2. Many rhetorical and postcolonial scholars have
established the notion of the nation as a rhetorical
construct.
While the nation often seems to be something natural
or something acquired through birth, the truth is that
it is something conceived in the mind and through the
vehicle of language.
What forms a nation or national identity becomes
paramount when national borders are crossed.
3. Many narratives of diaspora, immigration, and emigration
often revolve around the precise meaning of national
identity outside of its own borders.
Rhetoric plays a central role in this discussion due to its
role in the creation, maintenance, and reinscription of such
identities.
In particular, the rhetorical canon of memory is often at the
forefront of this conversation.
Literary works such as Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth vividly illustrates the centrality
of memory and forgetting to narratives involving national
and cultural identity.
4. Nationalism/National and immigration Identity
Discussions involving ethnicity, diaspora,
inherently involve an exploration of national or ethnic
identity.
These identities emerge as a result of the use of language
and rhetoric.
For instance, Benedict Anderson, in his book, Imagined
Communities, explains that “from the start the nation was
conceived in language, not in blood, and that one could be
‘invited into’ the imagined community. Thus today, even
the most insular nations accept the principle of
naturalization (wonderful word!), no matter how difficult
in practice they make it” (Anderson 145).
Here, the nation and its citizens are defined and delineated
through discourse.
5. Etienne Balibar reinforces this argument with his
conception of fictive ethnicity.
Articulating this, her asserts that societies are largely
created and cohered through the means of narrative and
that it is these narrative constructs which bond a people
together as one when they would otherwise be distinct and
independent (Balibar 221).
Moreover, according to Balibar, notions of collective
identification such as national or ethnic identities are, in
actuality, individual identities situated within an
ideological acceptance, at least on some level, of these
larger narratives of connection and the societal mores
contained within them.
6. This façade of collectivity is used in an exclusionary
manner in that insiders and outsiders are readily
identifiable (Balibar 222).
Explicating this, Balibar argues that, “No nation
possesses an ethnic base naturally, but … represented
in the past or in the future as if they formed a natural
community, possessing of itself an identity of origins,
culture, and interests which transcends individuals
and social conditions” (Balibar 224).
7. Edward Said echoes these points, when he says,
commenting on nationalism that it “always involves
narratives—of the nation’s past, its founding fathers
and documents, seminal events, and so on. But these
narratives are never undisputed or merely a matter or
neutral recital of facts” (Said 177).
Ultimately, it is this transcending of individual persons
and concerns that allows the construct of the nation to
shape the daily lives of its citizens in ways that are
often significant and material.
8. Remembering
One of the central features of the power of narrative is
its ability to replicate and reproduce itself.
Here, the rhetorical canon of memory plays a central
role.
Richard Esbenshade explains that, “Memory too
becomes available for any desired ad hoc construction
of identity” (Esbenshade 86).
9. Anderson reiterates this by asserting that there are
portion of identity that must be transmitted through the
narrative as they cannot be remembered (Anderson
204).
In order to justify this assertion, Anderson claims that
“Nations, however, have no clearly identifiable births,
and their deaths, if they ever happen, are never natural”
(Anderson 205).
10. Continuing, he states that cognizance of a particular
situatedness, along with all of the implications that go
along with an individual context, provide the impetus
for a unifying narrative (Anderson 205).
Moreover, Anderson posits that nations have a need to
explain a variety of deaths and violent acts for the
purpose of national unity and he sets forth that “to
serve the narrative purpose, these violent deaths must
be remembered/forgotten as ‘our own’” (Anderson
206).
11. Edward Said also deals with the issue of memory and
nationalism.
“Memory and its representations touch very
significantly upon questions of identity, of
nationalism, of power and authority” (Said 176).
Here, Said argues that individuals look to the
collective, or in this case national, identity to situate
and ground them.
Memory, Said asserts, is intricately involved in this
process (Said 179).
12. Yet his conception of memory is not simply one of
retrieval.
Said claims that “The modern art of memory is much
more subject to inventive reordering and redeploying
than that” (Said 180).
Herein, events are politically chosen and molded into a
narrative of the rememberer’s choosing.
As such, memory is a constructive and inherently
rhetorical process which involves several competing
interests, ideologies, and concerns and is rarely, if ever,
stable and constant (Said 182).
13. Yet, theoretical musings are not the only place where
these issues are raised. In her novel, White Teeth,
Zadie Smith deals with many of these same issues as
she portrays the characters of Samad, and his twin
sons Millat and Magid.
There are many instances of the attempt to remember
a mythical nostalgic view of the homeland as well as
individual identity. These characters, in fact, embody
precise what Balibar argues when he claims that
collective identity is inherently individual.
14. The father, Samad, tries to reiterate and reinvigorate his
faith (and his allegiance to it) by chanting “To the pure all
things are pure.
To the pure all things are pure. To the pure all things are
pure” (Smith 115). As he futilely tries to remain pure, there
is also the realization that his religion does not allow for
compromises and the like (Smith 117).
Ultimately, this attempt to remember is one that is
unsuccessful as he gives into temptation. In fact at one
point, Smith ominously writes, “And the sins of the Eastern
father shall be visited upon the Western Sons” (Smith 135).
And ultimately the sons do pay the price.
15. In an act of nostalgic remembering, Samad laments
the loss of tradition from his sons’ generation.
Extolling the virtues of tradition, Samad
explains, “tradition was culture, and culture led to
roots, and these were good, these were untainted
principles. That didn’t mean he could live by
them, abide by them, or grow in the manner they
demanded, but roots were roots and roots were good”
(Smith 161). He assumes that his sons have no
appreciation for their tradition.
16. His solution is to send Magid, the good brother, back
to Bangladesh in attempt to at least have one of his
sons value and learn the traditions of their homeland.
The results of this decision are less than ideal: “There
are no words. The one I send home comes out a pukka
Englishman, white-suited, silly wig lawyer. The one I
keep here is a fully paid-up green-bow-tie wearing
fundamentalist terrorist” (Smith 336).
The son he refers to as a “fundamentalist terrorist” is
Millat and he, as his father’s words indicate, is no
better off for having stayed in England.
17. In fact, Millat employs a type of remembering that
does hearken back to his father’s attempts at purity.
Illustrating this attempt to remember, Millat
mimicking a movie he has seen, proclaims “As far back
as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Muslim”
(Smith 369).
This is, of course, a fabrication but Smith alludes to his
family’s revered ancestor who was involved in a mutiny
and something that is written in Millat’s blood.
18. So, it can be said, that Millat’s militant proclivities are
an example of memory and a reconstructive type of
memory where the tradition that Millat attempts to
cling to represents a confused, jumbled incomplete
construction of a former tradition.
Ultimately, the lesson to be learned is best summed up
by the character of Palipana in Michael Ondaatje’s
Anil’s Ghost: “There has been always slaughter in
passion” (Ondaatje 102).
19. Involuntary forgetting
Discussions of remembering necessarily involve
discussions of forgetting. One important type of forgetting
is that which is involuntary or coerced.
Esbenshade, writing in response to the situation of post
World War II East-Central Europe explains how the usual
means of remembering for a nation, its history, becomes
muddied and compromised.
Here he notes how governments actively engaged in a
process of obscuring and hiding the truth. As such, the
historian becomes a bureaucrat and writers take on the role
of historian as they attempt to cut through the veil of state
propaganda and deceit (Esbenshade 74).
20. Esbenshade continues: In the face of official
manipulation and distortion of history (forced
forgetting), the writer’s individual memory became
the source for, and representation of, national history,
its advantages and pitfalls” (Esbenshade 74).
That is, and it is important to note, that the writers of
this time period become responsible for the nation’s
narrative and rewriting it in a such a way that reflects
truth and actuality.
21. Authors such as Michael Ondaatje in his work, Anil’s
Ghost, embody the spirit of the writer to which
Esbenshade refers.
The protagonist of the novel, Anil, confronted with the
mystery of the skeleton that is referred to as Sailor
before they can identify him.
In indignation she responds, “Who was he? This
representative of all those lost voices. To give him a
name would name the rest” (Ondaatje 56). In fact, as a
forensic scientist, Anil is engaged in the very act of
unearthing the truth that has long been hidden.
22. Ondaatje also uses the character of Palipana to
reiterate the point of history and narratives being
forcibly removed as he writes, “In the last few years he
had found the hidden histories, intentionally lost, that
altered the perspective and knowledge of earlier times.
It was how one hid or wrote the truth when it was
necessary to lie” (Ondaatje 105).
Many instances of the dangers of telling the truth and
the safety in lies pepper Ondaatje’s novel.
23. However, the very act of writing these instances into
the book reaffirms the notion of writer as truth-teller
that Esbenshade identifies.
In short, writers such as Ondaatje, through
remembering these and shedding light on hidden and
eradicated events, are, in essence, responsible for their
own kind of forced forgetting whereby they endeavor
to use the truth to obliterate the lies and deception of
the past from the collective narrative of the nation.
24. Voluntary Forgetting
Forgetting is not always an act of deception. At times,
it is necessary to move forward.
In fact, Esbenshade explains that “Nietzsche’s ‘rhetoric
of forgetting’ has turned forgetting into a positive and
productive postmodernist activity. Indeed, with so
many competing and conflicting memories and
histories, is it not better to banish all metanarrative, to
let memory bloom in all its manifestations, true, false,
or otherwise? Alternatively, why should memory
necessarily be anchored to any ‘truth,’ any reality?”
(Esbenshade 86).
25. This theoretical perspective is especially important in
contexts where the truth and the past are ugly, violent,
and inhuman/inhumane.
Such is the environment depicted in Anil’s Ghost.
Consequently, when Anil returns to Sri Lanka, she is
greeted with “First thing after fifteen years. The return
of the prodigal’” and she responds “‘I’m not a
prodigal.’” (Ondaatje10).
26. This is an important distinction for Anil. She doesn’t
come to Sri Lanka to stay.
She is not begging to come back and in actuality did
not think that she would be selected to go back.
She is not in the situation of the prodigal son who was
worse off for having left but rather she is better off for
having left.
Finally, Anil is not returning to a land with family, she
is returning simply to a place where she used to live.
27. Conclusion
In the end nations and national identities are forged
through discourse. Discourse creates the nation. It creates
the ideology that guides the nation and all its action. It
creates the identities that bond people together. All of
these discursive activities, if done well, can be positive
forces in a society.
Yet, when things are not done well, these activities can be
the same activities which trap, restrain, and imprison
people. Sometimes, it is necessary to remember and other
times, it is necessary to forget.
The act of remembering can be a reconstructive act just as
the act of forgetting can be one of eschewing.
28. When national identities and the passion embodied
by them cease to be useful and only appear harmful,
forgetting them and embracing concepts such as
cosmopolitanism allows for an escape from violence
and oppression.
In the words of Appiah, “In a single polis there is no
wisdom” (639). That is, when home becomes a place
rife with deceit, corruption, and inhumanity, the time
has come to forget.
