The Rhetoric of Abrogation

Up to this point, the readings I have read so far have dealt with cultural appropriation.  I linked this closely to how the Native voice has been, or was, colonized—for Natives voice=culture, so due to colonization the Native voice was appropriated as a result of hegemonic colonial rhetoric.

 I’ve covered the basics of cultural appropriation, and argued that that the question that most Native writers face when it comes to post-Indian survivance is whether to overcome cultural appropriation—through acts of re-appropriation—or to completely severe colonial ties through the processes of  decolonization.  

I’ve also tried to understand how Natives are considered “paracolonial” But the question I keep coming back to, which is also linked to my question of post-Indian survival, is HOW do Natives reach a state of post-colonization?  Is it possible, or should we stick with the concept of post-Indian?  Wouldn’t the “post” signify that the Indian no longer exists?  Is it possible to occupy a space of cultural purity after colonization has taken place?

For me the answer is simple—cultural purity is a form of hegemony. I don’t find anything wrong in two cultures coming into contact. Aimeé Césaire says that “It is a good thing to place different civilizations in contact with each other; that it is an excellent thing to blend different worlds; that whatever its own particular genius may be, a civilization that withdraws into itself atrophies” (Postcolonialisms 61).  This is perhaps one of my favorite lines written by any poco theorist.  I love it because Cesaire talks about cultural contact which I associate with the concept of hybridity.

 I find empowerment and beauty in cultural hybridity.  

Yet, colonization does not allow for hybridity, nor does it particularly cater to those who are cultural hybrids. Hybrids undermine the binary that establishes the other.  In fact most cultural hybrids are scorned by both cultures they belong to.   Ultimately, colonization results in the marginalization of certain people and voices—language is often used a tool to marginalize others.

Language is used as the marker of division.  We have the language of the colonized and the language of the colonizer.  Eventually these two meet in conjunction with one another.

Therefore I’d like to introduce a new term which is extremely applicable to the Chapter Vizneor calls “Shadow Survivance.”

Abrogation.

According to Key Concepts in Post Colonial Studies—by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin:

Abrogation refers to the rejection by post-colonial writers of a normative concept of ‘correct’ or ‘standard’ English used by certain classes or groups, and of the corresponding concepts of inferior ‘dialects’ or ‘marginal variants’…Abrogation offers a counter to the theory that use of the colonialist’s language inescapably imprisons the colonized within the colonizer’s conceptual paradigms—the view that ‘you can’t dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools’. Abrogation implies rather that the master’s house is always adaptable and that the same tools offer a means of conceptual transformation and liberation.

Abrogation then is the argument that the use of colonial language doesn’t always imprison the colonized, and by using it one is not subjected to colonial concepts.  Instead it can function as means of transformation and adaptation—language is the rhetoric of survival.

So how is Abrogation a key theme in this week’s readings?

We know that Natives are rooted in oral traditions, where as European’s are rooted within written traditions—as Vizneor recounts in the Chapter called “Shadow Survivance.”

But the passage I am most interested in and hint at the power in Abrogation is pages 96, 97, and 98.  This passage is concerning Pronouns—a prominent part of speech within the English language and a part of speech that has a profound effect on Natives.

Vizneor talks about universalisms and communal identity and says “The suspicion seems to be that there are communal representations, but not universal, and memories that cannot be heard in certain pronouns; the translations of unheard pronouns have never been the sources of tribal or postindian consciousness” (96).  There are several things that are important in this opening passage.  FIRST, the “unheard pronoun” does not, nor will it ever, represent tribal consciousness.  Nor do certain pronouns represent the whole of Indian consciousness—thus the term universalism.  Unheard—implies unspoken—but there’s more.  Vizneor says that “pronouns are the difference that would be unheard in translations” (96). Pronouns represent difference in the fact that they respond to individual experience—You, Me, I, They, Us, Them, We, He, She, and It.  ALL pronouns represent difference, and as Vizneor put it, are the absence of the heard. Names give meaning, pronouns take meaning away and reduce people to universalisms—subjects with no memories, names, or consciousnessImagine if I were to take out all the first person nouns and noun in this post and replace them with pronouns.  None of my sentences would have meaning, nor would you understand unless I had given you background context when referring to a given pronoun.  Pronouns often follow nouns.  The problem arises, when the noun no longer exists—the individual becomes unnoticed or unheard. Colonization takes the Noun—the colonized/indigenous—and turns it into a pronoun—an “it” if you will.

Kind of reminds me of Althusser concept interpellation of the subject—if someone walked down the street and said “Hey you!” you would automatically turn around and think that person was talking to you. Yet , that person reduced you to nothing but a pronoun.  You’re significant because you’re insignificant. We’re conditioned by pronouns!  Pronouns condition us, and the more they are repeated the more we think that we’re the subject that such pronouns refer to. 

 SO how does Vizneor propose making these unheard pronouns heard, and which are ultimately a product of the English pronoun?

He says:

We must need new pronouns that would misconstrue gender binaries, that would combine the want of a presence in the absence of the heard, a shadow pronoun to pronounce remembrance in silence, in the absence of postindian names, nouns, and deverbatives. The pronounance combines the sense of the words pronoun and pronounce with the actions and conditions of survivance in tribal memories and stories. The pronounance of trickster hermeneutics has a shadow with no person, time, or number. In the absence of the heard the trickster is the shadow of the name, the sound, the noun, the person, the pronounance (97-98). 

THIS is the beauty of Abrogation.  I get a sense from Vizneor that being Native, the thing to fear the most is to be unheard—in the English language pronouns take an image and reduce it to a mere object.  So combining oral, pronounce, with the written pronoun you get an adaptation that reduces the marginalities of a single language or vehicle of communication.

Natives must re-conceptualize language, and must do so by transforming the tool of the colonizer—the English language.  Natives must be able to see the lost memories, taken by simple signifiers like pronouns.  Natives must break the silence of the unheard, and be heard.

Destroy the difference.

Use the language, change the language, adapt the language.

Be heard, Listen with Ears and Eyes.

Above all, Abrogate.