Excerpt from “Right of Way” by Simon Ortiz:
There is silence.
There is silence.
You don’t like to thing
The fall into a bottomless despair
Is too near and to easy and meaningless.
You don’t want silence to grow
Deeper and deeper into you
Because that growth inward stunts you,
And that is no way to continue,
And you want to continue.
And so you tell stories.
You tell stories about your People’s birth
And their growing
You tell stories about your children’s birth
And their growing.
You tell stories of their struggles.
You tell that kind of history,
And you pray and be humble.
With strength, it will continue that way.
That is the only way.
That is the only way.
This poem by Ortiz was perhaps my favorite reading from the
ENTIRE semester—plus I think it works so perfectly with Lyons’ chapter “Nations
and Nationalism since 1942.”
What do I mean?
A Nation MUST have a voice to exist—think about that I will
come back to it later in the post.
I sort of feel the same way about the concept of nation in terms of Ortiz and
Lyons. A nation is something of a conundrum for me as a post-colonial scholar,
I both love it and detest it at the same time—perhaps for the same reasons
Lyons’ dislikes the concept.
Personally I think the concept of a “Nation” creates
problems:
1) I
think it is impossible to clearly define what a nation is.
2) It
creates divisions between people.
3) It
creates oppositions in terms of binaries—such as civilized and uncivilized.
4) It
creates fear and promotes distrust.
5) It
makes it impossible to separate culture and politics.
I’ve outlined all the problems I have with the concept of a
nation, and I think defining what a nation is somewhat problematic. However, Lyons does a great job of unpacking
this problematic term.
First off, Lyons says that “nations as we recognize them today are an
essentially modern development whose logic cannot be discovered prior to the
modern era” (115). This means that a
nation is a modern concept which can be linked to the logic of such a term
whereas before there was not logical or rational need for a concept such as a
nation
So what does it mean to be this concept of a modern nation?
According to Lyons it means modernizing one’s own ethnie and “Nationalism is the political movement that makes the
transformation happen” (120).
Lyons creates a vital connection between these two:
Ethnie is connected
to culture and Nation is the Political transformation of a culture which is
done through the physical act of promoting nationalism; modernizing of a people’s ethnie (120-121). Effective nationalism, is “the [sentiment]
that [the] national and the political out to be congruent” (136).
In the process of creating Nationalistic thought Lyons
outlines two different types of Nationalist:
those who are “Cultural Revivalist” and those who are “Realist
Nationalist.”
Lyons says that “Cultural Revivalist” are radical because
they practice “conceptual separatism” which is “the assertion of radical
conceptual differences that are deemed incommensurable with other concepts and
systems” (136). Conceptual separatism creates
problems and reinforces imperial and colonial binaries.
A realist nationalist—which according to Lyons is what all
Natives should be who practice the creation of Native Nation through nationalism—would
create a “claim to nationhood and nationality based on an indigenous groups
historical descent from an ethnie”
and would be “careful not to accentuate our [human] differences to the point of
incommensurability lest we drop out of political conversations all together” (Lyon
136).
It would seem that Lyons thinks separatism creates chaos and
that relativism—or in this case realism—is the key to unlocking the structure
and creation of a modern Native Nation.
HOW is a Nation created?
Simple it creates a voice for itself—through the
modernization of Ethnie.
Ortiz states that
Language, when it is regarded not only as expression but is
realized as experience as well, works in and is of that manner. Language is
perception of experience as well as expression….We forget that language beyond
its mechanics is a spiritual force. When you regard the sacred nature of
language, you realize that you are part of it and it is part of you. You are
not necessarily in control of it, and if you do control some of it, it is not
in your exclusive control. Upon this realization, I think there are all possibilities
of expression and perception which become available. (Genocide 107-112)
Lyons doesn’t state it but he most definitely hints at the
idea that the ethnie that connects
all human life is the concept of Language—language is that spiritual force that
creates a nation. Look at the language
Ortiz uses to define what language is: part of, perception of experience.
Is not a nation, a group of people who share a common
perception of the experiences accorded to one’s own history—one’s ethnie?
Culture and politics are united through language, and according
to Lyons a nation asserts its nationalism through creating great works within
the spaces of literary cannons (see
subsection Literary Nationalisms for further info). Cannons represent traditions, traditions
which “define people by what they do, not by what they are” (143)
Language conveys the human experience through narrative from—an
act of historical nationalism in itself. The modernization of Native language leads to
the modernization of Native ethnie.
Lyons states that:
Historically Natives have been realists; nationalist should
be to…Literary nationalism is the making of a “high” national culture in the literary
sphere, one that is clearly distinguished in certain ways from other “national
literatures”…it has recently motivated the work of Native literary critics who
see it as the best way to organize, interpret, and teach Native literature and
culture. (147)
Language is the voice of a nation, and finding one’s voice
is the job of all Natives who seek to create a Nation of Indigenous thought. They must create a unique cannon of
indigenous rhetoric that both sets apart and relates to all the other cultures
of the world.
According to both Ortiz and Lyons, Silence is NOT the
answer, and in order for Natives to preserve their own history, live in the present and future, and for non-native
and Natives to listen to each other—we must all remember that a certain ethnie
unites us all into one human nation.
Language.
