autres pays, lAmrique se
dfinit par ses valeurs humaines et spirituelles, et non par son hritage ethnique. Nous
sommes le seul vrai pays lac au monde .17
Il faut rappeler dailleurs que daprs une tude effectue en 2001, le nombre de
Musulmans amricains qui vivent strictement en conformit avec la loi islamique est plus ou
moins gal celui de ceux qui ont choisi dadopter un mode de vie loccidentale . Vingt
pour cent des jeunes musulmanes scolarises portent le voile et seulement dix pour cent des
Musulmans qui frquentent les mosques participent la prire du vendredi. Quant la
consommation dalcool, elle demeure trs rpandue notamment parmi les jeunes musulmans,
aussi bien dailleurs que la sexualit en dehors des liens du mariage. Toujours selon le mme
rapport, certaines lves musulmanes vont mme jusqu sinterdire dafficher publiquement
leur appartenance religieuse. Du coup, jener pendant le mois de Ramadan devient aux yeux
des autres un rgime alimentaire pour perdre du poids, alors que refuser daccompagner leurs
camarades au centre commercial est justifi par des heures de baby-sitting quelles doivent
effectuer pour arrondir la fin du mois. Dautres se dbarrassent tout simplement de leur voile
et de leurs vtements longs aussitt quelles quittent le foyer parental.18
Mais le mouvement inverse existe galement. Contrairement la deuxime gnration

arabo-musulmane en Europe qui, souvent tiraille entre le monde traditionnel des parents et le
mode de vie occidental, narrive plus retrouver ses repres, la plus jeune gnration aux
Etats-Unis redcouvre lIslam et se trouve, plusieurs degrs, responsable et dtermine
prserver cet hritage transmis par la vieille gnration.19
16
Ibid.
17
Nous traduisons: Unlike any other country, America is defined by its spirit and human values, not by its
ethnic background. We are the only truly secular country in the world . (Anne Wortham, The Melting Pot,
Part 2: Americas Cultural-Institutional Core , Modern Thought, November 2001). Disponible sur
https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-79409994.html.
18
Daniel Pipes & Khalid Duran, Faces of American Islam , Policy Review, August 1st, 2001
(https://www.danielpipes.org/441/faces-of-american-islam-muslim-immigration).
19
Ibid.

Choc de civilisations, Guerre dicnes !
Doit-on considrer lIslam comme un ennemi de lOccident ?
Depuis les attentats du 11 septembre, 2001, mme avant, cette question demeure au
cur dun dbat houleux et trs controvers qui divise profondment ceux qui pensent que la
confrontation entre lIslam et lOccident est irrversible, et ceux qui sont convaincus quil
sagit l dun phnomne conjoncturel troitement li aux orientations amricaines en matire
de politique trangre, et quaussitt la paix tablie entre Palestiniens et Israliens, tout
rentrera naturellement dans lordre.
Pour mieux cerner le dbat autour de cette question et donner un aperu clair et
objectif des Arabes et des Musulmans tablis aux Etats-Unis, notamment lexercice de leur foi
en milieu pluriconfessionnel mais majoritairement chrtien, il savre tout dabord ncessaire
de tenter de rpondre aux questions suivantes : Qui sont rellement les Musulmans
amricains? Quest-ce qui les caractrisent et les distingue des activistes islamistes qui
prnent la haine et la violence? Sont-ils reprsentatifs de la majorit des Musulmans travers
le monde? Comment ont-ils ragi aux attentats du 11 septembre, lesquels ont dclench une
vague dactes racistes et xnophobes et ont tenu comme principaux suspects tous les Arabes
et tous les Musulmans sans distinction aucune? Enfin, pourrait-on considrer lIslam comme
foncirement anti-amricain ou anti-dmocratique? Ou, linverse, pourrait-on conclure
quen dpit de la rsurgence dun Islam radical et intolrant, reprsent par de mouvances
obscurantistes telles quAl-Qada et le soi-disant Etat Islamique, lIslam sadapte
harmonieusement au contexte amricain?
Mais avant de percer le mystre autour des islamistes et de leur idologie radicale,
faudrait-il peut-tre situer leur raction dans un contexte plus vaste de mutations globales. Il
nen demeure pas moins que, retranchs derrire 1400 ans dhistoire de lIslam et refusant
parfois de voir la ralit en face, les prcurseurs de la mouvance islamiste nacceptent plus de
poser les problmes dans leur contexte conjoncturel et la lumire des changements
structurels qui ne cessent de transformer le monde. Ainsi, comment pouvaient-ils concevoir la
dsintgration de lempire musulman qui, pendant au moins un millnaire aprs lavnement
de lIslam en 622, avait rgn sans partage dans plusieurs parties du monde?20 Qui pourrait
croire que pas plus tard que le XVI sicle, ltat le plus influent au monde tait musulman
avec cet Empire ottoman qui stendait des Pyrnes jusquen Indonsie? Enfin, qui pourrait
croire que pas plus tard que 1683, Vienne, assige par les troupes ottomanes, risquait de
tomber et de basculer, dans sa chute, toute lEurope sous contrle islamique?
Mais le vent a tourn.21 Eprouvant un profond malaise devant le dmantlement et le

dclin de leur civilisation qui, leur avis, mrite de jouer un rle majeur, comme dans son
pass lorsque lIslam connaissait ses heures de gloire, et jugeant que la modernit nest
quune forme doccidentalisation du monde, les radicaux islamistes croient que sils
20
Au dbut du prcdent millnaire, les grandes cits de la culture, de la science et du savoir taient Cordoba,
Bagdad et autres mtropoles arabes et musulmanes.
21
Lvnement qui sans doute a t ressenti comme une grande humiliation pour le monde arabe, stait produit
en 1798 lorsque Napolon Bonaparte a conquis lEgypte avec moins de 40.000 soldats.

pratiquent un Islam pur et dur, ils peuvent rcuprer lge dor et surpasser lOccident.22
Dautant quavec leurs pays dorigine qui tranent encore loin derrire lOccident, presque
tous les niveaux (distribution des richesses, infrastructures de sant et dducation,
dveloppement conomique et liberts individuelles), ils nont dautre choix que de rejeter la
faute sur lOccident, en attribuant tous les maux au Grand Satan, les Etats-Unis.
Pire encore, dus par les Amricains qui se sont servis deux pour vaincre lEmpire
du mal, lUnion Sovitique, et contrecarrer son influence en Afghanistan et dans lespace
musulman, et pourchasss sans relche dans leurs propres socits par des rgimes qui ne leur
laissent gure de chance pour agrandir leurs rangs, les activistes islamistes trouvent un moyen
pour charrier toute sorte de fantasmes. Ils considrent ainsi que la modernit occidentale sest
faite aux dpens de lintgrit politique de lIslam, et mettent directement en cause les
rgimes arabes en place qui, selon eux, veillent ce pillage.
Pour eux, malgr tous les progrs que lOccident ralise tant sur le plan technologique
que scientifique, il est intrinsquement faible, non pas parce quil est chrtien, mais parce
quil a perdu toutes ses valeurs morales et spirituelles, et a fini par devenir une terre de
mcrants, comme en tmoigne dailleurs le divorce consomm entre lEglise et lEtat au sein
des socits europennes et amricaines.23 Plus particulirement, aveugls par les excs du
matrialisme et la course effrne derrire le profit et largent, les infidles occidentaux
sont devenus, non seulement incapables de discerner le bien du mal, mais essayent encore
dentraner avec eux dans cette spirale infernale tout le monde arabo-musulman.
Sur un autre plan, comme dailleurs cest le cas pour un nombre de Musulmans
modrs, les activistes islamistes se sentent coeurs par la politique amricaine du deux
poids, deux mesures au Proche-Orient et son soutien inconditionnel lEtat hbreu. Ainsi,
relvent-ils les contradictions des gouvernements successifs amricains qui, en mme temps
quils exercent leur pression, cherchant instaurer la dmocratie dans le Monde arabe,
continuent apporter leur soutien aux rgimes corrompus en place. A leurs yeux, ces
dictatures continueront dexister aussi longtemps quelles recevront la bndiction des Etats-
Unis et ne disparatront que lorsque la puissance amricaine sera contrainte de les
abandonner.
Il nen demeure pas moins que, profondment enracin dans lidologie islamiste,
lanti-amricanisme est galement ressenti dans les milieux islamiques modrs, ou ce quon
appelle la majorit silencieuse. Comme le prcise Mark Tessler, Professeur lUniversit du
Michigan qui souligne que : Si vous les interrogez sur la dmocratie amricaine, sur les
valeurs amricaines, sur la science amricaine, les pourcentages augmentent Si vous leur
22
La lecture que fait Ben Laden de lIslam sinspire dune idologie vieille de 200 ans. Fond par Ibn Abdal-
Wahhab (1703-1792), le Wahhabisme prche le retour un Islam primitif et radical qui repose sur une
interprtation littrale du Coran et ne tient compte daucun des mouvements culturels qui ont fait la gloire du
XVIIIe sicle dans les domaines de la philosophie, de lart et de la musique.
23
Hillel Fradkin, Why They Hate Us? , Editorial, The American Enterprise, December 1st, 2001.

demandez leur avis quant la politique trangre amricaine et ladministration amricaine

en gnral, ils en expriment une opinion dfavorable .24
Cest ce qui ressort, peu de choses prs, dun sondage Gallup rendu public en 2002
et qui montre que 53 pour cent des Musulmans travers le monde dtestent les Etats-Unis,
alors que 22 pour cent en ont une opinion favorable. Mme au Kuwait, seulement 28 pour
cent ont une image positive de la superpuissance amricaine, alors que 41 pour cent en
pensent le contraire et 63 pour cent ont exprim un avis dfavorable lencontre de George
W. Bush, le fils du prsident qui, quelques annes auparavant tait venu les extirper des
griffes de lenvahisseur irakien.25
Cependant, malgr sa pousse spectaculaire aux Etats-Unis et travers le monde,

lIslam reste assez largement mal connu, notamment au pays de lOncle Sam, et ne peut se
dgager du cadre dans le lequel il a t fig, telle une croyance mystrieuse, incompatible
avec le contexte amricain, voire reprsentant un vritable danger pour lhritage judo-
chrtien. En effet, les tentatives ddaignant lIslam comme tant un culte tranger et
dcryptant les Musulmans amricains tels des lments sditieux, dangereux et totalement
incompatibles avec la vie amricaine,26 voire une sorte de cinquime colonne menaant le
pays de lintrieur, ont exist bien avant les attentas du 11 septembre 2001. Quelques annes
auparavant, des intellectuels noconservateurs tels que les professeurs Samuel Huntington de
lUniversit Harvard et Bernard Lewis de Princeton, et des personnalits trs connues tels que
les chroniqueurs Daniel Pipes et Steve Emerson, dpeignaient lIslam comme une religion
congnitalement intransigeante, et envisageaient mme une inluctable confrontation entre
lIslam et lOccident.
La guerre froide est finie , mettait dj en garde Karina Rollins, ditrice de la

revue noconservatrice The American Enterprise, mais la bataille du bien contre
le mal est lance comme jamais auparavant. A un certain moment dans le futur, la
soif des humains pour la libert et lautodtermination pourrait envahir le monde
islamique. Mais aujourdhui, un nouvel ennemi est la porte de la civilisation, et il
27
est temps de le reconnatre .
Par ailleurs, il est important de souligner que depuis la diffusion, en 1994, sur la
chane PBS du fameux documentaire, Jihad in America, du journaliste Steven Emerson, les
Musulmans amricains, plus particulirement ceux dorigine arabe, nont cess de faire lobjet
de tentatives visant les stigmatiser et les transformer en suspects potentiels prts tout
pour atteindre leurs objectifs. En tmoignent les prises de position souvent trs violentes du
noconservateur Daniel Pipes, directeur de lorganisation Middle East Forum et auteur de
24
Nous traduisons: If you ask about American democracy, American education, American values, American
science, the scores go up If you ask about US foreign policy and the US administration overwhelmingly
people will have negative views . (Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., The War Within Islam , The National Journal,
May 10, 2003).
25
Kaplin, Motan A., September 11 and the Unpopularity in the Muslim World , World and I, June 1st, 2002
(connection.ebscohot.com/c/articles/7048249/September-11-american-unpopularity-muslim-world).
26
Cit plusieurs reprises sur le site www.cair.com.
27
Nous traduisons: The Cold War is over, but the battle of good vs. evil rages stronger than ever. At some
point in the future, the human thirst for liberty and self-determination may sweep even the Islamic world. But
today, a fresh enemy is at civilizations gate, and its time we recognize him . (Why They Hate Us? op. cit.)

plusieurs publications connotation anti-islamique.28 Dans lun de ses articles intitul

Americas Muslims against Americas Jews 29, Pipes tente dalerter ses compatriotes sur le
danger intrieur que reprsentent lIslam militant aux Etats-Unis et va mme jusqu
insinuer quil ny a aucune diffrence entre la minorit islamiste radicale et la majorit des
Musulmans dite modre. Daprs lui, tous les Musulmans constituent un bloc monolithique,
intrinsquement antismite et anim par la haine dautrui.
Critiquant svrement les organisations musulmanes amricaines qui, son avis,

sobstinent se dmarquer du terrorisme et des sentiments anti-amricains qui svissent dans
leurs pays dorigine, Pipes nhsite pas alerter ses compatriotes sur le caractre
missionnaire et universalisant de la foi musulmane, notamment le danger que celle-
ci reprsente pour la libert de foi et le pluralisme confessionnel aux Etats-Unis. Il rtorque:
Lambition de conqurir les Etats-Unis nest pas nouvelle. Les premiers missionnaires de
lidologie islamiste, qui sont arrivs de ltranger dans les annes 1920, ont dclar sans
gne, Notre plan est de conqurir lAmrique .30 Dailleurs, cest ce qui justifie, ses yeux,
la prsence de Musulmans en terre dinfidles car, selon lui, faute de samricaniser ,
les Musulmans tablis aux Etats-Unis nont quun seul objectif: convertir tous les Amricains
lIslam.
Certes, les atteintes la foi musulmane et les tentatives de rinventer la Guerre froide
en dsignant lIslam comme le nouvel ennemi du monde libre, ne sont pas les objectifs
dclars des seuls idologues no-conservateurs. Ils font galement partie dune vaste
campagne lance par les dirigeants de la Nouvelle Droite chrtienne qui, en loccurrence, ne
manquent aucune occasion pour mettre en doute la compatibilit de lIslam avec les valeurs
amricaines. Bien quimplicitement dnoncs par le prsident Bush au lendemain des attaques
du 11 Septembre, qui parle plutt dune large majorit de Musulmans pacifique et qui admire
les Etats-Unis, il nen demeure pas moins que de tels propos nont fait quexacerber les
tensions dans le monde musulman et raviver les vieux dmons faisant de lAmrique
lEmpire du mal et de la perversit satanique. Des propos qui visent notamment souiller
limage de lIslam, comme, par exemple, ceux de Franklin Graham, fils du clbre prdicateur
tlvisuel Billy Graham, pour lequel lIslam est une religion du mal , viscralement en
conflit avec les valeurs amricaines, ou ceux du rvrend baptiste Jerry Vines qui dcrit le
prophte Mahomet comme tant un pdophile possd par les dmons .31
Sadressant enfin ses compatriotes juifs, massivement reprsents par le trs puissant
lobby pro-isralien, AIPAC (Comit amricain pour les Affaires publiques israliennes),
Daniel Pipes schine dmontrer que le vrai danger pour la dmocratie amricaine et la
libert de foi ne provient pas de la Droite chrtienne, acquise doffice la cause dIsral, mais
plutt des organisations musulmanes qui continuent, selon lui, oprer en toute impunit sur
le sol amricain. A son avis, ce nest que perte de temps et dnergie pour les organisations
28
Notamment son livre Militant Islam Reaches America, New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.
29
Daniel Pipes, Americas Muslims Against Americas Jews, Commentary Magazine, May 1st, 1999
(https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/americas-muslims-against-americas-jews/).
30
Nous traduisons The ambition to take over the United States is not new. The first missionaries for militant
Islam, or Islamism, who arrived from abroad in the 1920s, unblushingly declared, Our plan is we are going to
conquer America . Ibid.
31
Freedberg, S.J., The War Within Islam , op. cit.

juives amricaines que de consacrer autant defforts pour combattre la Coalition chrtienne32
et virtuellement ignorer ce quil appelle fascisme islamiste. Il affirme ce propos:
Le vrai et actuel danger ne provient en aucune manire de la Coalition Chrtienne

acquise la cause dIsral mais de lantismite Muslim Arab Youth Association ;
il ne provient pas de Jerry Falwell mais du Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman ; il ne
provient pas de ceux qui, au pire des cas, souhaitent convertir les Juifs mais de ceux
qui, par tous les moyens leur disposition, cherchent faire du mal, ceux qui ont
dj agi selon des intentions violentes, et ceux qui, non contrls, le feront
33
certainement encore .
Sur un plan plus gnral, les tentatives visant dmoniser lIslam en le considrant
comme une religion qui prche la violence, et diaboliser les Musulmans en les figeant dans
des strotypes dtres culturellement incapables daccder la modernit et ayant une
propension naturelle la barbarie, tout ceci au nom dune pseudo-thse qui prconise le
choc des civilisations , ont atteint des sommets sans prcdent au lendemain des attaques
du 11 Septembre. Les deux derniers livres de la journaliste et crivain italienne, Oriana
Fallaci, La rage et lorgueil34 et La force de la raison35, en sont peut-tre le meilleur exemple.
Selon Fallaci, contrairement aux ides reues, les attentats terroristes du 11 septembre
ne sont pas luvre dune minorit de pervers islamistes, dsillusionne et prte aller
jusquau bout pour assouvir sa rage contre lOccident. Ces attentats seraient les consquences
directes ou indirectes de cette montagne (la religion musulmane) qui pendant 1400 ans na
pas boug, na pas resurgi des bas-fonds de laveuglement, na pas ouvert ses portes la
conqute de la civilisation, et a rejet tout ce qui a un lien avec la libert, la justice, la
dmocratie et le progrs .36
Vers la fin de son essai, Fallaci met clairement en garde contre tout Musulman et
souligne que
32
Fonde en 1988 par le prdicateur tlvisuel, Pat Robertson, la Christian Coalition of America est un groupe
de pression politique amricain qui runit prs de 1 200 000 membres. Visant ds le dpart semparer du Parti
Rpublicain, son objectif principal consiste restaurer les valeurs traditionnelles de la famille judo-chrtienne
et surtout lutter contre lhomosexualit et le droit lavortement.
33
Nous traduisons: The real and present danger is by no means the pro-Israel Christian Coalition but the
rapidly anti-Semitic Muslim Arab Youth Association; not Jerry Falwell but Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahmman ; not
those who wish, at the very worst, to convert Jews but those who, with every means at their disposal, intend to do
them harm, who have already acted on those violent intensions, and who if unchecked will surely do so again.
D. Pipes, American Muslims Against American Jews , op. cit. A noter que les dirigeants de la Nouvelle
Droite chrtienne ont toujours t de fervents partisans de lEtat dIsral. Ne reposant aucunement sur un
sentiment de culpabilit envers les Juifs en raison de perscutions passes, cet engagement mane notamment
dune doctrine thologique trs rpandue dans les milieux pentectistes et fondamentalistes, connue sous le nom
Dispensationalist Premillennialism. Daprs celles-ci, linstauration dun Etat juif viable et scuris en Isral,
y compris la construction du Temple de Jrusalem, est une condition pralable au retour sur terre de Jsus Christ
pour rgner en matre pendant mille ans.
34
La rage et lorgueil, Paris: Plon, 2002.
35
La force de la raison, Monaco: Editions du Rocher, 2004.
36
Nous traduisons: this mountain that for 1,400 years has not moved, has not emerged from the abyss of
blindness, has not opened its doors to the conquest of civilization, and has wanted nothing to do with liberty and
justice and democracy and progress . Voir Christopher Caldwell, The Fallaci Affair, Commentary Magazine,
October 1st, 2002 (https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-fallaci-affair/).

Les Fils dAllah se multiplient comme des rats . Elle poursuit : Je nai aucune
intention dtre chtie pour mon athisme par les Fils dAllah. Cest--dire par ces
jeunes hommes qui, au lieu de contribuer au progrs de lhumanit, passent le temps
37
avec le c dans lair, pour prier cinq fois par jour!
Fallaci ne se contente pas de profrer toutes sortes dinjures contre lIslam et ses
principaux fondements. Sadressant directement aux femmes musulmanes, elle nhsite pas
se moquer effrontment de leur sexualit. Ainsi leur demande-t-elle : Etes-vous tombes
amoureuses dOsama Ben Laden, avec ses grands yeux Torquemada, avec ses grosses lvres,
et avec tout ce qui est en dessous de sa sale tunique? Le trouvez-vous romantique? Croyez-
vous que cest un hro? Rvez-vous dtre violes par lui? . Quant aux hommes arabes, son
message est sans quivoque. Elle souligne: Dieu merci je nai jamais eu de relation avec un
Arabe. A mon avis, il y a quelque chose chez les hommes arabes qui est rvoltant pour toute
femme au got raffin .38
Conclusion
En guise de conclusion, nous nous permettons de citer le Professeur Abdallh

Hammoudi, un Amricain dorigine arabo-musulmane qui, dans un entretien publi dans Le
Monde du 8 janvier 2002, raconte son exprience des Etats-Unis, mais offre surtout une image
des deux mondes, musulman et occidental, trs contraste certes, mais semble-t-il trs proche
de la ralit. M. Hammoudi considre que lignorance et le fantasme sont les choses les
mieux partages, et quil faut toujours se mfier de sa propre innocence . Il estime que,
comme dautres tres humains, les Arabes et les Musulmans sont des produits de lhistoire et
quil est faux et dangereux de les figer dans des strotypes ou des pseudo- constantes
culturelles qui les prdisposeraient la violence et lirrationalit. Car, selon lui, la haine
nourrit la haine et la violence nourrit la violence. Plus les Arabes et les Musulmans se
sentiront diaboliss, plus ils tiendront dmoniser lautre. La seule issue, son avis, resterait
sans doute la concertation et le dialogue de faon ce quon puisse dmontrer que le dmon
nest pas toujours de lautre ct.
Mais les faits sont l. Malgr les prises de position apaisantes du Prsident Bush et de
son successeur, Barack Obama39, qui considrent lIslam comme une religion de paix, et que
37
Nous traduisons: The Sons of Allah are multiplying like rats I have no intention of being punished for my
atheism by the Sons of Allah. That is, by the gentlemen who, instead of contributing to the progress of humanity,
pass the time with their rumps in the air, praying five times a day! .
38
Nous traduisons: Have you fallen in love with Osama bin Laden, with his big Torquemada eyes, with his
fleshy lips, and with whatever is under his dirty tunic? Do you find him romantic? Do you think him a hero? Do
you dream of being raped by him? ... Thank God Ive never been involved with an Arab man. To my mind,
there is something in Arab men that is revolting to women of taste. Ldition franaise de The Rage and the
Pride na pas seulement suscit des ractions passionnes dans les milieux intellectuels, elle a fait galement
lobjet de poursuites judiciaires de la part dorganisations antiracistes telles que le MRAP (Mouvement contre le
racisme et pour lamiti entre les peuples), la LICRA (Ligue internationale contre le racisme et lantismitisme),
ou encore la Ligue des droits de lhomme qui accusaient son ton haineux et injurieux.
39
Lors dun sommet rcemment organis au sujet des moyens ncessaires pour combattre le terrorisme, Obama
avait dclar: Nous ne sommes pas en guerre contre lIslam. Nous sommes en guerre contre les gens qui ont
perverti lIslam. (Nous) devons travailler pour discrditer la thse que nos nations sont dtermines supprimer
lIslam. Nous traduisons: We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with the people who have perverted

la trs grande majorit des Musulmans sont des gens modrs , une large partie de leurs
concitoyens estime toujours que les membres de cette foi ne sont pas des Amricains part
entire, et que lIslam est incontestablement la religion la plus susceptible de promouvoir la
violence. Une attitude qui lvidence demeure toujours trs ancre dans les gestes et les
esprits malgr les normes efforts dploys par les dirigeants musulmans pour radiquer cette
image dsute de la pense de leurs htes, eux dont la plupart ignorent presque tout de lIslam
et du Coran.
Islam. (We) need to do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam.
(Disponible sur https://www.edition.cnn.com/2015/02/18/politics/obama-speech-extremism-terror-summit/).

Rfrences
-2012 Arab American Institute Foundation

(https://www.b.3cdn.net/aai/fcc68db3efdd45f613_vim6ii.pdf).
-Arab American Institute (https://www.aaiusa.org/pages/demographics & https://www
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Arab_American_Religious_background).
-Caldwell, Christopher. The Fallaci Affair, Commentary Magazine, October 1st, 2002
(https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-fallaci-affair/).
-Fallaci, Oriana. La rage et lorgueil, Paris, Plon, 2002.
-Fallaci, Oriana. La force de la raison, Monaco, Editions du Rocher, 2004.
-Fradkin, Hillel. Why They Hate Us? Editorial, The American Enterprise, December 1st,
2001 (https://www.aei.org).
-Freedberg, Sydney J., Jr. The War Within Islam, The National Journal, May 10, 2003.
-Hadar, Lon. Migrants Musulmans ? Oubliez le vieux continent, place au rve amricain,
i24 News, 3 fvrier 2015 (https://www.i24news.tv/app.php/fr/opinions/59753-150202-
analyse).
-Kaplin, Motan A. September 11 and the Unpopularity in the Muslim World, World and I,
June 1st, 2002 (connection.ebscohot.com/c/articles/7048249/September-11-american-
unpopularity-muslim-world).
-Kulczycki, Andrzej & Lobo, Arun P. Deepening the Melting Pot: Arab Americans at the
Turn of the Century, The Middle East Journal, June 22, 2001.
-Lipka, Michael & Hackett, Conrad. Why Muslims Are the Worlds Fastest-Growing
Religious Group, May 7, 2015 (pewresearch.org).
-Pew Research Center. Section 1: A Demographic Portrait of Muslim Americans, August 30,
2011 (https://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf).
-Pipes, Daniel & Duran, Khalid. Faces of American Islam, Policy Review, August 1st, 2001
(https://www.danielpipes.org/441/faces-of-american-islam-muslim-immigration).
-Pipes, Daniel. Americas Muslims Against Americas Jews, Commentary Magazine, May
1st, 1999 (https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/americas-muslims-against-americas-
jews/).
-The Roster of Arab Americans in Public Service and Political Life
(https://www.aaiusa.org/index_ee.php/pages/arab-american-roster).
-U.S. Census Bureau. 2010 American Community Survey 1-year Estimates
(https://www.factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkm
k).
-Uddin, Zahir. Muslims in America, World and I, March 1st, 2002.
-Wortham, Anne. The Melting Pot, Part 2: Americas Cultural-Institutional Core, Modern
Thought, November 2001 (https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-79409994.html).

Pre-Colonial Security System in Akungba-Akoko, South-West Nigeria
Famoye Abiodun Daniels

Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria
Abstract
There is no doubt that security has always remained one of the major pillars on which the
development of any human society is built. In fact, it is doubtful if any society has prospered in
the absence of security. This is because it is only under a secured atmosphere that all machinery
of development can perform effectively and bring about the desired goals. Even in pre-colonial
Yorubaland, the people recognised the significance of security to their well-being and as such,
they had in place various mechanisms aimed at the maintenance and sustenance of their security.
It is on this basis that this paper identifies and examines the main features of internal security
system of Akungba-Akoko prior to colonialism. It is observed and argued that a major reason
why the system was effective was the fact that it was built around the existing socio-political
structure of the society, which closely involved the people and made them to see themselves as
major stakeholders. The study is pursued through the historical methodologies of narration and
critical analysis of data, while the concept of African socialism is used as the framework for
analysis. The paper, therefore, concludes that there are lessons in the pre-colonial security
arrangements that the contemporary Nigerian society can lean from and which may go a long
way to address some of its existing security challenges.
Keywords: Nigeria, Yorubaland, Akungba-Akoko, Security, African Socialism and

Development

Introduction
The centrality of security to the progress of human society, big or small, cannot be over
emphasised since it is only when human beings are secured that they are more likely to come up
with great ideas and engage material resources in their disposal towards the development of their
society. Even in the contemporary times, security remains one of the most important national
interests of all members of committee of nations. This partly explains why these nations have
continued to spend heavily on the maintenance of their security. In fact, on several occasions
nations have justified their actions and inactions as security measures. For instance, the United
States of America has severally justified its decision not to inform the Pakistani government
before invading the latters territory in the incident that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden
2011 as informed by its security interest.1 Despite the fact that a UN principle says that member
nations should respect the territorial jurisdiction of one another,2 nations have continuously
violated this principle all in the name of national or international security.
The ability to understand the significance of security to development has never been
restricted to a race or an era. In other words, human beings, irrespective of their racial
background and time of existence, have always understood the importance of security to their
progress. Akungba-Akoko people were also conscious of the importance of security to their
development and as such evolved a system aimed at ensuring and sustaining it. The Akungba are
Yoruba people found presently in the Akoko South-West of Ondo State, South-western Nigeria.
The community is located between Longitude 544 east and Latitude 728north of the Equator.3
It is about an hour drive from Akure, the state capital and about five hours drive to Lagos, the
commercial capital of Nigeria. Akungba-Akoko is the host community to the Adekunle Ajasin
University.
However, it important to clearly state that the scope of our discourse is restricted to the
maintenance of internal security of the pre-colonial community. In other words, the work does
not cover the personal efforts of individuals to protect their households. It also does not cover the
security measures against external aggressions. In fact our findings have, shown that pre-colonial
Akungba-Akoko never suffered any notable external security attacks, if there was any at all. 4
Even in the late 19th century when many Akoko communities suffered direct attacks as a result of
the prolonged inter-state wars in Yorubaland, Akungba-Akoko was never attacked directly.5
Data for the study were largely collected from oral sources, though not limited to them.
This is due to the fact that Akungba-Akoko, like many communities in Africa did not acquire
early enough the art of documentation of their history through writing. Furthermore, the pre-
colonial past of Akungba-Akoko, like the whole of Akoko region, has been largely neglected by
historians and other researchers. Consequently, there is paucity of literature on the history of the
community. Thus, oral sources remain one of the best means to reconstruct the history of the
people mainly because it was one of the most popular methods used by the people to preserve
their past. This explains why the significance of oral sources to the study of Africas past cannot
be overemphasised. Jan Vasina seemed to have recognised this fact when he argued that in those
parts of the world inhabited by people without writing, oral tradition forms the main available

source for a reconstruction of the past, and even among peoples who have writing, many
historical sources, including the most ancient ones, are based on oral traditions.6
Theoretical Framework for Analysis
The theoretical framework for analysis adopted for this work is African socialism. Several
attempts have been made by scholars in the past to define African socialism. While some attempt
to discuss it in view of the propagandas of African leaders in the 1960s, others tried to view it
from the perspective of Marxist socialism. Consequently, these two schools of thoughts have
been denied the opportunity of appropriately understanding the meaning of African socialism. It
should be noted that most African countries got their independence from foreign dominations in
the 1960s. Eventually, many African leaders, who wanted to win the political patronage of their
people, adopted and coloured their manifestos with the slogan, African socialism. Popular
among these African leaders were Kwame Nkruma of Ghana, J.K. Nyerere of Tanzania, Tom
Mboya of Kenya, Obafemi Awolowo of Nigeria, etc.7 Later events and actions of many of these
leaders, however, suggested that they had little or no touch with African socialism.
Also, African socialism and Marxist socialism are two parallel lines both in meaning and
features. In the first instance, Marxist socialism developed in Europe and was alien to Africa;
however, African socialism developed in Africa and formed the basis for the society existence
and survival, at least before the influx of Westernisation.8 Secondly, while Marxist socialism
involves struggle among the socio-political classes of the society, African socialism is otherwise
built on the co-operation of such existing socio-political classes in the society.9 Thus while the
proletarians are viewed in Marxist socialism as the revolutionaries that will subdue the capitalists,
the absence of real working class and massive inequalities in traditional African societies, also
made class struggle missing in African socialism. It is this feature of collective social
responsibility that significantly differentiates African socialism from Marxist socialism.
In fact, understanding African socialism substantially rests on ones understanding of the

principle of collective responsibility or mutual social responsibility. According to G.C.M Mutiso
and S.W. Roho for instance:
Mutual social responsibility is an extension of the African family spirit...It implies a

mutual responsibility by society and its members to do their very best for each other
with the full knowledge and understanding that if society prospers its members will
share in the prosperity and that the society cannot prosper without the full co-
10
operation of its members.
It can be deduced from the foregoing that, African socialism suggests that the society is
for all men and all men for the society. In other words, African socialism implies that that since it
is through the society that members live and attain their different aspirations (politically,
economically and socio-culturally), all members, young and old, have it as a duty to work for the
progress of the society. Although there are constituted political authorities with the mandate to
use all available resources at their disposal to steer the affairs of the society and ensure peace,

stability and development, however, the level of success that will be attained by these authorities
is largely subjected to the amount of the support they receive from the society at large.
Subsequently in the context of African socialism, the extent to which a particular society
is developed is a product of the willingness of its members to work together for the progress of
such a society. Thus if the society prospers, the prosperity should be accredited to all its
members, not only to its political class or elite. The underline factor here is that no society can
prosper without the willingness, effort and cooperation of its members. This is why in many
African traditional societies there were established socialisation structures such as the age grade
system aimed at inculcating in the younger generations the societal values and acceptable
behaviour. These are usually driven towards ensuring development both in the present and future.
Ultimately, members of the society see one another as related by blood, though there are
many family units, and the community as a physical binding force. All the families and their
members are seen as products of offspring of their ancestors. Thus, members are expected to
perform their responsibilities towards the uplift of the society without being compelled to do so.
They simply acknowledge and are willing to perform their duties because of the belief and
conviction that whatever one does to the society is reversibly to oneself.
Security Strategy in Pre-colonial Akungba-Akoko
Pre-colonial security system of Akungba-Akoko can best be described as communal

strategy because it involved the sharing of responsibilities by the members along the socio-
political structure that existed in the society. This was in line with the mutual or collective
responsibilities of African socialism explained above. In the absence of state owned or sponsored
security institutions such as the police or army, what evolved was a system where every member
was a stakeholder in the management of the security of the land. Since it was culturally
mandatory for any member of the society at any point to belong to at least a socio-political group,
the responsibilities of individual member of the society were, therefore, built around such a
group. It should be noted that the day-to-day administration of the community rested on these
groups, most prominent being the Alala (the monarch), Ijoye Adugbo (quarter or divisional
chiefs), age grades (egbe olorijori) and professional guilds such as the hunters (ode), etc.
Consequently, the people were not only conscious of their security but also committed to the
efforts aimed at its maintenance.
The Alale as the Chief Security Officer of the Land
At the apex of the community administration and security strategy was the Alale, meaning
the king or owner of the land. Although theoretically, the monarch had absolute power, in the real
sense, he did not enjoy any absolutism because there were a body of traditions in place meant to
check his excesses. For example, his chiefs and the people could boycott his palace or disobey his
orders to protest his arbitral use of power.11 The Alale, therefore, ruled through the advice and
assistance of a council known as Igbimo Ilu or Ajo (Town Council).12 Many members of Igbimo

Ilu were quarter chiefs (Olori Adugbo), who represented the authorities of the Alale in their
domains.13 As the king, he was automatically the chief security officer or the commander-in-chief
and as such, the last command on security matters resided in his office. Therefore, he was
responsible for the coordination of other bodies within the system and his office was the last
destination of all intelligence/security reports.14 Thus, he was expected to act appropriately,
depending on the nature of the reports brought to him. For instance, in cases of crimes such as
murder, he would initiate all investigation machineries to uncover the crimes and bring the
culprits to book. And in cases of intending crimes or security threat, he would exploit all means
to avert them.15 The ability of an Alale to thwart a security threat before its actualisation was
crucial to his popularity and reign because the public viewed and ranked his tenure as good or
bad largely on the level of security and prosperity they enjoyed during his reign.16 For instance,
the reign of Alale Ajigbale in the early 19th century has been celebrated as a good period in the
history of Akungba-Akoko mainly because it was highly peaceful and prosperous compared to
the tenures of his predecessors.17
Intelligent reports usually came to the palace from the quarter chiefs. Reports could also
come from other relevant groups, or even an individual in the society, depending on the exigency
of the matter involved.18 Even though he was the chief security officer, he knew he could not do
the job alone. He strongly needed the support of his chiefs and even the community to succeed.
As a tradition, the king had regular meetings with the Ijoye Adugbo (Igbimo Ilu) and occasionally
with the other socio-political groups and the whole community (Ajo Ilu) on security and other
matters crucial to the development of the community. These offered him the opportunity to be
up-to-date on security situation in the community and also such occasions were used to discuss
and strategise on the best means of ensuring the security of the community.19
Thus, it can be deduced from the foregoing that the role of the Alale, was more of
coordination and decision-making. This can be related with the roles of a modern chief security
of a country. It should, however, be noted that, the most sensitive part of any security plan is
decision-making since any decision is cable of making or marring the society irrespective of the
quantity and quality of the available human and material resources. The fall of Napoleon, for
instance, has been traced to his ability to make bad decisions, chiefly among them being the
Moscow Campaign. Having expended huge human and material resources to raise an army of
600,000 soldiers, with contingents got form across Europe, he deployed all of them to Moscow
with the hope that Russia would be quickly defeated. The Russians, however, did avoid major
military engagements with France as they did not desert their villages, but also destroyed their
building, crops and livestock. Subsequently, in the midst of starvation and cold, the almighty
French soldiers became easy prey for the Russian soldiers who had adopted the guerrilla warfare.
And by the end of the Campaign, he had lost about 580,000 men and recovered from this
disaster.20 Thus while Napoleons decision destroyed him, the decision of the Russian leadership,
largely represented by Alexander, to avoid major confrontations with France seriously paid off.

The Security Roles of the Quarter Chiefs
The responsibilities of the Ijoye Adugbo, who were next to the Alale on the hierarchy of
authority, were restricted considerably to the maintenance of internal law and order in their
quarters. Akungba-Akoko in pre-colonial times had seven main quarters: Ibaka, Okusa, Ilale,
Akua, Igbelu, Akunmi and Okele. While Ibaka was administered by Olubaka, Okusa by Olokusa,
Ilale by Alagure, Akua by Alakua, Akunmi by Alakunmi, Okele by Olori, and Igbelu was
administered by Alakun the most referred among the chiefs and next in authority to the Alale.21
Like the king, the chiefs also met regularly with the major stakeholders (most important
being the minor chiefs, olori ebi (family heads), headers and youth leaders) in their domains,
discussing and planning on security and other development related matters. They relied on these
people in taking decisions.22 There was also a general meeting of all residents of a quarter (Ajo
Adugbo). This came up occasionally and it was a period to deliberate on issues of concern
including security.23 Serious crimes, such as murder and so on were to be transferred to the
palace of the Alale.24 These people could be likened to the contemporary divisional or district
police officer, with the power to use the resources under their control to ensure safety of life and
property in the localities. Although, they enjoyed a level of autonomy, they had to report to the
king virtually on all of their official actions, even those issues considered to be within the
jurisdiction of their authorities25. This was to ensure transparency and accountability and to avoid
abuse of power by any of these quarter chiefs. By and large, the roles of these people could be
summarised as coordination of efforts relating to the maintenance of law and order within their
territorial jurisdictions.
The Security Roles of the Age-Grades
As a major basis for cultural socialisation and transformation, age grade system was very
important to the development of Akungba-Akoko. It was under this structure that everybody was
involved since one must belong to an age grade at any point in life. For the males, there existed
four age grades or egbe: Agbagba Ilu (the elders) from age sixty and above; Okunrin Ilu (men),
between ages fifty and forty; Odo Ilu (the youth), between ages thirty and fifteen and Omoweere
(the boys), from fifteen downward.26 The females were divided into two age grades: Adelebo (the
married women) and Omoedan (the unmarried).27 Age and sex were the main prerequisites for
membership into any of the egbe. Generally, each age grade was to keep a close eye on its
members and through its leadership counselled and advised them on the acceptable practices.
They were also informed them about the possible punishments for different offences as a way of
deterring them from committing crimes. At their regular meetings, in different quarters, they
discussed several developmental issues including security related matters and brain stormed on
how best to ensure the security of the community.28
However, the most significant age grade within the context of this discussion was the Odo
Ilu. One of the areas where their impact was well-felt was in the maintenance of law and order in
the streets (adugbo) or markets (oja), etc.29 Markets in pre-colonial Akungba involved mainly
women because men were expected to be engaged in more energy-required economic activities

such as farming and hunting.30 Each quarter, except Igbelu and Okele had its market; Oja
Eleyewo, belonging to (Ibaka), Oja Atiba (kings market) at Ilale Quarter and Oja Okusa,
belonging to Okusa Quarter were the most prominent.31 The market usually came up every five
days rotationally. The Odo Ilu were empowered to arrest anybody or a group of person that
wanted to disrupt the peace in the areas mentioned above. For example, for the sacred nature of
markets, it was forbidden to fight in the market and on the streets. The Odo in such locations had
the responsibility to end the fight, arrest offenders and hand them over to the appropriate
authority for sanctions. The punishment for this form of public disturbance was usually a fine of a
goat.32 Thus, the youth had no power to pass judgement on the offenders. They can best be
viewed as the community police officers, though without a formal training. The Agbagba,
therefore, performed the role of advising the youth. The implication of this is that the youth were
steadily built into taking up responsibilities and leadership positions in the community.
The Security Roles Professionals Guilds
The popular economic activities of pre-colonial Akungba-Akoko people were farming,

hunting and trading. There were also artistic professions such as clothe weaving, blacksmithing,
etc. Though without well-organised structured, members of these professions usually formed
themselves into guilds primarily for the protecting and promoting their interests. However, the
guilds of hunters (Ode) and diviners (Awo) played significant security roles. Although the hunters
were generally well-respected persons in the society, especially for their bravery, however, the
size and type of animals one killed considerably determined ones status among other hunters.
These people were headed by an Oluode (chief hunter).33 For instance, if a corpse was discovered
in the farm, the hunters were the preferred set of people to be sent to bring the corpse and find out
if the fellow died naturally or was murdered or killed by an animal. They would discover
whichever case it was by physically and sometimes spiritually examining the corpse. If the fellow
was killed by an animal, the hunters would go in search of the animal and kill it to prevent further
attacks. If it was a murder, the authority would have to unravel it by consulting the gods of the
land through the spiritualists.34 In another instance, if strangers were spotted at strategic places
and considered to constitute security threats to the community, the king would call on the hunters
to go in search of the strangers. If arrested, they would be interrogated and necessary actions
would be taken, depending on the outcome of the interrogations.35 Furthermore, if a person was
missing, it was the hunters that would go into the bush and other relevant places to search for
such a person. And in cases of riots, it was the hunters that were expected to quell it, make arrest
and handover the arrested persons to the appropriate authorities.36 Also, the hunters lacked the
power to pass judgement on any arrested offender, such a person must be brought before the
appropriate authorities for trial and sanctions if found guilty. The hunters also served as police
the markets and other important public places. Their duties also involved the maintenance of
peace and order at important communal festivals, such as odun eku (masquerade festivals).
Another very important role of the hunters was night patrol. When a suspect is arrested during a
night patrol he or she would immediately be handed over to superior authorities for interrogation
and further actions.37

Another significant professional guild was that of the Awo. These were secret societies
with strong spiritual powers and influence. There were different types of secret societies, the
Ogboni, however seemed to be the most popular and influential. Security wise, they were,
perhaps, most relevant in the area of crime investigation. Thus, when reports were made to the
appropriate authorities and suspects were identified, investigations were expected to be launched.
It was the duty of the Awo to use their spiritual powers to uncover all the miseries surrounding
the matters being investigated.38 They employed different methods such as making the accused
person to swear to an oath or placing curses (epe) on the culprits. Although, the efficacy of these
spiritual exercises cannot be scientifically proved, it was widely believed that if the accused
person was guilty, terrible happenings such as death, curable or incurable diseases, depending on
the nature of the crime committed and the deity consulted, would befall him/her.39 It is said that
the effect of curses could be generational, which means that even the unborn members of the
culprits families could possibly be afflicted. Similarly, the gods of the land, most import among
them being Oroke, could be invoked to help unravel a crime. All that was needed was a ritual
(oro). It is said that Oroke and other gods were incorrupt and so, their judgements were never
doubted by the people.40 Thus, the knowledge that one could hardly committee a crime without
being caught reasonably reduced the rate at which crimes were committed. This is not to claim
that pre-colonial Akungba-Akoko was crime free, but the efficacy of the system of investigation,
hseriously discouraged criminal activities. Of course, no human society is crime free, but
effective system of crime detection and judgement delivery will help reduce crime rate in any
society.
Conclusion
This paper has attempted a discourse of the pre-colonial ways of maintaining community
security in Akungba-Akoko. It is observed that the absence of specially trained institutions
saddled with the responsibilities of security management made communal participation the most
convenient approach to ensuring peace and securing life and property. As such, duties associated
with crime detection, prevention and control were distributed among the socio-political classes in
the society. Consequently, what evolved was a situation where there was a strong involvement of
the people in the security business of the community. While one recognises the fact that is not
realistic in the contemporary society for all the citizens to be employed as security agents,
building of public trust in the nations security system and agencies will go a long in assisting to
reduce crime rate and ensure public safety. Events all over the world have demonstrated that no
crime has occurred without at least a member of the society having useful information about it or
the culprit(s) before, during or after the crime. However, such individuals can only be
comfortable enough to divulge their information to the appropriate authorities if only they trust
such authorities would protect their lives and make good use of the information. No matter how
attractive the prize promised people with leading information on any crime, they may not
willingly give information if they do not believe in the abilities of the authorities to make good
use of such information and ultimately protect their lives, their families and properties.

Endnotes
1
Hannah Strange.US Raid that Killed bin Laden was an Act of War , says Pakistani Report.
2013> www.telegrah.co.uk> accessed 19 February, 2015; Abbottabad Commission Report, May
2011.
2
Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice.
3
Ehinmowo, A. A. and Eludoyin, O. M. (2010), The University as a Nucleus for Growth Pole:
Example from Akungba-Akoko, southwest, Nigeria, International Journal of Sociology and
Anthropology: 2 (7), p. 150.
4
Rufus.A.E Orisha (1961), Itan Isedale ti Akungba-Akoko: Akun Ma Wo No-Ere Ro: Apa Kini,
Lagos: Eniayemo Publishers, p. 15.
5
Rufus.A.E Orisha. Itan Isedale ti Akungba-Akoko:...p. 4.
6
Jan Vansina (1965), Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, Translated by H.M.
Wright London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, p. 1.
7
Thompson, A. (2000), An Introduction to African Politics. London: Rutledge, pp. 38-39.
8
Thompson, A. (2000), An Introduction to African Politics...p. 37-39.
9
Thompson, A. (2000) An Introduction to African Politics...
10
G.C.M. Mutiso and S.W. Roho (1987), Readings in African Political thoughts. London:
Heinemann, pp. 506-507.
11
Olamitoke A, aged 50, interviewed at her residence at Akunmi Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
November 21, 2014.
12
National Archives Ibadan (NAI), CSO 26/2: J.H Beeleys Intelligence Report on Akoko.
13
Sulaimon S., aged 60+, interviewed at his residence at Igbelu Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
February 23, 2013.
14
Abodunde M., aged 66, interviewed at No. 34, Okedogbon Street, Owo, February 26, 2013.
15
Asefon A., aged 60+, interviewed at his residence at Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
January 05, 2010.
16
Asefon A., ...
17
Rufus.A.E Orisha. Itan Isedale ti Akungba-Akoko:...

18
Saliu A., aged 60, interviewed at his residence at Okele Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
November 20, 2014.
19
Iwasokun N., aged 60+, interviewed at his residence at Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
April 20, 2005.
20
Norman Davids (1997), Europe: A History, London: Pimlico, pp. 742-747; Herbert L. Peacock
(1977), A History of Modern Europe, London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, pp. 70-71;
H.A.L Fisher (`1961) A History of Europe, London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, pp. 861-866.
21
Olotu W., aged 63+, interviewed at No. 80, Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on March 11, 2014.
22
National Archives Ibadan (NAI), CSO 26/2...
23
Famoye C., aged 65, interviewed at Plot 52, Gimbia Street, Area 11, Abuja on July 16, 2014.
24
Muniru A., aged 45, interviewed at his residence at Ilale Quarters, Akungba-Akoko on
September 23, 2013.
25
Asefon A., ...
26
Olotu W., ...
27
Ologunowa L, aged 69, interviewed at her residence at Akunmi Quarter, Akungba-Akoko,
September 22, 2013; Famoye R., aged 58, interviewed at No 80, Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-
Akoko on January 02, 2015.
28
Asefon A., ...
29
Famoye C., ...
30
Orungbemija I., aged 70+, interviewed at his residence at OkusaAkure, Akungba-Akoko on
December 26, 2012.
31
Adepoju K., aged 63, interviewed at his residence at Ilale Quarter, Akungba-Akoko, September
26, December 2013.
32
Ojo O., aged 71, interviewed at No. 20, Okorun Street, Ikare-Akoko, on July 10, 2014.
33
Agbi O., 70+, interviewed at his residence at Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on January 11,
2010.
34
Orunkoyi O., 57, interviewed at No. 20, Okorun Street, Ikare-Akoko, on July 10, 2014.
35
National Archives Ibadan (NAI), CSO 26/2...
36
Adelegan A., interviewed at his residence at Ibere, Akungba-Akoko, 13 February 2014.

37
Adelakun B., interviewed at No 15, palace road, Oke Oka-Akoko, February 16, 2014.
38
Ojo O., ...
39
Origbemisuyi A., interviewed at Olori-Awo Origbemusiyi Compound at Ibaka Quarter,
Akungba-Akoko, April 22, 2012.
40
Origbemisuyi A., ...

References
-Abodunde, M., 66 years, interviewed at No. 34, Okedogbon Street, Owo, February 26, 2013.
-Adelegan, A., interviewed at his residence at Ibere, Akungba-Akoko, 13 February 2014.
-Adelakun, B., interviewed at No 15, palace road, Oke Oka-Akoko, February 16, 2014.
-Adepoju, K., 63 years, interviewed at his residence at Ilale Quarter, Akungba-Akoko, September
26, December 2013.
-Agbi, O., 70+ years, interviewed at his residence at Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on January
11, 2010.
-Asefon, A., 60+ years, interviewed at his residence at Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
January 05, 2010.
-Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice.
-Ehinmowo, A. A. and Eludoyin, O. M. (2010), The University as a Nucleus for Growth Pole:
Example from Akungba-Akoko, southwest, Nigeria, International Journal of Sociology and
Anthropology: 2 (7), 149-154.
-Famoye, C., 65 years, interviewed at Plot 52, Gimbia Street, Area 11, Abuja on July 16, 2014.
-Famoye, R., 58 years, interviewed at No 80, Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on January 02,
2015.
-Fisher, (`1961) A History of Europe, London: Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd.
-Hannah, S., US Raid that Killed bin Laden was an Act of War , says Pakistani Report. 2013>
www.telegrah.co.uk> accessed 19 February, 2015; Abbottabad Commission Report, May 2011.
-Iwasokun, N., 60+ years, interviewed at his residence at Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
April 20, 2005.
-Muniru, A., 45 years, interviewed at his residence at Ilale Quarters, Akungba-Akoko on

September 23, 2013.
-Mutiso, G.C.M. and Roho, S.W. (1987), Readings in African Political thoughts. London:
Heinemann.
-National Archives Ibadan (NAI), CSO 26/2: J.H Beeleys Intelligence Report on Akoko.
-Norman, D., (1997), Europe: A History, London: Pimlico.

-Herbert L. P., (1977), A History of Modern Europe, London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd,
-Ojo, O., 71 years, interviewed at No. 20, Okorun Street, Ikare-Akoko, on July 10, 2014.
-Ologunowa, L., 69 years, interviewed at her residence at Akunmi Quarter, Akungba-Akoko,

September 22, 2013;
-Olotu, W., 63+ years, interviewed at No. 80, Ibaka Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on March 11,
2014.
-Olamitoke, A., 50 years, interviewed at her residence at Akunmi Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on

November 21, 2014.
-Origbemisuyi A., interviewed at Olori-Awo Origbemusiyi Compound at Ibaka Quarter,

Akungba- Akoko, April 22, 2012.
-Orisha, R.A.E (1961), Itan Isedale ti Akungba-Akoko: Akun Ma Wo No-Ere Ro: Apa Kini,
Lagos: Eniayemo Publishers.
-Orungbemija I., 70+ years, interviewed at his residence at OkusaAkure, Akungba-Akoko on

December 26, 2012.
-Orunkoyi O., 57 years, interviewed at No. 20, Okorun Street, Ikare-Akoko, on July 10, 2014.
-Saliu A., 60 years, interviewed at his residence at Okele Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on November
20, 2014.
-Sulaimon, S., 60+ years, interviewed at his residence at Igbelu Quarter, Akungba-Akoko on
February 23, 2013.
-Vansina, Jan (1965), Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, Translated by Wright,
H.M. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

The Dynamics of Palm Kernels Marketing in Igala Area, Nigeria 1920-1956
Abah Danladi
Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria
Victor, Chijioke Nwosumba

Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo, Ebonyi State, Nigeria
Abstract
This paper examines the development of palm kernel marketing initiatives in Igala land, 1920-
1956. It notes that the British trade policies in Igala land were quite rapacious, exploitative and
suffocating to the native producers of palm kernels. Although the native producers who were
mostly women, produced palm kernels in large quantities, they were unfortunately hapless, and
unable to determine the prices or even bargain properly with the buyers of their produce. This
was because; palm kernel prices were fixated by British trading firms. The prices of palm kernel
were skewed in favor of the trading firms and usually fluctuated. Reasons for fluctuations in
prices were hardly explained to the native palm kernel producers and even when they are being
poorly informed by buying agents, they had no powers or choices to influence or determine
favorable prices for the produce. The trading firms had buying stations strategically located in
different parts of Igala land. The trading companies in turn employed licensed buying agents who
penetrated remote areas to buy palm kernels from the natives. the licensed buying agents were
given money by their European employers and in some cases bicycles to ease their movement and
transportation of palm kernels from interior hinter land of Igala land., in fact, this study
discovers that the activities of the indigenous licensed buying agents further exploited the women
and emasculated them by reducing the economic powers of the producers as they further paid
lesser prices for palm kernels to natives in rural Igala land. The introduction of taxes by the
colonial authority meant that the natives must continually produce cash crops in order to pay.
Thus, this paper argues that the British Palm kernel marketing initiatives provided the opacity
and conduit pipes for the smooth economic exploitations of Igala land of Nigeria in the 20th
century. The research adopted the multidisciplinary approach while primary sources of data
(archival and oral interviews) synthesized with extant literature were utilized.
Keywords: palm kernels, colonial rule, marketing, Igala,

Introduction
Palm produce comprising of palm oil and palm kernels were the principal commodities
exported from West Africa to Europe during the halcyon days of European colonialism in Africa.
It is estimated that between 1865 and 1910, export of palm produce doubled from West Africa
while Nigeria took the lead1 the increase in export of palm produce especially palm kernels in
particular was as a result of the growing industrialization in Britain which was stimulated by the
industrial revolution. Furthermore, the abolition of the horrendous transatlantic slave trade in
1807 following the Lord Mansfield law and the subsequent entrenchment and consolidation of
legitimate commerce also created the fecundity for the meteoric increase in trades especially in
palms produce between West Africa and Europe.2 Palm kernel was highly needed in Britain
because of its multifaceted industrial, economic, military and pharmaceutical potentials. For
instance, palm kernels were used in the manufacturing of margarine, soaps, detergents, creams,
and drugs. It was also converted into biscuits which many Europeans enjoyed consuming. In fact,
palm kernel oil was used for cooking and also for making war equipments; the chaff was used as
animal feeds.3 Apart from this, the growth of British nationalism in West Africa and desire to
wade off trade competition with other European countries entails that Britain must have effective
trade monopoly of the Nigerian colony. This was also in fulfillment of the agreements reached at
the Berlin West African Conference of 1884/5 that laid down the parameters for effective claim
of ownership of a colony by a European power. These factors provided the foundation for the
growth and developments of British palm kernel trade in Nigeria and Igala land in particular.
Thus, by 1900, adequate measures began to be made in order to ensure steady supply of palm
kernel to Britain from Nigeria, adequate facilitative legislative, administrative and economic
measures needed to be put in place.4
Although the development of palm kernel marketing initiatives in Igala predates the
emergence of British colonialism, it was shortly after the consolidation of British imperialism in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that its exchange became internationalized.5 The trades in
Igala palm kernels were facilitated by the British trading companies in collaboration with their
government. It was the trading companies that established buying stations. The buying stations
were seasonal and located in few strategic centers in Igala land. By 1926, five British trading
firms had established buying stations in different parts of Igala land.6 To an uninformed observer,
the increase in number of trading firms would mean an increase in the economic development of
the producers and Igala land in general. However, from this study, this was never the case. It is
lamentable to note that these trading firms with support from indigenous middlemen/ licensed
buying agents exploited the women, who were the major producers of palm kernels in Igala land.
This exploitation was perpetrated through the arbitrary fixing and deliberate fluctuations in prices
of palm kernels, monopolization of trade and taxation. Apart from these, further exploitation of
Igala palm kernel producers were achieved through legislative fiats especially the restriction of
trade in palm kernel Order of 1940 and the subsequent enactment of Palm produce ordinance of
1948. It is worthy to note that Igala land contributed greatly to the global palm kernel industry
but this industry has not received scholarly attention. Although Noah Attah Echa pioneered a
research on Igala palm plantations, his works did not cover this aspect7. It is hoped that this study
will fill this perceived lacuna and also compliments other literature in Nigeria palm kernel trade

and economic history in general. The paper is divided into four sections, namely; the introduction
which is on-going, geographical features and origin of palm kernel trade, section three examine
the nature and dynamics of palm kernel marketing in Igala land and a conclusion.
Geography and Historical Background to Palm Kernel Trade in Igala Land
The Igala are located at one of the natural crossroads in North Central Nigeria, at the
Niger-Benue confluence, they inhabit the entire triangular tract territory on the bank of Niger and
Benue rivers8. Geographically, Igala land is located between longitudes 630 0 and 7 0 50 East of
the Greenwich meridian and on Latitudes 630 and 8 0 North of the equator covering an area of
about 13,150 square kilometers9. Furthermore, Igala land is located in a transition belt region of
Nigeria oscillating between the high forest conditions of the coastal belt and the drier and more
open savannah belt. It has an annual average rainfall pattern of 50 inches and this favorable
weather and climatic conditions provides the fecundity for agricultural production and the growth
of economic trees especially luxuriant palm trees in all parts of Igala land.10 The strategically
location of Igala has also engendered inter group relations with her Neighbors. These relations
date to the pre-colonial era, and cut across economic, socio-cultural and political strata. The
impact of geography on the history of Igalaland and North central Nigeria has been addressed by
Nyitse and thus need not detain us here11. What is left to be stressed is the fact that trade in palm
kernel in the area under survey was and still, is necessitated by geography.
Historically, the precise origin of palm produce especially palm kernel in Igala land and
West Africa is generally problematic. This is due to the paucity of literature. However, few
existing extant literature hold that palm trees had been in existence in Igala since the pre-colonial
period.12 During this epoch, palm wine and the use of palm fronds for building of houses were its
principal usefulness. People could not use palm kernels for any major economic or commercial
purpose at this time except as snacks or chewed alongside with maize. This is contrary to what
was obtainable in the Niger Delta region were palm kernels were used as a requirement for
paying bride price.13 Also, another version of oral tradition holds a counter view to the less
usefulness of palm kernels during the pre-colonial era. According to Audu Abah and Andrew
Samuel, before the arrival of white men, they native had independently developed the idea of
extracting palm kernel oil through frying with locally made pots. The oil extracted is locally
called ekpo uno or enu in Akpanya. This type of oil was used in making local creams and for
traditional medical practitioners who used it a kind of ointment. In fact, it was an indispensible
baby care lotion used by nursing mothers for `new born babies. It is interesting to note that this is
still practice in many parts of Igala land up to this contemporary era.
With the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, there began a transformation
in the Igala economy which further altered the trade patterns between Igala and Europe. The
emergence of legitimate trade in cash crops like palm oil and kernel, cotton, ivory, and other
precious mineral thus replaced the hitherto opprobrious trade in humans. Consequently, there was
a massive demand for palm kernels by European companies especially those located in British
industrial complexes in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, and Bristol and in other places.
According to Abdullahi Y.Musa, the entire Niger-Benue confluence areas including the Igala

experienced intense trade exchanges with European countries by the close of the seventh decades
of the nineteenth century. The need to have a secured source of supply and a ready market even
culminated to stife trade competitions and economic wars among the various trading companies.
For instance, by 1832, the first European steamers named Quora and Alburkah had reached
Idah. This trade expedition was led by Captains Macgregor Laird and Richard Landers. Upon
arrival, they saw the economic potentials of the region especially in palm produce14.In order to
ensure that British economic interest was realized; four British trading firms namely, West
African Company, the company of African merchants, Holland Jacques and the miller brothers
were amalgamated to form the United African Company (UAC) in I879 and placed under the Sir
George Goldie Taubman15. These companies among other things traded mainly in palm oil and
palm kernels in Igala.
The United African Company shortly after this, entered into signing of treaties with
Local rulers to help stimulate good various trade relations with the natives. By 1879, Sir Goldie
visited Idah to see the Atta Igala and supervise the nature of affairs in the area. Palm kernels were
exchange with made in Europe products like mirrors, jack knives, cigarettes, and guns while
efforts were also made towards the promotion and production of cash crops. The company swiftly
obtained certificates of occupancy in order to establish buying station.16 By 1900, the entire
Igalaland and Nigeria communities came under effective British colonial administration which
also heightened the tempo of trade in palm kernels.
With the emergence of effective British colonial administration palm produce began to
receive greater attention from both the Colonial administrators and natives. They began to stress
the high prospect of palms especially in transforming the economic fortunes of the people. In this
perspective, attempts were made to develop palm plantation whereby the dividends associated
with economies of scale could be enjoyed. The natives who had hitherto paid less attention to
their wide palm grooves began to reconsider their attitudes. Traditionally, palm oil after been
processed belongs to the head of the family (man) while the palm kernels were an exclusive
preserve of the wife or wives. The men rarely had any say in palm kernel issues. In Akpanya
area, it was a taboo to see a man processing palm kernels.17 Thus, palm kernels had immense
effects on the wellbeing of Igala women. The used the money generated from the sale of palm
kernels to buy creams, cloths, pay thrift dues, medicals and in some cases, buy food ingredients.
The Nature and Dynamics of British Palm Kernel Marketing in Igalaland: Exploitation
without Redress or Exchange?
The need for a steady supply of palm kernel from Igala land to Britain was anchored
upon an efficient and unhindered trade system.18 However, achieving this goal depended on a lot
of interconnected factors. These were among others, a good transport network, a secured
environment where laws and order are maintained, legislative and administrative factors were
equally germane and imperative to the production and transportation of the produce to Europe. 19
An efficient transport system was needed especially in the movement of people and
palm kernel. Although rivers, head porter-age and packed animals had been major means of

transports since the pre-colonial era, they were not adequately used especially in penetrating
interior land locked parts. This further spurred the British colonial authorities to initiate steps
towards the development of road networks. By I926 the number of earthen roads in Igalaland
had increased to nine. Communal labors were used. In the same year, the 29 miles Etobe-Ejule-
Akpanya road was reconstructed.20 By 1927, the Idah-Adoru-Nsukka road and one mile Idah-
Onale roads were constructed.21 The eleven miles Ankpa-Adoka road was improved upon and
made motor able. Forced and communal labors were employed. Both the British and native
authority police were charged with the onerous task of maintaining consistent peace and
tranquility along these roads and all parts of the region.
Palm kernel marketing in Igala land during the period under survey was spearheaded by
imperial interests and designs. By 1926, the trading firms in Igalaland include John Holt and
Niger Company at Idah, John Holt and Niger Company at Itobe, John Holt at Mozun, Niger
Company at Bagana and John Holt at Amagedde. These firms monopolized trade in palm kernels
and other cash crops. This monopolization affected the natives because it denied them the power
to bargain effectively and was tied to the whims and caprices of the limited buyers.
In order to penetrate remote parts of Igalaland, the trading firms established buying
stations. They also employed the services of indigenous middlemen and licensed buying agents.
The indigenous middlemen were usually few individual with adequately financial standings who
have established links with the trading firms to be supplying them with palm kernels these
middlemen were locally called Achanyama. They purchase palm kernels at prices lower than the
fixed buying prices at the buying stations. They often claimed that the cost of transportation from
their houses or stores had to be paid for by the producers. Most of the early middlemen in palm
produce in Igalaland were mainly non-Igala and because of the excessive profits made through
exploitation emerged as a capitalist class of their own. They had trade union and new members
were admitted after paying a stipend for registration. By 1955, the middlemen paid 24 pounds
per tons for palm kernel instead of 28 pounds paid at Onitsha. They claim that the average cost of
transporting a ton from Ankpa to Onitsha is 3 pounds. This profit is not small considering the
large quantities been exported
Apart from the Achanyama, the licensed buying agents who traversed and penetrated the
most remote parts of Igala land were registered ad-hoc employees of the trading firms. They
moved from house to house making inquiries about the availability of palm kernels. They are
known as Faactors in Igaland or Ndi Awuru aku in Akpanya area where Igbo language is
predominant. The faactors make advance payment to trust worthy customers. Some of the
faactors who move with bicycles usually provide market information to the native producers
especially when there is s abysmal fall in prices of kernel. If the achanyama were perpetrators of
exploitation in Igala land, the licensed buying agents were smooth conduit pipes for exploitation
of the highest order. They achieved this through the use of much more high measurement tool. It
should be recalled that scale was only introduced in Igala land in 1929. Before the introduction
of scale and weight system of measurement, the licensed buying agents used baskets and plates
for measuring or weighing the volume and prices of palm kernels and other grains. Oral sources
across Akpanya area claim that they usually forcefully expanded the size of the plates (this

special basket or plate using for measuring palm kernels is called ochupu uno/elikwo). The
essence of this forceful expansion was to ensure that more than normal volumes of kernels were
purchased at lower prices. They also paid lesser prices to customers especially those who may
solicit for advance payment. This introduction of scale as a standard of measurement in Igalaland
was rejected at inception by the native palm kernel producers. They resented the idea because of
the age long exploitation of the British trading firms and their internal collaborators ( achanyama
and faactors) besides, due to the high level of illiteracy and ignorance in colonial Igala land,
majority of the palm kernel producers did not understand the readings of the scales and equally
doubted the sincerity of the readers or operators of the scale-buyers. In fact, a way out of this
ruse was to measure the volume with local plates and baskets before taking it to the market for
sale. This accounts for the high resentment that greeted the introduction of scale in Igala land.
During the era of great depression, 1929-1930s, the prices of palm produce and other
economic crops dropped globally. Claude Ake had sufficiently adumbrated the consequences of
the economic depression and should not detain us here; however, it is imperatively to briefly state
that the European firms in Africa reacted to the depression by reducing competition amongst
them by dividing the market and reduction of trade investment in Africa.22 The depression further
culminated to cash squeeze. There was massive scarcity of British currencies in circulation in
Africa and Igala land in particular. This unsavory scenario led to reduction in the prices of palm
kernels which majority of the women depended on as a major ancillary source of income. A
report from John Holt to the district officer, Idah division on 23rd December 1929 states that the
reason for the lower price paid for produce has we, think resulted in rather less cash being
available23.similarly at Ankpa, Captain Mercer, a touring officer reported in I933 that:
There is a very shortage of currency in Ankpa and trade is conducted almost solely by
means of barter and the substitution of brass rods for currency. These rods which had
been hoarded for years are being dup and can be use in all the markets in the area; but it
is noteworthy that a rod is worth only one penny now compared with five pence five
24
years ago
This affected negatively the revenue drive of British colonial authority. Many people
could not pay their taxes. Commenting on the poor tax return from Igala land in 1933, the district
officer wrote that the catastrophic fall in the value of palm produce and the lack of alternative
crops is the chief reason for an estimated 3,600 uncollectable tax. Within in the three or four
years, the prices of a ton of kernels has fallen from 3 to 4.I0.0 at the latter price, it is not an
economic proposition to prepare the nuts and carry them any distance for sale. In Adoru (odolu)
market, a petrol tin of palm oil that fetched 5/ pence twelve months ago, today its value is 1/Id25
The world economic depression affected the economy of Igala land negatively. The
native palm kernel producers out of frustration over the sudden demise of their major source of
income coupled with the unending threats of arrest and detention of tax defaulters by the colonial
administrators in Igala land, the women began to add palm kernel shells and debris to the kernels
to increase the quantity. This affected the quality and quantity of purchases by trading firms. John
Holt, the dominant palm kernel trading company at Idah lamented thus we are still getting a
large percentage of shell and dirt which necessitates extra picking to bring the percentage within

our purchasing limits. We would be glad if instructions could be given to District Heads that the
produce be better picked before bringing in for sale.26 In fact, the slash in global palm kernel
prices made some women to abandon their palm kernels and palm oil for months with hope that
the prices would pick up. Many owners of palm trees in Akpanya would do not know how to
climb palm trees but paid Igbo tenants to do climb had to abandon their palm fruits to wroth away
in the farm.27
The prices paid for Igala palm kernels during the 1950s were poorly fixed by the
Northern Nigeria regional marketing board. The board prices oscillated between 34, 36, 34
and 34 per tons in 195I, 1952, 1953 and 1954 respectively. According to Atta Noah, due to the
activity of licensed buying agents in Igalaland and the northern region marketing board, there was
an increase in quantities of palm kernels exported from Igala land to Britain. Thus, from an
average of 6,000 tons per annum in I945, the figure increased with a small fluctuation to 8,000
tons in 195I and rose to 14, 467 tons in the entire Igala land by 195528. Although, data are hard to
come by, the tonnages of palm kernel at Ankpa reveal preponderance in quantity between
January and June. This was due to the buying agents who entered remote hinterland to purchase
palm kernels. In fact, the European trading had no information on who the native producers were
and how they were paid by their agents for their produce. They only remained at the evacuation
centers and wharf to monitor and grade palm kernels before been exported.
The table below shows the quantity of palm kernels bought by Licensed Buying Agents,
Ankpa-in tons
1951 1952 1953 1954 1955

Jan 50 96 66 57 17
Feb 99 130 102 152 60
March 122 224 103 165 106
April 244 287 260 230
May 372 439 271 220
June 360 407 321 162
July 190 317 326 98
August 97 2I7 326 68
Sept 83 207 126I 43
Oct 100 167 118 49
Nov 97 117 73 33
Dec 47 132 65 19
1,864 2,738 57 1,896 1,298
SOURCE: NAK/LOKPROF/ 1580
In addition to the opprobrious activities of the Middlemen and Licensed buying agents,
the trading firms contributed immensely to the disequilibrium in palm kernels trade between Igala
and Britain. They provided the safety valves that sustained the exploitation of the palm kernel
producers who were mostly women. Trading companies in Igala land by this era lobbied their

government to provide them with monopoly rights over the buying of palm kernel in Igala land.
This was to wade off competition from trading companies from other European countries. The
British government positively swiftly yielded to their request following the Gazette
No.36I83/S.9/24 entitled Restriction of Trade in Palm kernels. The effects of the order include:
declared the whole of the colony and the Abeokuta and Oyo provinces and the greater
part of the Ijebu and Ondo provinces to be prohibited areas,to prohibit the purchase of
palm kernels for export in a prohibited area, except under permit; to prohibit the
movement of palm kernels within a prohibited area, or from prohibited area to any other
areas, except with permit; in all places outside the prohibited areas to limit the purchase
of palm kernels during each month by firms and individuals to the average purchases by
29
each in the corresponding months of last three years
These prohibitions were part of the usual arbitrary fluctuations that the colonial
administrators used to manipulate and exploit the native palm kernel producers. In Kabba
province which covers Igala land, the British authority reasoned that it was necessary to control
the quantities of palm kernels purchased in different parts of Igala land. Adequate instructions
were issued to the agents of trading companies and native authority administrators to ensure that
strict adherence to this order are perpetually observed. The impact of this monopolization on the
Igala cannot be overemphasized. The order led to a drastic reduction in prices of palm kernels in
the entire Kabba provinces especially by John Holt. The table below shows the Average Monthly
Palm Kernel Purchases over a three year period of I937, I938 and I939 by John Holt.
John Holt Buying Stations: Kabba Ajaokuta

September 1939 5 23
October 4 25
November 2 21
December 4 18
January I940 56 24
February 42 24
March 18 30
April 17 36
May 40 62
June 24 47
July 13 42
August 7 27
Total 232 380
Source: NAK/LOKPROF/1580
Non- Inspection Buying Stations (UAC Buying Points)

Months Etobe Amaggede
September 1939 28 24

October 39 20
November 43 24
December 31 28
January 1940 27 40
February 24 44
March 27 65
April 55 127
May 68 145
June 57 97
July 43 62
August 36 40
Total 478 7I6
Source: NAK/LOKPROF/1580
This measure reduced the bargaining power of women and limited their economic
choices. The problem associated with the rising incidences of taxation further blighted the
economic prospects of the native producers. Because of the poor returns on prices of palm
kernels, many women could pay their taxes. The economic hardship imposed on Igala was
greatly responsible for the tax revolts and other civil disobedience movements in Igala land
during the era of British colonial administration. For instance, the tax revolts at Ojoku, Ogugu,
Dekina and Akpanya by 1926-1956 was due to the fall in prices of economic crops. Although the
economic depression of 1929-1940s and the world wars played their own roles, it was the
deliberate fluctuations caused by the trading firms that pitched the natives against the British
government. Commenting on the incessant fluctuations, the secretary of John Trading company
of Liverpool at Idah acknowledged the staggering proportion of this fluctuations when he stated
that, the palm prices has fluctuated between 10-10-0 and 10-0-0. The bulk of the palm
kernels at Idah come in from Ajaka and Adoru districts30 besides, while the prices fluctuated, the
quantities supply seldom responded. This is because, unlike the palm oil that had a well
established local market especially in northern Nigeria, the palm kernels had none or was at best
limited. Thus, whether in good or bad times, native producers had to sell their palm kernels to the
foreign firms agents in order to meet up their basic financial needs.31 For instance, by 1953 for
instance, a total of 2I86 tons of palm kernels were shipped from Idah wharf by John Holt while
5,208 tons was also shipped by United African Company to Britain. It is important to note that
the supply of palm kernels from Igala land remained relatively high in spite of poor prices offered
by trading firms. The reason for this was because of the unavailability of a viable local market
kernels and the monopolization of palm kernels trade by British which nipped in the bud any
form of fair competition.
With the restrictions of trade in palm kernels in Kabba provinces, the tons of palm
kernel placed for export dropped. In fact, some women began to abandon palm kernel processing
for other economic ventures like farming, gathering of sylvan produce, ivirgia and prosopis
Africana. Etobe Buying station was closed down in because of poor tonnage. This however,
culminated to an increase in palm kernels tonnages graded at Ajaokuta to be increased but the

tonnage at Ajokuta never exceeded the combined totals of the two stations during the month
I939.
The table below shows a comparative picture of palm kernels trades trade in Kabba area as at
November, I940
Month Kabba Okene Ibillo Ajaokuta Etobe Lokoja

January -- - - - - -
February - - - - - -
March - - - - - -
April 6 24 11 13 21 25
May 10 43 28 38 62 59
June 17 3l 3 32 69 93
July 14 8 4 41 40 42
August 7 2 5 24 28 33
September 2 1 11 14 29 17
October L 6 I5 17 39 21
November L 4 9 17 51 17
December - 7 40 14 27 21
Total 58 126 126 2I0 366 328
NAK/LOKPROF/1580/
In addition, the growth quantities of palm kernels exported to Onitsha from Igala land by
the middle at Ankpa in the 1950s increased because of their dissatisfactions with the poor prices
offered by the Nigerian Palm Produce Marketing Board established in 1949 and later replaced in
the 1954 by the Northern Nigerian Regional Marketing Board.32 Although the board was created
to help in price stabilization, it ended up exploiting the local palm producers. The marketing
board arrangement was overwhelming exploitative. This is primarily true because the board in
collaboration with its buying agents paid the peasant producers a small fraction of the value of
their products in the world market.33 The board accumulated enormous profits through
exploitation of the palm kernel producers which were used in the development of the northern
towns of Kaduna and Kano to the neglect of the Igala land which was hitherto the largest palm
producing zone in Northern Nigeria.34 The capitalist system has an inbuilt mechanism which is
often manipulated by bourgeoisies to exploit the proletariats. The analysis above on the Igala is a
classic example of exploitation the native palm kernels producers by British colonial trading
companies with effective support from the British government. This scenario depicts clearly,
from the caboose of history that development under colonialism was characterized by
contradictions of unequal exchange and atavistic exploitations in all ramification,
Conclusion
The development of palm kernels marketing initiatives in Igalaland during the halcyon
days of British colonialism helped in the exploitation of the native women who constituted the

major producers of palm kernels. Through the integration of the economy to the global capitalist
market, the prices of Igala palm kernels were tied to the vagaries of British market stage-
managed by trading firms that had middlemen and licensed buying agents whose activities further
retarded the economic prosperity of palm kernel producers. The impact of the great economic
depression of I929-30s and the World War II affected the prices of Igala palm kernels because of
the workings of the imperial agents. This study asserts that with the monopolization of trade by
the expatriate buying companies of John Holt and United African Company (UAC), the palm
kernels in Igalaland were evacuated to Britain. At Britain the kernels were used in the
manufacturing of numerous industrial, pharmaceutical, military and agro-allied products and
exported to Nigeria at exorbitant prices. The production of Igala palm kernels in Igalaland during
the era of British colonial administration did not translate into industrial development of the
Igalaland because the philosophy of British colonialism was to create a ready source of raw
materials for British industries and a haven for finished industrial goods. The dynamics of palm
kernels marketing as dissected in this paper demonstrates from the caboose of history, the
gimmicks and systemic capitalist mechanism that undergirded the production and marketing of
cash crops in colonial empires.

Endnotes
1
SO Aghalino, British Colonial Policies and the Oil Palm Industry in the Niger Delta Region of
Nigeria, African study monograph,21(1), 19-33, 2000, p18 adapted from www.africa.kyoto-
u.ac.jp/I9-33.pdf. accesesd 9/9/20I4, 6:02pm
2
Peter Kilby, the Nigerian Palm Oil Industry. Adapted from,
www.ageconsearch.umn.edu/bitstream/1349, accessed 23/9/20I4, 3:07pm
3
SO Aghalino, British Colonial Policies and the Oil Palm Industry in the Niger Delta..p19
4
O.N Njoku, Economic history of Nigeria I9th and 20th centuries. Enugu: Margret publishers,
2000. p
5
A.A , Danladi, The colonial economy in the lower Niger Region arabian journal of business
and management review,(Oman chapter) vol 2 no.7, 20I3, p47-48 adapted from
www.arabianjbmr.com/../5.pdf , 20/I2/20I4, 4:09pm
6
NAK/LOKPROF/157/1926, p12
7
N.E Attah,Plantation and Oil Industry in Igalaland of Nigeria 1951-1965 African Journal of
Economy and Society, vol. II. No. I, 20II pI87 or see also, N.E Attah, the Emergence, Growth
and Challenges of Oil Palm Mills in Igalaland, Nigeria, 1951-1965 Benue Valley Journal Of
Humanities, Vol.9 No1& 2, 2010. P183
8
N.E. Attah, Igala Sculpture, in R.A. Olaoye (ed) History of Indigenous Science and
Technology in Nigeria, Ibadan:2009, p
9
T.A Miachi, The Incarnate being phenomena among the Igala of North Central Nigeria, Ibadan:
Krapft publishers, 20II p.
10
JS Boston, The Igala Kingdom, London: OUP, 1968, pp2-4
11
H.J. Nyitse, The Impact of geography on the history of North central Nigeria since pre-
colonal, paper presented at the first international conference of the historical society of Nigeria,
North Central Zone, held between 4-6th November,20I4 at Benue State University, Makurdi,
Nigeria. P2
12
NE Attah, Plantation and Oil Industry in Igalaland of Nigeria 1951-1965 African Journal of
Economy.p200
13
See S.O Aghalino, British Colonial policies and the Palm .p4

14
V.O. Edo, and N.E. Attah, Cash crop Production and Trade in Igala land of Nigeria,1900-
1960, African Journal of Economy and Society, Vol.12No.2, 2014. P66
15
M.Y. Abdullahi, Trade and Conflicts in the Niger-Benue Confluence Areas.C.1884-1896,
African Journal of Economy and Society, Vol.12No.1, 2013, p.19
16
V.O. Edo, and N.E. Attah, Cash crop Production and Trade in Igalaland ofpp67-68
17
Oral Interview, Ejiga Audu, Akpanya, Ex-Palm kernel buying agent, 96+, 23/12/20I4
18
O.N Njoku, Economic History of Nigeria.p
19
Oral interview, PE Okwori, Retired Civil servant and writer, Idah, 68 , 8/9/20I4
20
NAK/LOKPROF/15/1926
21
NAK/LOKPROF/19/1927
22
C. Ake, Political Economy of Africa, England: Longman Group, I98I, p.70
23
NAK/ LOKPROF/104/ p22
24
NAK/LOKPROF/ 366/p2
25
NAK/LOKPROF/366/p5
26
NAK/LOKPROF/104/p 24
27
Oral Interview, Audu Abah, Farmer, II0+yrs, Akpanya, 20/9/2014
28
V.O Edo and N.E ATTAH, Cash crop production and trade in Igala land.p76
29
NAK/LOKPROF/1580/
30
NAK/LOKPROF/ 104. P24
31
Oral Interview, Momoh Sani, ex Palm Kernels buying Agent, Adoru, 85+, 9/11/2014
32
C. Ake, Poltical Economy of Africa, England: Longman, 1981, p64
33
C. Ake, Political Economy of ..p64
34
NE Attah, The emergence, growth and challenges.p190

References
-Abdullahi,M.Y.(2013) Trade and Conflicts in the Niger-Benue Confluence Areas.C.1884-

1896, African Journal of Economy and Society, 12(1)
-Aghalino,S.O.(2000)British Colonial Policies and the Oil Palm Industry in the Niger Delta
Region of Nigeria, African study monograph,21(1)
-Ake,C.(1981), Political Economy of Africa, England: Longman
- Attah, N.E. (2011) Plantation and Oil Industry in Igala land of Nigeria 1951-1965 African
Journal of Economy and Society, 11(1)
-Attah, N.E.(2010), the Emergence, Growth and Challenges of Oil Palm Mills in Igala land,
Nigeria, 1951-1965 Benue Valley Journal Of Humanities, 9(1)
-Boston, J.S. (1968) The Igala Kingdom, London: OUP
- Danladi,A.A, (2013) The colonial economy in the lower Niger Region Arabian Journal of
Business and Management review,(Oman chapter), 2(7)
-Edo,V.O & Attah,N.E(2014)Cash crop Production and Trade in Igala land of Nigeria,1900-
1960 African Journal of Economy and Society, 12(2)
-Kilby,P(1969). Industrialization in An Open Economy: Nigeria, 1945-66, London: Cambridge
University Press
-Njoku,O.N.(2000) Economic history of Nigeria I9th and 20th centuries. Enugu: Margret
publishers,
-Polanyi, K (1957) Trade and Markets in the Early Empire, Glencoe
Archival Sources: National Archive Kaduna (NAK), Lokoja Province (LOKPROF) Reports
NAK/LOKPROF/15/1926
NAK/LOKPROF/19/1927
NAK/ LOKPROF/104
NAK/LOKPROF/366
NAK/LOKPROF/1580

A study of the Portuguese-Benin Trade Relations: Ughoton as a Benin Port

(1485 -1506)
Michael Ediagbonya
Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria
Abstract
The study examined the Benin Portuguese Relations: Ughoton as a Benin Port (1485 1506). It
further examined the coming of the Portuguese through the Benin port, Ughoton to Benin City. It
also analyzed the articles of trade to Ughoton. It accounted for the factors responsible for the
decline of Portuguese trade in Benin and Ughoton and the significance of the relationship to
Benin and Ughoton.
The study relied on both oral interviews and documentary data. The oral data were based on
unstructured interviews with the Odionwere (Oldest man in Ughoton), Ohen Okun (The Chief
Priest of Olokun temple) and other elders in Ughoton. The documentary data were sourced from
intelligence reports, divisional reports, colonial letters, dispatches, government reports and
correspondences. The data were subjected to internal and external criticisms for authentication
and then to textual and contextual analyses.
The study found that Prince Ekaladerhan, the only child of ogiso Owodo, the last Ogiso of Ogiso
dynasty was the founder of Ughoton in about the eleventh century. The study also found that from
the fifteenth century Ughoton was the port of Benin kingdom during the period of Benin
Portuguese trade relations. The study demonstrated that this trade brought a lot of benefits to the
people of Ughoton, Benin kings and the Europeans. It was discovered that, the trade declined due
to bad climatic conditions, the Benins refusal to accept Christianity fully and that the trade did
not bring the expected returns.
Keywords: Trade, Diplomacy, Relations, Port, Decline

Introduction
The international relationship between Benin and the Europeans started in a 15th century.
Nation needs other nations for exchange of ideas, for the promotion of trade and for diplomatic
purposes. No country is an island unto itself and no country or kingdom can provide all the
resources it needs for development within her territorial borders. Every country is therefore
relevant in the exchange of goods and services provided in the international system. The needs of
states have therefore created an interdependence international system that affords countries of the
world the opportunities of securing from other countries what they lack themselves. S.E.
Orobator sees international relationship as constituting the sum total of the relationship between
two or more sovereign nations at both governmental and non-governmental levels.1
The main purpose of this international relationship between Benin and the Portuguese,
British French, Dutch was trade. Other reasons include diplomatic purposes and Christianity. At
least, from the point of view of the Portuguese, it was also an opportunity to introduce
Christianity to Benin apart from trade.
Ughoton featured prominently as a port or the chief port of Benin during this period under
focus. Ughoton also known as Gwatto which lies about 42 kilometers southeast of Benin was said
to have been founded by Prince Ekaladerhan, the only child of Ogiso Owodo, the last Ogiso of
Ogiso dynasty in about the 11th century.
From the rudimentary status, Ughoton essentially witnessed rapid social, political and
economic transformation from the 15th century. This could be attributed to the ancient Ughoton
market which was the hub of economic activities before and after the coming of the Europeans. It
could also be seen from the strategic location of Ughoton in Benin River where it served as the
Bini port. Gwatto or Ughoton, the port of Benin became the depot to handle the pepper, ivory and
increasing numbers of slaves offered by the Oba in exchange for coral beads, textile materials,
European-manufactured articles including tools and weapons, manilas used as currency2. Oba
Ozolua of Benin who showed readiness to permit trade with the Europeans, allowed the
Portuguese to establish a factory at the port of Ughoton (Gwatto), thus was established a long
period of regular maritime contact between European and Benin City with Ughoton as seaport.
The Coming of the Portuguese
There is some controversy as to the first Portuguese to visit Benin. However, it is said
that, Ruy-de Sequeira was the first Portuguese to visit Benin territory in 1472 who reached the
bight of Benin during the reign of Oba Ewaure. The Portuguese sent out explorers in the 1440s
in search of a new sea-route to the East and it was during one of the voyages of exploration that a
Portuguese sailor named Ruy de Sequeira arrived in Benin in 1472. Antonio Galvao attributed the
first Portuguese voyage through the Bight of Benin to one Ruy de Sequeira in 1472.3
However when the first Portuguese came in 1472, he stopped at the coast and began to
gather information about the goings on in the kingdom Oba Ewuare who was the king at that time

was busy with domestic restructuring of Ubini to enable him to hold the entire territory of
Iduland under his firm control and so showed little interest on the visitors. So the Portuguese
came at this time, they saw the spices, they felt the pulse of the African monarchy of Great Benin,
but could not enter when Ewuare the Great was on the throne. So no meaningful contact was
made until 1486.
The situation was not the same when John Affons d Aveiro visited Benin in 1486 during
the reign of Oba ozolua. Oba Ozolua was the first Oba to receive Europeans at his court. From
the account of Philip Koslow, it was established that, not until 1485 did a Portuguese emissary
Joao Afonso d Aveiro make the journey from the coast to Benin City.4 Like most European
visitors or traders to Benin City, Afonso D Aveiro made the journey through water to Ughoton,
then overland to Benin City. Unlike Oba Ewuare who was so busy with domestic affairs and did
not receive Ruy-de Sequieira, Oba Ozolua readily received Afonso d Aveiro in 1485. Oba
Ozolua was ready to allow the Portuguese to trade in slaves and other products that may interest
them. So the Portuguese came to Benin at a time in its history when it was in an especially
favourable position to supply slaves. It was indicated by Parry that, the decision to send an
emissary in search of Benin has to be seen against a background of intense African activity
inspired by John II who ascended the throne of Portugal in 1481.5
From the forging, it is possible to say that, while it may be correct to say that , Ruy-de
Sequeira was the first Portuguese to visit Benin territory in 1472 during the reign of Oba Ewuare,
but his activities was restricted to the coast and the monarch was busy with many domestic
cleansing hence little attention was paid to this visitor. It is probably for this reason that Ruy de
Sequeira visit was not given enough publicity by European and African scholars.
The visit of Afonso d Aveiro was highly acknowledged by scholars and given enough
attention in European historical literature. The reasons for this are numerous. First, when Afonso
d Aveiro came in 1486, it was with full backing of the New King of Portugal, John II who came
to the throne in 1481. We may suppose therefore that in sending d Aveiro inland, the king of
Portugal was guided by reports that, a considerable kingdom existed there and that he desired to
know more about the ruler, the people, the government and the religion and the products of that
country.6 Second, in the visit of 1486, the Oba Ozolua was interested in the visitors and ready to
trade with them. He was ready to allow the Portuguese to trade in slaves and other products or
items that may interest the Portuguese especially their king, John II. Oba Ozolua welcomed
dAveiro and sent one of his leading officials, the chief of Ughoton back to Portugal with the
emissary to meet the king and discuss the opening of trade relation.It was for the above reasons
that, most scholars tend to ignore the visit of 1472 and concluded that Jaao Afonso d Aveiro was
the first Portuguese visitor or explorer to Benin.
However, there is no controversy that, Oba Ozolua sent Ohen-Okun, the chief of Ughoton
to accompany Afonso d Aveiro to Portugal as Benin Ambassador to learn more about Portugal
and its way of life. Visits of this nature were regularly sponsored by the Portuguese government
in order to impress African dignitaries with the power and wealth of the homeland. Another
version says And the king of Benin sent to the king of Portugal as Ambassador, a negro who

was his captain in a seaport known as Ugato wishing to have news of our lands, the people of
which had been in Beny considered a great novelty7
The chief of Ughoton was received with great festivities and was shown many of the good
things of the kingdoms and he was returned to his land in a ship of the king of Portugal.8 One
question arises, why was the Ohen-Okun of Ughoton chosen as ambassador to Portugal? Many
villages existed in Benin Empire during the period of Portuguese visit to Oba Ozolua. At of all,
Oba Ozolua requested Ohen-Okun of Ughoton to accompany the visitors to Portugal.
Many reasons could be adduced.First, the Ohen-Okun, the chief of Ughoton was at this
time the head of the village as well as the chief priest of Olokun temple, who was direct
descendants of Prince Ekaladerhan, the founder of Ughoton village. So sending the chief of
Ughoton as an ambassador to Portugal was like sending a Prince from the palace of the Oba to
Benin. Second, the chief was the priest of a very important deity worshipped by the Oba and his
people. The Oba of Benin usually sent for the annual celebration Ekpan or attribute in the form
of cows. This tribute apart from adding colour to the annual celebration, it shows the loyalty of
the Oba to the deity. So sending such an important personality to a mission of that nature was not
a misplaced priority. Third, the most important factor was the fact that Ughoton was a seaport or
the main port of Benin during the period of Benin-European trade from 15th to later 18th
centuries. This trade brought a lot of wealth to the kingdom. Akenzua I is remembered by
tradition as one of the richest kings who ever sat on the throne of Benin. Akenzua I reintroduced
the export of male slaves which was previously banned by Oba Esigie in the 16th century. His
son, who reigned after him was so rich that the floor and walls of his house were lined with
cowries shells, the money of the time.9 It could be said that, trade generated by Benin-European
relation and the wealth derived from it were the basis of sustenance of Benin empire at the time.
The coming of the Portuguese rapidly internationalized Benin as a power and in quick succession
as the empire was besieged by traders of various nationalities in search of varying items of
trade including ivory and slaves.10
It is possible to suggest that, the choice of the chief of Ughoton may perhaps be attributed
to the importance of his village as the port of Benin and the one most immediately concerned
with the opening of European trade. Finally, it can be argued that the chief of Ughoton possess
some personal qualities that benefit an ambassador. It needs some level of intelligence,
diplomacy, patience and endurance. One should be able to project the image of his country to the
outside world and counter any negative reports about the country. Ruy de Pina wrote of the Benin
ambassador to Portugal, their Ambassador was a man of good speech and natural wisdom.11 This
comment is an eloquent testimony that, the appointment of Ohen-Okun of Ughoton as Benin
Ambassador to Portugal was well deserved.
It was not only the reign of Oba Ozolua that the chief of Ughoton served as Ambassador
to Portugal. When John Afonso dAveiro came to Benin City, for the second time, during the
reign of Oba Esigie, he advised the Oba to become a Christian. Oba Esigie therefore sent Ohen-
Okun, the Olokun priest at Ughoton with him as an Ambassador to the king of Portugal asking
him to send priests who would teach him and his people the faith.12 It is said that one of the

Ohen-Olokun, the priest of Olokun juju in Ughoton himself visited Portugal in the time of Oba
Orhogbua, the son of Oba Esigie.
At the moment of parting, the king of Portugal presented him and his wife, rich dresses
and sent at the same time to the king of Benin a rich present of things which he thought the latter
would greatly esteem. In fact the chief of Ughoton had brought to the Oba of Benin, a rich
present of such things, as he would greatly prize on his return from Portugal.
A present delivered in the name of king Manuel in 1505 consisted of a caparisoned horse,
necklace of Indian bead, a piece of printed chintz from Cambay, a marklota, whilte satin, six
linen shirts and a shirt of blue Indian silk.13 This visit of Ohen-Okun as Benin Ambassador to
Portugal promoted Ughoton to a higher level. Ughoton became known in the world apart from its
relevance as the port of Benin.
During this time of Portuguese trade with Benin, warehouses were established and
factories were built at Ughoton. Ughoton village experienced a considerable economic prosperity
and development as a Benin port. It was for this reason, it was said that when the Portuguese
arrived in the western delta they focused attention on Ughoton the port of Benin.
Articles of Trade
The main articles of trade from the side of Benin were pepper, slaves, Ivory, Coris beads,
local or cotton cloth. J.W. Blake observed that, at this time, the Portuguese were seeking in
particular a variety of pepper which could compete more satisfactorily with Indian pepper than
could the Malagetta which was the only spice they had so far discovered in Guinea14. The
discovery of Benin pepper (Pipper Guineense) which could compete favourably with Indian
pepper, gave them hope of economic potential of the empire. It is important to say that, the
relevance of Ughoton to Benin-Portuguese trade relations is based on the fact that the whole
trading transaction took place there as the chief port of the kingdom.
The supply of slaves in the Slave River was the combined effort of Edo, Ijo and the
Itsekiri. The sources of these slaves were criminals sold as slaves and outcasts. The slave markets
in the hinterland were sources for purchasing slaves. Some prisoners were sold as slaves. The
Oba of Benin sometimes presented slaves as gifts to important persons at Sao Tome. Sao Tome
this time needed a lot of slaves for agricultural and domestic purposes and the slave markets in
Portugal also needed the slaves from Benin where they were bought for sale by agents of the
Casa da Mina and private contractors. After the discovery of the Indian pepper, the purchase of
female slaves became the main interest of European traders in Benin. This was as a result of the
fact that, there was an embargo on the sale of male slaves by the Oba Esigie from the beginning
of the 16th century to the last decade of the 17th century when the ban was lifted by Oba Akenzua
I. The embargo on the sale of male slaves in Benin this time became necessary because Oba
Esigie was facing some military challenges at home. This was the need to keep the large empire
intact. He took over from a king, Oba Ozolua who was described as the conqueror. Also there

was serious threat from Udo as a result of activities of Arhuanhan. Lastly was a serious attempt
from Idah, that was planning to invade the empire.
The Portuguese also discovered that certain varieties of stone beads available in Benin
could be exchanged for gold on the Costa da Mina so they began to buy them in large quantities.
The Portuguese called them Coris because most of the beads were fashioned from a blue stone
reined with red. Others, were yellow and some grey had greater value as objects of barter and
were treated by the Portuguese as semi-precious stones. In his twenty months management of
Ughoton post, Bastian Fernandez bought 33,382 Coris, 900 of the yellow beads and 162 of the
ivory.15
Another article of trade which attracted the attention of Portuguese was cotton cloth. The
cotton cloth was principally used to clothe their slaves.
Large quantities of Ivory were also purchased from Benin through Ughoton. In exchanged
for these goods produced in Benin, the various European nationals trading with Benin from the
15th to the 17th centuries, brought in similar items with only few variations. One major item
which the Portuguese brought to Benin through the port at Ughoton was copper. Cowries were
another important trading item. Portugal was the first European power to import cowries shells
to Benin which were the currency, even of the far interior. Other items imported to Benin by the
Portuguese were textile imports, European manufactured articles, iron rods, silver cloth, red
velvets, red caps, brandy necklace, coral beads, umbrella etc. The Portuguese through their trade
with Benin introduced crops such sugar-cane, maize, cassava, pineapples and all these crops
came to Benin through the Benin port, Ughoton.
The provision of firearms, guns and gunpower by the Portuguese to Benin suffer serious
setback. This is because religion played a major role in the international relations of Portugal.
The desire of Oba Esigie to build his military strength seems plausible this period. The people of
Idah were on him and he had the problem of Udo to contend with. So Oba Esigie needed these
ammunitions to assist him in wars. The Idahs forces are said to have reached the gates of Benin
City before being driven back across the Niger.16 The acceptance of Christianity was the basis
under which the Portuguese would supply him guns and other ammunitions. Although during the
reign of Oba Esigie, attempts were made to promote Christianity but it was done to achieve
certain political agenda, which was principally to encourage the Portuguese to supply
ammunitions to boost his military. Unfortunately, the Portuguese were aware of this selfish
interest of Oba Esigie, as De Barros observed.
He sought the priests rather to make himself powerful against his neighbours with our
favour than from a desire for baptism.17
King Manuel of Portugal refused to send arms until Oba Esigie proves the sincerity of his
professed inclination to Christianity. While it is true to say that, Oba Esigie ordered his son and
two of his nobles to embrace Christianity and accept baptism, it is equally true to comment that,

none of the rulers of Benin in this period and centuries after manifested real interest for the
Christian creed.
The essential feature of this Benin-Portuguese trade was that Ughoton was the
commercial centre or port town where there items of trade were either exchanged or sold. Hence,
it is possible to say that in the heydays of Ughoton as a main port of Benin, without Ughoton, no
trade could have been transacted between the Europeans and Benin.
Decline of Portuguese Trade with Benin and Ughoton
It is not under contention that Ughoton was a seaport or the main port of Benin during the
period of Benin European trade from 15th to later 18th centuries. Hence reigning Obas of Benin
took adequate measures to ensure that the proper regulation of the trade at Ughoton. This is
against the background that what affect Ughoton trade will also affect Benin positively or
negatively.
Many factors were responsible for the decline of Portuguese trade with Benin and
Ughoton as the seaport.
First was the religious factor. During the period under survey, the factor of Christianity
was very vital in Portuguese relationship with Benin. Portugals attempt at establishing
diplomatic relations, religious influence and commercial monopoly were not successful because
of Benin kingdoms refusal to accept Portugals commercial monopoly and the kingdoms non-
commitment to Portuguese Christianity. The Oba of Benin did not respond as expected from the
assessment of the Portuguese.
Benin saw the coming of the Portuguese only a marginal development insufficient to
bring about any major change in the economic pursuits or way of life of the people. Benin culture
was too ancient and fully developed to collapse on the first encounter with Christianity. The
disappointment the Benins gave to the Portuguese as regard accepting Christianity was a major
setback to strengthening the trade relationship between Portuguese and Benin. In his reply to Oba
Esigie through his envoy, King Manuel said:
For when we see that you have embraced the teachings of Christianity like a good
and faithful Christian, there will be nothing in our realms with which we shall not be
glad to favour you, whether it be arms or cannon and all other weapons of war for
use against your enemies; of such things we have a great store, these things we are
18
not sending you now, as you requested because the law of God forbids it .
It was this religious factor that was considered as the basis for supplying firearms to the
kingdom. This issue of Christianity played a major role in the decline of Portuguese trade with
Benin. Second was the bad climatic condition. The climate was very harsh as most of the men
sent to Ughoton became sick and died. The history of the Portuguese trading post at Ughoton is
very obscure19.

Aveiro himself died there, the first known European victim of a place which soon became
notorious for the high mortality rate among those serving there as Duarte Lopes also died in
Ughoton a few months after his arrival in 150420. On September 8, 1695, father Monteleone was
set to sail to Benin but he never saw the Oba, for he fell mortally ill at Ughoton and died same
year21. The place was afterwards found to be very unhealthy and not so fruitful as had been
expected, their trade stopped.
J.F. Landolph, a French trader who came to Ughoton in 1778 lost about one third of his
crew of 90 through disease. Also out of 140 British who sailed for Benin through Ughoton, only
40 returned. Even the leader of the Voyage Captain Thomas Wyndham also died due to weather
and tropical disease particularly malaria.
Third, the trade did not yield the great returns expected of it. So most hopes of the
Portuguese government were dashed. The main attraction of the Portuguese trade in Benin which
was pepper faced serious challenge from the East. When much quantities began to come from
India, pepper ceased to be profitable for the Portuguese Crown to exploit the small quantities
coming from Benin. Before the discovering of the Indian pepper, Ughoton as a seaport to Benin
kingdom witnessed considerable boom because of the high demand of Benin pepper by the
Portuguese. The situation became worsened when the Portuguese crown promulgated decree
forbidding Portugueses subjects to buy Benin pepper. This decree forbidding Portugueses
subjects from buying Benin pepper affected Ughoton adversely because only few Portuguese
traders came to the seaport to purchase pepper as attention now shifted to the East. The motives
which prompted the decree of 1506 may be appreciated by comparing the 75 quintals of Benin
pepper sent to Antwerp in 1504 with the 2,000 quintets that came from India in the same year.22
Thus it was said that the commerce upon which the profitability of the Ughoton post had rested
was deliberately proscribed and soon afterwards the factor was finally withdrawn.
The purchase of slaves from Benin could have salvaged the dwindling nature of
Portugueses trade in Ughoton yet it was not to be. There was an embargo or ban on the sale of
slaves by Oba Esigie which lasted for two hundred years. With the accession of Esigie to the
throne, a prohibition was placed on the sale of male slaves to Europeans which remained in force
almost two hundred years. Also there was high price on slaves from Benin compared to slaves
from other new slave markets which offered lower prices, hence the Portuguese saw Benin as an
unsatisfactory market.
To some extent, the decline in the number of slaves taken from Benin was balanced by the
opening of a slave market at a village on the Benin River, known to the Portuguese as Oere,
which was probably an Itsekiri settlement23. It was said that the total number of slaves shipped
from the Benin River seems to have fallen from about 1520 onward.
Since the early efforts of the Portuguese did not yield the expected dividends, the trading
post at Ughoton was closed in 1506-1507. With the closure of the trading post at Ughoton, the
Portuguese Crown from this period took little interest in Benin trade.

Although Portuguese Monarch decided for a fresh attempt in 1538 to negotiate with the
Oba of Benin, the effort failed because Benin was interested in unrestricted trade relationship
with Portugal. However, by the 1540s, Benin was much less important to Portuguese trade in
West Africa that it had been at the beginning of the century. However, it is necessary to add that
Benin-Portuguese trade in slaves lasted till the middle part of the 16th century.
The Significance of Benin-Portuguese Relations to Benin and Ugoton
Benin-Portuguese relationship which started in the 15th century brought a lot of benefits to
Ughoton in particular and Benin in general. The first contribution of Portuguese in this direction
was the introduction of Christianity to Benin through Ughoton. The initial attempt by the
Portuguese to introduce Christianity did not succeed. However, Oba Esigie later found genuine
interest in Christianity. The Oba instructed his son and two of his nobles to become Christians
and be baptized. Also on his orders, churches at Ogbeleka, Idunmwrie and Akpakpava were built.
The letter written by Duarte Pires to the king of Portugal in October, 15 th illustrates
the extent of acceptance of Christianity by Oba Esigie. He wrote that; it is true I am
a friend of the king of Benin. We eat with his sonwhen the missionaries arrived,
the king of Benin was very delighted, the missionaries went with the king to the war
and remained a whole year24. At the end of the war in the month of August, the king
ordered his son and those of his greatest noblemen to become Christians and he
25
ordered a church to be built in Benin.
An important event came out clearly in the letter and that has to do with the assistance the
missionaries gave to Oba Esigie during the war with Idah. It was asserted that, the missionaries
went to the war to assist the Benin armies and at the end, the Benins got victory. This war was
very crucial in Benin history as the Idah war was a major challenge to Benin and marks the last
occasion before 1897 when Benin City itself was seriously threatened by an external enemy. The
war with Idah is one of the outstanding traditional events in Esigies reign. Although these
churches are no more in existence but the present Holy Arousa Church built by Oba Akenzua II is
erected on the former site of the church of Akpakpava. Later, the Benins saw the need to embrace
Christianity. To day almost 70% of the Benin population is Christians and different churches of
different denominations are spread in almost all the streets in Benin City. The people of Ughoton
worship many gods. Some of them also saw the need to embrace. Christianity and reasonable
proportion of Ughoton people are now Christians. The Assembly Church of God and the Ark of
God are examples of Churches currently built at Ughoton.26
Second, the exchange of ambassadors between Benin and Portugal promoted the image of
Benin in general and Ughoton in particular to the outside world. When Affonso Aviero visited
Benin during the reign of Oba Ozolua, the chief of Ughoton, Ohen-Okun accompanied the
Portuguese to Portugal on the instruction of Oba Ozolua. Ohen-Okun went to Portugal as Benin
ambassador to that country. The chief of Ughoton promoted the image of Benin to the outside
world particularly as he was a man of high intelligence and natural wisdom. As for Ughoton
where he hails from became a household name in the world.

As chief of Ughoton, Benins centre of International trade, the ambassador was in the best
position to discuss commercial relations with his hosts and the Obas representative learned
commercial Portuguese which enable him to act as interpreter in business transaction27. On the
strength of this, it is possible that some of the natives of Ughoton also learnt the Portuguese
language and also serve as interpreters which could be a means of livelihood. Oba Esigies reply
to the king Manuels letter dated 20 November, 1514 was carried to the Portuguese monarch by a
Benin Christian Pero Barroso, an interpreter at Ughoton28. Even today, the Portuguese words
dominate the pidgin English spoken in Ughoton and other Benin villages and towns. For
example, dash (give) and Sabby (to know) are Portuguese words. There is a Portuguese
record to the effect that an Oba of Benin visited Portugal in 1544 which is believed to be
Orhogbua, who was said to have gone away with Portuguese for some years and could speak
Portuguese29. Oba Esigie learnt to speak the Portuguese and it is said that he had his son
Orhogbua to be educated by them.
Also, the European introduced important crops to Ughoton through its trade relationship
with Benin. Such crops include maize, cassava, sugarcane and pineapples. The food crops were
introduced to Benin during the period of slave trade from the New World. The slave trade was of
more fundamental economic importance because of the introduction during the era of two vital
subsistence crops, maize and cassava. Maize appeared in Benin near the beginning of the slave
trade while cassava was introduced towards the end of the slave trade. Since then, they have
revolutionized the feeling and farming habits of Benin in general and Ughoton in particular.
From the ancient time till now at Ughoton cassava and maize are stable food items. Maize
is commonly eaten by the people of Ughoton. Flour is also produced from maize. The local food
Akamu, usually eaten in the morning by both males and females in all Benin villages is
produced from maize. Also from maize, Agidi is produced commonly eating by all the Binis;
Corn cake, (Uloka) is also produced from maize. Maize can be roasted or cooked for
consumption. It is fried into pop corn. Pop corn, Agidi, corn cake, corn flour can serve domestic
purpose while majority of women take the items to the market for sale to raise money to meet
other needs.
Cassava has sustained families from generation to generation in Ughoton Women fry garri
from cassava every four days for domestic use and to be sold to purchase other food items for the
family like pepper, meat, fish, tomatoes, melon, okro, magi to enable the women prepare soup or
stew to sustain the family for four days. When the items are exhausted, the women go back to
uproot cassava tubers and fried it into garri to be sold in the next market day. The cultivation of
yams is now highly limited to few aged ones while majority of the adults both men and women
are fully engaged in cassava cultivation30. Cassava cultivation is very important to Ughoton
people. Apart from garri, starch is also produced from cassava. Starch although mostly consumed
by the Ijos, Isokos, Urhobos but most Benin people now eat starch. Also the local food called
fufu by the Yorubas and Agbon by the Igbos and Benins is also produced from cassava. In the
past the food was classified as Igbo food. Today, the Benins are widely engaged in fufu
preparation and consumption. Infact the importance of cassava to the economic wellbeing of the
Ughoton and Benins generally can be over-emphasized.

Ughoton was a sea port or the chief port of Benin in its trade relationship with the
Europeans. It was the port for the loading and off loading of goods. Alogoa noted that, the
Portuguese arrived in the western Delta, they focused attention on Ughoton, the port of Benin and
some point up a left branch of the foracdos River which from internal evidence he identifies with
Ode-Itsekiri31. Oba Ozolua allowed the Portuguese to establish a factory at the port of Ughoton.
Thus, a period of regular maritime contact between European and parts of what later came to be
known as Nigeria started. This goes to show the importance of Ughoton in the Benin Portuguese
trade. During the period of Portuguese monopoly, warehouses were established at Ughoton,
which experienced a considerable economic prosperity and development as a Bini port.
The presence of factories and warehouses connote many good things for Ughoton where
they were established. The trade brought many white traders to Ughoton exerting their influence
on the people. Natives of Ughoton and the neighbouring villages like Ekenwua Ugbineh, Uduana
definitely worked in the factories as the business of factories seriously involve division of labour.
The trade promoted and enhanced the development of the Benin kingdom. It is correct
that by the 15th century, the Benin Empire was already asserting its political and economic
domination over its neighbours because the kingdom had at that period warlike kings like Oba
Ewuare and Oba Ozolua. Oba Ewuare who was described in history as Ewuare the great is known
in history as the Oba who conquered about 201 towns and villages. There is no doubt also that,
the importance of Benin as a centre of trade was galvanized or accelerated by the coming of the
European. Hence S.E. Orobator asserted that the coming of the Portuguese rapidly
internationalized Benin as a power and in quick succession, as the empire was besieged by
traders of various nationalities, in search of various items of trade including Ivory and slaves32.
A source noted that the trade generated by Benin-European relationship was the basis of
sustenance of Benin empire. It is important to add here that, trade as the basis for the sustenance
of Benin Empire may not be tenable because Benin was already at the height of its glory
especially among the African States before the coming of the Europeans. However, the trade
oiled the military machine with which Benin developed and sustained her political power.
The trader brought a lot of wealth to the people of Ughoton and the Benin Kings. Oba
Akenzua I was a case in point, whose reign is linked with a revival of the fortunes of the
kingdom. He is known in Benin history as one of the richest kings that reigned in Benin. The
sons reign also witnessed much prosperity.
Part of the reason for this prosperity was the re-introduction of the sale of male slaves in
Benin which was banned in 16th century and lasted for 200 years. The trade in Benin slaves was
very important to the Europeans. That was why Elizabeth Isichei argues that, Oba Akenzua I is
remember by tradition as one of the richest kings who ever sat on the throne of Benin and that his
son, who reigned after him was so rich that the floor and walls of his house were lined with
cowries shells, the money of the time33.

Conclusion
Ughoton was founded by Prince Ekaladerhan the son of the last Ogiso, Ogiso Owodo of
Ogiso dynasty. From the 15th century, Benin entered into international relationship, with
Portuguese. The principal aim of the relationship was trade. At the initial stage, the Portuguese
carried on an exclusive trade with the Benin Kingdom. The period also witnessed the
establishment of warehouses and factories at Ughoton, which was a seaport or the main port of
Benin and the village had significant economic prosperity as the centre of trade.
Generally, the articles of trade which captured the Europeans interest in Benin were
slaves, pepper, cotton cloths, gum, beads, Ivory and red wood. However, the Portuguese trade
with Benin in early sixteenth century witnessed decline because of the refusal of Benin people to
accept Christianity bad climatic condition and that the trade did not yields the expected returns.
The significance of these Benin-Portuguese relations to Benin and Ughoton cannot be

over-emphasized. Christianity came to Benin through Ughoton for the first time and the
missionaries assisted Oba Esigie to fight Benin-Idah in which Benin got victory in 1515-1516.
The Ohen-Okun was the Benin Ambassador to Portugal between 1485-1580. Also the Portuguese
introduced important crops to Benin and Ughoton particularly maize and cassava which are staple
food today.
More especially during this period, warehouses and factories were established at Ughoton
which experienced a considerable economic prosperity and development as a Bini port.
On the whole, the trade promoted and enhanced the development of the Benin kingdom
and the trade brought a lot of wealth to the people of Ughoton and the Benin kings who regulated
the trade.

Endnotes
1
S.E. Orbator, Trade of Imperial Benin with the Portuguese and Dutch in O.N. Njoku (ed.)
Pre-Colonial Economic History of Nigeria (Benin: Ethiope Publishing Corporation, 2002)
pp.109-110.
2
G.I. Eluwa and M.O. Ukagwu, History of Nigeria (Nigeria: Africana-First Publishers Limited,
1988) p.110.
3
Antonio Galvao, Tratado Dos Descobbrimentos, Porto. (Lisbon: Portugal, 1944) p.129.
4
Philip Koslow, The Kingdoms of Africa, Benin Lords of the River (Chelsea House Publishers,
1995) p.32.
5
J.Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance. (London: 1963)
6
A.F.C. Ryder, Benin and the Europeans. (London: Longman, 1969) p.29.
7
H.L. Roth, Great Benin, its Customs, Art and Horrors (Metro Books, Inc. North Brook II, 1972)
P.5.
8
Ibid, p.5
9
Elizabeth Isichie, History of West Africa since 1800 (Macmillan Publishers, 1969) pp.90-93.
10
S.E. Orobator, Trade of Imperial Benin with the Portuguese, p.109.
11
Ruy de Pina, Chronica de Ruyi Domfoa II, Combra, 1950, P.24
12
J.U. Egharevba A Short History of Benin, (Benin City, fortune Publisher, 2005) p.29.
13
A.T.T. Nucleo Antigo, Maco 166, FF 23rd, 24r Quoted in Ryder, Benin and European p.41.
14
J.W. Blake, European Beginning in West Africa 1454-1578 (London: 1937)
15
Quoted in Ryder, Benin and European.
16
R.E. Bradbury, Benin Studies (ed.) Peter Morton Williams (Oxford University Press, 1973)
p.36.
17
J.D. Barros, Da Asia (Lisbon, 1552).
18
A.T.T. Fragmentos, Maco 9. 20 Nov.1514. Quoted in A.F.C. Ryder, Benin and Europeans, p.7.

19
A.F.C Ryder, Benin and Europeans P.33
20
Ibid, p.33
21
A.T.T. Nucleo Antigo Maco, 166.
22
H.V. Wee, The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy, Vol.11 (Hague,
1963) p.126.
23
A.F.C. Ryder, The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade in Obaro Ikime (ed.) Groundwork of Nigeria
History. (Nigeria: Heinemann Educational Books, 1980)
24
R.E. Bradbury, Benin Studies , P.33
25
Ibid, p.33
26
Interview with Mrs. F. Iguakun, Age-46, Venue Ughoton, Occupation-Nursing. Interview
conducted on 15-4-2013. For further information on religion at Ughoton, see interview with
Christopher Enodunmwenben, Age-59, occupation farming, venue-Ughoton. Interview
conducted on 6-4-2013 and interview with Rolland Obazee, Age-71, Occupation-Retired Soldier,
Venue-Ughoton Village. Interview conducted on 6-4-2013.
27
S.E. Orobator. Trade of Imperial Benin with the Portuguese p.113
28
Ibid, p.114
29
P.A. Talbot Peoples of Southern Nigeria. (Oxford, vol.1, 1926).
30
Interview with Thomas Okunhon, Age-75, Occupation-farming, Venue-Ughoton Village.
Interview conducted on 6-4-2013.
31
E.J. Alagoa, Long Distance Trade and States in the Niger Delta, Journal of African History,
Vol. xi, No.3 1970. pp.319-320.
32
S.E. Orobator, Benin and Portuguese, p.109.
33
Elizabeth Isichei History of West Africa, pp93-95.

References
-Alagoa, E.J. Long Distance Trade and States in the Niger Delta, Journal of African History,
Vol. xi, No.3 1970. pp.319-320.
-Blake, J.W. European Beginning in West Africa 1454-1578 (London: 1937)
-Bradbury, R.E. Benin Studies (ed.) Peter Morton Williams (Oxford University Press, 1973).
-Barros, J.D. Da Asia (Lisbon, 1552).
-Egharevba, J.U. A Short History of Benin, (Benin City, fortune Publisher, 2005).
-Eluwa, G.I. and Ukagwu, M.O. History of Nigeria (Nigeria: Africana-First Publishers Limited,
1988).
-Galvao, A. Tratado Dos Descobbrimentos, Porto. (Lisbon: Portugal, 1944).
-Koslow, P. The Kingdoms of Africa, Benin Lords of the River (Chelsea House Publishers, 1995).
-Interview with Mrs. F. Iguakun, Age-46, Venue Ughoton, Occupation-Nursing. Interview

conducted on 15-4-2013. For further information on religion at Ughoton, see interview with
Christopher Enodunmwenben, Age-59, occupation farming, venue-Ughoton. Interview
conducted on 6-4-2013 and interview with Rolland Obazee, Age-71, Occupation-Retired
Soldier, Venue-Ughoton Village. Interview conducted on 6-4-2013.
-Interview with Thomas Okunhon, Age-75, Occupation-farming, Venue-Ughoton Village.

Interview conducted on 6-4-2013.
-Isichie, E . History of West Africa since 1800 (Macmillan Publishers, 1969).
-Nucleo Antigo A.T.T, , Maco 166, FF 23rd, 24r Quoted in Ryder, Benin and European.
-Orbator, S.E. Trade of Imperial Benin with the Portuguese and Dutch in O.N. Njoku (ed.) Pre-
Colonial Economic History of Nigeria (Benin: Ethiope Publishing Corporation, 2002).
-Parry, J. The Age of Reconnaissance. (London: 1963)
-Roth, H.L. Great Benin, its Customs, Art and Horrors (Metro Books, Inc. North Brook II,
1972).
-Ruy de Pina, Chronica de Ruyi Domfoa II, Combra, 1950.
-Ryder, A.F.C. Benin and the Europeans. (London: Longman, 1969).

-Ryder, A.F.C. The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade in Obaro Ikime (ed.) Groundwork of Nigeria
History. (Nigeria: Heinemann Educational Books, 1980)
-Talbot P.A. Peoples of Southern Nigeria. (Oxford, vol.1, 1926).
-Wee, H.V. The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy, Vol.11 (Hague,
1963) p.126.

Decentering Globalization
Abdelaziz El Amrani
ASCA, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Abstract
After the bombardment of the Twin Towers in September 2001, the hallmarks of Western
capitalism, a great number of critics have sought to re-define and re-negotiate the issue of
globalization. Many others, however, have predicted the end of globalization. This paper,
then, seeks to delve into the complex, contentious and ongoing debate on globalization and its
position in the post-9/11 world order. It also aims to address the impact of contemporary
globalization on culture, identity, geography and nation-state as well as the relationship
between the global and the local.
Keywords: Globalization, localization, homogenization, Westernization, hybridization,

culture, identity, geography, nation-state, 9/11

The dynamics of Globalization
The present article is not only concerned with mapping the many claims and
counterclaims that have been made about globalization, but it also demonstrates the fact that
globalization was and still is a thoroughly contested subject. Talk of globalization has become
rife among academics, journalists, politicians, business people, advertisers, and so on. Interest
in globalization and its theoretical and empirical impacts was at its peak in the 1990s amidst a
flurry of intellectual debate and enthusiasm regarding a new internationalism. Globalization
can be described as a realty which overwhelms and engulfs the rest of world. Roland
Robertson, one of the most prominent theorists of globalization, has defined globalization as a
growth in the scope and depth of consciousness of the world as a single place. 1 Robertson
uses globalization to refer both to the compression of the world and the intensification of
consciousness of the world as a whole. In other words, Robertson has focused on the way our
consciousness of the world and our sense of place in the world have changed. Globalization,
according to Robertson, is not only about structures, institutions, and networks, but also about
the ways in which we think of social life and our place within it. In a similar vein, David
Morely and Kevin Robins assert that globalization is about the compression of time and
space horizons and the creation of a world of instantaneity and depthlessness. 2 This means
that as globalization expands and intensifies, remote and local communications become
instantaneous increasing sense of global interconnectedness and simultaneity of experience.
Tellingly, for some scholars, globalization is seen negatively and at times almost
demonically, as the dominance of Western economic and cultural interests over the rest of the
world. Globalization, according to them, brings about a worldwide cultural synchronization
and therefore it is considered as a particular type of universalization trampling on and
destroying local cultures and communities. Globalization understood in this way is often
interpreted as colonization, Americanization, or westoxification, to use Ali Ahmads term.3
In his book Narration, Navigation, and Colonialism, Jamal Eddine Benhayoun claims that
globalization ][ is a Western project, and its implementation is conducted not
through universal suffrage but in the total exclusion of non-western opinions. It is a
system of exclusion, and as a system, it is designed to manage and exploit the world
against the will of the majority of its inhabitants. Globalization is almost a
euphemistic expression for imperialism, another complex and ambivalent system
that also homogenises histories and centralises governance though not all the time
militarily ][ Also, like imperialism, globalization presents itself as a system of
rational and liberal practices, as an ideal world order outside of which reign chaos
and backwardness.4
Globalization, in this sense, imposes western and American meanings that both obliterate
older traditions and restrict the development of new alternatives. So, talk of globalization is a
hegemonic discourse, and an ideology of supposed progress that masks far-reaching
subordination by the West and America in particular of the rest of the world.
1
Quoted in Jan Aart Sholte, Globalization: a Critical Introduction (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p.
267.
2
David Morely and Kevin Robins, Spaces of Identity Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural
Boundaries (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 115.
3
Sholte, Globalization: a Critical Introduction, p. 58.
4
Jamal Eddine Benhayoun, Narration, Navigation, and Colonialism (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006), p. 165.

However, defining globalization in terms of the expansion and dominance of Western

culture seems to be short-sighted. Such an interpretation of globalization fails to recognize the
degree to which Western culture interacts with and changes as a result of exposure to other
cultures. Although globalization may yield a greater cultural similarity among peoples, this
similarity tends to develop not through the imposition of one set of cultural values on another.
Instead, cultural similarity tends to develop through the mixing of a diversity of cultural
values, moving closer to Jan Pieterse's cultural melange than cultural hegemony. Thus,
theories of globalization have moved over the last century from expressions of the process as
cultural imperialism or neo-imperialism to analyses of the hybridization, diffusion, and
interrelationship of global societies, the compression of the world and the intensification of
the consciousness of the world as a single space.
Crucially, Craig Calhoun confirms that it is a serious mistake to see globalization

simply as the spread of capitalism and Western culture.5 To undermine the homogenizing
thesis that sees globalization as a Western project, Jonathan Friedman emphasizes that we
are witnessing an emergence of an unstable phase of de-hegemonization6, and hence it would
be wrong to say that transworld connectivity is uniquely western. Similarly, David Morely
and Kevin Robins maintain that globalization is also about the emergence of the decentred or
polycentric corporation. Global operations treat all strategic markets in the same way, with the
same attention, as the home market.7 The processes of globalization do in fact extend to the
whole world, making it quite difficult to differentiate between core and periphery.
Despite the amount of attention focused on globalization as cultural homogenization,

many analysts question whether this portrays accurately what is indeed occurring in the
world. Jan Pieterse, for example, argues that globalization, rather being viewed in terms of
standardization and uniformity, should be recognized as a process of hybridization that
gives rise to translocal mlange cultures. To view globalization as one-dimensional process
of homogenization obscures, according to Pieterse, its fluid, open-ended, and
multidimensional nature.8 Unlike the aforementioned definitions, Jan Aart Scholte defines
contemporary globalization on the basis of its supraterritoriality and deterritorialization.
He claims that definitions of globalization as internationalization, liberalization,
universalization and westernization are redundant and do not present new insight.
Refuting redundant conceptions of globalization, Sholte defines globalization as

respatialization with the spread of transplanetary social connections9, and affirms that
important new insight is provided when globalization is understood in spatial terms as the
spread of transplanetary - and in recent times more particularly surpraterritorial - connections
between people. In this regard, globalization, for Sholte, refers to the advent and spread of
what are alternately called global, transplanetary, transworld and in certain respects also
5
Craig Calhoun, Nationalism, Modernism, and their Multiplicities, In Identity, Culture, and Globalization
Eliezer Ben- Rafael and Yitzak Sternberg, eds (Leiden: International Institute of Sociology, 2001), p. 448.
6
Jonathan Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process, Identity and Global Process (London: Sage
Publications, 1994), p. 168.
7
Morely and Robins, Spaces of Identity, p. 125.
8
Cited in Sheila L. Croucher, Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing World
(Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc, 2004), p. 26.
9

supraterritorial social spaces. What is crucial is that Sholte associates contemporary

globalization with a tendency towards deterritorialization, so that social space can no longer
be wholly mapped in terms of territorial places, territorial distances and territorial borders.10
Sholtes view actually seems to be insightful in the sense that it refers to a shift in the nature
of social space and sheds light on supraterritorial relations or transplanetary social
connections that substantially transcend territorial geography. In this description of
globalization, social relations are viewed as decreasingly tied to territorial frameworks; global
phenomena extend across widely scattered locations simultaneously, diminishing the
significance of territorial distance and borders
Globalization, Geography and Nation-State
Major strands of contemporary globalization research have been permeated by

geographical concepts such as, space-time compression, space of flows, space of
places, deterritorialization, glocalization, the global-local nexus, territoriality,
supraterritoriality, diasporas, translocalities, and scapes, among many other terms.
This indicates that geography or space matters in explaining and approaching globalization.
Along these lines, Arjun Appadurai identifies five interrelated dimensions of globalization:
ethnoscapes (flows of migrants, refugees, exiles, guest workers, and tourists); technoscapes
(rapid movement of technology, high and low, informational and mechanical, across
previously impenetrable boundaries); finanscapes (flows of money via currency markets and
stock exchanges); mediascapes (flows of images and information via newspapers, magazines,
television, and film); and ideoscapes (the spread of elements of the Western enlightenment
worldview, namely, images of democracy, freedom, welfare, rights, and so forth).11 So,
national boundaries are broken down and transcended by these various global flows. In this
context of accelerated globalization and its accompanying developments in technology and
communication, geography, Robert J. Holton puts it, has been pronounced dead.12 For
example, much of todays foreign exchange, banking, etc. occur globally and with
considerable delinkage from territorial space.
Additionally, globalization entails a reconfiguration of social geography with

increased transplanetary connections between people. More people, more often, more
extensively and more intensely engage with the planetary arena as a single social place and as
a result national frontiers or boundaries are declared as porous and deterritorialized.
Following several decades of proliferating and expanding supraterritorial connections,
territoriality, Sholte ascertains, has lost its monopoly hold. Territorial domains remain very
important, but they no longer define the entire macro spatial framework.13 One of the reasons
of the relative death of geography is the fact that marketing strategies are consumer driven
instead of geography-driven.14 Accordingly, territorial distances and territorial borders, to
use Sholtes terms, do not define the whole geography of todays transplanetary flows. These
global connections often also have qualities of transworld simultaneity (that is, they extend
10
Ibid., p. 17.
11
Arjun Appadurai, Difference and Disjuncture in the Global Cultural Economy, In Theory, Culture, and
Society (Duke University Press, 1990), p. 11.
12
Robert J. Holton, Globalization and the Nation-State (London: Macmillan Press LTD, 1998), 1.
13
Sholte, Globalization: a Critical Introduction, pp. 63-64
14
Morely and Robins, Spaces of Identity, p. 110.

anywhere across the planet at the same time) and transworld instantaneity (that is, the move
anywhere on the planet in no time).15 Significantly, global relations today substantially rather
than wholly transcend territorial space. Although territoriality does not place insurmountable
constraints on supraterritoriality, global flows still have to engage with territorial locations.
The present world is globalizing, not totally globalized.16
Furthermore, globalization has exerted new pressures on the authority and autonomy
of the nation-state. What is clear is that technological and economic transformations are
surpassing the regulatory capacities of the nation-state. For example, thanks to Facebook,
Twitter, Youtube, and Myspace, the Arab peoples managed to overthrow the dictators despite
the tight censorship on the internet. Nation-States are therefore more permeable to both
internal and external influence than ever before. The integrity of the nation-state is threatened
not only by the expansionist ambitions of other states and the conflict of insurrectionary
forces within its territory, but also by the disruptive influence of transnational corporations.
There are many commentators who have declared the death of the nation-state. Benjamin
Barber, for example, assumes that Jihad and McWorld make war on the sovereign nation-
state and thus undermine the nation-states democratic institutions.17
The events of September 11, 2001, in America might vindicate the fact that the
nation-state is vulnerable to external influence. The attacks have exposed the contemporary
vulnerability of states. 9/11, in fact, shows that the worlds most powerful state is not
inviolable. For Amine Saikal, the attacks exposed US vulnerability to attacks and changed
the USAs perceptions both of itself as the worlds only secure superpower, and of the
international order it had cherished since the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet
Union.18 It is claimed that globalization is characterized by the disorder which empowers a
vast network of so-called terrorists, who have come from more than twenty different
countries and spread their organization across as many as sixty different states, to carry out
their own political or ideological ends. The 9/11 and other events display the fact that the
nation-state is no longer controlling its boundaries in the face of global flows. In certain ways,
globalization has unsettled and indeed challenged the position of the nation-state as the
predominant touchstone of collective identity in society.
Robert Holton, however, says that globalization has not yet overrun the nation-state.
Nation-states still remain resilient in the face of globalization, but he admits the fact that
identity is increasingly determined by transnational developments rather than within the
nation-state.19 More interestingly, nation-states can no longer claim to exercise tight control
15
16
Ibid., p. 70.
17
Benjamin R. Barber, Democracy and Terror in the Era of Jihad vs. McWorld, In Worlds in Collision:
Terror and the Future of Global Order, Ken Booth and Tim Dunne, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 251.
Barber is among those who have recently popularized the idea of an end to the nation-state. He writes of Jihad
as a shorthand for all the reactionary anti-modernisms and fundamentalisms of the world, and McWorld as
global economic integration (which he understands mainly in terms of the spread of Western consumer culture).
He also claims that civic identity, which is one of the components of democracy and multiculturalism, is
undermined by tow rival identities ethnic and commercial (Jihad vs. McWorld).
18
Amine Saikal, Islam and the West: Conflict or Cooperation? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 6.
19
Holton, Globalization and the Nation-State, pp. 2-7.

over the formation of identities and loyalties. The nineteenth century dream, that the nation-
state should comprise a single culture with all the people cohabiting that space sharing a
common identity, has proved to be a bloody nightmare. Phrased in different terms, the
nation-states presupposed that cultural harmony is based on uniformity and singular forms of
allegiance and they sought to make exclusive citizens and create unique cultural context.
Conversely, the mobility and complex affiliations of people today reveal that the dream of a
pure race or an identity or a culture bound to a given territory is no longer possible. People
construct their sense of identity and communities, by defining their interests in ways that
exceed the priorities of the nation-state.20 Therefore, when nations-states once coerced people
into expressing their allegiance, they are now being compelled to face the legal and social
demands of political diversity and cultural pluralism. At issue here is that a major change of
spatial structure affects society as a whole. Put precisely, the partial end of geography or
territoriality has profound impact on the formation of identity
Debating Globalization after 9/11
In the torrent of prose that has flowed through the world after the events of 9/11 one
common view was that the attacks have brought the end of globalization and the neoliberal
world order. But although the destruction of the World Trade Centre does indeed deal a
severe blow to an already-shaky global economy, it does nothing to slow down the other
processes that are creating a more richly interconnected world. In some ways, it actually has
accelerated the awareness of globalization by demonstrating the power of the communications
media to turn local events into global events that capture the attention of all people
everywhere.21 So, obituaries for globalization are highly premature. In his article History
and September 11, Francis Fukuyama states that
more than ten years, I argued that we had reached the end of history: not that
historical events would stop, but that history understood as the evolution of human
societies through different frame of government had culminated in modern liberal
democracy and market-oriented capitalism. It is my view that this hypothesis
remains correct, despite the events since September 11: modernity, as represented by
the United States and other developed democracies, will remain the dominant force
in world politics, and the institutions embodying the Wests underlying principles of
freedom and equality will continue to spread around the world. The September 11
attacks represent a desperate backlash against the modern world, which appears to
be a speeding freight train to those unwilling to get on board.22
Although the most recognized symbols of the economic and military might of the biggest
power on the planet were destroyed and damaged, Fukuyama agues that liberal democracies
and capitalism, the major foundations of globalization, will remain resilient in the face of the
so-called terrorism. Indeed, even after 9/11, cultural icons and information of all kinds still
travel freely around the world, governments are still more connected with one another than
they have ever been, and neither AIDS nor climate change has reverted to the status of a
20
Nikos Papastergiadis, The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and Hybridity,
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), pp. 83-89.
21
Walt Truett Anderson, In the Wake of 9-11, Globalization Goes On - And On (Pacific News Service, 2001).
<http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=3b51bab2996aed604b15dd8e70b0d2f9).
22
Francis Fukuyama, History and September 11, In Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global
Order, Ken Booth and Tim Dunne, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 27-28.

strictly local issue. Due to globalization, every single event can affect the whole world and
swine flue and current global financial crisis are cases in point. Put in a nutshell, globalization
is best seen as a process rather than an end-state.
Along similar lines, Noam Chomsky, a famous American linguist and critic, avers that
what happened on September 11 has virtually nothing to do with economic globalization. He
claims that we can be quite confident that it had little to do with such matters as
globalization, or economic imperialism, or cultural values, matters that are utterly
unfamiliar to Bin Laden and his associates.23 However, after 9/11, the USA and some
European states have engaged in activities that are in many ways anti-globalization in
character. American Patriot Act (Uniting and strengthening America by Providing
Approximate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) is a good example and it is
designed to shrink civil liberties. Also, after the 9/11 attacks, immigration and immigrants
have become targets of blame. Energy is immediately focused on fortifying U.S. borders,
tightening visa requirements, and monitoring and restricting the rights of immigrants in
response to the security and surveillance needs of the United States. Accordingly, all these
measures and practices have a destructive effect on the question of cultural hybridity.
Nonetheless, as a consequence of 9/11, the impetus to increase security has come

together with the enduring planning vision of a business-friendly cross-border region. The
result involves increased plans and practices of regulating the border that aim simultaneously
at easing obstacles for business traffic while strictly securitizing everyday and everything
else.24 Hence, globalization was, and still is, an irresistible social phenomenon that is
engulfing the whole world, and owing to the strong forces that currently propel globalization,
most current signs point to considerable additional increases of globality in the years to
come.25 For U.S. capital and the state, 9/11 provided a useful rationale to further U.S.
domination of the neoliberal world order through war and occupation. In the name of
spreading democracy and human rights, a country that is evacuating democracy and human
rights promises war without end. This is to say that 9/11 has signalled the rise of military and
political globalization. Equally important, the events of 9/11 could not have been planned or
executed without the existence of and widespread access to advanced technology. In brief,
9/11 has dramatized that globalization is a defining reality of our time and that the much-
celebrated flow of people, ideas, technology, media, and goods could have a downside as well
as an upside, and expensive costs as well as benefits. By any standard, September 11 was a
cataclysmic event, but it did not herald the end of globalization.
Globalization and Localization
Unlike those who see globalization as a phenomenon that excludes and destroys the
local identities and cultures, Roland Robertson affirms that it makes no good sense to define
the global as if the global excludes the local.26 He formulates the dynamic of globalization as
23
Noam Chomsky, 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001), pp. 35-77.
24
Matthew Sparke, Passports into Credit Cards, In Boundaries and belonging: States and Societies in the
Struggle to Shape Identities and Local Practices, Joel S. Migdal, ed. (Seattle: Cambridge University Press,
2004), p. 254.
25
26
Quoted in Bill Ashcroft, Post-colonial Transformation (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), p. 215.

the twofold process of the particularization of the universal and the universalization of the
particular.27 So, Robertson suggests that the term glocalization more adequately describes
the relationship between the local and the global as one of interaction and interpenetration
rather than of binary opposites. Instead of focusing on the global and the local as opposing
forces, the term glocalization is employed, Robertson argues, to capture the dialectical and
contingent interchange between local cultures and global trends.28 Stated clearly, the global
and the local interact, often to the point of drawing from each other, rather than being locked
in mortal conflict in which local difference and particularity will be obliterated by global
homogenization. On similar lines, Parekh Bhikhu says that
globalization, of course, primarily originates in and is propelled by the West, and
involves Westernizing the rest of the world ][ Non-Western ideas also travel on its
back and distort the Wests own self-understanding ways of life ][ Western
exports do not make local sense unless they are adjusted to local culture ]
[Globalization, therefore, involves localization and at least some appreciation of and
respect for cultural differences.29
Global communications, markets, etc, are often adapted to fit diverse local contexts. That is,
through glocalization, global news reports, global products, global social movements and
the like take different forms and make different impacts on local particularities. Hence, the
local and the global should not be seen as simple opposites, but the local contributes to the
character of the global. Stated concisely, neither the global nor the local ever exist in a pure
form. They are not mutually exclusive and they are instead constantly in a state of interaction.
Just as globalization can enhance the capacity for world citizenship, it can also facilitate
the maintenance and flourishing of particularistic identities and attachments. Both the fear of
the global as well as the disdain of the local are positions that neglect to take into account that,
in reality, culture is both local and global, both national and transnational, both particular and
hybrid, both native and cosmopolitan.30 Intriguingly, diasporic communities and post-colonial
world have traditionally served as a bridge between the particular and the universal. Bill
Ashcroft, in this regard, maintains that global culture becomes the object of a critical
appropriation by which the character of local identity is strengthened. The experience of the
post-colonial world shows, according to him, that change is not going to occur by futile
attempts to establish fortress societies or to abolish globalism, but rather by strategies to
transform it as global culture has been transformed by appropriation and adaptation. He
writes,
post-colonial experience demonstrates the fact that the key to the resistance of the
global by the self-determination of the local lies not in dismissal, isolation and
rejection but more often in engagement and transformation. The diffuse and
interactive process of identity formation proceeds in global terms in much the
same way as it has done in post-colonial societies, and it is the model of post-
27
Quoted in Krishnaswamy Revathi, The Criticism of Culture and the Culture of Criticism: At the Intersection
of Postcolonialism and Globalization Theory, Diacritics, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Summer, 2002), p. 113.
28
Quoted in Croucher, Globalization and Belonging, p. 26.
29
Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (United Kingdom:
Macmillan Press Ltd, 2002), p. 164.
30
Cheng, J Vincent, Inauthentic: The Anxiety over Culture and Identity (London: Rutgers University, 2004), p.
61.

colonial appropriation which is of most use in understanding the local

engagements with global culture.31
Rather than being contradictory, it is self-evident now that the global and the local are in
many ways complementary and necessary to each other rather than necessarily conflicting
social forces. From this perspective, local culture is not dismissed, despite the imbalance and
inequality in terms of power relations, at the expense of global culture. That is to say,
globalization does not mean the end of segments. It means, instead, their expansion to
worldwide proportions. Now it is the turn of African music, Thai cuisine, aboriginal painting
and so on, to be absorbed into the world market and to become cosmopolitan specificities.32
In this sense, local products and cultural practices are transposed in a comodified global scale.
All in all, the most important point that can be drawn from the present article is that in
spite of the fact that there is a huge literature on globalization, no universally endorsable
definition is available as well as there is little consensus on the precise form globalization may
take. As I have demonstrated above, globalization takes many forms including
homogenization, polarization, respatialization and hybridization. Put differently, the definition
of globalization is in motion rather than fixed and different definitions of globalization may
promote different values and interests. Building on that, there is no definitive definition of
globalization and hence globalization must be approached from various perspectives. That is,
it is best thought of as a multidimensional phenomenon involving diverse domains of activity
and interaction. Overall, globalization is not simply a new phase of Western domination of the
non-western world, as many more traditional kinds of Marxist critics represent it to be, but
also the means of new modes of resistance to the current international order.
31
Ashcroft, Post-colonial Transformation, pp. 209-14.
32
David Morely and Kevin Robins, Spaces of Identity, p. 113.

References
-Ashcroft, Bill, Post-Colonial Transformation, New York and London: Routledge, 2001.
-Appadurai, Arjun, Difference and Disjuncture in the Global Cultural Economy, In Theory,
Culture, and Society, Duke University Press, 1990.
-Barber, Benjamin R., Democracy and Terror in the Era of Jihad vs. McWorld, In Worlds in
Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order, Ken Booth and Tim Dunne, eds. Palgrave
Macmillan 2002.
-Benhayoun, Jamal Eddine, Narration, Navigation, and Colonialism: A Critical Account of

Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century English narratives of Adventure and Captivity,
Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006.
-Bhikhu, Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory,

United Kingdom: Macmillan Press Ltd, 2002.
-Calhoun, Craig, Nationalism, Modernism, and their Multiplicities, In Identity, Culture, and
Globalization, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Yitzak Sternberg, eds., Leiden: International Institute
of Sociology, 2001.
-Cheng, Vincent, J., Inauthentic: The Anxiety over Culture and Identity, London: Rutgers
University, 2004.
-Chomsky, Noam, 9-11, New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001.
-Croucher L. Sheila, Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing

World, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc, 2004.
-Friedman, Jonathan, Cultural Identity and Global Process, London: Sage Publications, 1994.
-Fukuyama, Francis, History and September 11, In Worlds in Collision: Terror and the
Future of Global Order, Ken Booth and Tim Dunne, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
-Holton, J. Robert, Globalization and the Nation-State, London: Macmillan Press LTD, 1998.
-Morely, David, and Kevin Robins, Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes
and Cultural Boundaries, London: Routledge, 1995.
-Papastergiadis, Nikos, The Turbulence of Migration: Globalization, Deterritorialization and

Hybridity, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000
-Revathi, Krishnaswamy, The Criticism of Culture and the Culture of Criticism: At the
Intersection of Postcolonialism and Globalization Theory, Diacritics, Vol. 32, No. 2
(Summer, 2002) 106-126.

-Saikal, Amine, Islam and the West: Conflict or Cooperation?, New York: Palgrave
Macmilan, 2003.
-Sholte, Jan Aart, Globalization: a Critical Introduction, New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2005.
-Sparke, Matthew, Passports into Credit Cards, In Boundaries and belonging: States and
Societies in the Struggle to Shape Identities and Local Practices, Joel, S. Migdal, ed., Seattle:
Cambridge University Press, 2004
-Walt, Truett Anderson, In the Wake of 9-11, Globalization Goes On - And On, Pacific
News Service, 2001, <news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article>.

Volume 2 Issue 2
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND
On the Issue of Ultimate Attainment in L2 Acquisition: Theoretical and Empirical Views
Hosni Mostafa El-dali

United Arab Emirates University, U.A.E
Abstract
One of the challenges for L2 acquisition research is to explain not just success with L2 but
also failure. That is, L2 researchers have wondered about why most L2 learners do not
achieve the same degree of proficiency in an L2, as they do in their L1. The major question,
then, is why variations occur in the performance of L2 learners. The present study, therefore,
addresses the debate on the causes of variability in L2 learners performance. First, it traces
the conceptual framework of such a debate and, in so doing, a multidisciplinary approach
was adopted. The purpose was to provide a thorough review on the issues pertinent to the
present issue under investigation. Second, the present study reports the results of an
experiment conducted on fifteen learners of English as an L2, enrolled in the Intensive English
programme at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. Results were obtained and conclusions were
made.
Keywords: Variability, Noticing hypothesis, L2 writing, Correction tasks

Preliminaries
Many research studies have shown that the linguistic behavior of the L2 speaker is
commonly believed to differ from that of the native speaker (Birdsong, 1992; Epstein et al,,
1998; Sorace, 2000). In this regard, Tsimpli (2006: 387) points out that the differences
between the L2 speaker and the native speaker are both qualitative and quantitative, especially
in early stages of L2 development, and involve several aspects of language. In general, the
difference between L1 and L2 learners is considered to be either a difference in the learning
mechanisms employed in the developmental process, or an (in) ability of the learners system
to successfully analyze L2 input, resulting in a non-target mental representations of the L2
grammar (White, 2003; Hawkins, 2001). As Tsimpli (2006) points out, the majority of
research on L2 variation attempts to account for the L2 data on these grounds.This notion of
variability, Tsimpli continues to argue, seems to be distinct from the notion of individual
variation or individual differences: these terms aims to describe variation among L2 learners
who have been grouped under the same level of L2 performance, on some independent
measure of evaluation (p. 387).
1. Significance of the Study
The value of investigating the notion of individual variation or individual differences,

as indicated above, lies in the fact that the degree of individual variation among L2 learners
has been used as a criterion for distinguishing first from second language development.
Research shows that child L1 learners follow a relatively uniform developmental pattern,
whereas there is a lack of uniformity in the outcome of L2 acquisition. The uniform, fast, and
effortless process of L1 development has been viewed within the innateness hypothesis for
language acquisition. On the other hand, the lack of uniformity in the outcome of L2
acquisition gives rise to alternative hypotheses and, accordingly, several possibilities have
been offered. Recent studies in L2 acquisition have raised alternative or additional possibilities
to account for variation in the performance of the L2 speaker, which are based on two
fundamental hypotheses on modern linguistic theory. The first hypothesis concerns the
competence / performance distinction in language, and the second hypothesis draws on the
new minimalist direction which generative linguistic research has adopted with Chomskys
(1995) minimalist program (Tsimpli, 2006: 388).
2. Theoretical Framework
The most fundamental change in the area of L2 acquisition in recent years has been a
shift from concern with the teacher, the textbook and the method to an interest in the learner
and the acquisition process. In this connection, Ritchie and Bhatia (1996: 23) maintain that
we stress the fact that adult L2 production at any given point in the acquisition process is
highly variable, changing systematically in a number of ways under a variety of conditions.
Variation is a key concept in all kinds of research. In linguistics, as Nunan (1996) points out,
when researchers observe systematic variations in language use, they want to identify the
linguistic and situational variables to which the linguistic variations can be attributed. These
variables might include (1) the linguistic environment; (2) sociolinguistic factors; (3) the type
of speech event; (4) the developmental stage of the learner; and (5) factors associated with the
data collection procedures. In this regard, Freeman and Long (1991: 152) also maintain that
there is, however, a host of other factors which have been offered to explain differential
success among SL learners, to explain why some acquire a SL with facility while others
struggle and only meet with limited success. These factors are native language variable; input
variable, and the individual differences that exist among second language learners (See Ellis,
R., 2006; Eskildsen, 2008). Ellis (1990: 387) writes of the variability among second language
learners as follows: The essence of a variabilist account of SLA is that the competence of the
learner is much more variable than that of the native speaker, for the simple reason that inter-
language systems are more permeable to new forms than fully formed natural languages.
Often a learner's knowledge is anomalous in the sense that she may not be sure whether form
X or Y is required in a given linguistic context. As a result, she will sometimes use one and
sometimes the other.... (a learner's competence) is inevitably variable because acquisition
involves change, and change can only occur when new forms are added to the existing
system, resulting in a stage where two (or more) forms are used for the same function.
Relatedly, the problem is how to describe the speaker's knowledge, particularly if the speaker
is a SL learner. The variationists may simply be collecting facts, without a theory to explain
them (Brown, 1996).It is widely agreed that second language learners manifest variable
control in performance. That is, whereas, on one occasion, they may produce a correct
structure, on another occasion, where the same structure, would be appropriate, they produce
a deviant structure. In this regard, Tarone (1985:35) maintains that 'the systematic variability
which is exhibited in the learner's performance on a variety of elicitation tasks actually
reflects his/her growing capability in IL, and is not just a performance phenomenon'. Tarone,
then, is claiming that variability is an inherent feature of the representation of language
knowledge among second language learners (Larsen Freeman & Cameron, 2007; Mangubhai,
2006).
3. The Purpose
This study addresses the debate on the causes of variability in L2 learners

performance. First, it traces the conceptual framework of such a debate by critically review
the research that was carried out on such an issue. In so doing, a multidisciplinary approach
was used with a view to discussing it from all its aspects. Second, this study summarizes the
results of an empirical study, conducted by the author, on speakers of English as an L2.
3.1. Experimental Methodology
3.1.1. Subjects
Fifteen subjects participated in this study. They were from a variety of language
backgrounds. There were nine females and 6 males. Two subjects were under twenty years of
age. Seven subjects were between twenty and twenty-five years old. Six subjects were over
twenty-five years of age. Three subjects had studied English in their home countries for more
than eight years. One subject had studied English in her home country for exactly eight years,
three for seven years, six for six years, one for four years, and one for five years.
Only four subjects indicated that their previous English classes gave the most attention
to writing. Emphasis on grammar was mentioned as the core of most subjects previous
English classes. None of the subjects had ever been in an English-speaking environment
before coming to the USA. Twelve had been in the USA for less than one year. Three had
been in the USA for more than a year, one of them for more than sixteen years (See Appendix
1).
3.1.2. Instruments
The instruments of this study consisted of four tasks. First, a questionnaire was
constructed to elicit information from each subject about his/her name, country, sex, age,
linguistic background, and the extent of his/her exposure to the English language. Each
subject was also asked to pinpoint the most difficult areas of grammar that always troubled
him/her when he/she wrote in English (see Appendix 1). Second, the subjects were asked to
write an essay of about two hundred words. The topic was "The Value of Learning English."
It was chosen because it was related to students' interest and not technical. In order to keep the
classroom's atmosphere as natural as possible, students' regular teachers assigned' this task as
if it were a regular class assignment. Written instructions were given to the students before
they wrote. To guarantee that every student knew what he/she should do, teachers read the
instructions and asked students to feel free to ask questions if they did not understand.
Specifically, students' attention was drawn to the necessity .of concentrating on both form and
meaning. The time allowed was forty minutes (see Appendix 2). Third, the subjects were
asked to perform on focused/unfocused correction tasks. The basis of these two tasks was the
morphosyntactic errors that appeared in each student's essay. In an unfocused correction task,
all sentences with morphosyntactic errors were provided. Each sentence contained one or
more errors from the individual's essay. Each student was told that there were grammatical
errors in the sentence and was asked to correct them. Written instructions were given to each
student. The time allowed for this task was fifteen minutes (see Appendix 3). Having done
this task, students were given written instructions on how to work on the "focused correction
task" (see Appendix 4). In the focused correction task the same sentences from the students
essay were presented. This time, the students attention was drawn to the specific errors (i.e.,
the errors were underlined). Before students started to work on this task, their regular teacher
explained the written instructions clearly and slowly. Students were asked to correct the
errors that appeared in each sentence (see Appendix 4). Fourth, each student was interviewed
to explain his/her performance in the essay, the unfocused correction task and the focused
correction task. I interviewed the students individually. The meetings were held in the
students lounge in the Department of Linguistics. Conducting the interview, with each
subject took about twenty to, thirty minutes. Every subject had the opportunity to choose the
time of the interview. However, I had to reschedule three of the meetings because there
subjects failed to keep their appointments. Subjects (13) preferred to meet in Hillman library.
During the interview, students were asked to explain why changes were made and
were probed to clarify as often as necessary. No feedback on the correctness of the changes
was given before the end of the interview. Students' explanations were tape-recorded, and
transcribed (see Appendix 5).
3.1.3.1. Data Analysis
The data analysis had a quantitative and a qualitative, interpretative part. The
quantitative part consisted of a statistical comparison of the number of errors in the
composition, unfocused correction and focused correction tasks (by means of one-way
ANOVA). First, the number of students' errors in the essay, unfocused correction and focused
correction tasks was calculated. Students' errors in the unfocused correction task were counted
as either remaining ones that were previously made in the essay (and never corrected), or new
errors. Similarly, students' errors in the focused correction task were categorized as either
remaining, or new errors. Second, the frequency distributions and descriptive statistics for
students' errors in the essay, unfocused correction and focused correction tasks, were made.
The qualitative part was an analysis of each student's conception of the grammatical rules that
were violated in order to explain any discrepancies between their performances in the tasks.
This analysis was inductive, based entirely on the individual's explanations, and aimed at
accounting for the differences between the tasks.
4. Review of Literature
4.1. The Nature of L2 Learners' Knowledge (Competence)
In recent years, the nature of competence in a language and how it is to be

distinguished from performance is an issue which has constantly resurfaced (Brown, 1996).
Knowing a second language well means knowing information similar to that of a native
speaker of a language. Given the complexity of the knowledge that must be learned, it should
be clear that the study of the acquisition of that knowledge is a highly complex field. The
following section is meant to examine the interrelated components of L2 learners' knowledge
or competence, which is considered a major reason for the variations in their performance.
The notion of competence is one of the most controversial and confusing terms in use
in the fields of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. According to Taylor (1988:148), the
confusion arises from the fact that different writers use the term in different ways. He points
out that some writers use the term to refer to something absolute whereas others appear to
mean by it something 'relative'. This latter group seems to include the idea of "ability" within
competence, thus equating it with 'proficiency'.
The clarity of the distinction drawn by Chomsky between 'knowledge' as represented

by competence and 'putting to use that knowledge' is furthermore firmly established by such
statements as the following: A person who has learned a language has acquired a system of
rules that relate sound and meaning in a certain specific way. He has, in other words, acquired
a certain competence that he puts to use in producing and understanding speech (Chomsky,
1970:184).This means that Chomsky's idea of competence has nothing to say about language
use, or about ability to use the language knowledge represented as competence, or about how
the language user makes use of his knowledge, or even about how competence is acquired.
Chomsky distinguishes two types of competence: (1) pragmatic competence, and (2)
grammatical competence (Chomsky, 1972:40).Chomsky's notion of competence demonstrate
how complex and important linguistic competence is, and, if native speakers of English have
grammatical competence by intuition, this may demonstrate how much effort second and
foreign language learners have to exert to learn English. However, grammatical competence,
as described above, is only one part of "proficiency". The other part is what has been known
as 'communicative competence'(Hymes, 1972).
4.2. L2 Learners Knowledge: Cognitive Psychologys Perspective

Greeno, Riley and Gelman (1984) have suggested a framework for characterizing
competence in cognitive tasks. They pointed out that competence has three main components:
(1) conceptual, (2) procedural, and (3) utilization competence. Conceptual competence
includes understanding of general principles of the task domain that constrain and justify
correct performance. Procedural knowledge, on the other hand, includes understanding of
general principles of action, relating actions with goals and with conditions of performance.
Stated differently, conceptual competence represents understanding of principles in a form
that enables their use in planning, whereas procedural competence refers to knowledge of
general principles involving relations of goals, actions, and requisite conditions for actions. In
this regard, Hiebert and Lefevre (1986:9) point out, "students are not fully competent in
mathematics if either kind of knowledge is deficient or if they both have been acquired but
remain separate entities". If conceptual knowledge is linked to procedures it can result in the
following: (a) Enhancing problem representations and simplifying procedural demands; (b)
Monitoring procedure selection and execution; and Promoting transfer and reducing the
number of procedures required.
4.3. L2 Learners Knowledge: Applied Linguistics View
The non-interface position has been advanced most strongly by Krashen (1982: 112).
Krashen identifies two types of linguistic knowledge in second language acquisition:
acquisition and learning. He argues that acquired knowledge and learned knowledge are
entirely separate and unrelated. In particular, he disputes the view that learned knowledge is
converted into acquired knowledge. Krashen claims that: The use of the conscious grammar
is limited. Not everyone monitors. Those who do only monitor some of the time and use the
monitor for only a sub-part of the grammar ... the effect of self-correction on accuracy is
modest. According to Krashen's Monitor Hypothesis, learning has only one function, and
that is as a monitor or editor and that learning comes into play only to make changes in the
form of our utterances, after it has been produced by the acquired system. Krashen suggests
that second-language performers can use conscious rules only when four conditions are met.
Those conditions are necessary and not sufficient; that is, a performer may not fully utilize his
conscious grammar even when all four conditions are met. These conditions are (1) sufficient
time; (2) focus on form; (3) knowing the rule, and (4) the rule needs to be simple (See
Sharwood-Smith, 2004).
The interface position has been argued from a weak and strong position. The weak
interface position was proposed by Seliger (1979) who suggests that different learners end up
with different representations of the rules they have been taught and, in turn, these rules do
not describe the internal knowledge that is called upon in natural communication (See Spada
& Lightbown, 2008). The variability position maintains that L2 learners' performance varies
according to the kind of language use that they engage in and the kind of knowledge that they
acquire. That is, different kinds of knowledge are used in different types of language
performance.
4.4. Information-Processing Approaches

Under information processing models, SLA is viewed as the development of a highly

complex skill-like the attainment of other, non-linguistic skills, such as playing chess or
mathematical problem solving (See Schmidt, R., 2001; Ellis, N., 2005).The information-
processing approach distinguishes between two types of processes: controlled and automatic.
Controlled processing requires attention and is sharply limited in capacity; automatic
processing; which does not require attention; takes up little or no processing capacity. The
learner is claimed to begin the process of acquisition of a particular aspect of the L2 by
depending heavily on controlled processing of the L2; through practice, the learner's use of
that aspect of the L2 becomes automatic. In the process of acquisition, learners shift from
concrete, novice processing to more abstract, expert style by restructuring their
representations of the relevant processes. (Ritchie & Bhatia, 1996). Another factor that may
influence performance in different tasks is the cognitive complexity of the activity the learner
is asked to perform. Ellis (1982) found that the cognitive complexity of specific tasks
influenced the success with which the L2 learners performed the tasks, and also the
complexity and accuracy of their use of language. Ellis (1986: 89) points out that the
explanation for the differential effects of tasks in inter-language performance lies in the
amount of attention the learners is able to pay to what he is saying.
Over the past two decades, researchers in the field of second language acquisition
(SLA) have become increasingly interested in concepts traditionally associated with cognitive
psychology. N. Ellis (2002: 299) points out, "We are now at a stage at which there are
important connections between SLA theory and the neuroscience of learning and memory".
The concept of attention has become especially important because of its crucial role in so
many aspects of SLA theory such as input, processing, development, variation, and
instruction. In this regard, R. Ellis (1994: 10) points out that Schmidt is one of the few
linguists who have adopted the conceptual and experimental rigours of experimental
psychology in answering questions concerning the role of consciousness in L2 acquisition.
Much of Schmidts work (1990; 1992; 1993 a, b; 1994 a, b; 1995 a, b; 2001) ties findings
from cognitive psychology into SLA theory. Reviewing the psychological literature on
consciousness has led Schmidt to propose the Noticing Hypothesis, which states that "noticing
is the necessary and sufficient condition for converting input into intake" (1990: 129). Since
then, a considerable amount of research has addressed the issue of noticing in SLA.
The noticing hypothesis seems to have been motivated by a seminal study by Schmidt
and Frota (1986), which documents the role of noticing for a beginner learning Portuguese in
Portugal over a period of 22 weeks. Their findings question the assumption that language
acquisition is a purely subconscious process (Krashen, 1982), since the learner clearly noticed
some of the grammatical structures he seemed to have acquired. Schmidt and Frota, however,
admitted that they were unable to trace much of what had been acquired to what had been
noticed. Posner and Petersen (1990) describe attention in terms of three networks: alertness,
orientation, and detection. Alertness refers to a general state of readiness to receive input.
The higher the level of alertness, the faster the speed of selecting information for processing
will be. Orienting attention to a stimulus facilitates the processing of that stimulus.
Orientation differs from alertness in that a learner might for example be ready to learn
(alertness) but not know whether to focus on form or meaning (orientation). Detection
particular features actively looking for something when you are not sure where it will appear
(Sternberg, 1996: 86).
One of the most influential attentional studies in SLA was conducted by VanPatten
(1990), who investigated the notion of attention as a limited resource. More specifically, the
study examined whether learners were able to consciously attend to both form and meaning
when processing input. Results showed that the content only and lexical groups
significantly outperformed the form and morphology groups. This led VanPatten to
conclude that it was difficult, especially for beginners, to notice content and form at the same
time. Moreover, he postulated that learners would notice meaning before form, since their
primary objective is to understand the prepositional content of utterances.
Tomlin and Villa (1994) suggest that there are four conceptions of attention in SLA.
One is that of attention as a limited capacity system. The idea being that the brain may be
presented (through the sensory system) with an overwhelming number of stimuli at any given
time, and it seems impossible to process them all. The limitations of attention refer not only
to the amount (or duration) of attention that may be given to a single stimulus but also to the
number of stimuli that may be attended to simultaneously. This leads to a second conception
of attention, namely that it constitutes a process of selection. The overwhelming amounts of
incoming stimuli force the attentional system to be selective. The third conception of
attention, involves controlled rather than automatic processing of information. The
underlying assumption here is that some tasks require more processing effort, and hence a
higher degree of attention, than others. A person may therefore perform two tasks at the same
time, especially if one requires automatic processing (low attention). By the same token, it is
more difficult to perform two tasks if both require controlled processing (high attention). The
fact that controlled processing of two simultaneous tasks is sometimes possible led
researchers to develop a fourth conception of attention, which is that it must involve a process
of coordination among competing stimuli and responses. In this process, attention must be
established, maintained, discontinued, and redirected in order to perform different actions.
According to Schmidt (1994: 179) noticing refers to the "registration [detection) of the
occurrence of a stimulus event in conscious awareness and subsequent storage in long term
memory...". Schmidt is careful to distinguish noticing from understanding, which he
defines as recognition of a general principle, rule or pattern (1995: 29). Understanding
represents a deeper level of awareness than noticing which is limited to "elements of the
surface structure of utterances in the input" rather than underlying rules (Schmidt, 2001: 5).
Stronger evidence for the facilitative role of noticing comes from a study by Jourdenais, et al.,
1995; Leow, 1997, 2000, 2001; Rosa and O'Neill, 1999; Eskildsen, 2008.
To conclude, the noticing hypothesis has served to generate important theoretical and
empirical debates in SLA. It has also provided an opportunity to integrate useful concepts
from cognitive psychology into SLA theory.
4. Results
Tables (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) present the number of students errors in the essay, unfocused
correction and focused correction tasks. (See Appendix). The statistical analysis indicates
that the condition (essay, unfocused correction, focused correction) affected the number of
errors made by students. Students made the most errors in the essay, the fewest errors in the
focused correction task. The mean number of errors in the essay is 14.2 with a standard
deviation of 6.5. The mean number of errors in the unfocused correction task is 7.6 with a
standard deviation of 2.9, while the mean number of errors in the focused correction task is
4.2 with a standard deviation of 3.1 (See Figure 1).
The results of this study demonstrate that students' errors in the essay were not just
due to carelessness or forgetfulness as some of the subjects claimed during the interview. An
examination of the performance of the subjects suggests that deficiency in their knowledge of
grammar results in inaccurate composition writing and unsuccessful correction of errors.
When asked to correct their errors, L2 learners with deficiency in conscious knowledge of
grammar seem to rely on their "feelings" about the structures of the target language. However,
since these "feelings" are based on incorrect knowledge, L2 learners tend to follow false
assumptions and, in turn, their corrections of errors are unsuccessful. In addition, they appear
to search for various ways to express the meanings of their erroneous sentences in new forms,
but many of these contain new errors. Thus, it can be concluded that relying on "feelings and
experience" (to use Subject (4)'s words), without having adequate conceptual knowledge of
grammar rules leads to unsuccessful performance, even if students' attention is drawn to their
errors. This conclusion is based on four pieces of evidence. First, many errors do not get
corrected in the unfocused correction task. An examination of the performance of the subjects
shows that none of the subjects was able to correct all his/her errors in the unfocused
correction task.
Secondly, even when the error is identified (as in the focused correction task), students
often fail to correct it. Subject (6) made twelve errors in the unfocused correction task, eleven
of which were previously made in the essay and never corrected, and only one of which was
new. Although his attention was drawn to his errors, he was unable to correct them
successfully. All he did was either leave the incorrect structures as they were or use new
structures which were also incorrect. He made twelve morpho-syntactic errors in the same
structures he had used incorrectly in the unfocused correction task. This clearly suggests that
he lacks the necessary knowledge of grammar and, consequently, drawing his attention to his
errors did not improve his performance. Likewise, Subject (1) was unable to see or correct the
errors although they were underlined for her. That is, although her attention was drawn
towards a specific grammar error, she could not correct it; instead, she tended to express the
meaning of the sentence in a different form which sometimes happened to be correct.
Moreover, because she appeared to be lacking accurate grammar knowledge, the new versions
of her erroneous sentences contain yet more grammar errors.
Third, many new errors are introduced, even when the subjects are paying attention.
Subject (1) for example, made three new errors in the unfocused correction task, and two new
errors in the focused correction task. Subject (2) made five new errors in the unfocused
correction task, and three new errors in the focused correction task. Subject (7) made six
errors in the unfocused correction task; five of them were new. Five of the nine errors made
by Subject (9) were new, and four of the five errors made by Subject (10) were also new in
the unfocused correction task. Subject (13) made six errors in the unfocused correction task,
four of which were new.

Finally, even when the subjects' errors are eliminated, it is often because students tend
to write new sentences instead of correcting them. For example, Subject (1) tended to focus
more on the semantic aspect of her sentences than on their grammatical accuracy. In other
words, she did not use grammar knowledge to correct her erroneous sentences. Instead, she
tended to use what one could call stylistic variations of those sentences, which happened to
be correct. Likewise, Subject (2) managed to reduce the number of his errors from twenty-
seven errors in the essay to thirteen in the unfocused correction task because his new
sentences were correct. Subject (11) also managed to reduce the number of his errors from
fifteen errors in the essay to eight in the unfocused correction task. She managed to correct
some of her errors in the essay by coming up with new sentences that happened to be correct.
An examination of Subject (12)s performance also shows that the decrease in the number of
errors in the unfocused and the focused correction tasks is due to the fact that she tended to
change the whole sentence in such a way that avoided the structures she previously used in
the essay. She made eleven errors in the essay, four in the unfocused correction task, and three
in the focused correction task. Subject (8) clearly stated that she was relying on making new
sentences rather than correcting the already written erroneous sentences:
S.281. See. the sentence is not good...the meaning...I have to change it, all of
it...it is not clear...so I changed the words. I didnt make attention for grammar...I
want this sentence to mean anything.
To sum up, this study shows that the students unsuccessful performance in the essays
was due to their fragmentary knowledge of grammar. No matter how attentive L2 learners are
in performing language tasks, their performance in error correction tasks will be unsuccessful
as long as their knowledge of grammar is fragmentary. Analyzing the subjects performance
in essay writing and two correction tasks support the general hypothesis of the present study:
the subjects performance in the tasks displayed various degrees of competence in English.
That is, the overall competence of L2 learners is not systematic or unitary all the way. This
implies that a good student in solving grammar problems is not necessarily good at writing.
Also, successful performance, either in writing or grammar tasks does not necessarily
guarantee successful and accurate verbal explanations on students part. Moreover, the results
of the present study support the hypotheses that students performance in the correction tasks
would be better than that in the writing task. And, their performance in the focused correction
task would be better than that in the unfocused correction task. Relatedly, students poor
performance in writing, at least at the sentential level, is mainly due to a deficiency in their
knowledge of grammar.
Accordingly, interpreting the subjects behavior in the writing and the error correction
tasks seems to support the non-interface position introduced earlier in the review of literature.
Consequently, it would be a mistake to judge L2 learners knowledge on the basis of their
performance, since both knowledge (competence) and performance are unrelated. One can
argue, then, that successful performance does not necessarily mean coherent and complete
linguistic knowledge, and vice versa. Relatedly, although linguistic knowledge appears, in
some situations, to be a factor in determining the type of performance, it can not be concluded
that it is a prerequisite to successful performance. Regarding error correction, the non-
interface position predicts that linguistic knowledge can help L2 learners to make changes in
their linguistic output. The results of the present study, partially, support such a prediction.

However, in some cases, L2 learners may not be able to use their linguistic knowledge in
making successful changes.
In addition to the above analysis, another interpretation can be provided, which is

based on cognitive psychologys perspective. That is, in addition to the deficiency in
grammar knowledge as a reason for students' inaccurate composition writing, there is another
possible reason that makes these students commit many morpho-syntactic errors in writing
such as the many constraints that writing in a foreign language imposes on foreign language
learners and deficiency in students' abilities to transfer their knowledge of grammar to
complex tasks such as writing. It can be argued that composing in English as a second
language is a multidimensional activity which requires L2 learners to do more than one thing
simultaneously. This argument is compatible with the principles of the attention theory. Two
important features within the phenomenon of attention have been identified: 1) an individual
can attend to only one thing at a time or think only one thought at a time; 2) attention appears
to be serial, and we find it very difficult to mix certain activities, that is, the focus of attention
is only on one place at one time. Our ability to attend to several sources of information
simultaneously is severely restricted. Consequently, a human who must process information
that exceeds his channel capacity will inevitably make errors.
This study, then, supports the claim that second language learner has difficulty in
attending to both form and content in the input. In other words, the attentional resources are
limited and therefore it is difficult to understand the content of input when the attention is
allocated to a certain form in the input. This can serve as evidence supporting such theoretical
and pedagogical proposals as consciousness-raising, input enhancement, and focus on form.
They all start with the common assumptions that (1) a focus on meaning is necessary with a
sufficient amount of input; (2) a certain level of conscious attention to form is also necessary;
(3) it is difficult, however, to pay attention to form while processing input for meaning; and
(4) therefore some sort of encouragement to attend to form is helpful and facilitative for SLA.
The present study, then, provides some evidence for Assumption 3; simultaneous attention to
form and meaning is difficult. Furthermore, these studies favor focus on form. VanPatten
(1990: 295) suggests that "if attention to form needs to be conscious at some point, then the
input must be easily comprehended". Therefore the learner is able to allocate most of the
attentional resources to the form on the spot, which will facilitate the processing and
acquisition of that form.
This study shows that although noticing or conscious awareness may have some
positive effect on L2 learners performance; this effect, however, is constrained by two
important factors: (1) learners' overall linguistic competence, and (2) the nature of the task;
that is, whether it requires controlled or automatic processing of information. These two
factors determine the amount of attention and degree of coordination on the part of L2learners.
In this sense, this study does not exclusively support Schmidt's Noticing Hypothesis. Rather,
it supports the claim that Noticing is necessary but not sufficient condition for convening
input into intake. As a whole, this study supports the claim that L2 learners have difficulty in
attending to both form and content in the input. This is why conscious awareness or
Noticing is not sufficient condition for converting input into intake.

The subjects performance in essay writing can be analyzed in the light of what
Divided attention phenomenon maintains. To remind the reader, research on this
phenomenon shows that, at certain times, the attentional system must coordinate a search for
the simultaneous presence of two or more features. To put it simply, the attentional system
must perform two or more discrete tasks at the same time. In such a case, the speed and
accuracy of simultaneous performance of two activities was quite poor (Spleke, Hirst, and
Neisser, 1976). Relatedly, it was, also hypothesized that the performance of multiple tasks
was based on skill (due to practice), not on special cognitive mechanisms (Neisser & Becklen,
1975).
In divided attention tasks, the subjects are asked to spread attention over as many
stimuli, as possible. In this regard, Shiffrin (1988:34) points out that, as a general rule,
subjects find it extremely difficult to divide attention. When there are more tasks to be carried
out, more stimuli to be attended.. Performance is reduced. Many studies show that
subjects exhibit reduced performance when they try to accomplish simultaneously an
increased number of tasks or to attend simultaneously to an increased number of stimuli.
These are studies of divided attention deficits. Also, much research in attention assumes that
there is a limited pool of attentional resources or capacity that can be distributed across tasks.
For example, according to simple capacity models, if the subject has 100 units of capacity and
is required to perform two tasks each requiring 75 units, performance should decline when
shifting from performing the tasks individually to performing them simultaneously.
Subjects performance in the two correction tasks reflects what Selective Attention
phenomenon maintains. In these tasks, subjects relatively attend to a certain stimuli or
aspects of stimuli, in preference to others. As Kahneman (1973) and Schneider et al. (1984)
point out, this concept presupposes that there is some capacity limitation, or some bottleneck
in the processing system; however, subjects have the ability to pass through this bottleneck
and at the expense of other stimuli, by giving performance to certain stimuli. In the present
study, subjects gave preference to form only at the expense of meaning; and their major
focus was on correcting the errors they previously made in essay writing. What is worth
mentioning, here, is that some students were able to correct only some of their errors, but not
all errors. And, the number of the corrected errors differed from one subject to another. In
this regard, it can be argued that selectivity is the result of capacity limits of the subjects
information-processing system; and these limits are relative, and they depended on the type of
activity itself. Students performance in the correction tasks was better than that in the essay
writing. And, more specifically, their performance in the focused correction task was better
than their performance in the unfocused correction task. This observation can be explained
in the light of the four varieties of selective attention: (1) detection; (2) filtering; (3) search,
and (4) resource attention.
First, as a result of selective attention, the subjects ability to detect the errors
increased. That is, their ability to notice what is missing or incorrect in the sentence they
previously wrote in the essay has been improved. It must be emphasized, however, that this
ability depends on the observers sensitivity and his ability to respond. Second, the subjects
ability of filtering has been improved; that is, they were able to select, analyze deeply, and
concentrate on a particular item and exclude others. Third, as a result of noticing deep
analysis, and concentration, the subjects search mechanisms have become automatic. In this
regard, Cave and Wolfes (1990) theory of guided search seems to be quite pertinent. To
remind the reader, the guided-search model suggests that search involves two consecutive
stages: (1) Parallel stage, in which the individual simultaneously activates a mental
representation of all the potential targets, and (2) Serial stage, in which the individual
sequentially evaluates each of the activated elements, according to the degree of activation,
and then chooses the true targets from the activated elements. In focused attention tasks, the
subjects attempt to place all available attention on just one stimulus, ignoring and / or
excluding all other inputs (Lanfer & Girsai, 2008).
5. Discussion
From a linguistic point of view, the results of this study demonstrate that deficiency in
students knowledge of grammar results in inaccurate composition writing and unsuccessful
correction of errors. When asked to correct their errors, L2 learners with deficiency in
conscious knowledge of grammar seem to rely on their feelings about the structures of the
target language. However, since these feelings seem to be based on incorrect knowledge, L2
learners tend to follow false assumptions and, in turn, their corrections of errors are
unsuccessful. This conclusion is based on four pieces of evidence. First, many errors do not
get corrected in the unfocused correction task. An examination of the performance of the
subjects shows that none of the subjects was able to correct his/her errors in the unfocused
correction task. Second, even when the error is identified (as in the focused correction task),
students often fail to correct it. Third, many new errors are introduced, even when the
subjects are paying attention. Finally, even when the subjects errors are eliminated, it is
often because students tend to write new sentences instead of correcting them.
This study, also, presents strong support for the claim that it is difficult, especially for
beginners, to notice content and form at the same time. Also, this study provides further
evidence for the facilitative role of increased attention in improving L2 learners performance.
This implies that our students failure to perform on language tasks may be due, sometimes, to
cognitive deficiency; rather than linguistic one. And, in broad terms, language acquisition
may not be fully understood without addressing the interaction between language and
cognition. Therefore, further research is needed in this area, at least, to know how our
students think and how to teach them to think strategically.
The results of this study show that the existence of knowledge is not sufficient to
distinguish skilled or fluent performance from less skilled. Through practice and experience
the learner must gain easy access to knowledge. Cognitive psychologists describe this
difference in access as automatic or not automatic or controlled. In other words,
foreign language learners may appear to have the necessary knowledge to make correct
responses; however, they are unable to display this knowledge in multi-dimensional tasks. In
such tasks, learners are required to do more than one thing simultaneously. This argument is
compatible with the principles of the attention theory.
Moreover, L2 learners may appear to have the necessary knowledge to make correct
responses; however, they are unable to transfer this knowledge while writing; listening to
spoken English; reading written texts, and solving certain types of grammatical problems. So,
knowledge of the correct principles do not guarantee correct performance. Principles specify
characteristics that a correct performance must possess, but they do not provide recipes for
generating a plan for correct performance. Nor do they guarantee correct execution of plan.
Accordingly, in thinking about foreign language learners performance as an object of study,
the essence of the underlying knowledge that accounts for their performance must be
examined. This examination of the learners underlying knowledge will in turn uncover the
basis for the strategies they use in solving language problems. In the light of the subjects
performance, one can argue that deficiency in the subject's declarative knowledge may result
in (1) failure to detect the erroneous item that must be corrected for the sentence to be correct;
(2) failure to decide whether the sentence is correct or incorrect; and, in most cases, the
sentence seems grammatically correct although it violates a certain invisible grammatical rule.
In addition, because there was no link between declarative and procedural knowledge, many
subjects failed to correct the item they identified as erroneous, or provide accurate
rationalizations for their performance. Therefore, examining the relationships between
declarative and procedural knowledge is a worthwhile pursuit since students often fail to
recognize or construct these relationships, and, sometimes are able to reach correct answers
for problems they do not really understand. Therefore, it seems that the best way for effective
classroom instruction and for improving our students performance is to link conceptual with
procedural. Such a link has many advantages for acquiring and using procedural knowledge.
These advantages are: (A) Enhancing problem representations and simplifying procedural
demands. (B) Monitoring procedure selection and execution. (C) Promoting transfer and
reducing the number of procedures required. Moreover, linking conceptual knowledge and
procedural knowledge has benefits for conceptual knowledge. Problems for which no routine
procedures are available are solved initially by facts and concepts in an effortful and laborious
way. As similar problems are solved repeatedly, conceptual knowledge is gradually
transformed into set routines (condition-action pairs) for solving the problem. The condition-
action pairs constitute the basic elements of the procedural system (Hiebert & Lefevre, 1986).
Thus knowledge that is initially conceptual can he converted to knowledge that is procedural.
In addition, procedures can facilitate the application of conceptual knowledge because highly
routinized procedures can reduce the mental effort required in solving a problem and by
making possible the solution of complex tasks.
6. Pedagogical Implications
In the light of the results of the present study, classroom teachers should concentrate
on both domain-specific and meta-cognitive knowledge. Instruction should be designed to
facilitate students' construction of knowledge bases that are structured in terms of higher-
order principles. These knowledge structures should include not only declarative knowledge
of principles, but also procedural knowledge of them; that is, knowledge of how to use the
principles to solve problems. The structures should include knowledge of the conditions of the
applicability of the principles, a specification of the kinds of problems to which they should
be applied. In addition, instruction should be designed to explicitly assist students in acquiring
meta-cognitive knowledge of how to plan their problem-solving efforts, how to set goals
and sub-goals or these efforts, and how to monitor their progress towards their goals. In
Schoenfeld's (1985) terms, instruction needs to foster the acquisition of the "basics" of a
domain, domain-relevant problem-solving strategies or heuristics, and meta-domain
understanding or "sense-making.

It should be borne in mind that unsuccessful performance is not the only problem that
classroom teachers are facing. That is, when the unsuccessful performance is systematic, it
may be easier for teachers to remedy the problem by working on a specific problem. This can
be done for example, by providing students with what they are lacking with a lot of practice
students may be able to catch the correct structures. The problem, however, becomes worse
when student's performance becomes unsystematically incorrect. In such a case, it would be
difficult for classroom teachers to pinpoint the exact problems these students are facing.
Accordingly, although all language teachers want their students to perform successfully, no
one can guarantee systematic successful performance on students' part. If this is the case,
classroom teachers need to consider two things: first, second language learners' competence
in a second language is developmental process and, accordingly, their errors are natural
phenomena. In this way, I think we can end this fruitless debate on what is "learning" and
what is "acquisition" (Krashen, 1982). Second, as long as errors are not considered a stigma,
classroom teachers should direct their efforts towards "systematic performance. "Systematic
performance can be either successful, a high level of classroom instruction, or unsuccessful
which we must naturally expect and accept. The first step towards helping students perform
on language tasks successfully and systematically is to systematicize their erroneous
performance. To do that, both teachers and students should cooperate to pinpoint the
following: 1) The major problems that students believe to be problematic for them. This can
be done by using questionnaires at the beginning of the term; 2) Teachers, then, can design
tasks that test students' level of performance in the areas they previously claimed to be
problematic;3) These tasks must be presented in a chronic form, that is, they should range
from simple, complex and more complex tasks;4) By now, teachers and students must
examine together the latter's performance in all these tasks to see whether students
previous claims are correct or not, and to see whether other areas of the target
language structure are problematic and students themselves do not know;5) After having
an idea about the major problems, teachers should work hand-in-hand with their
students to eliminate these problems. It must be borne in mind that this process is not an
easy one or has a specific end. Rather, it is tedious and requires continuous and close
relationship between classroom teachers and their students. Teachers need to be enthusiastic,
flexible and ready to work closely with their students as advisors not as authoritative figures.
Learners, on the other hand, need to be motivated, extrovert and ready to take risks.

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APPENDIX 1
Name:
Country:
Sex: Male: ___ Female: ___
To: Students in the Advanced Level.
Please answer the following questions by placing an X on the line where indicated.
1. How old are you?

____ (A) Under 20
____ (B) Between 20 and 25
____ (C) Over 25
2. How long did you study English in your country?

____ (A) 6 Years
____ (B) 7 Years
____ (C) 8 Years
____ (D) More than8 years
3. What did your previous English classes give most attention to (Please number in order
of importance, #1 being most important etc.)
____ Listening
____ Reading
____ Writing
____ Grammar
____ Vocabulary
____ Speaking/Pronunciation
4. Had you ever been in an English speaking environment before coming to the United
States?
____ (A) Yes
____ (B) No
5. If yes, for how long?
____ (A) Less than 6 months
____ (B) Between 6 months and 1 Year
____ (C) Between 1and2 Years
____ (D) More than 2 Years
6. How long have you been in the United States?

____ (A) Less than 1 Year
____ (B) 1-2 Years
____ (C) More than 2 Years
7. In your view, what areas of grammar trouble you most?

APPENDIX 2
FREE COMPOSITION
Please, write an essay of about 200 words on: "The Value of Learning English"
INSTRUCTIONS
Please write in ink
Pay attention to the grammar and meaning of your sentences
You have forty minutes to write the essay
Your name is: ________________________
Now, begin.
APPENDIX 3
Correction Task (1)
INSTRUCTIONS
The sentences used in this task are taken from your essays on "The Value of Learning
English." Each sentence contains grammatical errors. Read each sentence carefully and
correct what you think is wrong.
APPENDIX 4
Correction Task (2)
INSTRUCTIONS
The sentences used in this task are taken from your essays on "The Value of Learning
English." Each sentence contains grammatical errors. These errors are underlined. Read each
sentence carefully and correct what is underlined. You have 15 minutes to complete this task.

16
14,2
14
12
10
7,6
8
6
4,2
4
0
Essay Unfocused Focused
Condition
Figure (1): Plot of mean number of errors under the three conditions (the essay, the unfocused
correction and the focused correction task).
Table (1): Distribution of the subjects according to their countries.
Country Number of
s
u
b
j
e
c
t
s
Japan 5
Taiwan 4
Malaysia 1
Turkey 1
Indonesia 1
Brazil 1
Saudi 1
A
r
a
b
i
a
Korea 1
Table (2). Number of students errors in the essay unfocused correction and focused
correction tasks.
Unfocused Correction Focused Correction

Subject Essay From From
Remaining New Total Total
Remaining New
1 8 4 3 7 1 2 3
2 27 8 5 13 1 3 4
3 9 3 1 4 0 0 0
4 18 7 4 11 0 4 4
5 23 7 1 8 3 2 5
6 17 11 1 12 12 0 12
7 9 1 5 6 3 0 3
8 12 6 0 6 0 2 2
9 12 4 5 9 2 1 3
10 7 1 4 5 0 0 0
11 15 8 0 8 6 2 8
12 11 2 2 4 2 1 3
13 9 2 4 6 6 1 7
14 11 5 0 5 3 1 4
15 25 8 2 10 3 2 5
Table (3). The mean standard deviation and other measures of central tendency of subjects
errors in the essay.
Mean 14.200 Std err 1.665

Median 12.000
Mode 9.000 Stddev 6.450
Variance 41.600
Kurtosis -0.383 S P kurt 1.121
Skewness 0 .920
S F Skew 0.580 Range 20.000
Minimum 7.000
Maximum 27.000 Sum 213.000
Table (4). The mean, standard deviation and other measures of central tendency of subjects
errors in the unfocused correction task.


Median 7.000
Variance 8.257
Kurtosis -0.799 S P Kurt 1.121
Skewness 0.548
Minimum 4.000
Maximum 13.000 Sum 114.000
Table (5). The mean, standard deviation and other measures of central tendency of
subjects errors in the focused correction task.

Median 4.000
Variance 9.314
Kurtosis 2.091 S P Kurt 1.121
Skewness 1.121
Minimum 0.000
Maximum 12.000 Sum 63.000
Table (6). ANOVA Summary Table.
Source SS D.F MS P
Type of task 775.60 2 387.80 35.53*
Error 305.73 28 10.92
* p <0.001

Twins: Similarities, differences and individuality
Garro Maria
University of Palermo, Italy
Salerno Alessandra
Cirami Federica
Abstract
This study aims at investigating the self-differentiating perceptions and the separation-
individuations process in emerging adulthood twins. A group of 40 Italian pairs of twins (21
couples dizygotic-DZ and 19 monozygotic-MZ) aged 20-30 years, were evaluated using the
test of graphic projection Family Life Space (DSSVF) and through a specific questionnaire ad
hoc constructed for this research. The research hypothesis focuses on Zazzos test of parallel
testimony and gives empirical evidence about the capacity of MZ Twins to use more internal
resources of the couple than DZ Twins. This causes the split slowdown on identification. The
data show that there are no differences between non-bisexual MZ and DZ couple. Moreover,
there is a weaker reciprocal relation in the opposite sex DZ couple than in the others.
Keywords: Monozygotic twins, Dizygotic twins, Separation-individuation process, social

interaction, Italy

Introduction
The emotional bond that unites the brothers is sometimes able to survive over time but
it is often complicated and ambivalent. Moreover, this kind of relationship is characterized by
intense feelings sometimes in conflict with each other. This factor does not concern only the
question about rivalry to winning the affection and attention of their parents, but also because
the brothers are important parts of their emotional life (Rustin, 2010). In Addition, this
relationship requires special attention in the case of twins, because they are siblings who have
shared the uterus and that society persists in identifying two identical beings, underestimating
the peculiarities of the individual. Stories, stereotypes, legends have in fact always surrounded
the mystery of the twin pairs, as well as expectations of the intentions, magical creations of
private languages and fantasies of having another individual self (Bank & Kahn, 1982;
Schwiebert, 2005). Therefore, the intense closeness of the twins implies advantages and
obstacles. The twin is able whether to provide protection against loneliness and comforting
before the developmental tasks (Inspector, 2002), or to affect social relationships due to an
excessive twining that can be characterized by a frequent use of the so-called "twin-
language". This issue causes a slowdown in the development of appropriate communication
skills, or even a possible delay of identification that it is often encouraged by the attitude of
the parents who enhance the identity of the couple (Engel, 1975; Zazzo, 1976; Schave, &
Ciriello, 1983; Stanton, Thorpe, Thompson and Danby, 2012). The hyper-adaptation to be
considered as twins urges them to understand that the physical separation of the unborn,
which is realized at the births time, does not coincide with the psychological that can be
realized after many years and, in some cases, may not be completed at all (Zazzo, 1960a ).
2. Monozygotic, dizygotic and Separation-Individuation process
Zazzo (1960b, 1987) identified, at an early stage of twins life, the existence of a state
of fusion similar to what is created between the mother-child pair (Mahler, 1968). According
to him, in particular, the condition can be detected through the indifference of the child
towards incentive outcomes and through the inability to recognize the source of fulfillment of
the intimate impulses. Concerning this issue, in the twins relationship before the egos
affirmation, there is the we affirmation, preceded by a nebula consisting of a universe of
needs, desires and sensations, where the individual recognizes badly what "comes from him
and what comes from the outside world" (Zazzo, 1960b, 58). A dyad perceived in the
childhood, both in the case of the mother-child pair and the twins pair, as all-powerful and
able to provide for any need.
However, the strong symmetry presented in the twin relationship is likely to become
"the initial symbiosis as a sort of circle, closed in itself" (Zazzo, 1987 18); a merger
sometimes destined to live a long time because, as Oliverio Ferraris states (1988), it is likely
that the twin lives in a disturbed relationship with their mother, since this relationship is
mediated constantly by the presence of the co-twin. Moreover, in this symbiosis "it can be
realized a process of projective and introjective identification with the good and bad aspects
of the co-twin that is recognized as a source of satisfaction and gratification" (Millet, 1995:
58). Otherwise, it is possible that the child having to acquire the concept of separation from
the mother only through a dramatic process, can interpret the presence of the co-twin as a
means through which to escape from the psychological birth or as an excuse to prolong the
period of infancy, getting lost in the symbiosis twin (ibid.). The inevitable frustrations that
prevail throughout the oedipal period enhance the inter-twin relations, because the proximity
of the co-twin, good substitute of parents disappointing, relieves pain and anxiety generated
by the process of separation from the parent (Joseph, 1961; Joseph, & Tabor, 1961).
Therefore, the self-reference of the twins can create the basis for a closure to the outside
world, something of an anomaly in relation to the normal processes of social regulation
(Stewart, 2000); a splendid isolation that can incite the protagonists to create a special
language called "autonomous" (Luria & Judovich, 1956) or "cryptophasy" (Zazzo, 1960b). It
is a kind of secret language without correct syntactic forms and incomprehensible to those
that do not belong to the couple (Wallace, 1989). Zazzo (1960b) identifies cryptophasy as a
negative effect of the interaction of the twins, as it represents a real threat of closure to the
social world. However, it is a form of communication which varies depending on the family
structure. In the presence of other siblings, in fact, the twins tend to avoid their isolation
(ibid.). Moreover, the family structure is important for those individuals, who belong to a
small household, because they are the only beneficiaries of verbal attention of adults and this
fact allows them a rapid language development (Oliverio Ferraris, 1988; Haworth, Davis and
Plomin , 2012).
Different is the case of the twins, then they "urge" parents to contact them in a less
direct way, with a reduced quantity of interactions compared to that realized with a single-
born child. In this regard, Sandbank (1994) states that mothers often do not look at the twins
in the face, rather they look at a fixed point between the two (ibid., 75). Added to this, there is
the custom to leave the twins playing and communicate with each other. Although the twins
are not totally isolated from the outside world, this behavior limits their ability to make
progress in the use of language, because they learn and repeat each other's mistakes (Zazzo,
1987). This causes the risk of a developmental delay of social language. These dynamics,
also, induce to a delayed psychological separation, for example, noticed by the inability of
children to distinguish the self from the other (Zazzo, 1987). Thus, the plural form is used in
different ways from the singular form that is particularly present in monozygotic twins, due
to the strong similarity that cannot stand out from the co-twin. All this contributes to provoke
the initial confusion about the twins and to accentuate the feelings of depersonalization that
can be experienced even when their relatives and strangers addressing to them use the
definition of "twins", avoiding to mention their names, thus remarking the couple-identity. In
this regard, Zazzo (1987) claims that this does not exist without a distribution of roles, that is
why he defines the twins as "gang in miniature" because of its autonomy. Moreover, referring
to von Bracken (1934), Zazzo noted that the two major functions are the "management of
private affairs" and the representation of the couple outside. Hence, the heritage of the name
"Foreign Ministry" and "Home Office" was originated. It is a division that can remain stable
over time or vary with age or circumstances, or even cannot be realized, because both
functions are performed by the same twin (Oliverio Ferraris, 1988: 43). Thus, the division of
roles allows the twins to fluctuate by a close mutual identification to an exaggerated
independence.
Furthermore, it is not so easy to emancipate themselves from their co-twin

(Cuhadaroglu, Cetin, Akdemir, & Akgul, 2012). Before that happens, it is necessary that the
individual must construct their own mental image through the recognition of the self in the
mirror. In the case of the monozygotic, it is not that simple because of the confusion that they
make in recognizing their own images vis-a-vis the image of the other. That depends too on
the awareness about one's body schema. For this reason, if one asks a twin to show a specific
part of their body, he/she will indicate the corresponding part in the twins body, because of
the physical resemblance. The conquest of one's identity from the so-called "over-couple"
(Zazzo, 1977) can also present great obstacles because of parental attitudes translated to the
inter-twin and capable of reducing the psychological differences of the parents of the twins.
This limit is expressed through the attitude of giving the children similar names or enrolling
them at the same class. The parents could be encouraged in the praxis of identification toward
using an identical clothing for the twin like uniforms and overalls. This attitude gives features
that they do not belong to the individual, filing all sorts of individual differences. The need of
a differentiation from the twin can be achieved in a progressive manner. For example, through
several attempts of separation, such as the choice of different friends, different models outside
the family, in other words, or in simple words through the abandonment of old behaviors.
These last possibilities are not provided in the case of low self-confidence. In fact, on the
contrary, it can encourage the individual twin hanging on to a shared identity, with the
intention of ensuring in the friendship group, for example, a place just like twins (Sandbank,
1994 191-192; Metneki, Domonkos Tarnoki, Tarnoki, Littvay, & Czeizel, 2011). At least, the
presence of the co-twin, firstly perceived as a source of security, may appear as dangerous
because it can obstruct their change (Oliverio Ferraris, 1988; Luck, Goldner and Knafo,
2010).
3. Method
3.1 Aims and Hypotheses
The survey refers to the use of parallel testimonies related to the theory of Zazzo, that
is, the judgment that the twins formulate on their own pair. Hence, the aim to deepen the
knowledge about the process of separation-individuation and attitudes of family members
regarding the twins originates. In particular, taking into account zygotic variables, age, sex,
and the presence of other siblings, we expect to make greater use of the MZ compared to DZ,
internal resources of the couple in according to the literature that identifies the attitude of the
parents, the culture of reference, a strong contribution to the reinforcement of the positive
aspects of identification in the couple and, at the same time, the risk of choking a natural
rivalry (Leonard, 1961, Friedman, 2008).
3.2 Participants
The study has involved 40 pairs of twins - 21 dizygotic (DZ) and 19 monozygotic
(MZ) from the city of Palermo (Sicily), aged between 20 and 30 years (M = 25), with high
school and graduated educations level. The same participants have voluntarily taken part in
the study and with a guarantee of anonymity.
3.3 Instruments
In this research, we employed the technique of graphic and symbolic Family Life
Space (DSSVF-Mostwin, 1980) and a questionnaire ad hoc constructed for this purpose. The
first tool is a projective technique, which is affected by the Lewin's field theory, and is based
on the assumption that the behavior of an individual arises from the arrangement of
psychologically relevant facts, localized in a living space.
In DSSVF the territory is located in the circle present at the center of the sheet
provided to the subject. It represents the family and the surrounding area. The questionnaire
asks to the members of the family (or to the individual, in the cases of individual
administration) a) situate themselves; b) place people considered important among relatives,
friends and acquaintances, dead or alive; c) mark the institutions and events that have caused
particular emotional tension; finally d) specify the type of relationship that exists between
themselves and the others, using different types of traits
- (good)
------------------- (so so)
--------//--------- (poor)
------X----------- (conflicting)
Thus becomes possible to measure the degree of cohesion and consistency within the family,
the structural configuration of the family, as well as changes in time with respect to one or
more critical events.
In this study, the tool was used to investigate the type of relationship that ties the
individual subject with the co-twin, the family and the affective context; in particular about
the deliveries expected by the same, referring to the present time. The couple had to answer,
using a single sheet of paper on which appeared a single circle (attached design).
The questionnaire was filled out individually by the members of the couple in order to
get parallel testimonials (Zazzo, 1987). It consists of 34 open-ended questions through which
we have obtained information regarding the family, the nature of the relationships that bind
the twins to any other brothers and, again, the habits of the twin pair during the early stages of
the life cycle and the current stage of young adults. Therefore, the areas of investigation
concern the feelings and the dynamics within the family (relations with parents and any
siblings), understanding and experiencing of twins experience (or trends as hyper-twins-
relation (ipergemellarizzanti) or de-twins-relation (degemellizzanti), parents' sharing habits,
spaces, friendships), current life (chosen course of study, profession, feelings).
3.4 Results
The DSSVF was carried out simultaneously by the couple using a single sheet. In most
cases (30 subjects) the twin, who began the drawing, has set its own symbol inside the circle.
8 subjects placed themselves on the circumference that delimits the familys area and only 2
drawn outside the circle. In MZ pairs, the first to act has often been the co-twin recognized as
"foreign minister". He / she takes the initiative because he / she is sure to enjoy the support of
the other, who is generally more thoughtful and rational. In DZ pairs, the females started first,
as shown below, it can be a decisive factor in social relations.
Although, only the first delivery had an alternate action, 5 couples have run the entire
drawing in this manner because of the left-handedness of the partner. This fact confirms the
remarking often common in twins (Zazzo, 1987).

The topological survey, related with significant relations with others (second delivery), shows
that the relations converge almost exclusively, for each twin, on three people whose order is
progressive: the co-twin, the parents (usually the mother) and the boyfriend, or in his absence
a close friend. In this way, it is obtained the presence of a tetrad which reveals valuable
information about the emotional closeness of these people, focusing on the reciprocal
influences.
Moreover, it must be underlined that in 19 drawings, each from a different MZ pairs,

both twins are present in 7 drawings (37%), half of which scored the co-twin as the first
significant person. Otherwise, there are only 10 drawings in which the co-twin does not
appear. However, in 21 drawings of the DZ pairs, the pair is present in 7 designs, where the
28% co-twin scored the third important person and 21% as before. In 12 drawings, the co-
twin does not appear. Finally, in all graphical representations, it emerges that twin
relationship is more favorite than the relation with ordinary siblings, if there are any. In fact,
brothers are not always drawn; they appear only in 9 drawings, even though they were 32
couples with siblings. However, the parents, even when dead, were represented and perceived
as pin figures. Finally, the brothers are not always considered, a significant role is attributed
to pets.
Therefore, in general the data, obtained through the administration of the two
instruments, show the existence of a special bond that is not questioned. Even when the
attempts are put in place for realizing their independence. In fact, in DSSVF the twins have
divided the available space, embellished with diverse symbols to represent the desired
elements required by the individual deliveries. However, they stress the uniqueness of their
relationship and put in the second floor the relation with ordinary brothers who in many
drawings did not find space. In addition, in their responses to the questionnaire arise the
ambivalent nature of the Twin union. Indeed, it can be perceived as a source of pride or as a
threat to identity development. Regarding to the importance of critical events, it is relevant.
When one of the twins fail the school, it is understood as a result of physical separation. In
case of parents' divorce, the parent who is considered the "cause" of the separation was not
graphically represented. Finally, the death of a family member (parent or grandparent) is
considered as well. The positive events are rather travelling, sports awards and weddings.
The represented institutions are school or college, probably because they offer the
opportunity to share more experiences. While organizations are proposed in an abundancy
because they offer opportunities for interpersonal exchange since they are mostly religious,
sportive and cultural associations.
We conclude that the type of relationship represented graphically tends to be positive

and non-confrontational, probably because the twins have spontaneously given priority to
affectively important elements (people, events, etc..).

3 4*
9 *
1* 5*
7 2*
2
1 4
6 3
7 3 5
1*
4
** 5
8 1 6 8
6*
4 2* 2
* 3 *
* 7
***
Fig. 1 MZ/MM, 20 years old. 3*
*2
LEGEND- The type of affective nature of the two boys is emphasized by the choice of
** (in white), the other (numbered) and events (numbers
symbols: all circles to score themselves
**was represented as a first important reference (1 dx and
with asterisk). For both, the co-twin
sx). The style, centrifugal and dense type, detects the presence of two psychological worlds
that share many elements and symbols. This excessive closeness has even prevented the
inclusion of the lines which indicate the quality of relationships (for the most part positive)
that combines the represented elements. In fact, this is the meaning, for which a legend has
been inserted in the original design. It is interesting 'the absence of detectable symbol through
which the natural father is depicted. Then, he is identified as a cause of marital separation.
The rich and dense nature of the twins relationship has allowed the achievement of things
such as the purchase of the bike (5*sx) and the machine (4 dx) thanks to the sharing of their
savings, or winning sports (Taekwondo) respectively 7 * sx and 6DX, achieved by mutual
emotional support.
Furthermore, at the completion of the questionnaire, it was possible to detect

significant trends regarding the issue of familys relationships. Unlike the result of Family
Life Space, they relate equal importance attached by the individual subjects to the relationship
with the co-twin and one interwoven with another brother (16% MZ and 41% DZ). In
addition, in the opinions of those involved parents have adopted the same educational styles
without creating differences between the twins and the other children (66% MZ and 58% DZ)
Then, in the remaining 34% of MZ and 42% DZ we detect some preferences manifested by
their parents or by only one of them, or by the order of ordinary parentage compared to ones
brother. Moreover, there is also the possibility that parents have received the twins as self-

sufficient, reducing the time of treatment and promoting self-reliance (twins help each other
and we almost never asked for help from parents).
A twin said: unlike my sister, MZ 26 years; I and my sister, are self-managed,

establishing the rules between each other and we were very strict if one did not respect them,
MZ 23 years old). As if the twins were able automatically to compensate the deficiencies
relationship with their parents (Valente Tower, & Testa, 2012).
Finally, some favoritism manifested by the parents against one of the twins is
highlighted (Do you think that your parents nurture particular preference for one member of
your pair twin?); a given bias, the survey by the actors involved in the survey is attributed
partially to the nature or genre of the chosen one (I'm the only female, DZ 30 years).
The area of twins features refers to the importance attributed to the presence of the
co-twin (Surely it is better to have a twin, even if Siamese, because you're never alone, I can
count on her without delay, MZ 22 years. There is a very deep complicity: we are sisters but
there is also a maternal protective feeling that unites us, MZ 22 years old); However, this
kind of relationship can create addiction, as evidenced by some research which shows that
MZ female twins are especially not only more dependents but also more submissive to the co-
twin in each age group (Trias, 2006). At the same time, in relation to the ipergemellizante
trend of the parents or of other parties discomfort is expressed, especially in relation to the
constant comparisons with each other (58% MZ and 29% DZ), (However, It bothers me
because one of us is injured , DZ 23 years, I get angry because my personality is suppressed,
MZ 29 years old); On the contrary, only 5% of 17% of MZ and DZ say that they liked the
comparison.
So 74% of MZ and 77% DZ tend to stand out, to be themselves, because he/she

recognizes the importance of individuality and the weight of excessive physical resemblance
(I want to be myself, because I have only recently been liberated from a sense of dependency
on her, DZ 24 years old). 19% of MZ and DZ 7%, want to look like the twin only in some
aspects such as the character or the performance at the university.
Therefore, from the analysis of the received responses, we understand the tendency of
the parents or of the same twins to strengthen the couple's relationship in the past years
through the continuous sharing of the bed (42% of 57% of MZ and DZ) or even difficult times
(Have you slept in the same crib or bed? Have you attended the same classes or schools?
whether yes, until what age?). A bond is reinforced by the choice of parents to enroll them in
the same class (79% of 67% of MZ and DZ), to call them by the nickname of "The Twins" or,
as is often the case, when fathers (11%) exchange names (Have never exchanged yours
names? If yes, who runs into this error?). The names, assigned at birth, play a very important
role in the process of ipergemellizzazione, capable to empowering the twins initial
confusion or feelings of depersonalization. In fact, 58% of MZ claim to be the victim of such
exchange even in adulthood because of their similar names, or phonetic similarity. This is also
the basis for the creation of secret language (cryptophasy) in their childhood. It is used by
16% of MZ and 14% of DZ, but just for fun. The limited use of this mode of communication
has been dictated by the custom of a more use of the gaze communication whose meaning is

more incomprehensible for the outsiders. The gaze of understanding that creates complicity,
or a simple gesture or a word that acts as a whole speech (28% MZ).
Some of the features identified in twins (What do you like to do with your sister? And
alone? - Before making a decision, is usually to seek the opinion of your sister?) are related to
disadvantageous aspects (It is difficult to have a private life beside a person who knows you
so well, MZ 19; with my sister I shared every minute of life, but I'm afraid of posting, 23 DZ;
you live in symbiosis and it is difficult to identify yourself within this pair or determine the
boundaries, MZ, 26 years). However, there are positive aspects as well (There's a lot of
complicity, we understand better each other because we live the same experiences related to
our same age, DZ, 24 years).
The answers to the questions provided for the division of roles report that 28% of DZ
and 48% of MZ and DZ, actually in the couple, have always held different roles (Over the
years we reversed our role .. before I was attacking and he was defender, now we are two
midfielders, DZ 29 years old). In particular, in female and male twins pairs, it is the female
that averagely seems to dominate the male, doing simultaneously both functions of the
foreign minister and the minister of the interior (she is pure energy, I often thought, 24
years DZ).
The last item of the questionnaire, which invited people to reflect on their status as a
twin (How does it feel to have a twin?). The subjects involved in the investigation have
unanimously suggested the inability of person born as single to be able to really understand
the value and uniqueness of the twin bond (I do not know consciously what I feel. I know
only that in one occasion when I lively discuss with my parents which spoke ill of my sister, I
said, "Remember he is not my brother. .. is my twin! ", 30 DZ, and 'it was as if I had split and
was coming off a person who will take my place when I'm gone, who will replace me when
the need arises (such one does not imagine.) If one has the batteries charged, one takes care of
the other, so the forces will never be lost, until it's all over, MZ, 22 years).
4. Discussion
In general, the data obtained through the administration of the two instruments show
the existence of a special bond that twins did not question even when the two brothers put in
place efforts for the realization of their independence. In fact, in DSSVF, the twins have
divided the available space, embellished with diverse symbols to represent the required
elements by the individual deliveries. Moreover, in this way, they stress the uniqueness of
their relationship and relegate to the second position the ordinary brothers who in many
designs did not find space. Then, in their responses to the questionnaire arise the ambivalent
nature of the Twin union. Indeed, it can be perceived as a source of pride or as menace to
identity development. These are behaviors put in place by monozygotic and by dizygotics
siblings of the same-sex.
The bond that twins created since intrauterine life, where they risk their own safety
because of the presence of the other (Voracek, & Haubner, 2008), is sometimes so intense.
That provokes the expulsion of an individual identity because of the strong feeling of
dependency, complicity and mutual assistance that develops over the years (Watzlawik, &
Clodius, 2011). In particular, monozygotic pairs have a very strong couple identity capable of
closing to the social space through the use of specific behavioral rules, such as the signs and
gestures that come with the intention of not being understood by strangers. The twins strive
generally against this situation in adolescence stage in which they keep standing away from
the other to emphasize their differences. A path that does not occur without obstacles, because
for the achievement of individuality, it is necessary to divide the unification of the pair and
then to find other two separate persons. This ambiguity produces intense feelings, because
strict models or extreme ways of relating may restrain the attempt to go beyond the only
known way to confront with others and redefine the relationship (Macdonald, 2002). In this
sense, it is possible to read the habit of the twins to write down, for example, one inside and
the other outside the circle. Supporting the hypothesis of the complementarities of the couple,
there is the tendency of married twins to draw themselves within the circle, as if they
underline the need to defend the status recognized within the family of origin before the
marriage.
Moreover, the choice to place themselves within the circle suggests the desire to
recreate the twin dyad. Also, the enveloping circle is perceived as capable of defending
against dangers and transmits the need of protection (Cigoli, 1992: 67). In general, the
"passive" twin groped to get away from the union of twins. Sometimes, he/she perceives the
union as a suffocating vice. However, it is an attitude that should not be understood as a
claim to independence, because if he/she escapes from the twin pair, it is even true that he/she
will form another pair with the marriage (Zazzo, 1960).
Therefore, the processes, in which family members, teachers or friends relate to the
twins, are crucial. In fact, the help of a good self-definition goes through social interactions,
linguistic messages and learning contexts where often unpleasant comparisons take place.
That involves incitement to rivalry, sometimes dictated by the twins with the intention to
highlight their differences (Benelli, 2011). The twins, physically identical, are not
psychologically identical (Zazzo, 1987 IX) ... they are uniquely individual.

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Masculinity and Male Domination in D.H Lawrences Lady Chatterleys

lover
Abdelfattah Ali Ghazel

Al Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia
Abstract
The article explores masculinity and male domination in D.H Lawrences Lady Chatterleys
Lover. It investigates what might be called gendered sexuality in the novel arguing that the
book is a celebration of masculinity. Through the cross-class liaison between the aristocratic
Constance Chatterleys and Oliver Mellors, the game keeper on her husbands estate,
Lawrence presents us with a tale of male domination and usurpation of the female subject.
The writer employs the metaphor of colonization whereby the female subject is reconnoitred,
conquered and subdued. The paper follows the working of the colonization metaphor
throughout the novel and concludes that within the context of the novel- male domination is
liberating for the female subject.
Keywords: Masculinity, male domination, colonization, conquest, female subject,

liberating

DH Lawrences Lady Chatterleys Lover is notoriously known as a tale of sensuality.

It has caused public aversion to it since its publication in 1928. Critical responses to the novel
focused on the disruptive nature of the book maintaining that it promotes promiscuity,
adultery and social anarchy. What has been glossed over, however, is the fact that the novel
is conservative sex-wise. Sexuality is gendered in the book. Gendered sexuality is an
expression I use in the paper to designate the imbalance between the male and female roles in
the sexual intercourse. This paper places considerable emphasis on male domination in love-
making, and how sex is assimilated to the act of colonization. Within this colonizing project,
the female body is discovered, reconnoitred, conquered and ultimately subjected. The
imbalance between the male and the female role in love-making is favoured by the narrator
who seems to agree with the idea of male supremacy. The paper focuses on the cross-class
liaison between Constance Chatterley, the upper class protagonist and her lover Oliver
Mellors, the gamekeeper in her husbands estate As in any colonial project, colonization is
presented as a benevolent act. It is beneficial for the colonized who learns-for the first time in
her life- to experience genuine orgasm and to assume a positive outlook at her body.
Paradoxically enough, this act of colonization is in fact liberating for the colonized. Male
domination in love-making will allow us to argue for the constructiveness of the novel and to
acquit Lawrence of any charge of obscenity, undermining the status quo or advocating
promiscuity. My discussion of sensuality and sex in LCL establishes Lawrence as a
conventional and conservative writer in the way he approaches sex. Lawrence does not
celebrate promiscuity. He believes in lifelong monogamy and never writes approvingly about
any affair that could go against it. .
Much of Lawrences concept of gendered sexuality is found in the metaphor of

exploration and conquest that extends through most of the sexual encounters. The Connie-
Mellors liaison is likened to colonization, where Mellors is the colonizer and Connie is the
colonized. This comparison is inspired by an article written by Doherty Gerald on The Art
of Appropriation: the Rhetoric of Sexuality in D.H Lawrence in which he investigates
Lawrences use of metaphor and metonymy in The Rainbow and some of his critical essays.
Lawrences use of metaphor in LCL introduces the differences between phallic and clitoral
orgasm. His use of this metaphor is largely consistent as it applies to almost all the sex scenes
in the novel. Through this metaphor, Lawrence asserts the supremacy of male eroticism over
that of the female. This is evident in the narrative and the rhetorical sympathy with the
former and the rhetorical aversion to the second. Accordingly, Lawrence can be said to be
conventional in his view of sexuality and in his choice of marriage to crown their affair. The
colonization metaphor renders Lawrence liable to criticism from a feminist point of view,
because he can be accused of perpetuating the same tradition that he sets to reject by
relegating the female to a secondary position. Albeit, the narrator turns this colonization into
a benevolent act, more to the advantage of the colonized than that of the colonizer. The
conquest of the female is paradoxically enough- liberating for her.
Before proceeding with the analysis of the metaphor of colonization in the sexual
encounters, we should first establish the theoretical background for this metaphor. It builds,
first, upon Roman Jakobsons essay Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic
Disturbance. In this essay Jakobson distinguishes two rhetorical axes of language: the
metaphoric mode and the metonymic mode. Within the metaphoric mode words substitute for
one another on the basis of similarity; and in the metonymic mode contiguity is the basis of
substitution. Jakobson maintains that these two gravitational poles command any type of
verbal narrative. He says that symbolic prose, for example privileges the metaphoric mode
since the law of similarity prevails; realistic prose, by contrast, favours metonymy since
contiguity motivates the connection. (109-12) For consistency sake, I intend to focus on the
metaphor of colonization in my investigation of this gendered sexuality. This metaphor
even if it permeates the novel- is not the only one employed by the narrator. Its relevance lies
in the way it establishes the phallic desire as an engulfing movement that invades, contains
and nourishes female sexuality. It yields sufficient evidence of female containment within
male eroticism.
Doherty Gerald is the first to apply Jakobsons modes of languages to erotic narrative
with a special reference to Lawrences The Rainbow. He manages to find the relevance of
Jakobsons binary modes in Lawrence when he writes:
At its simplest, metaphor and metonymy project two distinct approaches to sexual
choice: the selection of partners is motivated either by similarity or contiguity, their
availability for the sexual act. The mode of selection in turn determines both the
type of sexual practice involved and the disposition of roles within the sexual act.
These gender implications of Jakobsons binary rhetoric- their construction of
masculinity and femininity in erotic narratives- are the special concern of this essay.
(1)
Second, the gendered sexuality that we seek to expose is further backed up by

Margaret Homans book Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837-
1876 (Women in Culture and Society) published in 1999. She investigates the way cultural
myths at the time of Queen Victoria position women in language. She makes a significant
contribution to our understanding of the colonization metaphor in LCL. The underlying
argument behind her work is that traditional thematic of gender identifies women with the
literal level of narrative, which is then labelled feminine. By contrast, that thematic identifies
with the masculine: the language of tropes takes the literal sense as its base and then
transcends it. Culture constructs masculinity through its association with the more highly
valued figurative level (4-5) However, a further complication rises when we take into
consideration Jakobsons binary division of figurative language. Metaphor and metonymy
offer two different dynamic dimensions of desire. Each of these tropes approaches phallic
desire in its idiosyncratic way with a good deal of gender partiality. They hail the phallus as
the centre of erotic discourse, and accordingly they advocate the supremacy of the male over
the female.
LCL-in its empowerment of the male- contradicts Lawrences theory of a balanced

sexuality where both partners play similar roles. The novel presents the male as the usurper
and the female as subservient. It details the workings of phallic desire in a manifest way.
That Lawrence favours phallic over clitoral desire is seen in his use of metaphor and
metonymy. Gerald articulates the contribution of these two tropes to the promotion of phallic
desire as follows: Although they both dispose of the female as merely the object of male
aspirations and goals, each trope locates her within a specific male plot of appropriation: each
tells the story of her subjection with its own special emphasis. (2)

The working of the colonization metaphor in the novel can be seen in relation to two
female characters: Bertha Coutts, Mellors wife and Connie Chatterley. Mellors account of
his sexual life with Bertha illustrates his dominating nature in sex. In chapter 14, Connie
visits him in his cottage planning to spend the whole night with him. She finds out that
Mellors still keeps a picture of his wife. When she urges him to get rid of it and to start
divorce proceedings, he makes a flashback into his sexual history to explain to her why he had
married her. Unlike his first two lovers, Bertha has a deep sense of sensuality, and he liked
her for that. However, Bertha starts to assert herself rather aggressively as she tries to
manipulate him in sex. She holds herself back when he asks for sex in a growing desire to
control the whole sexual encounters. It was this effort to resist the male, and to assume an
active role in sex that put him off and caused their growing separateness. He ended up by
joining the army in India and leaving her altogether. He explains his hate of a resistant and
self-assertive woman in the following passage in chapter 14:
They talk about mens selfishness, but I doubt if it can ever touch a womans blind
beakishness, once shes gone that way. Like an old trull! And she couldnt help it. I
told her about it, I told her how I hated it. And shed even try. Shed try to lie still
and let me work the business. Shed try. But it was no good. She got no feeling off
it, from my working. She had to work the thing herself, grind her own coffee. And
it came back on her like a raving necessity, she had to let herself go, and tear, tear,
tear as if she had no sensation in her except in the top of her beak, the very outside
top tip that rubbed and tore. [...] we slept apart. [...] She had started having a room
for herself. But the time came when I wouldnt have her coming to my room. I
wouldnt. (222)
The colonization metaphor employed in this passage depicts clitoral orgasm as an act
of rebellion against the colonizer. Bertha subverts and resists the male instinct to possess and
subdue her body. Mellors explains her cunning manoeuvring of their sexual life laconically to
Connie But she [Bertha] treated me with insolence. And she got sos shed never have me
when I wanted her: never. Always put me off, brutal as you like. And then when shed put
me right off, and I didnt want her, shed come all lovey-dovey, and get me, and I always
went. (221) The more he describes her rise against him the more evident his chauvinism
becomes. Lawrences defence of a gendered sexuality with a bias to phallic desire finds
expression in Mellors leaving of his wife. Their growing separateness comes at a time when
the colonizer is exhausted and unable to thwart the uprising of the female. Bertha discovers
the essence of Mellors manipulation of her and learns to fight him with the same weapon.
She significantly keeps herself back till he finishes and then obliges him to wait till she gets
her own satisfaction. The result of her uprising is appalling to Mellors. He tells Connie:
But when I had her, shed never come off when I did. Never. Shed just wait. If I
kept back for half an hour, shed keep back longer. And when Id come and really
finished, then shed start on her own account, and I had to stop inside her till she
brought herself off, wriggling and shouting, shed clutch, clutch with herself down
there, an theshed come off, fair in ecstasy. And then shed say: that was lovely.
(221)
The rise of the female subject is significant not only because it happens at a moment
of weakness for the colonizer, but also because of its mocking nature. It parodies the effort of
the colonizer in subduing her, to actually undermine it. The quotation above informs us that

she starts on her own account when Mellors had exhausted himself. Another significance of
berthas uprising against Mellors is that by assuming an active role similar to that of
Mellors- she recuperates a usurped domain. She regains the domain that Mellors had
previously conquered and subdued. Her keeping back when Mellors has exhausted himself,
shows her taking over at a moment when the colonizer had reached the end of the line
(Gerald, 12)
Mellors position as a colonizer grows stronger with Connie. The female resistance
that has been detrimental to his marriage with Bertha will vanish rather early in his union with
Connie. Their union will validate Lawrences idea of the supremacy of phallic desire. It is
through her surrender and self-annihilation in the sexual act that Connie becomes a real
woman. Unlike her previous experiences with Clifford and Michaelis, Mellors presence in
her life results in her recognition that an intimate liaison between the sexes is only achieved
when the female self-assertiveness disappears. The colonization metaphor incorporates three
necessary stages: invasion, resistance and surrender. Whereas his union with Bertha Coutts
halts at the second phase (or may be it has reached the final stage and then gets subverted by
Bertha), Mellors subduing of Connie will come full circle upon their fourth encounter.
Starting from the fourth encounter, which takes place in chapter 12, there is no reversal of the
colonization process.
The first two phases of invasion and resistance correspond to the first three sexual acts
they have in chapter 10. The narrator compresses these two phases in one chapter to highlight
the female fulfilment that follows when the phallic supremacy is maintained. The quickness
with which Mellors subdues her is a point in favour of Lawrences gendered sexuality. The
ultimate aim of Lawrence is not female surrender as such, but rather the female fulfilment that
follows when she gives herself up to the partner in sex. Their fourth encounter, which
contains two sexual acts, establishes their union in the sexual consummation. Her surrender
to Mellors proves to her that she had been mistaken in her fear of losing herself to the male.
She realizes that-by surrendering to the male- she has not become his slave, but has
metamorphosed into a real woman. She offers herself to Mellors in an unrestrained manner,
with no fear of losing her integrity as a human being. This recognition makes both of them
live in a state of mutual tenderness and fulfilment.
The male invasion of Connie and her mild resistance are clear in chapter 10, which
includes three successive sexual intercourses. Taken together, these initial unions pave the
way for the more gendered meetings that follow. What distinguishes these three encounters
from the rest is the mental hindrance in the mind of Connie that prevents her from
participating in the sexual consummation. The mental reservations that haunt her- and which
are founded in her prior frustrations with Clifford and Michaelis- cause her psyche to wonder
during and after the intercourse. This is physically translated in her passivity in the first two
sexual acts and her inability to react to Mellors sensuality in the sexual act. The separateness
she experiences during the first three acts is emphasised by the narrator as a reflection on her
class and gender prerogatives. Such prerogatives take the form of a mild resistance to
Mellors sexual desire and her reservations from the sexual consummation.
Connies mild resistance to Mellors in the beginning of their affair epitomizes her
psychological detachment from the phallic desire. It is rooted in a slumbering fear of giving
herself up to male desire. This fear can be traced back to her younger years before she
marries Clifford. It should be noted, here, that during the first and second sexual encounters
her resistance is more psychological than physical. It is a kind of psychological disposition to
refuse to let go of herself. The resistance she displays is better seen in her wonderings
either during or after the sexual act. In the first meeting, the narrator establishes her
unwillingness to engage in sex in terms of subordination. The first encounter is prefaced by a
moment of extreme vulnerability, when she bursts into tears upon holding the little chick in
her hands. The helplessness of the chick throws her into a kind of brooding over life,
motherhood and her life at Wragby. Mellors takes advantage of the weakness to make his
advances. He approaches her apprehensively. This is announced by the narrator in the
following passage: he glanced apprehensively at her. Her face was averted, and she was
crying blindly, in all the anguish of her generations forlornness. His heart melted suddenly,
like a drop of fire, and he put out his hand and laid his fingers on her knee. (125)
As he leads her to the hut for their first sexual act, Mellors significantly assumes the leading
role:
And closing his hand softly on her upper arm, he drew her up and led her slowly to
the hut, not letting go of her till she was inside. Then he cleared aside the chair and
table, and took a brown soldiers blanket from the tool chest, spreading it slowly.
She glanced at his face, as she stood motionless. (126)
The narrative voice is consistent in stressing her passivity and detachment from
Mellors in this first meeting. The separateness of the two lovers during the first act, not only
establishes the male domination in sex, but also sets the tone for the subsequent encounters.
The mental reservations that weigh upon her need to be eradicated if she were to restore her
sexuality. This is evident in the description of the first phallic orgasm and its effect on her:
She lay still, in a kind of sleep, always in a kind of sleep. The activity, the orgasm
was his, all his; she could strive for herself no more. Even the tightness of his arms
round her, even the intense movement of his body, and the springing of his seed in
her, was a kind of sleep, from which she did not begin to rouse till he had finished
and lay softly panting against her breast. (126)
Connie shows no resistance to Mellors during the act. Connies post-coital wonderings
about the righteousness of the act serve as an additional piece of evidence of her mental
resistance. Lost in post-coital serenity, Connie starts to brood dimly why? Why was this
necessary? Why had it lifted a great cloud from her and given her peace? Wasnt it real? Was
it real? (127) Leaving these wonderings- which normally precede the act itself- till Mellors
had finished helps the narrator to establish the beauty of their lovemaking.
Lawrences description of the first sex scene is both mystical and mysterious. This
serves his celebration of the body. His tendency to be brief in the depiction of the scene is not
a sign of narrative failure. On the contrary, it exemplifies his desire to mystify the body and
its functions. His remark that Mellors was entering the peace on earth of her soft quiescent
body (126) is reminiscent of his depiction of her body in the mirror scene in chapter 7. What
looks like aphasic description is in fact- Lawrences ideal statement of the mystical power of
the human body. The same inertia is expressed by the narrator after their second meeting as a

post-coital reflection on her being left behind in the sexual consummation. The narrative
voice blames Connie and not Mellors for her inability to reach an orgasm. The novel offers a
minute description of her when Mellors has finished:
And when he came into her, with an intensification of relief and consummation, that
was pure peace to him, still she was waiting. She felt herself a little left out. And
she knew, partly it was her own fault. She willed herself into this separateness.
Now perhaps she was condemned to it. She lay still, feeling his motion within her,
his deep sunk intentness, the sudden quiver of him at the springing of his seed, then
the slow subsiding thrust. (137)
The third sex scene that takes place in chapter 10 can be seen as the last battle Mellors
has to fight in his colonization process. It is this battle that enlightens both Connie and the
reader about the need to surrender to phallic desire in order for her to keep her integrity. The
initial resistance she shows in this encounter is both physical and psychological. Upon their
third meeting, which happens in the wood we discover the same senseless resistance is
repeated, and that he quickly subdues her. When they meet in the forest she is not in the
mood for sex, but she surrenders to his whims: she was giving way. She was giving up.
(144) It is only by yielding herself completely to Mellors that her sexual consciousness is
achieved. The colonization metaphor in the novel favours and promotes female docility as the
only way to attain female fulfilment. She enters the new-found land cautiously, slowly and
progressively. The bias for phallic desire articulates itself in the inequity between Mellors
experience and mastery of his orgasm, and Connies innocence and vulnerability in that
regard. Gerald stresses the differences between male and female experience in his analysis of
The Rainbow. He maintains: while Lawrentian males- Birkins, Aaron, Mellors- already
possess this domain as part of their natural endowment, the female approaches it circuitously
through tribulations and trials (13).
Geralds identification of the female journey towards sexual maturity is enlightening

for the reader since it exposes the development of Connies reactions in her numerous
encounters with the gamekeeper. Upon the fourth encounter between them the phallic
supremacy is completed. Their fourth intercourse is a turning point in the story because
Connies awakening is achieved via a perfected phallic orgasm. Lawrences ideal harmony
between body and soul is fully articulated.
This encounter, although it is apparently different from its predecessors in that it

marks the first clitoral orgasm, does maintain the female passivity. Connie has not yet found
her route to a perfected phallic desire. The difference between this encounter and the first two
lies in the way Mellors imposes himself on her. For the first time, Connies resistance to
Mellors is straightforward as she tries to escape from him. He literally forces her to have sex
with him, tightening his grip on her so that she doesnt escape. Oddly enough, this kind of
coerced sex seems to appeal to Connie as she manages to reach an orgasm this time. Mellors
gets excited about this, and makes it the subject of his post-coital conversation with Connie.
The mysticism that Lawrence associates to love making is evident here in Connies growing
love for Mellors. This sexual meeting does contribute to the thwarting of female resistance
within Connie, and promises her forthcoming self-assertion in the fourth encounter in chapter
12. It is noteworthy, however, that these three encounters are the initial phase in Mellors

colonization process. The surrender of the colonizer will not take place before chapter 12.
The description of the first clitoral orgasm read as follows:
She clung to him unconscious in passion, and he never slipped from her, and she felt
the soft bud of him within her stirring, and strange rhythms flushing up into her with
a strange rhythmic growing motion, swelling and swelling till it filled her all
cleaving consciousness, and then began again the unspeakable motion that was not
really motion, but pure deepening whirlpools of sensation swirling deeper and
deeper through all her tissue and consciousness, till she was one perfect concentric
fluid of feeling, and she lay there crying in unconscious inarticulate cries. (145)
The deficiency of the wood scene lies in Connies continuing detachment from the act.
The description of the first clitoral orgasm hitherto presented points to its effeteness. The
reader can feel an inconsistency between the promise of a swift-moving progress (Gerald,
14) announced by such expressions as soft flames and bells rising (144) and the sudden
halt of the progress announced by but it was over too soon, too soon (145). There are two
details in the description of the first clitoral orgasm that discredit it as the climactic moment
of surrender. The first detail has to do with what seems to be the artificiality of the action
expressed in the unspeakable motion that was not really motion. (145) Since this motion is
not really motion, it adds little to Connies urge of self-assertion. The second detail pointing
to the imperfection of this orgasm is the metaphor of concentric circles that makes it ego-
centric rather than male-oriented. Without a perfect phallic orgasm the appropriation
process to use Geralds terminology- is not complete. The phallic orgasm that opens up
new horizons and territories is not obtained before their fourth encounter in chapter 12.
The two sexual encounters described in chapter 12 are central to the colonization
metaphor as they ensure the culmination of Mellors effort to subdue Connie. The particular
scene in chapter 12 (which involves the second sexual act in this fourth encounter) needs
special attention because of its centrality to the colonization metaphor. The fourth encounter
between them involves two sex acts, the first of which is a major failure insofar as female
orgasm is concerned. The first encounter lacks the mystery and the charm that have
characterized their love making so far. The narrator gives far more details in his description
of the act than he does for the previous encounters. Connies separateness and detachment
from the sex act is most evident in this encounter. The narrative focus in this act falls on
Connies wonderings about her fear of giving herself up for the male. Connies mental
reservations that prevent her enjoying of the sexual act with Mellors are at play in this scene,
for nowhere is her sense of fear of the male body better articulated than here. The narrator
describes her fear of the physical intimacy between men and women in the following passage:
And she put her arms round him under his shirt, but she was afraid, afraid of his
thin, smooth, naked body, that seemed so powerful, afraid of the violent muscles.
She shrank, afraid.
And when he said with a sort of little sigh: Eh, thart nice! something in her
quivered, and something in her spirit stiffened in resistance: stiffened from the
terribly physical intimacy, and from the peculiar haste of his possession. [...]
Yet, this was love, this ridiculous bouncing of the buttocks, and the wilting of the
poor insignificant, moist little penis. (188)

That this love making is awkward is evident in the above-quoted passage. Soon after,
Connie breaks into a hysterical state of sobbing because of her inability to love him. Her
sobbing is the prelude to the climactic act in this chapter: the act that ensures her
transformation into a real woman, and her ultimate surrender to Mellors sexual desires. The
narrator provides enough evidence as to the centrality of this encounter in the colonization
process such as silent amazing force (190) and ponderous, primordial tenderness (190)
and dark waves rising and heaving (191). This sex act is a revelatory experience since she
becomes aware that she loves Mellors. The promise of a swift-moving process is
maintained here. Connies surrender is complete when she achieves the perfected male
orgasm. Mellors, himself becomes a mere excitant; the centre of soft plunging that keeps the
act going on.
Connies orgasm is articulated in terms of an expanding adventure. It is fuelled by a

huge tidal force that in sweeping all before it, discloses hitherto undreamt of horizons
(Gerald 15). The narrator plays on the idea of expansion in describing Connies
transformative orgasm. The passage describing the overwhelming effect of this orgasm on
the protagonist and her helplessness regarding the male domination reads as follows. The
passage is quoted in full as it needs special attention.
She quivered again at the potent inexorable entry inside her, so strange and
terrible. It might come with the thrust of a sword in her swiftly-opened body,
and that would be death. She clung in a sudden anguish of terror. [...]
And it seemed she was like the sea, nothing but dark waves rising and heaving,
heaving with a great swell, so that slowly her whole darkness was in motion, and she
was ocean rolling its dark, dumb mass. Oh, and far down inside her the deeps parted
and rolled asunder, in long, far travelling billows, and ever, at the quick of her, the
depths parted and rolled asunder, from the soft plunging, as the plunger went deeper
and deeper, touching lower, and she was deeper and deeper and deeper disclosed,
and heavier the billows of her rolled away to some shore, uncovering her, and closer
and closer plunged the palatable unknown, and further and further rolled the waves
of herself, leaving her still suddenly, in a soft, shuddering convulsion, the quick of
all her psalm was touched, she knew herself touched, the consummation was upon
her, and she was gone. She was gone, she was not, and she was born: a woman.
(191)
In this climactic moment, Lawrence stresses Connies loss of resistance and the
ensuing helplessness. In her openness, she lets Mellors absorb her in his sexual desires: it
was gone, the resistance was gone...And oh, if he were not tender to her now, how cruel, for
she was all open to him and helpless (192). Connies surrender to Mellors is articulated in
terms of openness and helplessness. Both terms- when considered separately from the context
of sex- are likely to evoke the idea of death and self-effacement for the reader. The loss of
resistance is for Connie far more significant than it might seem. This is because resistance
has been part of her inner self since her younger years: But a woman can yield to a man
without yielding her inner free self (4) The inner free self is achieved through resistance to
the sex partner, and since this free self is within her, when it is gone Connie loses a part of
herself. The loss of resistance leaves Connie open and helpless and utterly surrendered to
Mellors sexual passion.

Connie capitulates to Mellors willingly. She allows herself to be taken further and
further where the waves of herself rolled away from herself, leaving her...touched...and she
was gone. These expressions from the passage quoted above explain how she allows herself
to be taken by the flame of phallic desire and the waves of sexual desire that she
experiences. She literally surrenders all herself to Mellors. The narrator adds that she let her
consummation [be] upon her without her ever having any sort of control (192). By this,
Connie loses her control over herself as it is expressed in she is gone (191). If we equate the
idea of being gone with that of death, we can argue that she is dead to be reborn as a
woman. By implication, Connie has never been a real woman in her previous relations with
men, simply because she did not let release her inner free self. Her rebirth as a woman is
announced by the narrator as a sudden little flame of new awareness went through her (192)
When she lets her old self go, Connie is born: a woman (191) Lawrence implies that she had
never been a real woman in the sex act before she learned to surrender herself to the man in
her previous sexual encounters with Clifford and Michaelis. Lawrences idea of a perfect
phallic orgasm that ensures the female consummation is complete now. The colonization
metaphor has helped to locate both the male and the female in a framework of mutual
tenderness and security in the sexual act. With the male supremacy secured upon the fourth
encounter, the remaining sexual acts do nothing more than enhancing it. The fifth and sixth
encounters introduce a set of rituals that surround the love making and that enhance it. These
rituals include the nuptials of John Thomas and Lady Jane in the fifth encounter and the
forget-me-not scene in the sixth.
To conclude, the novel is a celebration of masculinity. Lawrence employs the

metaphor of colonization to establish male domination in sex. This reading of the novel helps
not only to establish male supremacy but also to acquit the novel of subversive charges, since
it is commonly referred to as a revolutionary novel threatening the status quo. The sexual
scenes in the novel have been re-positioned in a corrective framework that seeks to see
England reproduce itself in more productive terms after the Great War. The apparent
lewdness of the novel hides a whole theory of man. Within this theory, the body is given its
due value and is celebrated for its liberating aspect. Lawrences celebration of the body in
LCL falls in his belief in the wholeness of the human being. It is noteworthy-however- that
Lawrence calls for a balance between the mind and the body. His conception of the
wholeness of the human being serves to acquit the novel of pornography charges. The paper
establishes Lawrence as a conservative writer-ironically enough. This is basically articulated
in his advocacy of a gendered sexuality. Lawrences sexuality is not all revolutionary as it
keeps the male supremacy in the sexual intercourse. The male domination is achieved in the
novel through the use of the colonization metaphor where the female is explored, invaded and
ultimately subdued.

Works Cited
Books
-Homans, Margaret. Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British Culture, 1837-1876.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Print.
-Jakobson, Roman. Language in Literature. Ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy.
Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987. Print.
-Lawrence, David Herbert. Lady Chatterleys Lover. New York: Bantman Dell, 2007. Print.
Articles
-Gerald, Doherty. The Art of Appropriation: The Rhetoric of Sexuality in D. H. Lawrence.

Style 8.2 (1996): 1-36. JSTOR Digital Library. Web. 26 June 2007.
Works Consulted
-Bullock, Allan. The Double Image. Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-
1930. Ed. Malcolm Bradbury, London: Penguin Books, 1991. Print.
-Foucault, Michel. A preface to transgression in language, counter memory. Practice.

Selected essays & interviews, ed. Trans. Bouchand and Sherry Simon. Ithaca: Cornell
University press, 1977. Print.
---Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. Trans. by Alan Sheridan. NY: Vintages
books, 1978. Print.
-Howe, Carolyn. Political Ideology and Class Formation: A Study of the Middle Class.
Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1992. Print.
-Lawrence, David Herbert. Late Essays and Articles. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004. Print.
---. The Selected Letters of D. H. Lawrence. Ed. James T Boulton. Cambridge: Cambridge
UP, 1997. Print.
-Sloterdijk, Peter. Critique of cynical reason. Trans. Michael Eldred. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1987. Print.
-Vivas, Eliseo. D.H Lawrence: The Failure and Triumph of Art. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, 1960. Print.
-Whissen, Thomas Reed. Classic cult fiction: a companion to popular cult literature. New
York: Greenwood Press, 1992. Print.

The Challenge of Resuscitating Interest in History in Contemporary

Nigeria Schools: New Approaches to the Rescue
Emorc .C. Emordi

Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria
Felix Ejukonemu Oghi

Samuel Adegboyega University, Edo State, Nigeria
Abstract
History plays a critical role in the political and socio-economic development of any country.
In this connection, proper methods of teaching the subject constitute a crucial development
discourse that cannot be overemphasized. Regrettably, the fortunes of History as a discipline
nose-dived since the last two decades of the twentieth century to the opening decade of the
twenty-first century because of the perceived conception of the sciences as the more crucial
tools for national development. This paper examines the challenges of resuscitating interest
in History in the twenty-first century and the role that new methods would play in re-
awakening such interest in the discipline. The paper adopted the historical method of
collection and interpretation of data. The secondary data on which this work relied would be
subjected to textual and contextual analysis. The discussion is in five parts. The first section
introduces the work while the second section examines the gains of History in sharpening the
intellectual skills of students. The third part discusses the dilemma of the Nigeria state and
the neglect of History, while the fourth part examines the methods of teaching the discipline
in Nigerian schools. The concluding section of this work draws attention to the need to adopt
new methods of teaching the subject so as to make it relevant in proffering solution to
Nigerias leadership and developmental challenges.
Keywords: Contemporary, History, Nigeria, Rescue, Resuscitating

Introduction
The neglect of History and its resultant journey to extinction was predicted over half a
century ago.1 Yet, authorities and those in charge of policy making did not heed to the
warning. The result is that in contemporary times, students in particular, have become
scared of the voluminous nature and date problem in the subject. This is rather unfortunate
because there is no discipline or subject that does not have elements of history. Formal
education is not too old in Nigerian communities and in fact most African countries,
education in the broadest sense is not new. Indigenous African societies realized the need
for integrating the young into their societies and have for generations provided some form of
training and education for their youth within the framework of their social organisation, so
that they can take their place within the community.2
For the Nigeria state it is even more worrisome when one considers its enormous size
with a land mass of about 923,768sq.kms, an area that is size of France, Britain and
Netherlands combined.3 This vastness of land mass ordinarily should have been an advantage
as it could hasten social development especially in terms of space for human capital resources
but the opposite seemed to have been the case with regards to the increase in the spate of
corruption and poor leadership. History, which ought to have provided the lead way
unfortunately, had dwindled in a Nigeria that exhibited historical amnesia in the conduct of
its affairs4. Additionally, by the 1980s emphasis was on how to drive the country to
scientific heights and hence priorities as it were, emphasised the sciences. This was not
necessary because the development of any country cannot lie solely on the physical, natural
and environmental sciences. History, as a core discipline in the humanities is also scientific
and could indeed, aid scientific development. Folklores, which is one of the sources of oral
history is vital to scientific breakthrough as countries like Japan, America, South Korea etc
have benefited from its use.5
It needs to be noted that education in itself, is not about producing persons that would
be advantaged to occupy big positions in juicy jobs, but one that would engender self-
actualization. The effective teaching and appreciation of the value of History is one sure way
of attaining this all-important goal. The question is: How effective have our teaching methods
1
R.E. Crookall, Handbook for History Teachers in Africa, (London: Evans Brothers Limited, 1960), p.1
2
M. Dowouna, Ghana Commissioner for Education, in his opening address at the Conference of African
Education held in Mombasa, August, 1968, cited in R.E. Crookall, Handbook for History Teachers in Africa,
p. 1.
3
G. Arnold, The Resource of the Third World, (Deaborn: Fitzroy Publishers, 2004), p. 123.
4
C.B.N. Ogbogbo, Obaro Ikime, A Titan at 70 in the Dynamics of Inter-group Relations in Nigeria since
1960: Essays in Honour of Obaro Ikime at 70, eds. C.B.N. Ogbogbo, O.G. Muojama and R.O. Olaniyi (Ibadan:
Department of History, 2012), p. 18.
5
Godini, .G. Darah, How Folktales, Science can stimulate technological breakthrough The Guardian, May 27,
2015.

and overall aim of education been? G.O. Olusanya, over a decade ago, quoting Professor
Busia, captured it thus:
It seems to me that there is a tendency to lay a greater emphasis on what students are
going to do than what they are going to be as person. Of all Africas resources, her
young people are the most valuable. Educators have a responsibility to consider
what sort of human being comes out of our educational institutions, particularly the
universities. In the last resort, it is that which will determine the role which Africa
plays in the world. If our concept of education should enhance human dignity and
freedom, that fact will affect the kind of university that is advocated, what is taught
6
and how it is taught.
It is against this background that this paper examines the challenge of teaching
History in contemporary Nigerian schools and the role that new approaches would play in its
improvement. The paper suggests ways of making the teaching of History interesting to
attract students rather than emphasise stories of Rise and Fall of empires, kingdoms,
copying of lengthy notes etc that discourage students interest in the discipline.
The Discipline of History and Students Intellectual Growth
The issue of what constitutes history and the methods it employs have long
been examined by historians and therefore, it would be needless to undertake any excursion
in that area7. As observed by Obaro Ikime, the perception of R.V. Daniels on the discipline
captures that the subject in all ages, should empress on our minds. Daniels opined that:
History is the memory of human group experience. If it is forgotten or ignored, we

cease in that measure to be human. Without history, we have no knowledge of who
we are or how we came to be, like victims of collective amnesia groping in the dark
for our identity. It is the events recorded in history that have generated all the
emotions, the values, the ideals that make life meaningful, that have given men
something to live for, struggle over, die for. Historical events have created all the
basic human groupings countries, religious classes and all the loyalties that
8
attach to these.
The relevance of history to any country is therefore, myriad. Apart from the fact that
knowledge of the subject helped to provide the tool with which Nigerian nationalists fought
colonialism to a halt, no meaningful in-roads could have been made in Nigerias
6
Gabriel, O. Olusanya, The Debt We Owe to the Past, A Memorial Lecture in Honour of Professor J.A.
Atanda, G.O. Oguntomisin and S.A. Ajayi, eds., Readings in Nigerian History and Culture: Essays in Memory
of Professor J.A. Atanda (Ibadan: Hope Publications Ltd, 2002), p. 359.
7
See for instance, Godfrey N. Brown, Living History, A Guide for Teachers in Africa (London: Allen and
Lenwin, 1963) and Jerome S. Bruner, Towards a Theory of Instruction, (USA: Havard University Press, 1967).
8
R.V. Daniels, Studying History, How and Why?, 2nd edition (New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc, 1972), p. 3.

developmental strides in the past without the discipline of the History. 9 Therefore, there is the
need to maintain a proper balance between the pursuit of science and technology and the
pursuit of other desiderata of national development.10
The teaching of History in Nigerian schools is relevant for a number of reasons: first,
is the patriotic consideration. Societies all over the world, whether simple or complex had
ways of educating their youths. In this regards, the need to prepare the minds of the youths
about their society, how it evolved, its mechanism and standards of behaviour acceptable. In
order to understand the society therefore, it was not possible without knowledge of the past.
Second, knowledge of history quickens the imagination of youths. Imagination, in itself, is
part of the cognitive domain of knowledge.11 A student for instance, who hears a vivid
account of how Samori Ibn Lafiya Toure resisted French incursion into his domain, or how
Horatius defended the Tiber bridge against the foes of Rome, would have their imagination
stirred. Legends and stories are useful strategies to help achieve this.
Third, History also helps to encourage tolerance and enlarge sympathies, which is a
crucial requirement for countries like Nigeria that is multi-ethnic. The desire for tolerance in
an overcrowded country of diverse people, however, does not imply that youths should
tolerate acts which are evil to others, but to appreciate both good and evil instead of judging
from a narrow point of view. Even Christian doctrine emphasise the importance of truth and
appreciation of the feelings of others.12 As future statesmen, youths stand to benefit from this
virtue derivable from the discipline of History.
It is important to state too, that good leadership derives largely from the background
that leaders have and by extension, the maturity of such person(s). The discipline of History
helps to provide that background. The knowledge of history helps to prepare youths with the
ability to sift evidence and identify truth in conflicting situations. Visiting local sites
(historic) is one sure way of achieving this as shown by a recent study. 13 If education,
amongst others, is to make good citizens that would impact positively on the socio-political
9
See the text of the Press Conference given by Professor Obaro Ikime at the 32 nd Congress of the
Historical Society of Nigeria, University of Jos, Nigeria, 1987, in O. Ikime, History, The Historian and
The Nation (Ibadan: Heinemann Educational Books, Inc., 2006), pp. xiv-xvi.
10
O. Ikime, History, The Historian and The Nation p. xvi.
11
Other aspects or domains of learning are Affective and Psychomotor.
12
See Isaiah Chapter 11 verse 9 of the Holy Bible.
13
This method was adopted by Libby Bischof, an Assistant Professor of History at the Department of
History and Political Science at the University of Southern Maine, USA. See Libby Bischof, The Lens
of the Local: Teaching and Appreciation of the Past through the Exploration of Local Sites,
Landmarks and Hidden Histories The History Teacher. Vol. 48, No. 3, May 2015, pp. 529-559.

and economic development of a country, History is one discipline that helps in achieving this
virtue.
The Dilemma of the Nigeria State and History
Throughout the ages, instances abound to show how history has helped to mobilize
people for change. For example, after the Berlin Conference of November 1884-1885, during
which Africa was partitioned among European Powers such as France, England, Germany,
Portugal, Italy and Belgium, Africans held their first Pan-African Conference in Manchester,
England. At the end of that Conference, there was a call for organisation of mass political
parties that would struggle for a socialist United States of Africa. African peoples then, used
the Conference and subsequent Congresses as platforms to wage one of the most relentless
struggles against colonialism. Today, most Africans at least, can heave a sigh of relief from
foreign rule.
The period between 1965 and 1992 was yet another, in the United States of America.
Within these years, there were rebellions in the United States, - Los Angeles, Detroit, etc. As
it were, these reactions demonstrated the fact that what happens in the past would always
determine future actions. The situation was so tense that the U.S. government was forced to
make concessions in the 1960s and 70s. It was against this background that Orevaoghene C.
Obaro, about a decade ago, noted that History is a weapon, it can be used to inspire or
demobilize people.14 For the Nigeria state, there is need to begin to repeatedly stress the
importance of history. History as a discipline emphasises truth, and this truth is the weapon
that is needed to move the Nigeria state forward. As noted by Edwin Madunagu:
The truth must be told whether or not it brings its temporary comfort. Nothing enduring
can be built on falsehood. In particularly, our mainstream power-blocs and politicians must
know that they cannot construct the new Nigeria on falsehood, or falsification and
distortion of history, not even the falsification of their own acts15
The unfortunate fate of the subject, history in contemporary Nigeria is its seeming
decapitation. The subject is listed under the Humanities field of studies and has been infused
into social studies in the revised nine-year Basic Education Curriculum (BEC). This is rather
unfortunate because it would imply that what the State covertly cherishes the slavish adoption
14
Orevaoghene .V. Obaro, History is a Weapon, Vanguard Newspaper, 9, August 2000, p. 35.
15
Edwin Madunagu, Again, in defence of History, The Guardian Newspaper, August 5, 2010, p. 59.
Also see Edwin Madunagu, Notes on the Movement of History, The Guardian Newspaper, October
25, 2007, p. 65.

of foreign values and the production of youths who would know nothing about their past.
Ayodeji Olukoju captured the effect of excluding history succinctly when he said, Historys
decapitation is a national amnesia, which prevents the learning of lessons for development
and the continuity of the process of building enduring and positive values for national
development.16 The Nigeria state, as it is now, needs the lessons of history more than ever.
This is particularly so because even leading countries of the world the United States of
America, China, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, have never relegated
History to the background, not even in the face of industrialization and scientific
technological development.
It would be recalled that soon after the attainment of political independence from
Britain in 1960, the key role of history in national development was recognised by
subsequent Nigerian governments until the importance of the subject suddenly nose-dived in
the 1980s. Before the 1980s the Federal Government then, used grant from the Colonial
Development and Welfare Fund and the Carnegie Trust of America, to establish research
programmes at the University of Ibadan in 1954. Other research schemes during the period
include: Northern Nigeria (1966), Eastern Nigeria (1966), Rivers State (1971), Benue Valley
(1974) and Cross River State (1978). All these efforts have remained unsustained by
subsequent governments in Nigeria. This state of affairs must not be allowed to continue.
Emphasis on science-related disciplines should not be allowed to dwarf the importance of
History and to do so, in the words of Oyekanmi, is simply the contrast between an old
newspaper and a new one.17
It is also important to draw attention to the main weakness which pessimists of the
relevance of history, seem to have anchored their views. Students enrolment for History in
Nigerian schools have dropped perhaps because of the demands of modern world in which
technological break-through is seen as being more relevant. Even if technological
development is desired by countries of the world, it cannot be achieved without knowledge of
history. As earlier stated in this paper, the drive for technology by advanced countries of the
world has not obliterated the relevance of history and its study. In fact, as recently noted by
Levi Amadi concerning Canada:
In Ontario Province for example, the study of Canadian History is compulsory for
students in grade 8 and 10 which would be the equivalent of JSS 1 and 3 in the
Nigeria system Before a student gets the High school diploma (the equivalent of the
16
See Rotimi L. Oyekanmi, How Historys Exclusion from school curricula aids corruption, bad
governance, The Guardian, December 25, 2013, pp. 44-45.
17
Rotimi, Oyekanmi, How Historys Exclusion from school curricula aids corruption, bad
governance p. 45.

Nigerian NECO or WASC) such a student must pass the grade 10 History which is
18
the History of Canada since 1914.
The problem with the Nigeria state with regards to the dwindling fortune of History as
a subject offered by students appears not solely to be on the relevance of the subject alone,
but also on the methods by which the subject has been taught. As Levi Amadi would argue:
even in the highly technologically developed world, it has been realized that
technological development without a human face would only succeed in producing
new Nazis whose mission can easily reverse the gain made by our technological
advancements the realization of the fact that a discipline like History gives our
technological developments of human face is the beginning of developmental
19
wisdom.
The problem therefore, with the Nigeria state with regards to the subject, lies in the
methods of teaching it and not necessarily neglect from government alone.
Methods of Teaching History in Nigerian Schools
Methods of teaching History, it must be quickly pointed out, is quite different from
the methods of studying history. While the former refers to styles of imparting or transmitting
the contents and facts of the subject; the latter is more of professional ways of getting
acquainted with how to study and write it. Our concern in this paper is with regards to the
former. It may be argued that both are intertwined, but how well the former is managed
stimulates interest in the latter. From the outflow of existing literatures on the former, visual,
auditory and kinesthetic learning styles have been adopted.20 Other methods include: Group
work, Role play, drama, Research and Presentation method.21 Yet, there seem not to have
been resuscitation of interest in the subject as shown in its enrolment in contemporary Nigeria
schools. The implication therefore, is for teachers of the subject to devise new strategies to
stimulate students interest.
Unemployment problem is one major headache of contemporary Nigeria. Parents send

their children to schools to be able to guarantee a better future for them and one of their
expectations is that at the end of their studies, such children should be able to assist in the
family up-keep by being gainfully employed. Against this background, sponsoring a childs
18
Levi O. Amadi, Effective Methods of Teaching History in L.E. Otoide, ed. History Unlimited:
Essays in Honour of Professor Abednego Ekoko, (Benin City: Mindex Publishing Company Limited, 2012),
p. 480.
19
Levi O. Amadi, Effective Methods of Teaching History p. 479.
20
Levi O. Amadi, Effective Methods of Teaching History pp. 482-485.
21
Drew Stephen, Using a Variety of Learning Styles in Teaching Heritage Explorer,
www.schoolhistory.co.uk cited in Levi O. Amadi, supra

education (which in most cases, gulps majority of parents income) only for the child not to
find relevance in the society, to such parents, does not desire courses like History. Yet, even
those who studies science-related courses seem not to have done better in terms of being
employed. The problem therefore, is not peculiar to history, but how entrepreneurial a person
is, - and this may perhaps, be the justification for the existence of entrepreneurial course
compulsorily taken by students in contemporary Nigeria universities. The question therefore,
is: Can History be integrated into Entrepreneurial studies?. The pertinent response is in the
affirmative.
If history has been perceived as knowing about the past in order to understand the
present22 then, everything studied in the subject including production of goods and services
can as well be replicated for practical appreciation. The practical application of History in
entrepreneurial studies has long been suggested by scholars. For instance, Eugene .I. Nnadi,
three years ago, argued that entrepreneurship entails one doing something that is interesting,
fulfilling and enjoyable.23 History could help to achieve this and therefore, need to be
adopted by history teachers. One of the basic aims of education is to provide an all-round
development of individuals physically, socially, mentally and emotionally. 24 History as a
discipline that mirrors the past provides guide to the present and the future, can help in this
regard.
The question again, would be: how can entrepreneurial skills be built in History?. The
relevant methods needed for this have long been emphasised by scholars. 25 The problem
seem to be indifference and lack of commitment by teachers of the subject to evolve ways of
making the subject interesting and productive. For a successful application of entrepreneurial
skills, basic traits have to be inculcated into students. These include: being able to take
calculated risks; take appropriate decisions, be goal-oriented, innovative, cope with changing
situations, demonstrate resourcefulness, imagination,26 etc. The realisation of these skills
22
See P. Sauvain, Skills for British Economic and Social History (London: Stanley Thornes Publishers Ltd., 1988)
23
Eugene .I. Nnadi, Integrating Entrepreneurial Skills in History in Nigerian Teacher Education, in Dan Chukwu and
Eugene I. Nnadi, eds., Readings in the Humanities and Education, (PortHarcourt: His Glory Publications, 2011), p. 293.
24
R.D. Dickson, An Evaluation of the Contributions of Geography Education to National Development in Nigeria, Zaria
Journal of Educational Studies, vol. 8, No. 1, 2006, p. 31.
25
See for instance, R.T. Kiyosaki, If you want to be Rich and Happy dont go to school, (Lagos: Elpac Publishing
and Literacy Crusade, 2006), R.E. Crookall, Handbook for History Teachers in Africa (Ibadan: Evans Brothers History
in Nigerian Teacher Education
26
See E.U. Anyakoha, Towards Enhancing Entrepreneurial skills of operators of Home Economics
Related Business: Implications for Entrepreneurial Education in Iloduba and N. Ezeani, eds.
Empirical Studies on Social and Economic Implications of Vocational and Technical Education in Nigeria,
(Umunze: Federal College of Education, 1995).

could be incorporated into the teaching of History right from primary up to post-secondary
school levels. In order to achieve these, history teachers should incorporate skills that involve
how to write history, speak, model-making, the need to avoid bias and prejudice; - a trait
common in advertisement, and in fact, relate classroom teaching to practical life experience
in industry, commerce and agriculture.
Conclusion
No society in the world is static. As events in the world are dynamic, the teaching of
history as a subject in Nigerian Schools should also be dynamic. The age-long practice of
teachers of history emphasizing dates and stressing the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires
is no longer tenable in the twenty-first century. The history teacher must learn to teach his/her
students/pupils from the known to the unknown; from simple to complex. It must not
be reproduction of past stories alone. The ideal history teacher should be one that loves his
profession and is prepared to deploy his all to make the subject not only interesting by
application of its subject-matter to contemporary situations, but also creative. He/she should
not be the type that goes to the classroom and asks students/pupils to go and read up different
chapters of books for more information, and leaves students to their fate. He/she should speak
well and be a source of inspiration to his/her audience. The use of high sounding words
cannot do magic, but orderly presentation of the subject-matter.
In contemporary Nigeria where the entertainment industry has become a major source
of employment for youths, a proper grasp of history could even enhance better performance
from comedians. Graduates of History, apart from being relevant in administrative cadres of
establishments, teaching, etc, could even find gainful employment in the entertainment
industry. The list is inexhaustive. To be a successful entrepreneur, activity is a key factor and
if history ordinarily emphasises activities on the part of the learner, then, history is the asset
needed. Proper methods of teaching history therefore, could stimulate interest of students and
prepare them for the challenges of the twenty-first century Nigeria. As rightly observed by
Levi Amadi, the understanding of any discipline is rooted in the teaching methods adopted
by the teacher to teach the students.27 Teachers of History in Nigerian schools need to
change their methods of teaching the subject in order to check the decapitation of the subject.
27
Levi .O. Amadi, Effective Methods of Teaching History p. 486.

References
-Amadi, Levi O. Effective Methods of Teaching History in L.E. Otoide (ed.), History
Unlimited: Essays in Honour of Professor Abednego Ekoko, Benin City: Mindex Publishing
Company Limited, 2012.
-Arnold, G., The Resources of the Third World, Dearborn: Fitzroy Publishers, 2004.
-Bischof L. The Lens of the Local: Teaching and Appreciation of the Past through the
Exploration of Local Sites, Landmarks and Hidden Histories, The History Teacher, vol. 48
(3), 2015, 529-559.
-Brown, Godfrey, N; Living History: A Guide for Teachers in Africa, London: Allen &
Unwin, 1963.
-Bruner, Jerome S., Toward a Theory of Instruction, USA: Havard University Press, 1967.
-Crookall, R.E., Handbook for History Teachers in Africa, London: Evans Brothers Limited,
1960
-Daniel, R.V., Studying History, How and Why?, 2nd edition, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc,
1972.
-Dickson, R.D., An Evaluation of the Contributions of Geography Education to National

Development in Nigeria, Zaria Journal of Educational Studies, vol. 8(1), 2006, 31.
-Drew Stephen, Using a Variety of Learning Styles in Teaching Heritage Explorer,

www.schoolhistory.co.uk. Accessed on 24/7/2015.
-Ezeani, N. and Iloduba, G. eds., Empirical Studies on Social and Economic Implications of
Vocational and Technical Education, Umunze: Federal College of Education (Technical),
1995.
-Ikime, Obaro; History, The Historian and the Nation, Ibadan: Heinemann Educational
Books, Inc., 2006.
-Kiyosaki, R.T., If You Want to be Rich and Happy Dont go to School, Lagos: Elpac
Publishing and Literary Crusade, 2006.
-Nnadi, E.I. and Chukwu, D.O. eds.; Readings in the Humanities and Education, Port-
Harcourt: His Glory Publications, 2011.

-Ogbogbo, C.B.N., Muojama O.G. & Olaniyi, R.O., eds., Essays in Honour of Obaro Ikime at
70, Ibadan: Department of History, 2012.
-Oguntomisin G.O. and Ajayi, S.A. eds.; Readings in Nigerian History and Culture: Essays in
Memory of Professor J. A. Atanda, Ibadan: Hope Publishers, 2002.
-Otoide, L.E., ed., History Unlimited: Essays in Honour of Professor Abednego Ekoko, Benin
City: Mindex Publishing Company Limited, 2012.
-Sauvain, P., Skills for British Economic and Social History, London: Stanley Thornes
Publishers Ltd., 1988.
-The Guardian, August 5, 2000.
-The Guardian, October 25, 2007.
-The Guardian, December 25, 2013.
-The Guardian, May 27, 2015.
-The Holy Bible (Revised Standard Version)
-The Vanguard, August 9, 2000.

Vocabulary Learning Strategies of English as Foreign Language (EFL)

Learners: a Literature Review
Prashneel Ravisan Goundar

Fiji National University, Fiji
Abstract
Vocabulary learning is one of the major challenges foreign language learners face during the
process of learning a language (Ghazal, 2007). One way to alley the problem is to assist students
in becoming independent learners during the course of L2 vocabulary learning. Furthermore,
Ghazal (2007) explains that this could be achieved through instructing learners to apply
vocabulary learning strategies as efficiently as possible.
This study has reviewed significant literature and the importance of reviewing the literature in
the field was to realize the implications of our understanding of this relevant literature for the
study referred to in this paper. The definitions, taxonomies and factors which pertain to
language learning strategies and which are present in the literature have clarified the concepts.
Furthermore, this research brings to light the common strategies that learners use in vocabulary
learning. It also discusses the different strategies at length and gives valuable recommendations
and concludes with further research implications.
Keywords: vocabulary learning strategies, first language, second language, strategies,

cognitive and meta-cognitive, memory

1.1 Abbreviations:
ESL/EFL-Learners of English as a Second/Foreign language

L1 - Native Language
L2- Second Language
LLS- Language Learning Strategies
SLA-Second Language Acquisition
VLB- Vocabulary Learning Beliefs
VLS-Vocabulary Learning Strategies
2. Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
This paper examines the literature and research relevant to Vocabulary Learning
Strategies, current research done in the area of vocabulary learning strategies for English as a
Foreign Language. It discusses the different strategies that have been used by learners
individually or collectively to acquire new vocabulary, some key concepts associated with this
field and how they are able to maintain the vocabulary.
2.2 Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Language learning strategies are methods that students employ to enhance their own
learning. Strategies are important for language learning because they are a device for active, self-
responsible learning. Students take more control of their own learning, which is necessary for
developing academic competence. Learners who use appropriate language learning strategies
yielded greater proficiency and self-confidence (Oxford, 1990). Most of the literature which has
been studied provides a similar point of view and highlights the importance of having vocabulary
learning strategies. It does not mean that the strategies are only limited to the learners, it is
equally important to the teachers as it is to the learners. Having knowledge about the different
types of choices in vocabulary learning strategies will help teachers, researchers and curriculum
developers to design appropriate materials for classroom purposes. Vocabulary learning
strategies (VLS) are intuitively appealing to teachers and learners. It has also become a popular
research topic among researchers in the last two decades (Yongqui, 2010).
2.3 Summary of Major Studies on Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Some major researches have been carried out since 1995 which include: Sanaoui (1995),
Stoffer (1995), Moir (1996), Gu and Johnson (1996), Lawson and Hogben (1996), Schmitt
(1997), Porte (1988), Kudo (1999), Kojic-Sabo and Lightbown (1999), Lin (2001), Catalan
(2003), Fan (2003). These studies have provided insights into the process of vocabulary learning
and the strategies which have been used by individuals. These are as follows:

Sanaoui (1995) identified two distinctive approaches to vocabulary learning of adult

learners: those who structured their vocabulary learning and those who did not. Structured
learners engaged in independent study, did self-initiated learning activities and recorded the
lexical items they were learning, reviewed such records, and practiced using vocabulary items
outside the classroom (Bastanfar & Hashemi, 2010). Sanaouis research showed that structured
Learners were more successful than those who followed an unstructured approach.
Furthermore, Gu and Johnson (1996) identified six types of strategy - guessing,

dictionary, note-taking, rehearsal, encoding, and activation - together with two other factors:
beliefs about vocabulary learning and metacognitive regulation. Metacognitive regulation
consists of strategies for selective attention and self-initiation. The latter make the meaning of
vocabulary items clear through the use of a variety of means. Guessing strategies, skillful use of
dictionaries and note-taking strategies are labeled as cognitive strategies. Rehearsal and encoding
categories are classified under memory strategies. Word lists and repetition are instances of
rehearsal strategies. Encoding strategies include strategies such as association, imagery, visual,
auditory, semantic, and contextual encoding as well as word-structure. Activation strategies
include those strategies through which learners actually use new words in different contexts
(Bastanfar & Hashemi, 2010).
In addition, Lawson and Hogben (1996), in a classification which is more a reflection of

the strategies, categorized the four strategies as: repetition, word feature analysis, simple
elaboration and complex elaboration. The strategy repetition includes reading of related words,
simple rehearsal, writing of word and meaning, cumulative rehearsal and testing. The word
feature analysis contains spelling, word classification and suffix. Simple elaboration consists of
sentence translation, simple use of context, appearance similarity, sound link and complex
elaboration includes complex use of context, paraphrase and mnemonic. In the research, it was
found that learners who had used a greater range of learning strategies recalled more of the
learned words later. However, all the learners alike tended to favor simple repetition strategies
over more complex elaboration strategies, despite the fact that the latter yielded higher recall.
Hence the researchers concluded that there is a need to present strategies more directly during
language teaching since students are not aware of the advantages of these procedures (Bastanfar
& Hashemi, 2010).
Schmitt (1997) devised his taxonomy, self-reportedly, in response to the lack of a

comprehensive list of vocabulary learning strategies. He organized 58 strategies under five types:
determination, social, memory, cognitive and metacognitive. His categories were inspired by
Oxford's (1990) inventory of general language learning strategies but included some
modifications. Thus, social, memory, cognitive and metacognitive strategies have been adopted
from Oxford (1990). The modification was that he made a distinction between discovery and
consolidation strategies. Determination strategies are used when "learners are faced with
discovering a new word's meaning without recourse to another person's experience" (Schmitt,
1997). For example, learners try to discover the meaning of a new word by guessing it with the

help of context, structural knowledge of language, and reference materials. It is also possible to
discover the meaning of a word through asking someone for help (Bastanfar & Hashemi, 2010).
Finally, Nation's (2001) theoretically-oriented taxonomy makes a basic distinction

between the aspects of vocabulary knowledge from the sources of vocabulary knowledge and
from learning processes; hence, three general classes: planning, sources, and processes, each
covering a subset of key strategies. 'Planning' involves choosing where and how to focus
attention on a particular vocabulary item and contains strategies for choosing words, choosing
aspects of word knowledge and choosing strategies as well as planning repetition. 'Sources'
involves finding information about the word from the word form itself, from the context, from a
reference source such as dictionaries or glossaries and from analogies and connections with other
languages. Process means establishing word knowledge through noticing, retrieving and
generating strategies (Bastanfar & Hashemi, 2010).
2.4 Categorization of the Strategies
In all research conducted on vocabulary learning strategies, four important categories are
highlighted which are meta-cognitive strategies, cognitive, memory and activation strategies. It is
very important to understand these concepts as it forms the basis of the any study being
conducted in this field.
Gu and Johnson (1996) list second language (L2) vocabulary learning strategies as
metacognitive, cognitive, memory and activation strategies. The metacognitive strategies
comprises of selective attention and self-initiation strategies. First language learners and Second
language learners who employ selective attention strategies know which words are important for
them to learn and are essential for adequate comprehension of a passage. Learners employing
self-initiation strategies use a variety of means to make the meaning of vocabulary items clear.
Cognitive strategies in Gu and Johnsons taxonomy consists of guessing strategies,

skillful use of dictionaries and note-taking strategies. It was found that learners using guessing
strategies draw upon their background knowledge and use linguistic clues like grammatical
structures of a sentence to guess the meaning of a word. Memory strategies are classified into
two distinct categories; rehearsal and encoding categories. Word lists and repetition are instances
of rehearsal strategies. Encoding strategies encompass such strategies as association, imagery,
visual, auditory, semantic, and contextual encoding as well as word structure which includes;
analyzing a word in terms of prefixes, stems, and suffixes.
Finally, the activation strategies include those strategies through which the learners
actually use new words in different contexts. For instance, learners may set sentences using the
words they have just learned (Ghazal, 2007).

The definitions of the above concepts are simplified in the following illustration:
Vocabulary Learning Strategies
Cognitive Memory Activation

Metacognitive
Selection: identifying Guessing, using Rehearsal: word lists, Usage of words in

essential words for linguistic items repetition various contexts
comprehension
Using dictionaries Encoding: association
Self-initiation: using (imagery, visual)
various methods to Note taking
interpret the meanings of
words
Apart from discovering new words, Ghazal (2007) states that learners need to employ a
variety of strategies to practice and retain vocabulary. In order to accommodate this, learners
thus, use a variety of social, memory, cognitive and metacognitive strategies to consolidate their
vocabulary knowledge.
2.5 Concept of Good and Poor Learners
Each learner employs different strategies to assist in learning new vocabulary. A learning
strategy is a series of actions a learner takes to facilitate the completion of a learning task. The
learner brings to the language learning situation a wide spectrum of individual differences that
will influence the learning rate and the ultimate learning result. The most widely reported learner
factors include age, sex, language aptitude, intelligence, prior knowledge, motivation, self-
concept/image, personality, and cognitive and learning style (Peter, 2003). This brings forth the
concept of good learners and poor learners; those learners who are highly motivated feel a
genuine need to practice the vocabulary and use this strategy to maintain the vocabulary. Good
learners not only use more strategies, but they also rely more heavily on different strategies than
the ones poor learners use (Scafaru and Tofan, 2006). In a study carried out by Ahmed (1989) it
was found that good learners were more aware of what they could learn about words, they paid
more attention to collation and spelling and at the same time they were more conscious of

contextual learning. Learners are able to comprehend more new vocabulary once they use a
number of strategies and do not simply stick to one which is the case for poor learners who
concentrate on one method simply. On the contrary, the article by Scafaru and Tofan (2006) is
very contradictory of this statement as it further mentions that statements like the good learners
practice are not really helpful. What we need are more specific findings which tell us what the
learner actually does when he practices. In fact, it is through practice that learners commit
words to memory and thus use it as confirmed by Peter (2003). Some learners will repeat the
new word a number of times until they are comfortable with it. Others will go beyond simple
rote repetition to commit the word to memory (Peter, 2003). These types of strategies are part of
practice which is used by the good learners.
Ahmed (1989), in a study involving 300 Sudanese learners of English found that good
learners not only used more vocabulary learning strategies but also relied more on different
strategies than did poorer learners.
2.6 Common Strategies Learners Apply
In the research conducted by Scafaru and Tofan (2006), there was use of over seven
different strategies which included micro-strategies, macro-strategies, dictionary use,
memorization, practice, preferred source of information and note taking. Note taking is a
strategy which a lot of learners use and it has been proved to be effective as some learners prefer
to work on visual memory, which means since they have written a new vocabulary they are able
to create an image in their mind about the word. Both the papers (Scafaru and Tofan (2006) and
Peter (2003)) confirm that there is a similar pattern in note taking. Learners took notes in the
margin, used vocabulary books, organized words by meaning, spelling formation, word
derivation, grammatical information, or vocabulary cards.
Research from the studies has also proven that dictionaries have a great impact in
learning and one of the most common things that learners buy first is a dictionary. Like it or not,
a dictionary is amongst the first things a foreign language student purchases (Baxter, 1980;
Luppescu & Day, 1993), and learners carry their dictionaries around, not grammar books
(Krashen, 1989). It has been argued whether a monolingual dictionary is better than a bilingual
one. Further, research has shown how the dictionaries have been used by learners. Since a
combination of good features of both types of dictionaries is not impossible, there has been
considerable interest in the last twenty years in the new bilingualised comprise dictionaries,
hybrid dictionaries that essentially provide translations in addition to the good feature of
monolingual dictionaries (Hartmann, 1991, p.79). Laufer and Hadar (1997), for example,
compared monolingual, bilingual, and bilingualised dictionaries among 123 EFL learners in
Israel. Through their study, it was found that, regardless of the learners proficiency level, the
bilingualised version was rather significantly better than, or as good as, the other two types in
both comprehension and production tasks.
A research conducted by Akbary and Tahririan (2009) on Vocabulary Learning Strategies

shows learner preferences of using bilingual dictionaries. They investigated vocabulary learning

strategies used for specialized and non-specialized learning vocabulary among ESP students in
different field of studies (Kafipour, Yazdi, Soori & Shokrpour., 2011). The subjects in this
research comprised of 103 undergraduate medical and paramedical students who had enrolled in
ESP in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences from 8 different fields of study. The methods that
were used in this study included observation, interview and questionnaire was used to elicit data.
The findings of the questionnaire showed that the most frequent strategy was using bilingual
dictionaries and the most commonly used learning strategy was oral and/written repetition
(Kafipour, Yazdi, Soori & Shokrpour., 2011).
An important finding which was revealed in the paper by Peter (2003) was the use of
repeating aloud strategy. Empirical results on this issue are also relatively unanimous, that
repeating words aloud helps retention far better than silent repetition Peter (2003). A similar
study was carried out by Seibert (1927) who found that if learners studied aloud, studied aloud
with written and studied silently, the result showed that the first condition always produced
better when compared with the other two. He then followed up further, if the relearning was
effective even after 42 days and found that again learning aloud was significantly efficient than
the other two conditions. However, guessing is also a strategy which is used by learners and
studies have shown that if guessing is used as a strategy it can be beneficial.
Furthermore, the guessing strategy principally applies to reading text as confirmed in the
study completed by Day, Komura and Hamamatsu (1991). The study was conducted in Japan
with 181 high school and 397 university students whereby they had to read a short story for
approximately 30 minutes and soon after reading the text they had to do a multiple choice test
and it was found that both the high school and university groups performed well.
In a longitudinal experiment, Cohen and Aphid (1981) found that students simply tried to
memorize words that they did not know. OMalley et al. (1983) found that repetition was the
most commonly mentioned strategy, with strategies involving deeper more involved
manipulation of information (i.e. imagery, inferencing, Keyword Method) being much less
frequent (Nielsen,2002); on the contrary, to Nation (2001) noticing involves seeing the word
item to be learned. Strategies at this level include putting the word in a vocabulary notebook or
list; putting the word onto a word card and orally and visually repeating the word. Nation points
out that although these strategies are all of recording type; these are useful steps resulting in
deeper processing of words.
2.7 Conclusion
In conclusion, this paper has presented the main findings of various areas of vocabulary
learning strategy research. These findings reveal the importance of exposing learners to various
methods. The concept on good learners is very clear that those learners who are able to employ
various strategies are more successful in acquiring vocabulary than those who choose to use
fewer strategies. Language teachers need to make learners conscious of the need to develop an
independent and structured approach to language learning, which has been shown to be mostly
associated with vocabulary learning success.

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No No Trespassing! The cultural logic of property rights and their moot

pleasures of denial
Mark Webster Hall

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, South Korea
Abstract
The trope of private property may usefully be approached culturally according to its own logic
of denial. What is apparently most powerfully denied in the ownership of property is the right of
others to take advantage of that property without their being given consent. Among the
discursive articulations of this right to exclude are No Trespassing and This [property] is
wholly mine. Suchlike speech acts contribute to an economic subjectivity that wishes, above all,
to establish personal liberty through the sovereign practice of ownership. This sovereignty,
however, is philosophically inconsistent with a market context that demands that one ceaselessly
exchange ones goods and act as guardian to the commodity form. The pleasure of denying
the market itself access to ones property is thus continually thwarted. This fact discloses
multiple tensions within the logic of political economy.
Keywords: capitalism, subjectivity, speech acts, feudalism, philosophy of economics

HAMLET Whose graves this, sirrah?

FIRST CLOWN Mine, sir. (5.1.111-112)
Ownership is a strange business. The possession of property may be analyzed as

something much closer to dispossession than to anything else. What I have and, equally, what I
do not have may thus be taken into account using the logic of denial, or restriction of access.
Jacques Lacans claim that to exercise control over ones goods is to have the right to deprive
others of them accords with precisely such an argument and is extremely suggestive.1 In this
assessment, economic power and pleasure do not come to me directly from whatever it is I have
in my possession; such benefits (if that is what they are) must travel a circuit that maps out a
negative relation I gain because what I have, let us say, dents or retards your will. In other
words, it is your not being able to do something (because of my ownership rights) that yields me
a certain dividend from case to case.2 Where the dividend of ownership relates to physical
property, for instance, restriction of access may be measured in terms of the movements of
another persons body. If I own a piece of land, then my pleasure in restricting your access to
that piece of land may be triggered by your stopping just short of my barbed wire fence.
Depending on my mood, I may also benefit from opening a gate and letting you slip past those
barbs onto a private domain. I have controlled the movements of your body and this control has
been conferred to me by virtue of the bundle of rights that constitutes my ownership of this
particular property.3
This logic of denial of access as property can also be realized in less palpable form. Take
H. L. Menckens question concerning the precise character of the pleasure he feels, all soapy and
pink, having just slipped out of the tub: Did I enjoy a decent bath because I knew that John
Smith could not afford one or because I delighted in being clean?4 There is no direct
implication here that Mencken owns the only bathtub on the street, rather that bathtub ownership
(or perhaps the economic freedom to run hot water into such receptacles) is not, in the land of
Smith and Mencken, universally shared. It is nonetheless acknowledged that part of the bathers
dividend arrives courtesy of the implied denial of access that this non-universality underscores.
Of course, it is not Mencken who enforces this denial the suggestion is rather that there is an
economic background, made up (in part) of denials and concessions of access to hot baths, and
that Mencken benefits not simply from the concession (his hot bath) but also from the denial
(and John Smiths crustiness).
The bathtub case plainly affords us a broader view of ownership and its relationship to
the pleasures involved in denial of access to property that is, a view which sees some of the
benefits of denial necessarily lying within an uneven field. A bathers pleasure could not be
indexed to a non-bathers non-pleasure were all afforded the capacity readily to bathe. As we
have noted, for bather A to enjoy his bath because B cannot enjoy his bath need not require that
A directly restrict Bs access to anything. Bs personal access to baths is none of As concern; it
need simply be the case that A possess the right to enjoy his bath while someone else not be able
to enjoy his. The formal freedom to partake of hot baths conceivably belongs to all. A
participates in Bs not being able to take a bath only insofar as he depends upon that inability for
his satisfaction.

What the owners of bathtubs (and property all told) also seem to depend upon for their
satisfaction is a background of complete ownership of whatsoever it is they have. Fully
controlling access to ones goods presupposes a regime of univocal and inalienable property
rights. Unless I own my property it is not wholly mine (and it is not wholly property) which is
to say I must not share claims on my goods with others if I am to be held their owner. 5
Historically, this trait of exclusivity is a fairly recent innovation. With respect of real estate, for
instance, as Mark Overton notes, the establishment of private property rights on the arable
land of England traces back to no earlier than c. 1550.6 Prior to this two points prevailed:
first, there was scarcely a market for land; it simply was not sold7; second, in the feudal system,
multiple claims of ownership could fall simultaneously upon the same property and be
respected.8 Feudal mechanisms operate with practices of conditional ownership9 land,
especially, cannot be alienated because there exist multiple and overlapping claims upon it. 10 The
pleasure of restricting access to ones property is, under such a logic, consequently thwarted. It is
only when feudal arrangements are broken that that particular pleasure can be inaugurated.
That which breaks the feudal system (in Europe at least) is the recasting of the elements
of production in their specifically capitalist form.11 Property is on the verge of being reshaped.
Attitudes to the land, in particular, undergo radical change. Whereas [l]and was profitable to
feudal landowners mainly because of the tenants who occupied and worked it[,] with the rise of
markets for land and wool and with the development of improved methods of agriculture land
became transferable and in some cases more profitable when stripped of its customary
inhabitants.12 As Robert Brenner points out, the sequence of this realignment of forces was the
peasants failure to establish essential freehold control over the land [in the sixteenth century],
[and] the landlord[s being] able to engross, consolidate and enclose, to create large farms and to
lease them to capitalist tenants who could afford to make significant capital investments.13 From
this point forth, the agrarian economy is reconstituted. Land is now a commodity. The modern
notion of ownership has emerged where one can do whatever one wants with ones own.14
Part of what property owners wished to do, of course, was to expel feudal tenants from the land
and replace them with new ones (under new conditions). With land commoditized, the execution
of such wishes is properly enabled. Restriction of access to ones property is beginning to be
regularized and understood as an expression of the law.
These practices of restriction belong to an economic logic that changes both the subjects
who partake of it and the goods they traffic. Once land and property full stop becomes a
commodity, then the individuals (and classes) that own and/ or desire access to that land (that
property) need to behave in a different way. With property wholly owned (by one subject),
ownership becomes a matter of all-or-nothing. Either I own this piece of land and thus do all
the rights of access (and denial of access) concerning it accrue to me or I do not.15 There is no
halfway position (as there was with a feudal logic). The language of inalienable property rights
consists of claims such as This is wholly mine and I have the sole right to restrict your access
to that which is mine. These are speech acts; they contribute to a discourse that bids for a
particular vein of economic subjectivity to be taken seriously. Importantly, moreover, these
claims point back to the speaker as much as they do the property concerned. The claims remind

the listener not only that there is an item which is owned, and that there are property rights
pertaining to that item, but that, crucially, both item and property rights themselves belong to a
particular subject. Thus, while suchlike claims may serve either as a warning or, equally, a
provisional concession of access that is, either No trespassing! or OK, you may enter my
abode they also inculcate an agency that is ostensibly sovereign. No trespassing! in this line
of thinking may thus be cashed out as My will both immediately and ultimately governs access
to this property! And if we push this logic back another step to include a subtext relating to a
potential trespasser we get something like the following: Your will (to gain access) bends to
my will on this particular occasion. Fleshed out in this manner, of course, it may be seen that
the property (whatever it may be) simply plays piggy-in-the-middle to a contest of wits, to a
battle of desires to be obeyed, to be recognized as master. Property and property law may
thus be understood, in this reading, as contingently shaping a clash of wills that would otherwise
have existed, but which took advantage of prevailing economical structures to give this particular
form to what is, in essence, a timeless human struggle.
But there is another reading of the contested agency involved in this dramatization of
property rights. To attest to there being a sovereign will disclosed by, as it were, the deep
grammar of each and every property claim is perhaps to grant the subject too majestic a narrative
position. We must permit that the will of subjects is prone itself to being shaped and refracted by
conditions of political economy. Evgeny Pashukanis usefully educes such an interpretation:
Historically it was precisely the exchange transaction which generated the idea of the
subject as the bearer of every imaginable legal claim. Only in commodity production
does the abstract legal form see the light: in other words, only there does the general
capacity to possess a right become distinguished from concrete legal claims. Only the
continual reshuffling of values in the market create the idea of a fixed bearer of such
16
rights.
What primarily interests me at this point is Pashukanis exposition of the relationship

between economic modality and social fact. Both the value of market commodities and the legal
status of rights-bearing subjects constitute social forms in which the [capitalist] production
relationship simultaneously appea[r].17 Furthermore, it is only in commodity production that
these two mututally abstract features of social life viz., commodity value and legal subject
come fully into being.18 It is not the individual subject nor, likewise, the will of the individual
subject that is in charge here; it is, rather, the subject being compelled to stand in a particular
relationship to the market and to the commodity. The subject has very clear obligations in this
context, as Karl Marx pointed out:
Commodities cannot themselves go to market and perform exchanges in their own

right. We must, therefore, have recourse to their guardians, who are the possessors of
commodities. Commodities are things, and therefore lack the power to resist man. If
they are unwilling, he can use force; in other words, he can take possession of them. In
order that these objects may enter into relations with each other as commodities, their
guardians must place themselves in relation to one another as persons whose will
resides in those objects, and must behave in such a way that each does not appropriate
the commodity of the other, and alienate his own, except through an act to which both

parties consent. The guardians must therefore recognize each other as owners of private
19
property.
To perform the role of commoditys guardian lawfully, the subject must constrain his will
such that it fully respect the rights of another commoditys guardian. The sovereignty of each
guardian is, in this sense, domesticated; the two parties must forsake violence and blatant
cozenage; they must also acknowledge that the logic of commodity requires they face each other
as equals.
This formal equality becomes most salient in contexts where the question of the
alienation of property is at stake. Where I face you as property owner, I must assume that you
recognize me as a property owner for otherwise our relationship is, strictly speaking,
illegitimate. You must understand and respect my rights either to consent to exchange my
property or to refrain from doing so. However, these assumptions depend on your being a
property owner (or potential property owner) yourself. Unless we face each other in a situation
where exchange is at least potentially on the cards, then our meeting really makes no sense. The
commodity guardians are the most formally equal, therefore, when they are at market for it is a
market logic that indeed conditions that equality. The market is a site of probation to repeat, it
is the place where ownership rights are constantly reappraised and where subjects are obliged to
rehearse a permanent speculative posture.20 The market tests as much for how the economic
subject speaks as much as anything else he is obliged to make claims concerning his property,
for instance, that remind others (and he himself) how attuned he is to the logic of commodity
exchange.
This obligation, repeated over time, produces a subjectivity that has a number of
interesting features in terms of how it respects and acts as a true guardian to the commodity.
One paradoxical feature of the context itself relates to the subjects need to exercise property
rights. We have canvassed a range of situations where this need is evident. A landlord is
compelled to supervise access to his property and he will achieve satisfaction by courtesy
merely of exercising that right. In the classic public enunciation of that property right as we
have noted he may nail his No Trespassing! sign to his starkest yet healthiest tree. However,
on closer examination, it must be said that this enunciation does not belong to the language of the
market at all. The true guardian of the commodity ought not to approach the market with the
coarse and inflexible language of universal restriction foremost in his mind. One does not take
the land to market unless the land is potentially (formally) up for sale. No Trespassing needs to
take a back seat if a balance is to be found here between asserting ones sole property rights and
performing a willingness always to have something to trade. Ultimately, everything is vendible
in this logic of market-shaped law. The commodity must flow.21 The merchant must, as
Douglas Bruster remarks, accustom himself to allowing wealth to pass through his hands
into that of another.22 This paramount need for the ceaseless trafficking of goods must
nonetheless square with the requirement that property rights contain a provision for non-consent
to sale, together with an expression of restriction of access until sale.

How might these apparently contradictory requirements match up? That is, how may I
keep hold of my rights not to sell and not to yield access in the face of the market? How may
I do so even formally? Furthermore, where might any hypothesized pleasure of restriction come
in here? There is a sense, I believe, in which the market regulates logically for conditions where
property itself evaporates grows diffuse and wholly fungible and what the market-going
subject really owns is solely the right to exchange. Even with a commodity as apparently
concrete and idiosyncratic as a piece of land whether it be two hectares or five thousand it is
arguably not that property itself that the owner may be said to control. For, as I have said, under
optimal market conditions the owner does not have the right in principle to keep that piece of
land back from the market, to shore it off from potential purchase. The landowner may, of
course, in practice choose (for so long as he shall live) not to sell the land that is true; but he is
precluded from adopting this I will not sell as a principle. Were he to adopt such a principle
that is, I will not sell not matter what the landowner would cease to be a capitalist; and become,
instead, a hoarder.23 The property owner is forbidden from approaching the market too
defensively; he needs to open his property up he needs to distance himself from it; in order for
that land to be a commodity, it must (again, in principle) flow away from him, and keep going.
What the property owner does arguably retain throughout the process of the ceaseless
trafficking of commodities is, as I have suggested, the property right. The property is no longer
owned per se, it might be claimed, but the abstract legal right to it it is that which is retained; it
is that which is stable and sacrosanct. Perhaps, therefore, we might find pleasure resonating with
property owners at market who are able to restrict access to that right. But does this notion even
make sense? I am not sure that it does. The abstract, formal right to property can, by definition,
neither be rescinded, nor traded away it provides, as it were, the metaphysical ground upon
which the commodity traffic is carried out. Not only does everybody in this system have the right
univocally and inalienably to own and exchange commodities, they have the positive obligation
to do so. Given this point, it is problematic suggesting that this formal right ought to be
celebrated too grandly. My agency is being forcibly directed and shaped, after all, by a market
logic that insists that I exchange in a sense, that I hold nothing back and, equally, that I allow
all commodities (from elsewhere) to come to (and pass through) me on their circulatory odyssey.
Were I able to forsake that right (that obligation), then my role in this economy would perforce
come to an end. Short of completely going off grid, and leaving the world of commodities
behind, however, I do not have the right to forsake that right. I cannot exchange that right; I
cannot even give it away. Equally, I cannot restrict anothers access to my rights to property
for, logically, there is no such access to supervise, to restrict.
The property owner intent on finding true, market-consistent pleasure in his denials of
access to property right is left with two possibilities, it seems to me. First, he may seek
consolation in assaying a globally uneven field of property ownership and take consolation
thereby in the knowledge that there are many millions of subjects around the world who lack
even the formal freedom to own property. That is, there exist societies where the capitalist
market is either not sanctioned or where the rights of market-goers are not reliably protected by
the law. Arguably, these states and regions existing in this manner and standing on the
periphery of the capitalist world market perform a useful function.24 From orthodoxys point of

view, they serve as examples of what not to do. Their ostensibly stricken or backward status may
be highlighted by media and state functionaries in order to discipline those who are governed by
the market logic. This discipline could take the form of a warning along the lines of, There is
no alternative to the system we have in place; these basket-case economies demonstrate that
or a series of calls for comparison which might conceivably have a tonic effect: They do not
have the right to own and upon consent to alienate property you do! News items that draw our
attention to the predicament of those who live in such peripheral economies plausibly carry such
messages as a part of their subtext. The right to property can be treasured when it is plainly not
shared by all because it is plainly not so shared. This is not to say that property owners of a
particular ilk thereby disavow the dream of extending property rights further into the darkest
reaches, simply that some pleasure (pathological or not) seems likely to accrue to those who
reflect upon this kind of disparity.
This line of thinking needs to be pushed further in order that the relationship between
property right holders and (if you will) property right non-holders (in the periphery) be more
closely interrogated. After all, it is not as if my property rights themselves have any direct
influence on those in the periphery. My ownership of land in, say, Surinam, does nothing to
restrict the rights of an individual in, let us imagine, Chechnya, whose legal relationship to any
plot of land is rendered precarious by the lack of a stable, rights-enforcing authority. I may
enjoy, in (hopefully) some modest and sheepish manner, the disparity that here appears to lie at
present in my favor, I cannot in any way take the credit for it. While there may be arguments that
suggest that the capitalist core complete with its rights-defended subjects in some way
depends upon there being a periphery where property rights are not reliably protected, it is by no
means clear how my particular property rights participate in this dependence. Whatever
satisfaction (or, alternatively, feelings of shame) I receive from reflecting upon certain of the
relative global economic advantages I possess, I would suggest that these satisfactions are
independent of the structural causes of the disparities in question.
The logical links activated by (respectively) my exerting my property rights and someone
else not doing so are less obviously independent of each other when it comes to speaking of my
fellow citizens. Here the possibly causal connections between restriction and pleasure are more
suggestive. Where the capitalist market logic prevails and is constantly reinforced legally and
ideologically there, as we have indicated, all parties will possess the formal right to own and
exchange property. These parties will also have the right in practice but not in principle
wholly to restrict market access to that property. There formal, legal capacities will be shared;
possession of these rights, and practice in exercising them, will, indeed, form a good deal of the
public subjectivity of the citizenry entire. Ideally, everybody of sound mind will be able to own
property it will be a skill; practicing that skill, and being steeped in the knowledge of that kind
of owning, will be something prized and respected fluency in performing that skill, moreover,
will normally be rewarded.25 However, this business of a shared knowledge almost an
inheritance remains at the level of the law (not simply the ideology); that is, it remains abstract
and only potentially accessible to all. There will be, as we know, massive disparities within the
society between the haves and the have-nots. Logically parallel to a context in which all retain to
formal right to own spa baths and to fill them with hot, bubbling water will run a practical logic

which only sees part of the population being able to perform such ablutions willy-nilly. The
disparity in practice is concrete: one agent is able to exercise his property right; another is not.
The logical connections between property rights and the kind of pleasures of restriction we have
been interested in here is less clear.
One point that seems straightforward is economic agent Ys being able to enjoy his
exercise of a property right in part because economic agent X is not able to enjoy the same in a
particular case. Enjoyment here pertains to the deprivation of others. And the force of this
deprivation is undeniably powerful in terms of its yield of pleasure. We see this point clearly
when we reflect upon the case, given in anecdote by Slavoj iek, of the Slovene peasant who
is given a choice by a good witch: she will either give him one cow, and to his neighbor two
cows, or take from him one cow, and from his neighbor two cows [with] the peasant
immediately choos[ing] the second option.26 The peasant consulted here is extremely sensitive
to the possibilities involved in a kind of negative emulation: he is prepared to lose something if
only his neighbor lose more. What matters is not some incremental personal benefit of
possession (simply having another head of livestock in the herd, say) for such a consideration
is easily trumped by being able to gauge the disadvantage imposed on someone else on
someone whose disadvantage, importantly, means something to you. Undoubtedly, there is
vindictiveness instantiated in such a calculus but there is also a kind of obstinate beauty a
perverse, intuitive genius that draws in a sacrificial logic (I lose; you lose again). We must
note, of course, that in this case property rights have been suspended. But of this the peasant has
made no complaint, provided those rights were also suspended (doubly, as it were) for the rival.
Indeed, property rights had to be suspended for this particular yield of pleasure to be secured.
Translating the process into the register of property claims, we might proffer that the peasants
This [cow] is wholly mine has well and truly been drowned out by the sly (yet triumphant)
observation that thanks to the witch His [cows] are no longer his.
The Slovene peasant case study provides us with a useful resource when attempting to
unravel some of the paradoxes of property rights and the pleasures of restriction that they, by
hypothesis, disclose. I have argued, after all, that within the commodity logic, all property is in
principle constantly on the verge of slipping away from its owners clutches toward the world of
market trafike. That always-being-on-the-verge-of-losing-ones-property is, after all, what
constitutes practicing ownership in this world of never-ending exchange. We are not a million
miles away from a good witch overseeing the commodity market such that the express
flimsiness of a property owners relationship to his commodities be realized again and again
when property is owned (and then released unto the market). The modality of that ownership,
to repeat, need be as diffuse, as abstract, and as flexible as possible to fully respect the logic of
the commodity form. And at the same time, of course, the formal right to express that diffuse,
abstract ownership relationship need be articulated as something impregnable and
unimpeachably sovereign. The formal, legal right to own property ought to never enter the fray
although the right is as abstract as the commodity, therefore, it is nowhere near as slippery; it
never leaves the owner.

Both the commodity and the ownership modality (especially, the strength with which
something is owned, or possessed) therefore share, in the market logic, much the same kind of
frictionless impalpability. The commodity is owned weakly, or softly; it is not craved; so long as
it is a commodity, the owner must not cling to it, as he might to his pound of flesh. If his
commodity is a cow, then, ideally, he must freely and lightly be able to imagine that cow being
whisked away (not necessarily by a witch, but perhaps by an invisible hand). He must be
perfectly comfortable with the prospect of his never being able to see that cow again indeed, he
must (in terms of his desire) welcome its departure its vanishing. Equally to be fair the
economic agent must welcome the sudden, mysterious appearance of a commodity on the
potential purchase/ investment horizon. If that commodity is a cow, then so be it; if a government
bond, likewise. Fleetingly, inevitably, in many ways irresistibly, the commodity form will come,
and it will go. Given this point, the commodity wave may be understood, from the owners point
of view, to constitute a source of pleasure and fear. Granting that the fear may correspond to the
commoditys departure its slipping away from the owners grasp; equally, that fear may be
triggered by the headlong rush of commodities toward the potential owner. What ought one to do
faced with this onslaught purchase everything in sight? There is clearly an excess here that may
be registered as a threat. Conversely, the commoditys departure beyond the sunset its leaving
the owner behind yet again likely produces mixed feelings: disappointment, perhaps, that a
more intimate relationship could not have been established before the commodity was swept
back into the market swirl; excitement, also, that what was had, briefly, has been caught up in the
stampede of trafike.
The argument that the commodity flow produces fears and pleasures in all property
owners has suggestive implications when it comes to analyzing the logic of property rights and
the potential restrictions they promise between agents. With all subjects faced with the
emotionally fraught predicament of the commodity sweeping past oneself to be replaced by yet
another constellation of items the temptation to apply restrictions on others holding on to
property (or, alternatively, being able to keep the commodity form at bay) is plausibly strong.
Given my anxieties concerning the stability of my ownership relationship with the commodity, I
may attempt to displace some of that anxiety by somehow exacerbating the precariousness of
others relationships to property. Were I able to limit the ownership capacity of others such that
their capacity become (or remain) less than my own, then this limitation may compensate for my
own vexed feelings when faced with market pressures. But how might I do that? There are great
restrictions on what I can restrict in this context, after all. I cannot restrict another economic
agents right to property that is sacrosanct, inviolable. Equally, I can no more restrict their
access to the market to the helter-skelter of commodity exchange any more than I can, in a
sense, restrict my own. Where do my options for property restriction lie?
To answer this question convincingly we need first restate our understanding of the
paradoxical situation in which the economic agent is placed. The most resounding clarion call of
the market is, as we have noted, Exchange your goods! Do not hold your property back from
the market! Exchange! Exchange! Exchange! But running beneath that particular tune which
may be conceived as forceful, allegro, and high-pitched is the stolid hum of individual property
rights: Each of you is sovereign over that which he owns. The second message here, moreover,

is treated as being axiomatic to the first that is, Unless you wholly own that which you own,
you will not be able to exchange your goods at market. However, there is clearly a sense in
which the impetus to exchange violates the principle of full ownership. The lawful apothegm of
property rights This is yours to do as you will commonly thought to have inaugurated
modern political economy may actually be read as inconsistent with the commodity logic. The
markets claim upon my goods Exchange! Exchange! constitutes a weird recurrence of the
old feudal logic of multiple and overlapping claims falling upon the same piece of property.
Faced with these mutually contradictory injunctions, the property owner may be tempted to
revert to feudal type himself to repeat, he may strongly desire to hold something (perhaps a
great deal) back from market. No Trespassing! for this property owner may cash thus out as
referring not to another individual agent, but to the market itself. But this No Trespassing is
strictly forbidden and the property owner exists in a double bind. What is he to do?
One option is a rhetorical, or, weakly, an ideological one. The property owner or more
likely a certain class of property owners may wish, in the face of the omnivorous market, to
assert that the abstract, formal right of property qualifies as the most important right of all. This
assertion versions of, say, Individual property rights are the basis of our liberty would, in
this reading of is, therefore function as a displacement weapon that is, it would masquerade as
a injunction of liberty when confronted with the truth that it is the market itself which threatens
the very meaning of that injunction. Instead of directing their injunction at the market proper,
however, this kind of stress on the inviolability of property rights, would be directed
horizontally, on to other property owners, and inevitably downwards, on to those unlikely to
have enough property to justify giving the claim (to property) much centrality in their lives. In
the first case of horizontal attribution the rhetorical stress may well produce a kind of
solidarity. One basic variation here might be, We (property owners) all have our property rights
to cling on to; it is those rights that make us what we are. This claim speaks against a market
logic that insists the commodity pass through the owners hands and not be held. Faced with
such market pressures, the claim that the property right is held may bring consolation At least
we have this! but it is nonetheless empty. In fact, the market logic effectively mocks the
claim, for the obligation ceaselessly to exchange the commodity rebukes, as we have discussed,
any principled right not to exchange. Of all the rights that may be apportioned in the market
context the right not to exchange ones goods is precisely that which must be rendered (and
formulated as) otiose. The injunction Exchange! Exchange! Exchange is thus logically
grounded upon a negative axiom, namely You may not not exchange and that will the proper
translation of each owners property right. The consolation of denying this with talk of having
inalienable rights to property is derived entirely spuriously (although this is not necessarily to
disparage its force).
The position of the economic agent holding to his property rights in this fashion clearly
discloses a tension within the cultural logic. With the expression of the property right
accompanying its principled denial (in and with the market), there is a sense in which a whole
range of signature claims concerning property ownership will betray their precariousness. While
the subject may stridently claim that his property is his to exchange or not, I have suggested that
this actuality is very precisely contradicted by his market position. Strictly speaking, the

commodity owner is never in a position to hold back his goods no more than he is able to stop
commodities on the market horizon rearing up and approaching him at legion points of sale. His
cries of No Trespassing thus ring false throughout. He may be safe in the assumption that
particular others may not be able to access his goods for the contingent reason that they (at that
juncture) are too poor to afford them but he cannot in principle restrict the trespassing of the
market entire. In whole, he is, moreover, forbidden from wanting so to restrict. The obligation is
to welcome market access and to decry any resistance to such market encroachments. No
Trespassing will be thought to be a speech act of the worst possible taste in this context. It is to
be shunned. Whatever pleasures the holder of property rights may glean from holding those
properties will not, ultimately, concern his sovereign control of access to that which he owns for
the simple reason that he cannot appease the encroachments of the market.

Endnotes
1
Lacan, 229.
2
Certain rights-focused perspectives on social justice would have us exclude precisely this kind
of satisfaction as pathological from the outset hence, John Rawls note that an individual who
finds that he enjoys leaving others in positions of lesser liberty understands that he has no claim
whatsoever to this enjoyment. The pleasure he takes in others deprivations is wrong in itself
(Rawls, 31).
3
Banner, 45.
4
Mencken, 273.
5
Indeed as Gerard Casey elucidates where I am too lenient when it comes to supervising
access to my property, the law may punish me according to the common law doctrine of
adverse possession such that [i]f someone without legal title to a piece of land treats it in such
a way as to asset ownership of it (say, for example, by building on it or fencing it off from
surrounding land) and if the holder of the title takes no action to assert his rights to the land, then
the adverse possessor will, after a certain time, be able to assert a title superior to that of the
original owner. The failure of the original title holder to exclude the adverse possessor is taken to
be tantamount to an abandonment of his claim to title (Casey, 69).
6
Overton, 147.
7
Howell, 39.
8
Bloch, 116.
9
The feudal mode of production was, as Perry Anderson remarks, precisely defined by
juridical principles of scalar or conditional property (25).
10
It is very rare, during the whole of the feudal era, for anyone to speak of ownership, either of
an estate or an office; much rarer still for a law-suit to turn on such ownership. What the
parties claim is almost invariably seisin What then was this famous seisin? It was not
exactly possession, which the mere seizure of the land or the right would have sufficed to create.
It was possession made venerable by the lapse of time. Two litigants go law about a field or the
right to administer justice. No matter which of them is the present holder, that one will succeed
who is able to prove that he ploughed the land or administered justice during previous years or,
better still, that his ancestors before him did so (Bloch, 115).
11
Holstun, 121; 115.
12
Halpern, 71.

13
Brenner, 49.
14
Milbank, 224.
15
D. K. Yonai notes the useful distinction in law between the in personam approach to property
[in which] property exists as merely a right to a particular facet of [an] object[, which] rights
usually include an ownership right, a right of possession, a right to distribute [etc.], and the in
rem approach to property [which] treats property as a particular right to some things and
confer[s] on those persons the right to exclude a large and indefinite class of other persons
from the thing (163).
16
Pashukanis, 118.
17
Simmonds, 140.
18
Miville, 93.
19
Marx, 178.
20
Agnew, 46.
21
Consider Sir Francis Bacons paradigmatic injunction in this context disdaining the universal
solvent (that is, the perfect commodity) unless it undergo radical dissemination Money is like
muck; not good lest it be spread (Reeves, 148).
22 Bruster, 205.
23
Or, alternatively, guilty of the (Keynesian) preference for liquidity, that is, abstention from
investment (Marrazzi, 125).
24
Granting that some wish to finesse this distinction between core and periphery in contemporary
political economy by arguing that, effectively, one might say that the sovereignty of Empire
itself is realized at the margins, where bodies are flexible and identities are hybrid and fluid. It
would be difficult to say which is more important to Empire, the center or the margins. In fact,
center and margin seem continually to be shifting positions, fleeing any determinate locations
(Hardt and Negri, 39).
25
Ownership is not a simple and instinctive notion that is navely included under the notion of
productive effort on the one hand, nor under that of habitual use on the other. It is not something
given to begin with, as an item of the isolated individuals mental furniture; something which has
to be unlearned in part when men come to co-operate in production and make working
arrangements and mutual renunciations under the stress of associated life It is a conventional
fact and has to be learned; it is a cultural fact which has grown into an institution in the past

through a long course of habituation, and which is transmitted from generation to generation as
all cultural facts are (Veblen, 42).
26
iek, 351.
.

References
-Agnew, Jean-Christophe. Worlds Apart: The Market and the Theatre in Anglo-American
Thought, 1550-1750. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.
-Anderson, Perry. Lineages of the Absolutist State. London: NLB, 1974.
-Aston, T.H. and C.H.E. Philpin (eds.). The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and
Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.
-Banner, Stuart. American Property: A History of How, Why, and What We Own. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 2011.
-Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1961.
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Aston and Philpin 10-63.
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Shakespeare. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 30.2 (1990): 195-215.
-Casey, Gerard. Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State. London: Bloomsbury, 2012.
-Halpern, Richard. The Poetics of Primitive Accumulation: English Renaissance Culture and the
Genealogy of Capital. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991.
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2000.
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UP, 2010.
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1992.
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Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2008.
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1949.

-Miville, China. Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law. Leiden: Brill,
2005.
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and Religion 1.1 (2012): 203-234.
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Economy, 1500-1850. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
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the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 62 (1999): 126-166.
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(1985): 135-151.
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18 (2007): 161-176.
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The Development of Students Learning Achievements and Learning

Behaviors through Participatory Learning Method
Phatsaraphorn Khansakhorn,
Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Takhli Campus, Thailand
Rangsiphat Yongyuttwichai
Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Takhli Campus, Thailand
Abstract
The objectives of this research were: 1) to compare the students learning achievements before
and after the implementation of the participatory learning method; 2) to study the students
learning behaviors using the participatory learning method; and 3) to evaluate students
satisfaction towards the participatory learning method to help develop students learning
achievements and learning behaviors. The results showed that the students learning
achievements before using the participatory learning method was rated at the level of 16.67.
After the implementation of the participatory learning method, the students learning
achievements were rated at a significantly high level of 20.73. Moreover, the components of the
participatory learning method including a mind map, a case study, and games yielded
satisfactory effect on students learning behaviors especially in the aspect of responsibilities,
which was rated at the highest level of 4.66.The students learning behaviors development as a
whole was rated at a high level of 4.46.
In part of evaluation of students satisfaction towards the participatory learning method to

develop students learning behaviors and learning achievements, it was found that the aspect of
teaching integration was rated at the highest level of 4.40. In overall, the results assessment was
rated at the high level of 4.31.
Keywords: Participatory Learning, Learning Achievements, Learning Behaviors

1. Introduction
Education is an important foundation for human development and education

development. In terms of education development, teaching development is a way to motivate
students to study and participate in the teaching and learning processes. Thus, the participatory
learning method is the teaching method giving a focus on individual students and their learning
potentials, requiring students complete participation in the teaching and learning processes
(Academic Department, 1999). In addition, Tongkaew, T. (2003) stated that the participatory
learning method is an efficient approach suitable to current teaching situations in which teachers
employ a participatory learning method with the main focus on acquiring new information from
various knowledge resources, learners participation in learning situations and integration their
prior knowledge to their current learning situations, giving students a chance to present their
information to their peers to check and confirm their existing knowledge. In tertiary level, it is
very important for students to keep learning. Thus, traditional teaching may not require a
complete participation from students, causing the lack of complete understanding of what being
taught and yielding the unsatisfactory learning achievements. Without the participatory learning
method, teachers may not well perceive if students understand what they have been taught or not
and, to what extent students develop themselves from learning. These resulted from incomplete
knowledge gained in a classroom. The researcher conducted a survey with 30 3rd year students
who enrolled in Electronic Commerce Course using questionnaires to elicit about students
perceptions about the participatory learning method on the development of learning
achievements and learning behaviors. The data were analyzed using percentile and average
scores and the results showed 80% of students reported nonconcurred responses to the
questionnaires. As such, the researcher proposed to conduct a research to compare students
learning achievements and learning behaviors before and after using the participatory learning
method and determine the levels of students satisfaction towards this learning method.
At present, many researchers have employed the participatory learning method in classes
to develop students learning achievements and learning behaviors. Pothong, S. (2013)
conducted a research on the effect of the participatory learning method of group learning on
reading for main ideas of Thai language and learning group of 3rd year primary school students.
Siraphatthada, Y. (2010) investigated the development of the students learning behaviors and
learning achievements in Marketing Principles Course using the participatory learning method.
Sukcheua S. et al. (2009) revealed the results of the study on local curriculum about chili using
learning resources in the community with the emphasis on participatory learning innovations.
Rangseedham S. (2011) studied the development of CAI integrating the participatory learning
method and buddy learning via computer network in Information Technology for Management
Course. Tanabutr P. (2004) investigated the development of the participatory learning method
based on an informal education system for 1996 Vocational Certificate.
This research paper employed the participatory learning method with various components
including mind mapping, a case study, and games to conduct participatory learning, compare
students learning achievements and students learning behaviors and after using participatory

learning so as to determine students learning achievements as well as students learning

behaviors. The researcher used these findings to further develop the participatory learning
method in other course.
2. Purposes of the Study
The purposes of this study are as follows.

1. To compare the students learning achievements before and after the intervention of
the participatory learning method.
2. To compare the students learning behaviors before and after using the participatory
learning method.
3. To investigate the students satisfaction levels towards the participatory learning
method.
4. Method
3.1 Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework of this study to compare the learning achievements and
learning behaviors of students enrolling in Electronic Commerce before and after using the
participatory learning method is as follows.
Figure 1 Conceptual Framework
3
.2
Res
ear
ch
Pro
cedures
The study on the Development of Students Learning Achievements and Learning

Behaviors through the Participatory Learning Method is an action research comprising the
follows 3 steps
1. Information Collection for the Study
This stage is collecting and studying information in terms of students learning

achievements and learning behaviors from related reading materials and related research articles
to create a conceptual framework to check the correction of information for the participatory
learning method and find the most effective participatory learning method suitable to students in
Electronic Commerce Course.

2. Pretest and Trying Out
This stage is administering the one group pretest developed by the researcher to 30 3 rd
year 30 students to obtain the data to be analyzed and summarized and the components of
participatory learning methods: mind mapping, a case study, and games were tried out and
revised.
3. Posttest and Satisfaction Evaluation
This stage is administering the one group posttest developed by the researcher to 30 3rd
year students to determine students learning achievements after using the participatory learning
method and to evaluate the students satisfaction towards the participatory learning method.
3.3 Scope of the Study
3.3.1 Samples and Sampling Method
The samples were 30 3rd year Business Computer students enrolling in Electronic
Commerce Course at Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Takhli Campus in semester 2 of the
academic year of 2014, drawn by purposive sampling method.
3.3.2 Scope of the Data
1. Data regarding participatory learning.

2. Data regarding the development of students learning achievements and learning
behaviors.
3. Data regarding students satisfaction towards the participatory learning method.
3.3.3 Scope of the Samples

1. The samples used to determine the learning achievements before and after the
intervention of the participatory learning method.
2. The samples used to observe the learning behaviors.
3. The samples used to determine satisfaction towards the participatory learning method.
3.3.4 Research Instruments
The instruments used in this study are accordingly:

1. Achievement Test (One Group, Pretest and Posttest)
2. Learning Behavioral Observation Check List
3. Participatory Learning Methods with 3 components: Mind Mapping, A Case Study,
and Games
4. Satisfaction Evaluation Questionnaires

3.3.5 Scope of Technology
To investigate the students learning behaviors, students learning achievements before

and after using the participatory learning, and students satisfaction towards the participatory
learning method, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 17.00 was employed to
analyze data using average scores, mean, standard deviation, percentile, and t-test.
3.3.6 Data Analysis
The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics including arithmetic mean,
mean, percentile, standard deviation to investigate the students learning behaviors before and
after the intervention of the participatory learning method, and to investigate students
satisfaction towards the participatory learning method. Similarly T test was used to investigate
students learning achievements before and after the intervention of the participatory learning
method.
4. Results
The data collected from 30 3rd year students enrolling in Electronic Commerce were
analyzed and the results were according to the following parts.
Part I. Students Learning Achievement
In terms term of students learning achievements, the study revealed that students
learning achievements before the intervention of the participatory learning method was rated at
the level of 16.67, and after the intervention at 20.73.
Table 1. A Comparison of Students Learning Achievement before and after the

Intervention of the Participatory Learning Method
Test Total Scores x S.D. t test

Pre-test 30 16.67 1.78 - 21.249
Post-test 30 20.73 1.76
Part II. Students Learning Behaviors
In terms of students learning behaviors, the study manifested the students learning
behaviors after using participatory learning method in the aspect of responsibility was rated at
the level of 4.66, the aspect of kindness at the level of 4.56, and in the aspect of enthusiasm at the
level of 4.46, respectively.

Table 2. Students Learning Behaviors the Participatory, Learning Method
Aspects of Behaviors x S.D.

Responsibility 4.66 0.47
Self-disciplines 4.43 0.50
Tolerance 4.23 0.43
Enthusiasm 4.46 0.50
Kindness 4.56 0.50
Overall Behavioral Development 4.46 0.48
Part III. Students Satisfaction towards the Participatory Learning Method
In terms of the students satisfaction towards the participatory learning method, the study
reported that the students satisfaction towards the participatory learning method in the aspect of
teaching integration was rated at the level of 4.40, in the aspect of methods of knowledge
relaying at the level of 4.37, and in the aspect of teaching expertise at the level of 4.28,
respectively.
Table 3. Students Satisfaction towards the Participatory, Learning Method
Satisfaction x S.D. Levels of Satisfaction

Teaching Readiness and 4.20 0.68 High
preparation
Methods of knowledge 4.37 0.63 High
relaying
Teaching integration 4.40 0.55 High
Teaching expertise 4.28 0.57 High
Overall evaluation 4.31 0.60 High
5. Discussion
The participatory learning method had significant effects on students learning

achievements and students learning behaviors in Electronic Commerce Course. The results
were summarized into three parts as follows.
5.1 The Comparison of Students Learning Achievements before and after the
Intervention of Participatory Learning Method
The students learning achievements after the intervention of the participatory learning
method in Electronic Commerce Course significantly increased at the level of 20.73, which was
higher than those before the intervention, which were rated at the level of 16.67. Based on the T-
Test analysis, the students learning achievements statistically significantly increased at the level
of 0.05. This result was attributed to the mind mapping, a case study, and games used

theoretically and practically in participatory learning, which helped increase students average
scores in Electronic Commerce Course.
5.2 A Comparison of Students Learning Behaviors before and after the Intervention of
Participatory Learning Method
The intervention of the participatory learning method in Electronic Commerce Course

had statistically significant effects on students learning behaviors in the following five aspects:
responsibility, self-discipline, tolerance, enthusiasm, and kindness. Based on an analysis, the
overall mean scores of the five aspects were rated at the level of 4.46, which was significantly
high. Interestingly, the aspect of responsibility was rated the highest at the level of 4.66. This
was ascribed to the complete participation in learning and the practical training which made
students more attentive to the study and have clear understanding of what are studying.
Consequently, they are able to apply their learning behaviors to their daily life learning in
different learning settings.
5.3 The Students Satisfaction towards the Participatory Learning Method after
Learning
The students expressed a high satisfaction towards the participatory learning method after
learning. The level of students satisfaction towards the participatory learning method was rated
at the level of 4.31 as a whole. According to an analysis for each aspect, the aspect of teaching
integration was rated the highest at the level of 4.40. Based on an analysis, the students satisfied
different ways of teaching using mind mapping, a case study, and games, which very well
motivated them to completely participate in teaching and learning activities and to further their
study.
6. Conclusions and Suggestions
This research study showed the effectiveness of using the participatory learning method
in teaching Electronic Commerce Course with 30 3rd year Business Computer students at
Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Takhli Campus. As such, the teaching and learning using the
participatory learning method should be used in other courses rather than Electronic Commerce
Course to determine students learning achievements, and also used with other components
rather than mind mapping, a case study, and games to determine different learning achievements
and learning behaviors in different contexts.
7. Acknowledgements
The researcher would like to express thanks to Research Center, Thepsatri Rajabhat
University for a research grant to make this research possible. Also my deep thanks go to the
secretary of Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Takhli Campus, Assistant Professor Somsong
Kritamanoroth, for all her supports to make this research completed. The researcher also
specially thanks Dr. Kriangkrai Yaikhong, who helped proofread my English in this paper.

References
-Academic Department. (2001) Fundamental Curriculum. Bangkok: Academic Department,

Ministry of Education.
-Pothong, S. (2013) The Effect of the Participatory Learning Method of Group Learning on
Reading for Main Ideas of Thai Language and Learning Group of Third Year Primary School
Students. Unpublished Masters Dissertation. Songkhla: Thaksin University.
-Rangseedham S. (2011) The Development of CAI Integrating the Participatory Learning

Method and Buddy Learning via Computer Network in Information Technology for
Management Course. Masters unpublished Dissertation: Bangkong:
King Mongkuts University of North Bangkok.
-Siraphatthada, Y. (2010) The development of the Students Learning Behaviors and

LearningAchievements in Marketing Principles Course using the Active Learning: Classroom
Research Report for Tertiary Education Level. Bangkong: SuanSunandha Rajabhat University.
-Sukcheua S. et al. (2009) Results of the Study on Local Curriculum about Chili Using
Learning Resources in the Community with the Emphasis on Participatory Learning Innovations.
Research Report: Ubon Rachatani: Ubon Rachatani Rajabhat University.
-Tanabutr P. (2004) The Development of the Participatory Learning Method based on an

Informal Education System for 1996 Vocational Certificate. Unpublished Masters Dissertation,
Lamprang: Lampang Rajabhat University.
-Thongkaew, T. (2003) Active Learning: Handouts for a Seminar. Bangkok: Chandrakasem

Rajabhat University.

Rhizomatic Mother Goddesses in North Africa:The Great Mothers

Resurrection in Sophie El Goullis Hashtart: la Naissance de Carthage
Insaf Khmiri
University of Sousse, Tunisia
Abstract
With reference to Sophie El Goullis Hashtart: A la Naissance de Carthage, the present paper
will examine the Goddess religion of North Africans, mainly Numidians and Carthaginians,
focusing on the rhizomatic model of the Great Mother archetype: Tritonis, Neith, Tanit, and
Hashtart. The Tunisian writer, Sophie El Goulli celebrates the Punic culture founded by Elissa
and inspired by the transformation of Hashtart and the renaissance of the Goddess Tanit to
unite Numidians and Phoenicians. The rhizomatic character of these pagan goddesses facilitates
religious syncretism and allows for building inclusive communities. In an attempt to defend their
cultural heritage and resist appropriation, native people cross religious borders and recreate
religious symbols, deities, myths, and traditions. Moreover, since religion has been employed to
condemn women as inferior to men and, thus, keep them subjugated to the rules of their
patriarchal societies, Goddess worship reemerges to defy this patriarchal masculinity and
spread the Feminine principle to heal both men and women.
Keywords: Goddess Archetype, the Feminine, Great Mother, Tanit

The return of the Feminine is not a new theme because ancient cultures had witnessed
waves of this resurrection of the primordial creatrix of self-replication (Rigoglioso 23). The
recurring revival of this consciousness of the Goddess, as Merlin Stone argues, coincides with
an individuals or a groups need for a sense of unity beyond the bounds of us and others
(20). It is a reunion with the Feminine, a return to the beginning, to a consciousness of
wholeness (Bruteau 73). Then, the multifaceted aspect of the Feminine appears when we
develop differentiations within this wholeness, we learn to analyse and categorize, to contrast
and separate. We fragment our experience and concentrate on specializing in some chosen aspect
of it. But eventually we begin to feel out of balance and to crave a reintegration of our lives, the
finding of our original unity . . . (Bruteau 73).
This paper studies Tanit, as a rhizomatic archetype of the Goddess, a multiplying deity.
According to Deleuze and Guattari, a rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it
will start up again on one of its old lines, or on new lines (9). As a rhizome, the Mother
Goddess has gone through transformational multiplicities (Deleuze & Guattari 11), taking
different shapes and expanding her territories beyond the boundaries of cultures, place, and time.
As Neumann says:
The Great Goddess . . . is the incarnation of the Feminine Self that unfolds the history
of mankind as in the history of every individual woman, its reality determines individual
as well as collective life. This archetypal psychical world which is encompassed in the
multiple forms of the Great Goddess is the underlying power that even today_ partly
with the same symbols and in the same order of unfolding_ determines the psychic
history of modern man and of modern woman. (336)
The revival of the Goddess worship in North Africa after the Phoenician settlement and the rise
of Carthage was essential for the continuity of life and the promotion of peace because a
Goddesss motherhood is widely associated with community and mystical nationalism
(Preston 333). Indeed, Tanit and Hashtart were acknowledged as a result of a subjective factor,
the soul of the culture (Tillich 258). As Dolores Deluise affirms, [a]ncient cultures often
borrowed the gods of neighboring cultures renaming them and refashioning their functions to fit
their needs (99).
However, Neumann claims in his book that almost in every culture, the Goddess as an
archetype goes through metamorphoses: from the uroboros to the Archetypal Feminine to the
Great Mother and other differentiations. The uroboros is the Great Round, a snake devouring
its tail, and a symbol of the origin and of the opposites contained in it (Neumann 18). The
beginning is with an androgynous understanding of a deity with indivisible positive/negative,
female/male elements. Out of the uroboros, the Archetypal Feminine and the Archetypal
Masculine develop. Though the Archetypal Feminine includes the positive and negative male
elements, it is predominantly Feminine with its assertive positive and negative determinants
(Neumann 21). A more developed perception of the Goddess comes with the Great Mother
who usually takes three forms: the Good Mother, the Terrible Mother, and the Good/Terrible
Mother. While the Good Mother contains the positive female and male elements, the Terrible

Mother is left with negative determinants. Then, a unity of the Good and the Terrible leads to the
birth of the uroboric Great Mother (Neumann 21).
Neith
Tanit is the Mother of Cart Hadasht, Carthage. Punic remnants in Carthage,

Kerkouane, Dougga, Carthagena, and Sicily prove that She was a favourite Goddess from the
beginning of the sixth century BC till the fall of the Lybian pantheon with the advent of
Christianity in North Africa. According to Deluise, She is a travelling deity who reached the
North African coast with the Phoenician queen Elyssa; a reborn Ashtarte, Tanit is the descendant
of Middle-Eastern goddesses namely Atirat, Asherah, Inanna, and Ishtar (95). However,
Neumann argues that the Mother Goddess as an archetype of the Feminine travels through the
human psyche and is related to its unconscious and conscious experiences (3). Indeed, Neuman
identifies Tanit with the primordial goddess Neith who was worshipped in North Africa (311)
and, thus, she is the result of a process of the differentiation or fragmentation of the Mother
Goddess archetype.
There is no archaeological record of the Great Round form in North Africa yet, but it is
usually linked to a nocturnal image and a deep darkness of the waters or the ocean and in Egypt
the unity of primordial waters [as] male-female is represented by Nun and Naunet (Neumann
216). Their Libyan equivalents are mentioned in Herodotuss Histories as Triton and Tritonis in
the chapter that deals with the peoples of Libya:
Next to the Makhlyes are the Auseans; these and the Makhlyes, separated by
the Triton, live on the shores of Lake Tritonis. The Makhlyes wear their hair long
behind, the Auseans in front. They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their
maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus,
they say, honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call
Athena. Maidens who die of their wounds are called false virgins. Before the girls are
set fighting, the whole people choose the fairest maid, and arm her with a Korinthian
helmet and Greek panoply, to be then mounted on a chariot and drawn all along the lake
shore. With what armor they equipped their maidens before Greeks came to live near
them, I cannot say; but I suppose the armor was Egyptian; for I maintain that the Greeks
took their shield and helmet from Egypt. (4.180)
Tritonis refers to Lake Tritonis, what we call nowadays Chott Djerid, a salty aquatic entry to
the deep womb usually symbolized by the triangle. Triton is the serpentine water of the river.
Neith, known also as Nut, Nit, Net, or simply NT, rose from Lake Tritonis as an autogene, or
self-created Virgin Mother (Rigoglioso 26) and was worshipped by North Africans, including
Egyptians who identified her as the Lady of the West (Budge 450).
She was the leading Goddess of the pre-Dynastic Egypt and honored by A ha, the first
recognized Egyptian king of the First Dynasty (c. 29202770 B.C.E.) who offered her a temple
in Sas (Rigoglioso 26).
She is, then, a fragmentation of Triton/Tritonis (Nun/Naunet). Budge suggests that her
name is derived from netet, the Egyptian word for to knit or to weave (Budge 451); hence,

in addition to being the heiress of Tritonis as the Goddess of the primordial waters the opener
of the way, holding the key of the fertility goddesses, the key to the gates of the womb and the
underworld, the gates of death and rebirth (Neumann 221); she is also the goddess of weaving
and, hence, the creatrix of the world (Neumann 218) who is identified with the heaven goddess
Nut (Neumann 221). She has all the attributes that make her a perfect example of the Good
Mother.
However, it is relevant to note that Neith had a half-sister, Pallas, the daughter of
Poseidon and Tritonis. As Rigoglioso explains, Pallas comes from pallein, to brandish, and
was once the name for robust maidens and implied the meaning of the masculine word pallas .
. . robust young man. Thus, the name Pallas itself connoted a robust, masculine fighting
woman (38). Pallas seems to be the Terrible Mother of War and Death in this myth. The
archetype of the Devouring Father is prominent in myths and stories, as Reis argues (46). The
myth shows how patriarchal cultures reproduce the Patriarch and succeed in resurrecting this
archetype each time a revolutionary awakening of the Mother or the Feminine surfaces on the
margins of these cultures. Indeed, a patriarchal culture ensures that women will be separated
from each other (Reis 119); for this reason, the Father in these myths tries to divest the Mother
Goddess of her powers and to assure that these powers remain divided by creating his own
phallocratic offspring from the Goddess.
These offspring are meant to inherit the Mother Goddess and are usually in constant
conflict with each other. Thus, instead of an encompassing Great Mother, minor goddesses
appear, each ruling over a domain, but none of them has the power to defy the Fathers. In
Greece, for example, where the pantheon is dominated by the Devouring Father Saturn and, later
on, his son Zeus, an indivisible Great Mother, one that embraces the dualities, is not allowed to
rule with the Father. Gaia and Rhea are overthrown and their powers are distributed between
Zeuss sisters, Saturns daughters: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, and Aphrodite who are always battling
against each other. This conflict between the powers of the Father and the Mother occurs also
inside each individual by repressing the Feminine.
Pallas is supposed to be her Daddys daughter, she is a disfigured face of Tritonis, an

aspect of her. But the Mother Goddess manages to initiate the autogenetic Neith, a fatherless
Goddess who affirms her supremacy saying, as Proclus tells of the inscription in her sanctuary in
Egypt, I am the things that are, that will be, and that have been. No one has ever laid open the
garment by which I am concealed. The fruit which I brought forth was the sun (qtd. in
Rigoglioso 29). And as Rigoglioso further clarifies, she presents herself to her Egyptian
followers as athena, which signifies I have come from myself (29). Moreover, she rises as a
virgin goddess for no one has ever lifted her garment, and this time she does not need Triton or
Poseidon because she comes with the sun/son inside her, Raa/Hammon and since she was
never engaged in any kind of sexual union, . . . she was eternally a virgin. Yet, as the primordial
Being, she was also generative. Thus, in Neith we have one of the earliest appearances of the
archetype of the Virgin Mother, the Holy Parthenos, in her original, unadulterated form
(Rigoglioso 30).

Eventually, Neith kills her half-sister Pallas in a battle to become Pallas Neith, or Pallas
Athena as she was known in Greece. She absorbs Pallas and becomes the Good/Terrible Mother
or the uroboric Great Mother; hence, the archetype of the Great Mother is resurrected with Neith
as a deity of totality (Rigoglioso 30). When Neith ascends to the pantheon, she is an
androgynous Mother figure that represents both the masculine and feminine principles:
she often holds a sceptre in one hand, and the symbol of life in the other, but sometimes
the hand which holds the sceptre also grasps a bow and two arrows, which are her
characteristic symbols. She once appears in the form of a cow with eighteen stars on one
side, and a collar round her neck from which hangs on her back is a ram-headed lion
with horns and plumes upon his head. The cow stands in a boat, the prow of which
terminates in a lion's head with a disk upon it, and is provided with wings; the stern of
the boat terminates in a ram's head, and by the fore feet of the cow, which is described as
"Net, the Cow, which gave birth to Ra". In one scene she is represented with a crocodile
sucking at each breast. In late dynastic times there is no doubt that Net or Neith was
regarded as nothing but a form of Hathor, but at an earlier period she was certainly a
personification of a form of the great, inert, primeval watery mass out of which sprang
the Sun-god Ra. (Budge 450-51)
With the rise of a male patriarchal god, in this case Poseidon who tries to ascend by becoming a
Father, the Goddess multiplies and, following the model of the rhizome, she goes through
movements of deterritorialization and processes of reterritorialization: with deterritorialization,
lines of flight are created to facilitate the movements without tracing and results in multiple
entryways; with these lines of flight, reterritorialization becomes possible and opens for other
possibilities of deterritorialization (Deleuze and Guattari 10). Thanks to these lines of flight, the
Goddess flees tracing and is able to be reborn again and to multiply.
Elyssas Self-Sacrifice
How did Neith escape tracing to multiply and become Tanit? In Hashtart: A la Naissance
de Carthage, the Tunisian writer Sophie El Goulli tries to follow the rhizomatic movement of the
Goddess from Phoenicia, to carthage, to present day Tunisia. Though the novel focuses on Punic
Tunisia, the archetype of the Great Mother is still influencing the psychical world of the modern
era because She is rooted deep in the unconscious. In fact, she never disappeared even with the
advance of monotheistic religions. The Virgin Mary and her Mother Saint Anne inherited the
identity of the Mother Goddess and many rituals and religious symbols are related to the
goddess worship (Deluise 95). With Islam, Tanits symbols have been appropriated and the
symbol of the Hand, for example, has been associated with Fatima, the prophets daughter.
Indeed, as Jean-Loic Le Quellec explains, though North Africans use terms like Khomsa or
Khamsa, Europeans and French settlers, who had problems with the pronunciation of the word,
identified the symbol as the hand of Fatima not to refer to the prophets daughter, but back then
settlers used to name any Arab woman Fatima since women tended to conceal their names
(257-59).
In Hashtart, Elyssa recognizes that her dream to found a community beyond the
boundaries of geography, gender, race, and class depends on the revival of the Mother Goddess

in her new kingdom. After leaving Baals kingdom, Tyre, escaping her brothers oppression, the
queen looks for a Motherland, a land where she can nurture Ashtarte, the goddess whose
name means literally the womb (Preston 330). But Baal followed her to North Africa and
merged with the Devouring god Ammon/Hammon. In the novel, Baal is depicted as an arrogant
and merciless male god. Unlike Tanit, he is distant and tyrannical, un maitre du ciel au plus haut
de sa force, trop occup diriger sa course rituelle (17); son orgueil illimit, inhumain exige
pour prevue de sa toute puissance face sa rivale, la Douce et Fconde et Pitoyable Tanit (18).
Carthaginians feared Baal and tried to bribe him with oblations, offering their own
children as scapegoats to attain his blessings. The Topheth of Carthage has been a controversial
topic because archaeologists cannot agree on whether the cremated infants in the small urns were
sacrificed to the gods, the Sun-god Baal-Hammon and Tanit as the markers within the Topheth
indicate, before burial or not. The novel revisits the theme of Carthaginian human sacrifice. The
narrator takes us back in time to help us understand the context in which these sacrifices occur.
Elyssa is offered a space to revise his/tory and voice Her/story. She did not commit suicide,
but she sacrificed herself to save her people and, thus, she is the first human sacrifice at
Carthage. Elyssa recognizes that the task of releasing the feminine from the tyrannical power of
the driven, crazed masculine is long and arduous (Woodman 2).
Prior to Elyssas self-sacrifice, Baal Hammon was the Supreme God. Neith seemed to be
forgotten as a Native Goddess and Carthaginians, though brought with them the Phoenician
Ashtarte, were favouring Baal as a furious and angry God who will grant them victory in case of
war with the locals while Numidians were expecting the Devouring Father to side with them.
Enmity and envy between Numidians and Carthaginians were feeding Baal-Hammon rendering
him bloodthirstier and more ferocious. With this male god, people are crazed by a masculine
principle gone wild (Engelsman 107). Tanits ascendency requires the sacrifice of Elyssa to
satisfy Baals thirst and unite Numidians and Carthaginians once the Goddess is resurrected.
Elyssa tells her adopted daughter Hashtart:
Mon enfant, il faut que je parte. Moi aussi, je souffre de vous quitter. De tout quitter.
Mais je le dois. Pour obir une volont suprieure, des lois plus forte que celles qui
rgissent la vie des mortels. Mais (tu ten rendras compte plus tard) notre sparation
nest pas dfinitive. En ralit je serais toujours prsente en toi et encore plus que
vivante. (26)
Elyssa assures Hashtart, a Numidian girl adopted by the Carthaginian queen who named her for
the Phoenician goddess, that she will be eternally present through self-sacrifice. The vessel as a
primordial symbol related to the Goddess has also the transformative aspect of the oven
(Neumann 285) and this transformation, which is viewed as magical, can only be effected by
the woman because she herself, in her body that corresponds to the Great Goddess, is the caldron
of incarnation, birth, and rebirth. And that is why the magical caldron or pot is always in the
hand of the female mana figure, the priestess or, later, the witch (Neumann 287-88).
Elyssa offers her flesh to the sacred fire, but she knows that Numidians revere the dead
because as Herodotus reports: As for their manner of swearing and divination they lay their
hands on the graves of the men reputed most just and good among them, and by these men they

swear; their practice of divination is to go to the tombs of their ancestors, where after making
prayers they lie down to sleep, and take whatever dreams come to them for oracles (4.172).
According to Numidian customs, a wise and courageous person like Elyssa joins the realm of
ancestral spirits who become appreciated by people as part of the divine world and as Deluise
further explains, in some grave markers, the sign of Tanit with hands crossed over the chest in
the Egyptian position indicates the interment of a hero of the people who made the ultimate
sacrifice for the good of all (101). As Iarbas orders his people in the novel, nous lui levons un
monument funraire dans notre ncropole. Une sepulture o lui seront rendus les devoirs que,
selon nos croyances, nous rendons nos morts (47). Thanks to her act of self-sacrifice, Elyssa
becomes a rb khnm, or rab kohanim (kahina), and as Hoyos tells of the religious traditions of
Libyans and Numidians, rab kohanim is a title that refers to an awakener of the god
[sometimes of the dead god] (99); therefore, Elyssa becomes the awakener of Neith, and the
medium between the Goddess and human beings.
Tanit is worshiped as a Great Mother of life and death and during the sacrificial cult,
people address Tanit as a chthonic deity, one that has the ability to traffic with the spirits and
mediate between the celestial realm of the dead and the world of the living:
The Great Goddess is the flowing unity of subterranean and celestial primordial water,
the sea of heaven on which sail the barks of the gods of light, the circular life-generating
ocean above and below the earth. To her belong all waters, streams, fountains, ponds,
and springs, as well as the rain. She is the ocean of life with its life-and-death-bringing
seasons, and life is her child, a fish eternally swimming inside her, like the stars in the
celestial ocean. . . . (Neuman 222)
People hope that the Great Goddess will guard and mother their cherished victims in the
afterlife and teach them how to communicate with their relatives when needed. Indeed, the
scapegoat is supposed to be a sacred one, a queen for example and, as Neumann points out, this
queens ritual, in which a woman had to sacrifice herself was common in the past (318).
Hashtart/Tanit
Unlike the Greek tragedy of Persephone and Demeter, Elyssa granted her daughter a life:
to become the Mother of both Numidians and Carthaginians. Hashtart will enter Numidian
temples and become another major symbol of the Mother Goddess. One of the main
characteristic of the religious symbol is its innate power, a power inherent within it and this
power depends on the symbols acceptability inasmuch as symbols should be socially rooted
and socially supported (Tillich 254). In order for Hashtart to merge with Tanit, she must
become accepted by Numidians. Hashtarts metamorphosis starts when she decides to leave
Carthage. In her journey, Hashtart is going to know the Great Goddess through a close
relationship with her and an interaction with the Goddesss elementary and transformative
characters because a Goddess usually demonstrates the qualities of rootedness and wandering
(Engelsman 105). As Neumann elucidates, the corporeal elementary character is associated with
the Goddess as a vessel, a nourishing and protecting Mother and the symbol associated with
this function is usually the genital triangle (95). The vessel may refer to the positive elementary

character and the Goddess takes a maternal aspect as the one who contains and protects,
nourishes and gives birth (Neumann 120). This genital triangle is related to the womb, urn,
cave, temple, and house (Neumann 137). It also stresses the negative elementary character: the
womb of the earth as the devouring maw of the underworld (Neumann 149) and the house urn
as a container of ashes (Neumann 163) because she is the Good/Terrible Mother of life and
death. The Terrible aspect is usually symbolized by snakes and monsters.
The transformative character, on the other hand, refers to the virginal character of the
Goddess as ruler over the world of spirits and is symbolized in some figures by tiny (or absent)
breasts, an accentuated posture of upraised arms (Neumann 104-14), and, sometimes, by the
dominating eyes, which together with the arch of the eyebrows and nose contribute strongly to
the birdlike character of these figures (Neumann 123). With the transformative character, an
individual is no longer dependent on the maternal Feminine but is invited to experience change
and independence (Neumann 211). As a Goddess of Fate, she weaves and spins to shake the
male principle of consciousness, which desires permanence and not change, eternity and not
transformation, law and not creative spontaneity (Neumann 233). She appears, thus, as the
Goddess of vegetation and symbolized by plants, flowers, or trees to emphasize the seasonal
metamorphoses.
Punic stelae highlight the symbol of the genital triangle in the sign of Tanit. The triangle
stands for the womb of the Mother that offers life and the earths womb that takes it. Tanit is a
replication of Ashtarte (womb), Neith, and Tritonis. She is a wandering Great Mother of
rootedness. In a stela that goes back to the 4th century BC, exhibited at the Museum of
Carthage, the triangular pediment includes seven wheat stalks, their heads take the form of
snakes. Under the pediment, there are four birds and at the bottom, there is a huge vessel. A 3rd
century BC votive monument from the collection of the Tunisian National Heritage Institute
portrays a worshiper, Adonbaal son of Hannibaal as the inscription indicates, standing in front
of a temples door with two doves on top of it. In the right side, there is the sign of Tanit with the
genital triangle, the upraised arms, and the disc as her head. The upper triangular pediment of the
stele contains the symbol of the Khomsa between two doves. Under them there are serpentine
waves that refer to the water realm from which the Goddess rises.
A 1st century AD limestone stela found in the Tophet of Carthage is displayed in the
website of the British Museum. The stela contains a detailed presentation of Tanit in her female
and symbolic forms: a lotus flower with her five petals, the Goddess in her virginal state, is
blossoming from the triangle, Lake Tritonis, and on each side of the triangle, a flower plant is
blooming. As Neumann clarifies, birth from the female blossom is an archetypal form of divine
birth and, thus, flowers like lotus, lily, and rose are symbols of the Goddess in her spiritual or
virginal character (262). In the right side of the same stela and near the flower plant, a naked
female figure who resembles the Goddess is sitting. As Neumann remarks, [o]ften the
priestesses of the Great Mother resembled her in physical type, this being regarded as necessary
if they were to represent her adequately (116-17). From the lotus flower, two serpentine lines
of leaves rise and take the shape of two palm trees and hold the Mother Goddess in her female
form: the genital triangle, the tiny breasts and the outstretched arms holding cornucopias. From

the left cornucopia, grapes are overflowing; the other one pours forth a pomegranate. She has
two big owl eyes and above her head there is a crescent holding the sun, reference to Baal, with
two stars that take the shape of flowers on each side.
These stelae are usually with triangular pediments that allude to the temple, the cave, and
the womb, all of them represent the positive elementary character of the nurturing protecting
Mother to provide the initiate with the sense of being inside, of being sheltered, protected, and
warmed (Neumann 137). In tattoos as in the decoration of votive monuments, a palm tree is
usually depicted as rising from the triangle (Gobert 99). This is a reference to Neiths birth from
Lake Tritonis. Women in North Africa use the symbol in tattoos because it is related to fertility
and good luck. In fact, the tree goddess who gives birth to the sun while its roots in the
depths (Neumann 244) is a frequent symbol of the Great Mother (Neumann 242). Grapes and
pomegranates refer also to fertility and the abundance of seeds (Neumann 308). Since springs
and lakes are perceived as the portals to the Underworld, the snake may refer to the goddesss
ability to travel to the Underworld and return and to communicate with the heavens with equal
ease (Deluise 103).
In the novel, Hashtarts wandering will result in her rootedness and as one begins the
journey back to the eternal Feminine, one must suffer and our suffering opens up to the wounds
of the world and the love that can heal (Woodman 1). The Goddess guides Hashtart away to the
savage realm of nature since the Feminine, the giver of nourishment, becomes everywhere a
revered principle of nature (Neumann 131). : Lair avait chang. Nouveau. Inconnu. Odeurs
darbres et de buissons jamais vus. Odeurs de terre sauvage, en friche qui se mlent - et Hashtart
les reconnat - celles qui frappaient ses narines quand passaient - non loin de la plage - des
animaux (34). There, for the first time in her life, she forgets about Baal, she is no longer
willing to worship him, she does not fear him, she feels protected by a higher power: pour la
premire fois - elle navait pas assist sa lente progression. Elle ne le regrette pas. Elle na pas
envie de lui adresser sa prire quotidienne ni de le remercier de ces bienfaits ni de renouveler la
dclaration de sa fidle adoration (37-8).
Hashtart is surrounded by trees, waters, and animals. Nature is the cradle, the realm of the
Great Mother because She is The Lady of the Plants and the tree goddess (Neumann 240-
42); She is also The Lady of the Beasts (Neumann 268). In the Nabeul Museum, there is a
sculpture of the goddess with a head of lioness which shows her as the Terrible Mother. Indeed,
Punic Stelae highlight Tanit as the Terrible/Good Mother. In this hostile (43) nature, Hashtart
enters the nocturnal womb of Mother Nature and dives deep into unconsciousness, where she
will fully embrace the Feminine because transformation is possible only when what is to be
transformed enters wholly into the Feminine (Neumann 291) and rebirth can occur through . . .
a stupor induced by whatever means (Neumann 292). Hashtart nentend rien, ne sent rien.
Depuis combien de temps est-elle plonge dans ce sommeil sans rve, plus proche de la mort que
du repos rparateur invent par la nature bienveillante? (48).
Hashtart penetrates deep into the chaotic darkness of the Nocturnal Mother where she
will receive the divine breath of Tanit, le monde dans lequel elle avait plong tait vide, sans

odeurs, sand couleurs, insonore. Monde tnbreux sans ciel, sans mer, sans terre. Monde du
Noir. Absolu. Ni vie ni mort. Elle avait plong profond (51). This penetration emphasizes the
autogenetic character of the Goddess, a Virgin Mother born from within an a Virgin
Mother. During her journey to the Underworld, two Numidian peasants passed by and carried the
little body of the girl to the Numidian princes house. There, she is nursed by the healing
priestess Chemnible. Hashtarts rite of reawakening takes place in Tanits aqueous realm. Unlike
Baal who devours his victims through his furious fire, Tanit recreates life from the waters.
Hashtart offers herself to the Goddess to become Tanit-incarnated. Mais ce nest pas sur un
bcher, au feu exterminateur, purificateur quelle allait soffrir. Cest la mer, dans son sein
doux et accueillant, frais et odorant quelle allait trouver refuge. Elle sent la mer, toute proche,
elle la voit, frache, belle, douce, pure comme la main, la voix, la tendresse de la reine aime
(59).
When she wakes up, she feels free and regenerated, Elle tait libre. Dune libert quelle
navait jamais connue (76). The Carthaginian Hashtart starts to learn the language and customs
of Numidians and, at the same time, she teaches them the Carthaginian language and traditions.
Women come to her to listen to her stories and men, including the Prince Iarbas, ask for her
advices. Il faut ajouter que la fillette stait - en si peu de temps et grce une vie de libert,
dans la nature - transforme en une presque jeune fille (80). Everything surrounding Hashtart
reminds her of the Great Goddess who takes care of her. Numidians revere nature and appreciate
the maternal. Maternal art plays a role in disseminating the Cult of the Mother Goddess.
Hashtart admires the feminine approach to design in Numidian houses that reflects the
artistry of the Mother, the Goddess. Tom Turner calls a nester design of a house, a feminine
approach that emphasizes detailed decisions contributing to a wider set of objectives (132).
The opposite is the hunter design, a masculine approach, because hunters think of their
reputations and of their prowess (Turner 133). Indeed, one main characteristic of North African
houses, and other Mediterranean cities where the Goddess reigned, is the circulation space . . .
where one should allow variants to exist within the groups. Another criterion could be the
relationship of the house to the world outside and the way of controlling space (Tang 159) and
this is because each house has an entrance room that communicates both with the street and the
interior of the house (Tang 103). Thus, women are able to move with ease in this space, les
femmes ne sarrtent jamais. Actives, habiles aussi bien chez elles que dehors, elles menaient
une vie assez semblable celle des hommes avec en plus les travaux domestiques (78-9).
The circulation space with rooms arranged around the open courtyard, and sometimes the
corridor, recalls the shape of the womb: Toutes les pieces donnaient sur une cour carre. Les
murs taient blanchis la chaux et le sol recouvert de carreaux motifs gometriques ou
vgtaux, de tapis aux couleurs fonces et de nattes finement tresses (76). Below the courtyard
or the corridor there exists a cistern for water supply. Therefore, houses show an abstract
representation of the womb [Tritonis] and the vulva with designs that connote birth and
regeneration (Vassel 39). Since Tanit is a goddess set in liquid and humid elements (Bernstein
105), springs, lakes, wells, and cisterns were perceived as the portals to the Goddesss realm. The
fertility colours red and green of the henna are usually used to decorate the walls of the

courtyard or the objects surrounding it in addition to vegetation symbols like depictions of

pomegranate (red) and grapes (green) or drawings of snakes and birds such as cuckoos or doves
or marine animals like the fish, the octopus, or the dolphin (Vassel 39).
After three years spent with Iarbas and Numidians, Hashtart decides to return to
Carthage. When she reaches the place by the sea where she once fell asleep, she meets a strange
old man, a fool, who introduces himself as a Greek fisherman. He tells Hashtart that he is called
a fool because he dreams a lot, that he met her in his dreams, and that he has a message for her:
Le Dieu Implacable qui empcha que saccomplisse lalliance entre la cit punique et la
terre o elle a trouv asile nest pas satisfait. Le sacrifice de la reine carthaginoise na
pas apais sa colre. Tu dois craindre pour toi si tu vas plus avant. Saches cependant que
dautres divinits veillent sur toi, sur Carthage et sur cette terre. Crce Tanit la
Fconde et la Bienveillante, Tanit qui enveloppe de lumire et de bont la terre et les
ocans, le ciel et les mers, ce qui na pas t sera. Tu ne dois plus pleurer mais te
rjeunir. Souviens-toi des paroles de la reine. Souviens-toi. Tu comprendras bientt. Ta
fuite, ton installation dans le village du prince Iarbas et les raisons pour lesquelles tu
devais aujourdhui retourner jusquau lieu de tes origines. Il mest interdit de ten dire
plus. Une dernire fois, souviens-toi. (115)
Indeed, acquiring more knowledge and wisdom, Hashtart becomes the perfect archetype of a
Mother since she appropriated the symbols of Neith and Tanit. She impregnated the symbols of
the Mother goddess with authenticity. Now, all that she has in mind is Elyssas last words. She
tries to grasp the meaning of the fools speech when suddenly a soft sea breeze gently touches
her face and Hashtart hears the call of the Goddess:
Elle sapprocha, lcoute du chant familier enfoui profond en elle et qui avait berc
son enfance. . . . Puissant pleines mains dans la mer, elle saspergea le visage, la tte,
les bras, les jambes. Des lvres et de la langue, elle aspirait les gouttes sales. Insatiable,
elle ouvrait la bouche avalant lodeur iode comme si les narines ne suffisaient pas.
Quil fallait quelle sen emplisse le corps, le couer. Ce coeur et ce corps qui battaient au
rythme des vagues. Des chants de sa vie enfin raccorde. (117)
In Carthage, servants are still looking for Hashtart because she is to inherit the throne of Elyssa.
Hashtart realizes that her destiny is to marry Iarbas and to become the Great Mother of both
Carthaginians and Numidians. She returns to Iarbass Numidia to fulfill her task before going
back to Carthage. One night, she is visited by the Mother to be blessed by her magical hand,
sur don front elle sentit une main se poser, douce, apaisante, parfume (127). Indeed, in this
scene, Hashtart is symbolically enthroned by the deity to take the place of Elyssa against the will
of the male god, de lAstre de Feu, de Baal lImpitoyable (127). Thanks to Tanit, the inner
power of the Mother is transferred to Hashtart who is able, now, to influence Iarbas.
Iarbass spiritual transformation will save him from the domination of Hammon and the
influence of the wild Masculine principle. Iarbas has been obsessed with revenge. As a Great
Mother of the earth, heavens, and the underworld that masters both the negative/positive
Feminine and Masculine principles and as the Queen of Fate, and the Lady of the Beasts and the
Plants, Tanit symbolizes the longing for a return to primordial unity, for escape from the

unbearable tension of the opposites, for a mode of humanity no longer divided in halves
(Roscoe 203) . She has the ability to transform Iarbas and, with the help of Hashtart, she guides
him to discover his feminine masculinity:
Elle lui avait apport la joie, avait introduit dans sa vie la fantaisie, lespig-
lerie, choses quil n'avait jamais connues. It avait, avec le temps, oubli
Carthage, lunique source de sa douleur et de son orgueil bless. Hashtart,
cetait lautre visage de la cit orgueilleuse et puissante, celle dont il avait rv
avant le sacrifice dElyssa. Ctait Carthage sans tre Carthage. Sans remparts.
Sans separation. Ctait le voyage dans un autre monde, la dcouverte dun
autre monde. La qute du trsor et le trsor conquis. (103)
Iarbass metamorphosis is also accomplished when he receives the blessings of the Mother in his
dreams. She offers him a Mother to his people and to Carthaginians, sur une terre unique,
habite par un peuple enfin uni (129). She changes Iarbas who starts to recognize his feminine
side. Thanks to Hashtart, the Numidian prince cultivates his kindness, generosity, and docility as
a man and a king. He is no longer a prototype of a heroic masculinity (Gruss 157), Le guerrier
et le souverain quil tait navaient pas eu loccasion de se trouver confronts une telle
situation (131). The alternative of a feminine masculinity is an appeal to examine and break
the simplistic equation of masculine and patriarchy (Gruss 151) and to revise the myths of
masculinity (Gruss 157).
Conclusion
Goddess Worship has been influencing patriarchal religions through its dominating
Feminine principles of connection and heterogeneity. The return of the Goddesses Archetype
translates a longing for a sense of unity and wholeness that can be attained by embracing the
Feminine. In Sophie El Goullis Hashtart: la Naissance de Carthage, the empowerment of the
Goddess facilitated religious syncretism between Numidians and Carthaginians and, hence,
resulted in the ascendancy of Hashtart to the Numidian throne. Tanit is a North African
archetype of the primordial Mother Goddess, the Throne, Tritonis, and a Neith multiplying the
Feminine with the Tamazight (Berber language) addition of a T (symbolized as + in tattoos)
at the beginning of the name. The Goddess is a wandering Feminine principle that determines
the cultures, myths, and histories of people.

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Blurring Polyphonic Voices in Katherine Mansfields Short Story The

Singing Lesson
Nadia Konstantini
University of Jendouba, Tunisia
Abstract
This article pays tribute to Ferdinand de Saussures contribution to the study of literature. De
Saussures idea that the linguistic sign is a combination between sound images and concepts,
and that their relationship is arbitrary (De Saussure, 1916) is my starting point to explore
Katherine Mansfields particular way to combine both music and meaning in order to reveal
different, and often opposed, levels of consciousness in the characters of her short story The
Singing Lesson. The study is based on a structuralist analysis (Genette, 1972, 1983) of
sound and meaning in Mansfields short story as it highlights transgressive narrative
structures leading to blurring polyphonic voices and discloses the provoking and dual
relationship between music and meaning in The singing Lesson.
Keywords: Contrapuntal music, Narrative mood, Polyphony, Structuralism

Ferdinand de Saussures major work on structural linguistics and his discovery about
the nature of the linguistic sign1 paved the way to a wide range of multidisciplinary studies in
the humanities including, anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and literary
criticism. De Saussures idea that the linguistic sign is a combination of sound images and
concepts, and that their relationship is arbitrary (Saussure, pp. 65-8) is my starting point to a
structuralist exploration of Mansfields deployment of both music and language in order to
reveal different, and often opposed, levels of consciousness in the characters of her short story
The Singing Lesson.
Katherine Mansfield was a professional musician before becoming a professional

writer. She used to play cello in the Students Orchestra at the Royal Academy in London.
Later on, when she began her career as a writer, Mansfield composed her best stories in terms
of rhythm and sonority. This particular style allows sound and meaning to converge in ways
that are sometimes fluid and harmonious, and sometimes provoking and blurring. Mansfield
was conscious of the oppressive character of rigid prosody, that is why she choose to write in
terms of lyrical prose, reaching a high musical quality of language while being freed from the
letters of fixed rhyme and metre that characterises poetry. In her Journal, she explains how
she manages, in her writing process, to find out the right note so that everything sounds all
right:
Whenever I have a conversation about art which is more or less interesting I begin to
wish to God I could destroy all that I have written and start again: it all seems like so
many false starts. Musically speaking, it is not has not been in the middle of
the note you know what I mean? When, on a cold morning perhaps, youve been
playing and it has sounded all right until suddenly you realize you are warm you
have just begun to play ... Journal, July 1918, p 143.
The scope of this paper is to highlight transgressive narrative structures leading to

blurring polyphonic voices and disclose the provoking and sometimes recalcitrant (Wright,
1989) relationship between sound and meaning in Mansfields short story The Singing
Lesson.
Polyphony is analysed from two different perspectives. First, from the sense attributed
to sound and music which describes the simultaneous play of two or more melodic lines2; and
1
Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1916). Course in General Linguistics. Roy Harris, ed. & transl. USA, Open court
Publishing Company: 1983.
2
Polyphony, in music, strictly speaking, any music in which two or more tones sound simultaneously (the term
derives from the Greek word for many sounds); thus, even a single interval made up of two simultaneous tones
or a chord of three simultaneous tones is rudimentarily polyphonic. Usually, however, polyphony is associated
with counterpoint, the combination of distinct melodic lines. In polyphonic music, two or more simultaneous
melodic lines are perceived as independent even though they are related. In Western music polyphony typically
includes a contrapuntal separation of melody and bass. A texture is more purely polyphonic, and thus more
contrapuntal, when the musical lines are rhythmically differentiated. [Encyclopedia Britannica,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/469009/polyphony, accessed 23/06/2013]

second, from the Bakhtinian notion based on the dialogical text that incorporates a rich
plurality of voices, styles, and points of view (Bakhtin, pp. 5-46)3.
Analysing polyphony from a musical standpoint leads us to explore the grammatical

structure of the Mansfieldian text. Lexical, syntactic and phonetic clues are closely analysed
in order to show how Mansfields prose enables her to reach the freedom of the musician in a
way that attains a vertical and a horizontal dimension comparable to that of contrapuntal
music (cf. note 2 below). In The Singing Lesson, Mansfield manages to use punctuation and
figures of speech such as repetition and alliteration in a way that conveys a tonality of
crescendos and decrescendos within the story, thus creating the impression of listening to a
musical partition along with reading a piece of literature.
The study of polyphony in the Bakhtinian sense of the word is based on Grard
Genettes structuralist theory of narrative with a particular emphasis on mood and voice
(Genette 1972). When a text is written, technical choices must be made in view of producing
a particular result in the story's verbal representation. In this way, the narrative employs
distancing and other effects to create a particular narrative mood that governs the regulation
of narrative information provided to the reader (Genette 1983, p. 41). Like music, narrative
mood has predominant patterns. It is related to voice and is dependent on the distance and
perspective of the narrator (Genette 1972, p. 162). Dual narrative perspective is analysed
through Mansfields use of free indirect discourse (Genette, 1972, pp. 174-75). As a linguistic
device of bivocality, free indirect discourse enhances the presence of polyphony in the text as
it implies shifts in perspective between the characters subjective vision and the report of the
narrators diction (Bray 39). 20th century criticism of literary narrative had already focused on
free indirect discourse as generating different levels of ambiguities within narratives (Cohn,
1978; Fludernik, 1993). The present paper shows how Katherine Mansfield further plays with
ambiguities as she adds a polyphonic musical dimension to the multiplicity of the characters
and narrators voices in her short story.
The Singing Lesson is the story of a music teacher, Miss Meadows, who goes to
teach her singing lesson in a very bad mood because of the letter she received from her fianc,
announcing his decision to put an end to their relationship.
When we first read the opening paragraph of the story, a plurality of sounds is heard:
Extract (1):
(...) from the hollow class-rooms came a quick drumming of voices; a bell rang; a
voice like a bird cried Muriel. And then there came from the staircase a
tremendous knock-knock-knocking. Someone had dropped her dumbbells. ( 201)
There is a concentration of nouns drumming, voices, bell, bird, drumbell;

verbs rang, cried and adjectives hollow, tremendous, belonging or alluding to the
register of sound. The use of five consecutive stressed syllables a voice like a bird cried
3
Bakhtin, Mikhael. Problems of Dostoevsky Poetics (1930). Emerson, Caryl, ed. and Transl.Theory and History
of Literature, vol.8. University of Minesota Press; 1984.

Muriel adds a melodic tone to the text. The presence of the onomatopoeia knock-knock-
knocking associates the action of the dropping drumbbell with the sound it makes.
On her way to her class, Miss Meadows is stopped by the Science Mistress, whose
joyful melodic intonation sharply contrasts with Miss Meadows gloomy attitude:
Extract (2):
The Science Mistress stopped Miss Meadows.
Good mor-ning, she cried, in her sweet, affected drawl. Isnt it cold? It might be
win-ter.
Miss Meadows, hugging the knife, stared in hatred at the Science Mistress.
Everything about her was sweet, pale, like honey. You would not have been
surprised to see a bee caught in the tangles of that yellow hair.
It is rather sharp, said Miss Meadows, grimly. The other smiled her sugary smile.
You look fro-zen, said she. Her blue eyes opened wide; there came a mocking
light in them. (Had she noticed anything?)
Oh, not quite as bad as that, said Miss Meadows, and she gave the Science
Mistress, in exchange for her smile, a quick grimace and passed on. . . . ( 202-3)
Mansfield uses a series of alliterations through the repetition of the same sound in
order to obtain a harmonious melodic effect The science Mistress stopped Miss Meadows,
said Miss Meadows, grimly, wide (...) light, grimace (...) passed. Mansfield uses the
meaning of sounds to convey opposed and contradictory moods in her characters. To do so,
she structures words with an unconventional punctuation and style. The use of dashes
dividing the stressed syllables in the words mor-ning, win-ter and fro-zen adds an
exaggerated joyful melodic tone to the Science Mistress voice that sharply contrasts with
Miss Meadows grim temper. The repetition of the same word smile but with a different
grammatical function (a verb, then a noun) adds rhythm and balance to the sentence The
other smiled her sugary smile and reveals Miss Meadows reluctant attitude towards the
science Mistress.
When Miss Meadows first enters her class, she asks the girls to sing A Lament. Little
by little, the protagonist manages to convey a feeling of sadness to her pupils until they
become completely annihilated by deep sorrow.
Extract (3):
Good Heavens, what could be more tragic than that lament ! Every note was a sigh,
a sob, a groan of awful mournfulness. Miss Meadows lifted her arms in the wide
gown and began conducting with both hands. I feel more and more strongly that
our marriage would be a mistake She beat. And the voiced cried: Fleetly ! Ah,

Fleetly. What could have possessed him to write such a letter ! What could have led
up to it ! It came out of nothing. His last letter had been all about a fumed-oak
bookcase he had bought for our books, and a natty little hall-stand he had seen, a
very neat affair with a carved owl on a bracket, holding three hat-brushes in its
claws. How she had smiled at that ! So like a man to think one needed three hat-
brushes ! From the listening Ear, sang the voices.
Once again, said Miss Meadows. But this time in parts. Still without
expression. Fast! Ah, too Fast. With the gloom of the contraltos added, one could
scarcely help shuddering. Fade the Roses of Pleasure. ()
Musics Gay Measure, wailed the voices. The willow trees, outside the high, narrow
windows, waved in the wind. They had lost half their leaves. The tiny ones that
clung wriggled like fishes caught on a line. . . . I am not a marrying man. . . . The
voices were silent; the piano waited. (205)
The story is told by an extradiegetic narrator, who presents the scene from without and
from within (Genette, 1972, p. 248). There is an interplay between external and internal
focalization that juxtaposes the narrators objective depiction with Miss Meadows subjective
experience and feelings (Genette, 1972, pp. 189-90). A simultaneous play of voices suddenly
takes place when Miss Meadows starts conducting her singing lesson. Three parallel actions
take place at the same time, blurring the reader who listens simultaneously to four different
voices. First, the narrators voice who describes Miss Meadows gestures and appearance
using a free indirect discourse in the third person singular Miss Meadows lifted her arms in
the wide gown and began conducting with both hands, then Miss Meadows and her fiancs
dual voice with a direct speech sentence that displays what takes place in Miss Meadows
mind as she remembers what her fianc told her, using a sentence between brackets and the
first person singular to make him speak ... I feel more and more strongly that our marriage
would be a mistake, and finally the voice of the girls put in italics to show that they are
singing Fleetly! Ah, Fleetly.
The voluntary omission of any declarative introduction before Miss Meadows

fiancs direct speech works as a device to make Miss Meadows actions and thoughts act
simultaneously Miss Meadows lifted her arms in the wide gown and began conducting with
both hands. . . . I feel more and more strongly that our marriage would be a mistake
(extract 3).
Immediate speech and reported speech are formally distinguished from one
another only by the presence or absence of a declarative introduction (Genette :1972, p. 174).
There are, in The Singing Lesson, many examples similar to the one above, that show the
synchronic play of different unconventionally used categories of speech along with the
recalcitrant polyphonic voice emanating from them that purposely add ambiguous
dimensions to the Mansfieldian text. Rcalcitrance does not automatically accompany
convention; it depends on the accumulation of details whose significance is not immediately
evident (Wright, p. 123).
FID enhances polyphony as it implies a shift in perspective between Miss Meadows

subjective vision, and the report of the narrators diction. It is employed in the story to display
bivocality:

() How she had smiled at that! So like a man to think one needed three
hat-brushes ! From the Listening Ear, sang the voices.
An extraneous element in italics is further added to the dual narrative perspective

From the Listening Ear acting as a synchronic display for the chorus singing voices. Miss
Meadows internal thoughts are confused with the girls singing voices thus showing the
simultaneous and parallel activity of thinking and singing.
Then, still in extract (3), Miss Meadows direct speech shifts from her own internal
perspective to the external perspective of the extra-diegetic narrator:
Once again, said Miss Meadows. But this time in parts. Still without expression.
Once more, a musical effect is achieved in The Singing Lesson by the end of extract
(3) with an ascending movement of the narrative from speech to silence:
Musics Gay Measure, wailed the voices. The willow trees, outside the high, narrow
windows, waved in the wind. They had lost half their leaves. The tiny ones that
clung wriggled like fishes caught on a line. . . . I am not a marrying man. . . . The
voices were silent; the piano waited.
We first listen to the girls singing Musics Gay Measure, wailed the voices, the verb
wail describes the mournful sound of laments, then there is a description that uses the
alliterative repetition of sounds in The willow trees, outside the high, narrow windows,
waved in the wind, adding further sound cadence to the narrative, then a direct speech
without introductory sentence that reveals Miss Meadows silent inner thoughts, and finally,
two very short clauses, separated by a semi colon, perfectly balanced with two stressed
syllables in each and both beginning with the same definite article The voices were silent;
the piano waited. The shortness of these two clauses, and the presence of the semi colon
marking a pause, denotes the sudden silence and stillness that sharply contrasts with the
plurality of sounds and singing activity experienced in the sentences before.
Another example of Katherine Mansfields blurring shifts from one speech category to
another is found in the following extract:
Extract (4):
Repeat! Repeat! said Miss Meadows. More expression, girls! Once more! Fast!
Ah, too Fast. The older girls were crimson; some of the younger ones began to cry.
Big spots of rain blew against the windows, and one could hear the willows
whispering, . . . not that I do not love you. . . But, my darling, if you love me,
thought Miss Meadows, I dont mind how much it is. Love me as little as you like.
But she knew he didnt love her. Not to have cared enough to scratch out that word
disgust, so that she couldnt read it! Soon Autumn yields unto Winter Drear. She
would have to leave the school, too. She could never face the Science Mistress or the
girls after it got known. She would have to disappear somewhere. Passes away. The
voices began to die, to fade, to whisper . . . to vanish. . . .

Miss Meadows direct speech is introduced by the narrators introductory verb said
to show that Miss Meadows is really speaking Repeat! Repeat! said Miss Meadows.
More expression, girls! Once more!; then, the girls singing lament marked in italics. The
extradiegetic narrator makes a confusing shift of perspective, from Miss Meadows unspoken
thoughts uttered by the whispering willows () and one could hear the willows
whispering, . . . not that I do not love you. . ., to her own direct speech displaying her inner
speech But, my darling, if you love me, thought Miss Meadows, I dont mind how much
it is. (..). This confusing narrative perspective reveals Miss Meadows own confused state of
mind, as she remembers her fiancs traumatic speech while feeling that everything around
her, even nature, is as sad as she is. Miss Meadows sensory impressions and thoughts are
running away, destroying the flow and integrity of the narrative. The blurring nature of the
relationship between sound and meaning is related to the changing mood of the protagonists
thoughts and feelings and on the changing perspective the extradiegetic narrator tries to
convey.
The end of extract (4) witnesses another decrescendo from Miss Meadows fertile,
noisy ruminating speculations, through the use of direct and indirect speech, to a slow move
into silence:
She would have to disappear somewhere. Passes away. The voices began to die, to
fade, to whisper . . . to vanish. . . .
Miss Meadows wish to disappear coincides with a slow lowering of musicality. One
stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable denotes a lowering of the girls voices
passes away, then follows a series of verbs showing a decrease in tone until the three dots
preceding and following the last verbs declares complete silence to die, to fade, to whisper
to vanish
In Course in General Linguistics4, De Saussure, states the arbitrary nature of the

linguistic sign and shows how language as organized thought couples with sound:
Each linguistic term is a member, an articulus in which an idea is fixed in a

sound and a sound becomes the sign of an idea. () Linguistics then works in
the borderland where the elements of sound and thought combine; their
combination produces a form, not a substance. (113)
The three extract analyzed above display how, in The Singing Lesson , Mansfield
structures and combines linguistic signs in a dual way that transforms music into meaning,
and meaning into music, thus reaching various polyphonic voices that are sometimes
harmonious, and sometimes blurring. Polyphony in The Singing Lesson operates on two
4
The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. Since I mean by sign the whole that results from
the associating of the signifier with the signified, I can simply say: the linguistic sign is arbitrary (De Saussure,
p. 67)

levels. First, on a musical level when she simultaneously displays two or more melodic lines;
and second, a dialogical level that incorporates a rich plurality of voices, styles, and points of
view (Bakhtin, 1930; Genette, 1972, 1983)
When Miss Meadows singing lesson is interrupted to learn about the telegram her
fianc sent her in which he asks her not to take care about the words he wrote in his letter, she
goes back to her class in a totally different mood, and the musical atmosphere changes too:
Extract (5):
On the wings of hope, of love, of joy, Miss Meadows sped back to the music
hall, up the aisle, up the steps, over to the piano.
Page thirty-two, Mary, she said, page thirty-two, and picking up the
yellow chrysanthemum, she held it to her lips to hide her smile. Then she turned
to the girls, rapped with her baton: Page thirty-two, girls. Page thirty-two.
We come here To-day with Flowers oerladen,

With Baskets of Fruit and Ribbons to boot,
To-oo Congratulate. . . .
Stop! Stop! cried Miss Meadows. This is awful. This is dreadful. And she
beamed at her girls. Whats the matter with you all? Think, girls, think of what
youre singing. Use your imaginations. With Flowers oerladen. Baskets of Fruit
and Ribbons to boot And Congratulate. Miss Meadows broke off. Dont look
so doleful, girls. It ought to sound warm, joyful, eager. Congratulate. Once
more. Quickly. All together. Now then!
And this time Miss Meadows voice sounded over all the other voicesfull, deep,
glowing with expression. ( 210-11)
Again, a series of alliterative repeated sounds and words fills the text with a vertical
melodious dimension: On the wings of hope, of love, of joy, Miss Meadows sped back to the
music hall, up the aisle, up the steps, over to the piano.
The extra-diegetic narrators external and internal point of view once again reveals a
plurality of sounds and repetitions (in bold) that discloses Miss Meadows change of mood
after having received her fiancs telegraphic revelation Pay no attention to letter, must have
been mad (210).
There is also, in extract (4), a change in Miss Meadows mode of speech as it shifts
from the internal monologue orchestrated by the extradiegietic narrator and/or herself, to a
long direct speech in which she is actively speaking while giving new directions to her pupils.
Stop! Stop! cried Miss Meadows. This is awful. This is dreadful. And she
beamed at her girls. Whats the matter with you all ? Think, girls, think of what
youre singing. Use your imaginations. With Flowers oerladen. Baskets of Fruit
and Ribbons to boot And Congratulate. Miss Meadows broke off. Dont look so

doleful, girls. It ought to sound warm, joyful, eager. Congratulate. Once more.
Quickly. All together. Now then!
Miss Meadows voice that was most of the time internally noisy throughout the
whole story Suddenly becomes externally noisy. The narrators use of verbs such as cried,
broke off shows Miss Meadows sudden change. Miss Meadows repetitions of the words
Stop, This is, Think are a testimony of her exciting joy.
The Protagonists change in mood, from sadness and anger, to joy and happiness,
corresponds to a change in music category and tone. After A Lament, she asks the girls to
sing Congratulate. Whereas in the beginning she repeated to the girls Once again, () But
this time in parts. Still without expression. (extract 2), by the end of the story, Miss
Meadows recommended It ought to sound warm, joyful, eager. and even witnessed a
drastic change in her voice And this time Miss Meadows voice sounded over all the other
voicesfull, deep, glowing with expression (extract 4). Miss Meadows change in mood
went hand in hand with a change in tone and musicality in The singing Lesson .
Blurring Polyphonic Voices in Katherine Mansfields The Singing Lesson pays

tribute to Ferdinand De Saussures contribution to the field of literary studies. In his preface
to the 2001 edition of The Pursuit of Signs Jonathan Culler writes about De Saussures
prediction that linguistic would one day be part of a comprehensive science of signs 5 and
states I champion the prospect of a semiotics, a systematic science of signs, as the best
framework for literary studies (vii). Katherine Mansfields short story displays the dual
relationship between sound and meaning in The Singing Lesson. It shows how Mansfield
manages to convey meaning in a synchronic way as she simultaneously plays with various
tonalities and allows her prose to reach a vertical dimension comparable to contrapuntal
music. Mansfield also displays a dual relationship between the narrator and the protagonist
adding a new polyphonic dimension to her text. Like the ambiguous dual relationship between
the Saussurian signifier and signified, sound and meaning in The Signing Lesson is
confusing. The blurring nature of this relation is related to the changing mood of the
protagonists thoughts and feelings and on the changing perspective the extradiegetic narrator
tries to convey. In The Singing Lesson, Mansfield manages to make music reveal moments
of being, and capture moments of true feelings, i.e., anger, sadness; then joy, happiness.
Mansfield also reveals how these moments can change completely and display totally
opposed moods. To do so, Mansfield uses Lexical, syntactic and phonetic clues, as well as
different opposed and sudden shifts in perspective and narrative voice in order to permeate
her text with a vertical dimension comparable to contrapuntal music.
5
Signs that are wholly arbitrary realize better than the others the ideal of the semiological process, that is why
language, the most complex and universal of all systems of expression, is also the most characteristic; in this
sense, linguistics can become the master-pater of all branches of semiology although language is only one
particular semiological system. (De Saussure, 68)

References
-Bakhtin, Mikhael (1930), Problems of Dostoevsky Poetics. Emerson, Caryl, ed. and
Transl.Theory and History of Literature, vol.8. University of Minnesota Press; 1984.
-Bray (Joe), The Dual Voice of Free Indirect Discourse: a Reading Experiment. Language
and Literature. Journal of the Poetics and Linguistics Association, vol. 16, 2007.
-Cohn, Dorrit (1978), Transparent Minds: Narrative Modes for Presenting Consciousness in
Fiction, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
-Culler, Jonathan (1975), Structuralist Poetics: Structuralism, Linguistics and the Study of
Literature. New York: Routledge Classics Edition, 2002.
--- (1981), The Pursuit of Signs. New York: Cornell University press, 2001.
-Fludernik, Monika (1993), The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction: The
Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness. London and New York: Routledge,
2005.
-Genette, Grard (1972), Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method. Jane E. Lewin, transl.
New York: Cornell University Press, 1980.
--- (1983), Narrative Discourse Revisited, Jane E. Lewin, transl. New York: Cornell
-Ikeo, Reiko. Unambiguous Free Indirect Discourse? A Comparison between

straightforward Free Indirect Speech and thoughts and Cases Ambiguous with Narration.
Language and Literature, vol. 16, N 4, 2007.
-Kuivalinen, (Pivi), Emotion in Narrative : a Linguistic Study of Katherine Mansfields Short

Fiction, put online on The Electronic Journal of the Department of English at the University
of Helinski. vol. 5, 2009.
-Mansfield, Katherine. The Singing Lesson. Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield.

London: Constable, 1966. pp 343-50.
-Murry, J. M. ed, (1927), The Journal of Katherine Mansfield. London: Constable, 1954.
-Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1916), Course in General Linguistics. Roy Harris, ed. & transl.
USA, Open court Publishing Company: 1983.
-Wright, Austin M (1989), Recalcitrance in the Short Story, in Short Story Theory at a
Crossroad. Lohfer, Susan & Clarey, Jo Ellyn, eds. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press.

Language and culture
Abdelfattah Mazari
University Mohammed Premier, Oujda, Morocco
Naoual Derraz
University Mohammed Premier, Oujda, Morocco
Abstract
The study of culture plays a very important role when it comes to teaching or learning a
foreign language since words and phrases of that language, such as English, refer to internal
meanings to its culture, creating a reality and a well defined semantic relationship that the
learner must understand.
Language and culture have at least three important components:

1) Language learning offers learners the opportunity to understand the relationship between
language and other cultural phenomena.
2) Language learning allows a comparison between the foreign language and the mother
tongue and highlights similarities as well as differences between the two.
3) The learning of the foreign culture passes by the knowledge of ones own culture and takes
into account its linguistic dimensions.
In this work, we will try to show that these three components are complementary and
interdependent, and must evolve in parallel in the overall educational process. The objectives
should be clear so as to make learners appreciate similarities and differences between their
own culture and the communities where the target language is spoken. This will, therefore,
help them identify with the experience and the perspective of native speakers of that language,
and then use this skill to develop a more objective view of their own culture and their way of
thinking.
Keywords: language, culture, interdependent, learning, teaching

Introduction
In the contemporary world, millions of people speak more than one language.
However, to speak a foreign language is a complex skill which includes varied aspects, such
as the status of the language in question, the master's degree of reading and writing, the way
this skill is acquired or the way it is used.
The study of a foreign language allows learners to know another culture, not only by
the expansion of language experiences, but also by including social and human factors. But
reaching a level of effective communication in the foreign language does not have to be the
unique concern of the learner of this language. Language teaching has to play a real role in the
education of learners by insisting on their perception and their attitude towards other cultures,
and towards theirs also. So, the fact of learning a foreign language would not be reduced to
the mere transmission of messages, as we see in the language of the classroom, which is a
language of "repetition" (R. Mitchell and alii, 1981, p.66) and which ignores the imaginative
and creative side of the learner.
Knowing a language requires certainly a better knowledge of the language learning

process. Therefore, if we help individuals realize that they know something about language
learning, we help them at the same time to realize that they know something about the
language, and they will understand it better. It, thus, results in these learners a better
understanding of the world and their relationships with others. This should contribute to
reduce prejudice and promote tolerance between cultures. Moreover, the cultural process of
emancipation inherent in language learning is so complex that we cannot summarize it only in
grammar, semantics and reading the foreign literature. It is also an emotional experience with
all the intellectual and personal enrichment it provides.
Based on this, it would be necessary, in language learning, to re-examine the

relationship between language and culture not only through psychology and linguistics, but
also by appealing, if needed, to other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology and
anthropology.
1. The purposes of language teaching
It is certainly necessary to take into account the learners needs throughout an

educational process whose objectives should not, however, be limited to the only
"communication". In the educational process, it is important to become aware of the nature of
the language itself and its cultural dimension, by encouraging positive attitudes towards this
language and its speakers. However, these positive attitudes must be considered as acquired
only if there is knowledge of the concerned society.
Language is especially an obvious means of communication, but we should not be

limited to the only self-satisfaction produced by the linguistic ability. It is certainly not
enough to hope that a purely linguistic education can have positive impacts. It is necessary to
dissipate the concerns relative to the evaluation of the learners and to show that the

intellectual investment is also necessary like the grammatical rules to learn a foreign
language.
Therefore, if we take into account the relative priority of the various objectives, it
seems important to bring modifications in contents and language teaching methods. First, the
objectives must be established with a description of the items to be acquired by the learner, as
it is necessary to make an analysis of the language to learn. On the other hand, language
learning has to lean on teaching materials to allow to perceive and to explain certain linguistic
phenomena in relation with culture.
For this reason, we must try to provide a descriptive analysis of culture and a series of
data on the nature of this culture to create a mutual understanding with the other societies.
Without such an approach, language teaching would not perform completely its educational
role and would not contribute to reconciliation between people.
Certainly, modifications of contents imply modifications of methods. It is necessary to

establish a comparative study structured by mother and foreign cultures. This would allow
learners to become aware of the intuitive nature of their own culture which will be felt as
being different, strange and not constituting necessarily the "standard". Such a vision from
outside is likely to facilitate the understanding of another culture and, therefore, the
understanding of the other language (Michal Byram, 1992). These methods can be enriched
by being inspired by the mother tongue and literary subjects, which play a role in the process
of early socialization, so as to approach a second socialization in the foreign culture. All these
modifications cannot be achieved without a real will of teachers to change attitude and
consider the learning of culture and that of language inseparable from each other.
The relationship between language and culture in foreign language learning is based
on three interrelated axes, a) language as a means of communication, b) understanding and
apprehension of the nature of language, and c) the educational value of the study of cultures.
These relationships must be respected and put into practice despite their complexity, without
any cleavage between language and culture, since language serves as a cultural marker. It
embodies the values and the sense of culture.
Many authors have dealt with this issue and focused their works on the importance of
language in relation to culture. They have highlighted the interdependence of language
learning and culture since the learner of a foreign language (L2) possesses a mother tongue
(L1) and therefore there could be interference or semantic transfer. Indeed, the cultural
transfer is evident in the association of a meaning in L1 with a word in L2.
Teachers of language and culture have to deal with different disciplines to meet this
interdependence between language and culture. In language teaching, linguistics provides
syntactic and phonological approach, but it is not enough for its own in this process.
Sociolinguistics and pragmatics represent valuable tools to study the functions of language.
Indeed, they analyze how native speakers use a given language to establish a social
interaction. Recently, competence of communication has been focused on, a broader
concept than "grammatical competence". At the same time, the idea that the study of culture
will contribute to an effective communication and cooperation is strengthened. Indeed,

"competence of communication" tends towards appreciating the appropriate use of language.

This use is unique to each culture.
The analysis of these cultural values in ethno-anthropology proves to be a necessary

and complementary tool. What does it mean belonging to another culture? This research is
based on interpretations more than mere descriptions of symbols and educates for tolerance,
even passively. It also allows accepting the difference of others by making understand culture
actively. This is what should be promoted.
According to Geertz (M. Byram, 1992, p.113), culture is a structure of meanings

embodied in symbols, a system of inherited ideas and expressed under a symbolic shape, by
means of which people communicate and spread their knowledge concerning attitudes to life.
Such a definition of culture, thus, makes language a key means of culture teaching.
In summary, we can say that the study of culture has two interrelated goals: to
facilitate the use of language by learners and help them realize how much we are alike and
how we are different from each other.
2. How can a foreign culture be made accessible to foreign language learners?
In modern language teaching, it is necessary to make an analysis and description of the

culture based on the analysis of common meanings and artifacts of the foreign culture. The
analysis of culture consists in highlighting the structures of meaning, what Ryde called
established codes (M. Byram, 1992, p.119), an expression somewhat misleading because it
suggests that it is a decryption operation.
It is obvious that the formulation of cultural meanings is through the language of the
community. From there, the role of language in the analysis of culture seems clearly defined.
The language represents then the most important means to acquire the culture and to share it
with others.
For his part, William (M. Byram, 1992, p.120) defines culture as three dimensions:
first, the area of the ideal of certain universal values in which culture is a state of human
perfection or a process leading to it. Then, there is the "documentary" field in which culture
constitutes all the intellectual and creative productions and in which thought and human
experience are recorded in detail. Finally, there is a "social" definition of the term which
makes of culture the description of a particular lifestyle reflecting certain meanings and values
not only in the world of art or knowledge, but also in the institutions and the usual behavior.
On the other hand, considering language as a means of analysis of culture allows exploiting
its intimate relationship with cultural meanings, in addition to the other forms of
communication such as music, painting, etc.
However, learning culture through language may offend the sense of belonging to an
ethnic group or a particular geographic area. This is particularly felt in the case of a culture
that has much in common with the historical background and where the need to assert its
identity is stronger than when it comes to non-crop by that historical background. Therefore,
the analysis of the learners own culture takes on a crucial place and avoids stereotypes about

the differences from outside. In the language classroom, learning culture should use linguistic
elements which serve to express it. In other words, learning language and culture must be
done together. Moreover, it is not advisable to try to understand a foreign culture in the
mother tongue of the learner; it would diminish the educational value of the learning process.
The main question is especially to determine what must be taught, the nature of the cultural
contents to be presented to learners and how this presentation must be integrated into the
whole language teaching.
It is clear that if a language is spoken in different countries, it can present significant

cultural differences. The choice of a country rather than another in learning the culture can be
guided by considerations of geographical proximity and the will that these cultural concepts
be as close as possible to the culture of the learner. On the other hand, it is necessary to try to
create at the learner a cultural sensitivity by using literary texts which convey the relationship
between language and cultural meanings.
There is yet another way for learners to make a new cultural experience on the social
side: direct contact with the foreign country during language study holidays or tourism.
Indeed, far from the reference framework of their own culture pressures, learners create
emotional links with the foreign culture along with the learning of the language.
3. Relation between language and culture
The study of foreign languages widens the experience in the language field by
allowing comparisons between several languages. It contributes to the personal education of
learners. Furthermore, foreign language teaching allows learners to free from their cultural
environment limits and study another culture by including in that respect human and social
factors. Language and culture are thus inseparable. So, when learners learn something on the
culture and when they learn to use the language, they learn to communicate with individuals
belonging to this culture. From this perspective, we will focus on the points of view of
different linguists on this subject.
For Kohring and Schwerdtfeger (M. Byram, 1992, p. 92), taking as their starting point
semiotics as a science of communication, culture is communication. To analyze culture and
the study of culture, they suggested two sub-disciplines, syntax and pragmatics. This
approach provides primarily a cultural analysis tool, describing how members of a culture
communicate within it. Second, the analysis tools are applied to the different approaches of a
foreign culture that a learner can borrow and the relationships he maintains with the system of
communication of the foreign culture compared to his own culture. In general, when a learner
is in front of a foreign system of communication, he tries to assimilate pragmatic and
syntactical patterns of the target language, and thus the target culture. He may even
sometimes try to deal with the pragmatic and syntactical patterns of the foreign language and
culture without going through his own language and culture. This is not really obvious since
there are always errors of interferences.
As for Kramer, (M. Byram, 1992, p.94), he refers briefly to developmental

psychology. He argues that the learner comes in touch with another culture through learning
based on a certain stage of language socialization development. It is by means of assimilation

and adaptation processes that he can cope with new experiences. For him, learning a language
can then bring an "extension by contrast" of the original cultural socialization process. The
fact that most teachers are trained to criticism and literary appreciation and not to the study of
social sciences poses considerable problems, since they are not able to explain a text in a
foreign language to their students from a socio-cultural perspective.
Dressler, Reuter and Reuter (M. Byram, 1992, p.93.), in turn, use the concept of
"competence of communication". For them, ethnography of communication provides a
framework to properly integrate the study of culture in learning the language, since
competence of communication involves interaction with a foreign culture. For a learner to be
competent, he must master the various aspects of speech acts that this framework will
identify. But some of these speech acts are rituals and special conventions to a culture that
this framework does not necessarily translate as culture-related proposals.
The study of a culture has, according to Leach, two independent objectives: to

facilitate the use of the language by learners and help them to become aware of the concept of
cultural "otherness", what Leach calls the "eternal puzzle of any anthropological study" (M.
Byram, 1992, p.84). In other words, the question to ask is to what extent we are alike and to
what extent we differ from each other.
For several years, lectures were given and articles written on the relations between
language and culture, ethno-linguistics, based on the idea that language has an important place
in its relation with culture. Hymes (D. Hymes, 1964) thinks that two types of link between
language and culture were highlighted. The first one, associated especially with Malinowski
and with other British anthropologists, emphasizes the interdependence of language and
culture as different aspects from the same social action. The second, associated with Levi-
Strauss and other French critics, is more concerned with the harmony between language and
culture as parallel systems or products of the collective psychology. The existence of such
links was widely accepted, and we could perhaps see that the two points are related. Language
and culture are not acquired by the children of a society as two separate things. The
interdependence of language and culture in most human activities implies that the first serves
as vehicle in which the other is learnt. And since language is the vehicle of cultural aspects, it
is not surprising to notice that the structural organization of the language is reflected in the
cultural forms.
Among the most decisive influences of linguistic thought on the study of culture, we
can cite the work of Levi-Strauss (C. Lvi-Strauss, 1958). For him, there are significant
similarities between linguistic structure and cultural structure:
1) The units of a system are defined by the relationship between them, and these relationships
are more fundamental than the units themselves.
2) The essential phonological units of a language as English are not phonemes / p/, / b/, / m/,
etc., but rather the contrast relationship in sound, occlusion and nasality which are the basis of
phonemes. Thus, according to the point of view of Levi-Strauss, what is essential in a social
structure is not any element of the family, but rather the inter- and intra-family relations as
consanguinity, marriage and descendants that must define the family.

4. The cultural nature of language
Modern linguistics results from the philological tradition which is firstly interested in
classical and modern written languages, and from the anthropological tradition, which is
widely interested in pre-literate peoples. The anthropologist had recognized the importance of
language, not only as a tool in a more effective working area but also as a critical element of
the cultural edifice he studied. So, anthropological linguistics is, sometimes, referred to and
can be defined as the study of the unknown varieties of words in their cultural context.
Considering that language is a part of culture, linguistic anthropologists have focused

on the following key questions: in what respect does language join the general conception of
cultural systems, and how is it distinguished from other components? What are the similarities
between the internal structures of the language and the other branches of culture? What role
does language play in the functioning of the culture? Do language and culture influence each
other throughout history?
Language has an assured position as a branch of culture by its distinctive nature, its
specificity to human species, and above all because languages are learnt, not genetically
transmitted. In spite of the fact that an ethnic group and language have frequently a historic
relationship, so that many people who have the same ancestors also have the same language,
this link is not indispensable.
4.1. The role of language in culture
Language is not merely one of several aspects of culture; it leaves possible

development, elaboration and transmission of culture, particularly in its written form. One can
imagine the transmission of handicrafts from one generation to another without the use of a
language; but economic, political, religious or social institutions are something else. It is
difficult to imagine how a deaf community, if deprived of language substitutes such as
writing, could support human social life.
But how does language, or any other symbolic system, relate exactly to the
experience? It is generally argued that symbols, as signs, reflect to something else than
themselves. The definition of meaning itself cannot be clearly considered as agreed. The study
of culture, thus, plays a very important role when it concerns foreign language teaching or
learning, since the different words and expressions refer to internal meanings in the culture of
the language in question, creating by the way a reality and a well-defined semantic
relationship that the learner must understand. It is said that language learning widens horizons
(12); therefore, and if that is the case, this process has to possess an educational virtue. A
variety of theoretical models for the concept of meaning has been proposed by philosophers,
psychologists and linguists of different obedience. The model that we present in what follows
can be used as part of an ethno-linguistic discussion.
Structural linguists have been extremely careful in terms of semantics and sometimes
they even tried to exclude it completely from linguistics. Until recently, a conception of
strictly behaviorist meaning was in vogue:

We have defined the meaning of a linguistic form as the situation in which the speaker
utters it and the response which it calls forth in the hearer ... The situations which
prompt people to utter speech include every object and happening in their universe. The
order to give a scientifically accurate definition of meaning for every form of a
language, we should have to have a scientifically accurate knowledge of everything in
the speaker's world ... We can define the names of minerals, for example, in terms of
chemistry and mineralogy, as when we say that the ordinary meaning of the English
word salt is "sodium chloride (NaCL)", but we have no precise way of defining words
like love or hate, which concern situations that have not been accurately classified ...(
W. Bright, 1976, p. 139).
These statements seem to induce a linguistic function model in only two parts: on one
side, the linguistic form, and on the other one, the associated non-linguistic events (and most
probably contextual linguistic events too). Thus, the definition of the word salt may be, at
least in part, the real substance NaCL.
A more satisfactory model was provided two thousand years ago by the Hindu
philosopher Patanjali (W. Bright, 1976, p.6), who argued that word, meaning and object are
separated from each other while they are mingled in ordinary use. Thus, according to him,
when we pronounce the word "elephant", word, meaning and object are mixed. The word is in
the air, the meaning is in the brain and the object (the elephant) lives by itself. It is indeed true
that the word is in the air, in the sense that it is transmitted as vibrations of air molecules. It is
also true that, actually, the elephant lives by itself; that is to say, it is independent of all human
conventions. The only place where these two parts are connected is in the human brain.
Therefore, meaning could be defined as the relationship that combines word and object.
This three-part model is more adequate than Bloomfields but, still, it does not clarify
the relationship between language and culture. To do so, we will further explain this model.
First, a division can be made between the observational universe, or etic, to which belong
word and object, and the structural universe, or emic, inside the human brain. Second, we
should distinguish the linguistic behavior of its contents. The two dichotomies interfere as
shown in the following diagram:
LANGUAGE CONTENT
ETIC Linguistic Phenomena talked about
behavior (mostly non-linguistic)

a b

EMIC Linguistic c Cultural
structure structure
Figure1. Relation between language and culture. (W. Bright, 1976, p.7)
In this figure, arrows 'a', ' b ' and ' c ' indicate the important relations for the ethno-
linguist. Arrow 'a' represents the relation which interests him when he works as a pure
linguist. It can be considered as inductive, according to the process by which the investigator

proposes a structure to explain his behavioral raw data, or deductive. It reminds the process by
which psychological models of language competence give birth to the visible linguistic
expression. Arrow ' b ' represents the analog relationship established by the ethnographer:
objects and real events which affect a particular group of people here are connected by
induction or deduction. Finally, arrows ' c ' represent the relationships of "meaning".
There are two types of structural units which are linked by the relationship of
meaning. The relevant language units are not phonemes or morphemes, but units of a higher
level, which are lexemes: these are the minimal units involved in arbitrary relationships of
meaning. In this way, isolated lexemes as green and house are lexemes, but it is also the case
for the combination of the two lexemes greenhouse, opposed to green house, as long as it
arbitrarily designates a particular kind of structure. Almost nobody agrees on the structural
units of the cultural behavior; they are often named sememes. There is still no strict
correspondence between lexemes and sememes; people sometimes show culturally
determined differences in behavior when their language gives no lexematic differentiation.
However, the general regularity of lexeme-sememe correspondence reflects the close
integration between language and the rest of culture, and it is likely that in this perspective
language could be considered as a key to culture as a whole.
Conclusion
In summary, we can say that language and culture learning includes at least three
important components:
1) Language learning offers to learners the opportunity to understand the links between
language and other cultural phenomena, which establishes a relationship between language
acquisition and foreign culture understanding.
2) Language learning allows a comparison between the foreign language and mother tongue
and highlights similarities as well as differences between them.
3) Learning of foreign culture passes through the knowledge of ones own culture and takes
into account its linguistic dimensions.
These three components are complementary and interdependent and must evolve in
parallel in the general educational process. In particular, learning language and culture are
based on contents and teaching methods, which brings us to the three interrelated bases in the
relationship between language and culture, namely the language as a means of
communication, understanding and apprehension of the nature of language, and finally the
educational value of the study of cultures.
The objectives should be the ability of learners to appreciate similarities and

differences between their own culture and the communities where they speak the target
language to identify with the experience and perspective of native speakers of the target
language, and then to use this competence to develop a more objective view of their own
culture and their way of thinking.

References
-Bright, William, 1976. Variation and change in language, Stanford University Press,
Stanford, USA.
-Byram, Michal. 1992. Culture et ducation en langue trangre, trad. de l'anglais par
Katharina Blamont- Newman et Grard Blamont, Coll. Langues et Apprentissage des
Langues, Paris: Les Editions Didier.
-Hymes, Dell (ed.).1964. Language in Culture and Society. New York: Harper and Row
-Lvi-Strauss, Claude. 1958. Anthropologie Structurale, (Chap.2), Plon, Paris.
-Mitchell, R. and alii. 1981. The foreign language Classroom: an observational study,
University of Stirling, Stirling.

Isolation in The Catcher in the Rye and A Woman on the Turret: A

Comparative Study
Ranji Shorsh Rauf Muhamad

Abstract
This paper is about Isolation in The Catcher in the Rye and A Woman on the Turret. The
concept of Isolation in The Catcher in the Rye has been mentioned in many studies, but it is
scarcely compared with another novel and hardly with a Kurdish novel. The paper is a
comparative study of two novels The Catcher in the Rye which is written by an American
Novelist David Salinger who had isolated himself from society since then. A Woman on the
Turret is written by a Kurdish novelist, Sherzad Hassan, who is a great defender of women
rights.
The study focuses on the theme Isolation in both novels and the reasons which lead the main
characters in these novels to be isolated from society; moreover it sheds light on their
reactions toward the community. The aim of this study is that to illustrate the factors of
isolating an American Juvenile in his society and a Kurdish young woman from her
community.
Keywords: The Catcher in the Rye, a Woman on the Turret, Isolation, Psychological
approach

Introduction
Isolation is a state of being in a place or situation that is separate from others.

(Merriam-Webster Diction) The condition of being isolated requires that one be detached
from others through reasons not in ones control. One can say that isolation is not only
physically but also it can be spiritually, for instance Shady in A Woman on the Turret said that
my soul is isolated from this world it means that physically she has a communication with
other people but her soul was upset from that society. She feels alone since she cannot tell her
secret to others.
This study shows that , how J. D. Salinger and Sherzad Hassan interpret the theme of
isolation to construct such characters as Holder Caulfield in the Catcher in the Rye and Shady
in A Woman on the Turret . In these two novels the idea of isolation are presented as a direct
result of maltreatment of other characters, so the writers apply both to social and inner
isolation. The reality in which these people live is so harsh that they isolate themselves from
the rest of the world. Isolation results in the expelling of a person from all social affairs and
interactions, depriving him/her to become a full member of society. Actually the identity of a
person is created through certain social and cultural interactions with people, but isolation
prevents him/her of acquiring the completeness of identity.
Isolation in The Catcher in the Rye
Since its publication The Catcher in the Rye has been one of the most widely read
novels written in American literature. It has also been one of the most analyzed novels by
scores of literary critics, due to its effect on the society in general and the youth in particular.
Ever since its publication in 1951, J.D. Salingers The Catcher in the Rye had served as a
firestorm for controversy and debate. Critics had argued the moral issues raised by the book
and the context in which it was presented. Some had argued that Salingers tale of the human
condition was fascinating and enlightening, yet incredibly depressing. The psychological
battles of the novels main character, Holden Caulfield, served as the basis for critical
argument. Caulfields self-destruction over a period of days forced reader of contemplate
societys attitude toward the human condition. The Catcher in the Rye had been banned
continually from schools, libraries, and bookstores due to its profanity, sexual subject matter,
and rejection of some traditional American ideals.
Salingers portrayal of Holden, which included incidents of depression, nervous

breakdown, impulsive spending, sexual exploration, vulgarity, and other erratic behavior, had
all attributed to the controversial nature of the novel. Yet the novel was not without its sharp
advocates, who argued that it was a critical look at the problems facing American youth
during the 1950s. When developing a comprehensive opinion of the novel, it was important to
consider the praises and criticisms of The Catcher in the Rye.
Holden was probably too sensitive for his own good nature and he suffered from an
almost uncontrollable urge to protect people he saw as susceptible. He was attracted to the
weak and the frail, and he feels sorry for losers of all kinds, even those who caused him pain,
discomfort, or trouble. But the main focus of Holdens protective instinct was children, whom
he saw as symbols of goodness and innocence, and whom he would like to shield against

corruption. One sign of corruption in Holdens worldview was the process of growing up,
since it removed reader from the perfect innocence of childhood. He had a daydream about
children who never grew up, who remained in that perfect world forever and his own
problems of facing the real world were linked to that daydream.
Holden envisioned thousands of children playing and dancing in a field of rye and he
saw himself standing at the edge of a cliff to catch any children who came too close. He said
he did not want to be a scientist or a lawyer; he just wanted to be the catcher in the rye.
Holden was continually confronted with the absence of good on his arrival in the city, he was
disturbed because his cabdriver was corrupt and unsociable and, worst of all unable to answer
Holdens obsessive question: where do the central park ducks go when the lake freezes over.
What Holden really wanted to know was whether there was a benevolent authority that took
care of ducks. One might say that here he compares the ducks to the children, he means that if
there is one that cares about the ducks, there will be also one who cares about the children
(Bloom, 2000 : 7)
Holden was essentially alone, but not because he disliked people. His loneliness arose
from the fact that no one seemed to share his view of the world; no one understood what was
going on in his head. His poor academic record was one indication of his failure to deal with
this problem, a problem that built to a climax in the course of the novel. (Bloom, 2000: 60)
Holdens reaction to his awareness of the worlds imperfection and mutability was the
formulation of the dream to be the catcher of small children, saving them from the
knowledge and the dangers of what he was slowly coming to realize the given of life. He
decided he would never go home again but would hitchhike his way out west, got a job as a
gas-station attendant, and pretended he is deaf-mute so he would not have to listen to peoples
talk. He is so isolated from society even he does not want to speak because he was bored from
people even if he gets married, he will marry a deaf-mute girl and he was disturbed from
school that was why, he will not send his children to school.
Holden decided to stay in a hotel, the elevator guy who was called Maurice told him,
how old are you chief? The elevator guy said . why I said. Twenty-two. Okay I will send a
girl up in about fifteen minutes. He opened the doors and I got out. it was against his
principles, but he was feeling so depressed, he did not even think. That was the whole
problem when people feeling very depressed, they could not even think. (Salinger: 82)
In fact Holden did not want to have sex with this prostitute, because he was virgin, he
would not lose his innocence and purity, he was more oppressed than sexy. do not you feel
like talking for a while he asked her. She looked at me like I was a madman. what the heck
you want to talk about? She said. I do not know. Nothing special. I just thought perhaps you
might care to chat for a while. (Salinger: 86) He wanted to remain in the childhood world.
Holden needed someone to talk with, no one listened to him that was why, he agreed to pay
the prostitute just to listen to him, since he is isolated from society. He wanted to talk about
his dead brother to everyone and talk about his aim to become the catcher in the rye, but
nobody was ready to listen to him. He was often alone, seeking for a partner and calling many
friends, however; he could not find an appropriate one to understand him.

Holden refused to have sexual relationship with the prostitute, not because of moral
principle, but because the condition of her existence. He would save her if he could, but she
was far too fallen from any catcher in the rye. Yet as a child-saint, Holden is quixotic. In not
sleeping with her, he meant to protect her innocence, not his own; he was spiritually, hence
physically, unable to be a party to her further degradation. The consequences were ironic.
Holden as saint refused to victimize the prostitute, but he was victimized by the girl and her
accomplice, Maurice. Though Holden had paid the girl without using her, Maurice beat him
and extorted an additional five dollars from him. He was punished for his innocence.
(Bloom,1990: 69)
It can be noticed that Holden was alone, he needed a friend. When he saw Sally, he
wanted to be with her forever, that was why, the idea of marriage came into his mind. He was
in love with her. Surely it was only for a short time he felt like that. That is the nature of
teenager, they are not stable, and hundreds of ideas come into their minds and go out in a
moment.
The funny part is, I felt like marrying her the minute I saw her. I am crazy. I did
not even like her much, and yet all of a sudden I felt like I was in love with her
and wanted to marry her. I swear to God I am crazy. I admit that. (Salinger:
112)
He could not control himself, and at that moment when he said it, he meant it, but he regretted
soon, because at this age, he could not take decision. He admitted that what he did was not
right.
You are probably the only reason I am in New York right now, or anywhere.
If you were not around, I would probably be some place way the hell off. In the
woods or some god dam place look I said. Here is my idea. How you like would
to get the hell out of here, what we could do is, tomorrow morning we could
drive up to Massachusetts and Vermont, and all around there, see. Its beautiful
as hell up there. it really is. (Salinger:118)
It is worth mentioning that Holden revealed his childish plan to her, because he
wanted to find a partner. He asked her hand to marry him and go to Massachusetts together,
living far away from society. In fact he was bored to live in New York, the Society did not
accept him and he could not accept society this led him be isolated. He preferred to live in
woods rather than stay among people. (Bloom,1990: 69)
He believes that all adults are corrupt and consequently destructive, since growing up
in the real world is tragic, in Salingers ideal world time must be stopped to prevent the loss of
childhood, to salvage the remnants of innocence. Holden wishes that life were unchangeable
and pure as the exhibitions under glass cases in the museum of the natural history. The best
thing though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. (Salinger:
109)

Isolation in The Woman on the Turret
When Shady was a teenager, she felt in love with her cousin Bahram. One day she had
sexual relationship with him. This intercourse caused of losing her virginity. In Middle East
culture or Islamic society losing the virginity of a girl before the marriage is a great disaster.
In addition to this Bahram left her and went to abroad. This event led her to be isolated from
society forever. Thus she had to keep this secret for many years. Revealing this secret was
equal to losing her life, furthermore it would cause the embarrassment for her family. The
novelist talked about the isolation of a lady in Kurdish society, and criticized the whole
community who see all the moral principles in losing the virginity of a girl. After the accident
had occurred to her, she took the responsibility alone whereas Bahram enjoyed her life in
Europe. The novelists message was that, it was not fair to call those people immoral who
make a mistake in her life, probably they might be good people in society, and for instance,
one can see that this lady had a good personality and many good behaviors as she is against
the killing of human being, she is anti war and she is a great supporter of protecting historical
place such as a turret.
As a matter of fact after remaining with this secret for many years, unexpectedly
Homer, an old Peshmarga asked her hand. He proposed to Shady to get married with her.
Actually it was a good proposal and she did agree to get married with him but on one
condition that to keep her secret and never tell anyone about her virginity. It is worth
mentioning that Shady was agree to get married with the old Peshmarga to get rid of the
gossips and rumors of society, whom always said that she is an old maid and she had not got
married yet. Actually this marriage also solved her problem which was losing her virginity,
however; her soul remained in isolation forever. She believed that life is ended for her since
her beloved had sexual relationship with her in spite of that he left her alone.
One might remark that after her marriage she lived in an old house and there was an
old turret in the yard of the house. She thought that the old turret is a part of national heritage.
In fact a group of rich people whom she called them Mafia wanted to destroy the old turret
and build a large mall in place of it. The turret meant a lot to her, every day she looked at it.
She compared herself to the turret because it was alone, pale and isolated like her, therefore;
she loved it and sometimes she said that I got married with it. She believed that the turret was
part of her that was why she always fought with those rich people who wanted to destroy it. In
this battle she was alone, at first Homer supported her but after his death, she was lonely
defended the turret. Due to her goodness and her love to the turret, she was isolated from
society too. One can notice that the cruelty and harshness of the people led her to be isolated,
and sometimes her behavior caused her isolation since it was not accepted by society. The
novelist wanted to tell that good people were not welcomed in society and they would be
isolated if they defended the heritage, innocence or if they were on the right path.
When the reader read this novel, would realized that the novelist focused on the
important problem in society and opened the door upon many issues of women. The novelist
thought that Kurdish women had been persecuted and isolated under the name of morality.
One might say that it is a great mistake to see the concept of morality only in a small part of

womans body. In fact morality is not only humans physical body. could you tell me where
are the moralities of those men who sold people and soil together (Hassan: 158)
Here the novelist wanted to lead the reader to make a review about the concept of
morality and gave a wide meaning to it, moreover to appreciate the holy mission and the
adventure of Shady and considered it as morality. to me my battle is a moral thing
(Hassan:143)
One may notice that in this novel shady was an adventurous lady, she was against
society and culture. She was a type character and represented thousands of Kurdish women.
The novelist had a message for women and advised them. On one hand they must challenge
the society and culture and never surrendered to their conservative idea. On the other hand
they should depend on themselves for making their life better. I see this battle as a nice thing
because it is against your awful friends and genders (Hassan: 174)
Shady believed that man was responsible for her isolation since the maltreatment of
man caused her to lose her virginity. She wanted to destroy that costume and tradition which
always said yes to man; she wanted to say no to them. She could live with Homer
because he thought differently and as she said he respected all my no (Hassan:167) and he
supported me in this battle (Hassan: 176)
It is worth mentioning that the name of the main character (Shady) is absolutely
against her life. Her name is irony; it means happiness while her entire life was full of trouble,
suffering and isolation. Here the novelist criticized all the womens names which had positive
meaning whereas in reality their live were just like hell.
Shady identified herself with the birds; she thought that she had many common points
with them, such as preying, hunting and shedding their blood. She believed that man hunt and
shed the blood of the birds and women at the same time. She looked at men as hunters no
more and no less. Do you know that from that day you had killed the bird my tableaus were
full of the murdered birds and deer.(Hassan: 74)
Conclusion
Throughout this study one can realize that isolation is the most important issue of
modern and post modern age. The isolation of the main characters Holden Caulfield in The
Catcher in the Rye and Shady in The Woman on the Turret are so impressive they do not feel
that having real mother and father. This paper clarifies that both main characters are looking
for alternative father, mother, and relatives to talk with. Holden talked with two nuns, Sally
and the prostitute as alternatives while Shady talked with the Turret every time even she said I
got married with it.
In This study one can notice the victims of isolation, and how he sees his society. The
reader can understand the psychological state of isolated people, how the isolated people treat
with their surrounding and what their point of view about society is. It also reveals the factors
that lead the characters to be isolated and the failure of the characters to find alternatives.

Shady is isolated because for a long time she preserved her true love to Bahram who
was faithless. She was also isolated since she protected the turret from the rich peoples hand.
Houlden Caulfield was isolated because he wanted to protect the children to grow up. Since
he believes that children are innocent, pure and sinless while the world of adults is guilty,
impure, and sinful and it is full of corruption.

References
-Bloom, Harold. J.D.Salingers The Catcher in the Rye. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000.
-Bloom, Harold. Holden Caulfield. New York: Chelsea House, 1990.
-Slinger, Jerome David. The Catcher in the Rye. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1951.
-Sherzad, Hassan. A Woman on the Turret . Sulaimani: Andesha, 2010.

Style and Lexical Choices in Teacher-Student Classroom Interaction
Chuka Fred Ononye

Alvan Ikoku University of Education at Owerri, Nigeria
Abstract
Effective linguistic choices and delivery methods are the basic ingredients to success in
classroom teaching/learning, yet the language and style of classroom interaction have enjoyed
little scholarly attention. The paper, therefore, investigated the styles and lexical choices in
teacher-student classroom interactions to establish the role of language as vehicle of the
content and style in teaching/learning. The data consist of 10 teacher-student classroom
interactions randomly recorded, transposed to writing and subjected to stylistic and
quantitative methods of analysis, with insights from relational semantics, text-linguistic and
socio-linguistic stylistics. Two styles were observed in the discourse: evaluative style (used by
the teachers) and informative style (used by both the students and teachers). Informative style
is indexed by such lexical choices as register, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and
colloquialism that enter into paradigmatic relations. Evaluative style is characterised by
collocation which keys into syntagmatic relation. While collocation (330: 32.1%) is the most
prevalent lexical feature in the data, hyponymy (17: 1.7%) is the least. These stylistic features
have proved to be the functional indices for underpinning the styles and lexical choices used
in classroom interaction. Thus, they are important for effective assessment of teachers
competence, students learning progress, and designing of school curricula.
Keywords: Stylistics, Teacher-student interaction, Classroom discourse, Lexical

choices

Introduction
The classroom is the practical meeting point of nearly all the educational practices
ranging from curriculum planning to implementation (Fagbamiye, 1998). The success or failure
of the goal of classroom activities may be affected by the different aspects of educational
system, but is primarily dependent on the interaction of the two major participants in the
classroom the teacher and student (Hall & Walsh, 2002). Hence, the participants interactions
in terms of the linguistic choices and methods utilized in fostering the objectives of
classroom teaching/learning have become veritable sources of research interests. Of
particular concern here is how participants make specific choices of lexemes, which fall into
specific styles of classroom language.
Problem statement and significance
Classroom research has increased in the last two decades, although a number of
important issues are yet to be methodically addressed, especially with respect to classroom
interaction. Studies on classroom interactions have, however, been concentrated singly on
either the teachers modifications in talk and feedback (e.g. Dagarin, 2004) or the learners
group work and question types (e.g. Hakansson & Linberg, 1988). Not enough scholarly
attention has been paid to the classroom interaction as it involves the two participants the
teacher and student. The few studies (related to the present one) on teacher-student classroom
interaction have been unduly focused on the language (e.g. Babatunde & Adedimeji [nd.];
Schleppegrell, 2001) and conversational pattern (e.g. Maroni, 2008; Zhang, 2011). These
studies seem to have neglected the peculiar insights that will be offered to understanding
classroom discourse and teaching methods, especially in paying attention to how style and
linguistic choices interact in the classroom. The truth of the matter is that the language and
style of teacher-student classroom interaction have received almost no scholarly attention, as
far as the extant literature here is concerned. The present study is therefore aimed at examining
the styles used by classroom participants, and identifying the lexical items that they are
characterised by.
The study of the teacher-student classroom interaction is pertinent at this time as insight
is needed into the kinds of performance that occur in the classroom for effective assessment of
teachers competence, students learning progress, and even in designing effective curriculum
for education in Nigeria. The study is capable of explicitly revealing the unfamiliar functions
that language performs in classroom contexts and the levels of technicality that are associated,
which are expressed through particular lexical devices. Knowledge of these devices in turn
is expected to guide teachers linguistic choices and methods of instruction thereby facilitating
learners access to the content of instruction.
Methodology
The data samples consist of ten (10) full-length teacher-student classroom interactions
randomly recorded in Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, Imo State in
Nigeria. The interactions and discussion of the subjects on varied topics in the classroom were
recorded; and because the classroom discourse is dominated by the teacher, the areas of
dialogue between the teachers and students (not necessarily the entire lecture) were

purposively transposed to writing for convenience of analysis. The study adopts both stylistic
and quantitative approach in analysing the data. The analytical framework for the study is
linguistic stylistics with insights from Geeraerts (2010) relational semantics and Sandig &
Seltings (1997) text- and socio-linguistic stylistics.
The context and discourse of classroom interaction
The context of classroom interaction requires that teachers introduce or present

information in conventionally structured ways, while learners respond or react to the
information, especially when invited to do so. This is largely achieved through one important
aspect of classroom interaction, namely, teachers questions. Teachers questions, according
to Fakaye (2007, p. 127), may serve different functions, including focusing attention,
exercising disciplinary control in the course of an instruction, encouraging students
participation and moving the lesson forward among others. Generally, the value of classroom
discourse is of great importance because it sets a right atmosphere for learning and
transmitting teachers expectations for their pupils response (Nystrand, 1997, p. 28).
Empirically, the quest for improved teaching and learning has motivated researchers
into paying attention to what goes on in the classroom, especially the interaction between
teachers and students. This has generated interest not only from language scholars (e.g.
Babatunde & Adedimeji [nd.]; Schleppegrell, 2001; Maroni, 2008; Zhang, 2011) but also from
those in education (e.g. Fakaye, 2007) and the social sciences (e.g. Nystrand, 1997; Zhang,
2008). Particularly, the linguistic work on classroom discourse bifurcates into studies of the
traditional approach, and those of the modern approach. Within the traditional approach, there
has been a predominant focus on the structure and patterns of classroom interaction (e.g.
Maroni, 2008; Zhang, 2011). These traditional studies largely utilise the conversation
analytical perspectives. Studies of the modern approach are related to the present study in that
they de-emphasize the traditional attention to the conversational patterns on classroom
interaction. Very little scholarly work has however utilised this modern approach (e.g.
Schleppegrell, 2001; Babatunde & Adedimeji [nd.]).
Schleppegrell (2001) is a pure linguistic analysis of the language of schooling in

general, with focus on primary school classroom interaction, spanning across several topics.
The study is limited to the lexical and grammatical levels of manifestation. Unlike the present
study, Schleppegrell (2001) is not based on stylistic framework, nor employed the quantitative
method of analysis to instantiate the linguistic patterns, nor focused on a particular subject area,
as in the present case, English language. Babatunde & Adedimeji (nd.), on the other hand, is a
pragmatic study, focusing on the context of classroom interaction, particularly the politeness
phenomena that come into play in the university classroom situation. Unlike the present study,
the authors reviewed above, apart from not employing the stylistic and quantitative methods of
analysis, did not consider the insights that will be gained in the link between style and lexical
choices. This, however, is the specific gap that the present study is set to fill.

Theoretical perspectives
Style and stylistics
Being a peculiar way of doing something, style is a concept that runs across virtually
all aspects of human behaviour, such as dressing, eating, rulership, etc. In linguistics however,
style has been described as the consistent occurrence in the text of certain items and
structures, or types of items and structures, among those offered by the language as a whole
(Malmkjaer, 2002, p. 510). The concept has received varied definitions from many scholars,
albeit largely associated with uniqueness in language use. A number of approaches to the
study of style have been proposed. Three broad perspectives modified from Osundares
(2003[1982]) classification can however be condensed from all the concepts of style in the
literature; namely, the choice perspective, the individualist perspective, and the difference
perspective. The choice perspective, as author-oriented, is the most popular view of style. In
fact, almost all the stylistic theorists subscribe to this idea of style. The view provides an
answer to the dichotomy between stylistic and non-stylistic choices (Enkvist et al., 1971, p.
19). It is anchored on the simple notion that a language user makes choices from the linguistic
possibilities in his/her repertoire, the most appropriate items that will suit his/her message,
medium, situation and purpose. The individualist perspective, according to Malmkar & Carter
(2002, quoted in Olaniyan & Oyekola, 2007, p. 30), relates to the idea of style as consistency,
agreeing that a good style is a consistent occurrence in the text of certain items and
structures, or types of items and structures among those offered by the language as a whole.
Put in another way, style is seen as a set of recurrent linguistic habits by which an authors
style can be predicted. This frequent linguistic habit in an author, according to Osundare
(2003, p. 30), can manifest in phonological, syntactic and rhetorical forms, which can be
quantified in frequencies.
The difference perspective encompasses the deviationist and variationist views of

style. Style as a deviation from the norm is hinged on the notion that language is both a rule-
governed behaviour and an accumulation of norms (Lawal, 2003, p. 28). A writers style in
this regard is measured against the choices made in violation or tinkering of language rules
without loss of meaning. Variation, in Lyonss (1995, p. 340) view, is one of the major
characteristic features of language, considering its (languages) heterogeneous nature. Style as
variation, therefore, proves the status of language as a tool which owes its utility and survival
to its variability (Osunadre, 2003, p. 19). Two types of variation have been identified
(namely: code-oriented variation and subjected-oriented variation), which are all relevant as
our analysis will show in considering language in an institutionalised context like that of the
classroom. Code-oriented variation is shaped from the view of style as the difference between
two ways of saying the same thing, while subject-oriented variation is affected by the degree
of familiarity with the subject-matter between each text-producer and the audience expressed
through the choice of words. Subject-oriented variation is significant in linguistic stylistics
because it helps in the classification of registers and the linguistic features associated with
them (Ononye, 2012). It is commonly applied for the systemic variations in linguistic features
common to particular non-literary situations, e.g. advertising, classroom interaction, etc.

Stylistics can be seen as a field of study, which seeks to uncover and discuss the
effective uses of certain language features and styles in a text to create certain effects to a
particular audience, with close consideration of the aspects of genre, context and purpose of
the text (Ononye, 2008, p. 39). Right from the classical period, there have been continued
debates among scholars over what stylistics does and does not entail. These have produced
different schools and movements with conflicting or complementary claims; and a whole lot
of useful concepts and approaches to style have resulted from these debates, which are still in
use today (for details, see Mikov, 2003). Clearly, the multiplicity of claims in stylistics is
due to the main influences of linguistics and literary criticism, which has generated such
distinctive terms as linguistic stylistics and literary stylistics (Akinbiyi, 2007, p. 221).
While literary stylistics makes intuitive and impressionistic judgements about the way formal
features are manipulated in a literary text, it is linguistic stylistics that feeds this study, for the
reason that it attempts to bring certain scientific characteristics of language into the analysis
of literary and/or non-literary texts. In view of this, scholars (e.g. Sandig & Selting, 1997)
have discussed five classes of manifestation of linguistic stylistics; namely, traditional
stylistics (concerned with the structure of literary language), pragmatic stylistics (studies
certain pragmatic features and their situation of use), text-linguistic stylistics (involves a
descriptive and comparative study of stylistic conventions of text types), sociolinguistic
stylistics (studies styles in registers and the factors determining the use in cultural situations),
and interactional stylistics (explores the choices made of those aspects of language use that
are under the control of interactants). The choice of linguistic stylistic approach in this paper
particularly utilises aspects of text-linguistic and sociolinguistic stylistics. These are intended
to enable us identify and discuss the various uses of language features and methods in the
data, with close regard to aspects of the genre, context and purpose of teacher-student
interaction.
Relational semantics
One principal approach of which the lexicon is both internally structured and extra-
linguistically represented is through sense relation: the sense of a word is the sum total of its
conceptual senses in relation to other phenomena in the real world (Cruse, 2000, p. 163).
Sense relations, adopted in this study, bifurcate into the Saussurean distinction between
paradigmatism and syntagmatism.
Paradigmatic relations hold between items which can occupy the same position in a
grammatical structure. They are concerned with different associations of relatedness, where
the words involved stand in complementary distribution (Geeraerts, 2010, p. 58).
Paradigmatic sense relations commonly manifest in terms of synonymy, hyponymy,
meronymy, and different kinds of opposition. Synonymy, according to Saeed (2004, p. 65), is
the lexical relation involving different phonological words with similar meaning, which are
derived from a number of parameters, viz. different dialects (e.g. tap and faucet), different
registers (e.g. wife and spouse), collocational restriction (e.g. boy and lad), and portraying
positive/negative attitude of the user (e.g. activist and militant). Hyponymy (derived from
Greek: hypo- meaning under) is the lexical relation of class-inclusion described in English
by the phrase kind / type / sort of. A chain of hyponyms defines a hierarchy of elements
(Riemer, 2010, p. 142), where for example hibiscus, tulip, and rose are co-hyponyms of
flower, which is their hyperonym. Meronymy (Greek meros: part) is the relation of part to

whole, where the part (e.g. eye) is referred to as a meronym of face, while the whole (e.g.
face) is known as the holonym of eye (Riemer, 2010, p. 140). The notion of oppositeness
embraces several different types of relation, the most common of which is antonymy.
Antonymy is characterised by a relationship of incompatibility between two items with
respect to some given dimensions of contrast. Some words, for example, may be associated
with more than one antonym, with respect to the dimension of contrast involved (e.g. girl has
both boy and woman, depending on whether the dimension of contrast is sex or age; sweet has
both bitter and sour: Murphy, 2003, p. 173).
Syntagmatic sense relations hold between items in the same grammatical structure.
There is the possibility of a lexical element in a text to co-occur in larger wholes with other
elements of the language in terms of, for example, compounds and derivations in the
morphological realm, and constituents and sentences in syntax (Geeraerts, 2010, p. 57). Here,
relations between individual items are not usually given names on the lines of hyponymy,
antonymy, and so forth, but certain effects of putting meanings together are recognised, such
as anomaly (e.g. a light green illness), pleonasm (e.g. dental toothache), and meaning
extension, such as metaphor (e.g. move mountain) and metonymy (e.g. nice wheels). The
requirements for a normal combination are described as selectional restrictions or selectional
preferences. For instance, it is by virtue of syntagmatic sense relations, in this case between
verb and noun, that Fred ran across the field is normal, whereas The field crawled across
Fred is odd. As opposed to paradigmatic relations, syntagmatic relations constitute on-line
co-occurrence (Lyons, 1968, p. 431). For Cruse (2000, p. 149), syntagmatic sense relations
are an expression of coherence constraints while paradigmatic relations are an expression
of such structuring. One relevant insight from this review to our study is that paradigmatic
and syntagmatic relations function concurrently, syntagmatic relations delimiting the space
within which paradigmatic relations operate.
Findings and discussion
Two styles have been identified as used by the interactants in the classroom discourse,
viz. informative style and evaluative style. While the evaluative style is associated with the
teachers, the informative style affects both the students and teachers; hence, informative style
is found dominant in the data. The styles are found to be indexed by specific lexical choices
(made by the interactants), which are considered with regard to the way they enter into
paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations in the data. The informative style, therefore, is
indexed by such lexical choices as register, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and
colloquialism that enter into paradigmatic relations. The evaluative style, equally, is
characterised by collocation which keys into syntagmatic relation. The distribution of these
features are summarised in Table 1 below.
Table 1 reveals that, on the whole, the lexical features that enter into paradigmatic
relations (697: 67.9%) dominate those of syntagmatic relations (330: 32.1%). This
corroborates the dominance of the informative style considering the interactants (especially,
the teachers) focus on choosing the most suitable lexemes (among the available options) that
will allow them provide adequate information on their subject matters. The table further
shows that, on the General Average column, collocation (330: 32.1%) is the most prevalent
lexical item found in the data. This is followed by register (267: 26.0%) and synonymy (237:

23.1%), while hyponymy (17: 1.7%), antonymy (27: 2.6%) and colloquialism (149: 14.5%),
respectively, take the least proportion. The styles will be discussed in turn.
s Styles/Lexical choices T S G Examples

/n eacher tudent eneral
Average
1 Infor Hypony 1 0 1 meetings (class,
mative style my 6 (2.2%) 1 7 (1.7%) tutorial), etc.
(0.3%)
Paradigmatic Antony 2 0 2 not critics, but
697 my 3 (3.2%) 4 7 (2.6%) writers, etc
(67.9%) (1.3%)
Colloqu 4 1 1 my brother, the
ialism 4 (6.2%) 05 49 stuff, etc.
(33.4%) (14.5%)
Synony 1 5 2 understand-know;
my or near- 81 6 37 answer-respond, etc.
synonymy (25.4%) (17.8%) (23.1%)
Register 2 4 2 concept, define,
19 8 67 etc.
(30.7%) (15.3%) (26.0%)
2 Eval Collocat 2 1 3 serious student,
uative style ion 30 00 30 teaching practice, etc.
Synta (32.3%) (31.8%) (32.1%)
gmatic
330
(32.1%)
7 3 1
13 14 027
Table 1: Styles and lexical choices in teacher-student classroom interaction
Evaluative style
By evaluative style is meant a way in which language users utilise value-laden words
to express an opinion or point of view. This is a prominent style observed to be extensively
used in the data, where the classroom teachers employ different choices of lexeme that show
their assessment of the entities in the discourse. Collocation is the only significant
syntagmatic lexical feature that informs the evaluative style in the data. One common fact can
be observed in the use of collocation here: it comes handy for use both by the teachers and the
students. Three broad manifestations of collocation have been observed; namely, collocations
assessing teaching/learning activities (152: 46.1%), the participants involved (35: 10.6%), and
the participants roles (143: 43.3%). That the activity category dominates in the data is not
surprising considering the emphasis on the achievement of teaching/learning objectives in the
classroom. The activity category is further reduced into two; namely: collocations assessing
the processes involved in the activities (e.g. semester examination, etc) and collocations
assessing the outcome of the activities (e.g. change of behaviour, etc). The role category is the
next-dominant probably because of the all-important roles of the participants with regard to

classroom discourse. Like the participant category, the role category is further divided into
two, viz. collocations assessing the teachers role (e.g. expose you, etc) and those expressing
the students role (e.g. get the idea, etc). Some more examples of these collocation items are
examined in the text below:
Extract 1:
Teacher ... our work here is to give you the various framework [sic] through
which you view the texts, I mean literary texts. And the least you can do is for you to key into
what we are doing and learn something from it. [Lines 1619]
Extract 2:
Teacher ... a hard working student starts right from the first day to get the right
materials for the courses he has, and begins to read them and getting prepared for various
forms of semester seminars, quizzes, term papers, and even final exams, and what you have at
the end of the day is a successful semester.... Of course the sensitive teacher will know when
the students are hard working and ready for work.... [Lines 5864]
Extracts 1 and 2 above, as earlier hinted, are dominated by the teacher, and
some of the recurrent collocation items in the data have been underlined. Such collocations as
semester seminars, [semester] quizzes, term papers, final exams, and successful
semester (in Extract 2) cover the teaching/learning activities. However, all the items listed
here are means through which the teaching/learning activities are evaluated, except
successful semester, which assesses the outcome of the activities. Other sets of collocations
as hardworking student and sensitive teacher (in Extract 2) contain pre-modifying
adjectives (hardworking and sensitive), which assess the participants involved. In a
similar vein, give you, learn something (in Extract 1), read them, and getting
prepared (in Extract 2) consider the teachers and students roles in their various contexts.
Informative style
By informative style is meant a manner of language use in which the primary goal is to
enlighten the audience. The classroom interactants (both the teachers and students) are found
to make paradigmatic lexical choices (e.g. register, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and
colloquialism) aimed at providing their audience with new knowledge. Register takes the
highest portion among the lexical features making up the informative style. This reflects the
classroom discourse and the language associated with the subject being discussed. Register
items abound which inform on the activities of the various participants involved in the
classroom discourse. In this regard, three types of register have been observed in the data;
namely, subject-oriented (117: 43.8%), activity-oriented (99: 37.1%)), and participant-
oriented (51: 19.1%) register items. The subject-oriented type, being the most preponderant,
covers the vocabulary items that derive from the different topics treated in the class sessions.
Two of this type can further be identified from data, viz. items revealing the subject matters
handled in the classrooms (e.g. phrase structure rule, etc), and items showing the meta-
language used in treating the subject matters (e.g. concept, etc). The activity-oriented type
includes the vocabulary items describing the activities in the discourse, while the participant-

oriented category involves vocabulary items describing the participants involved in the
activities. Both the activity and participant-oriented register items bifurcate into items
describing the teacher (e.g. evaluation, resource person, etc) and the learner (e.g. tutorial,
pupil, etc). Some examples from the data can be considered:
Extract 3:
Teacher ... the idea of gender is socially constructed; it emanates from the
societal divides we make in our societies, in our everyday lives....
... so when criticising any feminist text, the student should try ... to take his mind off
the trivial issues of our everyday lives and get the idea being portrayed by the author who are
[sic] incidentally members of the same society.... Now let us revise the functions of the writer
to the society we treated in our last class [Lines 116123]
Student 1 you said that the writer is a prophet; he predicts and announce [sic] what
could happen in the society...
Teacher ...thats right!
Student 2 the writer is a teacher; he educates and reminds the members of the
society on the ills, values and prospects of the society....
Teacher Good! [Lines 139145]
In the texts above, such register items as gender, feminist, socially

constructed, prophet and teacher give adequate information on the subject discussed or
being discussed. However, while gender and feminist belong to the subject matter
category, socially constructed, prophet and teacher represent the meta-language
employed to discuss the subject matter. Other register items like criticising, revise and
treated make up the activity-oriented register; they give insight into the on-going activities
in a literature classroom. However, while the activity of criticising relates to both the
teachers and students, the teachers exclusively deal more with revis[ing] and treat[ing] a
subject matter in the classroom. Student is the only participant-oriented register in Extract 3
above; and it belongs to the student sub-category of participant.
Synonymy has been observed to fall into two patterns; namely, clustered synonyms
(129: 54.4%) and distant synonyms (108: 45.6%). Operationally, clustered synonyms are
synonyms which occur together in form of lexical sets while distant synonyms are those that
are interchanged with each other in the data, but are not brought together. Generally, two
forms of synonymy appear in the classroom discourse; first, as process indicators, which
includes actions (e.g. read/go-through) and activities (e.g. test/quiz, etc); and second, as
reference indicators, which covers animate (e.g. learner/student, etc) and inanimate entities
(e.g. text/materials, etc). Synonymy of both patterns is prevalent in the data some examples of
which are as follows:
Extract 4:
Teacher In our previous meetings, weve actually been talking about stylistics
and specifically in the last class, we discussed the origins of stylistics ... what then is style?

What can you think in your own view to be style, and how many concepts of style can you say
you know? [a little pause]
Student 1 Style is a particular way or manner of doing something or behaving or
writing.
Teacher Ok...
Student 2 style relate [sic] to the way a group of people or generation of people
use language or...
Teacher Ok, as you can see, one particular thing you know that run [sic] across
these definitions by the students here is the way; that is the same as the manner, the way
or manner something is done or the way a language user (be it writer or speaker) uses
language. What this means to us is that the way something is done is different from the thing
itself.... [Lines 7185]
While the lexical sets underlined in the first exchange (meetings/class and
think/say) are cases of distant synonymy, the others (way/manner and
group/generation) in the extract are clustered. However, whereas meetings/class indicate
particular activities in the discourse, think/say point to the stimulated actions proper. The
clustered synonyms, on the other hand, are all reference indicators. For instance,
way/manner refers to an inanimate entity, while group/generation refers to an animate
entity. All of these synonymous sets are used to provide information on the domain of
language use and participants involved.
The use of colloquialism in the data, as earlier stated, is dominated by the

students. Two major types of colloquialism have been identified: Popular Nigerian English
words (PNE following Jowitt, 1991) (138: 92.6%) and group mannerisms (GM) (11: 7.4%).
The PNE words further bifurcate into those of Non-Standard Nigerian English (NSNE) and
those of Nigerian Pidgin (NPg). More instances of the NSNE are however found (86.1%
against 13.9%). However, among the entire colloquial words, the NSNE (e.g. my brother, etc)
and GM (e.g. as in, etc) items are found to feature more in the exchanges of the students.
Hence, the dominance they have over the other types of colloquial words. Some examples
will be relevant here:
Extract 5:
Teacher Ok from what weve been talking about, you know, what and what
would now qualify as African Literature and who is an African Writer and African Critic? As
in, what qualifies a person to be an African Writer or African Critic? [a little pause]
Student 1 African Literature is the literature written in Africa by African writers;
as in, when Africans write about African situation, but not in all cases sha.
Teacher My sister...so youre saying that non-Africans or Africans abroad that
write about African experiences are not African writers; I mean, their work do [sic] not
qualify for African literature? Is that what you mean?
Student 1 Anyway sha, it also includes Africans abroad....
Student 2 I think African Literature or African writer or critic does not have
anything to do with non-Africans or Whites. [Lines 182184]

In Extract 5, such lexical item as my sister (or my brother running through the
data) belongs to the NSNE type of the PNE. This is found to be used mostly by the teachers.
There is a case of semantic extension here that the NSNE item is characterised by, which
informs us (on the interpersonal connection between the interactants) beyond the English
dictionary meanings of my and sister. In this (Nigerian) classroom context, the items are
used together in the strict Nigeria English sense of one-Nigeria or being your brothers
keeper; that is, regarding every Nigerian citizen as brothers (for males) and sisters (for
females). Another stylistic meaning may also be given to such items as used to reward or
encourage students responses to questions asked in classrooms. There are several other
instances of NSNE items found elsewhere in the data, some notable examples of which
include: light to mean electricity (Line 196), big men to mean high-profile government
officials (Line 211), etc. Also recurrent in the data, as exemplified in Extract 5, are such
mannerisms as as in, sha, and you know, mainly used by the students. These belong to
the GM word stock. That such vocabulary items are found principally in the language of
classroom interaction underscores the potency and currency of the variety of group
communication amongst students.
Antonymy and hyponymy are also relevant lexical stock of the informative style used
in the classroom discourse, though considering their low occurrences (23 and 17 instances,
respectively) they do not hold much promise of stylistic relevance in the data. However, like
collocation, register and synonymy, instances of antonymy and hyponymy in the data are
dominated by the teachers. The antonymous items in the data are observed to represent both
the activities and actions involved in the discourse (cf. Process Category of synonymy above).
Generally, two patterns have been discovered of the antonymy; they are: contrastive opposites
(e.g. not White or Coloured, but hybrid) and negated opposites (e.g. socially-constructed, not
biological phenomenon). More instances of the latter are however found. Let us examine the
demonstration of these features in the data:
Extract 6:
Teacher Phonetics is concerned about speech sounds of languages in general,

not in particular languages. Phonology relate [sic] to particular language.... Phoneme is not a
sound, it is a class of phonetically similar sounds.... By the way, what did I say is the technical
name for a family of sounds?
Student 1 ... phoneme is the name of a family of sounds....
In the extract above, the teacher has demonstrated an effective use of lexical opposites
in enlightening the students on the state of affairs on the subject being discussed. For instance,
the lexemes general and particular are in negated opposite on, while sound and class
are in contrastive opposition. In the first instance, the negated opposites are related in the
sense that particular is a logical antonym for general. A negative/positive pair of structure
is set up with a negation not to link the opposition. However, in the second case, the
contrastives do not have any logical antonymous relation. Here, a two-part structure is used
here to set up a contrastive opposition between two apparently unrelated entities sound
and class.

Conclusion
Two styles were observed in the classroom discourse, namely, evaluative style (used
by the teachers) and informative style (by both the teachers and students). While the
informative style is indexed by register, synonymous, antonymous, hyponymous and
colloquial lexical items that enter into paradigmatic relations, the evaluative style is
characterised by collocations, which key into syntagmatic relations in the data. The teachers
are found to dominate the use of all the lexical features but colloquialism. Statistics revealed
collocation (330: 32.1%) as the most prevalent lexical feature found in the data while
hyponymy (17: 1.7%) takes the least proportion. These stylistic features are functional indices
for underpinning the styles and lexical choices used in teacher-student classroom interaction.

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The Quandary of Eurocentric Truth and Prospect of Cultural Sensitivity:

Echoes from Richard Rorty
Modestus Nnamdi Onyeaghalaji

University of Lagos, Nigeria
Abstract
Most Eurocentric narratives undermined African cultural values and projected western values as
superior, objective and built on truth. This paper exposes the underlying pretensions in the
narratives and their deleterious consequences. It also demonstrates that such epistemic
pretensions underlie modality of cultural interaction within the African societies. The analysis
shows that such narratives provide ideas that are less propitious for African growth. There is a
need for alternative narratives. Thus, the paper examines Richard Rortys moral pluralism and
extrapolates its basic elements to make a case for Cultural sensitivity. It argues that cultural
sensitivity harbours more humane moral bases and values for social cohesion necessary for
social reconstruction.
Keywords: African culture, values, Rorty, Eurocentricism and cultural sensitivity

I. Introduction
Dualistic distinctions, such as, the distinctions between objective and subjective,
absolute and relative, we and them, good and bad, facts and value, the real and unreal,
man and woman are part of our common sense vocabularies. The distinctions are what Derrida
calls binary opposition that is, a way of dividing the world into the good Xs and the bad non-
Xs1. The divisions are indispensible tools of inquiry, because they aid in classifications and
understanding of things in the world. However, there are some specific ways of making the
distinctions that is negative and undermines our pragmatic moral sensibilities. This kind of
distinction is divisive and subordinating. It divides reality into two where one aspect is glorified
and raised to the level of pure rationality, superiority and imperceptible to the ordinary senses;
and the other aspect is subordinated and considered irrational and inferior level.
This subordinating distinction was given impetus in the Western scholarship by the
strands of thoughts developed among the ancient scholars. The chief speaker of this period is
Plato. He divided the world into two - the real world and the unreal word. The real world is
purely rational, ideal, conceptual, superior, metaphysical and one; the truth lies in this world and
it is incorrigible. The unreal world is empirical, materialistic, multiple and corruptible; truth is
absent in this world. In the course of the centuries, the earliest Western intelligentsia - the
philosophers and the anthropologists - became the vanguards of Platonism. In their thoughts, the
western world is the material presence of Platonic ideal-rational world while the rest of the
world, such as Africa, is the world of irrationality, world of mater and uncivilized.
Accordingly, the Western culture became the ideal culture, rational and superior. African
culture became irrational, baseless, inferior and in need of remaking. It is in this kind of
conception that consists Eurocentric truth a belief about how things are, where everything,
ideas, persons, events, way of lives are fit into a single context, which will somehow reveal
itself as natural, destined and unique. To be sure, the term Eurocentric truth is used here to
represent the sociological, anthropological, religious and philosophical ideas of those scholars
who follow in the tradition of Plato to classify the world into the real and appearance, and then
use the model to classify human culture. They developed the model to denigrate other cultures.
The model is seen as the only means of conceiving the universe, the only thing that matters in
shaping our lives, because it would be the only one in which those lives appear as they are.
It did shape the lives in the world for centuries in different fonts social, political,
religious, and cultural lives. On a closer scrutiny, the Eurocentric truth is found to be culturally
hegemonic, untrue, increasingly declining and inadequate in leading us to our goals of social
cooperation and trust. This is due to its inherent contradictions and insensitive presuppositions. It
weakens our sense of human solidarity across cultures. Scholars are reinterpreting the idea of
culture so as to reposition our world of meaning towards global brotherhood. Accordingly, this
paper interprets Richard Rorty as giving us advice on how to get rid of the old dualism and
transcend the Eurocentric truth. This will make us realize that there are different cultures that
1
Group Rorty, R., Philosophy and Social Hope, England: Penguin, 1999, xix

harbour equally respective values. Thus, being sensitive to these cultures would reveal their
relevant values and help us move closer to our social goals and fulfillment which consists largely
in cooperation and mutual trust.
II. Eurocentric Truth and the Metaphysics of Presence
There is a tradition of ideas that follow Platonic metaphysical divide to classify things
into reality (how things really are) and appearance. In this conception, truth is that which
corresponds to the intrinsic nature of reality. Truth is obvious, self-evident, fixed and objective.
It is discoverable by reason. It is distinguished from the appearances, which are multiple, varied
and relative. In time, this distinction became central to what Derrida calls the metaphysics of
presence, (that is the search for a full presence beyond the reach of common sense or an
absolute beyond the reach of rationality). Adherence to this fixed and dogmatic distinction is
what is called rational in the tradition of Western thought which was bequeathed to African
scholarship. In this tradition, rationality consists precisely in representing the distinction between
the reality and appearance, absolute and relative, object and subject. Any idea that does not
follow such traditional is considered irrational. The above description is what is referred to as
Eurocentric truth; its essential features are hierarchical thinking and value dualism that are
fundamental to the logic of domination according to Karen Warren2.
It is the cognitive framework of the Eurocentric truth that informed the mindset of
Western anthropological and philosophical intelligentsia. It became their tool for understanding
and classifying realities, especially social, cultural and political realities. Using this tool, the
emerging crop of scholars justifies Western culture as superior, prestigious, higher, rational, and
objective and sees African culture as deficient in those characteristics. Among the scholars are,
James Frazer, Edward Tylor, Max Muller, Lucy Levy-Bruh, and the philosopher, Hegel.
The narrative described Africa and her culture in derogatory, distortive and divisive manner.
They used Logico-scientific criteria of rationality developed within the western culture, in their
narratives, to see traditional African beliefs as arrant nonsense, illusory and lacking objective
elements.
For instance, Levy-Buhl, an anthropologist with training in philosophy, in, How Natives
Think, (1910), made a distinction between Western Mind and Primitive Mind. The primitive
mind does not differentiate the supernatural from reality but the Western mind does. Primitive
mind does not address contradictions. The Western mind does by using speculation and logic.
Evolution is teleological, leading from primitive mind to Western mind. In his thought, African
mind is primitive.
A more philosophically devastating narrative was that of George Wilhelm Friedrich

Hegel, a German philosopher. His Eurocentric narrative posited a universal and liner
development of consciousness or spirit - from less conscious to conscious or absolute state. Thus,
2
Karen Warren, 1998, p.74

he identifies three stages: (a) subjective spirit, (b) objective spirit, and (c) absolute spirit. In the
first state, the spirit is still part and parcel of the physical world. It is undifferentiated from
nature. In the second state, the spirit manifests itself in objective social phenomenon such as
morality, legal system and political philosophy 3. The third stage is the final and most
developed. It is where the spirit is self-conscious and expresses itself through art, religion,
philosophy, etc., as found in Europe. For Hegel, the spirit has failed to develop in Africa. It has
rather remained in the final subjective state. He thinks that African man has not progressed
beyond his immediate existence. With this idea, he erroneously divided Africa into (a) Egypt, the
territory that is connected to Asia, (b) European Africa, which lies north of Sahara, (c) Egypt, the
territory that is connected to Asia (Hegel, 1956). He then argues that the real Africa is Africa
proper, the Negro which he refers to as the land of childhood, lying behind the day of self-
conscious history. It has not attained substantial objective existence and it is natural in its
completely wild and untamed state (Hegel, 1956:93). Thus, Africa is unhistorical, undeveloped
spirit devoid of religion, morality and political constitution. These conceptions have moral
implication for cross-cultural interactions.
III. Hierarchical Thinking and Value Dualism in Eurocentric Truth and the Problem
for Cross-cultural Relations
The idea of Eurocentric narratives presupposes value hierarchical-thinking and value-

dualism. Karen Warrens analysis of the idea of logic of domination provides a good
understanding of these concepts. In her analysis, value hierarchical thinking is an up-down
thinking that places higher value, status and prestige to what is up rather than what is down. It
divides the world into two and places one above the other. What is above is taken to be better
than what is below. Value dualism is a disjunctive pair in which the disjunts are seen as
oppositional and exclusive rather than as complementary and inclusive. It places higher value on
one of the disjuncts rather than the other. A narrative that is informed by hierarchical thinking
and value dualism divides reality into two and arbitrarily places higher value on one above the
other. Eurocentric truth conceives Western culture as superior, prestigious, higher, rational, and
objective and African culture as deficient in those characteristics. This is one of the basic reasons
why the scholars who uphold the Eurocentric truth justifies western domination of African
cultural space, expressed in various forms of colonization.
One of the basic implications is that it prevents the opportunity to realize that there are
different ways of leading human life. The idea of truth is not limited to one of those ways alone.
History shows that certain things that were considered to be the truth, in the long run were found
to be false after all. Consider the notion of the universe that was at a time known to be flat and at
other time truly spherical. Thus, it is arbitrary to consider truth as one, objective and
unchangeable.
3
Mazama, Ame, Ed., Afrocentric Paradigm, Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc. 2003:20. Morris, Brian, (1991),
Western Conceptions of Individual, Oxford and Washington, D. C.: Berg, 1991, p.199; Mazuri, Ali, (1980), The
African Condition: A Political Diagnosis, London, Ibadan, Nairobi: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd.
Morris, 1991:199, Mazama, 2000:21

Secondly, the idea of Eurocentric truth widens the lacuna between cultures. It makes it
difficult to create mutual trust and social coordination across cultures. This is because what is
seen as superior culture would consider the inferior cultures as unequal and incapable of
contributing to the social belonging. At best, the relationship between the superior and inferior
cultures would be that of domination, subjugation and denigration as it existed for centuries
between the West and the South.
Thirdly, it undermines the status of others as cultural equals and their right for
independent cultural existence. By this, it overlooks cultural specificities, freedom and
sensitivities to distinct and diverse human need cultural and moral sensitivity is lacking in the
oppressive conceptual framework of Eurocentric narrative. The narrative undermines the moral
status of human agents in other cultures. It lacks sensitivity or relational sensitivity towards the
other. Attitudes and behaviors should be within the context of social morality. The notion of
liberty, equality and human dignity projected by European intelligentsia is contrary to their
conception of Africans and their claims lack moral tenor. To dismiss African rationality based
on oppressive framework is cultural insensitivity. However, the fundamental problem with
Eurocentric conception of Africa is not their unawareness or ignorant of African cultural
realities, but their insensitivity to African culture, belief, religion and so on. You can be aware of
the existence of the other and his or her existential problems without being sensitive to the
problems. The narrators were aware and sensitive to their human and cultural existence and
insensitive to the Africans cultural existence. So in relation to African culture they were
Eurocentric than Euro-sensitive or culturally sensitive.
IV. The Problem of Eurocentric Truth in Rortys Tradition of Thoughts
Richard Rorty is an American pragmatic scholar. His philosophical topoi provide some
rational and moral foundation for justifying the notion of cultural sensitivity. He provides a
theory of pragmatic moral pluralism. His pluralism stands in criticism of the idea of Eurocentric
truth which he described in another term, redemptive truth. Redemptive truth represents a
belief that things have their true nature or there are principles that underlie reality; or simply put,
there is a reality behind the things that appear to us in the world. It is up to us to discover this
reality.4 Knowledge inquiry is an attempt to discover this true nature of things or the intrinsic
metaphysical reality, through a mature and developed reason, a privileged consciousness that is
found in the Western culture. To be sure, redemptive truth represents a set of beliefs that would
end once and for all, the process of reflection on what to do with ourselves.
In Philosophy and Social Hope, Rorty argues that we should reject such attempt to
conceive and classify the world in such an old Platonic dualism precisely because their
deployment weakens our sense of human solidarity. Following John Dewey, he maintains that
discarding the dualism will help bring us together, by enabling us to realize that trust, social
cooperation and social hope are our common goal and the purpose of our social inquiry5, not
only for the particular culture but for all cultures.
4
Richard Rorty, The Decline of Redemptive Truth and the Rise of Literary Culture, 2002, 2-3).
5
Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, London: Penguin books, 1999:xv)

He contends that redemptive truth manifests in the religion of the West, in traditional
philosophy and in Western culture. It is glorified in Western culture as the only civilized one
with developed rational criteria and we can see this reflected in the works of Levy-Bruhl, James
Frazer and Friedrich Hegel. In religion, the search for redemptive truth is simply a search for a
metaphysical being, God, beyond human empirical reach as we can see in the thoughts of St
Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. In traditional philosophy, it is a rational search for objective
truth by scholars from Plato, through Aristotle, to John Locke, Descartes and Jurgen Harbermas.
In science it manifests in two senses. In the first sense, it manifests among the positivists who
insist that science attains objective truth in a way that no other type of culture does. The
positivists of this description argue that science is the paradigmatic possession of intellectual
virtues, notably the love of truth (Rorty 14). In the second sense, it manifests among the
positivists who think that science does more than to tell us about how things are. It also tells us
about the best way to live our lives. Rorty refers to the believer of this description as materialist
meterphysicians. However, Rorty argues that it is myopic to conceive only the empirical
science as the only paradigm of intellectual virtue. This is because the scientists love of truth
seems no different from that of the classical philologists or archive-oriented historians. In
essence, the need to get it right is central to the peoples sense of who they are or what makes
their live worthwhile and it is the contributions of people of different professions or
commitments that combine to achieve our common goal. Secondly, the contributions of natural
scientists have moral significance as well as those of accountants, surgeon or literary artists. In
essence, the idea of redemptive truth as it manifests in the various traditions and commitments is
misplaced inquiry.
Following William James, John Dewey and Hillary Putnam, Rorty thinks that we should
abandon the single minded approach or the hopes that seek for the objective nature of things.
Such hopes have waned given room for the rise of another sort of culture that is problem solving
and allows for recognition of diversity and pluralism. Rorty describes this culture with the term
literary culture. What does literary culture entail? It is a culture which has substituted literature
for both religion and philosophy and finds redemption neither in a non-cognitive relation to a
non-human person nor in a cognitive relation to propositions, but in non-cognitive relations to
other human beings, relations mediated by human artifacts such as books and buildings,
paintings and songs. These artifacts provide glimpses of alternative ways of being human.6
The argument of Rorty is that in literary culture, different literary works present different
ideas and views without necessarily subsuming ideas to a single search for a single truth. Rather,
different literary genres represent different views about the universe of meaning. They are plural
interpretations and conversations about human experiences including rational, emotional,
moral and practical experiences. The idea of literary culture expresses an idea of sensitive to
different human attempts to respond to problems of social existence. Scholars like Cervantes and
Shakespeare projected this culture. Through the literary thoughts, they played up diversity and
downplayed commonality, that is, they underlined the differences between human beings rather
6
Richard Rorty, The Decline of Redemptive Truth and the Rise of Literary Culture, 2003, p. 6-7

than looking for a common human nature? (8). Kierkegaard, Sartre and Nietzsche theorized on
such diversity of human inquiry. This change of emphasis weakens the grip of redemptive truth.
To be sure, the decline of redemptive truth, the Eurocentric truth, gives rise to a culture of
inquiry or cultural sensitivity that sees objectivity as simply inter-subjective agreement under
ideal communication among the inquirers. In this conception of culture, the effort of man in
their inquiry is to drive at ideas that would be tools for resolving social problems and not ideas
that would correspond to certain reality. The effort is to seek for a high culture that will do most
to create and sustain the climate of tolerance among cultures that flourishes best in democratic
societies.
High culture is informed by argumentation and deliberations that are not only essential
for social cooperation, but also provide a model of honesty, tolerance and trust. The model gives
room for reasoned agreement or rational cooperation.7 In essence, reasoned agreement is the
objective of a culture that is sensitive to diversity and not in a culture that cajoles everyone into
obedience to a monolithic and unified universe of meaning in search of declining Eurocentric
truth.
V. The Rise of Cultural Sensitivity
The foregoing analysis is set to provide a philosophical justification for the claim that
cultural sensitivity holds a better promise for achieving social cooperation and mutual trust in the
society. The way of life of the people is named their culture. What Rorty refers to as high culture
is a literary description of practical way of relating with the universe of meaning. It is about
being rationally sensitive to diverse ways of responding to issues of social existence. Some
words about cultural sensitivity are important at this point.
The concept, culture has different meanings. The anthropologist, Edward B. Tylor in his
book, Primitive Culture (1871), conceives culture as a complex whole that includes knowledge,
belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society. Over time, the term has been used to refer to different human commitments:
appreciation of good literature, music, levels of civilization, attitude of mind, different academic
disciplines and so on. Culture could be broadly conceived as the total way of life of a people. As
far as there are people, according to Linda James Myers, they will have a way of life 8. Culture
refers to shared experiences or commonalities that have developed and continue to evolve in
relation to changing social and political contexts. Yet, culture is a product of human interaction
with the immediate environment (environment includes human, non-human), which embodies
values, norms and regulations that have endured over the years. Yet, culture determines quality
of life in large measure9. As Ali Mazuri observed, it is the standards of evaluation, criteria of
7
Ibeid, p.22
8
Myers, Linda James, (2000), The deep Strcture of Cultre: The Relevance of Traditional African Culture in
Contemporary Life in A. Mazama Ed. Afrocentric Paradigm, Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc. 2003, p.124
9
Ibid

right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful and ugly10. It provides frameworks for interpreting
events and determining what is significant in a peoples life. It provides conceptual framework
for perceiving and interacting with the world. Every culture has conceptual framework,
definitional system. We speak in terms of European conceptual system as well as African
conceptual system, each being distinctly different from the other in terms of basic survival thrust
and fundamental character11.
We conceive it here as framework of ideas and beliefs for responding to the problems of
social existence. Different societies have different ways developed over time in the attempt to
respond to precarious situations to their immediate environment. It is not pre-established but
relational. So it is varied from place to place and society-to-society. Culture is instrument of
action.
The awareness of the existence of one does not mean non-existence of the other. And
culture is not static. The values of cultures lie in the extent to which they aid us in responding to
our problems of human existence. As a tool, a problem solving one at that, their value lie within
their practical import in responding to human problems for a larger goal of social cooperation.
This is the reason why creativity and improvement should be part of cultural framework.
Accordingly, our immediate attitudes to cultures should not be that of reactionary,

evasiveness and denigration. Such approach has only led to cultural centricity. To be culture
centric is to be concerned with ones culture in exclusion of others. It is exclusive and less
considerate in relation to others. It leads to cultural glorification and does not give room for both
critical reflection on ones culture and rational engagement with others. Though cultural
centricity underscores localization, centeredness and helps in preservation and retention, yet, it
could obstruct growth and creativity if it is exclusive. Our attitude towards cultures should be
that of sensitivity. We should be culture sensitive.
Cultural sensitivity is a means of being aware that cultural differences and similarities
exist and have an effect on values, learning, and behavior12. The definition helps to underline an
idea of sensitivity but it limits to mere awareness. It does not underscore its practical import.
Cultural sensitivity goes beyond mere awareness. Massen and Kowalewski recognized this fact
when they state that cultural sensitivity involves more than just being tolerant of differing
lifestyles. It involves more than just suspending your judgments. Being culturally sensitive
means having the capacity to function effectively in other cultures. It is valuing and respecting
diversity and being sensitive to cultural differences13. This definition hints at some concepts that
10
Mazuri, Ali, , The African Condition: A Political Diagnosis, London, Ibadan, Nairobi: Heinemann Educational
Books Ltd. 1980, p. 53
11
Baldwin, J., The Psychology of Oppression. Contemporary Black Thought, M. Asante and R. Vandt (eds), New
Bury Part, CA.: Sage, 1980
12
Stafford, Bowman, Eking, Hanna, & Lopoes-DeFede (1997).
13
Kowalewski , B., Massen , A. and Mullins, S. Cultural Sensitivity Training Module. (2010).
http://www.weber.edu/CommunityInvolvement/Mentoring_Tutoring.html

are important in understanding cultural terms. These are capacity to function and valuing and
respecting.
Cultural sensitivity is a functional concept. It is not a passive one. It is a capacity to value

or critically examine ones culture and other cultures in the bid to respond to existential
problems. It is therefore a rational consideration of cultures with the aim of indentifying
programmatic ideas for solving problems that confronts man in their relation with the world.
VI. Cultural Sensitivity as a Programmatic Relation
Cultural sensitivity is a moral and programmatic concept. It is moral in the sense that it
implies rational and sympathetic consideration of others, their experiences, interest and identity
for mutual respect and perspicacity. It respects the dignity of human person in different cultures.
It is programmatic in the sense that such respect of the dignity and value of human person simply
motivates and directs the course of action. To be sure, no culture is self sufficient, absolutely
good or absolutely bad. Every culture has some good elements and bad one. What makes a
culture good or bad is not based on a pre-established principle but on the ability or ways it
promotes social cooperation and human well-being in responding to problems of human
existence. In essence, the basic components of cultural sensitivity can be understood in the
analysis of Rortys pragmatic thought. Let us outline these components bellow.
Recognition of diversity: According to Rorty, there are plural ways of leading human life.
Valuing and recognizing the importance of one's own culture and those of the others is an
important component of cultural sensitivity. As Rorty indicates, cultural sensitivity does not fit
every culture into a single context and does not seek for an objective redemptive truth. It rather
respects the import of cultures. It considers other cultures as alternative methods in responding to
human problems or what Olusegun Oladipo describes as alternative beliefs and forms of
actions,14 they are tools of inquiry. Again, cultures do not need to have same belief to work
together. As Rorty pointed out, the difference between a believer and the theists do not have to
be settled before the two can cooperative in communal issues in responding to social problems.
Moral tolerance: cultural sensitivity creates and sustains the attitude of tolerance, honesty
and trust. The idea of tolerance does not imply that everything must be accepted; else tolerance
will not have moral tenure. It only means that certain kinds of actions or things need to be
tolerated in so far as they are tools for achieving the fullness of our life together.
Active and Critical Mind: The analysis of the idea of higher culture reveal that one of
the basic components of cultural sensitivity is what Ayn Rand calls active mind15. Rand
distinguishes active mind from the ambiguous catch phrase, open mind. This distinction is
instructive for understanding the idea of active mind as fundamental element of cultural
14
Olusegun Oladipo, Philosophy and Social Reconstruction in Africa, Ibadan: Hope Publications, 2009, p.25
15
Ayn Rand, Philosophy Who needs it, USA: Penguin books, 1984, 21-24.

sensitivity. According to Rand, active mind is not the same an open mind16. Open mind is
usually taken to mean objective and unbiased approach to ideas, but on the contrary it means a
perpetual skepticism and probably docility. The opposite, a closed mind on the other hand is
usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who
clings stubbornly to some mixture of unwanted assumptions, tribal prejudices and emotions. In
essence, this is not a closed mind but a passive one, because it is a mind that does not have the
practice of judging or thinking and is threatened by any request to consider new things. What
cultural sensitivity requires is not an open mind but an active mind a mind that is able and
eagerly and willing to examine ideas, but to examine them critically. It does not remain floating
forever in a vacuum of neutrality and uncertainty17, it has cultural convictions that does not
stagnate its ability to engage in critical examination of both old and new ideas. Thus, cultural
sensitivity is self reflective and other regarding. It engages in critical reflection on its cultural
paradigms with regard to new social problematic, and it engages in critical appreciation and
acceptance of other cultural valuable alternatives. It exposes one to be active minded. Cultural
sensitivity requires what Oladipo calls culture of inquiry and culture of belief18- culture of
inquiry is sensitive and investigative while culture of belief is its anti-thesis.
Communication and Adaptability: cultural sensitivity requires the avoidance of undue

cultural glorification. It requires willingness to adapt one's communication and behaviors to be
compatible with another's cultural norms if necessary. The necessity lies in the need to respond
to social issues. To be sure, communication is not just an exchange of linguistic terms. It is about
sharing our humanity in an attempt to respond to communal problems. The need to share our
humanity, experiences, feelings, fears and joy with due comprehensions in turn requires the
willingness to learn about the traditions and characteristics of other cultures. In essence, heuristic
communication and adaptability is important elements of cultural sensitivity.
VII. Conclusion
The argument of this paper is that we need to go beyond cultural centricity, whether in
the typology of Euro-centricity or Afro-centricity, to cultural sensitivity. This is because; the
notion of centricity limits our quest for common brotherhood. Sensitivity accommodates and
motivates us towards social cooperation and reconstruction. Cultural sensitivity is foundation for
the value of moral pluralism, tolerance, active mindedness and critical engagement with cultures
whether in our own or in those of other. It seeks for the strengths and possibilities that cultures
offers and dissuades the negative elements.
16
Madhucchanda Sen identifies open-mindedness and a mark of critical thinker and closed mind as its obstacle,
See M. Sen, An Introduction to Critical Thinking, Delhi: Longman, 2010, pp. 4,16 Active mind seem to be a better
term to describe the mark of a critical thinker.
17
Ibid, 21.
18
Olusegun Oladipo, Philosophy and Social Reconstruction in Africa, Ibadan: Hope Publications, 2009, p.24

References
-Baldwin, J., The Psychology of Oppression. Contemporary Black Thought, in M. Asante and
R. Vandt (eds), (New Bury Part, CA.: Sage, 1980)
-Kowalewski , B., Massen, A. and Mullins, S. Cultural Sensitivity Training

Module.(2010).http://www.weber.edu/CommunityInvolvement/Mentoring_Tutoring.html
-Mazama, Ame, Ed., Afrocentric Paradigm, (Trenton: Africa World Press, Inc. 2003)
-Mazuri, Ali, , The African Condition: A Political Diagnosis, (London, Ibadan, Nairobi:
Heinemann Educational Books Ltd. 1980)
-Mazuri, Ali, The African Condition: A Political Diagnosis, (London, Ibadan, Nairobi:
Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1980).
-Morris, Brian, Western Conceptions of Individual, (Oxford and Washington, D. C.: Berg, 1991)
-Myers, Linda James, The deep Structure of Culture: The Relevance of Traditional African
Culture in Contemporary Life in A. Mazama Ed. Afrocentric Paradigm, (Trenton: Africa World
Press, Inc. 2003)
-Oladipo Olusegun, Philosophy and Social Reconstruction in Africa, (Ibadan: Hope Publications,
2009)
-Rand Ayn, Philosophy Who needs it, (USA: Penguin books, 1984)
-Richard Rorty, The Decline of Redemptive Truth and the Rise of Literary Culture,
http://olincenter.uchicago.edu/pdf/rorty.pdf (2002).
-Rorty, R., Philosophy and Social Hope, (England: Penguin, 1999)
-Sen, M. An Introduction to Critical Thinking, (Delhi: Longman, 2010)
-Stafford, Bowman, Eking, Hanna, & Lopoes-De Fede Definition of Cultural Sensitivity
(1997),www.uvm.edu/~cdci/prlc/unit3_slide/tsld005.htm. Retrieved, (2014)
-Warren, Karen, J. The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism in Environmental
Ethics: Readings in Theory and Application, (Belmont: Wadsworth Publication Company, 1998)
pp.173-183

Masterpieces of Nouri Bouzid:

Between Conditioned Advent and Censorship's Extinction1
Feten Ridene Raissi

ESAC Gammarth, Carthage University, Tunisia
Abstract
Reflecting the Arabic social reality in the film industry has been the main focus of some
Arabic cineastes, namely the Tunisian ones.
Whether short or long, professional or hobbyist, Tunisian movies endeavoured to cope with
the forbidden trinity, composed of political, sexual and religious axes of criticism which have
been mostly rejected due to the political authorities domination.
This study sets out to probe the partial and total rejections of scripts by focusing on Nouri
Bouzids case.
This choice is stimulated by the magnitude of Nouri Bouzids interviews, in which he has
mentioned many of his movies and script examples that were navigating between conditioned
advents and censorships extinction.
Keywords: Tunisian cinema, Nouri Bouzid, Censorship, Script Control, religious

scrutiny, political oversight, forbidden trinity
1
Dr. Tarek Ben Chaabane; Teaching Assistant, ESAC Gammarth, Carthage University, Tunisia and Dr. Mohamed
Abidi; Teaching Assistant, University of Tunis, Tunisia, have revised prior copies of this paper.

Rsum
Faire de leurs films des miroirs de rflexion sur la ralit sociale arabe, ft le but de quelques
cinastes arabes et surtout des tunisiens.
Que ce soient des courts ou longs mtrages, professionnels ou damateurs, la plupart des
films tunisiens, tentant de toucher la trinit interdite des axes de critiques religieux, sexuel et
politique, furent rejets, cause de la domination des autorits politiques.
A travers cet essai, nous allons tudier les refus partiels et globaux des scnarios, tout en
nous concentrant sur le cas de Nouri Bouzid.
Ce choix est d la magnitude des interviews de N. Bouzid, dans lesquels, il a mentionn de
nombreuses reprises, plusieurs exemples de ses films et scnarios, qui naviguaient entre un
avnement conditionn et une extinction par la censure.
Mots Cl : Cinma Tunisien, Nouri Bouzid, Censure, contrle de scnario, surveillance

religieuse, vigilance politique, trinit interdite

Censorship is an arbitrary or doctrinal limitation of the human being expressions

freedom. A holder of power (an under state or religious or even a private control, such as
producers) examines the masterpiece (whether it belongs to literature, theatre, or cinema...)
before allowing its issue to the public. In the cinema censorship context, Marc Ferro says:2
The utilization and practice of specific modes of writing are weapons that are
linked to the society which produces the film and which receives it. The latter makes
itself felt first of all by censorship -all forms of censorship-, including censorship per
se and self-censorship.
This problem stamped the rise of the seventh art in the nineteenth century, and has
been disseminated in the Arabic countries until nowadays. Despite the diversity of the
habitude, the culture, the history and the geographic position of each Arabic country, to which
belong the directors and the scriptwriters, and which influences their points of view while
writing their scripts or shooting their movies; all of them share the aim of reflecting the
Arabic societys reality through their movies-mirrors
Since their inception in 1907, Arabic movies appearance has evaluated the 7th arts
history Table 1, and then showed a progressive competition between Egyptian pioneer
movies, and Arabic successors, alternating between Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine,
Morocco, Algeria and so on.
First
Country Year Movies Specifications Director
Title
Khediwi
Abbes
Helmi IIs
*Short movie
visit to Aziz & Douris
Egypt 1907 *Documentary
Morsi Production
*Mute
Aboulabbas
School in
Alexandria
*Short movie Albert
Tunis From
Tunisia 1908 *Documentary Chamama
an Airship
*Mute Chikli
The *Short movie
Syria 1927 Accused *Fictional Rachid Jalel
Innocent *Mute
The
*Short movie Jordano
Adventures
Lebanon 1929 *Comedy Pidutti
of Elias
*Mute (Italian)
Mabrouk
Visit of *Short movie Ibrahim
Palestine 1935
King *Documentary Hassan
2
Cinema & History, Marc Ferro, translated by Naomi Greene. ISBN 0-8143-1905-X p:17

Abdelaziz Sarhan
Al Saoud to
Palestine
Our Friend
*Short movie Laarbi Ben
Morocco 1956 The
*Educational Chakroun
Teacher
Mohamed
Auras *Long movie
Algeria 1966 Lakhdhar
Wind *Historical
Hamina
Table 1: Arabic 7th Art History -Series of First Movies in Every Arabic Country-3
The increase in Arabic movies production has led to the emergence of numerous
festivals (The first one that had appeared, in the Arabic and African land, on 1966 was
Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia). Nevertheless, most of the Arabic movies have been -until
nowadays- suffering from censorship.
3
This table is the result of different countries cinema history, collected after a deep investigation on many websites that will
be mentioned on the references list

Whether they were documentary or fictional, most of Arabic movies have been submitted to a
prohibition triangle fig. 1, which three corners stand for sex, religion and policy and are
called: forbidden trinity.
An intensive connection between the Arabic societys real life and the fantasy, proved
by the cineastes fingerprint, typifies most of the 7th art Arabic masterpieces. But while they
intend to reflect religious, political or sexual problems, they find many barriers during the
whole steps of their making-of. Worthy of note is that any Arabic movie can be produced only
after getting the approval of the related authorities.
Obstructions that encounter the manifold stages of a movies making-of differ from
one Arabic country to another. Censorships codes are limited to script reading in some
countries and affect even the mounting stage in others. Just by studying the different
censorship codes in the Arabic countries, we can easily deduce the encountered obstacles
imposed by the related authorities while making-of a movie.
Censorship may contain many aspects such as the script reading and control by the
concerned ministry (it depends on the movies treated problem), then the movies view before
according it the exit visa.
For example, in Iraq and Syria, power holders do not only rely on this procedure, but they
also discuss with the script writer and the filmmaker in every step of the movie making.
Further, the films subject is submitted to a politic and an ideological reading gate.
However, in Algeria there is no censorship code, which makes the laws still vague. A
consensus between the filmmaker and the governorate should be reached about what should
be shown and said on the movie. For that matter, the law of the Film Review Organisation in
Algeria includes this quotation:
The big advantage of sitting in Alger the cinematographic control commission,

4
made many distributors choose this capital as a commercial head office
In Egypt, the censorship was so much codified, and the laws articles were deeply detailed,
which dives the filmmakers in a large auto-censorship wave. The Egyptian theatre and cinema
criticizer Kamel Ramzi says:
The Egyptian movie is generally born tied, controlled, in a way that forces the
filmmaker to take the right way and avoid treating the forbidden subjects that make
him exposed to censorship or even the movie making offs prohibition! 5
4
Centre des archives doutre-mer (CAOM), 8 CAB 51, anonyme, Organisation du contrle cinmatographique en
Algrie , s.d. (1945).
5
Cinema Arabe, Khmaies el Khayati LHarmattan 1996, ISBN: 2-7384-4372-9, p 51,

Tunisian cinema has lived for a long time under the regime of censorship and auto-
censorship. Technical and economic bad conditions which are weakly reserved to the ministry
of culture financial expenses, the decrease of the movies theatres number since the
independence6, the sum of the produced movies every year are restricted....
The Tunisian cinema doesnt live: it survives; however, some Tunisian filmmakers
have resisted to those bad coincidences, sustaining the hope of its revival, whatever should be
the encountered conditions.
The 60 and 70 cineastes, have found a lot of hedges against their movies production,
the most of which having passed under the control of the SATPEC7, which prohibits the
production of movies talking about policy such as Hyenas Sun of Ridha EL Behi which was
shot in Morocco.
Its production was refused in Tunisia as it treats the villagers right steal problem due
to a hotel construction obligation, made by the authorities, which lead to the traditional
fishing seaports loss.
Nouri Bouzid belongs to this generation, characterised with its insistence, having
never renounced to create movies in deep relation with the real life, treating a lot of social
problems and even daring to break taboos.
Nouri Bouzid fig.2 the director and the artist, has always done his
utmost to let his unforgettable fingerprint in the Tunisian 7th art, using his
own way to not let the audiences vision limited to while the film is playing
on the movie theatre, then forget everything once they leave the cinema.
N. Bouzid has instantly made his audience try to connect between his vision and the real life,
in order to make a comparison, then find a deep link between the palpable and the imaginary,
making his masterpieces as a fantasized reality.
This talent has not been developed out of scratch: N. Bouzid has followed his
graduation of the bachelor degree, obtained at the age of 18 years old, by studying between
1968 and 1972, on the National Institute of the Spectacles Arts and the Broadcasting
Techniques in Brussels, from which he has obtained his graduation degree with a short
making-of that he baptised: Duel.
6
Cinema theatres in Tunisia were 120 before the independence, and nowadays are just 14 cinema halls: http://life-in-
cinema.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-post_19.html.
7
SATPEC in French: Socit anonyme tunisienne de production et d'expansion cinmato-graphique (Tunisian limited
company production and cinematographic-graphics expansion): 1957-1992

During his studies, he was chosen by his teachers to work as a trainee on Andr
Delvauxs French-Belgium movie which has obtained the French price: Louis Delluc in 1971.
Then he has worked as an assistant director with many famous directors such as Steven
Spielberg, Abdellatif Ben Ammar, Max Pecas, David Herwing, and Philippe Clair.
When he turned back to his homeland, he worked for one year at the Tunisian Radio-TV
foundation RTT. Then he was arrested and jailed for five years in the burguibiste period
(1973-1979), due to an opinion offense.
He was an active member of Perspectives which was a radical group. Such a group was
deemed by Burguiba as a real threat. In this regard, commenting on Perspectives, Burguiba
said:
I would reserve the rest of my life for the destruction of those extreme leftist
microbes: Perspectives8.
During his jail, N. Bouzid has written a divan of Tunisian free poetry, which was
printed and put for sail just in 2013, with the title Zeyer Kdim fig.3 which means an old visitor.
N. Bouzid made his poems as a mixture of the different feelings that he has had during
the five years of his prison. Most impressive is that he wrote all his poems, during one night, a
month before he left the prison.
This divan9 summarises what N.Bouzid has suffered from

during those five years of hell, under the police officers torture, with
an internal law about their coexistence with the prisoners.
In addition to this only divan that he has published, N.

Bouzid has tried to reflect some of his jails anguish through many
of his movies.
Indeed, along with many other directors, N. Bouzid
endeavoured to reflect in his movies how prisoners were persecuted by police officers,
regardless of their accusations...
N. Bouzids opinions were transferred to the public, in addition to his divan, through
his movies. In many interviews, with international TV channels, N. Bouzid has concentrated
on his most memorable four movies, namely: Golden Horseshoes, Man of Ashes, Making Of
and Mille Feuille.
In light of these four masterpieces10, N. Bouzid deserves to be named as a pioneer in
the Maghreb cinema, who managed to deal with taboos and resist authorities objection.
8
Interview of Nouri N. Bouzid With Shams FM Radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc4LOd-
T0wI&index=9&list=PLemQZoWezUJAOvBcq7ZRNwVj2WJxNHTte
9
Interview with Mosaque FM Radio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI7eYygwc5g&list=PLemQZoWezUJAOvBcq7ZRNwVj2WJxNHTte&index=26

He is also deemed a significant figure, as he was the first African and Maghrebian
director to approach the unspoken.
N. Bouzids four masterpieces have alternated between his childhoods mirror, the
Arabic womens lawyer and defender, and a gladiator against extremism, terrorism and
teenagers brainwashing.
Interviewed in an Italian program labelled Un Cinema
Scomodo11, (Uncomfortable cinema), N. Bouzid said that he wrote this
movies script (Man Of Ashes) fig 4 while he was an assistant trainer. He
found this writing a way to escape from everydays work and stress.
N. Bouzid aimed to portray, through Man of Ashes, a period of
his childhood, while he had the same age of its youngest protagonist.
Throughout Man of Ashes, besides treating the paedophilias
case, in which only little boys were involved, N. Bouzid intended to pay a tribute to his Jewish
neighbours and friends, with whom he had spent most of his childhood.
What characterized N. Bouzids movie is that he always leaves the heros tragedy till
the middle of the movie.
In each movie, the main problem starts when the hero finds himself in a critical
situation where he should make a choice.
In Friftas case, the hero has to decide whether to get married or not. Being
responsible is so hard for a young boy. It is like a migration from a situation to another, often
fraught with difficulties.
This movies hero was surrounded by three fathers: a biological one who has violated
him during his childhood fig.5, an educator one who cared about his rearing and a spiritual one
-his Jewish neighbour and friends father- whose patriarchal kindness was so much
appreciated fig .6.
10
Many of those interviews were gathered in this YouTube channel:#Nouri Bouzid
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC88KGoTeX5A3zapYIzmcGsQ
11
Interview with an Italian program entitled : Nouri N. Bouzid : Un cinema scomodo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHF1hIzELFI

Although he was the only adored one between his three fathers, Frifta has
unfortunately lost him by natural death.
That is why, N. Bouzid had announced, through the mentioned interview, that he made
this movie as an anthem against the patriarchal families, as no one of the three mentioned
fathers has ever helped the main character.
Before its first broadcast on the Carthage Film Festival, the audience was divided
between extreme leftists and extreme rightists. Even more, before watching the movie, many
of the present audience made a buzz claiming that it was a Zionist 12 movie: this description
has followed Nouri Bouzid for two years, and stopped just when he directed his second
movie: Golden Horseshoes in 1988.
Golden Horseshoes is a movie which assumes all the

contradictions of an in revolt filmmaker.
In this movie, N. Bouzid has tried -from near or far- to reflect the politic
terrorism, from which he has suffered during his jail.
The prisons conditions were entirely simulating the reality, but
the prisons name and place, the policemens team and the criminals
characters were totally imaginary.
By making them all as mirrors, N. Bouzid has tried to show to the audience, the jails
infernal ambiance, and make them feel as if they were living the same situation; under the
jails bad circumstances, as no one at that time had ever dared to talk about the torture that the
policemen were applying on prisoners, especially the ones who were jailed due to their
political opinion.
Youssef (H.Rostom) an extreme leftist and Abdallah (F. Haddewi) an extreme rightist
were two brothers, who were separated by an ideological difference, and have chosen two
opposite political directions, which made everyone of them lives a different life.
In terms of the Golden Horseshoes shooting conditions, N. Bouzid obtained13 the
grant during the last months of the Burguibiste period, and then he continued the shooting
during the first year of the dethroned Ben Alis verdict14.
12
13
14
Burguibas Verdict : since 1957 (2 years after the independence), Burguiba has replaced the kingdom regime by the
presidential one
Ben Alis verdict: November 1987 to 2011: Tunisias Jasmine Revolution

Having seen several terrorism, radicalism and brainwashing

indices, that threaten Tunisian youth in real life, such as the case of
Soliman fusillade and the attempt against the Ghribas synagogue in
Djerba, N. Bouzid aimed to send an alert to the audience by Ekher
Film fig 8, in a bid to illustrate the frustrated and pulled youth, as lost
between the desire of freedom and the ideological escape. The most
important alert that N. Bouzid tried to send through Making Of, was
a questioning about the Islam value in the Tunisian Modern society.
Having anticipated a bad designed future, during which the
characters and him would be suffering from a terrorist attack threat,
N. Bouzid has intervened in three sequences, in which he interrupted
the film playing, and discussed with the real Lotfi El Abdelli who
played Bahtas character. In one of those three sequences, N. Bouzid said: Trust me! It is a
risk you take! Take it with me!
By those messages, N. Bouzid aimed to minimise the risk of his movies reject from
the audience. Talking about terrorism under the dethroned Ben Alis verdict was considered
from the authorities as a crime, and from the citizens as a taboo, about which they have never
dared to overtly talk about it.
The film is set in 2003, at the same time of Iraqs invasion by the US military.
Through Making Of the mirror N. Bouzid aimed to push the audience to understand that the
terrorist attacks are palpable and may sometimes take place in our daily life. This is due to the
brainwashing that targets teenagers as they are susceptible to any kind of manipulation.
Abdallah (Lotfi Dziri), the preacher, pretended to be
influenced by Bahtas suffering. He tried to calm him by giving a
hand, but the hidden truth was the opposite. Indeed, Abdallah
found Bahta so flexible that he managed to make him try a suicide
attempt fig. 9.
Commenting on the audiences reaction, during the 21st
edition of Carthage Film Festival in 2006, N. Bouzid said: If I
knew that the audience will deeply welcome this movie with such
an effervescence, I would have gone so far!
The last movie well pass through is N. Bouzid most recent one that he directed in
2013: Mille Feuille fig.10. Having first presented the script of Oskot Ab movie, which treats the
faked virginity social problem, and which was submitted to a 30% of script censorship by the
committee, N. Bouzid has preferred to bury this script for a late proposition of production, and
replaced it by Mille Feuille. Its script idea was born in Egypt between Joumne Limam: a
Tunisian writer and Nouri N. Bouzid while he was a jury president in Alexandria Film
Festival15.
15
Interview with Nouri N. Bouzid about Mille Feuille movie in Nessma TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMps6cgfz9g

Shooting this movie in Egypt was refused16 by Al Azhar and

the Movie Makers Egyptian Trade Union, although it was defended
by Hend Sabri: the Tunisian actress and lawyer; then the Mille
Feuille shooting took place in Tunisia.
The story took place between two cousins: Zeineb 21 years

old and Aycha 27 years old, during the Jasmine Revolution on
January 2011.
These characters had different opinions about the freedom of veil wearing (Aycha
wears it and Zeineb doesnt); their surroundings (Aychas boss and Zeinebs fianc) refused
their points of view.
While the journalists asked N. Bouzid about the Arabic version of the titles choice:
Manmoutech, which means: I do not die, he said:
By the title Manmoutech, I want to answer the aggression feelings and the death
threats that were expressed towards me by the protesters who said: [You must die!
You should not exist!]
The different masterpieces mentioned above have navigated during Nouri Bouzids
film making artistic path between partially and totally censured.
The forbidden trinity has encountered many of his movies, making him sometimes
refuse the suggested modifications and maintain the script idea, sometimes accept a one-sided
censorship, just on the version of the movie that is projected in Tunisia (the internationally
marketed version is the full one); and sometimes kill the movie before its birth due to the huge
imposed rate of censorship, which downgrades his main aim.
During most of his career, aiming to establish this strong connection between the
fanciful and the tangible; the prohibition triangle was N. Bouzids principal obstacle sitting in
front of his own visions transfer to the audience.
Political, religious or social authorities have made his movies appearance controlled
since the script writing step. He always tried to get around the censorship, by finding parallel
expressions ways and forms that allow him to transfer his worlds vision to the audience
through an indirect way: which is the subtle.
Aiming to pay tribute to his Jewish neighbours, with whom he spent most of his
childhood, N. Bouzid made Man of Aches as a salutation to their peaceful life in our homeland
with the Tunisian Muslims.
Mr. Levi: the Jewish neighbour of Frifta the hero, was present during twelve minutes
of the movie, as a spiritual father, to whom he escapes and with whom he spends nice
16
Shooting movies in Egypt is allowed just to Egyptian movie makers, Foreign ones should pay a big amount of
money to get the shooting agreement

moments,- making him forget the biggest problem from which he suffers during his daily life:
the paedophilias scene that he always remembers, and which took place during his childhood.
In the interview of Un Cinema scomodo17, N. Bouzid said that the authority has used
Mr. Levis presence in the movie as the main raison of the censorship, instead of the real
rejection cause.
It was not N. Bouzid revelation about Muslims- Jews relation that really disturbed the
authorities; they were just worried about how the audience would react in front of N. Bouzids
negative vision to them, which can badly influence the audiences revelation to the politic
empire.
This made the film production forbidden until the authority won the case and obliged
N. Bouzid to cut Mr. Levis funeral ceremony (which contains some Yiddish readings) from
the negative copy of the movie. This was against the aim of N. Bouzid to express his respect
to the Jewish culture, as the Jewish Tunisians were living in peace with the Muslim ones in
the Tunisian homeland.
Golden Horseshoes movies shooting, which coincided with the dethroned Ben Alis
first year, has not found any problem to take place in all the asked plans: roads, bus stations,
with fire-fighters...But the scenes of torture in prison were almost conditioned: the prime
ministry commanded to paint the prisons wall fig. 11, in order to hide the real prisoners
manifestations against the policeman, through which they explain with details what happens
in jail.
Besides, and after having shot the scene on which the officer pisses fig. 12 in the mouth
of the prisoner, the prime ministry ordered N. Bouzid to reshoot it while the officer is not
wearing the uniform, but in civil clothes.
Despite the rejection of those scenes, N. Bouzid has insisted to integrate them,
because he has yet lived such a situation during his jail in the 70. Thus these two scenes were
shot while obliging N. Bouzid to cut them, not in the negative copy like he has done with the
Man of Aches movie, but just in the copy that was distributed in the Tunisian movie theatres.
Worthy of note is that the full copy was internationally distributed, starting by being displayed
in Cannes Festival.
17

Making Of movies distribution, after having been shot between 2004 and 2005, was
forbidden until the end of 2006. Ten years after the movies appearance, and on the
occasion of Bardo Museums terrorist attack which took place on March 18th, 2015, and led to
the death of 21 people, gunned down, most of whom were foreign tourists, Nouri N. Bouzid
was invited in Tunis 24/7 program18, as if he predicted what would take place, one decade
after his movies shooting.
Through the script, N. Bouzid made Bahta refuse killing people although he has
undergone a brainwashing, and tried to explode only himself on an empty container terminal
in the port of Rads.
By the integration of the mise en abime technique through three scenes, Making Of
has sustained an auto-censorship made by its filmmaker.
Since the gestation stage of the movie, its direction became a challenge: while
shooting, N. Bouzid asked himself many questions such as:
Have I the right to show that? Will the terrorist and kamikaze demonstration be
19
forbidden?
Besides, the authorities have really stopped the shooting, due to the Soliman attack
which accidentally took place in 2006, by a break-dance artist: this was just a coincidence that
made the policy doubt on N. Bouzid scripts likeness with the real attempt case.
In an interview20 with the Italian TV: Link TV, N. Bouzid while talking about the
circumstances that characterized the Making Of shooting, has wondered:
Will I be allowed to speak about this? We are forbidden to talk about this topic in
the media! I had to be courageous, very lucid, but at the same time I had to be afraid:
I needed this fear because it was in me, it was real! (...) Terrorism and
fundamentalism are the two legs on which the film walks!
L. Abdelli has explained that by the alternation between the movie script and the
interviews scenes, N. Bouzid aimed to make a mise en abime between fictional characters of
an actor and a filmmaker, and the real ones by N. Bouzid and Lotfi El Abdelli themselves.
According to L. Abdelli, the international filmmakers vision to the Islam Religion was
always wrong. Making Of aim was just to correct this false point of view, and convince the
international audience that the Islam is a peaceful belief.
After having finished the movies shooting, the Ministry of the Culture has forbidden
its distribution for one year. In spite of that, this censorship has increased the Making Of value
and made it win 17 prices in different festivals21.
18
Tunis 24/7 show : March 2015 After Bardo terrorist attempt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OgTIdEfIrg&index=4&list=PLemQZoWezUJBMwgAyBo600OJnSc0KsS
HW
19
An interview in Afrik.com Newsletter, made on October 2009: http://www.afrik.com/article17864.html
20
Nouri N. Bouzid & Lotfi Abdelli in conversation with Peter Scarlet : 2007-Italy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSEM-4G9Dos
21
Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought: Ibn Rochd Award 2007

Trying to treat the faked virginity "taboo" N. Bouzid preferred that the Oskot Ab
scenario does not see the light, as the committee composed of Ferid Boughdir and Abdellatif
Ben Ammar, has asked him to remove a rate exceeding 30% of the scenario.
Refusing this high rate of censorship, N. Bouzid has renounced the production
of this scenario and replaced by the one of Manmoutech. Through this movie, N. Bouzids
script was up to date with the headscarves subject, by placing it in the post-revolutionary
context.
Having been banned under the overthrown Ben Alis
dictatorship, during which the veil wearing was forbidden, N.
Bouzid insisted to show that "The Two-headed Tunisia" was a
reality and the freedom of expression and behaviour of each
other is fully respected.
We do not care about the differences fig. 13; the most important is what the citizens hope
to share such as freedom and peace in their homeland. That is why N. Bouzid aims to reflect
the balance that characterizes the Tunisian society through the defended friendship between
the two characters
. If the same movie was shot just before the revolution, and due to the fusion of
religious problem like the freedom of wearing the headscarves and the political one which
concerns the taking side choice, Mille Feuille would never see the light.
Fortunately its shooting took place after the Dignity Revolution, when the expressions
barriers disappeared, when the police dares no more to tie up the citizens due to their opinion.

Movies before the revolution were simply

obedient to the politic authoritys control. No
Tunisian filmmaker has ever dared to show in his
movies the torture footage or any thing that concerns
the behaviour of the political police.
This was conditioned in N. Bouzids movie before the revolution, as in Golden Horses,
the plans of pissing on the prisoners mouth and the prisoners complaint on the wall, were
forbidden in the Tunisian copy of the movie and allowed in the international one. But in Mille
Feuille which was shot in 2012, such snapshots were fortunately allowed fig. 14 to be added on
a movie.
Through this analytical passage between those four bouzidian masterpieces, we can
deduce that N. Bouzid has always tried to touch the taboos, although he yet knows that the
authorities would not allow him to do. He had evocated the forbidden trinity to highlight what
the Tunisian and Arabic societies suffer from, by navigating between the palpable and the
phantasmagorical.
Studying N. Bouzid movies in depth, we can easily compare our real life to a human
face, which is sometimes sad and depressed, and sometimes happy and full of hope.
N. Bouzid movies present a mirror which reflects this human face, with its happiness
and sadness, power and weakness. N. Bouzids camera replaces the human beings eyes and
his movies are nothing but a duplicate truism.
The dreamlike trim that is added by this cineaste who intends solely to make the
viewer distinguish the reflexive fingerprints between N. Bouzid and the other directors, since
this author adds his own spices to each movies dish differently, overcoming the censorship
triangle, daring to treat the Arabic communitys taboos, so that the audience recognises his
artistic signature, without any doubt.
Inspired by his five years of jail during which he suffered from torturing, the
fundamentalism that the humanity undergoes during the terrorist attacks that may happen
anytime all over the world, the brainwashing which can be applied on the innocent teenagers
minds, making them become assassins, N. Bouzid has always tried to reflect the portrait of a
youth, frustrated and torn between the desire of freedom and the ideological loophole.
This cineaste calls the audience to deduce that the break dancer and the practicing
teenager, the veiled and the abloom woman may live together on a land full of agreement,
understanding, accordance, circumstances sharing and respect, without the domination of
anyone of them.
This is just a wake-up scream from N. Bouzid to the Tunisian and Arabic societies,
calling them to contribute together, in a peaceful and balanced life, savouring the freedom of

expression and the religion choice, in addition to the coordination between different points of
view and intellectual levels. In so doing, we can lead a peaceful life on the same territory.

References
-Centre des archives doutre-mer (CAOM), 8 CAB 51, anonyme, Organisation du

contrle cinmatographique en Algrie , s.d. (1945).
-El Khayati, Khmaies, Cinema Arabe, LHarmattan 1996, p 51.
-Ferro, Marc, Cinema & History, translated by Naomi Greene, Wayne State University
Press 1988, p: 17
-Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought: Ibn Rochd Award 2007 for Nouri Bouzid
-Interview of Nouri N. Bouzid with Shams FM Radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc4LOd-
T0wI&index=9&list=PLemQZoWezUJAOvBcq7ZRNwVj2WJxNHTte
-Interview in Afrik.com Newsletter, made on October 2009:

http://www.afrik.com/article17864.html
-Interview with an Italian program entitled: Nouri N. Bouzid: Un cinema scomodo:

-Interview with Mosaque FM Radio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI7eYygwc5g&list=PLemQZoWezUJAOvBcq7ZRNw
Vj2WJxNHTte&index=26
-Interview with Nouri N. Bouzid about Mille Feuille movie in Nessma TV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMps6cgfz9g
-Nouri N. Bouzid & Lotfi Abdelli in conversation with Peter Scarlet: 2007-Italy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSEM-4G9Dos
- Omri, Amir, Life in Cinema 19 February 2009,

http://life-in-cinema.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-post_19.html
-Tunis 24/7 show: March 2015 After Bardo terrorist attempt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OgTIdEfIrg&index=4&list=PLemQZoWezUJBMwg
AyBo600OJnSc0KsSHW

From Heresy in Religion to Heresy in Culture: The Symbolic Power of the

15th Century Spanish Inquisition: The Case of the Arab Muslims (Moriscos)
Latifa Safoui
Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco
Abstract
The Spanish Inquisition that took over following the collapse of the Islamic rule in Spain in the
15th century is, commonly, associated with the persecution of heresy in its strict religious sense.
However, a deep probing into the history of the Spanish Inquisition, and more particularly, into
its dealing with the Arab Muslims of the epoch, belies other facets to its notorious heresiological
discourse. The Arab Muslims, known historically as Moriscos, who stayed in the Iberian
Peninsula after being forcibly converted to Christianity, were, nonetheless, subjected to other
forms of abuse that had nothing to do with religion. I hold in this paper that the Spanish church-
state rule-- another name applied to the Spanish Inquisition-- exhibited features of a modern
nation-state in the making that sought to consolidate its political hegemony, mainly by using what
Pierre Bourdieu calls symbolic power. Symbolic power is the accumulation of all capitals in the
hands of the modern state, a privileged status that grants the latter an unlimited scope of power,
enabling it to enforce its will and establish its hegemony. The forcible conversions of the
Andalusi Arab Muslims to Christianity did not spare them the Spanish violence, and the Spanish
authorities sought doggedly to strip them of all power. The Arab Muslim culture was
exterminated, and the Spanish state worked on divesting this, hitherto, Iberian minority of its
political, social, and economic capitals in order to establish a modern nation-state as early as the
15th century.
Keywords: Spanish Inquisition, symbolic power, heresy, Pierre Bourdieu, hegemony,

capital

I. Introduction
The Spanish state-church rule that superseded the Muslim rule in Al-andalus, what
historians, also, refer to as the Spanish Inquisition, is commonly portrayed as an institution
concerned mainly with matters of faith. The war against heresy, which this institution waged
from the 15th century throughout to the end of the 19th century, is, generally, associated with the
purging of the Christian faith from what is, then, regarded as sparks of heresy. Such belief,
though, has obscured significant facts about the discourse of power that lies behind this religious
faade. The treatment of the Arab Muslims who remained in Spain after 1492, the date
coinciding with the capitulation of Granada, the last stronghold of Muslims in the Iberian
Peninsula, reveals a Spanish church-state rule that used heresy as a cover to ensure its political
hegemony and establish a modern nation-state as early as the 15th century. A critical study of the
various ways in which the Spanish Inquisition operated lifts the veil from very modern ways of
rule; symbolic power resulting from the states firm control over the political, cultural, social, and
economic fields being the most conspicuous one.
The present paper brings into question the theological, traditional discourse of heresy
linked to the 15th century Spanish Inquisition. The treatment the Arab Muslims-- known
historically as Moriscos after their forcible conversions into Christianity-- received in the epoch
provides indispensable clues attesting for a contest for power and for a budding project to
establish a modern nation-state that was pioneer in harboring both Pierre Bourdieus socio-
political theory of symbolic power and cultural capital and Max Webers charismatic politics,
which both put a cultural revolution at the very core of the building of a modern nation-state. The
type of Heresies the Spanish Inquisition targeted swerved drastically from matters related to
religion to the type of food eaten by Moriscos, their Moorish style of dressing, their songs and
dances, their marriage ceremonies, their language and books, in a word, everything that singles
them out as different from the Spanish Christians. The dogged determination of the Spanish
Inquisition to obliterate all signs of the Arab Muslim culture presents this medieval institution as
an out and out modern nation-state that sought to establish its hegemony by crashing the
opposing subordinate Muslim other.
The present paper investigates the intricate ways in which the Spanish Inquisition
operated to stamp out the Arab Muslim Andalusi culture and civilization. The use of law to issue
bans on bathing, on the Moorish long garments, and on the Arabic names and Arabic language,
among other things, demonstrates the alertness of the Spanish Inquisition to the sway of culture
and to the importance of debunking the Muslim civilization in order to allow to the Christian
Spanish one to gather momentum and survive. In the process, a great deal of violence ensued to
finally culminate in ethnic cleansing and displacement of thousands of Arab Muslims. 1609 is
commemorated as the date of the great exodus of Muslims in history and their practical expulsion
from a Europe at the threshold of modernity. For the record, Jews were first to be expelled from
Spain in 1492, with the collapse of the Muslim rule in Granada. It is worthy to mention, though,
that Spain has recently issued a formal apology to the Jews for their Spanish Holocaust and
went as far as offering them Spanish citizenship1. No similar apology was granted to the Arab
Muslims up to date, and it would be unrealistically too ambitious to think of Spanish citizenship

accorded to Moriscos, who were victims of expulsion in as much the same way, and who sought
refuge in North Africa, namely, in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
The present study attempts at dispelling the mystification surrounding the the
apparatuses of power grounding the 15th century Spanish Inquisitions war on heresy. Moriscos
emerge as the scapegoat in a bitter struggle for power. They were subjected to unspeakable
forms of violence while the Spanish church-state rule of the epoch set out to establish what can
be regarded as the first modern nation-state in Europe. The first part investigates the Spanish
cultural attack on the Morisco habitus, a coined term Pierre Bourdieu uses to refer to culture and
history in their most precise meanings. The second part sheds light on the power of nomination.
It is explained how such stately prerogative enlarges the scope of power of the modern nation-
state, allowing for the generation of unsustainable levels of violence in the process.
II. The Persecution of Morisco Culture: A Bourdieusian Perspective

II. 1. Pierre Bourdieus Symbolic Power and Cultural Capital
The Spanish Inquisitions persecution of heresy started religious and gradually changed
course to prey the cultural and genealogical origins of Moriscos. The violence the Spanish
Inquisition perpetrated was not only of a physical nature, designed at torturing Moriscos
suspected of practicing heretical rites of Mahomet and at confiscating their possessions. Such
view of the institution belies a nave understanding of history at large and of the dynamics of
power motivating it. Pierre Bourdieu believes that, in the exercise of political power, physical
violence alone can prove useless unless it is backed up by what he calls symbolic power.
Symbolic power is what the state gains after a long struggle to monopolize all the
capitals in a social field. Bourdieu opts for an economic register to coin the words of his political
theory. Like Karl Marx, he argues that social practices are motivated by external factors that
exert an immediate influence on the life of a particular community. Unlike Marx, though, he
does not agree on anchoring these external motives exclusively in economy. For Bourdieu, such
view of the study of sociological phenomena fails short of accounting for acts or practices in
which material gain plays only a minor part. He argues that the social, cultural, religious, and
political variables are as much important and decisive as is economy. Hence, in tandem with
economic labor, capital, economic goods and services, and economic profits, Bourdieu evokes
the religious, cultural, and political capital together with goods, services, and profits related to
them. Capital represents power over the accumulated product of past labour and thereby
over the mechanisms which tend to ensure the production of a particular category of goods and
thus over a set of revenues and profits (qtd.in. Swartz 74). Capital can take many forms. In
The Logic of Practice, Bourdieu points out that capital is a kind of energy of social physics that
can exist in a variety of forms. David Swartz explains Bourdieus view claiming that The image
of capital suggests a conceptualization of power where no one form is given theoretical priority
over the otherpower is analogous to energy in that it occurs in many forms and no one form is
more fundamental than the others or can be treated independently of the others(78). In other
words, economic capital entails power over the cultural, social, and political fields. In like
manner, cultural capital has immediate consequences on the other fields. The capitals do vary but

remain convertible to each other; hence, the relationship of cooperation rather than rivalry that
holds between them2.
In his theory, Bourdieu generally speaks of four major types of capital: economic capital
(money and property), cultural capital (cultural credentials of a community), social capital
(acquaintances and networks), and symbolic capital (legitimation). This set of capitals, distinct
as they may seem, overlap and are convertible to each other as, for example, in the way certain
educational qualifications can be cashed in for lucrative jobs.
Power, in Bourdieus view, is the accumulation of all capitals and their concentration in
the hands of the state. Such concentration of capitals provides the state with a symbolic capital,
which, in turn, transforms into symbolic power. Symbolic power enables some kind of
mystification, which papers over the states violence. Violence, as a result, is tolerated,
euphemized (Swartz 170), and treated as an inevitability to preserve the states high interests.
It follows that the Spanish Inquisitions terror, its chambers of torture, and its cult of
persecuting heretics were downplayed or euphemized in the eyes of both the dominant and the
dominated. Such euphemization of violence is realized by virtue of the symbolic power the
Inquisition had within its purview. This symbolic power, Bourdieu argues, operates on two
major, distinct levels: the first concerns the legitimization of the dominants culture, which
renders the latter the sole viable culture and the one that is granted credence and recognition; the
other, running in parallel with the first, involves the de-legitimization of the already established,
hitherto, dominated culture.
After the historical defeat of Arab Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula and the fall of their
last stronghold, Granada, in 1492, the victors and the vanquished found themselves in front of a
deeply entangled and complicated status quo. Spain had been under Arab Islamic rule for more
than seven centuries, a fact that singled out Spain as the only swathe of European territory where
Islam and Arabic culture had had a strong foothold. The Spanish habitus encountered a totally
different type of habitus: the Arab Islamic habitus, long established and entrenched in the soil of
Spain. By habitus, Bourdieu means:
A set of dispositions which incline agents to act and react in certain ways. The
dispositions generate practices, perceptions, and attitudes which are regular
without being consciously governed by rule. The dispositions which constitute the
habitus are inculcated, structured, durable, generative, and
transposabledispositions are acquired through a process of inculcation in which
early childhood experiences are important. Through a myriad of mundane processes
of training and learning, such as those involved in the inculcation of table manners
(sit up straight dont eat with your mouth fulletc. The individual acquires a set of
dispositions, which literally mould the body and become second nature.
(Language and Symbolic Power 12)
One can easily perceive the yawning gap sundering the Arab Muslim habitus and the
Spanish Catholic one. In a field of struggle and contest of power, such encounter of two
different, mutually exclusive forms of habitus heralds premonitory signs with regard to the future

of the relationship between the social groups in question. The Spanish Inquisition sought to
debunk the Morisco habitus while, at the same time, putting the Spanish one to the fore.
Bourdieu emphasizes the arena of conflict the dominant and dominated occupy. Both engage in a
struggle to preserve habitus and accumulate capitals, goods and services, and profits, be they
religious, economic, cultural, or symbolic (like honor or chivalry). This arena of struggle
Bourdieu labels field (champs). This is
a structured social space, a field of forces, a force field. It contains people who
dominate and people who are dominated. Constant, permanent relationships of
inequality operate inside this space, which at the same time becomes a space in
which various actors struggle for the transformation or preservation of the field.
(On Television 40)
Depicted as such, the field is synonymous with an arena of battle, which houses
conflicting bodies of thoughts and practices. In a particular field, whether cultural, economic,
religious, or other, the dominant habitus strives to grab all capital to ensure its symbolic power.
This power, however, remains contested and never declared absolute, as the subordinated habitus
fights back and often develops its own weapons of resistance.
In the modern state, people struggle to get hold of capital in order to garner recognition
and legitimacy and climb the social ladder. The state, for its part, sets as its primary concern the
monopoly of all capitals and, then, their distribution according to what best serves its interests.
Habitus is constructed by whatever experience the individual undergoes in his lifetime.

The bulk of this experience is inculcated in childhood. Table manners can be a variable that
denotes a different habitus, in other words, a different culture. What some historians were unable
to fathom is the reason why the Spanish inquisitors would burn a Morisco because he was found
taking a bath, because instead of cooking with fat, he used oil, or because he abstained from
eating bacon or drinking alcohol. It is interesting how the Spanish Inquisition was unique in
anticipating the symbolic power of culture, no matter how negligible or minute the cultural trait
might sound. Consider the case of Madalena Morisca, who stood before the inquisitors of the
tribunal of the holy office of Seville in 1609, after being charged of washing herself as a Muslim.
Mary Elizabeth Perry provides details of the incident:
Inquisitors called Madalena to appear before them to answer the accusations of two
witnesses. Both people had testified that they had seen her very early one morning,
when she came into their common courtyard, in the town of Medina Sedonia, to
bathe herself, they watched as she washed her legs and thighs, face and head. One
witness swore that she had washed her shameful parts but the other said that he
had arrived too late to see that particular part of her bathing. (38)
The Spanish Inquisitors took such testimonies of bathing very seriously, as for them,
they constituted hard evidence of a relapsing into the Islamic ritual of ablution after having being
baptized Christian.
Madalenas case is similar to that of another Morisco named Cristobal de la Cruz, who
confessed before the commissioner of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Veracruz, Mexico.

De la Cruz described an event that occurred while he was sailing to Santo Domingo. He
confessed that sometimes when it was calm, the soldiers and sailors and this confessant would
also swim in the sea, which he did with the intention of doing the ahala [and] bathing in the way
that is customary for the Muslims although this bath should be done in water that is fresh and
not of the sea(Cook 70). De La Cruz noted that he had to be careful when performing the ritual
of ablutions in public because those soldiers and sailors are so skilled and accustomed to seeing
Muslims and renegades, [that] he did not do those ceremonies, because the said sailors and
soldiers could not help from seeing him(Cook 70)
The detention of Madalena and De La Cruz because of their bathing brings to mind the
traditional essentialist distinction between body and soul, between subjectivity and objectivity.
In the examples cited above, the Inquisition targeted bathing, which is an embodied act. Dualist
thinkers, especially the disciples of Rene Descartes, with his notorious legacy of mind-body
dualism, would ask how the body could be accorded such importance when the intellect is the
source of all action. The duality of mind and body is categorically rejected in Bourdieus theory.
Bourdieu regards that accounts of human subjectivity that conceive of it as essentially
disengaged (Taylor 143), that is, as maintaining a cognitive and contemplative relation to the
world, are beside the mark. With Bourdieu, the pure subjectivity viewpoint is dismissed in
favour of a perception of the human agent in its radical facticity (Merleau- Ponty). He is
extremely critical of the strong polarization of mind/ body. Gabriel Peters further delineates
Bourdieus stance:
The rejection of intellectualistic and contemplationist accounts of the agent/world

relation carries a critique of dualistic views of the relationship between mind and
body that conceive the latter solely as an object of the agents representations.
Against this perspective, Bourdieu, as Merleau Ponty before him, argue fiercely that
the agents body (or better, that the agent as an inescapably embodied agent) is the
very operational locus of the practical intentionalities and competencies based on
which she intervenes in the societal universe: What is learned by body is not
something that one hasbut something that one is. (70)
Such fusion of mind and body is best exemplified by the field, which, together with
habitus, occupies a central position in Bourdieus theory. The field is beyond both subjectivity
and objectivity. It is the social network where subjectivities and objectivities interpenetrate and
become interdependent.
The concept of embodied subjectivity Bourdieu advocates finds full expression in 15th
century Spanish rule. Moriscos were barred from holding arms, from putting on their Moorish
dresses, from performing acts of circumcision and from taking baths, to mention just a few of the
trailing shortlist of proscriptions. Obviously, all these acts are performed on the body. Here,
bodies are also bearers of heresy the Inquisition sought doggedly to eradicate. Mary Elizabeth
Perry speaks about the embodied knowledge of Moriscos, while commenting on Madalenas
story mentioned above:
Madalenas story is not simply that of one isolated woman sneaking an early
morning bath in what she thought was a deserted courtyard. In early modern Spain,

tens of thousands of other Moriscas literally embodied their own identities in dress
and bathing, dances and songs, prayers and fasts, remedies and love magic, food and
family, and in celebrations of birth, marriage, and death. Morisco men also
embodied their identities, but historical records often subsume this into accounts of
their rebellions and military actions. (39)
Bourdieu is a staunch advocate of an embodied subjectivity that bears the scars of the
encounter, or, rather, the struggle that holds between the dominant and dominated. To illustrate
the way embodied subjectivity operated in 15th century Spanish society, Perry cites examples of
Morisco women and men who transform their bodies into sites of resistance. She argues that
such embodied knowledge demonstrate[s] the power of oppression and the strength of
resistance, as well as significant evidence of muted groups in history, adding that Moriscos
left few written records of their thoughts and ideas, but historical documents describe their
bodies, how they used them and identified themselves through their bodies. (39)
The Spanish Inquisition was ahead of its time when it targeted the bodies. Bathing has
to do with more than a simple practice of hygiene. It is a constituting part of habitus, in other
words, of capital. Bourdieu explains the relationship between habitus, body, and capital as
follows:
The habitus, as the word implies, is that which one has acquired, but which has
become durably incorporated in the body in the form of permanent dispositions. So,
the term constantly reminds us that it refers to something historical, linked to
individual history, and that it belongs to a genetic mode of thought, as opposed to
existentialist modes of thoughtMoreover, by habitus, the Scholastics also meant
something like property, a capital. (Language and Symbolic Power 86)
The Spanish labored to strip the Moriscos of all capital. As a dominated minority
group, these were not entitled to possess any form of symbolic power supposed to challenge the
nascent Spanish state. Well aware of the empowering potential of culture, the Spanish inquisitors
sought to wipe out bathing because, albeit mundane and trivial, it, nevertheless, stands out as a
distinguishing marker of the antithetical Arab Islamic identity. As Bourdieu explicitly states, the
habitus of a people is also their history, and, clearly, the Spanish stalked all that singled out
Moriscos as bearers of history, culture, and civilization.
The embodied subjectivity of Moriscos was repressed by the Spanish church-state rule,
mainly, through the legal system. The institution issued an avalanche of decrees designed to
stamp out the religious and cultural rituals of Moriscos, what Moriscos revere solemnly and
consider as their most cherished capital. Because the Spanish state accrued all capitals, it had the
symbolic power to sanction legal statements and enforce their execution. Following Pierre
Bourdieu, the symbolic power the state obtains as a result of its accumulation of capitals endows
it with legitimacy, so that all its acts are tolerated however queer or inhumane.
Law, then, emerges as the most effective tool to establish legitimacy. It is the
inexhaustible source of decrees and sanctions that possess the aura of indisputable truth. Law
stands for another capital that the modern state monopolizes to ensure its sovereignty. Bourdieu

traces the historical emergence of law in Europe to the 12th and 13th centuries, long time before
the Spanish Inquisition:
The process of concentration of juridical capital, an objectified and codified form of

symbolic capital, follows its own logic, distinct from that of the concentration of
military capital and of financial capital. In the 12 th and 13th century, several legal
systems coexisted in Europe, with, on the other hand, ecclesiastical jurisdictions, as
represented by Christian courts, and, on the other hand, secular jurisdictions,
including the justice of the king, the justice of the lords, and the jurisdiction of
municipalits(cities), of corporations, and of trade . (Rethinking the State 7)
Bourdieu talks about the concentration of juridical power in the hands of the king.
Such concentration of juridical capital bestows legitimacy on the kings use (and abuse) of
power. Moreover, the process of concentration mentioned is accompanied by what Bourdieu
calls differentiation. Differentiation occurred when The judiciary body grew organized and
hierarchized. This organization and hierarchization led to the constitution of an autonomous
juridical field (Rethinking the State10). Such autonomy of the law granted the latter a
symbolic power that contributed significantly to the consolidation of the new ruling system. The
organization, hierarchization, and autonomy of the legal system are elements that reinforce the
bureaucratic system of the state. Bourdieu explains, the construction of the juridico-
bureaucratic structures constitutive of the state proceeded alongside the construction of the body
of jurists (Rethinking the State 10).
The Spanish Inquisition was alert to the sway of law and drew upon it heavily to
promulgate its worldview and systematically destroy the Morisco one. The state-church rule
issued a series of decrees, what it labeled edicts of faith, to dismantle the Morisco capital and
devalue all that constitutes the Arab Islamic habitus. The decrees targeted the minute details of
Morisco culture and civilization. Consider the following edict of faith that issued a ban on
baths. L.P. Harvey cites it in his Muslims in Spain, commenting that it was one of the regulations
that, at first, puzzled him, before he could figure out the real motives behind it. The decree
reads as follows:The public baths are not to be lit [or heated] on Sundays, nor feast days nor
Fridays, and any bath-keeper who disobeys incurs the penalty of 600 maravedis on the first
occasion, and 100 lashes for a second offense, the same penalties apply to those making use of
the bath(52).
Harveys state of puzzlement is supposed to grip any common reader of the decree.
Bathing, as has been demonstrated by the example of Madalena Morisca, is a petty mundane
practice that, on its own, sounds insignificant. However, in line with Michel Foucault, Bourdieu
argues that power inhabits the mundane and the everyday, things people tend to overlook because
they sound too natural to be held notice of. Seen from a Bourdieusian and Foucauldian lens, the
Spanish prohibition of bathing is very intelligible within a framework that transcends both
objectivity and subjectivity, and where the act and the actor are seen as one indissociable whole.
The Spanish rulers regarded bathing as a challenge to their authority. It was a practice that spoke
of the Morisco religious and cultural capital.

In a field of struggle such as the fifteenth century Spanish society where the Spanish
scrambled for goods and profits, the ban on baths was meant to strip Moriscos of one of their
main symbolic capitals, thus, further weakening them by estranging them from their habitus. In
his charismatic politics, Max Weber talks, as well, about the role of law in both consolidating a
new rule or overturning an already existing one. After the military triumph of the Spanish, a
great deal remained to be done to establish and stabilize their hegemony in the other fields of
struggle, namely, the religious and cultural ones. Legal jurisdiction is an incarnation of the
symbolic struggle underway. Andreas Kalyvas explains Webers view, saying that:
In the case of law, for instance any legal innovation and genuine juridical
founding rests on the instituting power of charisma and presupposes the existence of
a stable and inclusive worldview. Radical legal transformations depend upon
previous symbolic struggles among charismatic movements and hierocratic
organizations. Against a purely formal juridical approach that focuses exclusively
on the internal coherence and logical consistency of the law, Weber maintained that
the really decisive element [i.e., of original law transformation] has always been a
new line of conduct which then results either in a change of the meaning of existing
rules of law or in the creation of new rules of law. (88)
The stable inclusive worldview Weber evokes is precisely what Bourdieu means by
habitus. What the Spanish Inquisition was after was to supplant the already existing Islamic
Arab worldview/ habitus and substitute it with the Spanish Catholic worldview/habitus. To
attain this goal, the Spanish Inquisition used legal jurisdiction in an instrumental way, bending it
to its will. Kalyvas further explains this instrumental use of law, claiming that Radical juridical
changes lean on a web of extra-legal substantive axiological meanings and imaginary
significations established by the victorious charismatic movement after a protracted symbolic
struggle (88).
Juridical capital was Spanish no trespass zone. The Spanish sanctioned whatever
decree goes in the direction of stripping Moriscos of their cultural capital. These decrees prowled
all aspects of the Morisco life. An instance of theses decrees is one issued by Queen Juana in
1513. It was addressed to Old Christian women in Granada, summoning them to stop dressing
like Muslim women. In Granada and similar areas, the ways of life of the Muslim community
were still capable of exerting their attraction on the new comers, the Christian settlers. Moriscos
were diehard opponents, and cultural influences were still not all flowing in a Christianizing
direction:
I strictly forbid any Old Christian woman to dress in the Moorish style from this day
henceforward, under the penalty, for a first offence, of loss of the clothing thus
worn, and a hundred strokes of the whip, and, for a second offence, the same
penalties together with perpetual exile from the whole Kingdom of Granada. (qtd.
in Harvey 52)
Again, Harvey makes no secret of his puzzlement at this odd piece of legislation
(52). What is ironical is that the edict was addressed to Old Christian women who, as a result of
their long mingling with Moriscos during the Nasrid dynasty and long before, had no misgivings

dressing in the Moorish fashion, a fact that attests to a considerable level of assimilation and
coexistence that prevailed during the Arab Islamic era.
The Spanish church-states new policy consisted of extirpating all the cultural traits of
the dominated Morisco group. As a consequence, the Morisco habitus underwent a rapid process
of disintegration, with the Spanish targeting all and every part of this habitus, however trivial or
minute. Harveys study of the Spanish edicts of faith brought him to the conclusion that the
Spanish had set out to eliminate a range of manifestations of local culture and identity: the
Arabic language, local dress and costume, jewelry, bathsit was the whole inherited culture that
was being banned, and not just the religion itself (106). Effectively, heresy in the Spanish
Inquisition terms was not only religious. The forcible conversions were a stepping-stone towards
expunging the Morisco habitus and stripping Arab Muslims of all symbolic power. In the course
of laying the foundation for a nation-state, the Spanish Inquisition strove to hoard all sorts of
capital. Such concentration of capital in the hands of the Spanish church-state rule accelerated
the process of legitimation of the dominant Spanish worldview and de-legitimation of the
dominated Morisco one. Andreas Kalyvas explains how Max Weber perceives this dual mission
in his charismatic politics as follows:
The key strategy in these confrontations is to subvert solidified structures of

domination by attacking their symbolic and motivational foundation and by
disrupting the ethical and rational presuppositions of their legitimation discourses in
order to weaken the sources of internal obedience and tacit consent upon which the
existing social order is basedIn order to succeed in its de-legitimating project, a
charismatic movement has to launch a hegemonic, cultural attack against the
dominant worldview. Its aim is to weaken and disqualify the validity of the
instituted reality... (84)
This double process of legitimation and de-legitimation rests at the core of the modern
state. It is a process built upon the concentration of all capitals in the hands of the state. Pierre
Bourdieu defines the state as the culmination of a concentration of different species of capital:
capital of physical force or instruments of coercion (army, police), economic capital, cultural or
(better) informational capital, and symbolic capital (emphasis in the original, Rethinking the
State 4). Bourdieu further explicates that it is
this concentration as such which constitutes the state as the holder of a sort of meta-
capital granting power over other species of capital and over their holders.
Concentration of the different species of capital, (which proceeds hand in hand with
the construction of the corresponding fields) leads indeed to the emergence of a
specific, properly statist capital (capital tatique) which enables the state to exercise
power over the different fields and over the different particular species of
capital(Rethinking the State 4)
The Spanish church-states invincible strength, and the terror it struck in the hearts of its
own population and overseas, depended largely on a hoarding of capital, a fact that endowed it
with a symbolic power that has the effect of magic, to quote Marcel Mauss.

II. 2 The Power of Nomination
Bourdieu singles out another type of power equally important and decisive: the power
of nomination, or the exclusive prerogative that the state possesses to nominate people, acts, and
various representations in a way it deems correct and profitable. Bourdieu cites the example of
the nobles of Aragon, who called themselves ricohombres de natura, that is, men by nature or
by birth, in contrast to the nobles created by the king. This distinction is of paramount
importance, as it demonstrates that the state has the mandate of ennobling people, thus
elevating their status and granting them special privileges.
Such authority of the state to bestow favors and honors on its subjects has immediate
implications on the social, economic, and cultural levels. In the field of struggle for power, the
state distributes symbolic capital in the form of statutes, honorific names, certificates, and edicts.
It follows that the state determines peoples situation in the present and their prospects for the
future. The state has the power of shaping individuals, of fabricating human beings by the mere
act of naming. Bourdieu claims that:
By stating with authority what a being ( thing or person) is in truth (verdict)

according to its socially legitimate definition, that is, what he or she is authorized to
be, what he has a right ( and duty) to be, the social being that he may claim, the State
wields a genuinely creative, quasi-divine, power. It suffices to think of the kind of
immortality that it can grant through acts of consecration, such as commemorations
or scholarly canonizations, to see how, twisting Hegels famous expression, we may
say that: the judgment of the state is the last judgment (Rethinking the State
12)
In effect, the Spanish church-states judgment of Moriscos was despotically the final
judgment. The Spanish invested in the craft of naming to an immeasurable degree. They
produced, rather, baptized, to quote Saul Kripke, names to the Arab Muslims, calling them
Moriscos, which means little Moors, a way of exposing their weakness and pettiness. Chejn,
Anwar.G cites some of the names that the Spanish used to dub the Arab Muslims in the aftermath
of 1492:
Shortly after the conquest of Granada in 1492 by the Catholic kings, their Muslim
subjects in Spain became known derogatorily as Moriscos (little Moors), Moros,
Muhammadans, Hagarans (bastards or descendants of Hagar), and Saracens, despite
the fact that they were forced to accept the sacrament of baptism. Such appellations
remained in use throughout the sixteenth century, applied indiscriminately to all
Moriscos, regardless of the degree of their devotion to Christianity. The
appellations differentiated between the new converts and the Old Christians,
believed to be of the pure Spanish stock and possessing purity of blood (limpieza de
sangre). (vii)
By virtue of the act of naming, the Spanish church-state divided the population into Old
Christians, whose genealogical roots were free from Moorish and Jewish blood (though this
proposition is much contested among historians, given the intermarriages that occurred between
the different ethnic groups that lived under the Arab Muslim rule before the Reconquest) on the
one hand, and the New Christians, who stood for the newly converted, mainly Muslims and Jews,

on the other. Such broad division of the population entailed political, social, economic, and
cultural implications that mapped the Spanish society and determined the distribution of goods
and profits.
The term Moriscos, which the Spanish used to name the Arab Muslims, whom they
had always regarded as their most declared enemy, is, in itself a political exercise of power. It is
a rigid designator, to use Saul Kripkes coinage, which is meant to fix its subject within clearly
articulated boundaries. Subsuming Moriscos under the category of the New Christians, Nuevos
Christianos brought along with it a number of prohibitions, restrictions, and retributions.
As early as the fifteenth century, the power of naming had already been in operation.
S.I.Hayakawa writes about the rhetorical importance of naming and labeling, showing how labels
serve to identify individuals by squaring them into definable categories: when we name
something, then, we are classifying. The individual object or event we are naming, of course has
no name and belongs to no class until we put it in one(emphasis in the original, 201). Names
are descriptions that arguably influence our reaction to individuals. The story of Madalena, cited
earlier in this paper, is one speaking example. The Spanish records referred to her as Madalena
Morisca instead of mentioning her family name or her husbands name as is usually the case.
Mary Elizabeth Perry comments insightfully:
Rather than including a family name or the name of a husband or owner, as most
Inquisition records listed women, the clerk who recorded testimony in this case
added to Madalenas Christian name the term Morisca. His choice of this term
indicates the social and political significance of religious status in this period. It also
reveals a politics of difference in which people in power attempted to transform into
a badge of shame those identifications that less powerful people held for themselves
and sought to preserve as an honor. (38)
The Spanish Inquisition started by changing the names of the Arab Muslims, enforcing
upon them Spanish Christian names. The harm that resulted from this act was that by choosing
new names-- Christian ones for that matterArab Muslims had literally cut off all ties with their
ancestory. They were rendered uprooted and without a history. Francisco Nunez Muley is a
Morisco from the nobility of Granada who sent a petition to the king complaining, among other
things, about the ban on the Arabic names. He argued his case speaking for Moriscos and trying
to expose the devastation resultant from the ban:
With respect to Morisco surnames: how are we supposed to know one another if we
only make use of Castilian surnames? The people will know nothing of the person
with whom they are speaking, from whom they are purchasing, and with whom they
are marrying, given that they have no knowledge of his or her lineage. What benefit
is derived from erasing from our memories our surnames...? (Barletta 88)
Banning Arabic names and substituting them with Castilian, Spanish ones was an
explicit exercise of power meant to stymie Morison sense of the self as a prelude to transform
them into an extinct species, which, effectively, was the case. Nunez Muley argued that the use
of Castilian names would make Moriscos forget about their origins. For the Spanish Inquisitions

discourse of power, if the use of Castilian names caused Moriscos a permanent brain damage
amounting to amnesia, so much the better.
In a parallel arrangement, the Spanish church-state resorted to an arsenal of denigrating

epithets in order to further accentuate Moriscos difference or, rather, deviance from the Spanish
Catholic mainstream. Perry claims that using their imagistic power, Christian writers portrayed
Morisco men as flabby and effeminate sodomites and pedophilesperhaps in an effort to
discredit their masculine reproductive and military powers. Christian critics described Morisco
women as obstinate, lewd, and treacherous, slyly hiding behind veils (59). Kings and
intellectuals emerge as the leading figures of the anti-Morisco propaganda. In his biography,
James I, the great king of the crown of Aragon, described the Muslims as traitors ever seeking
to do us harm, while Sancho VI, in his book of advice to his son, argued that the Moor is
nothing but a dog (qtd. in Ruiz 155).
The Spanish Inquisition availed itself of branding Moriscos with disparaging epithets,
confident that their point of view will be the point of view widely held in the Spanish society. It
is little wonder that literary productions of the epoch were replete with depictions of Moriscos as
doughnut peddlers, poor and illiterate hands to mouth agriculturers, and stupid quixotian
creatures, unable to rise up to the level of their Spaniard masters. Here is the account of Father
Pedro Aznar Cardona, a Spanish bishop and a humanist of the period, describing Morisco ways
and manners:
Having spoken of their nature, their religion, and their heretical beliefs, what
remains for us to deal with now is what they were like and how they behaved. In
this respect, they were the vilest of people, slovenly, and in no way given to those
helpmeets of virtue, noble letters, and sciences. In consequence, they were far
removed from all urbane, courteous, and polite manners and customs They
brought their children up to run wild like brute beasts, giving them no rational
teaching or instruction for salvation, except what was forced upon them, and what
they were obliged by their
Superiors to attend, because they had been baptized. Their sentences were clumsy,
their discourse bestial, their language barbarous, and their way of dressing
ridiculous (qtd. in Harvey 413-416)
Historical records conserved the view of Father Pedro Aznar Cardona because his
opinion mattered with regard to the position he occupied: a renowned Bishop in the Spanish
Inquisition. His views about Moriscos were the more outrageous and prejudiced. Aznars
description of Moriscos was largely upheld and acquiesced among Old Christians, and in a sense,
transmits to us how Moriscos were looked down upon by the society of 15th and 16th century
Spain.
The role of Aznar was particularly decisive in shaping the image of Moriscos.
According to both Pierre Bourdieu and Max Weber, figures like him stand for the intellectual
elite that support the realpolitik of the state and contribute to the strengthening of the latters
symbolic power.

One needs not much intelligence to read between the lines and discern what James Boon
designates as a cultural exaggeration in anthropological research, an intensification of
perceived cultural differences within a shared discursive space (26). Moriscos emerge from this
discourse as illiterate, uncivil, and lacking all manners.
Because it hoarded all types of capital, the Spanish Inquisition had, as a result, complete
mandate to name and, thus, categorize, classify, identify, and draw clear and unambiguous lines,
determining who Moriscos were and what they could ever aspire to be or have in a field of
power, where violence was spelled out both tacitly and explicitly. Naming is the most
straightforward way of producing meaning and truth. It is the vehicle by means of which
common sense and conventional wisdom are forwarded to the laity. In Bourdieus language, a
whole worldview is implanted.
Orthodox Spanish Catholicism was particularly engrossed with pinning down the truth
against which all other faiths were viewed as sparks of outright heresy and grave error. Pierre
Bourdieu accords the act of naming a special importance in his political theory of power. He
claims that
In the symbolic struggle for the production of common sense or, more precisely, for
the monopoly of legitimate naming as the official-i.e. explicit and public imposition
of the legitimate vision of the social world, agents bring into play the symbolic
capital that they have acquired in previous struggles the symbolic strategies
through which agents aim to impose their vision of the divisions of the social world
and of their positions in that world can be located between two extremes: the insult,
that idios logos through which an ordinary individual attempts to impose his point of
view and the official naming, a symbolic act of imposition which has on its side
all the strength of the collective, of the consensus, of common sense, because it is
performed by a delegated agent of the state, that is, the holder of the monopoly of
legitimate symbolic violence. (Language and symbolic power 239)
Of the strength of the collective, of the consensus, of the common sense, the Spanish
church-state enjoyed a good amount, as it was the sole legitimate authority that issued judgments
of value and taste, fashioning the Spanish worldview. This worldview was monolithic,
homogeneous, and dismissive of all other differing worldviews.
Edward Iricinshi and Holger M.Zellentin argue in Making Selves and Marking others:
Identity and Late Antique Heresiologies in favour of the constructive nature of heresy and of its
essentially political, social, rhetorical, and literary production that obtains from naming:
The act of naming hereticsshape[s] the perception and organization of social

space, political status, and group boundariesone profitable way to approach
heresiological writings is as performative discourses that strive to bring the
heretic into being by the social magical act of namingwhether performed
from within ecclesiastical structures of power or as expressions of fantasies of such
powerAncient heresiological discourses re-read similarity as difference; they
turned religious formations akin to their own into utterly different configurations

through appellations, the construction of hybrid genealogies, and/or the exaggeration

of existing differences. (20)
Seen from this angle, the heretical Morisco was more of a rhetorically constructed
subject than any real historical object. Orthodox discourse invariably constructs its anathema:
heresy, which is, then, the standard measurement against which the former is constantly
reappraised. In a field of struggle, such as the one prevalent in 15 th century Spain, the
subordinate and the super ordinate engaged in a deadly war over capital: the religious, the
cultural, the economic, and the symbolic one. The dominant Spanish group expropriated all
sources of power and weaved discourses that systematically excluded the heretical, infidel
Morisco Other, calling him names, discrediting his prophet, and throwing his beliefs into shame
and derision. William E.Arnal talks about the process of creating artificial Jews in his Heresy,
Doxa and self- construction. I find Arnals argument is compelling and quite applicable to
fifteenth century Moriscos3.
Set against the historical state of convivencia that characterized the Iberian Peninsula
under the Muslim caliphs when Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived side by side in a historically
remarkable coexistence, free from forms of overt violence and state persecution, the artificiality
with which the Spanish created heretical Moriscos gets all the more conspicuous . The edict of
faith, cited earlier in this paper, where Queen Juana orders the Old Christian women to abandon
the Moorish long white malafas, corroborates the fact that the Arab Muslim ways of life, their
food diet, their dressing style, and their ceremonies were quite acceptable, even appreciated and
appropriated by their Christian counterparts and posed no real problem to the interaction between
the two communities. It follows that the discursive vilification of Morisco culture, their
misrepresentation using labels and names, did not emanate from the Spanish average person.
Rather, it was a political exercise of power, aimed at excluding an Other, who apparently did not
fit in the project of the nation-state launched by the Spanish Inquisition. This was implemented
largely using language and discourse, which, while it served to make the Spanish national
identity, it acted in favour of marking Moriscos as outsiders, misfits that have to be disposed of.
III. Conclusion
In this paper, I have tried to shed light on the modern political side of the Spanish
Inquisition, which superseded the Islamic rule in what was known as Al-andalus. Heresy in the
Spanish Inquisition was not only religious. What the Arab Muslims endured after the collapse of
Granada in 1492: the obliteration of all signs of their culture and their systematic, unrelenting
process of dispossessions and divestment of all capitals can only be understood within the
framework of a well identified political agenda, of which main objective is the exclusion of an
Arab Muslim Other that fits badly within the project of making a Spanish Christian modern
nation in Southern Europe. Moriscos emerge as the scapegoat in an early modern struggle over
power and hegemony. They also present the first symptomatic features of what Samuel
Huntington labels the clash of civilizations. The persecution of the Arab Islamic culture and
history, what Bourdieu refers to as habitus, and the use of the power of nomination to bring about
a radical change in worldview and establish and impose a new one in something akin to Maos
cultural revolution in 20th century China grants the Spanish Inquisition (the very name of which
belies a actual use of the power of nomination to conceal the political activity of the institution)
the driving seat among modern nation-states.
Seen from another angle, the object lesson the Arab Muslims historical expulsion from
Europe in 1609 teaches us is that unlike Huntingtons perception of the clash of civilizations as a
one way street and contrary to the western media picturing Islam and Muslims as a threat, the
latter have invariably been the scapegoat in an ongoing David and Goliath struggle that has
started as early as the 15th century. Inquisitions, burnings at the stake, enforced mass
conversions, ethnic cleansings, displacements, and cultural exterminations are all Christian
European commodities par excellence. Both Pierre Bourdieus theory of symbolic power and
Max Webers charismatic politics agree upon the fact that culture is a determining factor in the
establishment of the modern nation-state. The Spanish state-church rule had remarkably born
these two theorists out. The result was catastrophic. A whole civilization was extirpated. It
turned out that the Spanish Inquisitions war on heresy was only the tip of the iceberg. The
remarkable alliance between church and state in early modern Spain had set the founding stones
of the modern world, and the Foucauldian discourse of knowledge and power has its anchor,
there, in 15th century Spain and in the collapse of Islam in Europe. Western scholarship
continues to gloss over early modern Inquisitions, preferring to prudishly reject them as mere
religious orthodox discourses. More research is invited, though, to enlighten the still black holes
of this period that immediately precedes the entry of the world into modernity. Michel Foucault
was daring to trace the genealogical origins of western civilization to some pronounced Christian
practices like confessions. The Arab Muslim experience with the Spanish Inquisition offers even
more fertile areas of study and research and will certainly help revisit and correct many of our
perceived notions about what Samuel Huntington brazenly labels the Clash of Civilizations.
One final question: Are Arab Muslims entitled to ask for an apology following the Jewish model?
As it seems, this is a question that awaits no answer. The discourse of power the Spanish
Inquisition initiated as early as the fifteenth century is still in vogue and there is no sign of it
losing edge any time soon.

Endnotes
1
For more details, see Stavans, Ilan. "Repatriating Spain's Jews." www.nytimes.com. 2 Apr.
2014. 19 Aug. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/opinion/repatriating-spains-
jews.html?_r=0>
2
In Language and symbolic power, Bourdieu demonstrates how the acquisition of a legitimate
language, that is a language officially recognized by the state, enables one to access profits from
the other fields of power, for example, social promotion and noble jobs.
3
Arnal uses the term artificial Jews to refer to the community of disciples that fled the Roman
persecution and followed Pauls Christian precepts. These disciples were stripped of their
identity, driven out of their lands, and ostracized by the Roman society of the time. I find the
term compelling in that it applies squarely to the Arab Muslims under the Spanish Inquisition.
They equally were made artificial Arab Muslims, as they lacked all that would make them live
up to the appellation Arab Muslims. They were the pure artifact of the Spanish Inquisition,
with no meaningful lineage (after they were enforced to change their names), no commune
identity, and no citizenship rights either.

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LEffet de Distanciation dans Le Pre Goriot de Balzac
Asso Ahmed Salih

Abstract
For decades, the most remarkable aspect of Balzac's novels which attracted the critics attention
has been the reality effect in his stories. The narrator of Balzacs novels does his best to persuade
the reader of the likelihood of his story. In Balzacs Pre Goriot (Father Goriot), the narrator
struggles not only to maintain his credibility in front of the reader, but also to make him/her his
trusted partner in the narration process. He uses unique narrative techniques that produce the
estrangement effect; to keep the reader out of the storys fictive cycle and to force him/her to take
a critical stance to the characters and events. The narrator of the novel had succeeded to
generate this effect approximately a century before the German playwright Bertolt Brecht
formulated it as a theatrical and literary theory during the years 1930-1940. The estrangement
effect in Le Pre Goriot is produced through various techniques and methods such as: narration
in the third person, conducting direct dialogue with the reader using the second person pronoun
(YOU), direct or indirect intervention, multiplication of narrative voices, and supporting
explanatory speech and personal judgments and comments. Through estrangement effect, Balzac
narrator does not allow the reader to match himself/herself with the characters of the story, or to
accept the events as an indisputable reality.
Keywords: estrangement, narrative, reader, intervention, character

Rsum
Depuis des dcennies, laspect le plus remarquable duvre romanesque balzacienne intressant
aux critiques tait leffet de rel dans ses rcits. Le narrateur balzacien fait tous ses efforts au fil
du rcit pour persuader le lecteur de la vraisemblance de lhistoire raconte. Dans le Pre
Goriot de Balzac, le narrateur sintresse non seulement maintenir sa crdibilit chez le
lecteur, mais aussi rendre ce dernier le partenaire confi du processus de narration. Il se sert
des techniques narratives uniques qui produisent leffet de distanciation; distancier le lecteur du
cycle fictif du rcit et lobliger prendre une position critique lgard des personnages et des
vnements. Le narrateur du Pre Goriot a russi gnrer cet effet environ un sicle avant que
le dramaturge allemand Bertolt Brecht ne la formul comme une thorie thtrale et littraire
dans les annes 1930-1940.Leffet de distanciation dans Le Pre Goriot est produite travers
des techniques et mthodes diverses comme : narration la troisime personne, entretien direct
avec le lecteur (VOUS), intervention directe ou indirecte, multiplication des voix narratives,
discours explicatifs et justificatifs et expression de jugements et de commentaires personnels.
travers la distanciation, le narrateur balzacien ne permet pas au lecteur ni de sidentifier aux
personnages du rcit, ni daccepter les vnements comme une ralit indiscutable.
Mot cls: distanciation, narrative, lecteur, intervention, personnage

Introduction
La premire question qu'un lecteur probablement se pose en lisant un rcit de fiction est
sur lidentit de la voix narrative :qui parle?, qui raconte lhistoire?, qui est responsable des
noncs narratifs?, quelle est la voix qu'on entend introduisant l'intrigue, les vnements et les
personnages? C'est l'auteur lui-mme ou c'est un personnage du roman qui se donne un rle
supplmentaire? Les rponses ces questions diffrent selon le mode narratif adopt dans le rcit.
Dans Le Pre Goriot, comme tous les romanciers franais du XIXe sicle, Balzac dlgue
un narrateur pour raconter une histoire unique o il dcrit minutieusement, ou plutt
photographiquement, la Maison Vauquer et les pensionnaires; leurs succs et leurs checs, leurs
chagrins et leurs espoirs, leurs amours et leurs rancunes. Il dcrit le monde rel sans perdre
laspect fictif de son rcit. Il se sert de techniques narratives compltement diffrentes de celles
dont se sert lhistorien ou le biographe.
Le narrateur balzacien, bien qu'il soit un narrateur omniscient qui sait tout; non seulement
ce qui se passe mais ce qui sest pass avant que ne souvre le roman, tente de se mettre en
contact direct avec le lecteur en lui prsentant des personnages, des dtails et des vnements qui
se droulent dans un cadre spatio-temporel spcifique.
Dans Le Pre Goriot, ds louverture du roman, le narrateur fait tout pour persuader le
narrataire de la vraisemblance de son histoire (la description photographique de la pension et des
personnages, les interventions constantes, ). Quoiquil ne soit pas identifi; pas de nom, ni
prnom, ni caractre spcifique, le narrateur sait tout, il est au courant de tous les vnements et il
connait tous les personnages.
Ce qui nous intresse dans cette courte tude est de tenter dexaminer les procds et les
techniques narratives que l'auteur a mises en uvre pour maintenir intentionnellement une
distance limite avec son lecteur. Balzac ne permet pas au lecteur de pntrer dans le cycle fictif
de son roman ni de devenir une partie des vnements ou des personnages.
Balzac a appliqu la notion de la distanciation avant que Bertolt Brecht ne lintroduise

comme un terme thtral et littraire dans les annes 1930-1940. Mais comment Balzac a-t-il mis
en uvre ce procd avant mme que Brecht ne le formule dans un cadre thorique? Ou plutt
avant la naissance de Brecht lui-mme?
Nous tentons, au fil de cette tude, de souligner les techniques narratives dont Balzac sest
servies afin de garder le lecteur-narrataire hors du cycle fictionnel de son rcit.
La voix narrative
Certes, l'auteur auquel le lecteur ne peut s'empcher de penser pendant la lecture, est le
crateur rel du rcit mais sa prsence est cache, invisible. Balzac distingue clairement le

personnage, le narrateur et l'auteur. Il souligne le fait que la situation narrative d'un rcit de
fiction ne se ramne jamais sa situation d'criture (Genette - 226).
Genette a bien not que le narrateur du Pre Goriot, quoiquil se prsente comme le porte-
parole de Balzac qui reprsente sa vision sociale et politique nest pas Balzac en personne. Le
narrateur du Pre Goriot n'est' pas Balzac, mme sil exprime a ou l les opinions de celui-ci,
car ce narrateur-auteur est quelquun qui 'connat' la pension Vauquer et ses pensionnaires, alors
que Balzac, lui, ne fait que les imaginer . (Genette - 226)
Balzac dpeint un univers rel, le ntre, mais en se servant doutils compltement

littraires; descriptions, figures de style, dialogues et techniques narratives.
Lhistoire du Pre Goriot est raconte la troisime personne. Donc le narrateur ne fait
pas partie de lhistoire, il est un narrateur-tmoin. Comme un observateur objectif, il nous fournit
son tmoignage sur ce qui s'est pass et cre la ligne thmatique et fictive du rcit. Sur la scne
du roman, il fait couler les vnements et observe les personnages; les ils et les elles, se
parlent, interagissent et se battent. Daprs Roland Barthes, le rcit la troisime personne de
Balzac se donne des caractristiques particulires: Chez Balzac, par exemple, la multiplicit des
il, tout ce vaste rseau de personnes minces par le volume de leur corps, mais consquentes par
la dure de leurs actes, dcle l'existence d'un monde dont l'Histoire est la premire donne. Le
il balzacien n'est pas le terme d'une gestation partie d'un je transform et gnralis; c'est
l'lment originel et brut du roman, le matriau et non le fruit de la cration : il n'y a pas une
histoire balzacienne antrieure l'histoire de chaque troisime personne du roman balzacien.
(Barthes, 1972 - 30)
Le choix de la narration la troisime personne permet au narrateur de jouer plusieurs

rles afin de maintenir tous les fils du rcit dans ses mains; tmoin, observateur externe,
facilitateur, le sait tout, et parfois le spectateur. En outre, il sadresse directement au lecteur en
sautant hors du cycle fictif du roman pour tablir une relation rciproque avec lui/elle : Ainsi
ferez-vous, vous qui tenez ce livre d'une main blanche, vous qui vous enfoncez dans un moelleux
fauteuil en vous disant: Peut-tre ceci va-t-il m'amuser. (Balzac - 48).
Dans Le Pre Goriot, bien que le narrateur se prsente comme la voix narrative dominante
et raconte lhistoire la troisime personne, parfois, certains personnages du roman se
comportent en narrateurs secondaires. Ils se servent de techniques diffrentes comme le
monologue, le dialogue et des lettres crites. Cela peut briser la monotonie dcouter une seule
voix narrative et peut diminuer la dominance du narrateur principal face au lecteur.
Le Dualisme de Narrateur / Lecteur
La relation entre le narrateur et le lecteur dans Le Pre Goriot se donne une particularit
unique. La narration se fonde sur les trois piliers de : narrateur/personnage/lecteur. Le narrateur
se prsente comme un intermdiaire entre les personnages et le lecteur en fournissant ce dernier
des dtails minutieux qui peuvent laider former sa propre image sur les personnages, lintrigue

et le fil des vnements. Ainsi, Todorov se contente dtablir la relation de narrateur/lecteur en

insistant sur le rapport rciproque entre les deux: L'image du narrateur n'est pas une image
solitaire : ds qu'elle apparat, ds la premire page, elle est accompagne de ce qu'on peut
appeler l'image du lecteur. videmment, cette image a aussi peu de rapports avec un lecteur
concret que l'image du narrateur, avec l'auteur vritable. Les deux se trouvent en dpendance
troite l'une de l'autre, et ds que l'image du narrateur commence ressortir plus nettement, le
lecteur imaginaire se trouve lui aussi dessin avec plus de prcision. Ces deux images sont
propres toute uvre de fiction : la conscience de lire un roman et non un document nous engage
jouer le rle de ce lecteur imaginaire et en mme temps apparat le narrateur, celui qui nous
rapporte le rcit, puisque le rcit lui-mme est imaginaire. (Todorov 147).
La relation narrateur/lecteur se manifeste comme une ralit fondamentale de tout rcit.

Elle est une vrit compltement banale; il ny a pas de rcit sans lecteur! son tour, Roland
Barthes se concentre sur la relation structurale narrateur/lecteur et leur rle dans lquation fictive
du rcit : On le sait, dans la communication linguistique, je et tu sont absolument
prsupposs l'un par l'autre; de la mme faon, il ne peut y avoir de rcit sans narrateur et sans
auditeur (ou lecteur). Ceci est peut-tre banal, et cependant encore mal exploit. Certes le rle de
l'metteur a t abondamment paraphras (on tudie l' auteur d'un roman, sans se demander
d'ailleurs s'il est bien le narrateur ), mais lorsqu'on passe au lecteur, la thorie littraire est
beaucoup plus pudique. En fait, le problme n'est pas d'introspecter les motifs du narrateur ni les
effets que la narration produit sur le lecteur; il est de dcrire le code travers lequel narrateur et
lecteur sont signifis le long du rcit lui-mme. (Barthes 1966, 18-19)
Emilie Goin, quant elle, propose de remplacer ce dualisme narrateur/lecteur par un

trinitaire : narrateur /personnage/ lecteur virtuel. Elle souligne limpact de la relation
narrateur/personnage sur la relation lecteur-personnage. Cette thorie suppose que les jugements
que le narrateur pose directement ou indirectement sur le personnage, ont un impact sur le
lecteur. Il se trouve confront lidologie que le narrateur dsire lui faire admettre, et
sinterroge son propre systme de valeurs. De la mme manire, les marques daffect, explicites
ou implicites, peuvent influencer le lecteur en sollicitant son pathos, cest ce que nous appelons
leffet pathmique. Cet effet est gnr, au-del des marques daffect, par le processus
didentification, qui peut prendre diverses formes selon les procds nonciatifs et narratifs
utiliss. Des effets escompts sur le lecteur dpendent aussi les choix des mcanismes de prise en
charge des paroles, penses et perceptions du personnage par le narrateur. (Goin,, 25 2013).
LEffet de Distanciation
La notion de "Verfremdungs effekt" (effet de distanciation, d'loignement ou d'tranget)

est attache au dramaturge allemand Bertolt Brecht qui la thoris au thtre interdisant
l'acteur l'identification son personnage et ainsi imposant au spectateur de prendre ses distances
par rapport au personnage et au spectacle quil regarde. Pour Jean-Luc Michel, cette thorie
dfinira une distance critique devant permettre aux spectateurs de parvenir leur libration
sociale et politique collective (Jean-Luc Michel - 5).

Leffet de distanciation est un procd utilis dans le cadre dune narration fictionnelle,
ayant pour objectif dinterrompre le processus naturel didentification du lecteur ou du spectateur
aux personnages auxquels il est confront. Donc, Ce procd peut tre utilis dans toute forme de
narration, soit au thtre, en littrature, la tlvision ou au cinma.
Roland Barthes souligne limportance de la thorie brechtienne fournir un rle plus

efficace lart dans la socit; Quoi qu'on dcide finalement sur Brecht, il faut du moins
marquer l'accord de sa pense avec les grands thmes progressistes de notre poque : savoir que
les maux des hommes sont entre les mains des hommes eux-mmes, c'est--dire que le monde est
maniable ; que l'art peut et doit intervenir dans l'histoire ; qu'il doit aujourd'hui concourir aux
mmes tches que les sciences, dont il est solidaire ; qu'il nous faut dsormais un art de
l'explication, et non plus seulement un art de l'expression. (Barthes, 1964 - 52)
Au thtre, Brecht se servait de tous les moyens et toutes les techniques qui laidaient
abattre la notion du quatrime mur, celui qui annulait la prsence du public dans la salle. Il
exigeait de lacteur de montrer le caractre jou au lieu de le vivre. Afin datteindre ce but, les
acteurs des pices de Brecht tablissaient des dialogues vifs avec les spectateurs dans la salle
pour interrompre le processus didentification.
Dans Le Pre Goriot, Balzac russit obliger le lecteur rester hors de lambiance
romanesque du rcit et solliciter son esprit critique en observant les vnements au lieu de se
mler dans les actions et les ractions des personnages. Il a utilis des techniques et mthodes
diverses pour atteindre ce but : narration la troisime personne, entretien direct avec le lecteur,
intervention directe ou indirecte, multiplication des voix narratives, discours explicatifs et
justificatifs et expression de jugements et de commentaires personnels.
Le choix de la narration la troisime personne accrot la neutralisation du lecteur par

rapport au narrateur et aux personnages. Le lecteur se sent moins attir partager la situation
motionnelle et idologique du narrateur, au contraire des rcits raconts la premire personne
je o le lecteur est encourag sidentifier au narrateur/personnage et partager avec lui toutes
ses motions et ses expriences en devenant le tu dune conversation naturelle comme le
constate Batrice Bloch : Or, dans le cas d'un texte crit la premire personne, o la voix
s'entend d'autant plus qu'elle feint la communication orale avec son lecteur, le rcit ne charrie-t-il
pas inluctablement une identification minimale du lecteur au narrateur-personnage? (Batrice
Bloch, -10.1).
La narration la troisime personne nest pas le seul aspect qui produit leffet de
distanciation dans le roman, en plus du choix de la voix narrative, le narrateur du Pre Goriot se
sert dune autre technique narrative, celle de ladresse directe au lecteur, pour empcher le lecteur
de sidentifier au narrateur ou aux personnages. On pourrait retrouver plusieurs instants, au fil du
rcit, o le narrateur interpelle directement le lecteur utilisant le pronom de la deuxime personne
vous : Ainsi ferez-vous, vous qui tenez ce livre d'une main blanche, vous qui vous enfoncez
dans un moelleux fauteuil en vous disant: Peut-tre ceci va-t-il m'amuser. Aprs avoir lu les
secrtes infortunes du pre Goriot, vous dnerez avec apptit en mettant votre insensibilit sur le

compte de l'auteur, en le taxant d'exagration, en l'accusant de posie. Ah! Sachez-le: ce drame

n'est ni une fiction, ni un roman. All istrue, il est si vritable, que chacun peut en reconnatre les
lments chez soi, dans son cur peut-tre. (48-49).
Ce passage choque le lecteur et le tire obligatoirement hors de lambiance de lhistoire

pour le mettre en face dune voix dfiante qui laccuse dindiffrence et dinsensibilit, le
narrateur se tire lui aussi de lunivers fictionnel du rcit pour tablir un entretien direct avec le
lecteur en le mettant dans une position de vrification et dobservation critique. Bien que le
narrateur revendique constamment la vraisemblance de lhistoire quil raconte nest ni une
fiction, ni un roman. All istrue, il est si vritable, en mme temps, il affirme que le lecteur nest
pas devant un univers rel, que ce nest quun drame quil tient dune main blanche ! Par cette
interpellation, le narrateur cre leffet de distanciation en empchant le lecteur de sidentifier aux
personnages auxquels il est confront.
Bien que le lecteur apparaisse comme un interlocuteur silencieux dont on nentend pas le
discours dans cet entretien, il sexprime en se donnant un rle critique lgard de tout ce qui se
passe sur la scne. Chaque lecteur se pose des questions diffrentes sur les thmes, les
personnages, les descriptions, les vnements et les relations entre tous ces lments.
Au moment o le narrateur interpelle les lecteurs directement, il les classifie en deux

groupes gographiques, les parisiens entre les buttes de Montmartre et les hauteurs de
Montrouge , et ceux au-del de Paris. Chaque groupe de narrataires est caractris
diffremment; le deuxime groupe est dcrit comme ignorant des ralits parisiennes qui feront
lobjet du rcit, tandis que le premier groupe auquel le lecteur la main blanche appartient est
caractris par l insensibilit . Christine Montalbetti tente dillustrer cette classification des
narrataires : Il y a donc dans cette ouverture des narrataires anti-modles, mais le passage se
clt sur lvocation du bon narrataire. On ne peut donc pas tirer de ce passage la conclusion que
le narrataire est toujours une contre-figure : il semble seulement, ce stade, que leffet varie, que
le narrataire tantt fasse figure danti-modle, tantt de modle, sans quil y ait aucune stabilit
du processus. (Christine Montalbetti, 11 2004).
Parfois, le narrateur traite le lecteur comme un partenaire du processus narratif, comme

un(e) ami(e) assis(e) la mme table; Eh bien! Malgr ces plates horreurs, si vous le compariez
la salle manger, qui lui est contigu, vous trouveriez ce salon lgant et parfum comme doit
l'tre un boudoir. (53) Vous y verriez un baromtre capucin qui sort quand il pleut, (54 ).
Bernard Dort met laccent sur leffet de distanciation qui se produit travers le jeu
thtral au cours de lentretien entre lacteur et le spectateur. Ainsi, la fonction de
lacteur/narrateur est de rappeler le public/lecteur quil est toujours devant un jeu
thtral/romanesque : Nous sommes au thtre : ni les comdiens ni le public ne doivent
l'oublier. La fonction de l'acteur n'est pas seulement de jouer son personnage : elle est aussi de
mdiation. Qu'il se montre jouant. Qu'il ne craigne pas de laisser percer dans son jeu mme le
jugement qu'il porte sur le personnage. Car il appartient aussi la salle : il est en quelque sorte le
dlgu de la salle sur la scne. Un spectateur en action. (DORT, 196-197).

Le narrateur du Pre Goriot, non seulement interpelle le lecteur, mais il intervient souvent
dans les vnements dpassant son rle principal de narration lhistoire, en se prenant pour un
juge qui prsente des jugements et des commentaires personnels. Eric Bordas note que La
dmarche du narrateur procde toujours du particulier vers le gnral, de lindividuel vers
luniversel. La fiction est pour lui prtexte tirer des conclusions, dgager des thories sur la
vie, sur les hommes le narrateur juge sa fiction et pose son jugement comme une norme de
rfrence. (Bordas 193).
Telle intervention idologique interrompt le processus de lecture forant le lecteur

sinterroger sur lidentit de cette voix jugeante. Cela reprsente un instant de distancier le lecteur
du rythme ordinaire du rcit et de linstaller dans une position de rflexion. Lintervention et les
commentaires constants du narrateur se manifestent comme un outil efficace pour avertir le
lecteur quil est tout le temps devant une uvre littraire : en 1819, poque laquelle ce drame
commence, il s'y trouvait une pauvre jeune fille. En quelque discrdit que soit tomb le mot
drame par la manire abusive et tortionnaire dont il a t prodigu dans ces temps de douloureuse
littrature, il est ncessaire de l'employer ici: non que cette histoire soit dramatique dans le sens
vrai du mot; mais, l'uvre accomplie, peut-tre aura-t-on vers quelques larmes intra-muros et
extra. (47-48).
Dans le passage prcdant, il y a tant de mots et expressions qui invitent le lecteur

rflchir et qui sollicitent son esprit critique. Nous pouvons y souligner les expressions comme :
ce drame commence, douloureuse littrature, non que cette histoire soit dramatique, peut-tre
aura-t-on vers quelques larmes intra-muros et extra.
Le lecteur peut noter plus de passages, au fil du roman, qui voquent sa vision
dinvestigateur et crent leffet de distanciation, par exemple :
A l'poque o cette histoire commence, les internes taient au nombre de sept. (56)
Aussi, vers la fin du mois de novembre 1819, poque laquelle clata ce drame, chacun
dans la pension avait-il des ides arrtes sur le pauvre vieillard. (80).
Genette rclame que telle intervention et tels commentaires ont une fonction didactique et
mme idologue dans les romans de Balzac : Mais les interventions, directes ou indirectes, du
narrateur l'gard de l'histoire peuvent aussi prendre la forme plus didactique d'un commentaire
autoris de l'action: ici s'affirme ce qu'on pourrait appeler La fonction idologique du narrateur et
l'on sait combien Balzac, par exemple, a dvelopp cette forme de discours explicatif et
justificatif, vhicule chez lui, comme chez tant d'autres, de la motivation raliste. (Genette
262-263).
Dans Le Pre Goriot de Balzac, leffet de distanciation se produit non seulement par
ladresse directe du narrateur au lecteur mais aussi par la varit de voix narratives. Multiplier les
narrateurs et dlguer les personnages eux-mmes, pour raconter leurs histoires ou celles des
autres, brise lharmonie, et parfois la monotonie, davoir une seule voix narrative tout au long du
roman. Donc, le narrateur du Pre Goriot engage les personnages du roman dans le processus de
narration pour ajouter plus de crdibilit l'histoire raconte. Ainsi, Christophe raconte son

histoire avec le monsieur qui linterrogeait pour dcouvrir lidentit de Rastignac : Oui, j'ai
rencontr il y a quelques jours un monsieur dans la rue, qui m'a dit:- N'est-ce pas chez vous que
demeure un gros monsieur qui a des favoris qu'il teint? Moi j'ai dit: " Non, monsieur, il ne les
teint pas. Un homme gai comme lui, il n'en a pas le temps. J'ai donc dit a monsieur Vautrin,
qui m'a rpondu: Tu as bien fait, mon garon! Rponds toujours comme a. Rien n'est plus
dsagrable que de laisser connatre nos infirmits. a peut faire manquer des mariages. (90)
Ou quand Madame Couture raconte lhistoire de la fille de Goriot : La petite s'est jete
alors aux pieds de son pre, et lui a dit avec courage qu'elle n'insistait autant que pour sa mre,
qu'elle obirait ses volonts sans murmure, mais qu'elle le suppliait de lire le testament de la
pauvre dfunte; elle a pris la lettre et la lui a prsente en disant les plus belles choses du monde
et les mieux senties, je ne sais pas o elle les a prises, Dieu les lui dictait, car la pauvre enfant
tait si bien inspire qu'en l'entendant, moi, je pleurais comme une bte. (102).
Parmi les techniques narratives dont se sert le narrateur du Pre Goriot et qui peuvent
produire leffet de distanciation, il y a les lettres. Citer les lettres dEugne sa mre et celles de
sa mre et sa sur aine en plus des lettres de madame de Nucingen, brise le rythme de la voix du
narrateur principal et cre une atmosphre diffrente pleine dintimit et dmotions : Sais-tu
comment nous avons fait pour obir tes commandements, nous avons pris notre glorieux argent,
nous sommes alles nous promener toutes deux, et quand une fois nous avons eu gagn la grande
route, nous avons couru Ruffec, o nous avons tout bonnement donn la somme monsieur
Grimbert, qui tient le bureau des Messageries royales! Nous tions lgres comme des
hirondelles en revenant. Est-ce que le bonheur nous allgerait? me dit Agathe. Nous nous
sommes dit mille choses que je ne vous rpterai pas, monsieur le Parisien, il tait trop question
de vous. Oh! Cher frre, nous t'aimons bien, voil tout en deux mots. (151).
Monsieur, mon pre m'a dit que vous aimiez la musique italienne. Je serais
heureuse si vous vouliez me faire le plaisir d'accepter une place dans ma loge. Nous
aurons samedi la Fodor et Pellegrini, je suis sre alors que vous ne me refuserez pas.
Monsieur de Nucingen se joint moi pour vous prier de venir dner avec nous sans
crmonie. Si vous acceptez, vous le rendrez bien content de n'avoir pas s'acquitter
de sa corve conjugale en m'accompagnant. Ne me rpondez pas, venez, et agrez
mes compliments. D. de N. (200)
Ainsi, couper la voix coulante du narrateur dominant et permettre aux personnages de

sexprimer ou se communiquer directement via des lettres, tire le lecteur de sa zone de confort et
lengage dans un processus de recherche et une tentative de reconnaitre la nouvelle voix narrative
et de dcoder le message quelle transmet.
Conclusion
Un grand nombre de critiques et de chercheurs qui tudiaient les uvres romanesques de

Balzac s'intressaient peut-tre plus aux caractristiques et aux thmes ralistes qu' l'analyse
stylistique ou la narratologie dans ses romans. Pour certains, leffet de rel produit de ses tudes
de murs et ses descriptions photographiques de lunivers rel; par exemple la description

minutieuse de la pension Vauquerau dbut du Pre Goriot, est considr comme laspect le plus
marquant de ses uvres romanesques.
Balzac est raliste ou pas, a dpend de la manire dont on lit ses romans. Isabelle
Tournier le formule parfaitement : Balzac est raliste par son attention tous les lments de la
civilisation matrielle et par leur intgration fonctionnelle au romanesque, par la mise en relation,
du physique au moral, du social et de l'intime, du public et du priv. Il parvient crer l'illusion
du rel, c'est dire faire croire une ralit du vrai, en le rendant fictionnellement possible.
(Tournier)
Soit raliste ou visionnaire, Balzac sattache lart romanesque et ses techniques. Dans Le
Pre Goriot, il se sert de techniques narratives uniques qui produisent leffet de distanciation,
afin dobliger le lecteur rester hors du cycle fictif du rcit et adapter une position critique des
vnements et des personnages auxquels il est confront. Plus tard au XXe sicle, cette technique
a t applique et formule comme une thorie thtrale et littraire par le dramaturge allemand
Bertolt Brecht.
travers la distanciation, le narrateur balzacien ne permet pas au lecteur ni de sidentifier

aux personnages du rcit, ni daccepter les vnements comme une ralit indiscutable. En plus,
il lencourage jouer un rle actif et efficace pour analyser les thmes et les messages directs et
indirects du rcit.

Rfrences
-Balzac, Honor de. Le Pre Goriot. Paris, Les Classiques de Poche, 1995.
-Barthes, Roland. La rvolution brechtienne, Essais critiques. Paris : Seuil, 1964.
-Barthes, Roland. Introduction l'analyse structurale des rcits . Communications 8. Paris :

Seuil, 1966.
-Barthes, Roland. Le degr zro de l'criture. Paris : Seuil, 1972.
-Bloch, Batrice. Voix du narrateur et identification du lecteur . Cahiers de Narratologie, 10.1

2001
-Bordas, ric. Balzac, discours et dtours: pour une stylistique de l'nonciation romanesque,
Presse Universitaires du Mirail, 2003
-Dort, Bernard. Lecture de Brecht. Paris : Seuil, 1960.
-Genette, Grard. Figure III .Paris : Seuil, 1972.
-Goin, Emilie. Narrateur, personnage et lecteur. Pragmatique des subjectivmes relationnels,

des points de vue nonciatifs et de leur dialogisme , Cahiers de Narratologie, 25 | 2013
-Michel, Jean-Luc. La Distanciation: essai sur la socit mdiatique, La Gense de la
Distanciation, Harmattan, 1992.
-Montalbetti, Christine. Narrataire et lecteur : deux instances autonomies . Cahiers de

Narratologie, 11, 2004.
-Todorov, Tzvetan. Les catgories du rcit littraire . Communications, 8. Paris : Seuil, I966.
-Tournier Isabelle. Balzac, La Comdie humaine,
http://www.v1.paris.fr/commun/v2asp/musees/balzac/furne/fiches/realiste.htm

Cohesion in the Descriptive Writing of EFL Undergraduates
Wafa Ismail Saud

King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia
Abstract
In EFL context, writing is the most difficult skill to master. Saudi students of English, find it very
difficult to construct a coherent written essay in English. The difficulties lie not only in the poor
organization, the inappropriate thesis statement, the inadequacy of providing examples and
details, the limited vocabulary but also the misuse of cohesive devices. Cohesion and coherence
are considered as the two important features of good writing. So much attention should be paid
to generating and organizing ideas in general and to the role of cohesive devices in particular.
This study will make an important contribution to the basic issue in educational research, as it
will provide a description of cohesive devices used in descriptive compositions written by Saudi
University Students majoring in English. It is expected that the study might help to determine the
relation between the use of cohesive devices and the quality of writing. It also specifies the
common characteristics that the students share with regard to the choice and use of cohesive
devices. An understanding of students' use of cohesive devices can help pave the way for
preparation of writing course materials and upgrading of teaching and learning process to best
suit the learners of English in Saudi Arabia.
The technique for eliciting information employed was an achievement test. A sample of 50 Saudi
female students was asked to write essays in English that were assessed by the researcher. The
students were all majoring in English in the third year. Halliday and Hassan's (1976) model was
selected as the most comprehensive framework for the analysis of the cohesive features in the
student's writing. Analysis of the data consisted of investigating the relationship of these devices
with scores of writing.
The study concluded by bringing together the key findings, recommendations for EFL teachers
and suggested areas for further research.
Keywords: Cohesive Devices, Cohesion and Quality Writing, Reference, Substitution,

Ellipses, Conjunction, Lexical cohesion

Introduction
Cohesion is a crucial feature to be used in writing. Halliday and Hasan (1976) say that the
text is a unit of language in use. It is not only a grammatical unit but also a semantic one.
Cohesion is a semantic concept, "it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and
that define it as a text" (Halliday and Hasan 1976:4). It is expressed through the grammar and
vocabulary. Cohesion features are the properties that distinguish a text from a disconnected
sequence of sentences.
Statement of the Problem
Writing is the most difficult skill to master in EFL context. EFL learners face serious
problems when they write. They are unaware of the mechanics of coherence and cohesion,
besides they face problems in generating and organizing ideas. The problems can be attributed to
the fact that students in schools are not well trained in English writing. Teachers at schools focus
on the sentence level more than the discourse level and thus they do not emphasize such cohesive
devices. Cohesion and coherence are considered as the two important features of good writing.
So much attention should be paid to generating and organizing ideas in general and to the role of
cohesive devices particularly.
Research Objectives
There are three goals of this study:

To identify the frequency of each category of cohesive devices used in
descriptive compositions of third-year English majors at king Khalid University.
To examine the relationship between the number and type of cohesive
devices used and the quality of the same descriptive composition.
To come up with recommendations that could improve EFL writing.
Significance of the Study
This study will make an important contribution to a basic issue in educational research, as
it will provide a description of cohesive devices used in descriptive compositions written by
Saudi university students majoring in English. It is expected that the study might help to
determine the relation between the use of cohesive devices and the quality of writing. An
understanding of students use of cohesive devices can help pave the way for preparation of
writing course materials and upgrading of teaching and learning process to best suit the learners
of English in Saudi Arabia.
This study is presented in four sections: Section 1 presents an introduction of the study,
statement of the problem, objectives and finally significance of the study. Section 2 presents a
review of relevant literature that provides readers with the theoretical foundation and applied
perspectives of this study. Section 3 presents the methodology and design of the study and
explains the data gathering procedures .The discussion and conclusion are reported in section 4.

Literature Review
Some of the important features of English writing are cohesion and coherence. Cohesion
is a semantic relation that is realized through the lexicogrammatical system of a text (Halliday
and Hasan 1976). Coherence refers to connectedness of ideas for lack of connectedness would
make a text difficult to read or unreadable (Brostoff, 1981). Halliday and Hassan (1976)
framework of cohesive devices are divided into different kinds such as reference, substitution,
ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion. This framework was used by researchers and teachers
to describe the cohesive devices used by EFL and ESL learners.
1. Reference, it is "the relation between an element of the text and something

else by reference to which it is interpreted in the given instance" (Halliday and Hasan:
1976:308). Reference is divided into three types, personal pronouns, demonstrative
reference and comparative reference.
a. Personal pronouns: I, my, you, he, she, it, they, we, our, yours, their,
us,etc.
b. Demonstrative reference: this, that, these, those, then, now, them, those.
c. Comparative reference: it is used to compare similarities between items in
a text.
2. Substitution, it occurs when there is a replacement of one item by another.
Ramasawmy (2004) divided substitution into three types:
a. Nominal such as (there is one there).
b. Verbal such as "do" and its various forms. (He does too).
c. Clausal such as (the manager said so).
3. Ellipses, it refers to "the omission of an item" (Halliday and Hasan
1976:88).
Ramasawmy (2004) divided Ellipses into three types:
a. Nominal Ellipses, nouns are deleted as they are understood from the
context.
b. Verbal ellipses, verbs are deleted as they are understood from the context.
c. Clausal ellipses, clauses are omitted as they are understood from the
context. They are used in yes/no questions.
4. Conjunction, it involves the use of conjunctive ties. Halliday and Hasan
(1976) divided conjunction into five categories:
a. Additive such as "and, or, furthermore, similarly, in addition, moreover,
besides...etc".
b. Adversative such as "but, however, on the other hand, never the less, yet,
etc"
c. Causal such as "so, consequently, for this reason, it follows from this, etc."
d. Temporal such as "then, after, that, an hour later, finally, at last, etc"
e. Continuative such as "after all".
5. Lexical cohesion, it is divided into four typs:
a. Repetition
b. Synonymy

c. Antonymy
d. Collocation
In general, coherence is achieved when the argument is presented in a clear, logical and
comprehensible order. Researchers have given considerable attention to how EFL learners write
and what problems do they face. Some came to similar findings while others have been
contradictory.
Abusharkh (2112) conducted a study on cohesion and coherence in the argumentative

essay writing of 60 Palastenian College Students. Cohesive ties were identified, counted and
described in terms of the type of cohesion are represented by Halliday and Hasan (1976).
Participants 'level was categorized as high, intermediate, and low. Results revealed that the three
groups tend to use lexical devices but rarely used substitution and ellipses. Moreover,
intermediate and low level students overused reiteration as a cohesive device more than the high
level students. Furthermore, intermediate and low level students used language transfer that
impedes cohesion and coherence.
Kargozari etal.( 2012 )conducted a study to investigate the use of cohesive devices in 180
compositions (argumentative, descriptive, and expository) written by Iranian EFL university
students. Results indicated that the lexical devices were used most in the student's writing
followed by references and conjunctions. Moreover, certain problems such as misuse, overuse,
and restriction of reference, conjunction and lexical devices were identified in the students'
compositions.
Wenxing and Ying (2012) examined the use of cohesive devices in argumentative writing
by Chinese EFL Learners at different proficiency levels. Results showed that Chinese EFL
learners significantly used different incorrect cohesive items. Besides, the correct use of cohesive
devices correlated significantly positively with the writing quality.
Sayidina (2010) attempted to explain the interference of first language in the acquisition
of second language. She examined the use of cohesive devices and transition words in fifty
Arabic academic research papers in comparison with English compositions written by Arab
students. Results supported both sub-parts of the hypothesis as stated in native Arabic text with
reference to Arab culture that additive transition words had the highest percentage of use in
English compositions; furthermore, the repetition of the same noun is used more frequently than
grammatical cohesion.
Chen (2008) focused in his study on the relationship between the number of cohesive
features and writing quality. He examined 46 essays collected from 23 EFL undergraduates.
Results indicated that lexical devices were used most followed by reference devices and
conjunctions. In addition, the study showed no significant relationship between the number of
cohesive devices and writing quality.
In a study investigating the difficulties of EFL Arab students in processing four types of
cohesive ties, reference, conjunction, substitution and ellipsis, Al-Jarf (2001) asked students to

read a text to identify all cohesive ties and write the referent or substitute of each anaphor. Then
she asked the students to list all the conjunctions in the text and supply the ellipted words or
phrases. The results indicated that substitution was the most difficult cohesive tie o process
followed by reference and ellipses, whereas conjunction was the easiest.
Similarly, Al-Shatarat (1990) examined the use of cohesive devices by Jordanian

intermediate community college students in the English language section. 100 students were
asked to sit for two tests. In the first test, students had to choose the best answer of 57 multiple
choice items. The second test consisted of about 500 words with 28 blanks. Students were asked
to fill in these blanks by using cohesive devices drawn from their own language experience. The
findings indicated that nearly 42% of the student's answers were erroneous or inappropriate due
to misuse of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices.
Khalil (1989) conducted a study to investigate the use of cohesive devices used in the
essay writing of Arab college students. The results indicated that students' writing was incoherent
due to the insufficient information about the topic. In addition, students overuse reiteration of the
same lexical item as a cohesive device, and underused other lexical and grammatical cohesive
links.
Kharma (1985) conducted a study to investigate the problems of Arab students in writing
compositions in English. He examined the differences between the cohesive devices students
employ in composing cohesive texts both in Arabic and English. The findings showed that all
types of mistakes and irregular ties in the students' writing were nearly due to negative transfer
from Arabic.
Methodology
Data gathering procedures involved using a variety of measures to collect both

quantitative and qualitative data. The techniques for eliciting information employed were
achievement test. Fifty essays were collected from King Khalid University students and assessed
by the researcher. Halliday and Hassan's (1976) model was selected as the most comprehensive
framework for the analysis of the cohesive features in students' writing. Analysis of the data
consisted of investigating the relationship of these devices with score of writing.
Participants
The participants in this study were 50 female undergraduate students from King Khalid
University, Saudi Arabia. Their ages range between 18 and 20. They were all majoring in English
in the third year. The reason for selecting them was that, since they had taken the required writing
courses, they were familiar with preliminary writing rules and skills. It is believed that they are
more proficient in English writing than freshmen or sophomores and consequently can produce
well-organized and coherent essays.

Research design
In the first stage, the subjects were asked to write the compositions in the descriptive
mode. The topic of compositions was, 'Describe your Childhood". It is chosen because nearly all
the students had some experience or knowledge about their childhood. The students only had
sixty minutes to complete the task for each composition. They were asked to write 150 to 200
words for each composition.
In the second stage, the compositions produced by the participants were scored first by the
researcher and then by another rater. The researcher employed Analytic scoring. The scale was
from 0-10. The researcher prepared a list of features such as content, cohesion, coherence,
vocabulary, grammar, to assess the test and then allots two-points for each of these features that
the learner performs correctly.
In the third stage, Halliday and Hassan's (1976) model was selected as the most
comprehensive framework for the analysis of the cohesive features in the students' writing.
Descriptive statistical procedures were employed for data analysis such as score, means,
percentages and frequencies.
Finally, an investigation on the relationship of the devices with scores of writing was
conducted. This was done respectively through the use of correlation. Correlation was computed
between the numerical scores of the compositions and the frequency of cohesive devices for each.
Discussion and Conclusion
In the data analysis procedures, the findings from the achievement test, was divided into
the following components:
1. Description of the frequency of each category of cohesive devices used in

descriptive compositions of third-year English majors at King Khalid University.
2. The influence of performance level on the choice of cohesive devices.
3. Recommendations that could improve EFL writing.
Description of the frequency of each category of cohesive devices used in descriptive

compositions of third-year English majors at King Khalid University is given. Analysis of the
data obtained from the compositions, indicated that EFL students in this study used a variety of
language cohesive devices, with some devices being used more frequently than others are. These
devices were divided into five categories.

Table 1 lists the cohesive devices that were used by EFL students, their types, frequencies,
mean scores and ranks.
Cohesive Device Frequency Mean Rank

Reference 2475 78.8 1
7%
Conjunction 559 17.8 2
1%
Lexical 93 2.96 3
%
Substitution 9 0.29 4
%
Ellipsis 2 0.06 5
%
Data shows that out of the 3138 cohesive devices used, the cohesive devices used at a
high level were "Reference" 2475 (78.87%), followed by "Conjunction" 559 (17.81%), then
"Lexical" 93 (2.96%), and finally, the least frequent ones were "substitution" 9 (0.29%) and
"Ellipsis" 2 (0.06%).
Table 2 lists the types of "Reference" that were used by EFL students, their frequencies,
Reference Frequency Mean Rank

Personal Pronouns 1940 78.3 1
8%
Demonstrative 497 20.0 2
Reference 8%
Comparative 38 1.54 3
Reference %
Data shows that out of 2475 "Reference" devices, "Personal Pronouns" 1940(78.38), were
used most frequently, followed by "Demonstrative Reference" 497(20.08) and the least frequent
of the references used was "Comparative 38(1.54).
Table 3 lists the types of "Lexical Devices" that were used by EFL students and
their frequencies, mean scores and ranks.
Lexical Frequency Mean Rank

Collocation 49 52.6 1
9%
Antonymy 18 19.3 2
5%
Synonymy 14 15.0 3

5%
Repetition 12 12.9 4
0%
Table 3 demonstrates that out of 93 "Lexical" devices, "Collocation 49(52.69) was used
most frequently, followed by "Antonymy"18(19.35), then "Synonymy" 14 (15.05) and the least
frequent was "Repetition"12 (12.90).
In general, the findings indicated that EFL students use "Reference" devices that include
"Personal Pronouns", "Demonstrative and Comparative" references as the most frequently. This
contradicts the finding of Khalil (1989).this is maybe due to the intensive courses of Grammar.
Students receive formal instruction of Grammar for four levels, while they study Vocabulary
Building for two levels only. On the other hand, students overuse "Conjunctions" to connect their
sentences as a result of their weak vocabulary. Despite that, students rely more on "Collocation",
"Synonymy" and "Antonymy" more than "Repetition". This implies that they develop a certain
amount of vocabulary to form a unified text and do not resort to the use of "Repetition" to write a
cohesive text. This indicates that "Repetition" decreases with grade level. In sum, teachers should
bring to the learners' awareness that cohesion in their writing is achieved through the use of
different types of cohesive devices.
The influence of performance level on the choice of cohesive devices
The total number of cohesive devices used in the compositions of both groups were
counted and compared.
Table 4 lists the cohesive devices that were used by EFL Good Student, their types,
frequencies, mean scores and ranks.

3%
9%
Lexical 56 4.81 3
%
%
Ellipsis 1 0.09 5
%
The findings indicated that out of the 1165 cohesive devices used, Good students used
"Reference" 909 (78.03%) most frequently, "Conjunction 191 (16.39%) , "Lexical 56 (4.81%),
"Substitution" 8(0.69%), and the least frequent cohesive devices used was "Ellipsis"1(0.09%).

Table 5 lists the cohesive devices that were used by EFL students, their types, frequencies,

7%
4%
Lexical 37 4.26 3
%
%
Ellipsis 1 0.12 4
%
The findings indicated that out of the 868 cohesive devices used, Weak students used
"Reference" 682 (78.57%) most frequently, "Conjunction" 147 (16.94%), "Lexical" 37 (4.26%),
and the least frequent devices used were "Substitution" and "Ellipsis" 1(0.12%)
In summary, the findings reveal that "Good students" used more cohesive devices in their
writings compared to weak students and this supports the findings of Chen (2008). The
"Reference" devices were the most extensive used categories of cohesion in the writing of both
groups Good and Weak students. This finding contradicts the results of the studies Kargozari
etal.( 2012 )and Al-Jarf (2001).However, in spite of studying two courses in Vocabulary
Building", the use of lexis is not frequently used by EFL students. The lexical items that involve
the meaning, they are the principal components of any composition; they are used less than
reference by both groups. This means that this area needs improvement. Students should be
aware of the role of lexis in the connectedness in their writing. Besides the weak students
demonstrated a greater use of repetitions more than the Good students did. The great majority of
the lexical devices were "Collocation. The frequency of the use of "Synonyms" and "Antonyms"
were the same by Good and Weak students. Teachers can develop the use of synonymy and
antonymy by giving some activities on paraphrasing or summarizing. With regard to
"Conjunction", although students use them frequently, however, they favour only those
commonly used items such as "and, but, or, after, also, or and so on, whereas the items
"furthermore, in addition, moreover, besides, nevertheless, seldom occur. The least frequent
cohesive devices used by both groups were "Substitution" and "Ellipsis" and this finding is
supported by the results of Abusharkh (2112).
Recommendations that could improve EFL writing
Much improvement should be done in the teaching of writing. Consciousness-raising

training could be given to learners on cohesion devices. Teachers should allocate some marks to
the correct use of cohesive devices in the marking criteria and explain it to the students so they
know what to emphasize when writing in English. Students can be asked to write a paragraph

using variety of cohesive devices as they contribute to the quality of writing. It is essential to
incorporate reading into writing in order to enhance students' awareness of coherence and
cohesion (Heller, 1999). In addition, teachers should help students develop their vocabulary by
engaging them in some vocabulary activities such as word association and grouping. Students can
be trained to paraphrase words or phrases to develop the use of synonyms and antonyms. Further
studies can investigate the effectiveness of explicit instruction of cohesion during writing courses.
Another area can be investigated the similarities and differences in the use of cohesive devices of
both Arabic and English.

References
-Abusharkh, B. (2012). Cohesion and Coherence in the Essay Writing of Palestinian College
Students. Thesis: Hebron University
-Al-Shatarat, Y.(1990) Errors in Cohesive Devices Made by Jordanion Intermediate Community

College Students in the English Language Specialization. Thesis: University of Jordan.
-Al- Jarf, R. 2001. Processing of Cohesive Devices by EFL Arab College Students. Foreign
Language Annals 34, (2)141150.
-Brostoff, A.(1981).Coherence: Next to is not Connected to" .College Composition and

Communication, 32 (2) 278-294.
-Chen, Y. (2008). An Investigation of EFL Students Use of Cohesive Devices. Thesis: National
Tsing Hua University, 93.
-Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
-Heller, M. (1999). Reading-Writing Connections: From Theory to Ppractice. (2nd Ed.). NY:
Longman.
-Kargozari, R. ,et al.(2012). Cohesive Devices in Argumentative, Descriptive, and Expository

Writing Produced by Iranian EFL University Students: Modern Journal of Language Teaching
Methods. 2(3).
-Khalil, A. (1989). A Study of Cohesion and Coherence in Arab EFL Collage Students' Writing.
System, 17(3), 359-371.
-Kharma, N.(1985) Problems of Writing Composition in EFL. Abhath Al-Yarmouk, 3(1) 7-29.
-Sayidina, A. (2010) Transfer of L1 Cohesive Devices and Transition Words into L2 Academic
Texts: The Case of Arab Students. RELC Journal, 41 (3), p253.
-Ramasawmy.N. (2004). Conjunctive Cohesion and Relational Coherence In Students

Compositions. Thesis: University Of South Africa.
-Wenxing, Y. & Ying, S. (2012). The Use of Cohesive Devices in Argumentative Writing by
Chinese EFL Learners at Different Proficiency Levels. Linguistics and Education, 23(1), 31-48.

The Backlash of 9/11 on Muslims in Mohsin Hamids The Reluctant

Fundamentalist
Isam Shihada
Al Aqsa University, Gaza Strip, Palestine
Abstract
This paper examines how Muslims are harshly treated after the backlash of 9/11 in in Mohsin
Hamids novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist and how they become victims and legitimate
targets of hate crimes, negative media stereotypes, physical beatings, disappearance, racial
profiling, interrogations at American airports, and detentions in secret places. It addresses how
such treatment sheds light on the questions of Muslim integration in the American society,
citizenship, multiculturalism, identity, and alienation, belonging, and national affiliation. It also
disrupts the dominant American official discourse, which links Islam with terror and portrays
Muslims as potential terrorists and a threat to America and values of Western civilization. I also
argue that Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist offers a counter literary response not only to
the American public rhetoric but also to the dominant literary discourses that prevailed after
9/11, inflamed the American sentiments, and consolidated stereotypes against Islam and
Muslims. The study concludes that Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist renders a stark
warning message, through its character (Changez) that the harsh treatment of Muslims,
American domineering policies, and the blind War on Terror will force many ordinary Muslims
to relinquish the American Dream, like Changez, and turn into radicals. The study also reveals
that the American reaction toward Muslims after the tragic attacks on 9/11 have been blind,
indiscriminate, and disproportionate to such an extent that the very concept of multiculturalism
on which the American society is based is threatened. The American society will be prone to
internal fissures and disintegration if they fail to accept the Other and fail to stop blaming all
Muslims for few isolated tragic incidents that they are not actually responsible for. Finally, the
research concludes that the mistreatment of Muslims, promotion of Islamophobia, and the War
on Terror that followed 9/11 may lead to the exclusion and alienation of Muslims in America,
disintegration of the American multicultural society, and the rise of Islamic radical groups such
as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Keywords: Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Muslims, post-9/11 fiction, War on

Terror

Introduction
The 9/11 attacks1 in the United States of America arguably mark a turning point in
shaping America into pre- and post-9/11 America. There have been many changes following
these tragic attacks, which have left their tragic impact on the Muslim world and affected the
lives of Muslims and facilitated negative stereotypes about American Muslims, Arabs, and Islam.
Hence, Islam and the Islamic world had subsequently become the target of President George
Bushs War on Terror,2 launched under the pretext of promoting democracy.
When it comes to the question of terror, terrorism can be coined as the unlawful use or
threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property
with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological
purposes (Lansford, Watson, & Covarrubias, 2009, p.2). Yet, it is hard to pin down a definite
definition of terrorism because there are many incidents that can be called terrorist actions, such
as bombings, assassinations, and kidnappings. Furthermore, a person who is seen as a terrorist by
one group of people may be viewed in the eyes of his own people as a freedom fighter.
Therefore, terrorism is arguably an abstract enemy or a worldwide plague that has no definite
borders.
The tragedy of September 11, 2001 has arguably fueled and given the Bush
administration an opening to assemble the required authority and public support to subdue the
evil dictators of the world (Fouskas & Gokay, 2005, p.3). It is worthy to note that George
Bushs War on Terror is based on exercising fear and directing ultimatums to the world. Every
nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the
terrorists (Lansford, Watson, & Covarrubias, 2009, p.13). In certain cases, without even a
tangible threat, George Bush had reserved the right to use preemptive military force at any place
in the world under the pretext of saving American lives and interests. For Bush, the military must
be ready to strike at a moments notice in any dark corner of the world. And our security will
require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for pre-emptive action
when necessary to defend liberty and our lives (Fouskas & Gokay, 2005, p.3). One may
understand that George Bushs policy was centered on fighting terror by military force wherever
it exits and there is no immunity for persons and countries that harbor and commit terrorist
actions. Since 2002, the U.S. government has officially adopted a neocolonial policy called the
Bush Doctrine, which is based on militarist and imperial values with theocratic overtones
(Fouskas & Gkay, 2005, p.3). Bushs commitment to fight terror includes the assassination of
terrorist and foreign leaders implicated in terrorism against Americans. This new commitment
quickly came to fruition with the war in Afghanistan (Lansford, Watson, & Covarrubias, 2009,
p.45).The new American neocolonial policy was also implemented as a justification for an
unprovoked war against Iraq by the neoconservative administration of the U.S. government
(Fouskas & Gkay, 2005, p.3)
Therefore, countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq became the hub of American
military operations. Tragically, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have not created the proclaimed
viable and stable democracies. In contrast, Bushs War on Terror has left behind failed states

such as Afghanistan and Iraq, which divided the Arab world into two campsmoderate and
radical. Millions of innocent people have been killed, wounded, disappeared, left homeless, and
without a future (Ricks, 2007)
The American mainstream medias response to 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror is
largely simplistic and invidious (Tolan, Valassopoulos & Spencer, 2013, p.330) and has left its
disastrous impact on Muslims. Launching the War on Terror, accompanied by a negative
American media campaign of misrepresentation and stereotypes about Muslims and Islam, has
terribly affected the lives, safety, and future of millions of American Muslims living in the U.S.
The American media has significantly promoted the culture of fear and suspicion among the
Americans. It facilitates creating a phenomenon of an invisible and abstract enemy called terror.
This means that once America is attacked, it will be hit again by terrorists (Boehmer & Morton
2010).
Islam and Muslims are negatively represented as potential threats to the stability and
democratic values of the American society. The U.S. media has stereotyped and misrepresented
Arabs and Muslims for over a century (Alsultany, 2012, p.2). For example, American media
outfits such as Fox News and CNN have always been a reliable source that has inflamed the
feelings of antagonism of Americans against Islam and Muslims. They continuously air programs
that portray Muslims as terrorist threats and simultaneously show the American governments
heroic deeds that save the American lives and nation (Morey & Yaqin, 2011). Therefore,
Muslims are portrayed as fundamentals until they prove otherwise or till they order our beer or
their girls show up in miniskirts (Reese, 2007).
In regard to the discourse of blame and scapegoating of Muslims, Lori Peek writes that
the 9/11 tragic attacks left those who shared a common ethnic or religious identity with the
hijackerswho, it would quickly be discovered, were all Arab Muslim men-feeling fearful and
isolated(2011). Consequently, Arabs and Muslim Americans have become the targets of
violence, harassment, racism, stringent government surveillance, and racial profiling, and hate
crimes. In a post-9/11 America, Muslims not only become alienated but also concerned about
their safety at home and that of their relatives abroad. Yet, it seems ironic to demonize and render
as Other Muslims in a country such as the U.S., which always boasts of being a democratic
country and insists that all its citizens are equal before law. On the contrary, democracy is
exclusively seen as the American way of life while Islam is associated with terrorism and
violence. In this regard, Jane Mummery and Debbie Rodon write that democracy is like a magic
word with which America will be ready to go to war as a part of her globalized humanitarianism
(2003). Muslims feelings of fear, alienation, loss, identity crisis, and citizenship in post-9/11
America have become the focus of Mohsin Hamids novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
The Backlash of 9/11 on Muslims in Mohsin Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist
This paper examines how in Hamids novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Muslims are
treated after the backlash of 9/11 and how they become victims and legitimate targets of hate
crimes, negative media stereotypes, physical beatings, disappearances, racial profiling,

interrogations at American airports, and detentions in secret places. Furthermore, it addresses

how such treatment sheds light on the questions of Muslim integration in American society,
citizenship, multiculturalism, identity, and alienation, belonging, and national affiliation. It also
disrupts the dominant discourse, which links Islam with terror and shows how Muslims are
portrayed by the American official discourse and the media as potential terrorists and threats to
America and the values of Western civilization. Within this context, my argument is how
Hamids novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, offers a counter literary response not only to the
public rhetoric, but also to the dominant literary discourses that prevailed after 9/11. It also marks
a departure in 9/11 fiction, and carries a sharp critical edge and offers one of the first meaningful
representations of otherness in the canon of 9/11 fiction (Keeble, 2014, p.115).
Post-9/11 public rhetoric has equated Islam with terror and this equation has permitted
the intermittent deportation of Muslim migrants and lent inevitability to the invasion not only of
Afghanistan but also of Iraq (Scanlan, 2013, p.22). In regard to fiction, there are several fictional
narratives such as John Updikes Terrorist (2006) and Don DE Lillos The Falling Man (2007),
and Alexie Shermans Flight (2007), which have reinforced the dominant post-9/11 rhetoric. We
find that these novels focus, from an American perspective, on themes such as loss, insecurity,
American identity, trauma, fear, anger, suspicion, terror, and Islam. These narratives have also
contributed to inflaming the American sentiments and consolidating stereotypes against Islam
and Muslims, facilitating the creation of a state of Islamophobia.3 Post-9/11 literature portrays
Muslims from the East as either radical suicide bombers who hate America and the West or
confused disturbed personalities. The Islamic world is negatively represented and the East is
constructed to look as a safe haven for terrorists (Lanker, 2013).
Furthermore, both public rhetoric and literary fictional narratives have fueled George
Bushs War on Terror. In this regard, Elleke Boehmer and Stephen Morton write that the corpus
of literature that has emerged after 9/11 is arguably complicit with the global War on Terror
agenda led by the U.S., which is heavily based on Orientalist discourse (2010). Furthermore,
terror, which is, in fact, a manifestation of a long history of Western colonization, subordination,
and oppression of the Muslim world, is strangely presented as a cause rather than an effect.
Having said this, the significance of Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist is manifested in its
aim to challenge negative portrayals of Islam and Muslims by painting a personalized, insightful
portrait of a potential Muslim terrorist (Shlezinger, 2010). It also lies in rendering an
alternative disruptive literary response to the neocolonial discourse, which has been the driving
force behind the mistreatment of Muslims and the military invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq
under the pretext of fighting terror.
From a Muslim perspective, Hamid portrays the psychological, emotional, moral, and
physical impact of 9/11 on Muslims through his character, Changez, a Muslim Pakistani
immigrant who lived in America for a few years before leaving for Pakistan after the backlash of
9/11. The structure and form of the Reluctant Fundamentalist is heavily influenced by the Fall by
Albert Camusa modern narrative that includes one mans speech to a anonymous listener
(Shlezinger, 2010). The narrative begins in the form of a monologue between Changez and an
unnamed American visitor in Lahores old Anarakali bazar in Pakistan. It is worthy of note that

the American tourist, or who is believed to be a CIA agent, is silent throughout the entire novel
except for facial expressions and physical gestures. In his interview with Deborah Solomon,
Mohsin Hamid explains that the fact why the American is silent in most of the novel, in a world
of [] the American media, its almost always the other way around; representatives of the
Islamic world mostly seem to be speaking in grainy videos from caves (2007, p.1). Hamid
says that he has carefully chosen his literary device as a necessary reaction to the dominance of
U.S. interests, media coverage and perspectives in the global war on terrorism. It was time to give
the stage to some other perspective (Lee, 2014, p.345). By making his character, Changez,
narrate his whole story to the silent American visitor, Mohsin Hamid wants symbolically to tell
that it is time for Muslims to speak about themselves and their experiences since they are always
misrepresented, underrepresented, and misunderstood in the Western world.
Hamids novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, tackles how the backlash of 9/11 has
affected the lives of Muslim immigrants who have left their home countries to work, get
educated, integrate, and embrace the American Dream. For Changez, 9/11 has dealt a fatal blow
to the American Dream he embraced. This may also reflect that the status of immigrant Muslims
has irreparably changed. Changez stands as an example of a successful American Pakistani who
has integrated into American society. He is educated at a prestigious university, Princeton, works
in one of the most influential financial companies in Manhattan, Samson Underwood, and has a
beautiful American girlfriend, Erica. Changez narrates how international students in the U.S., like
him, are selected through a rigorous testing system and interviews from around every corner of
the world and sifted not only by well-honed standardized tests but by painstakingly customized
evaluations interviews, essays, recommendations until the best and the brightest of us had been
identied (Hamid, 2008, p.178).4 Being one of the best and brilliant students in his class,
Changez is selected through a painstaking testing system to work in Samson Underwood.
International students, such as Changez, are awarded scholarships, issued visas, and financial
assistance. They are expected, in return, to contribute to the American society. In return, we
were expected to contribute our talents to your society, the society we were joining. And for the
most part, we were happy to do so. I certainly was, at least at ce (p.178).
However, the 9/11 attacks put the concept of American multiculturalism and the so-called
melting pot to test and whether post-9/11 America is tolerant towards minorities like Muslims
people who have embraced the American dream and cultural values . (Khan 2011). According to
Anna Hartnell, Mohsin Hamids The Relctuant Fundamentalist questions the sacrifices needed to
be made if one really belongs to America, its system of values, and analyzes how one can be
American following the tragic events of 9/11 (2013). These attacks have also shed light on the
questions of identity, citizenship, and loyalty. For instance, what are you, either Muslim or
American, and to whom you owe your loyalty? They also pose contentious questions to
American Muslims, such as will you act passive when the American government of your new
adoptive home attacks your country of origin or a neighboring Muslim country such as
Afghanistan and Iraq? What is your attitude toward the hate campaign, which sinisterly targets
Islam and portrays it as a religion of terror? What is your next move when you feel alienated,
discriminated against, stripped, humiliated at the American airports and treated with disgust and
suspicion? What is your response when you see your fellow Muslim colleagues are beaten,

humiliated, and sent to unknown detention centers all over the world? What is your answer when
you see that the world is divided by the American Empire along the malicious lines of either with
us or them in their War against Terror? Besides these questions, Hamids The Reluctant
Fundamentalist examines the psychological, cultural, social, moral, and ethical intricacies
confronted by Muslims in post-9/11 America, who have inhabited two hybrid cultures. For
example, Changezs hybrid position as a Pakistani migrant in America after 9/11 invites a host of
questions, such as: has Changezs integration into the American society been adequate enough to
turn a blind eye to American foreign policies toward his home country, Pakistan? Does
Changezs prestigious education and work position leave any space for national affiliation and
patriotism?
To elaborate, if we examine the title of the novel, we find the word fundamentalist,
though there is neither any reference to religion nor to the main character, Changez, who is not a
religious man. He is, in fact, a man who has embraced the American Dream without any qualms.
In regard to fundamentalism, Robert Spencer and Anastasia Valassopoulos write that it imposes a
dogmatic attitude to the inviolability of a particular attitude (2013). But fundamentalism can take
different forms since there are economic and political fundamentalisms as well (Morss, 2003).
Therefore, fundamentalism cannot only be associated with Islamic extremism, but also with
American capitalism. Put differently, fundamentalism is not reserved solely for extreme religious
dogma, but includes other ideologies such as the neo-liberalism that characterized the Bush
administration (Randall, 2011, p.16). Both fundamentalism and capitalism nurture greed,
domination, hegemony, and violence (Young, 2001). For example, in terms of the fundamental
form of capitalism, Changezs employer, Jim, exhorts his employees mercilessly to focus on the
fundamentals. This term is used as Underwood Samsons guiding economic principle which
means single-minded attention to financial details, teasing out the true nature of those drivers
that determine an assets value (p. 98). Later, Changez comes to know the true meaning of strict
adherence to the economic fundamentals of his company, Underwood Samson, which is simply
suggestive of the American economic control and domination all over the world. Changez is even
surprised that it has taken him this long to understand and reach such a conclusion that he cannot
be part of project of domination. It was right for me to refuse to participate any longer in
facilitating this project of domination; the only surprise was that I had required so much time to
arrive at my decision(p.177). Changez does not want to be part of the American Empire and its
policy of domination, which controls the lives of poor people in developing countries.
In another incident, we find Changez rejoicing while watching the 9/11 attacks on
television when on a business trip in Manila. Though his reaction is unacceptable, it forces us to
examine the real motive behind it.
The following evening was supposed to be our last in Manila. I was in my room,
packing my things. I turned on the television and saw what at rst I took to be a lm.
But as I continued to watch, I realized that it was not ction but news. I stared as one
and then the other of the twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Center collapsed.
And then I smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, my initial reaction was to be
remarkably pleased. (p.83)

Changezs unconscious reaction seems to be contradictory to his commitment to the

American Dream, which has been clearly manifested. Changez does not know himself why part
of him desired harm to a country that had educated and employed him (Scanlan, 2013, p.32).
For example, Changez has never been personally at war with America. He has been educated at
Princeton, works at a successful financial company, and is in love with an American girl, Erica.
Therefore, what pleases Changez is not the slaughter of innocent civilians where citizens from
many more than ninety nations perished as a consequence of 9/11 (Peek, 2011, p.18). But it
seems what amuses him is the paradox that he discovers in himselfpart of him is completely
integrated and the other unconscious part awakens suddenly, at this particular moment, and
realizes that someone had so visibly brought America to her knees (p.83). It is also important to
note that the places attacked on 9/11 are icons of the American Empire, its sovereignty, and
hegemony all over the world. For Lori Peek, The violent assaults were designed to be
spectacular in their destruction of symbols of U.S. economic, military, and political power
(2011, p.22). Choosing these symbols for an attack was also meant to convey a psychological and
figurative message that the Empire can be penetrated at home, attacked and hit in the belly.
Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist also reflects on Changezs initial infatuation, and
later disillusionment, with America (Lasdon, 2007). For Changez, it is a lovehate relationship
with America or a kind of a reluctant animosity attributed to the impact of 9/11 on Muslims
and how they are badly treated. The 9/11 attacks had fully served the George Bush
administration, which was looking for demons to pursue its political and economic interests.
Within this context, Fouskas and Gkay argue that Islamic terrorism is seen as a demon, which
America is looking for to use it as a cover up slogan to advance its political and economic
hegemony over all the world (2005, p.233). Bushs War on Terror is, therefore, viewed with
skepticism and seen as a manufactured device to serve U.S. political and economic interests in
Asia and the Middle East. The 9/11 attacks have, undoubtedly, left a deep impact on the lives of
the American Muslims and the way they are seen by the American public. In the aftermath of the
tragic attacks, Muslims have experienced a dramatic increase in the frequency and intensity of
these hostile encounters such as verbal harassment; violent threats and intimidation; physical
assault; religious profiling; and employment, educational, and housing discrimination (Peek,
2011, p.16). There are also certain official policies adopted by George W. Bushs administration,
such as racial profiling, the Patriot Act,5 detention, investigation at American airports,
wiretapping, monitoring the movement and activities of Muslim American groups, such as
charity associations and assemblies. For example, once Changez returns, along with his work
team, after his business trip in Manila, to America, he surprisingly encounters a new post-9/11
America. At the airport, Changez has felt humiliated and degraded when he is interrogated and
asked to strip down to his boxer shorts while his American colleagues are asked to leave
decentlyan action that makes Changez feel that he is less than an American. The conversation
that Changez has with the American immigration officer is effectively suggestive that life in
America, for him and other Muslims, has drastically changed:
When we arrived, I was separated from my team at immigration. They joined the
queue for American citizens; I joined the one for foreigners. The ofcer who
inspected my passport was a solidly built woman with a pistol at her hip and a
mastery of English inferior to mine; I attempted to disarm her with a smile. What is

the purpose of your trip to the United States? she asked me. I live here, I replied.
That is not what I asked you, sir, she said. What is the purpose of your trip to the
United States? Our exchange continued in much this fashion for several minutes. In
the end I was dispatched for a secondary inspection in a room where I sat on a metal
bench next to a tattooed man in handcuffs. (p.86)
Changezs American colleagues had not even waited for him and had left. My team did
not wait for me; by the time I entered the customs hall they had already collected their suitcases
and left. As a consequence, I rode to Manhattan that evening very much alone (Hamid, 2008,
p.86). While riding to Manhattan alone, Changez notices the first signs of the new post-9/11
America and the overwhelming symbols of American nationalism and patriotism everywhere.
According to Mohan Ramanan, 9/11 also manufactured a new American nationalism, which
enabled the US to see itself as innocent in relation to the demonic other, but this was after all only
a variation of the old theme of American exceptionalism (2010, p.126).
New York is suddenly adorned with American flags and symbols of duty and
honor. An atmosphere which makes Changez feel strangely that he is no longer
living in modern New York but at a place which belongs to the Second World War.
It was suddenly like living in a film about the Second World War. (pp.130131)
Such experiences make Changez realize that many Americans have lost their sense of
empathy and understanding for innocent Muslims. His disappointment stems from the fact that
Americans hostile reaction toward Muslims puts them equally at the same level with the radical
ones who committed the attacks of 9/11. It is the post-9/11 America that makes Changez feel
disappointed and frustrated with the American people he has grown to admire over the process
of his cultural assimilation (Khan, 2011, p.94). Changez tells the American visitor that,
As a society you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with
those who attacked you [] the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of
your tantrums, not least my family, now facing war thousands of miles away
(p.109)
Changezs words are a critique of the American official blind policy of War on Terror,
which has inflicted an unnecessary pain on millions of Muslim people in Afghanistan and Iraq.
They also refer to the fact that the Americans can only see their own sufferings and pain while
turning a blind eye to the endless sufferings of others.
Furthermore, Hamid novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, conveys a message that the
personal is political and the political is personal and it is hard to separate them since both are
intertwined. For instance, while riding home, Changez sees America shrouded with American
flags, mourning, pain, fear, and anger. He has simultaneously felt the crumbling of the world
around [him] and the including destruction of [his] personal American dream (p.106). It reflects
on the fear felt by Muslims and their concerns about their safety since they become relentlessly
targeted.6 Even though Changez tries hard to separate what happened on 9/11 from his personal
American Dream, the reality of the post-9/11 America is rapidly changing. We notice that
Changez does not even want to believe that his American Dream starts crumbling as the world
collapses around him. I prevented myself as much as was possible from making the obvious

connection between the crumbling of the world around me and the impending destruction of my
personal American dream (p.106). But the changing reality of the post-9/11 America can
explicitly be seen in the unexplained and sudden disappearance of Muslim Pakistani drivers from
places such as the Pak-Punjab Deli in New York. The Pakistani drivers mysterious absence has
left the door open for speculation about their fate.
Pakistani cabdrivers were being beaten to within an inch of their lives; the FBI was
raiding mosques, shops, and even peoples houses; Muslim men were disappearing,
perhaps into shadowy detention centers for questioning or worse. (p.107)
Muslim men are targeted and sometimes disappear without any trace.7 This may be
attributed to the Patriot Act, which is a legislation enacted by the Congress to investigate and
prosecute suspected terrorists. It has authorized the American authorities to intensify electronic
surveillance on means of communication, disclose emails, tap wire phone calls, monitor and
search suspects homes without any prior notification or court permission (Hafetz, 2011).
Later, Changez finds out that he is mistaken to think that American counter violence and
anger against Muslims is only reserved for extremist Muslims, but not for moderates like himself.
Actually, he sees himself as a successful Princeton graduate, culturally assimilated to the
American society, and immune to American counter violence. But it is a moment of epiphany for
Changez when he is attacked by Americans due to his Muslim identity. He realizes that what he
thinks of himself as a guarded person is merely an illusion. Changez experiences a series of hate
crimes such as verbal abuse, finding his cars cars tires punctured, telephone lines disrupted, and
physically threatened.
I was approached by a man I did not know [] just then another man appeared; he,
too, glared at me, but took his friend by the arm and tugged at him, saying it was not
worth it. Reluctantly, the first allowed himself to be led away. Fucking Arab, he
said. My blood throbbed in my temples, and I called out, Say it to my face coward,
not as you run and hide. (p.134)
For the first time, Changez loses his usual decent composure and feels wrath raging inside
him at this particular moment of challenge. Changez is seen to unplug a tire iron from his boot
and capable of wielding it with sufficient force to shatter the bones of his American abusers
skull. The men remain in this position for a few murderous seconds (p.134). These incidents
have accelerated Changezs emotional and psychological alienation in his relationship with his
American colleagues at work. They, in fact, pave the way for his process of transformation from
being a lover of the American culture and values to an activist who is critical of the American
policy and its blind campaign of War on Terror waged against Islam and Muslims in the name of
democracy and civilization.
After 9/11, Changez finds himself trapped in a place where Muslims are treated with
suspicion and Islam is increasingly linked to terrorism and evil. The rapid changes in American
society have made Changez, as an American Muslim, feel alienated and unwanted. He
experiences inner psychological struggles to find out where he belongs exactlyto either the

American society, which treats him as a potential threat, or to his home country, Pakistan. It is
also worthy of note that Pakistan, a Muslim country, is traditionally portrayed by the American
foreign policy as a safe haven for terrorists and a launching pad for terrorist attacks against
American interests. Consequently, Changez loathes himself for being disloyal to his home
country, Pakistan, to the extent of comparing himself to a Muslim Janissary. Metaphorically
speaking, he compares himself to the Christian boys who served the Ottoman Empire to fight
against their own people. Changez similarly considers himself as a servant who serves the
American Empire against his own Muslim people and fellow brothers. Changez had thrown in
his lot [] with the officers of the empire, when all along I was disposed to feel compassion for
those [] whose lives the empire thought nothing of overturning for its own gain(p.152). A
comparison, infused by a sense of betrayal, has served as a turning point in Changezs life and a
moment of revelation too. For example, during Changezs business trip to close an unprofitable
company, Valparaiso, Chile, the manager of the company, Juan Bautista, compares him to
Janissaries. He refers to Janissaries who served the Ottomans to erase their own civilization.
He tipped the ash of his cigarette onto a plate. How old were you when you went to
America? he asked. I went for college, I said. I was eighteen. Ah, much older, he
said. The janissaries were always taken in childhood. It would have been far more
difcult to devote themselves to their adopted empire, you see, if they had memories
they could not forget. (p.173).
Bautistas words make Changez feel degraded that he is merely a servant, serving and
facilitating the American Empire to dominate and control the world financially. Sudden feelings
of infuriation, shame, and betrayal, toward his own Muslim people and home country, have
gripped and made make him realize that he is no longer capable of so through a self-deception
(p.114). Changezs transformed personality is manifested through venting his suppressed
political opinions and feelings toward post-9/11 America. He tells the American visitor how he
resents the American foreign policy and how America conducts itself as the lone supreme power
by interfering in every zone of the world and dictating its own terms:
I had always resented the manner in which America conducted itself in the world;
your countrys constant interference in the affairs of others was insufferable.
Vietnam, Korea, the straits of Taiwan, the Middle East, and now Afghanistan: in
each of the major conicts and standoffs that ringed my mother continent of Asia,
America played a central role. Moreover, I knew from my experience as a Pakistani
of alternating periods of American aid and sanctions that knew was a primary
means by which the American empire exercised its power. (p.177)
Changez elaborates on how the U.S. dictates its own policy and agenda through
exercising its financial and military influence. It is the American stick and carrot policy, which
means either financial aid in return for domination or financial and military sanctions in return for
disobedience. Mohsin Hamid makes it clear that it is the neocolonial policy of America around
the world that has fostered tensions between Americans and the Muslim world. He also shows
how the American culture is based on a sense of superiority among the Americans and their
arrogant attitude toward the Other and how post-9/11 America becomes increasingly intolerant
toward the Other people of different races, cultures, and religions. Changezs personal

experience, combined with his political consciousness, makes him rightly believe that, it was
right for me to refuse to participate any longer in facilitating this project of domination; the only
surprise was that I had required so much time to arrive at my decision (p.177)
In post-9/11 America, Changez has considerably lost his national and cultural bonds with
America while he becomes drawn toward reaffirming his national and cultural bond with his
native country, Pakistan. His strong desire to leave post-9/11 America and its insufferable
treatment toward Muslims makes him purchase his first-class ticket and leave home. Changez is
not simply alienated, but his isolation suggests that America fails to live up to its self-
understanding as a post-colonial nation, while still acknowledging its potential to be an
exceptional melting-pot (Hartnell, 2010, p.346). The process of Changezs reassimilation has
been hard since he initially sees everything in Pakistan through his American eyes. For example,
he has felt sad and ashamed seeing the miserable and poor condition of his parents home. I was
struck at rst by how shabby our house appeared, with cracks running through its ceilings and dry
bubbles of paint by ho off where dampness had entered its walls (p.141). But with time, he
comes to understand that such comparison is unfair and one requires a different way of looking,
taking into account the political, economic, cultural, and religious, social, and historical
differences between the two countries. a re-visitation of home after a prolonged period of time
requires a different way of observingI recall the American ness of my own gaze when I
returned to Lahore that winter when war was in the offing (p.140). Changezs initial feelings of
shame are quickly replaced by his deep appreciation that his house remained largely unchanged
during his stay in the U.S. It occurred to me that the house had not changed in my absence. I had
changed (p. 141). He comes to appreciate the rich cultural history that his home symbolizes, a
sensation which makes him feel proud of being a Pakistani. It was far from impoverished;
indeed it was rich with history (p.142).
Changezs leaving New York to settle in Lahore and work as radical lecturer at a
university arguably marks Changezs complete transformation. We find him advocate the
disengagement of Pakistan from America and criticize the American foreign policy toward
Pakistan in particular, and the Muslim world in general. For instance, Changez is even vocal at
the mysterious disappearance of one of his students who is believed to be mistaken for being a
terrorist and taken away to a secret detention facility, no doubt, in some lawless limbo between
our country and mine (p.206).
Changez is resentful and critical of governments such as those of America, which behave
as if they are above the international laws, accountability, and can violate laws and human rights
under the pretext of fighting terrorism (Carasik, 2015) He is no longer able to bear and turn a
blind eye to Americas national and political hypocrisy. He is courageous enough to say on a
news channel that no country inflicts death so readily upon the inhabitants of other countries,
fighters, so many people so far away, as America (p.207). Besides his critique of Americas
biased and hypocritical policies, Changez has led demonstrations demanding autonomous
Pakistani politics far away from the American imposing policies. Changezs political activism
against the American hegemony and its war against terror, which has left millions of people
killed, injured, and homeless in Afghanistan and Iraq, has deemed him as an anti-American.

At the end of the novel, Changez notices that there is a glint of metal in the Americans
jacket pocket, (p.209) while shaking his hand. It is unclear whether the American visitor is a
tourist or a CIA agent tracking Changez as a potential threat to the security of America and its
interests. But Changez is quick to assure him that he does not believe in violence and spilling
blood. He is simply a university teacher who speaks the truth to power and enlighten his own
students about the reality of this world. I am a believer in non-violence; the spilling of blood is
abhorrent to me, save in self-defense [] I am no ally of killers; I am simply a university
lecturer, nothing more or less (p. 206). Changez uses nonviolent means in his critique of
America, relying on the same logic and reason used in the Western nations that pride themselves
on democracy and civilization.
Conclusion
Hamids The Reluctant Fundamentalist renders a warning message through his character,
Changez, that the American domestic and international policies toward Muslims and the Islamic
world after 9/11, if not changed, will turn ordinary Muslims such as Changez into radicals, and
violence will breed violence. It also finds out that the American domineering policies and its
blind War on Terror will force many ordinary Muslims to relinquish the American Dream, like
Changez, and convert them into radicals. Furthermore, the American reaction toward Muslims
after the 9/11 tragic attacks has been blind, indiscriminate, and disproportionate to such an extent
that even the people of different nationalities were killed because they resembled Muslims. The
study also finds out that by mistreating, targeting, and alienating Muslims, one is hitting hard at
the concept of multiculturalism on which the American society is based. Hence, American
society will be prone to internal fissures and disintegration if they fail to accept the Other and
fail to stop blaming all Muslims for a few isolated tragic incidents that they are not actually
responsible for. It is also the right time to stop targeting Muslims after the backlash of 9/11,
taking into account that Muslims constitute an important component of the American society,
particularly, and Europe, in general. This paper concludes that the mistreatment of Muslims,
promotion of Islamophobia, and the War on Terror that followed 9/11 may lead to the exclusion
and alienation of Muslims in America and explain the rise of ISIS.8 Finally, Hamid renders a
message that many Muslims, like Changez, want to live in peace, dignity, and prosperity like all
other human beings in the world and it is the right time to facilitate such a healthy environment
for them before it is too late.

Endnotes
1
For more details on September attacks on the United States, see, Pyszczynski, T.,
Solomon, S., & Greenberg, J. (2003). In the wake of 9/11: Rising above the terror. Washington:
American Psychological Association; B. Lambert, J. (2002). 9-11 America under Attack
.Bloomington: Author House; Gunaratna, R.(2002). Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of
Terror.New York: Columbia University Press.
2
For more information on the War on Terror, please see Acharya, A. (2013). Ten Years
After 9/11: Rethinking the Jihadist Threat. London: Routledge; Ahmed, A. S. (2013). The Thistle
and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam.
Washington: Brookings Institution Press; Holland, J. (2012). Selling the war on terror: Foreign
policy discourses after 9/11. London: Routledge; Herman, S. N. (2011). Taking liberties: The
war on terror and the erosion of American democracy. Oxford University Press; Owens, J. E., &
Pelizzo, R. (Eds.). (2010). The War on Terror and the Growth of Executive Power?: A
Comparative Analysis. London: Routledge.
3
For more information on Islamophobia, please see Ernst, C. W. (Ed.). (2013).
Islamophobia in America: the anatomy of intolerance. Palgrave Macmillan; Helbling, M. (2012).
Islamophobia in Western Europe and North America: Measuring and Explaining Individual
Attitudes. London: Taylor & Francis; Sheehi, S. (2011). Islamophobia: the ideological campaign
against Muslims. CA: SCB Distributors; Nimer, M. (Ed.). (2007). Islamophobia and Anti-
Americanism: Causes and Remedies. Beltsville: Amana publications.
4
All references will be henceforth taken from Hamid, M.(2008). The reluctant
fundamentalist. London: Penguin.
5
For more details on the Patriot Act, please see Etzioni, A. (2005). How patriotic is the
Patriot Act?: freedom versus security in the age of terrorism. London: Routledge; Kerr, O. S.
(2003). Internet surveillance law after the USA Patriot Act: The big brother that isn't.
Northwestern University Law Review, 97; Evans, J. C. (2001). Hijacking Civil Liberties: The
USA Patriot Act of 2001.Loy. U. Chi. LJ, 33, 933.
6
For more details on hate crimes committed against Muslims and who look like
Muslims after 9/11,please see, Disha, I., Cavendish, J. C., & King, R. D. (2011). Historical events
and spaces of hate: Hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims in post-9/11 America. Social
problems, 58(1), 21-46; Singh, A. (2002). We are Not the Enemy: Hate Crimes Against Arabs,
Muslims, and Those Perceived to be Arab Or Muslim After September 11 (Vol. 14, No. 6).
Human Rights Watch; Perry, B. (2003). Anti-Muslim retaliatory violence following the 9/11
terrorist attacks. Hate and bias crime: A reader, 183-201; Ashar, S. M. (2002). Immigration
Enforcement and Subordination: The Consequences of Racial Profiling After September
11. Connecticut Law Review,34, 1185.

7
For more information on secret places of detention and black sites, see Jenkins, D.,
Jacobsen, A., & Henriksen, A. (Eds.). (2014). The Long Decade: How 9/11 Changed the Law.
Oxford: Oxford University Press; Bakir, V. (2013). Torture, Intelligence and Sousveillance in the
War on Terror: Agenda-building Struggles. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd; Clarke, A. (2012).
Rendition to Torture. Rutgers University Press; Hafetz, J. (2011). Habeas Corpus after 9/11:
Confronting Americas New Global Detention System. New York:NYU Press; Forsythe, D. P.
(2011). The politics of prisoner abuse: The United States and enemy prisoners after 9/11.
Cambridge: Cambridge. Woodward, B. (2007) State of Denial: Bush at War III. New York:
Simon &Schuster.
8
For more information on ISIS, The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, please see Sekulow,
J. (2014). Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore. New York: Simon and Schuster; Cockburn, P.
(2015). The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution. London: Verso Books;
Hesterman, J. (2014). Soft Target Hardening: Protecting People from Attack. Florida: CRC
Press.

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An Ethno-Statistical Analysis of Direct and Indirect Acts in Catchy

HIV/AIDS Campaign Messages in Benin Metropolis
Patience Obiageri Solomon-Etefia

University of Benin, Nigeria
Gerald Okechukwu Nweya

University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Abstract
Catchy HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Benin metropolis exhibit the characteristics of

direct and indirect acts. These acts play pragmatic roles in peoples understanding of catchy
HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Benin metropolis. This paper investigates direct and
indirect acts in HIV/AIDS catchy campaign messages in Benin metropolis from an ethno-
statistical perspective; it assess respondents understanding of the campaign messages with
the features of directness and indirectness. The data for the study were collected using the
questionnaires from five LGAs in Benin metropolis. These are Oredo, Ikpoba-Okha, Ovia-
North-East and Ovia-South-West and the data was analysed using the simple percentages.
The paper reveals that some respondents could not understand some of the messages because
of the pragmatic indirectness. It was also observed that background characteristics (age,
education, gender, and ethnic group), understandable language for reading and writing of
respondents and how HIV/AIDS messages were known play a major role in understanding
the direct and indirect acts in the messages. The paper concludes by advising the message
provider to write in simpler form for the effectiveness of these campaign messages, creating
of messages in native languages is also encouraged.
Keywords: Direct and indirect acts, HIV/AIDS campaigns, Pragmatic function, Benin
metropolis Nigeria

1. Introduction
The prevalence of HIV in sub Saharan Africa as well as Nigeria and even Edo State
has become imperative that the campaign messages should be researched on. HIV/AIDS
campaigns are as old as the disease itself. It can be traced from the 1980s when the disease
surfaced. Following the first case of AIDS in 1986, the National Expert Advisory Committee
on AIDS (NEACA) was formed in 1987 to eradicate the disease. Another body known as the
National AIDS and STI Control Program (NASCP) was established in the Federal Ministry
of Health in 1988. With the era of the democratic rule in 1999, a Presidential Committee on
AIDS (PCA) and the National Action Committee on AIDS were formed in 2001 at the
federal level to oversee the activities of the state and local government through the State
Action Committee on AIDS (SACA) and Local Government Action Committee on AIDS
(LACA). In other to improve the national response to HIV/AIDS, all the "three ones
principles was utilised in 2005. NACA was the coordinating body for this national response
to AIDS through the National Response Information (NSF) and the Monitoring and
Evaluation System-Nigeria Response Information Management System (NNRIMS). All these
tiers worked hand in hand with one principle. But it is shocking that the government often
create these bodies without creating any establishment that looks into the culture and
language of the people for proper campaign on HIV/AIDS for behavioural change and
prevention of new infections which they claimed to be their objectives for 2010-2015.
Due to the spread of the disease, for the past ten years, a lot of campaigners in Nigeria
both governmental and non-governmental have increased campaigns which geared towards
creating awareness that can help curb the spread of the disease, thus sensitizing the masses on
the danger of the disease as well as the mode of infection and prevention. This sensitization
campaigns are carried out in various ways via the media, orally and outdoor in written
documents or materials with the intention to effectively disseminate information on the
disease to the targeted population that comprised the literate, the poor illiterate and the
poorest of illiterate in Nigeria of which Benin metropolis is not left out.
It is alarming that with the high level of awareness campaigns, the disease is still
spreading at a very high rate in some region of which Benin metropolis is among. It is
pertinent to note that several factors contribute to the spread of this disease. Such factors may
include; lack of access to information materials, traditional beliefs and practices, human
trafficking, lack of interest in reading published (written) materials, social attitudes and the
use of foreign language (English) as against local languages and Pidgin which are indigenous
to the inhabitant in Benin metropolis. This foreign language (English) exhibits the features
directness and indirectness which establishes the focus of the study.
Piot et al, (1999)s findings claim that in various parts of Africa HIV has become
endemic and the estimated number of persons affected are in millions; who die between the
ages of 5-10 years. They detected that HIV cases has became a serious public health
challenge in various part of Africa just like malaria, diarrhoea as well as malnutrition. Benin
metropolis is not exempted from this claim. Thus, the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in the
five local government areas (LGAs) runs as follows: Ored (7.3%), Egor (3.4%), Ovia-

North-East (6.6%), Ikpoba-Okha (1.6%) and Ovia-South-West (1.6%). (Ed State HIV/AIDS
Survey Report 2007:47). The GARPCPR (2012) report on HIV prevalence rate by state
revealed that Ed State which is the Mother State of Benin metropolis had the prevalence rate
of (5.3%) as against (5.2%) in 2008-Sentinel Survey Report. All this motivated this research
to see if the coinage of campaign messages is a factor.
2. Literature review and statement of problem
A few studies have investigated the language use in HIV/AIDS campaign in Nigeria.
They include Kolawole (2006), Komolafe (2010) and Olatunji and Robbin (2011). For
instance, Kolawole (2006) addresses lack of effective communication strategy, which
involves the use of indigenous languages in advocacy, awareness, and education on
transmission, effect and prevention of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, a major problem to the
campaigns on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. Olatunji and Robbin (2011) investigated Nigerian
undergraduates preferred expressions for HIV/AIDS campaigns. They found that both scary
and mild expressions in campaigns are effective in arresting the spread of HIV/AIDS among
Nigerian graduates. Komolafe (2010) s work is only restricted to a description of HIV/AIDS
in the Yoruba language, with interest on forming Yoruba terminology for HIV/AIDS. Works
on HIV/AIDS campaigns have never given much attention to direct and indirect acts
especially from the quantitative point of view.
This study complements the existing work by investigating the pragmatic role of
direct and indirect acts in catchy HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Benin metropolis from an
ethno-statistical perspective; thus the emphasis is on assessing the respondents
understanding of the campaign messages with the features of directness and indirectness. It is
interested in the factors that contribute to respondents understanding of HIV/AIDS campaign
messages.
3. Direct and Indirect Acts in Pragmatic
A lot of scholars have defined Pragmatics from different angles. The first amongst
them was Morris (1938). Morris avers that Pragmatics is one of branch of semiotic, the study
about the relation of sign and its interpretation (see also Levinson, 1983; Bach and Harish,
1979; Leech, 1983; Thomas, 1995; Yule 1996; Adegbija, 1999; Mey 1993; 2001 etc.).
The direct and the indirect acts are properties of Speech acts Theory in Pragmatics.
Searle (1969) developed the notion of indirect speech acts in pragmatics. He describes an
indirect speech act as one performed by means of another, (Seale 1969:19) which means
that, when there is no correlation between the structure and function there is indirect speech
act. Indirect speech act is often associated with greater politeness in most languages,
including the English language.
In indirect speech acts, the speaker communicates to the hearer more than he actually
says by way of relying on their mutually shared background information, both linguistic and
non-linguistic, together with the general powers of rationality and inference on the part of the

hearer. The apparatus necessary to explain the indirect part of indirect speech acts include a
theory of speech acts and certain general principles of cooperative conversation. Osisanwo
(2003:65) describes the direct and indirect act as the correlation between the structure and the
function of the structure, where this relationship is grammatically established the utterance
amounts to a direct speech act. While the indirect acts shows no correlation between the
structure and function of the message, which means that the intended message is implicit (i.e
not given clear explanation).
Mey (2001) treated the issue of the direct and indirect acts as interactants aspect of the
activity part of the pragmme in the pragmatic acts theory. His assumption is that the direct
and the indirect acts are not directly built into a separate speech acts theory but they are
grouped as the interactants that influence a particular situation or communication type in the
pragmatic acts theory.
4. Methodology
The method for this study is a descriptive survey conducted among the populace in
Benin metropolis the Edo State capital in South-Southern Nigeria, with a population of about
1,147,188 (NPC 2006 Census). Benin metropolis the domain of this study comprised of five
local government area namely: Ored, Egor, Ovia-North-East, Ikpoba-Okha and Ovia-South-
West. The participants for this research were male and female youth and adult between 15
and 65 years of age. These participants spoke different native languages, namely: Edo, Isan,
Urhobo, Hausa, Ika, Isoko, Igbo, Ibibio, Itsekiri, and English, which is the official language
in their various places of duty, schools as well as NP which is the lingua franca in the
metropolis.
The quantitative method of data collection was utilised through the use of the research
instrument, which is a semi-structured questionnaire designed to elicit data from the populace
on the study. The questionnaire was composed of both close-end and open-ended questions
and was divided into two sections. Section I (closed-ended) consisted of questions on socio-
demographic data of the respondents while section II (open-ended) contained questions on
catchy outdoor HIV/AIDS campaign messages. Copies of a questionnaire were administered
to 1,660 randomly selected respondents aged between 15 and 65 years in the five local
government areas slated for this study as follows: Egor (403), Ored (394), Ikpoba-Okha
(409), Ovia-North-East (96), Ovia-South-West (415). The data were analysed with
descriptive statistical methods in simple percentages on table and displayed on charts.
5. Presentation of the data
In analysing the data, assessment of respondents understanding of HIV/AIDS catchy

campaign messages were based on their selected background characteristics, how HIV/AIDS
was known and understandable language for reading and writing. The table 1.1 below
displayed various HIV/AIDS catchy campaign messages and how respondents could
associate the catchy words to the disease (HIV/AIDS) based their understanding of the

campaign messages. The campaign messages displays in the table are in two groups the direct
and the indirect messages.
Table 1.1: Respondents association of selected HIV/AIDS awareness catchy words with
the disease
Catchy words Frequency Percentage (%)

Heart to Heart Total = 1660
Yes 410 24.7
No 1250 75.3
g gb a disease without cure
Yes 575 34.6
No 1085 65.4
Choose life
Yes 330 19.9
No 1330 80.1
Zip up play safe love carefully
Yes 950 57.2
No 710 42.8
Skin to skin can kill
Yes 225 13.6
No 1435 86.4
Others-HIV/AIDS massage not
displayed in the table. 250 15.1
Yes 1410 84.9
No
Source: Researchers field survey, (2013).
Table 1.1 shows the level of respondents ability to associate selected catchy words of
HIV/AIDS messages with the disease based on their understanding of the messages. Data
related to such actions or ability is imperative for a pragmatic analysis of HIV/AIDS
messages as these catchy words either come in the form of indirect or direct speech acts
which could be rightly or wrongly understood based on the socio-cultural background (SCK)
or the shared-situational knowledge (SSK) of the audience. Heart to Heart is a popular
catchy expression in most of the HIV/AIDS campaign messages that abound in both indoor
(TV, Radio, etc.) and outdoor (billboard, flyers and posters) media. However, only (24.7%)
of the sampled respondents could associate it with HIV/AIDS. The fact that over (75%) of the
respondents could not associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS shows that these catchy
words are not explicit enough. An implication of this finding is that indirect speech catchy
words should be made more explicit with back-up direct speech catchy word(s).
Among the catchy expressions g g is synonymous with something that cannot

be killed in the Bini language. This word as a direct word is only used orally not in

documents in Benin. Thus, when used to create awareness of HIV/AIDS, it may not be very
effective because it is a stigmatizing. Only (34.6%) of the respondents could associate it with
HIV/AIDS. The reason for this is that a sizeable percentage of the populations Benin
metropolis are non-native. It is also observed that among the natives, especially the younger
populaces, were not too good in their native language because they are taught mostly in
English in their various school. This suggests that native word(s) representation of the
HIV/AIDS may not be effective except teaching of native language is encouraged in schools
to enhance effective HIV/AIDS sensitisation campaigns in Benin which is very imperative.
Similarly, as for choose life over (80%) of the respondents could not associate it
with the disease. Choose life, which is intended to sensitise people about the risk of
contracting HIV/AIDS, appears to be ambiguous and indirect. Also in the table are zip up,
play safe, and love carefully. The majority (57.2%) of the respondents could associate these
words with HIV/AIDS. This suggests that these messages were understood by the audience
even though there were indirect messages without their direct counterparts, such as AIDS
has no cure or HIV is everywhere. The fact that (42.8%) of the respondents could interpret
the messages or associate the message with HIV/AIDS shows that the messages are not bad.
This implies that these messages should continue to be used in creating awareness messages
for the inhabitants of the metropolis together with the direct messages which often pinpoint
the main idea of the messages.
Skin to skin can kill is an indirect speech act. A total of (80.6%) of the respondents
could not associate it with the disease without its direct counterpart. An implication of this is
that varied interpretations might have been given to the message. This suggests that the
message should be rephrased to make it more explicit for more understanding. Others
presented in Table 1.1 refers to other catchy words that are used in HIV/AIDS awareness
messages which were not represented. Respondents were requested to indicate in the
questionnaire if they are aware of other HIV/AIDS catchy words in campaigns, apart from
the ones in the table. A majority (84.9%) of the respondents claimed that they could not
associate any other catchy words with the disease apart from the ones presented in the table,
while (15.1%) of them claimed that they could. This suggests that most of the HIV/AIDS
messages are not very popular and perhaps more indirect. It also suggests that the
respondents could not understand other messages due to their complexity, since some may
not be able to read and understand on their own. Therefore, message providers should be
more explicit in their messages or use oral campaigns so that the audience will get used to the
words, understand the messages and probably recall them on their own.
The table 1.2 below presents respondents ability to associate catchy HIV/AIDS
words to the disease based on their understanding of the campaign messages according to
their background characteristics of respondents via: age group, gender, educational
qualification and ethnic group.

Table 1.2: Ability to associate selected catchy HIV/AIDS awareness word(s) with the
disease according to background characteristics
Backgroun Catchy HIV/AIDS awareness word(s)

d
characteri Heart to b Choose Zip Skin to skin Others
stics Heart life up/play can kill
safe/love
carefully
Age group
15-25 years 170(20.0% 190(22.4% 185(21. 455(53.5% 100(11.8%) 185(21.8%)
25-34 years ) ) 8%) ) 90(17.1%) 60(11.4%)
35-44 years 160(30.5% 215(41.0% 100(19. 335(63.8% 25(12.2%) 5(2.4%)
45-54 years ) ) 0%) ) 5(7.7%) -
55-65 years 110(53.7% 5(33.3%) -
60(29.3%) 95(46.3%) 40(19.5 )
%)
20(30.8%) 60(92.3%) 40(61.5%)
- 5(7.7%
15(100.0% ) 10(66.7%)
) -
Gender
Male 170(19.5% 270(31.0% 140(16. 515(59.2% 145(16.7%) 135(15.5%)
Female ) ) 1%) ) 80(10.1%) 115(14.6%)
240(30.4% 305(38.6% 190(24. 435(55.1%
) ) 1%) )
Highest
educational
qualificatio
n - 5(12.5%)
None 10(25.0%) 10(25.0%) 5(12.5 15(37.5%) 10(8.3%) 15(12.5%)
Primary %) 65(8.8%) 145(19.6%)
Secondary 25(20.8%) 45(37.5%) - 35(29.2%) 25(11.9%) 35(16.7%)
OND/NCE 110(14.9% 190(25.7% 145(19. 410(55.4% 110(24.2%) 40(8.8%)
B.Sc./HND ) ) 6%) ) 15(15.8%) 10(10.5%)
Postgraduat 125(59.5%
e 60(28.6%) 90(42.9%) 50(23.8 )
165(36.3% 205(45.1% %) 320(70.3%
) ) 115(25. )
3%)
40(42.1%) 35(36.8%) 45(47.4%)
15(15.8
%)
Ethnic
group 5(12.5%) 15(37.5%) 10(25.0%)

Hausa 10(25.0%) 5(12.5 20(50.0%) 20(9.8%) 35(17.1%)

Igbo 40(19.5%) %) 135(65.9% 30(16.7%) 50(27.8%)
Yoruba 60(29.3%) ) 115(12.2%) 105(11.1%)
Edo 25(13.9%) 55(26.8 120(66.7% 45(15.5%) 50(17.2%)
Others 40(22.2%) 415(43.9% %) )
250(26.5% ) 510(54.0%
) 40(22.2 )
90(31.0%) %) 165(56.9%
50(17.2%) 160(16. )
9%)
70(24.1
%)
Table 1.2 presents respondents ability to associate selected outdoor catchy

HIV/AIDS awareness word(s) with the disease based on campaign messages heard or read
according to background characteristics of the respondents. The respondents who were able
to associate the catchy expression Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS according to age groups
were those between the ages of 45-54 years (30.8%), 25-34 years (30.5%). Those who could
also associate the catchy expression to HIV/AIDS (20-29%) were in ages 45-54 years
(29.3%) and 15-24 years (20.6%). None of the respondents between the age group 55-65
years could associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS. Heart to Heart is supposed to be a
very popular HIV/AIDS campaign expression. This is because it is there at every HIV
counselling unit, and is even used frequently in medical adverts. But from this data the
percentage of the respondents who could associate the expression to HIV/AIDS is very low
(30% and below). This implies that Heart to Heart is very complex for the people, because
of its pragmatic indirectness.
All (100%) the respondents within the age group of 55-65 years could associate
g g to HIV/AIDS. Also, (92.3%) of the respondents within the age group of 45-54
years could associate this word to the disease. Over 40% of the respondents between the age
group of 35-44 years (46.3%) and 25-34 years (41%) could associate the word with the
disease. Only (22.4%) of the respondents who were within the age group of 15-24 could
associate the word with the disease. g g is a popular word for HIV/AIDS in the Edo
language. Although it is not yet used in the coinage of messages, it is used orally in
campaigns. But only the older respondents were able to associate the word with HIV/AIDS
(92-100%). This implies that, most of the respondents within Benin metropolis knew the
meaning of the word and its applied meaning in HIV/AIDS issues. This suggests that the
meaning of the words need to be explained to the people before it is included in campaign
messages both in oral and written formats.
Among the respondents who could associate choose life to HIV/AIDS, (21.8%) of
them were between the age group of 15-24 years while those between the age group of 35-44
years (19.5%) and 25-34 years (19%) could associate choose life with HIV/AIDS. None of

the respondents between the age group of 55-65 years could associate choose life with the
disease. This suggests that a direct message that will point to HIV/AIDS for a clearer
understanding is required.
The respondents who mainly could associate the words zip up, play safe and love
carefully were the age groups 55-65 years (66.7%), 25-34 years (63.8%), and 45-54 years
(61.5%), and 35-44 years (53.7%). Thus the messages are effective because over (53%) of the
respondents could associate the words to HIV/AIDS. But it is clear from the figures that those
older in age were able to associate the words to the disease more than the younger
respondents. Altogether, (33.3%) of those 55-65 years old could link the expression skin to
skin can kill to HIV/AIDS. Also, (17.1%) of the respondents who were within the 25-34
years age group could associate skin to skin can kill to the disease, while the respondents
whose age groups were between 35-44 and 15-24 years (12.2%) and (11.8%), respectively
could associate skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS. Only (7.7%) of the respondents
between the age group of 45-54 years could link it to HIV/AIDS. In all, respondents in the
age group of 55-65 years could interpret the message. This implies that the message is not
effective because of its pragmatic indirectness.
Others in the table refers to those HIV/AIDS messages respondents would have
heard or read, but which were not stated in the table. Respondents were able to associate
others with HIV/AIDS as follows: 15-24 years (21.8%), 25-34 years (11.4%) and 35-44
years (2.4%). None of the respondents within the age groups 45-54 and 55-65 years,
respectively, could associate others with HIV/AIDS. The fact that very few of the
respondents were able to associate the others with HIV/AIDS implies that most of the
words used in HIV/AIDS messages are very indirect and complex to the respondents. This
suggests that words that are more direct should be used in HIV/AIDS campaigns messages in
the metropolis.
The data on gender reveals that (30.4%) of the female respondents could associate
Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS, while (19.5%) of the male respondents could associate
Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS. This implies that female respondents understood the
message more than male respondents. This applies to the words, g g and choose life,
as (38.6%) and (24.1%) of the female respondents, respectively could associate these words
with HIV/AIDS, while (31%) and (16.1%) of the male respondents, respectively could link
these words to HIV/AIDS. This also implies that the female respondents had a grasp of the
meaning of the word g g and understood the message choose life more than the
male respondents. On the other hand, more male respondents (59.2%) could associate zip
up, play safe and love carefully with HIV/AIDS than the female respondents (55.1%),
although the difference in percentage was not too much, which implies that both male and
female respondents understood these messages. Moreover, more male respondents (16.7%)
could associate skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS than the female respondents (10.1%).
This also applies to others; more male respondents (15.5%) could associate other words
with HIV/AIDS than female respondents (14.6%). However, the difference was also not too
much. Thus, both genders could understand the messages equally.

Ability to associate selected catchy expressions with HIV/AIDS according to highest

educational qualification is also displayed in Table 1.2. Most of the respondents whose
qualifications were higher were able to associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS:
postgraduate (42.1%), B.Sc/HND (36.3%), and OND/NCE (20.6%). Only (2.5%) of those
without qualification and (20.8%) of those with primary school qualification respectively
could associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS. But only (14.9%) of the respondents with
secondary school qualification could associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS. The
foregoing findings show that the higher the educational qualification of the respondents, the
more they understood Heart to Heart.
The percentages of the respondents who could associate g g with HIV/AIDS

according to educational qualification were B.Sc/HND (45.1%), OND/NCE (42.9%); these
respondents could associate this word with HIV/AIDS more than respondents with primary
qualification (37.5%) as well as postgraduate respondents (36.8%). Also, (25.7%) of the
respondents with secondary school qualification could associate the word with HIV/AIDS,
while (25%) of the respondents without educational qualification could associate it with
HIV/AIDS. Associating g g with HIV/AIDS was not very easy for all the respondents
irrespective of their educational qualifications. This could be as a result of the word not being
used in documented campaign yet.
The respondents with B.Sc/HND and OND/NCE, (25.3%) and (23.8%), respectively,
could associate the message choose life with HIV/AIDS while (19.6%) of the respondents
with secondary school qualification could associate the message with HIV/AIDS. While
(15.8%) of the respondents with postgraduate qualification could associate choose-life with
HIV/AIDS, none of the respondents with primary qualification could associate it with
HIV/AIDS. Only few of the respondents could associate choose life with HIV/AIDS,
which implies that the message is very indirect. Even those with higher qualifications who
understood it were not up to half. This suggests that the messages should be re-coined if
possible for a clearer understanding.
The majority (70.3%) of the respondents with B.Sc/HND qualification could associate
zip up, play safe and love carefully with HIV/AIDS; while respondents with OND/NCE
and secondary qualification, (59.5%) and (55.4%), respectively, could associate them with
HIV/AIDS. Also, (47.4%) of the respondents with postgraduate qualification could associate
the message with HIV/AIDS; while (37.5%) of the respondents without qualification could
associate the messages with HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, (29.2%) of the respondents with
primary school qualification could associate the message with HIV/AIDS. This message is
very effective. This suggests that the messages should be used continuously by message
providers. Moreover, in associating skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS, Table 1.2
indicates that (24.2%) of the respondents who had B.Sc/HND, (15.8%) of those with
postgraduate qualification, (11.9%) of those who had OND/NCE qualification, (8.8%) of
those who had secondary school qualification, and (8.3%) of those who had primary school
qualification could do it. None of the respondents without educational qualification could
associate skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS. This percentages reveal that, despite the
educational qualifications of the respondents, the association of skin to skin can kill with

HIV/AIDS is still at a low level. This implies that the message is indirect and complex to
interpret by the audience. More so, ability to associate others (that is other outdoor catchy
words not displayed in the table) was in the following order: respondents with secondary
school qualification (19.6%), those with OND/NCE (16.7%), those with primary school
qualification(12.5%), those without qualification (12.5%), those with postgraduate
qualification (10.5%), and those with secondary school qualification (8.8%).The respondents
ability to associate others with HIV/AIDS was not very impressive. This implies that most
of the words used in campaigns apart from the ones shown in the table are not audience-
friendly.
Association of the message Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS based on ethnic group
revealed that the Igbo respondents (29.3%), Ed respondents (26.5%), Hausa respondents
(25.0%), and Yoruba respondents (22.2%) could associate it with HIV/AIDS. The ability to
associate Heart to Heart to HIV/AIDS was not effective. This was because of the indirect
nature of the message. Furthermore, (43.9%) of the respondents from the Ed ethnic group
could associate g g with HIV/AIDS. Also (31%) of other ethnic groups could
associate it with HIV/AIDS, while (19.5%), (13.9%) and (12.5%) of respondents from the
Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups, respectively, could associate it with HIV/AIDS.
Respondents from the Edo ethnic groups were in the majority among the respondents who
could associate it with HIV/AIDS. The reason is because the word is an Edo word. Over
(20%) of the respondents from the ethnic groups: Igbo (26.8%), Yoruba (22.2%), and
others (24.1%) could associate choose-life with HIV/AIDS; while (16.9%) and (12.5%),
respectively; from the Edo and Hausa groups could associate the message with HIV/AIDS.
Regarding the association of zip up, play safe and love carefully with HIV/AIDS, (66.7%)
of the Yoruba and (65.9%) of the Igbo respondents could do it. Over (50%) of the
respondents from the remaining ethnic groups: Edo (54.0%), Hausa (50.0%) and Others
(56.9%) could associate them with HIV/AIDS. These messages were the most effective of
HIV/AIDS messages used in Benin metropolis.
A total of (37.5%) of the respondents from the Hausa ethnic group could associate
skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS; while respondents of the ethnic groups Yoruba
(16.7%), Edo (12.3%), and Others (15.5%) could associate it with HIV/AIDS. Only (9.8%)
of the respondents of the Igbo ethnic group could associate skin to skin can kill with
HIV/AIDS. This message was poorly related to HIV/AIDS because the respondents did not
understand the message owing to its indirectness. Among the Yoruba respondents, (27.8%)
could associate Others with HIV/AIDS, while (25%) of them the Hausa ethnic group could
associate Others HIV/AIDS. Also, (17.2%) of the other ethnic groups and (17.1%) of the
Igbo respondents could associate other catchy words with HIV/AIDS. A total of (11.1%) of
the Ed respondents could associate others with HIV/AIDS. The figures revealed that most
of such messages were not understood by the respondents. The table 1.3 below display
respondents understanding of outdoor HIV/AIDS catchy words and their ability to associate
the words to HIV/AIDS according to how campaign messages were heard or read (known).

Table 1.3: Catchy words associated with HIV/AIDS according to how HIV/AIDS
messages was known
Knowledg How HIV/AIDS was known Total
e of Sensitis TV and Newspap Health School Others
catchy ation Radio ers/ personnel/ teachers
word(s) campai Posters/ NGOs relatives/fr
gns Bill iends
Boards
Heart to
Heart 60 155 20 50 (12.2%) 105 20 410
Yes (14.6%) (37.8%) (4.9%) 105 (8.4%) (25.6%) (4.9%) (100%)
No 195 505 95 295 55 1250(100
(15.6%) (40.4%) (7.6%) (23.6%) (4.4%) %)
g g
Yes 115 250 50 60 (10.4%) 70 60 605
No (20.0%) (43.5%) (3.5%) 55 (5.1%) (12.2%) (10.4%) (100%)
140 410 55 85 (7.8%) 340(31.3 1085(100
(12.9%) (37.8%) (5.1%) %) %)
Choose
life 50 110 30 30 (9.1%) 100 10 330
Yes (15.2%) (33.3%) (9.1%) 125 (9.4%) (30.3%) (3.0%) (100%)
No 205 550 85 300 65
(15.4%) (41.4%) (6.4%) (22.6%) (4.9%) 1330(100
%)
Zip up
play safe
love 130 375 85 90 (9.5%) 235 35 950
carefully (13.7%) (39.5%) (8.9%) 65 (9.2%) (24.7%) (3.7%) (100%)
Yes 125 285 30 165 40 710
No (17.6%) (40.2%) (4.2%) (23.2%) (5.6%) (100%)
Skin to
skin can
kill 40 95 20 35 35 - 225
Yes (17.8%) (42.1%) (8.9%) (15.6%) (15.6%) 75 (100%)
No 215(15.0 565 95 120 (8.4%) 365(25.4% (5.2%) 1435(100
%) (39.4%) (6.6%) ) %)
Others
Yes 25 65 10 15 (6.0%) 95 40 250
No (10.0%) (26.0%) (4.0%) 140 (9.9%) (38.0%) (16.0%) (100%)
230 595 105 305 35 1410(100
(16.3%) (42.2%) (7.4%) (21.7%) (2.5%) %)

Table 1.3 displays the catchy words associated with HIV/AIDS by respondents
according to how they got to know about the catchy words and understood them. Among the
410 respondents who could associate the catchy expression Heart to Heart, (14.6%) knew
about HIV/AIDS through sensitisation campaigns. A total of (40.4%) of the respondents
claimed they did not know about Heart to Heart through TV and Radio, while (37.8%)
knew about it through TV and Radio. Also, (7.6%) of the respondents knew about Heart to
Heart through newspapers, posters and billboards, but only (4.9%) of them knew about it
through newspapers, posters and billboards. Similarly, (12.2%) of the respondents knew
about Heart to Heart through health personnel and NGOs, while (8.49%) of them claimed
not to know about it through health personnel and NGOs. However, (25.6%) of the
respondents had knowledge of Heart to Heart through school teachers/relatives/friends,
while (23.6%) of them did not get the knowledge about Heart to Heart through school
teachers, relatives and friends. The respondents who had knowledge about Heart to Heart
through other mediums apart from the ones listed in the table were (4.9%); but (4.4%) of
them claimed otherwise. Thus, the most effective mediums through which respondents knew
about Heart to Heart are the TV and Radio, and school teachers, relatives and friends.
As for the expression g g , (20%) of the respondents got the knowledge of the
word through sensitisation campaigns, while (12.9%) of them did not. Also (43.5%) of them
knew about it through TV and Radio, while (37.8%) of them did not know about the word
through TV and Radio. Similarly, (12.2%) of the respondents had knowledge of it through
newspapers, posters and billboards, while (5.1%) of them did not know about it through
newspapers, posters and billboards. The respondents who knew about it through health
personnel and NGOs were (10.4%) and only (5.1%) claimed not to know about it through
health personnel and NGOs. Also, (43.5%) of the respondents had knowledge of it through
school teachers, relatives and friends, while (37.8%) of them did not have the knowledge
about it through school teachers, relatives and friends. But (31.3%) of the respondents
claimed that they did not have knowledge about it through other media. While only (10.4%)
of them had knowledge of g g through other media.
Also Table 1.3 shows that respondents who got to know about the message choose
life through sensitisation campaigns were (15.2%) and (15.4%) of them also did not know
about the message through sensitisation campaigns. Furthermore, (33.3%) of the respondents
had knowledge of choose life through TV and radio, while (41.4%) of them did not. Also,
(9.1%) of the respondents had the knowledge of choose life through newspapers, posters
and billboards, while (6.4%) of them did not. The percentage of respondents who knew about
choose life through health personnel and NGOs were (9.1%) while (9.4%) of them claimed
not to have knowledge of the message through the same medium. Most (30.3%) claimed to
have had knowledge of choose life through school teachers, relatives and friends, but
(22.6%) of them did not. Also, (4.9%) of the respondents claimed not to have heard about
choose life through other media, while (3.0%) of them claimed to have heard about the
message through other media. For Zip up, play safe and love carefully, (17.6%) of the
respondents claimed not to have known about the messages through sensitisation campaigns,
while (13.7%) of them claimed to know about the message through sensitisation campaigns.

Altogether, (40.1%) of them did not know about zip up, play safe and love carefully
through TV and Radio but (39.5%) of them knew about the messages through TV and radio.
However, (8.9%) of the respondents knew about zip up, play safe and love carefully
through newspapers, posters and billboards and (4.2%) of them did not know about the
messages through newspapers, posters and billboards. Also, (9.5%) of the respondents knew
about zip up, play safe and love carefully through health personnel and NGOs, while
(9.2%) of them claimed not to have known about the messages through health
personnel/NGOs. Furthermore, (24.7%) of the respondents claimed to have known about zip
up, play safe and love carefully through school teachers, relatives and friends, but (23.2%)
of them did not know about the messages through school teachers, relatives and friends.
Moreover, (5.6%) of the respondents claimed not to have known about zip up, play safe and
love carefully through other media, while (3.7%) of them knew about the messages through
other media.
The respondents who got to know about skin to skin can kill through sensitisation
campaigns were (17.8%) while those who did not were (15%). Similarly, (42.2%) of the
respondents knew about it through TV and Radio while (39.4%) of them did not. Also,
(8.9%) of them knew about it through newspapers, posters and billboards, but only (6.6%) of
them did not know about it through newspaper, posters and billboards. Only (15.6%) knew
about skin to skin can kill through school teachers, relatives and friends while (25.4%) of
them did not know about the message through school teachers, relatives and friends. Also,
(5.2%) of them claimed not to have known about it through Others; none of them claimed
to have known about the message through other media.
In the case of others catchy expressions, (16.3%) of the respondents claimed not to
have known others through sensitisation campaigns, while (10%) of them claimed to have
known them through sensitisation campaigns. Furthermore, (42.2%) of the respondents
claimed not to have known others through TV and Radio, but (26%) of them claimed to
have known them through TV and Radio. Some respondents (4.0%) knew other words or
messages through newspaper, posters and billboards. Also, (9.9%) of the respondents did not
know about other words or messages through health personnel and NGOs, while (6%) of
them knew about other words or messages through health personnel and NGOs. Some (38%)
of the respondents who knew about other words or messages did so through school teachers,
relatives and friends while (21.6%) of them knew about other words or messages through
school teachers, relatives and friends. Furthermore, (16%) of the respondents claimed that
they did not know other words or messages through other mediums while (2.5%) of them
claimed to have known other words or messages through other mediums.
The analyses so far reveal that most of the respondents knew about outdoor
HIV/AIDS catchy words or messages through TV and Radio, and school teachers, relatives
and friends. This implies that the most effective medium through which HIV/AIDS messages
can be relayed is the TV and Radio as well as the school teachers, relatives and friends. This
suggests that relaying messages through these media in Benin should continue. The table 1.4

below presents respondents ability to associate understood catchy words to HIV/AIDS

according to their various understandable language for reading and writing.
Table 1.4: Associating catchy word(s) with HIV/AIDS according to understandable

language for reading and writing
Ability to Understandable language for reading and writing Total

associate
My native English Both my Both my
catchy word(s)
language language native native
only only language, language
English and and English
NP
Heart to Heart
Yes 5(1.2%) 270(65.8%) 90(22.0%) 45(11.0%) 410

No 25(2.0%) 815(65.2%) 260(20.8%) 150(12.0%) (100%)
1250(100%)
g g
Yes 385(67.0%) - 140(24.3%) 50(8.7%) 575

No 700(65.5%) 30(2.7%) 210(19.4%) 145(13.4%) (100%)
1085(100%)
Choose life
Yes 5(1.5%) 220(66.6%) 85(25.8%) 20(6.1%) 330(100%)

No 25(1.9%) 865(65.0%) 265(19.9%) 175(13.2%) 1330(100%)
Zip up play safe
love carefully
Yes 15(1.6%) 585(61.6%) 215(22.6%) 135(14.2%) 950(100%)
No 15(2.1%) 560(70.4%) 135(19.0%) 60(8.5%) 710(100%)
Skin to skin can
kill
Yes - 140(62.2%) 55(24.4%) 30(13.3%) 225(100%)

No 30(2.1%) 945(65.8%) 295(20.6%) 165(11.5%) 1435(100%)
Others
Yes 5(2.0%) 190(76.0%) 20(8.0%) 35(14.0%) 250(100%)

No 25(1.8%) 895(63.5%) 330(23.4%) 160(11.3%) 1410(100%)
Source: Researchers field survey, (2013)
Table 1.4 presents the ability of associating catchy words with HIV/AIDS by
respondents according to their understandable language for reading and writing. The
respondents (65.8%) who had the ability to associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS were
those who could read and write only in English while (65.2%) of them who could not
associate the message with the disease were those who could also read and write in English
only. Also, (22%) of the respondents who could associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS
could read and write in their native language, English and NP while (20.8%) of them who
could not associate Heart to Heart with HIV/AIDS were those who could read and write in
their native language, English and NP. Furthermore, (12%) of the respondents who could not
associate Heart to Heart with the disease could read and write in both their native language
and English, while (11%) of those who could associate the message with the disease were in
the same category. Only (1.2%) of the respondents who could associate Heart to Heart with
the disease could read and write in their native language only, while (2%) could not.
The majority (67%) of the respondents who could associate g g with

HIV/AIDS could read and write in their native language only, (2.7%) of them who could read
and write in their native language only could not associate the word with HIV/AIDS. Also,
(65.5%) of the respondents who could not associated it with HIV/AIDS could read and write
in English only, while none of them who could read and write in English only could associate
it with HIV/AIDS. But, (24.3%) of the respondents who could associate it with HIV/AIDS
could read and write in their native language, English and NP while (19.4%) of them could
associate the word with the disease. However, (13.4%) of the respondents who could
associate it with HIV/AIDS could read and write in both their native language and English
while (8.7%) of this group could not.
Among the respondents who could associate the message chose life with HIV/AIDS
were (66.6%) of those who could read and write in English only; (25.8%) of those who could
read and write in native language, English Language, and NP, (6.1%) of those who could
read and write in both native and English, and (1.2%) of those who could read and write in
native language only. Regarding respondents who could not associate choose life with
HIV/AIDS, (65%) of them were those who read and write in English only, (19.9%) were
those who could read and write in native language, English, and NP, and (1.9%) were those
who could read and write in their native language.
A majority (61.6%) of the respondents who could associate the messages zip up,
play safe and love carefully with HIV/AIDS were those who could read and write in
English, followed by (22.6%) of those who could read and write in native language, English
and NP; the least of them (1.6%) were those who could read and write in native language
only. Among those respondents who could not associate zip up, play safe and love
carefully with HIV/AIDS, the majority were still from those who could read and write in
English only, and they were followed by those who could read and write in native language,
English and NP. While (8.5%) of them were those could read and write in both native
language and English only, (2.1%) of the respondents were those who could read and write in
their native language only.
On associating the message skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS, majority (62.2%)
of the respondents who could do this were those who could read and write in English only,
followed by (24.4%) of the respondents who could read and write in their native language,
English and NP. Also, respondents who could associate skin to skin can kill with

HIV/AIDS were (13.3%) of those who could read and write both in their native language and
English. However, none of the respondents who could read and write in native language only
could associate skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS. Coming top among those who could
not associate skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS were (65.8%) of those who could read
and write in English only, and the least were (2.1%) of those who could read and write in
their native language only. On the ability to associate Others with HIV/AIDS messages
according to respondents understandable language for reading and writing, (76%) of those
respondents who could read and write only in English came top. They were followed by
(14%) of those who could read and write in both native language and English; (8%) of those
who could read and write in native language, English, and NP; and (2%) of those who could
read and write in native language only. Claims of inability to associate others with
HIV/AIDS was predominant among those who could read and write in English only (63.5%),
followed by (23.4%) of the respondents who could read and write in their native language,
English and NP; and by those (11.3%) and (1.8%) who could read and write in both native
language and English, and in native language only, respectively.
The findings from the foregoing data indicate that most of the respondents who could
read and write in only English could associate most of the catchy messages with HIV/AIDS.
The word those who read and write in English could not associate with HIV/AIDS is
g g . The reason for this is that g g is not yet used in HIV/AIDS campaign
messages in Benin metropolis, but those who could read and write their native language only
could associate it with HIV/AIDS because it is a popular word for HIV/AIDS in Benin
metropolis. Conversely, the respondents who could only read and write in English could not
associate words or messages like Heart to Heart, choose life and skin to skin can kill with
HIV/AIDS. This implies that the words or messages are too complex and pragmatically
indirect; thus, the respondents could not interpret them. Figures (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) below are
cluster bar charts that display various catchy HIV/AIDS campaign messages according to
how they were Known.

Figure 1: A cluster bar chart of Heart to Heart on HIV/AIDS according to how HIV/AIDS
was known

Figure 2: A cluster bar chart of on HIV/AIDS according to how HIV/AIDS was

known
Figure 3: A cluster bar chart of choose life on HIV/AIDS according to how HIV/AIDS
was known

Figure 4: A cluster bar chart of zip up, play safe, love carefully on HIV/AIDS according
to how HIV/AIDS was known
Figure 5: A cluster bar chart of skin to skin on HIV/AIDS according to how HIV/AIDS
was known

Figure 6: A cluster bar chart of others on HIV/AIDS according to how HIV/AIDS was
known
6. Findings and Conclusion
This study argues that various catchy HIV/AIDS catchy campaign messages in Benin
metropolis are characterized by the direct and indirect acts. The paper reveals that
respondents could not understand some of the campaign messages because of the pragmatic
indirectness. It was observed that respondents background characteristics, understandable
language for reading and writing and how HIV/AIDS messages were known play a major
role in understanding the messages. Thus, in terms of age, older respondent (45-57years)
could understand the messages better than the younger between the ages of (15-44years)
despite its pragmatic implicitness. Also, the higher the educational qualification of the
respondents the better their understanding of the messages, the respondents with (B.Sc/HND
and Postgraduates) educational background understood the entire messages. Based on
respondents understandable language for reading and writing generally, most of the
respondents who could read and write in only English could associate most of the catchy
messages with HIV/AIDS. Only (2.7%) of those who read and write in English could
associate HIV/AIDS with g g while (67%) of those who could read and write their
native languages only could associate it with HIV/AIDS. The reason for this is that
g g is not yet used in HIV/AIDS campaign messages in Benin metropolis, but it is a
popular word for HIV/AIDS in Benin metropolis. Respondents knew about HIV/AIDS catchy
word mostly through the television, radio, school, relatives and friends. Finally, over (70%)
of the respondents who could only read and write in English could associate catchy words or
messages like Heart to Heart, choose life and skin to skin can kill with HIV/AIDS while
only (2.1%) of those who could read and write their native languages only could associate
them with HIV/AIDS because these words or messages are too complex and pragmatically
indirect; thus, the respondents could not interpret them.
So far, this paper has assessed the effectiveness of direct and indirect catchy
HIV/AIDS campaign messages on the audiences in Benin metropolis, thus advise the
messages providers on the need to improve on the messages by making them more explicit
for a better understanding. They should also employ the use of native languages in writing
messages in addition to English to make a balance impact both for the literate and illiterate
populace.

References
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English language and literature in English: An Introductory Handbook. Ilorin: Department
of Modern European Languages. 186-204.
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Mass: MIT Press.
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Press.
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Ministry of Health
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Egbokhare and C. Kolawole (Eds). Globalization and future of African languages. Ibadan
Cultural Studies Group (ICSG), Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Ibadan Nigeria
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Examples. African Nebula, Issue 2: p.153-165.
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Fetop Publishers
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World Health Organisation Vol. 4, No.1, pp.150-159.
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Longman.
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Expression for HIV/AIDS Eradication Campaigns.Journal of Social Sciences. Vol. 263:
p.195-201.
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Drawing the Human Face of a Homeland:A Reading of Khaled Hosseinis

Novels; The Kite Runner, A thousand Splendid Suns, and And the Mountains
Echoed
Rim Souissi
University of Sousse, Tunisia
Abstract
Being the first Afghan-American writer who writes in English, Khaled Hosseini is a relatively
new novelist whose literary reputation was established since his debut novel, The kite Runner
(2003). His successive two novels; A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) and And the Mountains
Echoed (2013) have achieved the same worldwide recognition and success.
The common thread that links Hosseinis novels apart from them being set in and
representative of Afghanistans multilayered society and complex history is the fact that each
character in these fictional works sets out on a journey that is determined and, to a large extent,
linked to the countrys turbulent historical and social background. The itineraries that the
characters follow intersect with and reveal a lot about the countrys social, political and
historical complex matrices. Though he hopes that his novels evince an authentic and truthful
portrait of his homeland, Hosseini doesnt claim to take on the mantle of a teacher, a
sociologist or an anthropologist who can fully and adequately teach about Afghanistan, as he
states in his interview with Fanney Kiefer. Nonetheless, his novels feature characters and stories
that have a worldwide resonance thanks to their representational function of a long-overlooked
and relegated country Afghanistan. My contention is that Hosseinis fiction penetrates the
cultural boundaries that set a chasm between the East and the West. In other words, his novels
are packed with elements of a culture so much foreign, yet nonetheless very familiar with its
themes and characters. Thats what makes Hosseinis works stand out in the so-called ethnic
literature; his rendering of Afghanistans culture and history accessible to foreigners.
Keywords: Afghanistan, History, Culture, Ethnicity, Homeland, Individual journey,

Identity

Introduction
To make readers cognizant of the fact that the Afghan people existed before there was a
war with the Soviets and before there was a Taliban can be perceived as one of the
premises upon which Khaled Hosseini based his works (qtd.in Bloom, 12). Thus, his novels
provide an aperture through which readers can (re)discover Afghanistan prior to its infamous
identification as the cradle and sanctuary of terrorists (Bloom 9). As a matter of fact, Afghanistan
was, and perhaps still is, tantamount to an unending terrorist threat, likely to cut a swathe through
the whole world. In this respect, the erroneous image that pops into mind once Afghanistan is
mentioned is restricted to that of mountainous, barren landscapes, ravaged remnants of cities
peopled by wretched souls, and American soldiers roaming the deserts chasing Taliban. This
proves that the human face of the nation has been shrouded, if not totally obliterated, that we
know so little, if nothing, about the way life was before the country entered in the throes of
incessant wars and invasions.
In this context, what Hosseini aspires to achieve through his fictional texts is to challenge
and subvert this blinkered and narrow outlook towards his native country. This does not mean
that his purpose is to paper over the real situation or to conceal the countrys deep-seated
conflicts and problems. Conversely, it is rather elucidating an authentic and faithful
representation of his nation that the writer hopes to effect. He aims at writing with honesty and
integrity, Hosseini indicates in an interview with Azad (qtd.in Stuhr, 6). In other words,
Hosseinis works bring to the fore an image of a homeland lined with trees, [] where a child
can roam the streets and fields without fear of land mines, [] where kites are flown, and where
movies are attended(Stuhr 35). Accordingly, the novelist avers that Afghanistan was, and still is,
graced with a wealth of natural, social and human potentials lodged in the countrys deep-rooted
culture and immemorial traditions.
This paper explicates how Hosseinis fictionalized stories are revealing of and related to
his homelands recent history, social fabric, and cultural peculiarities.
1. Narrating stories, constructing a homeland portrait
Distinguishing about Hosseinis narratives, as Ab. Majeed Dar expounds, is the fact that
they are written against a history that has not been told in fiction before, delineating the cultural
richness and splendor of a country heading towards destruction (4). Hence, by mirroring his life-
like characters experiences -- being enmeshed in the incessant socio-political struggles --
Hosseini draws the human face of the country that has rarely been portrayed before. Put
differently, the novelist confers on his characters the prerogative of voicing stories that
fictitiously translate his countrymens real journeys. Therefore, his characters are archetypes that
epitomize and illustrate the life of ordinary Afghans.
To unravel the concealed, yet subtly visible side of Afghanistans life, culture, struggles,
customs, traditions, hopes and possibilities, Hosseini chronicles the differing yet convergent
journeys of his characters. The latters fate, concomitantly interweaved with the fate of the

nation, conveys the intermittent political unrest underpinning and channeling the stories lines.
By the same token, Dar contends that the dreary and violent politics of Afghanistan over the last
half-century are constantly intersecting the characters personal narratives (1). In effect, all
Hosseinis works feature characters that are caught and hemmed in vicious circles. They struggle
in face of different hardships and calamities; be it personal, familial, social or economical. This
thematic quality lends his novels the distinctive uniqueness and commonplace universality that
capture, on the one hand, the distinguishing ethnic, sectarian and regional struggles, and on the
other hand, the ubiquitously individual, familial and gender-related issues.
In the same vein, The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountains
Echoed are set against the backdrop of wars that played havoc with a country suffering under the
heavy toll of destruction -- Afghanistan. The author infuses his stories with a voice/voices that
articulate(s) the unutterable experiences of a nation unsettled by decades of penetrating
commotion, societal unrest, political turbulence and sectarian feuds. In fact, Hosseinis novels
unveil what lies behind closed portals, thereby [throwing] the doors of his country wide open so
that the world could see firsthand the real Afghanistan and the great Afghan people who are
suffering for being Afghans (Dar 4). Being an indigenous writer, Hosseini feels it incumbent
upon him to bridge the chasm between his country and the rest of the world (qtd.in Stuhr, 6).
In Modern Afghanistan; A history of Struggle and Survival, Amin Saikal maintains that
rare is the country that has sustained as many blows, and such hard blows, as has Afghanistan
since its foundation as a distinct political unit in 1747 (1). This highlights the fact that
Afghanistan has been marked by perpetual turmoil resulting from the perennial and numerous
wars and invasions and swings between extremist ideological dispositions, ranging from tribal
value systems to Marxism-Leninism and Islamic Medievalism (Saikal 1). This bears testimony to
the countrys unique and steadfast endurance. Nevertheless, the novelist discloses that he
[thinks] of the strength of the Afghan people, [] their humility [and] their astonishing grace
(qtd.in Bloom, 14). Therefore, he vows to translate his countrys muzzled and muted voices into
articulate, well-turned and vivid stories that capture the multifaceted and kaleidoscopic fabric of
Afghan culture. In so doing, the writer furnishes his readers with untold and unprecedented
historical accounts emanating and conveyed from the vantage points of his characters.
In this light, though Hosseini charts and records the periods during which Afghanistan
witnessed political stability and social plateau, the subsequent political mayhem and its attendant
societal anarchy still bulk large in the novels. Thus, the novels narrative lines are inextricably
structured and molded against the background of these periods of both remarkable stability and
violent turbulence, which have succeeded one another in a seemingly haphazard manner (Saikal
1). This bears out that the fictitious events in the novels are interlaced with the real historical
moments and periods that Afghanistan underwent.
2. The historical, social, and ethnic background of the novels
Central and preliminary to the study is a brief foray into Afghanistans modern history.
Examining the different events that influenced and shaped the countrys socio-political matrix

helps determine the way the writer implemented these time periods in his texts as well as the
significance of these historical moments in the novels. Of equal importance is to delve into the
nations social, ethnic and religious composition to gain the fundamental background knowledge
needed to adequately understand the novels.
2.1 Afghanistans history in relation to the novels
The southern Asian countrys modern history can be encapsulated in the transition from
being a buffer state [to] a Cold War battlefield, and finally to a mere hideout conveniently
pocked with caves offering refuge to international terrorists (Tanner 1). This means that the
landlocked country served as a buffer zone avoiding the clash between the worlds superpowers,
namely the British Empire and the Soviet Union. Then, during the 1950s, the country was
sucked into the cyclone of the Cold War and events climaxed with the Soviet invasion in 1979
and its withdrawal ten years later (Barfield 1). In fact, these time periods are very significant in
relation to the novels narrative plots.
2.2 Pre-Soviet occupation period
The period predating the Soviet invasion is marked in the novels by a sense of political
and social stability. Though the characters go through various hardships, life for them was not all
the more complicated yet. In the Kite Runner, for example, the protagonist Amir and his father
Baba lead a stable and settled life before the Soviets invaded the country. The same thing goes
for the other two novels.
2.3 The Soviet Occupation era
In The Kite Runner, the Soviet invasion and the ensuing unrest that pervaded the country
were the reasons why Amir and Baba leave Afghanistan to seek refuge in the United States. The
Soviet occupation era is also prominently present in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Laila, the
protagonist, is born the night of the April 1978 coup. Her two brothers left Kabul in 1980 to join
the Jihad against the Soviets; the fact that made her mother carry a lifetime grudge against the
Soviets for killing her beloved sons. On the other hand, Lailas father admits that women during
that period were privileged to have their basic rights. He tells his daughter that its a good time
[The communist period] to be a woman in Afghanistan. Lailas school teacher, a staunch
supporter of the Soviet Union, tries to foster in her students the loyalty to the Communist nation.
She forbids them from covering their heads and calls for equality between men and women.
Unlike Lailas mother, she is a pro-Soviet, calling the Mujahedeen anti-progressives and
backward bandits. In this context, the novel displays differing perspectives towards the Soviet
rule, ranging from devoted loyalty to utmost opposition.
Therefore, it is from the vantage points of the different characters that the writer
contextualizes this historical period, offering insight into their daily lives, thereby describing the
ramifications of the Soviet occupation on the individual, familial, and social levels.

Contrary to Hosseinis first two novels, in And the Mountains Echoed, there are only
some references to the Soviet era in Afghanistan. Still, the novel features an important by-product
of the Soviet war in Afghanistan The Mujahedeen, turned into what is known as Warlords.
Adels father is one of them and he serves as an exemplar of an affluent warlord wielding power
and influence among the Afghan villagers.
2.4 The civil war period and Talibans ascent to power
Another landmark in the countrys history is also palpably present in the three novels;
Talibans reign of Islamic extremism. In 1996, and after four years of civil war, Taliban seized
power over the government and declared the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Subsequent to the
cataclysmic ascent of Taliban to power, the country became a tinderbox due to the repressed
freedoms, oppression and despotism. During Talibans rule, Amir -- The Kite Runners
protagonist -- returns from the United States to Afghanistan to rescue Sohrab. It is through his
eyes that we see the destruction and subversion brought about by this fundamentalist militia. He
actually comes face to face with a Talib, only to find out that he is his childhood nemesis. It is
also through Rahim Khans account of events that Amir learns how Hassan -- his servant,
childhood companion, and also Sohrabs father -- was killed by Taliban.
In addition to the events that illustrate the Talibans rule in Hosseinis debut novel; his
second novel is also laden with references to this very time period. Since the two protagonists are
women, the writer zooms in on the Talibans treatment of women at that time. Characterized by
harsh and tyrannical bans and restrictions, Talibans rules ordered women to wear burkas
covering their whole bodies, otherwise they were beaten for showing even an arm (Feifer 273).
Laila and Mariam epitomize the oppressed women who had to suffer the atrocity of a patriarchal
society without the right to claim an identity, let alone a voice.
As for Hosseinis third novel And The Mountains Echoed -- the section set during the
period predating Talibans control is depicted from the perspective of Nabi; a servant living with
his employers in Kabul. He provides a first-hand experience of an old man being terrorized by the
constant raids of militiamen on his employers house. During the civil war and prior to Talibans
arrival, Kabul underwent massive destruction, Nabi reports. He also maintains that during
Talibans time the situation was no better, given Talibans oppression of young people and
especially of women.
2.5 The post 9/11 period
The post 9/11period, together with the succeeding Talibans ouster, is also depicted in the
novels. Soon after the attacks, America bombed Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance moved in,
and the Taliban scurried like rats into the caves (The Kite Runner 362). In Afghanistan; A
Cultural and Political History, Thomas Bartfield indicates that the 9/11 attacks resulted in the US
invading Afghanistan in return. He further adds that Since that time, a new Afghan government
has struggled to bring stability to the country in the face of an Islamist insurgency (1). With the
ongoing fighting, the road towards rebuilding the nation seemed rocky and long, as the country
struggled (and still does) to reconstruct itself and to fend off terrorist attacks. It required the

united efforts of both domestic and international communities to reconstruct the war-stricken
country. Amir is one of the Afghan Diaspora who helped rebuild Afghanistan. On the other hand,
in A Thousand Splendid Suns, it is Laila who assumes her responsibility of educating the new
Afghan generation. Together with her husband Triq, she helps rebuild an orphanage with a
classroom for the children to carry on their education. Hosseinis third novel offers an idea about
the international efforts in bolstering the ailing country. The characters of Mr. Markos and Amra
Ademovic the two foreign aid workers who live in Nabis house illustrate the humanitarian
benevolence that Afghanistan received in the post-9/11 era.
3. Afghanistans ethnic, religious and cultural varieties as represented in the novels
As mentioned earlier, Hosseini frames his novels based on the countrys significant and
decisive historical events. Nonetheless, it is not just to chart or to repeat what has been well
documented before, as Nabi tells Mr. Markos when describing Talibans era. It is rather to
explore the fundamental tension involved in forming an identity rooted in a multifaceted culture
and an always-developing historical experience (Bloom 61). In fact, Hosseinis novels involve
characters whose identities as well as journeys are, to a large extent, tied to and determined by the
countrys complex culture and history.
3.1 Ethnic and religious groups as depicted in the novels
The countrys rich ethnic and cultural fabric and its resulting social stratification are well
depicted in Hosseinis novels, and especially in his debut novel The Kite Runner. The writer
places the accent on the ethnic and religious differences in Afghanistan, and this is symbolized by
the characters of Amir and Hassan; the former being an ethnic Pashtun and Sunni Muslim, while
the latter an ethnic Hazara and Shia Muslim. While Amir enjoys the comforts of a luxurious life,
a prerogative of being a Pashtun, Hassan has to toil, serve and be the protective companion of
Amir. This also holds true for their fathers, for Amirs father is an affluent man while Hassans
father is his loyal servant. Ethnic discrimination is even better illustrated by the character of
Assef, Amirs childhood bully and later Talib. He claims that he wants to cleanse the country of
the Hazaras, just like Hitler did with the Jews.
3.2 Afghanistans cultural and social portraits as conveyed in the novels
While Hosseinis first novel paints the ethnic Darwinism, and the religious extremism in a
negative light, his second novel gives an even bleaker picture of the social and gender-related
biases that women were victim of. The novel explores the status of Afghan women in a
patriarchal society. Through the example of Mariam, a harami being denuded of her right to
have a father, the right to say no to a suitor nearly twice her age, and the right to be treated
properly by her spouse, Hosseini establishes an archetype of the bereft Afghan woman. It is
rather in her inability to bear a child that her suffering transpires the most. This is also the fact
that incurred the wrath and maltreatment of her husband. While Mariam epitomizes the rural,
uneducated girl that has to contend with the cruelties of an unjust society, Laila symbolizes the
urban, educated and ambitious girl. Both of them end up under the same roof, sharing the same

husband, the same plight, and eventually the same dream -- to break free from Rachid. The
female protagonists of A Thousand Splendid Suns bring to the fore the dilemmas of Afghan
women, whose voices are drown and whose identities burqa-clad, to use Hosseinis words.
The writers third novel also features female characters whose journeys are no easier than
those of Mariam and Laila. Parwana is the young girl whose sense of jealousy makes her push
her twin sister off the oak tree. She is also the grown-up woman who has to spend years paying
for her mistake and nursing a crippled sister. Parwana is representative of the rural, dignified
Afghan women who live an uneasy life without complaining or breaking down. Liberated and
emancipated Afghan women are also presented and illustrated by the character of Nila Wahdati; a
wealthy socialite and poet living in Kabul.
As for the social portrait that the novels highlight, it is characterized by a huge difference
between the rural and urban areas in Afghanistan. Since the three novels partially take place in
Kabul, Afghanistans capital city, the novelist accentuates the social disparities between the city
and the countryside. While the city dwellers are living a comfortable life, the villagers bear the
brunt of grinding poverty. This has a ripple effect on their destinies and the paths that their
journeys undertake.
Conclusion
Hosseini has become renowned for his faithful representation of his homeland, basing his
aesthetic premise upon stories that are set against and emblematic of Afghanistans recent
history, ethnic diversity, rich culture and traditions. His works, however, transcend with their
universal themes the confines of one country, culture, or experience, as they encapsulate
struggles, hardships, and journeys that are worldwide and common between diverse countries and
cultures. Yet, his novels maintain an unprecedented fictional rigor thanks to their informative role
about Afghanistan and their literary merit as the first Afghan-American novels received by a
worldwide acclaim.

References
-Barfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. New Jersey: Princeton
-Bloom, Harold. Blooms Guides: The Kite Runner. New York: Infobase Publishing,
2009.
-Dar, Ab.Majeed. A Feminist Perspective in A Thousand Splendid Suns. DJ The Dawn

Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, (2013): 651-660.
-Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan. New York: HarperCollins
Publishers Inc, 2009.
-Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York: Riverhead Books, 2003.
---. A Thousand Splendid Suns. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.
---. And The Mountains Echoed. New York: Riverhead Books, 2013.
-Hosseini, Khaled. Bestselling Author Khaled Hosseini. Online video Clip. Youtube. Youtube,
31 January. 2014. Web.
-Saikal, Amin. Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival. London: I.B.Tauris &
Co Ltd, 2004.
-Stuhr, Rebecca. Reading Khaled Hosseini. Philadelphia: Greenwood Press, 2009.
-Tanner, Stephen. Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of
Taliban. U.S: Da Capo Press, 2002.

Where There Is No Second Language: The Problems Faced By International

Tourists during the Calabar Christmas Festival
Gloria Mayen Umukoro

University of Calabar, Nigeria
Abstract
Recent issues in tourism development such as security, tourist attractions, employment,

infrastructures, basic amenities, human development and language reactions are issues
bothering around the tourism industry in Cross River State. Using some tourist destinations,
international tourists and indigenes survey in Cross River State as case study, the paper surveys
the current status of the second language policy in the tourism industry in Cross River state
through monitoring, participation and interview of visitors and stakeholders during some
selected tourism activities in the Cross River State tourism industry and shows how imperative it
is to encourage the second language policy in a tourism based economy. Taking into
consideration the need for the adoption of French as a second international language for tourism
purposes in the State, the main objective of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the
adoption and proper implementation of a second international language policy in the tourism
industry in Cross River State to enhance the growth and sustainability of the industry in the state.
However, with emphasis on the French language as an important tool in this regard, the paper
suggests a reorientation of the people on the need to be bilingual and a concrete implementation
of the French language policy, to create a favorable environment for international tourists in the
state and solve to a great extent, the language problem during the festival.
Keywords: Foreign language skills, bilingual tour guides, tourism

product, destination quality, foreign tourist

Introduction
Calabar has played a significant role in the history and development of Nigeria. Calabar
has hosted several historical events of socio-economic and political importance ranging from the
historic slave trade through the legitimate trade and missionary activities, to being the
administrative seat of the colonial government. From colonial era, Calabar attracts visitors and
tourists who due to its calm and hospitable atmosphere had become a preferred tourist
destination. As far back as the 15th century, Calabar was well known by European sailors. As
already highlighted, the state with a well-known seaport known to the whole world since the 16th
century has played significant role in the business tourism and the historical development of
Nigeria. The caption below on the history of Calabar is a testimony:
Calabar the capital of cross River State has a great potential in hospitality and
tourism. Its relative peace and tranquility, coupled with low crime rate, clean and
natural environment, choice tourist attractions and second to none hospitality nature
of the people has made it a tourism haven with vast potentials and opportunities.
(www.nkankori.com)
There has been an exponential growth in the tourism industry in Cross River State in the
past 6 to 10 years. The abundance of natural resources ranging from beautiful lakes, serene sea
sides, unique traditional cuisines, lush vegetation all put together has made the city of Calabar the
most preferred destination for international tourists and the most attended tourist activity being
the Calabar Christmas Festival, which is the main feature in this study. According to the
Executive Summary of the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee on the Christmas Festival
(2011).
The number of participants keeps increasing and in 2011; the number increased to
1,500,000 participants, 23% of which are foreigners.
Coupled with this background and various reports from players in the tourism sector, the
state with Calabar as the City at the Center is becoming a global player in the international
tourism sector. Amongst other activities; the Calabar Christmas Festival is gaining popularity
with the Carnival Calabar parade tagged Africa biggest street party as the final curtain usually
the grand finale for the festival.
There are however, some common dominant problems faced by tourists visiting the
coastal city of Calabar and its environs today. These problems; such as Inadequate
Infrastructures, Inaccessible Tourist Sites, and so on have been made worse by the recent
language reactions which has made the international participants feel uncomfortable in their
inability to communicate adequately with the locals. According to a research in the department of
hospitality in the Indian Institute of Hotel Management; tourists will feel at home in another
foreign country if they can communicate in their mother tongues, with the above, it is evident
that this will further help them to be more confident and feel safe as well and thus a repeat visit to
the destination.

Albeit, apart from English Language which is the lingua Franca in Cross River State,
there is need for staff of various hotels, tourists sites, airport workers, local transporters as well as
other stakeholders in the tourism sector to have knowledge of a second foreign language, as a
foreign language skill becomes invaluable when communicating with people from other countries
and also acts as a cross-cultural interface between tourism enterprises and visitors.
The City of Calabar
Historically speaking, right from the colonial era Calabar has played significant roles and
has stood out as a city with so much history. Known today as the capital of Cross River State; this
geographical seat is made up of people of diverse culture, lifestyle and some degree of linguistic
diversity. Calabar shares common boundaries with the Republic of Cameroon in the East, to the
South boarders with Akwa Ibom State, with Odukpani Local Government in the North. Calabar is
referred to as an Island surrounded by streams and rivers and has between longitude 700 50 and
900 28 East and Latitudes 500 32and 400 22 North.
Environmentally, adding to its climate change programme, Cross River State in 2008 had
commenced the planting of 5 million trees in designated urban areas with the City of Calabar as
its main area of concentration. There is also a standard system of waste management and
development of sand-fills put in place, as stated by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor,
This would be further deepened with the recent passage of the Waste Management Agency Bill
(2010, 7). Furthermore, government is tackling the hazards posed to human and economic
activities by erosion sites in a sustainable manner. All these are geared towards making the city
of Calabar a true and worthy destination for tourists. To further improve on its reputed and
efficient waste management programme; the city of Calabar is flooded with waste disposal bins
and trucks. According to the Special Adviser to the Governor
All these have further deepened the reputation of the state as the cleanest state and
are contributing to the realization of the vision of the administration to make Cross
River the first green state in Nigeria (8).
It is worthy to mention here that apart from Lagos State which has an urban renewal
programme almost next to none, Cross River State has an effective and efficient urban renewal
programme. The agencies put in place are providing and maintaining, beautification, landscaping
and waste management in five major urban cities namely: Calabar, Ugep, Ikom, Ogoja and
Obudu. Urban streets are being constructed and upgraded, and dualization of City Gate to
Adiabo Bridge road, Akpabuyo Housing Estate Roads and Urban roads in Ugep, Ikom and Ogoja
have reached completion stages(8). Again, all these put in place, no mention of foreign language
skills to further enhance communication for tourists visiting the state.
In terms of security, Come and live and be at rest, Cross River State has a near zero
crime rate. The state boasts of an efficient security network. In Calabar the Capital city, there is
safety of lives and properties all year round. Cross River State is perhaps the only state in the

country with a functional Emergency Response Centre (10). In Calabar, as well as in other
towns in the state, there are dedicated staffs providing 24 hours response to all emergencies
especially during tourism activities.
Furthermore, in the past few years, the Cross River State Government has embarked upon
various world-class infrastructural developments to position the state as the number one
destination for both business and leisure (www.crossriverstate.gov.ng). The people of Calabar are
known for their cleanliness and hospitality, this attribute also makes it a preferred tourist
destination. (www.calabar.com), as a result, Calabar, the capital city, is one of the four urban
centres of the state, constructed and upgraded by Government to international standards. The
installation of streetlights helps to illuminate the city to give it a welcoming view at night and
ensuring that the tourism special activities are delivered to world-class standards.
The ongoing expansion and upgrading of the Margaret Ekpo International Airport
(MEIA) in Calabar is also a drive towards developing and improving the tourism sector. The
proposed Calabar Central Market (CCM) is also a special project geared towards creating wealth
and ensuring optimum social impact in the state. The Calabar Monorail Limited (CML) project is
not left out, the Calabar Energy City (CEC), theme park/convention centers are all special
projects, some of which are ongoing geared towards making Cross River State a first-class
tourism destination.
Business wise, with its vision To make Cross River State the leading state in
Agricultural production and Agro-Allied industries towards the economic well-being and
property of the people of the state (www.crossriverstate.gov.ng) is not just a statement. The
economic strength of the state is in its agricultural strength. The state is endowed with 10 oil
palm, 6 cocoa, 12 rubber plantations owned and managed by indigenous and foreign private
investors.
It is worthy to mention here that the state has vast 1.8 million hectares of untapped
agricultural land, extensive water facilities, which is available for irrigation with rainfall in
abundance. The state is also blessed with other crops such as fruits ranging from pineapple;
banana, oranges and cashew all of which can be cultivated in a very large scale. There is rice with
a potential for producing 3 million metric ton per annum, cassava with a current level of 2.4
million mt per annum and the Biofuel Project, which the state seeks investors and partners both
foreign and local to take advantage of. There is also palm oil, sugarcane, cassava and jetroplia,
which are being promoted for the Biofuel Project.
In terms of livestock, the Obudu Cattle Ranch Area and surrounding land can support a
minimum of 20,000 herds of cattle. Poultry, piggery, fisheries with deep sea fishing for shrimps
and fish. The state is emerging as one of Africas most dynamic market place for agriculture and
agro business. There are opportunities to service both domestic and international markets. There
is also the project Tinapa which was commissioned in April, 2007 (Mofinews April, 2007).
Furthermore, as policy frameworks to help develop the state, the Cross River State Government
with the support of the federal Government took the giant stride to establish the Cross River State

Tourism Bureau (CRSTB) and the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) Egbaji,
2007.
Other facts stated about Cross River State are as follows; Indigenous Languages spoken;
Efik, Ejagham, Bekwara, Yakurr, Agbo, Bakur.
Tourism in Cross River State
With regards to Nigeria, there is no gain saying the fact that she has of late recognized the
significance of tourism in the development of her economy. This recognition stems from the
positive effect (economic and non economic) which tourism is likely to stimulate, efforts are
therefore being made by both federal and state governments to promote the tourism trade. These
efforts cultivate in the establishment of the Nigerian tourism corporation and the formulation of a
tourism policy in Nigeria, Okolo and Okpolo (135).
Tourism in Nigeria has been a front burner on the issues of both the federal and state
government. The country and the various states have taken advantage of its unique tourism
characteristics to boost the GDP of the nation and encourage both local and private mentors in the
industry.
Cross River State is naturally endowed as one of those rare global sites with acclaimed
tourists potentials like the Obudu Cattle Ranch, the Agbokim Waterfalls, the Drill Ranch, the
Canopy walkway, the Nkarasi monolith just to mention but a few. The development of a state-
based tourism industry by all tourism stakeholders became apparent due to the influential master
plan and accessible tourism zones scattered across the state. The eventual development of tourism
automatically brings about the provision of social infrastructures both at the rural and urban
areas.
Tourism in Cross River State is equally geared towards the diversification of the state-
based industry as well as providing an alternative means of improving the states internally
generated revenue. Government policy on tourism since 1999 was motivated following the
United Nations estimate through the World Tourism Organization (WTO) of over 4 trillion
dollars to be generated annually across the globe. In the first four months of 2013, an extra 12
million international tourists was recorded, the UNWTO stated thus Friday, 19 July, a total of
298 million international tourists travelled worldwide between January and April, 2013, 12
million more than in the same period last year. Following the result of our survey, this figure is
predicted to double by the year 2014. No wonder reports show that receipts from international
tourism in destinations around the world grew by 4% in 2012 reaching US and 1075 billion. This
growth is equal to the 4% increase in international tourist arrivals, which reached 1035 million in
2012 (Hospitality Net, 2013). A holistic measurement of tourism arrival from the above estimate
indicates that tourism expenditure would flow both from domestic to international arrivals. It is
therefore, clear that the Cross River State government is not out of place to identify tourism as a
priority sector meant to accord development as this is expected to lunch the entire state and
Nigeria as a whole into the prophetic boom.

Come and live and be at Rest is an appropriate acronym not only for Calabar, but for
the entire state of Cross River, which offers visitors a safe and relaxing atmosphere away from
the commotion and congestion of the Nigerias big cities (www.crossriverstate.gov.ng).
Recognizing the above assertion, the government of Cross River State has made tourism
development a priority and is working to leverage the contributions of the private sector to brand
Cross River as a premier destination for Nigerians and foreigners alike. Lets pause and digest the
last statement, which to some extent may contrast with the main problem raised in this
communication.
In Cross River, tourism remains a critical option in the states drive for wealth creation
and an alternative to dependence on fluctuating oil revenue.
Two leading tourist facilities in the state, Tinapa and the Ranch Resort have gained
more utility yardage. A Water Park, and an Amusement Arcade have been added to
Tinapa Resort to expand its entertainment offerings. Its retail business offering has
also had a substantial filling following opening of T-mart. This following the
Federal Governments approval of a regulatory guideline for its operations (3).
To ensure that this and more are achieved, these facilities have been repositioned and
utilized for excellent service delivery and tourism services. Government has thus put in place a
good number of infrastructures to enhance access to tourist sites and at the same time ensure an
exotic tourism experience for tourists who visit the state. But again, what happens when they
arrive at these sites? Is communication very easy? How do tourists get vital information? Are
there bilingual tour guides to put them through? I remember during our visit to see the
outstanding monoliths at Nkarasi, the villagers where the monoliths are found could only speak
their indigenous dialect which of course none of us could speak, we then had to send for someone
who could at least communicate to us in pidgin English.
Furthermore, identifying tourism as a preferred sector for development implies the

creation of avenues for the accessibility of unidentified tourism zones. This also informs
governments intention to appropriate resources for the development of abandoned tourist
attractions in which case probative value was not earlier attached to. However, from information
we gathered from a recent research carried out by the Economic Monitoring Committee, the
number of tourists sites has increased from 54 in 2008 to 70 in 2012 with about 54 t0 60
classified as semi-visitor ready from our estimation. This also is an indication that number of
tourists will increase considerably.
Cross River State is rich in cultural tourism; we have the Ekpe cultural festival, the
Obong of Calabar Palace, the Mary Slessor Tombstone at Duke Town. We also have the Marina
Beach, which is a very indigenous beach with the entire traditional and cultural outlook, with a
typical traditional, beach market where one can buy and sell all kinds of seafoods in their natural
and very fresh state. There is also the Aqua Vista Farm and Resorts, the Calabar museum has also
been a major attraction for tourists who visit the metropolis.

Local governments in Cross River State are also richly blessed with several tourist
attractions, some of which are yet to be exploited as we speak. In Boki Local Government Area,
there is the Kanyang Game Reserve, the Buanchoir Drill Ranch; there is also a conservation
center for these species in Etung Local Government Area. These tourist sites are renowned and
attract a good number of tourists especially during the Christmas festival. The state is also
blessed with the Agbokim waterfalls, there is also the Abam falls in Ajasor and to complement
these is the traditional Moninkim dance. This dance is a maiden dance that speaks volumes of the
people of this area.
There is the very prestigious Nkarasi monolith found in the Ikom beach with lovely sand
and aesthetic beauty. The monolith dates back to 2500 BC and IAA (Cross River Forum, Tourism
and Investment website). These objects from our interview with the indigenes are very significant
in the history of the Nkarasi people and have become a major attraction to tourists who are
curious about their history and symbolism.
Another Local Government is Akamkpa, which is rich with ecology. There is the National
Park, the Qua-falls at Aningheje which is a very distinctive tourist destination in the area as it
also has the potentials to attract a large number of tourists on a daily basis during the festival
period, but to our surprise on our visit to the water fall, we met a deserted natural tourist site lying
wasted due to the absence of adequate tourist facilities and attractive tourism activities to
encourage the flow of both local and international tourists. It is worthy here to note that apart
from international tourists who visit the state during the festival period, these sites have serene
environments which Cross Riverians and other Nigerians can take advantage of the calmness for
holidays and short vacations creating additional revenue for government even after the festival
period.
There are also reform lakes in Eboni and Ujum, these lakes, we discovered during our
interview with some of the chiefs, have very interesting resources like rich species of fishes. They
are also rich in swamps and flood plains. From our discovery also ceramics, pottery, glass wares,
stone chips and crush rocks are found in this local government area as we were told due to the
enormous clay deposits and glittering hard core stones and also rivers with high silica content.
Festivals in Cross River State
In Africa, where a significant aspect of the peoples culture revolves around transferable
folkways, irrespective of the Western influence occasioned by Cross-acculturation, globalization
and westernization, festivals have become an essential part of tourism products in most
destinations of the world. In Cross River State, apart from the few tourist attractions, which we
have highlighted in this study, there are remarquable numbers of festivals in the state, which have
unique features that give the state an edge above others in terms of cultural tourism. From our
secondary source, we gathered that the number of cultural events has increased from 38 in 2008
to 42 in 2012 and presently; there are 54 cultural events in Cross River State.

The unique Ekpe festival was usually celebrated yearly during the Christmas period and
this festival has gained international recognition with tourist traffic drawn from South America,
the Caribbean Islands, Africa and other orients boosting the desired international tourism. The
period of Christmas, which was introduced by the European Christianity as, stated by Offiong
was in recent times celebrated side by side with the prestigious and renowned Ekpe festival. The
Ekpe masquerade is a highly religious significant masquerade of the Efik people.
Another remarquable event is the Calabar Annual home away from home International
Jazz festival. In 2013, the festival attracted international Super Stars like DAngelo and Eric
Benet from the United States and Jonathan Butter from South Africa the festival is usually an
ideal Easter weekend gateway that delights all senses. It attracts artists both internationally and
locally and thus attracts a large number of local and international jazz (tourists) lovers into the
state.
Another notable festival in Cross River State is the Leboku festival of the Yakurr people.
The Leboku is a festival where different age grades display colorful cowries, costumes and
dances, just as other new yam festivals celebrated by about 80% of the communities in the state.
The festival is symbolic in nature, it is a celebration of bountiful harvest, and it is a display of
symbolic dance to the god of harvest. During this festival, all roads lead to the Yakurr
community. There is usually a rich display of cultural artifacts and international tourists cease the
opportunity to visit nearby tourist sites, like the Nkarasi Monoliths, the Obudu Cattle Ranch and
the rest of the tourist destinations located around the region.
Festivals from our perspective creates forum for exhibition of culture on one hand, and
on the other hand opens opportunities for marketing Culture. From our survey thus, we observed
that the most visited destination where cultural tourism thrives depends on the richness of its
festivals. People travel for purpose of adventure. People are curious, they want new discoveries
and as such, festivals that attracts are festivals that have rich contents. In Nigeria, the Argungu
International fishing festival has assumed an international status attracting both local residents
and foreigners to Kebbi State to participate in the annual fish catch. According to Ayo et al, the
importance of the festival to the economy has led the government to conserve fish stock by
prohibiting use of gill nets and cast nets.
There are also other outstanding festivals like the Animal Salah Durbar in Kastina State,
the Gidan Housa in Kano State, and the Farns Bacchanal Annual festival in Adamawa State.
There is also the Eyo and Ka Bukor Yam festival in Lagos State (Aremu, 2010). All these are
outstanding and attractive festivals that are worth every tourists visit to Nigeria.
Back in Cross River, we also have the Atumbi festival, which is celebrated by the Ogoja
tribe, it involves a musical war dance and ritual. It is so exclusive that only the initiates and priest
of Atumbi know the chants used. It is significant in that it brings the old and new generation
together reminding the younger ones that war is evil and should be avoided
(crossrivertourism.com).

The Calabar Christmas festival, which is the main focus in this study, has been heralded
by many stakeholders in the hospitality industry as the most marketed amongst the series of
festivals in the country due to its multidimensional and multifaceted nature. It is seen as a well-
groomed and packed tourism product by both the private and the government, both at local and
the state levels. The festival is a mlange of activities ranging from display of dances, culture,
drama, showbiz, cuisine etc. It is usually celebrated from the 1st to the 31st of December. The
events of the day are tourism products that stand the taste of time, they are as follows the
HIV/AIDS City Walk, Musical concerts, Traditional drama displays, Boat regatta, Cultural
carnival, Mountain race, film festival etc and the prestigious Carnival Calabar which is a mlange
of Afro American products, Caribbean colorful and glamorous carnivals and a product of the
diaspora culture which has found its way into the state.
Stimulating discussions on foreign language skills
According to Ashipu and Umukoro (2014),
One of the many areas in human activities where language plays a vital role is law.
Legal activities have been very dominant in the life of man and lawyers, judges, and
even defendants employ language as a weapon to articulate their views (Abstract).
By the above assertion, everyone needs language and by extension, everyone needs a
second language skill. Language is very vital in human existence, and for tourism, language
becomes an indispensable tool as it acts as a connecting factor between the tourists and the
destination. There are so many reasons why anyone and everyone should learn at least one more
foreign language in general and in the case of this study, French language in particular. In my
perception, communication, being a life wire to human existence in any gathering and the society
at large, plays a vital role in enhancing effective communication, without which there will be no
communication.
Thus, following this perception, in the case of this study without the presence of an
international language skill, it will be difficult to communicate with the visitors who speak the
language and as such communication will be impossible. Furthermore, a tourist whose language
is spoken in the country or town of his visit will find his or her trip greatly enhanced in terms of
communication, hospitality, movement, interaction and the general intention of the travel will be
highly fulfilled.
There is a popular saying that he who speaks a second language lives a second life
(French proverb). This in our opinion in this study is completely true, we have learnt so much
about the French people in all the years we have learnt the French language; for instance we
have learnt how to faire la bisse, which is typical amongst the French, as French students
during our immersion programme in the Francophone countries where we went for our Year
Abroad programmes, we found ourselves falling in love with the popular French baguette,
today whenever I visit a bakery, even here at home, I dont leave without a baguette. I also dont
joke with my break periods a habit I learnt during my year abroad in Togo. These and many
more are practices I never knew about until I began to study French. Also, my sense of fashion

has improved tremendously, and we also observe that 90% of our French students transform their
Look after the Year Abroad programme.
Language and culture go hand in hand. Speaking another persons language shows respect
for their culture and also the people. People will always feel pleased when one makes an effort to
speak their language, even if all one can say is Bonjour and Guten morgen, Gracias etc to a
tourist and this will also make a tourist want to know for instance how Bonjour and other
survival phrases are said in Efik or Ejagham as the case maybe, these which are some prominent
dialects in the state. Speaking another language apart from your own language makes one enjoy
the literature, the music, the poetry, as it is presented in the original language. For instance,
though I was in love with the rhythm of Awilo songs, I began to appreciate his songs better
when I understood the lyrics because of the French phrases present in his songs.
Lets take a look at the business world, if you had a new product you wanted to introduce
into the business world and of course as a business person with ambition you wouldnt just want
to localize your product, therefore to increase its marketability, you would rather employ a
marketer who doesnt just speak one langue, take for instance just English or Chinese as the case
maybe. And, since the global economy depends greatly on communication, language skills
become very imperative to your business. You would rather go for a bilingual and better still a
multilingual marketer, knowing that this is an added advantage for your product to break into the
global market.
Why foreign language skills?
The Christmas Festival is characterized by sounds, dances, beauty from the Carnival. It is
referred to as the Africas Biggest Street Party (Carnival Calabar Survey, 2009). In 2008, the
Carnival Calabar attracted 1.2 million on-site spectators. In 2010, the survey showed an estimated
1.5 million on-site spectators and 5,346 on-site participants attended the event. It was also
recorded that both sexes were well represented, though the sample showed slightly more females
than males, and the survey showed that 23% of the total spectators were foreign visitors from
Europe, Africa, North America and Asia all of which speak French and other foreign languages.
In 2012, there was a considerable increase in the number of Continent of visitors as follows;
North America 14%, Africa 36%, Asia 14%, Europe 36%, CRSTB Statistical Report (2012), see
fig.1.
From the above, we observe that the number of foreigners dropped by 3% and the
proportion increased from 3% to 15% in 2012. Now, though the survey never indicated the
reason for the fluctuation, it is believed that certain reactions related to communication were
responsible.
For this study thus, 3000 questionnaires were distributed on site and 2,550 were
recovered. Our survey showed that between 2012 and 2013 festival and carnival, International
Tourist though were pleased with the tourism activities and indicated willingness to attend
subsequent festivals, expressed dissatisfaction with the inability to communicate adequately with

the locals especially in rural areas where some very outstanding tourist sites like the Monoliths at
Nkarasi are located.
Our survey also showed that about 70% of the foreigners were first timers, this was also
an indication that some of those who attended the festivals in the past did not attend subsequent
festivals due to some dissatisfactions. The survey also showed further that about 75% of the
Africans who visited where francophone. The survey further showed that most of the foreigners
who were sited at the various tourist sites like the Obudu Cattle Ranch, the Marina Resort, the
Drill ranch where our questionnaires were distributed speak other languages and needed the
services of tour guides who spoke their language. We also discovered that over 85% of the hotels
in Calabar and other tourist towns in the state did not have bilingual services, and in almost all
cases, TV channels in other languages like TV 5 were not subscribed for.

Fig 1
Fig.4.3: Continent of Visitors
14% 0%
36% North America
South America
36% Africa
14% Asia
Europe
Source: Cross River State Tourism Bureau

It was also drawn from our survey that due to the fact that there were no available
bilingual or multilingual tour guides, tourists often faced some difficulties ranging from petty
fraud, cheating, and theft by small gangs and at times mis-directions to tourist sites.
In 2007, I was called upon by the then Deputy Chief of Staff of Cross River State to work
part-time as a tour guide/interpreter for 28 male and female adults who accompanied the
Renowned Makossa Dancer/Singer Awilo who was one of the performing artists at the festival
that year. The interesting part for me then was that, I had a job for two weeks and again had an
opportunity to speak French continuously to not just one individual but 28 adults on a daily basis
for two weeks.
And then, I began to wonder how many more tourists out there needed these services
during the festival activities? How many more tourists were stranded out there while looking for
direction to a particular place? How many more tourists were stranded even in their hotel rooms
due to the fact that there was no staff who spoke at least a second foreign language other than
English?
Recently, I read in one of the current editions of the research magazine Awake and the
writer puts this across:
There are more than 3000 congregations of Jehovahs Witnesses throughout Italy,
and many of these congregations are reaching out to people who speak languages
other than Italian. (15).
And this study emphasizes this concern and maintains that out there in the City of Calabar
during the Christmas Festival, there are more than 500 tourists who speak languages other than
English. There is therefore need at every point in time for foreign language skills in the state and
as a matter of fact in the nearest future the number of tourists will continue to increase. Our
results further confirm that between 2011 and 2013, the number of tourists has tripled and the
number of foreigners continued to increase.
Following its large influx of foreigners however, the need for second language in Cross
River State cannot be overemphasized. This need however has gained little or no attention in the
past. It is also observed that there is a lack of articulation of this need among tourism
organizations in the state. In a hospitality and tourism industry, it is necessary that not less than
two foreign languages should be introduced. Ludwig Wittgenstein states that the limits of my
language are the limits of my universe. It is therefore necessary to note that a tourism and
hospitality industry without the presence of two or more foreign language skills is limited to the
international world.
Who then needs foreign language skills? We all do. But for the sake of this study, it is
pertinent that the following stakeholders are equipped with foreign language skills:
(a) Attendants at Souvenirs shops
(b) Management and staff of Hotels
(c) Tour Guides

(d) Writers of Tourist Literature

(e) International and Local Airline Employees
(f) Immigration and Custom officials.
(g) Security Agents
(h) Health Workers
(i) Management and Staff at the Tourism Bureau and the Carnival Commission
According to Essien (2006) Language is a system of structured vocal symbols by means

of which human beings make meaning and communicate and interact with each other in a given
community (2). Our main focus in this regard is the ability to communicate and interact. These
stakeholders in the hospitality and tourism industry need the foreign language skills to be able to
communicate and interact with international tourists during activities. A situation were Hotel
attendants do not have a foreign language skills, how do they communicate with foreign visitors
who come into the state in large numbers during the Christmas festival? This has been a serious
problem faced by tourist, which this paper seeks to highlight
Why French?
We all learned French because it is beautiful, because it is the filter through which
a great number of people perceive the world and act within it, because it is the instrument through
which a rich culture has been transmitted because it affords the student the opportunity to
become virtually another person, part of another cultural community while still remaining in their
own culture Kinmpton (1975, 783). If for the beauty of the language, the French language is
worth learning. I loved French during my nursery school days because I enjoyed listening to the
French teacher, pronounce French words in the manner she did, to me it just sounded so beautiful
and different.
Before I go into this, let me ask, how many of us are bilingual? How many of us speak
one or two more international languages other than our indigenous languages? Learning another
language can help one understand his language. Many languages have contributed to the
development of the English language, which is spoken by approximately 375 million people
(wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
English language is the Lingua Franca in Nigeria and in Cross River State, which is the
focus of our study. French language is one language that has an enormous impact on the English
language. One experience I have had as a student of the French language is that, learning French
has enhanced my vocabulary in English, for instance there are words in English that I would
naturally not have had any need of using and as such never bothered e.g. the word Rendezvous,
etc.
Thus, according to Laura Lawless, learning French, as a second language, after English
will greatly increase the number of English words the learners know. This is true in the sense
that the percentage of modern English words derived from French is 29%, while 17% of other
languages. The sources go further to reveal that a great number of word of French origin have

entered the English language to the extent that many Latin words have come to the English
language (Wikipedia free), this in my opinion is a credit to the French language. To further
uphold this assertion; Finkenstaedt (1973) opines that nearly 30% of all English words have
French origin. Going by this assertion, in my opinion, over 100,000 English words are of
French. Statistically, French is spoken as a native language in more than two dozens countries
on the five continents. French is spoken by 72 99 million native speakers and another 190
million secondary speakers. And, French is the most commonly taught (second) foreign
language in the world after English (About.com)
Now taking these facts and figures into consideration, the fact that tourists, as discovered
in our survey, who visit Calabar during the festival came from the five continents of the world.
We can therefore categorically say that at least 5 out of every 10 tourist speak or understand
French.
Furthermore, French is an official working language in many international organizations

including the United Nations (UN), International Olympic Committee (IOC), and International
Red Cross (IRC). These are very renowned world organizations and membership is drawn from
around the world. And did you know? Originally, English and French were established as
working languages at UN (working language, wiki free)
French is a Lingua Franca of culture including arts, cuisine, dance and fashion. France,
has won more noble prizes for literature than any other country in the world and is one of the top
producers of international films, this again puts the French language on the lime light and makes
it more famous than any other foreign language after English.
Lets have a look at the Internet, French again is the second most frequently used
language on the net. According to George Weber, French is ranked the second most influential
language in the world. with 72 million native speakers and 190 million secondary speakers. And
according to Adefemiwa (2000),
Nigerias geo-political situation commends the French language to us from many

perspectives; political, economic, social, cultural and from the security point of
view. Take away the boarder along the Atlantic Ocean, all are shared with
Francophone sovereign states with which we have interacted since the beginning of
life in this part of the world. (xi).
Francophone countries bordered Nigeria. In 1996, French was publicly declared the
second official language of the country by the then Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha. This was a
surprise speech made by the president before the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs and
ever since his declaration; schools have been scrambling to find qualified French speakers to
teach the 18 million primary and 5 million secondary students.
Lets come further home, Cross River State. Charity, they say begins at home, you cant
give what you dont have, and what do we have in Cross River State in terms of Language Skill?
Lets begin with our schools, if you say to a nursery school pupil, Bonjour, he or she will

respond, Bonjour Madame comment allez-vous? etc., but if you greet Gutten Morgen, the
child will be wondering what you are talking about. What are we saying here? French is the only
foreign language taught in schools in Cross River State. Again, the only foreign language school
in Cross River is the French language center. Again dont be surprised, for every 35 foreigner
you may find living and working in Cross River, especially Calabar the capital city, 25 will be
from the francophone countries. Now, surprisingly, if you are leaving the country through Cross
River State, the first country you will encounter is a francophone country.
Thus, Cross River State already has French language, all she needs to do is to articulate,
emphasize, create awareness and enforce its usage for the benefit of the tourism sector, the State
and the Country at large. French language is already very present in Cross River state and will
succeed if government pushes a little further to articulate its presence especially in the tourism
sector which is our main concern in this paper.
Survey findings
The Christmas festival is characterized by sounds, dances, beauty and energy as we have
already highlighted. All these are seen in the diverse tourism activities displayed during the
festival. The Calabar festival has attracted over 1.8 million visitors who troop into the state on a
daily basis during the 31 days of festival jamboree in the state. From the over 1.8 million visitors,
our survey was carried out on specific activities venues and designated time according to the
schedule of events.
For this research, we distributed 3000 questionnaires at selected venues; however, we

recovered up to 2,550 questionnaires on site. We also had oral interviews with some tourists as
well as stakeholders at some tourist destinations. The stakeholders interviewed were hoteliers,
transport agencies, airport workers and some workers at the Tourism Bureau and Carnival
Commission respectively.
However, from both our primary and secondary sources, we discovered that the tourism
sector in Cross River State consists of the government who provides an enabling environment
through legislation and investment friendly policies for the overall progressive development of
the industry, the private sector that are in charge of supplies such as accommodation,
transportation, entertainment, shopping facilities etc. we also discovered that there are also the
travel agencies whose operations depend on the regulations and guidelines of the Air Transport
organization. These travel agencies involve in the creation of awareness of the existence of
tourism services in the state. They also offer consultancy services and travel plans and visa
procurement to tourists and travelers. We also gathered that government has done so much to
promote and sustain the industry, as declared by the former Executive secretary of the Carnival
Commission, we have faced many challenges in staging Carnival Calabar but we refuse to give
up, she continues this even is too important for the people of Cross River and the many loyal
visitors who attend. It empowers them and brings them together Elenda Dokubo (2009, 5)

Another very pertinent stakeholder we discovered are the Tour operators. They play a
greater role in the development and marketing of tourism products in the State. These tour agents
are expected to be conversant with the destinations. They also purchase a separate element of
transformation, accommodation and other services in the package, which they sell directly or
indirectly to the tourists.
However, our Survey results are summarized as follows:
1. Nigeria is surrounded by well over 300,000 francophone people. Most of them school and
work in the Calabar metropolis.
2. More tourists desire services in other foreign languages and are asking for them.
3. Tourists are uncomfortable asking for services from locals since they cant be easily
understood.
4. Tourists do not know what bilingual services are available, if there are and where to
locate them.
5. There is no provision for bilingual health professionals during the festival.
6. There is no commitment amongst stakeholders to meet the need of foreigners in terms of
language barrier.
7. Generally, services are not tailored to meet the needs of non-English speaking visitors
Recommendations
In the course of our survey, the following recommendations were drawn:

1. At least one foreign language should be introduced in every tourism and hospitality
programme in schools. Thus, the Tourism Bureau, the Carnival Commission, all
government and private hospitality departments should work together with the Ministry of
Education to spread the message of the need and importance of foreign language skills in
the tourism industry.
2. The transport sector cannot be left out. A local flight attendant and even a steward at a
local transport company who speaks several international languages is an asset to that
agency. Local transport companies, taxi drivers, motor park boys should be encouraged to
study at least one foreign language.
3. Tour guides who work in museums, monuments and other tourist sites in the state as well
as tour guides in private outfits that offer tour packages like boat rides should have
foreign language skills.
4. As sited in the 360 magazine (32), the state tourism boards are key players in the tourism
industry. Thus they should be able to formulate policies which are applicable to their
areas, in accordance with the national policy. Therefore, this study recommends that they
should as well be partners in the implementation of relevant strategic, objectives geared
towards a formidable language policy to boost the industry.
5. There are other closely related hospitality industries like restaurants, hotels, camps,
resorts etc all these outfits should be properly disposed to accommodate international
visitors.
6. Health workers/medical team during tourism activities should have an international
language skill to be able to communicate effectively with a foreigner who has need of

their services. The committee in charge of medical services should make available
bilingual health workers with reasonable access to bilingual health services.
7. There is need for security agencies to have basic language skills. During festival
activities, there is bound to be a high level of security related situations due to the increase
in the number of people drifting in and out of the state, thus to ensure the safety,
knowledge of one or more foreign language is necessary.
8. There also has to be designated areas for these bilingual services during these activities.
9. Government should therefore organize intensive foreign language training programmes
for tour guides, security agents, medical personnel, hotel management, transport agencies
etc and other stakeholders in the tourism industry.
Conclusion
Amongst the most commonly cited problems faced by international tourists during the
Christmas Festival is the absence of International Language Skill among stakeholders. It is
difficult to underestimate the importance that an understanding of linguistic differences plays in
international tourism. These difficulties with language can be gross translation problems, the
problems in conveying subtle distinctions from language to language and culturally based
variations amongst speakers of the same language. Some of these levels of difficulties are often
faced by international tourists during the festival. For instance, how does a simple villager who
can hardly speak English which is the lingua franca of the state communicate adequately and
convince a French man to appreciate and purchase his artifacts or souvenirs and an American
tourist who visits Nkarasi to see the monoliths will definitely need a tour guide who can
understand the American way of speaking English and is able to interpret same in Pidgin English
to the man in the village.
There is need therefore, for the tourism bureau, the carnival commission, transport co-
operations and all other stakeholders in the hospitality industry to work together to spread the
message of importance of foreign language skills in the industry. This will definitely make it easy
for tourists who come into the state to enjoy their stay.
Furthermore, we have in this paper stated that the Calabar Christmas Festival has a high
economic value on the economy of the state and as such should be encouraged. The tourism
industry in Cross River State has a competitive edge over other destinations in Nigeria in view of
its market position. It is adjudged the most preferred tourists destination in Nigeria and thus is
supported by the brand Destination Cross River. And according to the D.G NTDC, discussing
tourism without Calabar is like having dish without water, Otumba Runsewe (44)
While the Calabar Festival occupies the largest festival market share in Nigeria, the
Calabar Carnival has a huge attendance which is comparable to the Caribbean Festival and
Nothing Hill Festivals. As a market leader, it has become the pacesetter in the carnival festival
industry to the extent that other states have begun to use the destination as a model.

Again, the Carnival and festival operates in a fast growing and attractive market which
comprises of young educated and economically viable Nigerians and foreigners. The destination
is blessed with brand loyal customers going by the number of repeat visitations in the past years.
The economic impact of the Calabar Festival is obvious; it has created tremendous
business opportunities for the business community in Calabar. We have observed that, there are
direct visitors spending on goods and services during the festival which increases the tempo of
business during the period. It creates a good number of new jobs in a host of ancillary industries.
These include telecoms, ground transportation, auto rentals, catering, tour operators, printings,
event managements, handcraft sales and carnival industry.
Finally, all said and done, there is still a lot to be done in terms of language barrier faced
by the tourists during their visit, and if carnival started in Cross River State and is now being
celebrated by more than 8 states of the federation, then the implementation of foreign language
skill to boost the tourism industry can be achieved.

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Connectivity between Diplomacy, Foreign Policy and Global Politics
Stella Wasike
Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Sussy N. Kimokoti
Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya
Violet Wekesa
Eldoret University, Kenya
Abstract
Studies in international relations offer a mix of subjects tackling global politics, diplomacy and
foreign policy. Diplomacy and foreign policy are central features of global politics. They capture
our imagination and their conduct affects our lives through their impact on war, peace, the
global economy, human rights, international law, global institutions and the norms that govern
relationships between states. Foreign policy and diplomacy provide an opportunity to examine
and critically evaluate issues of contemporary global politics with a particular emphasis on the
political, economic and decisional dynamics underpinning foreign policy and diplomacy.
Diplomacy is the medium for the achievement of the specific foreign policy objectives of nation-
states. Diplomacy is the central technique of foreign policy because other techniques of foreign
policy revolve around it. The use of tactics plays a major role in this regard so as not to
jeopardize the interests of these states and maintaining diplomatic relations in order for nations
to achieve their foreign policies. In international relations, one cannot talk of one concept
without mentioning the other two concepts. The paper thus interrogates how these three concepts
are interrelated in the field of international relations.
Keywords: Connectivity, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Global, Global politics, International

Relations

1. Introduction
Diplomacy refers to the art or practice of conducting international relations, as in

negotiating alliances, treaties and agreements. It is also defined as an instrument of foreign policy
used to achieve certain goals considered to be vital to the state. It is a peaceful means of
achieving goals through established diplomatic routes through the use of certain accredited agents
(Voskopoulos, 2010). Watson (1982) defined diplomacy as a negotiation of political entities
which acknowledge each others independence. He further argued that contemporary diplomacy
had four primary tasks. These were information gathering abroad; the analysis of such
information by foreign ministries at home; developing policy based on that information and
communicating such a policy. Diplomacy is generally a complex and often challenging practice
of fostering relationships around the world in order to resolve issues and advance interests. It thus
involves meetings between political leaders, sending diplomatic messages and making public
statements about the relationship between countries .States generally pursue diplomacy either
unilaterally, bilaterally or multilaterally.
Foreign policy on the other hand is the policy of a sovereign state in its interaction with
other states. Effective foreign policy rests upon a shared sense of national identity, of a nation-
states place in the world (Hill and Wallace, 1996). Foreign policy is central to peoples sense of
national identity and to an understanding of their nations purpose, role and values (Howell,
1997). Foreign policy as defined by Watson (1982) is the content of foreign relations, comprising
the aspirations and aims a country wants to achieve in its relations with other states and
international governmental organizations. A developmental foreign policy is pro-engagement; it
is not isolationist. It is fundamentally concerned with addressing domestic, continental, and
global disparities and inequalities. According to Odeen Ishmael (2013), today, foreign policy is
an expression of the complex organization that operates within each state: the purpose and quality
of its leaders, the level of its economy and social stability it has, its social and political pluralism
and its firmness in the expression of public opinion
The foreign policy of a country is active, voluntary and reflexive at different periods. A
coherent foreign policy involves a body of doctrine which imposes a discipline on the wills,
orders and operations suited to a purpose consistent with enabling the peaceful coexistence of
nations. The foreign policy of a state also reflects the pattern of foreign relations of that state with
others. It is also reflected by state actors, notably the head of state and the foreign minister,
whose actions and public statements impact on the international political situations.
Global politics is the discipline that studies the political and economic patterns of the
world. It studies relationships between cities, nation-states, shell states, multinational
corporations, Nongovernmental organizations, and intergovernmental organizations (Hill and
Wallace, 1996). One important area of global politics is contestation in the global political sphere
over legitimacy. It is a field that generally examines people and issues around the globe. It
analyses major concerns in the world today, including economic relations, and the gap between
the rich and the poor, democracy and its economic and political benefits, human rights and the

different emphasis placed on rights by different societies, war and peace, ethnic conflict the
environment and power.
The foundations of diplomacy were established long before 1948 in times when sates did
not yet exist and cities pioneered as foreign policy entities. Diplomacy and foreign policy thus
existed before the existence of states. The terms foreign policy and diplomacy have been used
almost interchangeably. In international relations discourse the link between these two terms has
traditionally been conceptualized as a rather simple objective versus tool relationship, in which
diplomacy represents merely a lesser tool of foreign policy in the world (James 1993). These two
concepts were shaped by major political transformations. They can affect the constitution and
transformation of notions of political subjectivity, sovereignty, national identity, mediation and
international order.
2. Relationship between Foreign Policy, Diplomacy and Global Politics
The three concepts are greatly intertwined. This is evident from the manner in which they
relate to each other, and one cannot discuss any one concept without mentioning the others. This
has been illustrated in this section and empirical evidence has been provided in order to clearly
show this relationship.
Diplomacy is an instrument of foreign policy. Through this instrument, negotiations and

peace treaties have been signed among states in order to enhance state-state relations.
Governments of one country engage governments of another country. This is accomplished by
diplomats in order to improve the foreign policy of a country. For example, the US used public
diplomacy to improve her foreign policy towards other countries abroad especially in the Middle
East. This was affected after the September 11th terror attack. Increased globalization has caused
public diplomacy to grow in importance in modern foreign policy (Mellisan, 2012).
Social media diplomatic tools like twitter and face book now allow global
interconnectivity that goes beyond countries borders, political systems and ideologies. This has
thus changed foreign policies of countries. For instance, in China despite severe media
censorship, the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square spread its messages around the world
in 1989 via fax machines. This changed Chinas interactions with the rest of the world (Nye,
1990) since new state actors were brought in. this form of diplomacy is contributing to changes in
the economic infrastructure, trade relations as well as internal and external politics of state. This
diplomacy is redefining power in world politics therefore changing the foreign policy of countries
(Nye, Owens, Cohen, 1996). In addition, this diplomacy working through NGOs and interactive
technologies such as the internet are creating a global civil society and pressure groups such as
Amnesty International or green peace serve as new actors in the making of foreign policy of
states (Nye, 1996).
Foreign policy enables the setting of the agenda of world politics and renewal of interest
in foreign policy through diplomacy. For example, the events of 11th September 2001 focused
attention on the centrality of decisions taken by states and other independent actors such as

Bushs strategy to eliminate terrorism danger to the whole world (Holmes, 2009). Diplomacy is a
tool of foreign policy and war, alliances and international trade may all be manifestations of it.
For example, the US has long used its diplomatic relations with other nations and international
organizations to formulate and implement her foreign policy. As binding agreements among
nations, treaties remain a central tool among representatives of the worlds nations to uphold
shared interests and obligations. Specific treaties including those that created international
organizations like NATO continue to be a mainstay of foreign policy (Sampson, 1994).
Military force is a diplomatic tool that countries use to achieve their foreign policies
(Vladimir, 1978). During the Cold War, the US used the policy of containment, which employed
military and economic pressure to hold Soviet Union power in check. This enabled the US to sell
her ideologies to the rest of the world (Waltz, 2005). The end of the Cold War brought new
challenges and the use of US military power as a tool of foreign policy and on several occasions,
military was committed to diplomatic activities such as peacekeeping and nation building
activities.
International trade is an important tool of foreign policy in which nations participate in a

market system of imports and exports with other nations. For example, for most of our history,
nations erected high tariffs or taxes to lessen the effects of foreign products on domestic
economies. Trade policies remain critical to foreign policies of countries. The US for example
seeks ways to reduce trade barriers through regional and international agreements such as GATT
and NAFTA (Rosati, 2001).
Diplomacy enhances state to state relations among nations and this provides an essential
framework for the conduct of foreign policy. For example, many American officials regarded
withholding diplomatic relations as a way to punish countries for actions ranging from human
rights abuses, to failure to abide by the international law to specific treaty violations and acts of
war. having no relations and the resulting prolonged absence of a diplomatic presence in a
country, seriously handicaps Americas ability to achieve major foreign policy and national
security goals. Diplomatic relations should therefore be maintained, unless security requires
closing the embassy (Vladmir, 1978)..
Global health diplomacy is the relationship between health and foreign policy. Even if
what affects health today is transnational in nature, countries remain core actors that must
reorient their health and foreign policies in ways that align their national interests with the
diplomatic, epidemiological and ethical realities of a globalized world (Zucker, 2000).
Nevertheless, the cutting edge of global health diplomacy raises certain cautious regarding health
role in foreign policies. Competition among countries national interests sometimes impedes
foreign policy coherence, which makes attainment of health goals more difficult. After
September 11th incident in America, their attitude changed. President Obama acknowledges that
Americas new foreign policy must include assistance to troubled nations as a key diplomatic tool
in re engaging as a leader on the international stage. Improving global health is Americas
cornerstone to their foreign policy footing (Zucker, 2000). In the recent years, global health
issues have risen to the highest levels of international politics and have become accepted as

legitimate issues in foreign policy. It is an instrument of statecraft. Foreign policy can endanger
health when diplomacy breaks down or when trade considerations trump health. Health can be
used as an instrument of foreign policy in order to achieve other goals. Health can be an integral
part of diplomacy and besides foreign policy can be used to promote health goals. Generally,
health is an integral part of the global agenda in terms of security, economic and social justice.
The conduct of foreign policy has been enhanced by information and communication
resources available to non state actors. The emergence of a global civil society in the form of
over 30,000 NGOs alongside nearly some 200 state actors as well as IGOs, Trans National
Corporations (TNCs) and Trans Media Corporations (TNCs) , has added to the complexity of
foreign policy (Commission on Global Governance, 1995). In addition, telecommunications as a
diplomatic tool is contributing to changes in the economic infrastructures, competitiveness, trade
relations, as well as internal and external politics of states. It also affects national security,
including the conduct and deterrence against wars, terrorism, civil war, the emergence of new
weapons systems, command and control and intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination.
For instance, the Persian Gulf War provided a glimpse of what future wars might look like
(Commission on Global Governance, 1995). The emergence of an international politics of
cultural identity organized around religious, ethnic or racial fetishisms suggests what the future
issues in foreign policy might be.
Global communication as a tool of diplomacy is redefining power in world politics (Nye

and Owens, 1996). Major changes seem to be taking place in both hard and soft power
conceptions and calculations. In addition, global television communication networks such as
CNN, BBC and Star TV have added image politics and public diplomacy (Commission on Global
Governance, 1995).
Headline diplomacy refers to how news coverage affects foreign policy (Seib, 1997). The
news coverage shapes the design and implementation of foreign policy. By influencing the
political attitudes of opinion-shaping elites and the public at large, the news media can
profoundly affect the conduct of foreign policy (Seib, 1997), examples of press influence on
foreign policies of states include the news medias definition of success and failure, as in
reporting the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam. News reports can lead to public impatience, which
can pressure presidents as happened during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-81. In addition,
presidents can anticipate and control news media coverage, as was done by the Bush
administration during the 1991 Gulf War. Press revelation or suppression of secret information
affects foreign policy, as in the cases of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis and various
intelligence operations. Coverage of humanitarian crises affects public opinion (Seib, 1997).
Through cultural diplomacy, countries recognize their cultural heritage which provides
them with an opportunity of showing what they are, creating a positive image, thus helping to
achieve their political aims (Marta, 1993). Tacit diplomacy has also contributed to foreign policy
behavior between states. Tacit diplomacy involves scientific issues such as genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) or synthetic biology. Scientific cooperation between states can help to change
a diplomatic relationship or enhance the economic trade and/ or security of countries. Science

also informs the processes related to for example, securing arms control, mitigating climate
change, improving food security or reducing illegal trade in endangered species (Benson and
Kielgren, 2014). This form of diplomacy governs how the global community of scientists
interacts via understood, but generally unstated, behavioral norms. This interaction has positive
implications on the foreign policies of countries (Benson and Kielgren, 2014).
Commercial diplomacy involves the use of international business as a tool of a countrys

foreign policy (Donna and Hubbs, 2004). International business has always been intimately
linked to the politics of the global economy, thus affecting the foreign policy of countries.
Nations use commercial diplomacy to expand trade and investment in the context of declining
economic policy sovereignty. The creation of the WTO in 1995 led to an extension of the rules
and regulations of international trade and trade related matters (Donna and Hubbs, 2004). Major
nations in the South and East are now key players and the driving force behind the continuing and
increasing economic integration of nations through age-old processes of international trade and
foreign direct investment (Donna and Hubbs, 2004).
3. Conclusion
Generally, the three concepts are so much interconnected that when one mentions a given
concept, the other two automatically come into play. Globalization has further enhanced this
interconnectivity partly because of the increased number of players on the international arena and
also partly because of the increased number of issues that have to be addressed globally.

References
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Diplomacy
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Rienner Publishers
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International Business and International Relations
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Feminine versus Masculine: The Dichotomies of Movement in Spanish

Flamenco
Marta Wieczorek
Zayed University, U. A. E
Abstract
The article is devoted to analyzing gender-related division of movement in flamenco dance. The
primary dichotomy: feminine/masculine is a starting point for isolating other crucial binary
oppositions: chaos/order, submissiveness/domination, etc. The aim of this article is to illustrate
how a gender-specific use of dance techniques reveals Andalusian habitus. Through an
anthropological reading of flamenco dance, the condition of masculinity and femininity in
Southern Spain can be displayed.
Keywords: Flamenco, Anthropology of Dance, Gender, Habitus, Body

Introduction: Body Gender Identity
Physicality of body creates an illusion of natural, organic character of gestures, positions,

and activities. Marcel Mauss was the first researcher who acknowledged the seeming nature of
this assumption (Mauss, 1979). He argued that the context of a particular culture, conditions the
way we use our bodies. Culture determines how we eat, sleep, rest which positions are
considered relaxing or uncomfortable. The context of Andalusia, the land in which flamenco
originated, will therefore be a base in the process of imposing body techniques used in flamenco
dance.
We own our bodies but they also make us who we are. Body, determining each persons
identity, is also the primary means of discipline. It authorizes culturally approved activities
implied by, for example, gender. Michel Foucault (1977) asserted that body is subject to the
execution of power. He argued that the honing of social control systems leads to the creation of
the despotic body. It internalizes rules, regulations and external mechanisms of control and
supervision. Each individual as a corporal and social being:
Assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously
upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously
plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection. By this very fact, the
eternal power may throw off its physical weight; it tends to the non-corporal; and, the
more it approaches this limit, the more constant, profound and permanent are its effects
(Foucault, 1977: 202-203).
This process results in a voluntary submission to activities, which are socially associated
with desired values such as virtue, honor, pleasure, discipline etc., or identities such as femininity
and masculinity.
In flamenco, gender identity translates to a culturally codified movement and a repertoire of

gestures permitted for a male and female dancer. As Judith Butler (1990) demonstrated, gender is
always performative, culturally constructed and reinforced through repetitive corporal activities.
In baile (flamenco dance) gender as a cultural construction projects certain movement
expectations, which are different for bailaora (female dancer) and bailaor (male dancer). Some
of the contemporary hybrid forms of flamenco allow (to a certain extent) the unification of male
and female dance techniques. Similarly, in some present-day tablaos (flamenco bars or
restaurants devoted primarily to tourists), the dichotomies of male and female movement might
not be as distinguishable. The traditional flamenco, however, implies significant gender-related
differences. A female dancer should include in her performance soft, delicate movement (in
between a dynamic, rapid, fierce, furious dance), whereas bailaor ought to avoid distinctly
subtle gestures.
Spanish flamencologist ngel lvarez Caballero (1998: 16) claims that the novel Escenas
Andaluzas, published in 1847, was the first detailed account written in the Spanish language, of
an early form of flamenco dance (although not stylistically pure yet). Its author, Serafn
Estbanez Caldern, noticed these two (subtlety and impetuosity) aspects of female dance: she

twirled around constantly; sometimes delicately like a swan, which cleaves the water and, at
times, rapidly and violently like a sylph cutting the air in half (Estbanez Caldern, 1847: 212).
Julio Bravo adopts similar description when portraying Cristina Hoyos dance: her seductive
dance tough as steel and soft like velvet (Bravo, 2008: 29). The performance of Juana Vargas
La Macarrona is illustrated as both elevated or heavenly and torrid, fiery or violent
(lvarez Caballero, 1998: 113).
In order to qualify and portray these statements, I will include below an excerpt from a
fieldwork journal written during my research stay in Andalusia (years: 2010 and 2011). The
description focuses on a performance delivered during holiday Feria de Mlaga by bailaor
Miguel Infante and bailaora Reme. Feria de Mlaga is an annual celebration, which takes place
in August in the city of Malaga, and lasts for about two weeks. During that time, members of
Pea Juan Breva temporarily leave the premises of Museum of Flamenco (their headquarters),
put up a large tent in a central square of the city Plaza de la Merced and perform flamenco
publicly. Peas are communities, which bring together flamenco aficionados and performers.
They typically strive toward eliminating external influences; their members often consider
themselves members of a flamenco family. The carnival-like reality of Feria de Mlaga allows
an inversion of the conventional social order, resulting in peas opening to the general public,
which is otherwise uncommon. The performance described below took place in Pea Juan
Brevas public tent:
Infante is strolling the stage, rippling torso, flexing his muscles. He often pauses,
contemplates the music, indulges himself in cogitations. When the female dancer interrupts the
performance, her pauses are shorter, less frequent and charged with tension, anticipation for the
dance. Male intermissions are part of the act in their own right. Infantes performance seems to
be divided between the (static) self-presentation and factual (dynamic) dance. The par
excellence dance component is focused on zapateado (footwork) and braceo (arm movements).
The remaining parts of his body seem relatively immobile or, more accurately, tamed,
conquered. Male movements appear to be more choreographed than female ones. Remes dance
is more unpredictable, wild, unbridled. Her repertoire of gestures seems to be diversified to a
greater extent. That might be related to the fact that she uses her whole figure, whereas male
movement is concentrated around several areas of the body. Reme and Infante perform solo
pieces, after which they move together towards the front of the stage. They are standing next to
one another. Bailaor initiates the movement; using his body: tense, fraught, charged with
advertent, condensed aggression, he enforces female subordination. Reme glances in his
direction, follows his lead, surrenders. They perform simultaneously, though separately, next to
each other. Bailaora dances in a more dynamic way; her movement is circular, light, flirtatious,
seductive, elfin, full of ornaments. Infante uses his body in a moderate, linear, raw, temperate,
concise and focused way. Every now and then, he allows himself to project aggression, arrogance
and imply violence. Their performance ends, Infante accompanies Reme to the backstage,
touching her body for the first time by placing his hand on her arm.

Montage and Rhythm as Markers of Meaning
While discussing few connections between theatre anthropology and anthropology of

culture, Eugenio Barba, Italian theatre director, mentioned the problem of transgressing
ethnocentrism. He referred to the spectators ethnocentrism as a tendency, which involves:
A reluctance to consider the point of view of the process. When we are discussing
artistic products, our conditioned reflexes lead us to be concerned only with the way in
which the result works. It is, however, necessary to realize that in order to understand the
way in which the result works, it is not sufficient to understand which means must be
resorted to in order to arrive at a result (Barba, 2005: 108).
Such ethnocentrism, comprising experiencing the spectacle only from the viewers
perspective (from the point of view of the ultimate result):
Omits the complementary point of view: that of the creative process of the individual
performers and the ensemble of which they are part, the whole web of relationships,
skills, ways of thinking and adapting oneself of which the performance is the fruit
(Barba, 2005: 11).
The acknowledgement of the viewers (i.e. viewer-researcher-anthropologist) position

and striving for transgressing the spectators ethnocentrism is what is essential in this research
endeavor. This analysis considers cultural mechanisms for adapting oneself and performers
presence in a web of [gender] relationships, which determine the dance performance.
Therefore, while analyzing the uses of the body in the described performance, I am depending on
the complementary point of view. That translates into considering a cultural web of meanings
as an essential part of the dance performance.
The term montage has been present in film and theatre discourse since 1930s. It is
understood as series of autonomous stage sequences (Pavis, 1998: 220). Applying that concept
into presenting structure of the described performance, we can argue that it is based on sequences
of male and female movement. The montage organizes narrative structure and rhythm structure in
a way that they convey concrete meanings. Rhythm is understood as meaningful sequences,
organized in time (Pavis, 1998: 313). Montage conditions rhythm, and rhythm determines a
performances meaning.
Montage organizing dance sequences in Remes performance provokes organic, fluid,

natural, interconnected movement. Movement, which is frenzied, yet unified, circular,
consequent, without the element of conflict or rhythmic collision. In Infantes case, long breaks
and leisurely stage strolls follow the dynamic dance. Contrary, the rhythmic sequences and a
torn narrative structure are an immanent part of his act. This is an example of montage, which
includes autonomic, unintegrated rhythmic systems (rhythm exists even in motionlessness).
Contrasts and cuts are a key structural rule in a male dances case. Such approach generates
tension, focus, and requires great control from the dancer. As will be proven below, these
elements are essential in the process of creating social meaning.

Domination versus Submissiveness; Order versus Chaos
American flamencologist, William Washabaugh (1998), describes male dance as

aggressive, dominant, brutal, arrogant, sassy, or even impudent when it comes to posture. He also
notices tendency to communicate eagerness to compete. These qualities of a male performance
can be seen as a form of an aggressive exacting of power through culturally codified gender
behaviors. Some of the adjectives mentioned by Washabaugh harmonize with the image of
Antonio El Pintor a bailaor from the period of cafs cantantes (spaces devoted for flamenco
performances in Spain in XIX and at the beginning of XX century). He was referred to as
arrogante bailaor. ngel lvarez Caballero (1998: 76) asserts that the dancer gained the
audiences favor with his proud and arrogant posture. Contrary to the characteristics of male
performance, Washabaugh qualifies female dance as submissive. Bailaora follows male dancer
by imitating his gestures or reacts to the movement initiated by him. Bailaor accentuates his
domination, whereas she tends to express in her dance eagerness to cooperate, comply or even
surrender (Washabaugh, 1998). As mentioned before, rhythm conditions the meaning or it is even
the meaning in itself (Pavis, 1998, 441). Slowing down, speeding up, initiating the movement
(bailaor), following it (bailaora) all these rhythmic constructions reflect and generate cultural
and social meanings.
The dichotomy: domination/submissiveness is, according to Pierre Bourdieu, a relation

grounded in the social construction of gender elaborated in his habitus theory. This concept refers
to a system of schemes of thought, perception, appreciation and action (Bourdieu, Passeron,
2000: 40), which reflects patterns specific to a particular cultural and social context. Habitus
refers to a wide range of social habits, beliefs, demeanors (also those conditioned by gender),
which are reinforced through the socialization process. In this theory social schemes of gender-
specific roles are intrinsically connected with body-specific attributes. Therefore gender is
essentially a result of social and cultural mechanisms for creating meanings by differentiating
what is culturally perceived as feminine or masculine:
It is only after a formidable collective labour of diffuse and continuous socialization that
distinctive identities, instituted by the cultural arbitrary, are embodied in habitus; which
are clearly differentiated according to the dominant principle (Bourdieu, 2001: 23).
Body in Bourdieus theory is fundamental in the process of creating social distinctions and
gender-specific areas of activities. It comprises a base for determining the system of homological
oppositions such as domination/submissiveness. Deriving from the context of Kabyle culture,
Bourdieu states:
Female submissiveness seems to find a natural translation in bending, stooping, lowering

oneself and submitting curved and supple postures and the associated docility being
seen as appropriate for women (Bourdieu, 2001: 27).
Habitus is a theory of embodying identity, in which gender is continually reconstructed

and renegotiated. The social approval of female submissiveness is possible through its
naturalization its perception as a biological necessity. Flamenco dance reflects that mechanism.

Thanks to the perception of movement as natural and organic, bailaoras submissiveness

becomes socially accepted, or even necessary.
Flamenco (similarly to, for example, Argentinian tango) represents hypermasculinity. Male
posture is patriarchal, charged with aggressive, violent movement, and at the same time, focused,
tamed, controlled. This combination can reveal deeper semantic layers. Elements of dance such
as gesture, posture, hip movement, footwork, etc., are signs, conditioned by the rhythmic
structure of the performance. As Pavis (1998) notices, rhythm creates connections between
systems of stage signs. These signs reflect the social division of gender-related roles. A corporal
sign can therefore reveal social habitus.
William Washabaugh (1998) argues that Andalusian habitus charges men with a certain
responsibility. They ought to be guardians of social order, lawfulness of public life and combat
chaos, symbolically associated with forces of nature. Seemingly unfit dance fusion of violence
and serenity, aggression and control, exists also in the image of Andalusian bullfighter matador
(Washabaugh, 1998). In Spanish corrida (bullfighting), bull is a metaphor of Nature it is wild,
ferocious, savage, follows its instinct. Similarly, a woman with her physiology, menstrual cycle,
reproductive role, representation as mysterious, intuitive etc., is symbolically associated with
Nature (Ortner, 1974). Consequently both a bull and a woman ought to be controlled and tamed
by a guardian of Culture a man (Washabaugh, 1998). This division into gendered dichotomies
provokes a vision of Culture as means of asserting control over Nature. Following that, in
flamenco, bailaor should be aggressive and violent enough to subordinate and tame a woman
identified with the forces of Nature. At the same time, he ought to be serene, calm, moderate,
focused, self-possessed and controlled enough to equate the order of Culture. Male corporeality
in flamenco dance represents qualities, which go beyond what is corporal. Male dancing body
serves as means of emphasizing domination, initiative, intellectual control over female chaos; it is
merely an indicator of non-corporal features. By contrast, furious, unbridled female flamenco
indicates her strictly corporal qualities. The logic of fusion between aggression and serenity is
also reflected in the names of the chapters in Masculine Domination (Bourdieu, 2001):
Manliness and Violence on one hand, and Masculinity as Nobility on the other.
In several descriptions of female flamenco in literature, I noticed a tendency to emphasize

bailaoras animalistic features (Nature). Juana Vargas La Macarrona the gypsy empress
was one of the most important figures of The Golden Age of Flamenco (La Edad de Oro del
Flamenco a period between second half of 19th and the beginning of 20th century). At the age
of 19 she went to Paris to perform flamenco. A Persian Shah who spotted her there called her a
charming cobra (lvarez Caballero, 1998: 113). The author Pablillos de Valladolid wrote about
La Macarrona the following: she displays her teeth, red, like wolfs fangs (Valladolid, 1914:
526). In the article Argentina, published in October 1928, in Theatre Arts Monthly by Andre
Levinson, the author describes a bailaora in the following way: the Spanish dancer is like some
heraldic serpent, undulating on its tail (Bennahaum, 2000: 120).

Conclusion
We can conclude on a contrary note by proving that bailaora can also be treated like an
equal in an otherwise patriarchal context of Andalusia. Bailaor rarely touches a woman while
dancing with her. He does not embrace her or keep her too close to his body, although he can
briefly place his hand on bailaoras hip to twirl her around him. Sometimes he puts his hand on
her shoulder while accompanying her off the stage. His other arm is kept straight, creating a static
frame for a dynamic female body. More often he reaches towards an undulant tail of bailaoras
dress. When he holds the bottom of her long outfit to lead her around his body, the analogies to
presenting a cape during bullfighting are striking. A woman is a partner in dance. Due to limited
access to her body, bailaor does not have immediate and direct control over her. Both occupy a
similar period of time on stage; their solos last equally long. Whenever a man signalizes the need
for a solo dance, bailaora goes to the back of the stage, accompanying his performance by
clapping or using castanets. The male dancer, however, has to do the same when his female
partner decides to perform a short solo. For the next few minutes, he will have to allow her to
shine, and remain in her shadow.

References
-lvarez Caballero, ngel. (1998). El baile flamenco. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
-Barba, Eugenio. (2005). The Paper Canoe. A Guide to Theatre Anthropology. London:
Routledge.
-Bennahum, Ninotchka Devorah. (2000). Antonina Merc la Argentina: Flamenco and the
Spanish Avant Garde. Hanover & London: Oxford University Press.
-Bourdieu, Pierre. (2001). Masculine Domination. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
-Bourdieu, Pierre & Passeron, Jean-Claude. (2000). Reproduction in Education, Society and
Culture. London: Sage.
-Bravo, Julio. (2008). Memorias de un estreno. In E. Matamoros (Ed.), Carmen / Gades.

Veinticinco Aos Twenty Five Years. 1983 2008 (pp. 28 31). Madrid: Fundacin Antonio
Gades / Ediciones Autor.
-Butler, Judith. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:
Routledge.
-Estbanez Caldern, Serafin. (1847). Escenas Andaluzas. Madrid: B. Gonzales.
-Mauss, Marcel. (1979). Sociology and Psychology: Essays. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
-Foucault, Michel. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon.
-Ortner, Sherry B. (1974). Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? In M. Z. Rosaldo & L.

Lamphere (Eds.), Woman, Culture, and Society (pp. 68 87). Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
-Pavis, Patrice. (1998). Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis. Toronto:
University of Toronto.
-Valladolid, Pablillos. (1914). El conversatorio del flamenquismo. Por esos mundos. Retrieved
April 18, 2014, from http://papelesflamencos.com/2009/05/salon-de-novedades-de-sevilla.html
-Washabaugh, William. (1998). Fashioning Masculinity in Flamenco Dance. In W. Washabaugh

(Ed.), The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender and Sexuality (pp. 39 50). Oxford &
New York: Berg.

-Washabaugh, William. (1998). Introduction: Music, Dance, and the Politics of Passion. In W.
Washabaugh (Ed.), The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender and Sexuality (pp. 1 26).
Oxford & New York: Berg.

Imperial Rivalry in South West Arabia before the First World War
Abdol Rauh Yaccob

Sultan Sharif Ali Islamic University, Brunei Darussalam
Abstract
Since the reappearance of the Ottomans in Sanaa from 1872, rivalry against the British in and
around Aden began. This on-going rivalry ended after the boundary settlement of 1902-1904
which freed the British from further Ottoman intervention in the Aden Protectorate. This event
contributed to the change of British policy of intervention in the internal affairs of the Arab to
the non-intervention policy of 1906. The Ottomans too benefited from the boundary settlement.
This settlement encouraged the Ottomans to settle their dispute with the Zaydis and in 1911 they
concluded the Treaty of Daan recognizing the authority of the Zaydis in the north of Yemen.
This article, firstly, will trace the imperial rivalries which took place between the British and the
Ottomans in South West Arabia since the opening of Suez Canal which had increased the
significance of the Red Sea and its surroundings. Secondly, to examine how the imperial
settlement came into being and to evaluate the similarities faced by both imperial powers in
dealing with the internal affairs of the Yemenis.
Keywords: Ottomans, British, rivalry, settlement, Yemen

Introduction
From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards two Imperial governments, the
Ottoman Empire and Great Britain had been engaged in fighting for supremacy in and around the
Red Sea and South Arabia obviously on political and economical purposes. The Ottomans who
were drawn in the area in a much earlier period competing against the arrival of Portuguese, now
reemerged in the area immediately after the opening of the Suez Canal. The British lost no time
but to consolidate their further influence in the area by introducing the policy of interference in
the Arab affairs.
Hitherto, after the occupation of Aden in January 1839, British policy had been one of
non-intervention in Arab affairs. That policy had been re-affirmed in June 1871 when Aitchison,
the Government of India Foreign Secretary, rejected the proposals of Wedderburn (Acting
Secretary to the Government of Bombay) to take over the whole Abdal area so that any foreign
state could be prevented from taking up a position manifestly antagonistic or injurious to British
interests which had been enlarged by the opening of the Suez Canal.
Friendly relations with the neighbouring tribes, however, were established shortly after
the occupation of Aden. This was apparently in part dictated by the needs of the security of the
sea route to India and East. But also it served for the security of settlement and its supplies. An
area in the hinterland behind and near Aden was strictly controlled, kept free from interference
by other powers and bound by mutual friendship and interest to the British. An agreement of a
more binding nature was first made with the Abdal Sultan in June that year, by which the
Sultan not only engaged to maintain peace and friendship with the British Government, but also
was to receive a subsidy of $MT 6,500 (Maria Theresa) annually. The British Government also
undertook to pay the stipends to the Fadl, the Yfi, the Hawshab and the mr which were
formerly paid by the Abdal Sultan to those tribes for keeping open the trade routes 1. These five
tribes were stipendiary of the British from the first. The stipend of the sixth tribe, the Alaw, was
subsequently secured to them through the intervention of the Hawshab chief2.
Immediately after the acquisition of Aden, the British Government successfully secured
their position in and around Aden through friendship treaties with the neighboring tribes: the
Abdal, the Fadl, the Aqrab, the Subayh, the Hawshab, the Yfi the mr, followed by the
Awlaq in 18553. The treaty with the Alaw, however, was secured through a stipend with no
official treaty. Those treaties which had been revoked for a number of occasions as a result of
renewal hostilities with the British, constituted the basis for eventual formation of the Aden
Protectorate which gradually developed from 1880s as a response to the increasing influence of
the Ottomans in the Protectorate after their return to San in 1872, and of the growing interest
of the foreign powers in the region after the opening of the Suez Canal. Despites of all these
1
C.U.Aitchison. (1931). A Collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring
countries. Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch. p.45.
2
Ibid
3
Ibid. p.100

relations with the neighbouring Arab tribes in South West Arabia in particular, British policy
was officially declared as one of non-intervention in the internal affairs of the Arabs.
Anglo-Ottoman rivalry in South West Arabia
The Ottoman Government, after their second return to Yemen, had contended that the
Ottoman Sultans sovereignty extended over those tribes, who had friendly relations with the
British, in virtue of their former occupation of Yemen. The British Government, however, had
always maintained that those tribes were independent of the Ottoman Empire4. Accordingly, in
1873, the Government of India proposed that those tribes should be taken under British
protection, but this was initially, not sanctioned by the India Office. While the question was
under consideration, the Government of India sent a British force to support the Abdal Sultan
against the Ottomans who were giving military assistance to a rebel against the Sultan. The
Ottomans requested the British to withdraw from Lahej and they disclaimed any intention to
interfere. The right of the Ottomans to request the withdrawal of the British force from Lahej
was, however, denied by the Secretary of State for India, on the ground that the Abdals and
other tribes who had treaty relations with the British, were independent from the Ottoman
Empire5.
Ottoman interference, however, continued. In 1885, the Ottomans occupied Jallah, in the
mr country. The British Government protested and declared that they would not permit any
Ottoman interference with the stipendiary chiefs. These declarations produced assurances from
the Porte that their officials in Yemen had been ordered not to interfere with any tribes having
treaty relations with Great Britain, and similar assurances had been subsequently given on more
than one occasion. Subsequently, the whole subject of British relations with tribes was discussed.
In August 1886, the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, proposed that an effective protectorate
should be established over the Arab tribes from Shaykh Sad to the frontiers of Oman as a
response to the constant boundary which finally raised the old claim of the Ottoman Sultan to the
whole of Arabia. "We should then ask the Turks to a delimitation of our protected territory in the
direction of theirs. If they agree, we should enter into a formal Convention with them. If not we
would lay down the limits of the Protectorate without their consent and make them respect
them6.
Shortly afterwards, Protectorate treaties were entered into with the tribes lying along the
coast from the tif Subayhs on the West to Mahr on the East. These included the treaties with
the Sultan of Socotra and Kishn in 1886, the Fadls, the Aqrabs, the Lower Awlaqs, the
Shaykhs of Irqah, the Shaykhs of Lower Hawra and and the Quayt in 1888, and the Subayhs
(tif and Barhm) in 1889. Concerning the Abdal Sultan, British protection had been
extended to him as early as 1882 when article seven (7) of the Shaykh Uthmn Agreement of
4
Minto Papers, MS 12592
5
Ibid
6
Ibid

February 1882 stated that the Abdal was now under British protection7. The Shaykh Uthmn
Agreement of 1882 was, therefore, a significant step towards the Abdal official protectorate
treaty concluded in 1887.
As regards the tribes further inland, the Government of India decided that before any
Protectorate agreement was concluded with them a fuller knowledge of the country and of the
conditions of tribes was required. Captain Wahab of the Survey of India Department was,
therefore, deputed to survey the country. This survey was made in 1891-92. Although the survey
did not extend to the actual boundary of the territory of the tribes concerned, it was sufficient for
the purpose which it was primarily required8. Subsequently, protectorate treaties with most of the
inland tribes in the vicinity of Aden were concluded. These included treaties with the Lower
Yfis, the Hawshabs and the Alaws in 1895. The British Government had no Protectorate
treaties with the Awlaq, and they were not stipendiary. The treaty with the mr was not,
however, of the character of a protectorate arrangement9.
This marked the beginning of the policy of intervention in the hinterland whereby
through the protectorate treaties, the British undertook to extend to the protected ruler the
gracious favour and protection of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress. In return the protected ruler
agrees and promisesto refrain from entering into any correspondence, agreement or treaty,
with any foreign or native power, except with the knowledge and sanction of the British
Government; and further promises to give immediate notice to the Residence at Aden, or other
power to interfere with (the protected ruler). In a later version of the agreement, the protected
ruler was further bound not to cede, sell, mortgage, lease or hire or give, or otherwise dispose of
the (rulers) territory, or any part of the same, at any time, to any power other than the British
Government10. The treaties had, therefore, effectively given authority to the officials at Aden to
interfere through mediation or force with the Protectorate affairs including inter-tribal disputes
on frontiers and trade routes as well as tribal quarrels.
Anglo-Turkish Commission of 19021904
In 1900, Muhammad Nsir Muqbil, the Ottoman qimmaqm of Qamriah occupied a

fort in the Hawshab country. This incident gave rise to a fresh frontier dispute. In July 1901, a
British force was dispatched from Aden to expel the Ottoman-backed Yemenis, and the fort was
blown up11. In August 1901, as a result of frequent disputes on the frontier of the territory of the
Amr of Dli, the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, suggested that the frontier should be demarcated by a
joint Anglo-Turkish Commission. This was agreed both by the Sultan and His Majesty. The
Commissioners, Col. Wahab representing the British, (later in November 1902 Mr. Fitzmaurice
the Second Dragoman at the Constantinople Embassy, was attached as a Joint Commissioner)
7
Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, pp. 106-186
8
9
Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, pp. 141-2
10
Ibid
11

and the Ottoman, Col Mustafa Remzi, met at Dli in February 1902 for work which resulted in
the settlement of the frontier in 1902-4.
Following the delimitation of the boundary, the British embarked on a policy of further
involvement in the Protectorate affairs. In 1904 part of the Aden Movable Column which had
been stationed at Dli since February 1903 was required to remain there after the completion of
the demarcation of the mr territory. This was followed by a series of treaties of peace and
friendship by which the British undertook to extend their protection, with the Upper Yfi in
October 1903, the Upper Awlaqs and the Amr of Bayhn in December 1903, and the Amr of
Dli in November 1904. However, the above forward policy came to an end after the Liberals
came to power.
British non-intervention policy of 1906
A change of government in Britain did not normally affect foreign policy notably in and
around Aden. As an outpost of the Bombay authorities, Aden was under the control of the
Government of India and administratively too remote to concern anyone but Indian expert,
defense planners and representatives of shipping interest. However at the time the Liberals came
to power in 1905 debate on foreign and defense policy of the British Empire was at its height.
Aden policy did not escape from the new atmosphere.
It is a fact that non-intervention policy was initiated by W. Lee Warner,12 a member of

the Indian Council, when it caught the eye of the new Secretary of State for India, Lord Morley.
Warners note greatly impressed the new Secretary of State for India, Lord Morley who took the
office since December, 11, 1905 and adopted all the principles of Warners argument which
formed his new policy of non-intervention of May 4, 1906. The new policy was communicated
to the Government of India to coincide with the appointment of a new Resident at Aden, Major-
General E. De Brath.13 The new policy laid down principles which reversed the previous forward
and intervention policy. The new policy made reference to the traditional role of Great Britain in
Arabia. For that reason Morley adopted the interpretation of the former Foreign Secretary, Lord
Lansdowne, concerning the responsibilities and obligations of Great Britain following the new
frontier demarcation with the Ottoman Government that there was no desire to interfere with the
internal and domestic affairs of the tribes.14 The new policy did not change the traditional role of
Aden as he stated that:
12
Sir William Lee Warner had long services in Bombay, Culcutta and London, educated at Rugby School and St
John College, Cambridge. He joined the Bombay Civil Service in 1867. He held the highest post as Secretary to the
Government of Bombay 1887-1895. In September 1895 he retired from the Civil Service and was then appointed as
Secretary to the Political and Secret Department, the India Office, from September 1895 to November 1902 and then
became a member of the Council of India from November 1902 to November 1912.
13
Major General E. De Brath was due to arrive at Aden on April 19, 1906.
14
The previous Foreign secretarys statement in the House of Lords on March 30 1903 was cited:
With regard to the responsibility for these territories, I do not see why what has taken place should make
any difference in these responsibilities. We have never desired to interfere with the internal and domestic

The security and strength of Aden, one of the main posts and fortresses that guard
the lines between England and India, must always be a standing object in national
policy. That strength will obviously be impaired and not augmented by quarrels with
tribes, by intervention in their disputes, by locating troops at a distance from the
fortifications of Aden, or by any excessive readiness to resort to expeditions out of
all proportion, whether immediate or indirect, to either the occasions for them or to
15
any clear advantage to be gained by them.
On the basis of these principles, the new orders were put forward. First, frontier
trespasses should not be exaggerated, and should a protest be required, it would naturally be by
way of action at Constantinople. Second, the area where active intervention by local authorities
would be permitted was specified. Third, troops and other schemes outside the defined area were
withdrawn. Fourth, the Political Officer at Dhala was also to be withdrawn. The dispatch of
postal runners or agents of the British government into the interior was to be avoided. Any
project for disarming the tribes in the nine cantons should be dismissed from serious
consideration. Punitive expeditions for the offences committed during the demarcation, and not
punished then and there, were now out of question. No demonstrations along the frontier whether
demarcated or not, were needed, and last, no fresh treaties were to be concluded without
referring to the Foreign secretary.16
It may be observed that the policy of non-intervention was introduced not merely because
of the change of government in Britain at that time, but other circumstances also played a part.
There had been a number of reasons that led Morley, a new Secretary of State for India, to adopt
the policy. The British government was at that time reviewing their foreign and defence policy.
Aden and Arabian policy therefore naturally came under review.
The arguments forwarded by Morley and Lee Warner at the India Office in London
emphasized the following factors. The first of these was that the Government had already settled
their boundary disputes with the Ottomans through the Anglo-Turkish Commission of 1902
1904. The India Office argued that the primary objective of the intervention policy was achieved
through the above-mentioned Commission. This principle can be traced in Morley's argument
when he referred to the interpretation of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lansdowne,
in 1903, concerning the responsibility of the Government following the settlement of the
boundary with the Ottomans. This argument appears to be accurate as the settlement had been
observed by the Ottomans although the agreement was only ratified later, in 1914. Furthermore,
it was a fact that the Ottomans were no longer a threat to British interests in South Arabia after
their boundary settlement with the British. The policy of intervention had begun when the threat
of the Ottomans appeared to be at its height. The Protectorate treaties with Arab tribes around
Aden took place when the Ottomans moved to the area and supported the rival of the Abdali
affairs of the tribes. On the other hand, we have throughout made it perfectly plain that we should not
tolerate the interference of any other Power with them.
15
L/P&S/10/74, Secretary of State for India to Viceroy, 4/5/1906
16
L/P&S/10/74, Secretary of State for India to Viceroy, 4/5/1906

sultan, apart from their constant claim of the whole of Yemen. The Anglo-Turkish Commission
was seen by the India Office as settling this dispute.
Imamic-Ottoman Treaty of Daan 1911

In brief, the history of the Ottomans in the Yemen from 1872 until the treaty of Dan in
1911, can be regarded as a failure on the part of the Ottoman Central Authority to promote
efficiency and welfare in the vilayet and to serve for the interest of the Yemenis. It seemed that
the Ottomans treated Yemen as if being an abandoned vilayet, subordinated and dependent on
other countries, notably Egypt and its Suez Canal. Historically the Ottomans view on Yemen was
mainly based on Egypts interest and viewpoint. The Yemen previously under the Mamlks of
Egypt surrendered to the Ottomans in 1530s, following the Ottomans conquest of Egypt in 1517
from the Mamlks. But they were expelled from the Yemen after they occupied the country for
one century, from 1530s to 1630s, a period relatively short-lived compared to the rest of the
Muslim lands within the Empire. Moreover it was two and a half centuries later, in 1872, that the
Ottomans regained their control in the Yemen highlands, and only after Muhammad Ali of
Egypt succeeded in subduing the Wahhbiyah movement in Arabia which paved the way for the
Ottomans to strengthen their position in the Tihmah in the 1840s. The Ottomans moved to
occupy San in 1849, on the invitation of the Zayd Imm, but were soon forced to settle in the
Tihmah at the uprising of the Zayd. Again at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the
Ottomans began to consider the policy of securing the whole Yemen. Though the Ottomans
succeeded in taking San in 1872, if not the whole Yemen, the entire policy of governing the
vilayet was absolutely incompetent. Accordingly it was less than two decades later that the Zayd
Imms started in a series of uprisings to oppose the malpractice of Ottoman administration in the
country.
Before the conclusion of the treaty of Dan in 1911, the Imamic-Ottoman relation was
inharmonious. Initiated by the mal-practices of the Ottoman officials, the Zayd Imms who were
treated only as local religious leaders, looked back to their historical claim over the greater
Yemen for inspiration. This was further stimulated by the Zayd political concept which
encouraged them to rise up against the unjust ruler in the name of religious duty as Imms who
gained support and approval from the Zaydi tribesmen and the notables. The purpose of the
uprising was finally achieved through the treaty of Dan which did not only benefit the Imam
and the Zayds but also the Ottomans.
Secret negotiation between Izzat Pasha, the Commander-in-Chief and the Imm
apparently began in June 1911 and in September 1911, an agreement was finally concluded. The
treaty was signed by both parties in a place called Dan north of Amrn on Wednesday,
October 18, 191117, and the terms of the settlement were apparently accepted in principles by the
Cabinet at Istanbul and in 1913 the treaty was ratified by the Sublime Porte.
17
FO 195/2376, Richardson to Lowther, 14/9/1911

G.A Richardson, the British Vice-Consul at Hudaydah, outlined the terms of settlement
as far as he was able to ascertain them. Imm Yahya agreed to renounce his claim to Caliphate,
to drop the title Commander of Faithful assumed by his predecessors and himself, and to style
himself simply Imm of the Zayds. He further consented to release all Arab hostages, the
guarantee of his authority in securing the assistance and co-operation of the Zayd tribesmen.
The Imm further agreed to liberate all the Ottoman prisoners, and also renounce his right to
collect zakat within the Ottoman jurisdiction.
The Ottomans, for their part, agreed to support Sayyid Yahya against all possible rivals to
the Imamate in the future, to permit him to reside at Kawkabn, and to grant him an annual
subsidy at T25,000 from the revenue of the vilayet. Ottoman civil law would be entirely
abrogated and would be replaced by Islamic Law in the seven highland qadas of Amrn,
Kawkabn, Dhamr, Yarm, Ibb, Hajjah, and and Hajjr. The Islamic Law in those districts
would be administered under the Imm. The Imm would nominate the qadis in those qadas,
subject to the approval of the Central Government. The Ottomans also undertook the granting of
a monthly subsidy to districts and to provide a similar allowance to the ulam, fuqah, and
sdt throughout the Yemen.
However, the principal terms reported by Richardson were not all spelled out in the text
of the signed agreement reported at Aden and Cairo, notably the abandonment of the title Amr
al-Muminn and the financial subsidy to the Imm and others. Presumably the treaty was not yet
available to him, the terms of settlement he reported being merely earlier drafts of the treaty. The
Richardson version should not, however, be neglected as it contains points of mutual
understanding between the Imm and Izzat Pasha which led to the singing of the agreement.
Important differences between the Richardson version and other versions and between other
versions of the treaty exist which can be seen from the texts of the agreement18.
The text of the treaty of Dan appears in different versions: Richardsons account,
versions of the Aden Records and the Arab Bureau of Cairo, and a number of Arabic text
reported by al-Wsii and others. The Aden Records version appears to be the most authentic on
the grounds that it was a translation from the Arabic text handed over the Residency by an Arab
Shaykh. Unfortunately the Aden Records do not contain the Arabic text for us to scrutinise even
further.
The Public Record Office on the other hand, has the text of the treaty which was recorded
by the Arab Bureau Cairo. How the Arab Bureau came to possess the treaty is a matter of
speculation since the Bureau came into existence only in 1916. Examining the text of the Arab
Bureau, it seems possible that it is summary of the original, reported to the British Consul. It
contains, however, complete terms of settlement. When comparing it with the Aden version, one
can detect an error in interpreting the original text. For example article nine (9), of the Arab
Bureau version, states The Government will nominate an officer by the name (Inspector
General) to inspect the judges who travel about in their districts and villages, and are likened to
moving courts. The Arab Bureau translated Mubasher as an Inspector General to inspect the
18

judges. In contrast, Aden refers to them as assistants as quoted the judges appointed in the
circles and districts can have trustworthy assistants for them in order to serve them in the
management of their affairs, to safeguard them and to bring before them the litigants, This
article clearly contradicts that of the Aden Records and also of al-Wsi which spells out in
plural muhfizn and mubashirn rather than mubasher in singular.
Al-Wsi is the only source for the Zayds and other Arab writers. It is unfortunate that
al-Wsi does not state the source of the treaty. Again comparing it with the Aden version, al-
Wsis account, does not appear to be complete. For instance article ten (10) is a repetition to
article six (6)19. Meanwhile, the Ottoman text was not referred to in any of the Arabic sources
available or in the British archives. Presumably the original text of the treaty was in Arabic.
Conclusion
The treaty of Dan marked a turning point in the history of Imamic-Ottoman in the
Yemen since the occupation of San by the Ottomans in 1872. It eliminated all the principal
sources of friction and discord between the Ottomans and the Imm. Moreover the treaty
recognised the Imm as temporal and spiritual leader of the Zayds which provided him power to
appoint and dismiss judges in the Zayd districts as well as the authority over waqfs and taxation.
Also the treaty granted other demands made by the Imm, namely the implementation of the
Shariah.
Imm Yahya must have been extremely pleased with the terms of the treaty for he
achieved the position of his predecessors in securing the highlands of the Yemen for the Zayds,
though he was less successfully than Imm Qsim and his son who successfully released the
highlands from the Ottomans. Imm Yahya must have thought of removing the Ottomans
completely from the highlands if not from the Yemen. But if so time now was against his design,
for the Idrs and the British firmly strengthened their position in Asr and Aden respectively.
For strengthening and stabilising his position in the highlands, and further to regain the Zayds
influence in the Tihmah notably by repulsing the Idrs in Asr, Imm Yahya required support
from the Ottomans. For these reasons and other considerations, Imm Yahya at the
understanding of the settlement, approved the presence of the Ottoman wali and troops at San.
Imam Yahyas pleasure with the settlement can be seen in his letter to the Abdali Sultan
on 19 November 1911, describing the admirable personality of Izzat Pasha, whose behavior and
conduct had won his heart, and so led to the mutual understanding between them. Izzat Pasha
also appeared to have won over the majority of Imm Yahyas staunchest supporters at the
beginning of the negotiations. The Imm stated that Izzat Pasha was
unique amongst the famous officials of Government or perhaps the exceptional
individual. From his manners we realised that he was truthful in his speech and
faithful in action and regardful of matters conductive of honour to Islam and
Muslims and pleasing to the Eternal God; he facilitated most of the matters around
which we hovered and the greatest wishes we were anxious to acquire and
19
Wasii, Abd al-Wasi bin Ya ya. (1982). Trkh al-Yaman al-Musamm furjat a-humm wa al-huzn f hawdith
wa trkh al-Yaman. ana: al-Dr al-Yamaniyyah,. pp.236-39

20
obtain.
This expression appears to be genuine. The Imm remained loyal not only to one
particular official but to the Ottomans in general, as he abided by the treaty which was ratified
later, in 1913. Immediately after signing the treaty, the Imm released 500 Ottoman prisoners.
For the Ottomans, the treaty of Dan relieved them from the internal disturbances of the
Yemenis in order to face a new external constraint, that of the Italians. Even in the early 1911,
there had been discussion in the capital on a new solution to the vilayet. The Sabah published
an article inviting the Minister of Interior to study the problem and suggesting that Yemen and
Asir should be governed through the local chiefs: the Imm in the Yemen highlands and Sayyid
Idrs in Asr. It appears that move the Ottomans to reconcile with the Imm was mainly in
response to a new threat by the Italians when Tripoli was attacked in September 1911, and as the
Ottomans were not prepared to send simultaneously troops to Yemen and Tripoli. The revolt of
1911 cost the Ottomans some three or four million Turkish pounds to bring an army 10,000 men
to the province with a proportionate number of guns and a considerable quantity of stores and
ammunition, and to maintain that force in the field during the four month campaign21.
To the British the policy of non-intervention had damaging effect to the British influence
in South West Arabia in particular and the Arab world in general. According to local officials,
the withdrawal of the troops indirectly encouraged the Ottomans and the Imam alike before the
First World War to extend their influence into the Protectorate. The advance of the Ottomans
into Lahej in 1915 during the First World War was seen as a direct result of the policy of non-
intervention. Further the policy had changed the role of the Abdali sultan and after the new
policy was put into effect, the Aden Residency relied mostly on him as mediator between the
government and the Arab tribes, and also in his role as a British informant. This policy
undoubtedly increased the influence of the Abdali sultan in the Protectorate. The dependence on
the Abdali sultan, who had his own interests to consider, had an injurious effect on the British
position with other Arab tribes. The policy that loosened the ties with those tribes encouraged
them to look towards the Imam and the Ottomans for assistance in settling tribal matters. This
situation had a damaging effect on British prestige in the Protectorate before and during the First
World War.
20
R/20/A/1257, Imam to Abdali, 19/11/1911
21

References
-FO 195/2376, Richardson to Lowther, 14/9/1911.
-L/P&S/10/74, Secretary of State for India to Viceroy, 4/5/1906.
-Minto Papers, MS 12592.
-R/20/A/1257, Imam to Abdali, 19/11/1911.
-C.U.Aitchison. (1931). A Collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and
neighbouring countries. Calcutta: Government of India, Central Publication Branch.
-Wsi, Abd al-Wsi bin Ya ya. (1982). Trkh al-Yaman al-Musamm furjat a-humm wa
al-huzn f hawdith wa trkh al-Yaman. an: al-Dr al-Yamaniyyah,

Slavery and Orientalism in Balzacs La Fille aux yeux dor
Meng Yuqiu
Capital Normal University, China
Abstract
This paper reads Honor de Balzacs 1834 novella La fille aux yeux dor as the male French
protagonists harem fantasy over a female slave from the West Indies. I argue that Balzacs
fiction exposes the late Restoration then the July Monarchys strenuous efforts of dealing with
colonial slavery both as historical legacy and contemporary reality: at a time when the
consequences of colonial slavery were the most acutely felt and visible, France seized the
possibility of penetrating the Orient to release its anxiety over colonial slavery. My reading will
shed new light on the deep-running logic of the emergence of so-called modern Orientalism,
precisely: a process of exoticization that tries to construct colonial slavery practiced in the Old
Colonies into an Oriental phenomenon, in which the violence inflicted on the Old Colonies is
projected as violence by the Orientals.
Keywords: slavery, Orientalism, harem, colonialism

In her study of French Orientalism, Madeleine Dobie sees a process of displacement, which
started from Montesquieu and lasted for over two hundred years. Dobie argues that the
fascination with the Orient that permeated eighteenth-century French culture was the symptom
of a displacement of Frances interest in its New World colonies, and, by extension, of a
repression of Frances involvement in the Atlantic slave trade (44, emphasis original). For
Dobie, Montesquieu in his writings on slavery concentrated on slavery in the Orient in order to
avoid thinking about Frances own practice of slavery in the Antilles (45). The nineteenth-
century Orientalism that emerged following the 1830 invasion of Algeria, for Dobie, uses
Montesquieus model of displacement and repression upon a new colonial reality, that of
Frances North African colonization, to quote Dobie again: the aesthetic sublimation sustained
an ambivalent relation to French colonialism and deferred the need for a definitive assessment of
Europes involvement in the Orient. In a broader political frame, it helped to render French
foreign policy palatable to the literate public by occluding the more negative aspects of the
colonial process and emphasizing instead the timeless attractions of the Orient (150).
Dobies capture of colonial slaverys conspicuous absence in Montesquieu is truly insightful,

but in fact colonial slavery remained a reality for the France of the 1830s as well. Algeria was
but one of the two colonial legacies that the July Monarchy inherited from the Restoration: the
other was the Old Colonies. Colonial slavery, I want to point out, was something the July
Monarchy lived with during the regimes entirety. Despite efforts for a gradual phasing out of
slavery through legislation (Cohen 206), and under years of constant international pressure, the
regime did not abolish slavery. It was only after the July Monarchys demise that the Provisional
Republic finally outlawed slavery in the French colonies on April 27, 1848. How did this odd co-
existence of colonial regimes bear out in literature? The work I examine here, Honor de
Balzacs La fille aux yeux dor, published in 1834, uses the harem image to capture the intricate
relation between modern French Orientalism and colonial slavery. I argue that by making his
male protagonist live a romantic encounter with a woman from the Old Colonies as harem
fantasy, Balzac exposes the late Restoration then the July Monarchys strenuous efforts of
dealing with colonial slavery both as historical legacy and contemporary reality. At a time when
the consequences of colonial slavery were the most acutely felt and visible, France seized the
possibility of penetrating the Orient to release its anxiety over colonial slavery. My reading will
shed new light on the deep-running logic of the emergence of so-called modern Orientalism: a
process of exoticization that tries to construct colonial slavery practiced in the Old Colonies into
an Oriental phenomenon, in which the violence inflicted on the Old Colonies is projected as
violence by the Orientals.
La fille aux yeux dor marks Balzacs explicit engagement with his time. While the main plot
happens during the Hundred Days, the narrative frame is situated in the early 1830s. The plot
presents and encounter between a Frenchman and one or more women from the Old Colonies. To
reconstruct the itinerary of the plot: a Georgian-born woman was bought as a slave (421) and
taken to the West Indies, where she gave birth to a daughter, Paquita, who was brought up by a
male slave Christemio who himself in all likelihood is a mulatto from North Africa. Euphemia, a

European Creole growing up in Havana, buys Paquita from the latters gambling addict mother.
Once married to the marquis San-Real, Euphemia brings Paquita, Paquitas mother and
Christemio to Madrid (393). After the French occupation of Spain, San-Real moves to Paris, and
the marquise follows, taking the trio with her as well.
Critics used to see the geography in La fille aux yeux dor as too wild to be true, a loose
conglomeration of heterogeneous elements: LAsie, lOrient comprennent la fois dans lesprit
de Balzac lExtrme et le Proche Orient, lAfrique, lInde, les pays tropicau (Saint-Amand 334,
note 9). All of the places, however, were covered by the enormously mobile Napoleonic Empire.
The seemingly eclectic and fanciful scenario in La fille aux yeux dor is, in fact, firmly anchored
in history. At the turn of the 19th century, Napoleon engaged with both the Old and the New
Worlds. The Egyptian Campaign (1789-1801), for example, preceded the Saint-Domingue
expedition (1802-1804). Because Napoleons ambitions were turned both ways, East as well as
West, the Old Colonies and the Orient became so intertwined that the one could not be looked at
without the others spectre being evoked. It was in searching for a maritime route to India for,
among other things, gold, that Europeans reached America. Slave trade and slavery flourished
when sugar became a huge source of gold. Paquita the person is made a surrogate of the real
metal (Henri comments on the golden color of Paquitas eyes: un jaune dor qui brille, de lor
vivant, de lor qui pense, de lor qui aime et veut absolument venir dans votre gousset! 400).
Although Paquita is from Havana, Saint-Domingue/Haiti is lurking in the background. Balzac
makes colonial subjects from slave colonies cross the seas to meet a metropolitan Frenchman.
Not any ordinary Frenchman, but Frances future leader: Henri de Marsay becomes prime
minister under the July Monarchy. Through the fictional encounter between a French leader in
training and subjects of the Old Colonies at a transitional moment in history, Balzac shows late
Restoration and the July Monarchys treatment of the Old Colonies. The French character
becomes interested in women from slave colonies, and in so doing reenacts colonial slavery
not in actuality, however, but within the space of sexual fantasies.
Henri de Marsay conceptualizes his relationship with Paquita as an Oriental harem scenario.
Henri de Marsay trouva dans la Fille aux yeux dor ce srail que sait crer la femme aimante et
laquelle un homme ne renonce jamais. In an initial misunderstanding of the situation, Henris
friend Paul de Manerville talks about the marquise as if she were also a harem concubine (400-
01). Paquita is closely watched over by the female guard Dona Concha, the male servant
Christemio, and Paquitas own mother. The asexual Christemio, who uses his superior physical
strength to execute every order from his mistress, offers the image of a eunuch. It is he who
guides Henri into the secrect interior of Paquitas chamber, leading him to physical intimacy
with Paquita. The much feared sire San-Real, who never appears in person and who jealously
hides his young and beautiful wife like an Oriental despot belongs to that same fantasy of an
Oriental tale.
Thus, in framing his sexual experience as an adventure located in a harem, the Frenchman
has turned colonial slavery, a French institution, into an Oriental practice. Paquita has a slave

mother, is herself a slave and confined by her master the marquise. But Henri insists on not
seeing Paquita as a real slave, but only as an erotic slave, an exotic curiosity to be exploited for
his sexual pleasure. By subjugating Paquitas body and mind, Henri effectively partakes, in the
metropole, the ongoing slavery in the colonies. Henris infatuation with Paquita assimilates him
to white masters attracted to mulatto women in the French Caribbean (Sharpley-Whiting 44).
Henri sees in Paquita an assemblage de tout ce quil avait aim en dtail (408), a corps parfait
o tout tait volupt (412), that is, the stereotype of the mulatto woman as consummate lover:
Tout ce que la volupt la plus raffine a de plus savant, tout ce que pouvait connatre Henri de
cette posie des sens que lon nomme lamour, fut dpass par les trsors que droula cette fille
dont les yeux jaillissants ne mentirent aucune des promesses quils faisaient. Sentences like
these could come straight out of Moreau de Saint-Mrys writing on mulatto women of Saint-
Domingue. There is nothing that the most inflamed imagination can conceive, that she has not
foreseen, divined, accomplished. Charming all senses, surrendering them to the most delicious
ecstasies, and suspending them by the most seductive raptures: that is her sole study (Garraway
231). The pornographic aspect of Henri de Marsays adventure has been sensed, but no one has
linked it to colonial slavery. Joan Dayan posits that the marquis de Sade brought the plantation
hell and its excesses into enlightenment Europe, and suggests that one living model for Les Cent
vingt journes de Sodome written in 1789 is slavery in the French Antilles (Dayan 212-13).
Dayans insights shed light on the Balzacian text: the figure of Sade is lurking in the background
as when Henri alludes to Justine, in speaking of a livre qui a un nom de femme de chambre
(429). In Paquita, Henri enjoys occasions for abuses provided and sanctioned by slavery in the
colonies.
The harem fantasy is also Henris way of not recognizing as such the racial mingling
produced by colonial slavery, that the physical presence of colonial subjects in France displays
before his eyes. However, it is exactly through his pursuit of colonial subjects that the
metropolitan Frenchman sees his own presumed racial purity and Frenchness collapse. In La fille
aux yeux dor, Henri de Marsay is a mixed blood, son born out of wedlock of an Englishman,
Lord Dudley, and a Parisian woman. Paquitas master, the marquise San-Real, is daughter of
Lord Dudley with a Spanish woman. It turns out that if Henri gets to go near Paquita in the first
place, it is because his identical look to that of the marquise attracts Paquitas attention at a
moment when the marquise is away in London. The novel does not make explicit reference to
Henris physical traits, but those of the marquise are described to Henri by his friend Paul de
Manerville:
Ah ! lautre ! Mon cher de Marsay. Elle vous a des yeux noirs qui nont jamais
pleur, mais qui brlent; des sourcils noirs qui se rejoignent et lui donnent un air de
duret dmentie par le rseau de ses lvres, sur lesquelles un baiser ne reste pas, des
lvres ardentes et fraches; un teint mauresque auquel un homme se chauffe comme
un soleil; mais, ma parole dhonneur, elle te ressemble...
Tu la flattes ! (400-401)

Given the marquises teint mauresque, and that Henri and she have identical looks to the point
of being undistinguishable, Henris phenotype is open to interpretation. Thus, as Balzac makes
clear, the Frenchman who zealously sets himself as the opposite of the Creole, mtis, alien
colonial subjects is himself not only of mixed blood, but also dark-skinned for knowing eyes.
Therefore, the harem fantasy backfires. What seems to be exotic is not so exotic, and what seems
to be French not that French.
In Henri de Marsay, Balzac presents his vision of France as a nation transformed by blood
and racial mixing through colonial and intra-European contact during the revolutionary and
imperial years. It was through successive marriages that Henris mother secured her son an
aristocratic name and served her own desire for social ascension. Henris trajectory incorporates
the destabilization and also opportunities that the turmoil of history brought to personal fortunes,
including parentage. At a time when the July Monarchys legitimacy complex makes bloodline a
national concern,1 Balzac reveals the fragile and fictive nature of purity in terms of race, blood or
lineage. The name of Henri could be Balzacs tongue-in-cheek comment on the myth of the
unbroken French royal bloodline. 2 France is always, already, mixed up. Giving multinational
dimensions to his male characters biological and cultural make-up, Balzac refutes both French
purity and European purity, and subverts the racial opposition to render Europe at once unified,
uniformly white, and necessarily and normatively free, a tendency that is already there in late
Restorations position in the Greek War of Independence, and that will undergird the new
colonial project, in which the colonizers are not to be united socially and racially with the
colonized, but instead mark themselves off clearly from the latter.
For Henri, who is to be among promoters and even leaders of the new colonial project for
France, it is vital to maintain the myth of the colonizers racial purity and difference from the
colonized. In fact, the more precarious their status as pure Frenchmen, the more eager they seem
to establish the boundaries, no matter how artificial. The community of colonial subjects from
the Old Colonies, through the contact of which Henris own history of blood or racial mixing is
exposed, has to be purged from the metropole. And so it is. But the moment of apparent
completion of the purge is also the moment at which the Frenchman endorses the legacy of
colonial slavery to the fullest.
1
Historically, Louis XIV married several of his bastards into the branch of his younger brother, the Duc dOrlan.
As a result, Louis-Philippe effectively had closer blood-tie to Louis XIV than to his nominal ancestor. While Louis-
Philippes father voted for the beheading of Louis XVI, Louis-Philippe bore a startling physical resemblance to the
Sun King and was obsessed about it. For a detailled account of Louis-Philippes genealogy, see Guy Antonetti,
Louis-Philippe, 9-25.
2
There are four kings named Henri in French history, one direct Capetian, two Valois and one Bourbon. When the
last Valois Henri III died without progeny, it was the Protestant Henri III of Navarre who converted to Catholicism
and became Henri IV.
Upon finding out that he is but a fill-in, Henri plans to kill Paquita. While he prepares, the
marquise comes back from London, finds out Paquitas betrayal and stabs her to death. When
Henri arrives, he witness the gruesome scene of Paquitas last moments :
La Fille aux yeux dor expirait noye dans le sang. [] Cet appartement blanc, o le
sang paraissait si bien, trahissait un long combat. Les mains de Paquita taient empreintes
sur les coussins. Partout elle stait accroche la vie, partout elle stait dfendue, et
partout elle avait t frappe. Des lambeaux entiers de la tenture cannele taient
arraches par ses mains ensanglantes, qui sans doute avaient lutt longtemps. Paquita
devait avoir essay descalader le plafond. Ses pieds nus taient marqus le long du
dossier du divan, sur lequel elle avait sans doute couru. Son corps, dchiquet coups de
poignard par son bourreau, disait avec quel acharnement elle avait disput une vie
quHenri lui rendait si chre. Elle gisait terre, et avait, en mourant, mordu les muscles
du cou-de pied de madame de San-Real, qui gardait la main son poignard tremp de
sang.
[...] ils purent ainsi se contempler tous deux face face. [...] En effet, deux Mnechmes
ne se seraient pas mieux ressembl. Ils dirent ensemble le mme mot: Lord Dudley
doit tre votre pre?
Chacun deux baissa la tte affirmativement.
Elle est fidle au sang, dit Henri en montrant Paquita.
Elle tait aussi peu coupable quil est possible, reprit Margarita-Euphmia
Porrabril [...]
(450, 451-452)
Significantly in this passage, a European is designated as a bourreau who admits having taken
the life of a colonial slave aussi peu coupable quil est possible. Balzacs text lays bare, both
literally and figuratively the true nature of slavery: an institution in which the master can be
butcher of the slave. The image of cannibalism further breaks down the difference between
civilized and savage. In the colonial discourse of the time, indigenous people were accused of
cannibalism, their native bodies became sites of violating desire and charges of sexual depravity
gave Europeans license to enslave and slaughter. While Paquita looks like a cannibal, in that she
covers the marquises body with bites in her struggle for life, Paquitas mutilated, almost
dissected body in the hands of the marquise turns the latters deed into an instance of
cannibalism as well. In fact, Henri de Marsays thirteen-member gang, which he brings on site
with him for the occasion, is called les Dvorants. Through forms of moral and economic
cannibalism applied to the metropole, Balzac gestures rather towards the Old World, reversing
Frances vision of itself as an imperial nation, of its colonial doctrine, and of its role overseas.
Paquitas death leads to the self and mutual recognition of her double masters. In Paquitas
killing, Henri lost to the marquise only because he has come too late. He would have done the
same had he arrived ahead of the marquise. In fact, previously Henri already attempted murder:
hearing Paquita call the marquises name during their love-making, Henri reached for the dagger
which happened to be locked, then tried to strangle Paquita, who escaped only thanks to
Christemios arrival (446). In Paquitas murder, the half-brother and sister play complementary
roles in an unholy alliance. The two siblings uttering and nodding in unison gives their family

reunion an almost ritualistic aspect, and assimilates Lord Dudley to an object of cult: Lord
Dudley, the ultimate empire builder, is not only their biological father, but also their ideological
father. The image this scene offers, of Spanish and French siblings united in criminal rivalry
recognizing in each other their British father, constitutes a powerful critique of Europes
exploitation of the world through competitive cooperation.
Over Paquitas dead body, Henri and the marquise dutifully perform their role of master.
Henris comment that Paquita est fidle au sang rehearses most banal slave master fantasies.
Whether he means, narcissistically, that Paquita is loyal to the blood he and the marquise share in
common, or in an essentialist way, that Paquita is faithful to her own kind, he sees in Paquita a
creature born enthralled or born wicked. Their calm and indifference about Paquitas death, the
easiness with which Henri pardons his half-sister (Henri la pren[d] dans ses bras et lui donn[e]
un baiser 453), and the dsinvolture Henri shows later when reporting Paquitas death (Elle
est morte [] de la poitrine 453) are typical attitudes of slave masters vis--vis their slaves
suffering. With equal composure the marquise tells Henri why she does not fear revenge from
Paquitas mother: Elle est dun pays o les femmes ne sont pas des tres, mais des choses dont
on fait ce quon veut, que lon vend, que lon achte, que lon tue, enfin dont on se sert pour ses
caprices, comme vous vous servez ici de vos meubles. (452). The most explicit vocabulary of
slave trade and slavery in the speech contrasts with the most blatant blindness of the speaker,
who seems completely unable to relate it to herself: the marquise talks about Georgia, or the
West Indies. But havent the marquise and Henri disposed of Paquita like a piece of furniture?
Hasnt Paquita just met her death in Paris? Barriers between here and there are blurred,
and the ideal of French civilization is demolished and replaced with a vision of moral regression
and colonial venality.
With physical signs of the Old Colonies out of sight, Henris apprenticeship is completed, he
goes on to become pillar figures of the July Monarchy and play an important role in the
countrys domestic and colonial affairs. Once when talking about getting away with Paquita,
Henri suggests that they go to the Indies:
Allons aux Indes, l o le printemps est ternel, o la terre na jamais que des fleurs, o
lhomme peut dployer lappareil des souverains, sans quon en glose comme dans les sots
pays o lon veut raliser la plate chimre de lgalit. Allons dans la contre o lon vit au
milieu dun peuple desclaves, o le soleil illumine toujours un palais qui reste blanc, o lon
sme des parfums dans lair, o les oiseaux chantent lamour, et o lon meurt quand on ne
peut plus aimer (445)
Despite its sunshine-filled imagery, Henris speech carries a chilling message. By putting these
words into the mouth of a July Monarchy prime minister-to-be, Balzac conveys his perception of
the underside of the regimes colonial project. The solemn rhetoric of civilizing the world covers
up a desire to conquer and dominate. The new destination of French colonialism, be it Africa or
Asia, is to be fashioned in the image of the Old Colonies in the sense that the colonizer will still
rule over a peuple desclaves. Not chattel slaves this time, but who nevertheless have to be

subjugated for the colonizers occupation of land and exploitation of resources. In La fille aux
yeux dor, it is Henri, the future colonizer, who plays the role of an Oriental despot, who
exerait le pouvoir autocratique du despote oriental (425), qui ne savait pas pardonner (447),
who usually condamnait froidement mort lhomme ou la femme qui lavait offens
srieusement (425). In the end, the Oriental despot is Henris creation in his own image. For
the same reason the new colonialism is a self-fulfilling prophecy: a people of slaves will be
found because no matter what they were before the arrival of the colonizer, they will be turned
into slaves by the colonizer. Henri pronounces these words to Paquita in a moment of intimacy,
his dream comes true only with Paquitas annihilation as a precondition. Over Paquitas
dissected body drenched in blood, the man and woman who killed her are now on their way of a
new imperial journey. The opening section of La fille aux yeux dor compares Paris to a vessel:
LA VILLE DE PARIS a son grand mt tout de bronze, sculpt de victoire, et pour vigie
Napolon. Cette nauf a bien son tangage et son roulis; mais elle sillonne le monde, y fait
feu par les cent bouches de ses tribunes, laboure les mers scientifiques, y vogue pleines
voiles, crie du haut de ses huniers par la voix de ses savants et de ses artistes:
En avant, marchez! Suivez-moi! (386)
As Paul Gilroy points out, the metaphor of ships occupies a prominent place in description
of colonialism (4). The mast in this passage alludes to the column on the Place Vendme. Louis-
Philippe put it up in 1833, and during the July Days unveiled the new statue Napoleon the
Caporal by Emile Seurre. As became clear, the July Monarchy tried hard to shape the
interpretation of Napoleon to its advantage, by exerting careful control over the iconography and
symbolism associated with Napoleon. The king exploited this source of national glory as a
means of buttressing his claim to the throne, not in a dynastic sense but in the national
development of French political institutions. The July Monarchy reappropriated Napoleons
conquest, but in the service of its new colonialism: it thus reinvented the invasion of Algeria as a
second Egyptian expedition. In the same year of 1833, the first bureau arabe was established,
and in 1834 the occupied territories were officially proclaimed Possessions franaises dans le
nord de lAfrique, thus confirming the French intention to stay in Algeria.
While the indigenous Algerians would, in Albert Boimes words, be compelled to pay the
price for raising the hopes as well as the standard of living of the average French person, (309),
the bloody conquest of Algeria was to be kept out of sight of the metropolitan population, a
function largely assumed by the new Orientalism. In the same year of 1834, more than thirty
paintings with Orientalist themes were exhibited at the Salon (Boime 365). Images of slave
markets and seraglios in Near Eastern and North African settings became omnipresent, available
to the general public. In La fille aux yeux dor a typical owner of a petit commerce (374), a
mercier, is eager to have a taste of such images:
Il se trouve lOpra, prt y devenir soldat, Arabe, prisonnier, sauvage, paysan, ombre,
patte de chameau, lion, diable, gnie, esclave, eunuque noir ou blanc, toujours expert
produire de la joie, de la douleur, de la piti, de ltonnement, pousser dinvariables cris,

se taire, chasser, se battre, reprsenter Rome ou lgypte; mais toujours in petto,

mercier. (376)
With the help of props, the petty bourgeois is to become a variety of characters and things and
to produce various sentiments. He can now enjoy his own harem fantasy, as pure spectacle and
entertainment. Orientalism feeds him with representations of the Orient in theater, so that he does
not concern himself with what is happening on the North African war theater.
Early on in the 1830s, when a seemingly aestheticizing and escapist Orientalism was in the
making, Balzacs fiction perspicaciously captured the hidden link between the Old Colonies and
the New Orient. Henri de Marsays Orientalism is not a passive turning away from the Old
Colonies, but an active construction. Through a process of exoticization, Henri tries to make
something familiar alien, to disavow colonial slavery as French practice. At the same time,
however, Balzac allows the tension between the Frenchmans fantasy and his actual endorsement
of slavery to build up to the point at which the fantasy is no longer sustainable and the violent
expulsion of the colonial subjects becomes the only solution.

References
-Antonetti, Guy. Louis-Philippe, Paris: Fayard, 1994.
-Balzac, Honor de. La Fille aux yeux dor. In La Duchesse de Langeais. La Fille aux yeux dor.
d. Rose Fortassier. Paris: Gallimard, 1976.
-Boime, Albert. Art in an Age of Counterrevolution 1815-1848. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 2002.
-Cohen, William. The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530-1880.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980.
-Dayan, Joan. Haiti, History, and the Gods. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
-Dobie, Madeleine. Foreign Bodies: Gender, Language, and Culture in French Orientalism.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
-Garraway, Doris. The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean. Durham:
Duke University Press, 2005.
-Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1993.
-Saint-Amand, Pierre. Balzac oriental: La Fille aux yeux dor. Romanic Review 79, no. 2
(1988Mar.): 329-340.
-Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive
Narratives in French. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

The History of Martiniquan Rum
Hlne Zamor
University of the West Indies, Barbados
Abstract
Both cotton and tobacco were cultivated in Martinique before sugar cane was brought into this
island around 1650. However, the Dutch of Jewish ancestry who were expelled from the
northern-eastern region of Brazil by the Portuguese, came to Martinique. They shared their
knowledge on the making process of the sugar. By the late seventeenth century, sugar cane
overthrew the two previous crops: cotton and tobacco. In 1694, Father Labat, a French
Catholic missionary, farmer, writer and traveler made his way to Martinique where he lived for
many years. He brought with him new techniques of distillation of sugar and founded the Fonds-
Saint-Jacques sugar plantation around 1696.
The Martiniquan sugar industry reached its pinnacle during the eighteenth century. Owing to
the great fall of the sugar exports and the planters incomes, the sugar industry was no longer
prosperous as it used to be. Despite of this decline, distilleries are still producing the Rhum
industriel and the Rhum agricole.
Keywords: sugar, rum, rhum industriel, rhum agricole

Introduction
In 1635, the first wave of French colonizers settled in Martinique where they started to
cultivate cotton and tobacco. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, they gradually turned
to sugar cane because it was much more profitable. The Martiniquan sugar industry reached its
pinnacle during the eighteenth century. A large number of sugar factories emerged between 1685
and 1717. In 1765, the Saint-James sugar factory was established in the town of Saint-Pierre
where a high quality of sugar cane alcohol was produced. By 1767, there were 450 sugar
factories in Martinique. The end of the nineteenth century witnessed a major drop in sugar
exports due to the high taxes that were imposed upon the planters and the end of slavery in 1848.
As result, the sugar industry became precarious. This article seeks to explore the history of the
sugar and rum industry. It examines the making process of two popular types of rums called
Rhum industriel (rum made of molasses) and Rhum agricole (rum made from sugar cane
juice) as well as the use of rum in the culinary area.
The sugar cane era
Sugar cane also known as Saccharum Officinarium hails from Oceania. It belongs to the
Poacea family (aka Gramineae). During his second trip to the Americas, Christopher Columbus
brought a cutting of sugar cane with him and introduced it to Saint-Domingue. This was the way
the cultivation of sugar cane spread to Cuba, Puerto Rico and the rest of the Caribbean (Alibert,
7). As said earlier, the Dutch of Jewish ancestry arrived in Martinique in their vessels
transporting sugar mills and other sugar equipment, but above all they shared their experiences
and manufacturing secrets with the French settlers.
Meide (2003, 8) shed some light upon the plantation process of sugar cane in the colonial
period: Cane was planted 16 to 18th month before harvesting. Timing was critically important
at any stage of the sugar cane production process, and planting and harvesting needed to coincide
with rainy (May, June, through December/January) and dry seasons. Sugar cane was taking
over a year to ripe. But if it was underripe or overippe, the sugar quality was affected. Similar
sugar cane methods were adopted by both the British and the French. The slaves dug five-foot
square holes in the soil to keep it moist and protect it from erosion. They also covered the cane
shoots with 2 inches of soil. Meide argues that the slaves resorted to dung and mold to fill up the
holes. The plants were weeded and trimmed for the following weeks. In general, the harvest
took 16 or 18 months after the cane was planted. The full height of a mature cane reached 8 feet.
According to Alibert (2012, 28), sugar cane was planted during the month of August.
They dropped two feet of sugar cane into each hole and improved the quality of the by smoking.
After an eighteen-month regular maintenance, the canes were cut off close to the ground. The
cutter cut the canes, cleaned the leaves and passed them on to the amarreuse. 1 Afterwards, the
amarreuse put the canes in a horse-driven cart that took them to the mills. The canes were then
1
Women who were in charge of putting the canes into a bunch.

crushed by the mills in order to extract their juices. Various types of sugar mills were listed in
Aliberts work. The first mills were powered by the native Indians and the African slaves. The
second set of mills was powered by donkeys, mules or oxen. The last type was the windmills. In
order to obtain raw sugar, the juice was evaporated and poured into the Chaudires for
processing. Since raw sugar could not be consumed immediately, it had to be put in big barrels
called boucauts and shipped to the French refineries. White sugar was then produced.
Sometimes, the sugar was bleached on the spot by terrage and exported.
With the advent of the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution, the expensive steam
machine reached Martinique. In spite of its high price, it helped sugar cane owners cut
production costs. To solve the problem, a new factory system referred as Usines Centrales2was
then put in place (La Maison de la Canne).
La Maison de la Canne scholars study the sugar making process in modern times. First of
all, the canes are washed and cut with cane-cutters. Secondly, their fibres are eliminated so that
the juice extraction be easier. Secondly, the canes are sent to mills for crushing. Thirdly, the
fibres of the canes are used for fueling the boiler generating the energy needed for the factory.
The sweet juice must undergo different purifying stages: filtration, washing and decantation.
The sludge is taken, put to dry and used as manure. Finally, the purified juice is then
concentrated by means of evaporation in a multi-effect machine is then cooked and it
crystallizes. The cooked substance must cool down before being kneaded and put in the turbine,
sieved and placed in bags.
From sugar to rum
Established by the early French colonizers, the town Saint-Pierre became the hub for
sugar and rum production. Distilleries were usually situated close to the harbor so that the
molasses be treated and shipped to France as soon as possible. Saint-Pierre hosted at least twenty
distilleries before it was destroyed by 1902 volcanic eruption. Martinique imported molasses
from other Caribbean islands as well (Alibert, 76). Rum distillation was credited with French
priests Jacques Du-Tertre and Jean-Baptiste Labat who applied themselves to the art of rum and
brought refinement to the product.
Father Jacques Du-Tertre came to Martinique in the 1640s. Apart from being well
versed in the botanical field, he had a good knowledge of the distillation process. He invented a
distilled eau-de-vie3 that was made from sugar cane (Alibert, 7). The eau-de-vie named
tafia4 or guildive5was produced at the vinaigrerie since the vinaigriers knew about the
2
French word meaning Central Factory.
3
French word for brandy
4
Guildive: former name given to alcohol made of sugar cane. However, the word guildive seems to be connected
to English expression Kill devil to describe how the eau-de-vie was. (Muse du Rhum St. James)
5
Tafia is an abbreviation of the word ratafia originating from Latin rata fiat meaning concluded Market (Muse
du Rhum St James).

distillation process (Alibert, 44). In 1694, Father Jean-Baptiste Labat, a French Catholic
missionary, farmer, writer and traveler landed in Martinique where he lived nearly twenty years.
He was also very familiar with the various distillation techniques and founded the Fonds-Saint-
Jacques sugar plantation around 1696.
Among the twenty distilleries of Saint-Pierre, two of them made history. The Distellerie
Depaz was originally founded by French Governor Jacques Du Parquet around 1651. The
plantation was formerly named Habitation La Montagne. By the nineteenth century, it was
bought over by the Pcoul family who converted it into a distillery. Victor Depaz6, the son of the
manager of the Habitation Prinelle, studied in France. While being there, Depaz received a
telegram informing him that his family perished during the massive volcanic eruption that
destroyed completely Saint-Pierre in 1902. The young Depaz returned to Martinique as soon as
he completed his studies. But, the Habitation Prinelle was in ruins. Depaz decided to buy over
521 acres of land from the Aurigny family in order to build another distillery named after him.
The aforementioned Habitation Fonds-Saint-Jacques sugar plantation was the other place
where rum was distilled in Saint-Pierre. Similar to the Habitation Prinelle, it succumbed to the
disaster. Father Lefebure founded the Distillerie Saint-James7 in Saint-Pierre around 1765. It was
partially destroyed by the eruption but a few years later after the disaster, it was rebuilt in the
town of Sainte-Marie. Alibert (2012) argues that Father Lefebvre, the founder of the Saint-James
distillery used an English name to the rum to promote the rum in New England (184). In spite of
the strict regulations related to the consumption of alcohol, King Louis XV authorized the
Martiniquan planters to export their rum in other parts of the world.
Little is known about the origins of the word rhum. According to researchers, it may
have derived from the scientific name of the sugar cane: officinarium. The word rum may
have owed its origins to Spanish "ron" or it may be related to the abbreviation of rumbustion
or rumbullion (Alibert, 20). These two terms were found in the Devonshire region and they
meant trouble or disorder. The term rhum could have been linked to a Barbadian
expression rheu meaning stalk. The consonant h was inserted in the word rum. The
English word rum may have been brought to Martinique when the British occupied the island
in the late eighteenth century (La Maison de la Canne). The manufacturing process of rum
started around the same time as the sugar production.
Alibert explains that the juice was transferred to the sucrerie8 by means of a gutter. The
next step consisted of evaporating the juice into a cristallyzed syrup in a set of five
Chaudires9that were line up above the furnace. These cast iron chaudires were given the
6
See articles entitled Rhum Depaz Saint-Pierre www.depaz.fr/pages/histoires/html.
7
It was the name of an English rich family.
8
Sugar factory in the French colonies
9
French word for boiler. A set of chaudires was known as quipage or batterie.

name of La Grande, La Propre and Le Flambeau10. Historian Jacques Adlade (2000)

points out other Chaudires names such as Le Sirop11 and La Batterie12. The Clarifier
was the name given by the British to the La Grande. The liquid was constantly skimmed off so
that it would not spill. Furthermore, it was ladled into the next Chaudires. The evaporation
process and the constant skimming of the juice caused it to thicken as it traveled from one
Chaudire to the next.
Finally, the thick syrup called siropbatterie was poured into a cooling tank and left
there for crystallization. Meide adds that the molasses, the skimmed residues were left in
fermenting vats for at least twelve days (18). These residues were useful in the production of the
first sugar cane alcohol called tafiaor guildive13.
Alibert (2013, 7) notes that Father Labat ordered a distillation equipment from the French
province called Charentes to improve the quality of the eau-de-vie. The new equipment also
called Alembic (still) comprised a Chaudire in which the liquid was gently heated. Such a
process allowed the vaporization of both the alcohol and the water. The vapors of the heated
liquid were collected in a dome and they were then transferred by swan-neck tubing to a cooling
tank. Before the arrival of the Alembic Labat in the island, the condensation of the distillation
process was done by putting wet linen over the condenser of stills14. In the seventeenth century,
the discontinuous distillation method was commonly used. Scholars of La Maison de La
Canne15 explain that the discontinuous distillation method required rum makers to clean and
refill their equipment. The fermented grappe16 is evaporated in the curcubite17 and the
alcoholic vapor was condensed in the coil from which the alcohol was collected. Both the head
product18and the end product were separated from each other in order to obtain an eau-de-vie
known as Coeur de chauffe,19Alibert (2012, 46) states that the first liquor was kept for the first
five days of the week. Afterwards, the same liquor was poured in one of the boiler and
underwent the distillation process.
The continuous distillation method appeared in Martinique in the nineteenth century.

Distillation columns also replaced the alembics and there was no need of interrupting the
10
Generally speaking, the boilers were lined up in a particular order. La Grande (the Largest) was the largest one
and it came first. La Propre (the Clean one) and La Torche (the Torch one) came last.
11
French word meaning syrup
12
French word literally meaning battery. In the sugar industry context, the term takes another meaning set of
boilers.
13
According to Alibert (2013, 20), the term guildive is fell into disuse in the Caribbean except in Haiti where it is
still common.
14
Muse du Rhum St. James Martinique (25 June 2015).
15
Sugar cane museum located in the town of Trois-Ilets in southern Martinique.
16
The grappe is given to the alcohol that is produced from distilled sugar cane. It is also referred as the wort.
17
Other name given to the Chaudire.
18
Substance obtained at the beginning of the distillation process whereas the end product is obtained at the end of
the distillation process.
19
As its name indicates, the Coeur de Chauffe is the spirit that is obtained at the heart of the distillation process.

equipment as it was done in the past. The liquid came from the fermentation vats and it was
pumped into the wine vat that was located at the highest point of the equipment. Afterwards, it
was sent to the first wine heater where it collected heat from its contact with alcoholic vapors.
The same liquid traveled to the second wine heater where it was continuously heated. It was then
poured into the column through the feed plate. Finally, the liquid went down from plates to
plates while losing gradually its alcohol content.20
The machines were versions of those used for the production sugar beet alcohol21.
Compared to the Labats apparatus, they could manage large batches in a short period of time.
Additionally, the sugar beet models had to be adjusted to the rum. Such equipment prevented
both sugar cane and juice from spoiling rapidly under the Martiniquan tropical climate. At first,
the first imported sugar beet machines did not produce rum of good quality. The heads22 were
not properly separated from the heart. Therefore, these machines had to be adjusted to
improve quality of the rum.
The modern distillation columns are described by the Muse de Saint-James researchers.
The columns are high tall cylinders comprising fifteen plates or trays. The stripping trays are
found in the lower section of the cylinder and they increase the alcohol content of the vapor. The
rectification trays either concentrate or rectify the alcohol. They are smaller than the stripping
plates23 and they concentrate or rectify the alcohol. Fermentation is the next step whereby the
sugar becomes alcohol owing to the presence of bacteria and yeast. Then comes the process of
distillation taking place in distillation columns. In this phase, the heat produced by the steam
helps the extraction of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic ingredients that are found in the canes.
Laurie (2011, 4), differentiates between two common main distillation processes that are
found in the English-speaking Caribbean: the traditional pot still and the modern continuous or
column still. In the early days, the rum was produced in pot stills24. A number of ingredients such
as ethanol, glycerol, aldehydes, volatiles acids, esters and higher alcohols are included in
Martiniquan rum. The Mount Gay distillery in Barbados produces white and golden rums using
either the single distillation or the double distillation methods. When rum is produced by the
single distillation it contains a high volume of alcohol (97%). Single distillation is a process
of continuous factional distillation taking place in a Coffey Still. The double distillation
method generates rum with 86% of alcohol25 . The distillation is done batch by batch in old
copper stills which resemble those used for the production of cognac and whisky.
20
Muse de la Maison de la Canne.
21
Rhum Agricole. http:www.rhum-agricole.net/site/en/fab_continue.
22
The first set of liquids that come out of the still.
23
Stripping plates are between 90 and 180 cm in diameter.
Rectification measure between 80 and 155 cm in diameter.
24
A pot still was a boiling pan in which fermented molasses or cane juice mixture was heated. This equipment were
used particularly to produce heavy rums containing flavour and aromas. The traditional pot still method consists of
fermenting a product in small batches. See article entitled The Encyclopedia of Rum. www.the
pirateking.com/rum/rum_101.htm.
25
Visit of the Mount Gay Museum (Barbados) on the 5th August 2015.

The differences between the Rhum industriel and the rhum agricole
Important steps are undertaken in the making process of rum. These include cutting,
grinding, fermenting26, distilling27, aging and bottling. The canes are cut, washed and ground.
Afterwards, their juice is extracted, fermented and distilled. The last stage involves aging and
bottling. The rum is aged in an oak barrel from one year to ten years28. A description of the
ageing process is provided at the Foursquare Distillery in Barbados: While aging is in process
evaporation takes place at an approximate rate of 1% per month. This results in the need to top
up barrels once every year from the contents of barrel rum of some age. After aging, the rum is
reduced by addition of pure de-mineralised water to a drinking strength of 43% al/vol (86
proof).
Let us analyze how rum is made in Martinique. During the nineteenth-century Industrial
Revolution and Emancipation29, many small sucreries30 closed their doors. Consequently,
larger sugar factories were in charge of the sugar industry. Two types of rums have been
produced in Martinique over the years. The Rhum industriel or Rhum traditionnel de
sucrerie31 is made from molasses and sugar residues. Alibert (2012) informs us that the first
Rhum industriel was produced Saint-Pierre during the colonial era (p.76). Martiniquan planters
sold their molasses to American rum makers in the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, another
source claims that Martinique began to produce their rhum industriel only in the nineteenth
century32. Molasses have fermentable sugars and they can be stored for a long period of time33.
The molasses and the yeast are fermented. There is 5% or 6% of alcohol in the juice resulting
from the fermentation process. The rum originating from the columns contains between 65 and
75% of alcohol. Regulations do not allow makers to produce an over 65% spirit for the market34.
Five types of rhums industriels such as Grand Arme35, Rhum lger36, Rhum
traditionnel37, rhum de coupage38 and Rhum vieux39are identified in Aliberts work (p.132).
26
The fermentation process consist of converting sugar into alcohol. Yeasts are needed so that the fermentation
occurs quickly.
27
The distillation process requires producers to the wine so that volatile elements be vaporized and condensed.
28
Information taken at the Muse du Rhum Clment
29
Slavery was abolished in the French West Indies in 1848.
30
French word meaning sugar factory. See magazine entitled Le Rhum A.O.C Martinique-Un Rhum Unique.
Launa Editions La Case Rhum
31
French name literally meaning traditional rum of sugar factory.
32
Petit Fut Martinique by Dominique Azias and Jean-Paul Labourdette (2008)
33
The Encyclopedia of Rum. www.thepirateking.com/rum/rum/_101.htm
34
Petit Fut-Martinique by Dominique Azias and Jean-Paul Labourdette (2009). p.94
35
A flavoured rum that is composed of non-alcoholic ingredients. It undergoes the process of fermentation for 8 or
10 days. The Grand Arme is used for blending other rums.
36
Light rum produced by a strong distillation process. Most of the non-alcoholic elements are extracted from the
rhumlger (alcohol volume: 40).
37
This rum is made from fermented molasses (alcohol volume: 60).
38
The rhum de coupage is a mixture of rhums traditionnels and Grands armes. The Martiniquan bottlers
colour it by caramelization process (Alibert, 132)
39
A type of rum aged in oak barrel for two or seven years.

The Rhum agricole formerly named Zhabitants is a more recent product coming
from the fermented sugar cane juice vesou (Alibert, 19). There was a link between the
emergence of this rum and the arrival of the steam engine in the French Caribbean. The steam
machine was connected to the sugar mill. Many habitations40 worked together using this new
equipment until the central plants were established. The steam engine was located at the central
plants and many smallholdings made use of it to crush their canes. There were times when some
of the smallholdings could not send their canes to the central plant by train because of their
remote location. Therefore, they invented a rum made of sugar cane juice. This was the way the
Rhum agricole came into the world.
The making process of the rhum agricole does not differ much from that of the rhum
industriel. The canes are washed and ground in a similar manner. The crushing process of the
canes lasts about 36 hours and the canes go through the mills several times for juice extraction.
The grinding residues are composed of a fiber named bagasse. The bagasse is useful for the
heating process of the boiler that generate energy the grinding mills and the distillation
column.As soon as the juice is extracted, it is being fermented for 36 or 48 hours in the vats. The
wine resulting from the fermentation process is known as grappe.
Rhum agricole production is covered in an article entitled Rhum Agricole41. To

accelerate the process of fermentation, yeasts are essential. Spontaneous fermentation is a
process whereby the sugar cane juice comes into contact with microbal agents that are found in
the molasses, syrup or juice resulting from processing equipment. Other fermentation methods
have come into play in Rhum agricole production. Manufacturers may resort to the pitching of
the yeast into the vesou. Sometimes, a sample of vesou is heated to generate fermentation.
After fermentation, the tank content is sent to pitch other vesou tanks. Fresh cane juice tends
to ferment very quickly after being extracted from the canes42. Normally, raw sugar cane juice
contains at least 18 or 24% sugar. Since it is difficult to store it for an extended period of time, it
must undergo fermentation immediately43. Finally, three major phases are identified in the
fermentation process. First of all, the yeasts adjust to their environment in order to grow.
Secondly, yeast cells multiply at a fast pace. The carbon dioxide is being released in large
quantities. Thirdly, the yeasts begin to stop growing and remain at the bottom of the vat.
At the end of the distillation process, the rum is not ready for consumption because of its
high alcohol content (70%). Producers must the rum in tanks for at least three or four months to
get rid of the most volatile elements as well as impurities. Maturation as the next stage can
proceed. White rum must remain in the tank for three months if the storage takes place in a
wooden barrel. Such a process is called Maturation. The alcohol content of the Rhum agricole
40
French word meaning plantation.
41
RhumAgricole. www.rhum-agricole.net/site/en/fab_fermentation.
42
Rhum Agricole. www.rhum-agricole.net/site/en/fab_fermentation.
43
Encyclopedia of Rum. www.thepirateking.com/rum/rum_101.htm

must be reduced to 50 or 55% for consumption. This explains the reason why producers add
water to reduce the alcohol quantity in the distillate.
Gregory Vernant, the manager of the Neisson Distillery briefly describes the distillation
column used in his factory. According to him, the 1952 French model named Savalle comprises
15 trays of exhaustion and 5 trays of concentration. The distilled liquid resulting from this
column contains 73% of alcohol. During the distillation process, the column is indirectly heated
by a boiler. With this type of column, produce can neither sort out nor rectify the product44. It is
not unusual to see distilleries with more than three distillation columns. Sometimes, holes are
inserted into the trays.
Contemporary Martinique produces a range of rhums agricoles such as the Grappe

blanche45Rhum paille46and the rhum vieux47. Prior to the Second World War, there were
about 130 distilleries producing the Rhum agricole. Their number has significantly decreased
over time. Only nine of them are still operating. These include Depaz, La Dillon, Neisson, JM,
Saint-James, La Favorite, La Mauny, Trois-Rivires and le Simon. The Rhums agricoles
Clment, Bally and Saint-Etienne are produced by the Simon distillery48. The three brands are
controlled by three entities (La Martiniquaise, Le Groupe Hayot and the Bourdillon)49.
The production of the Rhum agricole is subject to the Appellation dOrigine Contrle
laws. A series of regulations were indeed implemented on the 5th of November 1996 by The
Institut National des Appellations dOrigine50 (INAO). Albert Cline who researches the topic
writes: The AOC Appellation dOrigine Contrle correspond to the Garanteed Origin
Appelation. It allows the recognition of a particular product that takes its qualities from its
terroir. The AOC is a very particular mark because it is not limited to the products own
characteristics but is closely linked with what is called in France the terroir. The notion of
terroir refers to natural components (geography, climate, geology) as well as human
components (skills, traditions, savoir-faire). That is why the production is one in a specific area
that confers on the product a very strong identity. As a French Overseas Department, Martinique
has to follow carefully the AOC regulations when producing its Rhum agricole. The AOC
44
It is important to note the Appellation dOrigine Contrle allows neither sorting out nor rectification in the
making process of the Rhum agricole. See magazine entitled Rumporter. Le Magazine de la Culture Rhum. June
2014. www.rumporter.com/docs/rumporter-3.pdf.
45
The word grappe blanche means white grape and it is given to white rum. It stays in the barrel for three month
after distillation. This rum keeps the aromas of the freshly cut canes. The alcohol content is reduced by using either
distilled or spring water.
46
The Rhum paille (straw-coloured rum). It is aged in an oak barrel for eighteenth months. The Rhum ambr is a
blend of Rhum paille and Rhum vieux. It is used mainly to make pastry.
47
The Rhum vieux is aged in oak barrel for three years. The rum is poured in a barrel that can 650 litres of rum
Some of the Rhum vieux may five or 40 years of age.
48
The Simon distillery is located in southern town of Franois in Martinique.
49
Alibert (2012, 188)
50
The INAO was founded in 1935 and its main objective is to protect and control places producing agricultural or
food products having a good reputation among consumers. The Appellation dOrigine Contrle recognizes rums
that are produced by the distillation of fresh sugar cane juice. They must meet certain requirements as well.

criteria51determining the quality of the rhum agricole have been listed in an article entitled
Rhum agricole52.
The consumption of rum in Martinique
Martiniquans have a great respect for their rum and they have developed rituals over the
years. Some of them drink their dcollage53 early in the morning while others prefer the Ti-
Punch54 and the Ti-Sk before having lunch. Alibert (2012) points out the presence of other
terms related to drinking rum in Martinique (139). The Pousse55 is needed after drinking
coffee. Some people have their Folibar in a pub. The Lheure du Christ56 is consumed at
3.00 p.m. The Cocoyage is a glass of coconut that is immediately by a glass of rum. As its
name suggests, the Vaten-Coucher57 send drinkers sleep just before bed time. Two other drinks
Planteur and the Shrub are well appreciated by Martiniquans. The preparation of the two
beverages is quite simple. The Planteur is a mixture of fruit juice, rum, nutmeg and Angustura
bitters. The Christmas season is the right time for Shrub. The ingredients include white Rhum
agricole, the skin of two oranges, four prunes, one vanilla pod and teaspoon ground cinnamon.
The orange skins are macerated in the rum for at least four days. Afterwards, they are put aside
in bowl. The four chopped prunes, vanilla and the sugar cane syrup are mixed together. Finally,
all the ingredients are soaked in rum for another three-day period.
The origins of the word punch seem unclear. La Maison de la Canne researchers write
Does the word come from the Hindu Ponch58. A writer of an article entitled Lorigine du
Punch enfin trouve59 argues that the word punch owes its name to Hindustani and Sanskrit
languages. The Punch was initially made of local spices, rum, cinnamon and tea. In 1731, a new
version of this drink rose in popularity. It was credited with British Admiral Edward Vernon who
was responsible for the Royale Navy. The mixture of the ingredients mentioned earlier was
heated particularly when it was very cold. A bit of water and lime was added to it as well. In
1713, King Louis XIV issued a decree forbidding the import of French West Indian rum into
51
The column must be heated through vapour injection. The plates in the stripping section must have a diameter
between 0,7 and 2 metres (20 to 78 inches). The enrichment must be made of 5 to 9 copper plates. The stripping
section must have at least 15 copper or stainless steel plates. The reflux has to be made through the use of one or
several wine-heater or copper condensers. The distilled liquid must have an alcohol concentration between 65 and
75%. The fermentation process must be discontinuous and take place in open tanks of 500 hectolitres (13208 US
gallons). See RhumAgricole. http//www.rhum-agricole.net/site/en/fab_continue.
52
Rhum Agricole. http://www.rhum-agricole.net/site/en/fab_continue.
53
The word dcollage means to take off. It is a glass of straight rum taken before starting the day.
54
Both the ti-punch and the ti-sk are drunk prior to lunch. The former consists of brown sugar, rum and a
squeezed lime whereas the latter is straight rum.
55
French word pousse means push.
56
This word literally means Christs time. It corresponds to the time when Jesus Christ was put to death on Good
Friday.
57
The word Vaten-Coucher comes from the French expression Va te coucher meaning go to bed.
58
This word means five (from the number of ingredients that were needed to make it in the past).
59
Lorigine du Punch enfintrouve. www.100cocktails.com/magazine/10228/l-origine-enfin-trouvee.html.

France. In spite of the restriction, rum had headed to the French market twenty years before
(Alibert, 28). So had the ponche, as it was frequently called. It the same Punch that
Martiniquans have adopted today as one of their favourite drink.
In conclusion, Martinique has been experiencing difficulties in preserving its sugar

industry. But the island has managed to produce its two rums: rhum industriel and rhum
agricole. We note that Martiniquans are attached to their rum and consume it at particular time
during the day. The names given to any drink made of rum vary based on the time it is taken.
Martiniquan rum particularly Rhum agricole has enjoyed a good position in Europe, the United
States and even Japan.

References
-Adlade, J.Les Antilles Franaises de Leur Dcouverte Nos Jours, Editions Dsormeaux
97200 Fort-de-France, 2000.
-Alibert, P-B. La Fabuleuse Aventure du Rhum. Editions Orphie, 2013.
-Alibert, P-B. Tout Savoir Sur le Rhum et Ses Cocktails. Editions Orphie, 2012.
-Azias D. &P Petit Fut Martinique. (2009)
-Cline, A. The Appellation dOrigine Contrle (AOC) and the Official Product identification.
University of Kentucky, 1998.
-Laurie, P. The Barbadian Rum Shop. The Other Watering Hole, Second Edition. McMillan
Publishers, 2002.
-Le Rhum Agricole A.O.C. Martinique. Un Rhum Unique. Fort-de-France: Lauma Editions La
Case Rhum, n.d.
-Lorigine du Punch enfin trouve

www.100cocktails.com/magazine/10228/l-origine-enfin- trouvee.html.
-Meide, C.The Sugar Factory in the Colonial West Indies: an Archeological and Historical
Comparative Analysis.
www.academia.edu/3258102/The_Sugar_Factory_in_the_Colonial_West_Indies_An_Archeolog
ical_and_Historical_Comparative_Analysis.
-Rhum Agricole. http://www.rhum-agricole.net/site/en/fab_continue.
-Rumporter. Le Magazine de la Culture Rhum. www.rumporter/docs/rumporter-f3.pdf. June

2014.

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Volume 2

Editor-in-Chief : Dr. Hassen ZRIBA

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor

*Emeritus Professor Ralph Grillo *Dr. Syed Zamanat Abbas

*Professor Jason L. Powell *Shama Adams

*Professor Ali H. Raddaoui *Mansour Amini

*Dr. Mohamed El-Kamel Bakari *Mohd AB Malek Bin MD Shah

*Dr. Baliram Namdev Gaikwad * Elvan Mutlu

*Dr. Abdullah Gharbavi *Syed S. Uddin-Ahmed

*Dr. Al Sayed Mohamed Aly Ismail * Mansour Amini

*Dr. Nidhi Kesari * Nick J. Sciullo

*Dr. Raghvendra Kumar * Nizar Zouidi

*Dr. Chuka Fred Ononye *Shataw Naseri

*Dr. Mahdi Zarai *Javed Akhter

*Dr. Anwar Tlili *Haron Bouras

1) "The Search for Identity in Online Chat"

2) "Uses of Humour in an English Language Class"

3) "Mde dEuripide et dAnouilh"

4) "Yoruba Traditional Education Philosophy in the Evolution of a Total Man"

5) "Le Problme Sociolinguistique Dans La Traduction Franaise Des Romans De Fagunwa"

8) "Que sait la littrature?"

10) "Philanthropy Language Construction"

13) "La communaut arabo-musulmane aux Etats-Unis : entre rve et ralit"

14) "Pre-Colonial Security System in Akungba-Akoko, South-West Nigeria"

17) "Decentering Globalization"

19) "Twins: Similarities, differences and individuality"

27) "Language and culture"

29) "Style and Lexical Choices in Teacher-Student Classroom Interaction"

33) "LEffet de Distanciation dans Le Pre Goriot de Balzac"

34) "Cohesion in the Descriptive Writing of EFL Undergraduates"

39) "Connectivity between Diplomacy, Foreign Policy and Global Politics"

40) "Feminine versus Masculine: The Dichotomies of Movement in Spanish Flamenco"

42) "Slavery and Orientalism in Balzacs La Fille aux yeux dor"

43) "The History of Martiniquan Rum"

With Best Regards,

Dr. Hassen Zriba

The Search for Identity in Online Chat

Keywords: Identity, hidden identity, gendered-based identities, self-disclosure, disguised

Internet communication is a socially-based activity that involves no personal presence of

Gender vs. Identity

Gender is the foundation of personality. It indicates how a person chooses to express

Identity, as a term has been viewed differently by different socialists. Traditionally an

According to Pavlenko and Blackledge (2004), identity can be of three different

Identity and other Related Terminologies

1. Self emotionally and effectively refers to "who I feel myself to be";

Questioning the Authentication of Profile Information

Gender and Disclosure Differences

Merits of Disguised Chatting

Generally speaking, most students agree with the following:

-Baym, N. (2006). Interpersonal Life Online.The Handbook of New Media.SAGE Publications.

-Brunell, A. B. (2007). Self-Disclosure.Encyclopedia of Social Psychology.SAGE Publications.

-Cohen, J. (2008). Language and Identity.Encyclopedia of Bilingual Education.SAGE

-Joseph, J. E. (2004). Language and identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

-Pavlenko, A. & Blackledge, A.(2004). Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts.

Uses of Humour in an English Language Class

Keywords: Pedagogical Humour, Students Learning, Mimicry, Mockery

Impact of Humour and jokes on Students performance in an English Language Class

-Bonjour, R. (2011). The Essence of Good Teaching-Humour. Language in India, 11.

Mde dEuripide et dAnouilh

Ari Mohammed Abdulrahman

Keywords: Medea, Happiness, Exile, Abnormality, Revenge, the other

II- Lactualisation et les changements de la Mde par Jean Anouilh

III - Oui et non au bonheur

Emeritus Professor Ralph Grillo Dr. Syed Zamanat Abbas

Professor Jason L. Powell Shama Adams

Professor Ali H. Raddaoui Mansour Amini

Dr. Mohamed El-Kamel Bakari Mohd AB Malek Bin MD Shah

Dr. Baliram Namdev Gaikwad Elvan Mutlu

Dr. Abdullah Gharbavi Syed S. Uddin-Ahmed

Dr. Al Sayed Mohamed Aly Ismail Mansour Amini

Dr. Nidhi Kesari Nick J. Sciullo

Dr. Raghvendra Kumar Nizar Zouidi

Dr. Chuka Fred Ononye Shataw Naseri

Dr. Mahdi Zarai Javed Akhter

Dr. Anwar Tlili Haron Bouras